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	true_a	visible_a	8,046	5	9.4741	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81174	The white stone: or, A learned and choice treatise of assurance very usefull for all, but especially weak believers. By Nathanael Culverwel, master of arts, and lately fellow of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge.	Culverwel, Nathanael, d. 1651?	1654 (1654)	Wing C7573A; ESTC R231750	66,496	141

dying Bellarmine was fain to acknowledge that the nearest way to assurance was only to rest upon the free grace of God in Christ And they what cry down duties so much if they would mean no more then this that men must not trust in them nor make Christs of them nor Saviours of them as they use to express it wee 'l easily grant them this if they 'l be content with it 2. They take away that clasping and closing power of faith it self by which it should sweetly and strongly embrace its own object They would have the soul embrace cloud● and dwell in generals they resolve all the sweetness and preciousness of the Gospel either into this Universal Whosoever beleeves shall be saved or else which is all one into this conditional If thou beleevest thou shalt be saved Now this is so far from assurance as that the Devils themselves do thus believe and yet tremble The thirsty soul may know that there is a Fountain but it must not presume to know that ever it shall taste of it The wounded soul with them may take notice that there is balm in Gilead but it must only give a guesse that it shall be healed They won't allow the soul to break the shell of a promise so as to come to the kernel They silence faith when it would speak its own Idiom My Lord and my God O what miserable comforters are these How can they ever speak one word upon the wheels one seasonable word to a weary soul when as all they can reach to by their own acknowledgement is to leave the soul hovering betwixt heaven and hell And as they say in matter of reproof Generalia non pungunt so 't is as true in matter of comfort Generalia non mulcent Yet to see how abundantly unreasonable these men are for in the matter of their Church there they require a particular appropriating faith a monopolizing faith that the Church of Rome is the only true visible Church and this is no presumption with them Thus they can imbrace a dull errour and let go a pr●cious truth But the true Church of Christ as 't is it self built upon a Rock so every member of the Church has the same security And the soul with a spouse-like affection does not only conjecture who is her well-beloved but is in his very arms and breaks out into that expression of love and union I am my well-beloveds and my well-beloved is mine But how strangely does their conjectural certainty take away the sweetness of such Relations Christians with them must only conjecture that they are the Sons of God the spouse must only guess at her beloved Husband the sheep must hope that this is the Shepherds voice O how do they emasculate and enervate Religion how do they dispirit it and cut the very sinews of the power of godliness But all you that would finde rest to your souls must know that you can never apply a Christ too much that you can never appropriate a Saviour enough that whole happiness is in union with him 3. They deny perseverance and so long may very well deny assurance And yet the Arminians have an art of reconciling assurance and non-perseverance They allow men a little brief assurance for one moment a breve fulgur a little coruscation of joy that onely shewes it self that it may vanish and disappear The summe of their meaning amounts to thus much For that moment that thou art in the state of grace thou mayest be sure on 't but thou canst not be sure that the next moment thou shalt be in the state of grace As if a Christian were only a Ball of fortune to be tost up and down at her pleasure And indeed they make grace as voluble and uncertain as ever the Heathen did fortune And if they would speak out grace with them is Res vitrea quae dum splendet frangitur And vasa gloriae with them are little better then vasa fictilia they can dash them in pieces like a Potters vessel And then make no more of it then Epictetus at the breaking of a Pitcher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is but a usual thing Hodie vidi fragilem frangi Vain men that think the grace of God as mutable and unconstant as they themselves are that can remove men from Heaven to Hell as often as they please that with a daring Pen can blot names out of the book of life and reverse the seal of Heaven when they list This must needs strike at the root of assurance and leave the soul in such sad doubts as these 'T is true I am now feeding upon the milk and honey of the Land of Canaan but I may return to the wilderness again to the bondage of Egypt again 'T is true I am now a Temple of the holy Ghost but how soon may I become a prison a dungeon the receptacle of every unclean spirit What though I be now a vessel of honour how soon may I become a vessel of wrath and though I be for the present in the loving hand of a Saviour yet I may be to morrow in the unmerciful paw of the Lion Pray tell us now has the soul any great security all this while are the friends of God no surer of his love then thus 'T is happy for Christians that 't is not in the power of these men no nor of all the powers of darknesse to put a period to their joy no not to put the least comma or interruption to it No they may as soon dethrone the Majesty of Heaven it self they may as soon pluck the Crown from his head and wrest the golden Scepter out of his hand nay they may as soon pluck out the Apple of his eye they may as soon annihilate a Deity as pull thee out of his hands as rob him of one of his Jewels Thou art kept by the mighty power of God through faith unto salvation We can't close up this better then with that heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those triumphant expressions of the Apostle Paul For I am perswaded that neither life nor death nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor height nor depth c. 4. They never had any assurance themselves and so they would willingly deny it to others There is so much pride and envy in the spirits of men as that they are very loath that others should have more happiness or be more sensible of happiness then themselves They do here Calamum in Corde tingere they tell you what they finde in their own hearts nothing but conjectures and shiverings and tremblings nothing but slavish doubts and feares But the voice of assurance 't is a still voice the spirit speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That soul only hears it to which it speaks The sparklings of the White Stone are secret and undiscernable to a carnal eye No man knowes it but he that has it 'T is Manna 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the visible and