Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	live_a	pillar_n	2,128	5	10.1651	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54024	The axe laid to the root of the old corrupt-tree, and the spirit of deceit struck at in its nature from whence all the error from the life, among both papists and Protestants hath arisen, and by which it is nourished and fed at this day, in a distinction between the faith which is of man, and the faith which is of God ... / by ... Isaac Penington the younger.	Penington, Isaac, 1616-1679.	1659 (1659)	Wing P1152; ESTC R228095	43,395	52

THE AXE LAID TO THE ROOT OF THE OLD CORRVPT-TREE AND The Spirit of deceit struck at in its nature from whence all the error from the life among both Papists and Protestants hath arisen and by which it is nourished and fed at this Day In a Distinction between the Faith which is of man and the Faith which is of GOD And in some Assertions concerning true Faith its nature rise c. It s receiving of Christ its abiding and growing in his living Vertue With a warning concerning adding and diminishing from the Scripture in generall and the Prophesies of the Revelation in particular Discovering what it is and the great danger of it with the only way of preservation from it where is added a Short touch about the Use of Means As also a brief History concerning the state of the Church since the dayes of the Apostles With an Exhortation to the present Age By the movings of the Life in a friend to the Living truth of the most High God but an utter enemy to the spirit of error and blasphemy where ever it is found as well in the strictest of the Protestants as among the grossest of the Papists Isaac Penington the younger LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Lodowick Lloyd at his shop next the Castle in Cornhill 1659. THE PREFACE THere was a glorious day and bright appearance of truth in the times of the Apostles They had the true Comforter who led them into all truth and kept them alive in truly and truth alive in them By this Spirit they as living stones were built up a spirituall house founded upon Sion the holy mount into Jerusalem the holy City which is the church of the living God the pillar and g●ound of truth And here they had their conversation in heaven with God the Judge of all with Christ the Mediatour and with the Spirits of ●ust men and the holy Angels which alwayes behold the face of God They lived in the Spirit they walked in the Spirit they prayed in the Spirit they sung in the Spirit they worshipped in the Spirit and in that understanding which the truth had made free and had God dwelling with them and Christ walking in the midst of them and by the presence and power of his life in them were truly dead unto sin and alive unto God they being not strivers against sin with mans legall spirit but by the power of grace which made them more then conquerours through him that loved them This was part of the glory of that state in that day of the Sunshine of the Gospel But behold a thick night of darknesse overspread the beauty of this Some false brethren went out from the true Church into the world getting the Sheeps cloathing making a great outward appearance and drew the world after them yea and some from the very Churches themselves how hard was the Apostle Paul fain to plead with the Corinthians about his own Apostleship and Doctrine that he might preserve that Church from the false Apostles And when they had gathered a sufficient party in the world they made head against the true sheep lambs of Christ fought with them and overcame them And when they had overcome them that had the living testimony of Jesus and the true power and presence of the Spirit among them they set up their own dead form making a cry all over the nations of the earth Revelation is ceased there is no looking now for such an infallible spirit and such immediate teachings as the christians had in the Apostles dayes who had the anointing to teach them all things but they point men to traditions to the church as they call it which title the whore hath engrossed since the dayes of the Apostles or to searchings of the Scriptures and reading expositions upon it and bodies of divinity formed by the understanding part in man to instruct the understading part Thus the whole course of religion and of the knowledge of God came to be out of that Spirit and life wherein it first came forth and wherein it first stood and consisted in doctrines of men and a form of worship and knowledge which the wisdome of man had framed in an imitation of that which formerly stood in the life And now men being gone from the life from the Spirit and his immediate teachings into an outward form of knowledge and worship of God in the wrong nature now Antichrist is got up and the Dragon sits in the Temple appearing there as if he were God giving out laws and ordinances of worship in publique and putting men upon duties and exercises of devotion in private and he is obeyed and bowed down to in the observation of these but the true living God is not known nor his secret still voyce which calls out of these heard because of the great noise which the Dragon makes in his Temple for so it is now he having gained it though it was once Gods about his laws and ordinances of worship which he would have all compelled to and none suffered to testifie against them that they are his and not the Lords Yet it pleased the Lord all the night of this darknesse to raise up some witnesses against the Dragon and all his invented forms of worship though they were still hunted persecuted knocked down and their testimony cryed out against as error heresie schism and blasphemy and the wayes worships and ordinances of the whore the beast and the dragon still cryed up as the truth Thus the Papists they cryed out against the Protestanus as heretiques and schismatiques who were witnesses against them and the Protestants they cryed out against the non-conformists seperatists and brownists who were witnesses against them and every sect cries out most against them who are led further from the apostacy and raised up by the Lord as witnesses against them against their setting down in their forme and not pursuing the guidance of that spirit which would lead them quite out of the darknesse and not have them sit down by the way Now the Lord God in these latter dayes hath not only raised up witnesses against the Whore the Dragon the Beast the false Prophets with all their inventions which they have set up instead of the truth but hath assayed and begun to deliver his people out of this Egyptian darknesse and to bring them back to the light of the land of Canaan And now great enemies have appeared the sons of the night exceedingly strengthening themselves to keep out the day light every one crying up his own form and all joyning hand in hand against the power yea that spirit which first tempted from God is exceeding busie to cause those whom the Spirit the Lord hath been drawing out of the land of darknesse to make a Captain to return to Egypt or at least to sit down in some form or some pleasant notion of things by the way not to follow the Lord through all his intricate

