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	particular_a	pillar_n	1,653	5	10.8048	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75017	The lively oracles given to us. Or the Christians birth-right and duty, in the custody and use of the Holy Scripture. By the author of the Whole duty of man, &c.	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.; Pakington, Dorothy Coventry, Lady, d. 1679, attributed name.; Sterne, Richard, 1596?-1683, attributed name.; Fell, John, 1625-1686, attributed name.; Henchman, Humphrey, 1592-1675, attributed name.; Burghers, M., engraver.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1151B; ESTC R3556	108,574	250

Christ 3. AND 't is observable that the very same word Rom. 3.2 in the Text even now recited which expresses the committing of the Oracles of God to the Jews is made use of constantly by Saint Paul when he declares the trust and duty encumbent on him in the preaching of the Gospel of which see 1 Cor. 9.17 Gal. 2.7 1 Thes 2.4 1 Tim. 1.11 Tit. 1.3 And therefore as he saies 1 Cor. 9. Tho I preach the Gospel I have nothing to glory of for necessity is laid upon me yea wo is unto me if I preach not the Gospel for if I do this thing willingly I have a reward but if against my will a dispensation of the Gospel is committed unto me So may all Christians say if we our selves keep and transmit to our posterities the holy Scriptures we have nothing to glory of for a necessity is laid upon us and wo be unto us if we do not our selves keep and transmit to our posterity the holy Scriptures If we do this thing willingly we have a reward but if against our will the custody of the Gospel and at least that dispensation of it is committed to us But if we are Traditors and give up our Bibles or take them away from others let us consider how black an apostacy and sacrilege we shall incur 4. THE Mosaic Law was a temporary constitution and only a shadow of good things to come Heb. 10.1 but the Gospel being in its duration as well as its intendment everlasting Rev. 14.6 and to remain when time shall be no more Rev. 10.6 it is an infinitly more precious depositum and so with greater care and solemner attestation to be preserv'd Not only the Clergy or the people of one particular Church nor the Clergy of the universal are entrusted with this care but 't is the charge the privilege and duty of every Christian man that either is or was or shall be in the world even that collective Church which above all competition is the pillar and ground of truth 1 Tim. 3.15 against which the assaults of men and devils and even the gates of hell shall not prevail Mat. 16.18 5. THE Gospels were not written by their holy Pen-men to instruct the Apostles but to the Christian Church that they might believe Jesus was the Christ the son of God and that believing they might have life thro his name Jo. 20.31 The Epistles were not addrest peculiarly to the Bishops and Deacons but all the holy brethren to the Churches of God that are sanctified in Jesus Christ and to all those that call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 1.7 1 Cor. 1.2 2 Cor. 1.1 Galat. 1.2 Eph. 1.1 Col. 4.16 1 Thes 5.27 Phil. 1.1 Jam. 1.1 1 Pet. 1.1 2 Pet. 1.1 Revel 1.4 Or if by chance som one or two of the Epistles were addrest to an Ecclesiastic person as those to Timothy and Titus their purport plainly refers to the community of Christians and the depositum committed to their trust Tim. 6.20 And Saint John on the other side directs his Epistles to those who were plainly secular to fathers young men and little children and a Lady and her children Epist 1. chap. 2.12 13 14. and Epist 2.1.1 6. BUT besides the interest which every Christian has in the custody of the Scripture upon the account of its being a depositum entrusted to him he has also another no less forcible that t is the Testament of his Savior by which he becomes a Son of God no more a Servant but a Son and if he be a Son it is the Apostles inference that he is then an heir an heir of God thro Christ Gal. 4.7 Now as he who is heir to an estate is also to the deeds and conveiances thereof which without injury cannot be detain'd or if they be there is a remedy at Law for the recovery of them So it fares in our Christian inheritance every believer by the privilege of faith is made a son of Abraham and an heir of the promises made unto the fathers whereby he has an hereditary interest in the Old Testament and also by the privilege of the same Faith he has a firm right to the purchast possession Eph. 1.14 and the charter thereof the New Therfore the detention of the Scriptures which are made up of these two parts is a manifest injustice and sacrilegious invasion of right which the person wrong'd is empower'd nay is strictly oblig'd by all lawful means to vindicate 7. WHICH invasion of right will appear more flagrant when the nature and importance of it is consider'd which relating to mens spiritual interest renders the violation infinitly more injurious then it could be in any secular I might mention several detriments consequent to this detention of Scripture even as many as there are benefits appendant to the free use of it but there is one of so fundamental and comprehensive a nature that I need name no more and that is that it delivers men up to any delusion their teachers shall impose upon them by depriving them of means of detecting them Where there is no standard or mesures 't is easy for men to falsify both and no less easy is it to adulterate doctrins where no recourse can be had to the primary rule Now that there is a possibility that false teachers may arise we have all assurance nay we have the word of Christ and his Apostles that it should be so and all Ecclesiastic story to attest it has bin so And if in the first and purest times those Ages of more immediat illumination the God of this world found instruments whereby to blind mens minds 2 Cor. 4.4 it cannot be suppos'd impossible or improbable he should do so now 8. BUT to leave generals and to speak to the case of that Church which magisterially prohibits Scripture to the vulgar she manifestly stands liable to that charge of our Savior Luk. 11 52. Ye have taken away the key of knowledg and by allowing the common people no more Scripture then what she affords them in their Sermons and privat Manuals keeps it in her power to impose on them what she pleases For 't is sure those portions she selects for them shall be none of those which clash with the doctrins she recommends and when ever she will use this power to the corrupting their faith or worship yea or their manners either they must brutishly submit to it because they cannot bring her dictats to the test 9. BUT 't will be said this danger she wards by her doctrin of infallibility that is she enervates a probable supposition attested by event by an impossible one confuted by event For 't is certain that all particular Churches may err and tho the consciousness of that forces the Roman Church upon the absurd pretence of universality to assert her infallibility yet alas Tyber may as well call it self the Ocean or Italy the world as the Roman Church may name it self the