can ye see it Christ is descended into the lower parts of the earth and ye are using means to ascend upwards in the wrong nature how can ye meet with him the Gospel hath been hid the Sun hath not shined it hath been night and ye have got many fals candles which way can ye acknowledge the little glimmering of the day star who have such satisfaction in the warmth of your false fires ye are far from the true light who have not yet received so much of it as to discover the darknesse of the night Ye are too high too wise too knowing for Christ or for the sight and acknowledgment of the true means which lead to life And if ye could once come to see this there might be some hope but in that wisdome wherein your life and knowledge stands ye are shut out and ye are reasoning and stumbling at the stone while others who are broken in spirit and in meeknesse and humility led to try find it a sure foundation even a foundation of eternall life for the true seed of life and are built into the living City which is made without hands and without any of the tools of mans wisdome A Brief History of the state of the Church since the dayes of the Apostles with the living seal to it which he that hath eternall life abiding in him can read and witnes but that wisdom zeal and devotion which is in the death cannot AFter the universal degeneration and corruption of the Jewish state and the putting an end to the shadows thereof by the appearance and succession of the substance it pleased God to dissolve that people state and pollicy and by the power of his life without either the wisdome or strength of man to set upon the heathenish world which he subdued and brought under the power of his life By his Apostles and messengers who preached the everlasting Gospel the word of eternall life he gathered assemblies up and down the nations whom the nations by all their persecutions could not subject but they reigned over them in the power authority and dominion of God For they were Kings and Priests to God in the sight of all the Nations and they did reign upon the earth in somuch as the heathenish spirit of man observing their order in the Spirit and the wisdom and power of the Spirit among them who by his living light was able to search the hearts of those that came to observe them could not but acknowledge that God was in them of a truth Now the next thing to be expected is Satans opposition against this power of life his stratagems to undermine it He withstood the growth and settlement of the Church all that he could by open force making use both of the heathenish devout worshippers who fought for their Jupiter their Diana and other gods and goddesses and of the Jewish devout worshippers who fought for their Temple-worship with the Laws and ordinances of Moses which were now expired But neither of these would doe but the Church in the power of life gained ground upon him and did rather thrive and increase then diminish by this opposition Therefore now he falls to this stratagems he gets some false brethren out of the Church they went out from us these he cloaths as Angels of light puts the sheeps cloathing on their wolvish nature makes them appear as like the Apostles as may be endues them with an excellent taking knowledge of life and spirituallity in appearance forms in them an image of the truth and inspires this image with the spirit of his own life and with these he goes forth into the world and gathers the world about him Now the world was presently taken with this the world went after him for this is that the world would have an appearance of religion an image of truth but their own spirit in it The worldly spirit that flies off from the life from the power can readily close with this because it is its own Bring forth never so high notions of religion and spirituall wisdome the world will hug them the world will feed on them the world will cloath it selfe with them The world can swallow and digest any thing but life Any pleasant picture of things in heaven will down with the world but the nature the life the truth the Spirit Christ in his true arid living crosse this will not down with the world Now the Devil having thus set up his false image in the world and gathered a party after him then he sets upon the Church and the battel goeth very hard life striving to defend and death to overcome How hard did the Apostles strive in their day to keep their converts to the simplicity of truth to the way therof which even then began to be evill spoken of writing Epistles to the Churches warning them of the false Apostles and wishing them to stand their ground yea Christ himselfe writes severall Epistles from heaven to some of them cheking their backslidings and encouraging them to renew their zeal and strength putting them in mind of the Crown which attended the victory But at length the Divill with his stratagems prevails gets the possession of the Churches territories and the Church is faine to fly for her preservation and such of her seed as are left behind her the enemy makes war against slayes drinks their bloud Now here 's an end of all the glory of that state now the Divil hath gained the world again The same spirit that lost it under the heathenish power for there he was conquered recovers it under an Antichristian appearance setting up the same wickednes and the same course and current of death under forms of Antichristian religion as he had done before under forms of Heathenish devotion Thus the Devil being conquerour having gained the field he divides the spoils among his army he tak●s whatever was the Churches and make his own and ranks them in his way of Antichristian religion and devotion so that now hence forward those things which were once Christs and the Churches they are no● all his and distributed by him among his followers He gives the name Church to the whore which he sets up he gives the name Christian to his Disciples he prescribes baptisme and the Supper which he calls Sacraments and praying and preaching and singing which he calls publique ordinances and be prescribes private duties and exercises of devotion and he gets the letter of the Scriptures and forms multitudes of meanings and expositions and has lying signs and wonders for such as need them that he might keep all the severall Brigades of his army quiet under his pay and might have some pleasing wares of traffick for every sort of his Merchants in his Babilon For this is the City of that King which he built after his conquest over the life and which he hath enriched with the spoils from the life And here all his subjects shall have content they