advantage God closes with them upon their own terms and do's not so much injoin as buy those little services he asks from us 3. BUT because som mens natures are so disingenuous as to hate to be oblig'd no less then to be reform'd the Scripture has goads and scourges to drive such beasts as will not be led terrors and threatnings and those of most formidable sorts to affright those who will not be allur'd Nay lest incredulous men should question the reality of future rewards or punishments the Scripture gives as sensible evidence of them as we are capable of receiving in this world by registring such signal protections and judgments proportion'd to vertue and vice as sufficiently attests the Psalmists Axiom Doubtless there is a God that judgeth the earth Psal 58.11 and leaves nothing to the impenitent sinner but a fearful expectation of that fiery indignation threatned hereafter Heb. 10.27 4. AND now methinks the Scripture seems to be that net our Savior speaks of that caught of every sort Mat. 13.47 it is of so vast a compass that it must one would think fetch in all kind of tempers and sure had we not mixt natures with fiends contracted som of their malice and obstinacy mere human pravity could not hold out 5. AND as the holy Scripture is thus fitly proportion'd to its end in respect of the subject matter so is it also in reference to its circumstances which all conspire to render it the power of God unto salvation Ro. 1.16 In the first rank of those we must place its divine original which stamps it with an uncontroulable autority and is an infallible security that the matter of it is perfectly true since it proceeds from that essential verity which cannot abuse us with fraudulent promises or threatnings and from that infinite power that cannot be impeded in the execution of what he purposes 6. YET to render this circumstance efficacious there needs another to wit that its being the word of God be sufficiently testifi'd to us and we have in the fore-going discourse evinced it to be so and that in the utmost degree that a matter of that kind is capable of beyond which no sober man will require evidence in any thing And certainly these two circumstances thus united have a mighty force to impress the dictats of Scripture on us And we must rebel against God and our own convictions too to hold out against it 7. A third circumstance relates to the frame and composure of this divine Book both as to method and stile concerning which I have already made som reflexions But now that I may speak more distinctly I observe it takes its rise from the first point of time wherein 't was possible for mankind to be concern'd and so gradually proceeds to its fall and renovation shews us first our need of a Redeemer and then points us out who it is by types and promises in the Old Testament and by way of history and completion in the New In the former it acquaints us with that pedagogy of the Law which God design'd as our Schole-master to bring us to Christ Gal. 3.25 and in the Gospel shews us yet a more excellent way presents us with those more sublime elevated doctrins which Christ came down from heaven to revele 8. AS for the stile that is full of grateful variety somtimes high and majestic as becomes that high and holy one that inhabiteth eternity Esai 57.15 and somtimes so humble and after the manner of men as agrees to the other part of his Character his dwelling is with him that is of an humble spirit Esay 57.15 I know profane wits are apt to brand this as an unevenness of stile but they may as well accuse the various notes of Music as destructive to harmony or blame an Orator for being able to tune his tongue to the most different strains 9. ANOTHER excellency of the stile is its propriety to the several subjects it treats of When it speaks of such things as God would not have men pry into it wraps them up in clouds and thick darkness by that means to deter inquisitive man as he did at Sinai from breaking into the mount Ex. 20. And that he gives any intimation at all of such seems design'd only to give us a just estimate how shallow our comprehensions are and excite us to adore and admire that Abyss of divine Wisdom which we can never fathom 10. THINGS of a middle nature which may be useful to som but are indispensibly necessary to all the Scripture leaves more accessible yet not so obvious as to be within every mans reach but makes them only the prize of industry praier and humble endevors And it is no small benefit that those who covet the knowledg of divine Truth are by it engag'd to take these vertues in the way Besides there is so much time requir'd to that study as renders it inconsistent with those secular businesses wherein the generality of men are immerst and consequently 't is necessary that those who addict themselves to the one have competent vacancy from the other And in this it hath a visible use by being very contributive to the maintaining that spiritual subordination of the people of the Pastors which God has establish'd Miriam and Corahs Partisans are a pregnant instance how much the opinion of equal knowledg unfits for subjection and we see by sad experience how much the bare pretence of it has disturb'd the Church and made those turn preachers who never were understanding hearers 11. BUT besides these more abstruse there are easier truths in which every man is concern'd the explicit knowledg whereof is necessary to all I mean the divine Rules for saving Faith and Manners And in those the Scripture stile is as plain as is possible condescends to the apprehensions of the rudest capacities so that none that can read the Scripture but will there find the way to bliss evidently chalk'd out to him That I may use the words of Saint Gregory the Lamb may wade in those waters of life as well as the Elephant may swim The Holy Ghost as St. Austin tells us lib. 2. of Christian doctrin cap. 6. has made in the plainer places of Scripture magnificent and healthful provision for our hunger and in the obscure against satiety For there are scarce any things drawn from obscure places which in others are not spoken most plainly And he farther adds that if any thing happen to be no where explain'd every man may there abound in his own sense 12. SO again in the same Book cap. 9. he saies that all those things which concern Faith and Manners are plainly to be met with in the Scripture and Saint Jerom in his Comment on Es 19. tells us that 't is the custom of the Scripture to close obscure sayings with those that are easy and what was first exprest darkly to propose in evident words which very thing is said likewise by Saint Chrysostom Hom.