Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	faith_n	ground_n	pillar_n	2,365	5	9.9071	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61467	England's faithfull reprover and monitour	Samwayes, Richard, 1614 or 15-1669.	1653 (1653)	Wing S547; ESTC R1746	86,140	264

had almost buried in oblivion were revived again by you to the infamy and damage of your Pastors as if they were not men compassed about with infirmity as well as others or your selves free from all iniquity not needing the mercy of him who is the common Redeemer of you both and though ye need it how can ye with confidence expect it if that be true as ye finde Jam. 2.13 Jam. 2.13 For he shall have judgment without mercy that hath shewed no mercy For neither your words nor deeds have been such toward them as doe become men that shall be judged by the law of Liberty Vers 12. because ye have used rigour and extremity in them both not advising in the least measure with the Law of Christ For otherwise ye would not have aggravated after this manner every small matter which might any wayes tend to their prejudice but rather have passed by such as these and either concealed the greatest where there was hope of repentance and amendment or followed the same with all meckness and moderation considering the persons whom ye did pursue and the sad calamities which were likely to befall them and their families if judgement should proceed against them And surely it is strange that the painfull industry of many years in the work of the Ministry could not prevail either with you who did partake thereof to conceal or with those that were their Judges and without doubt knew as much to pardon one or a few errours of their life upon promise of more strict conversation for the time to come Ye did pretend indeed that zeal for the Truth onely and love of Gods people did set you thus in opposition against the scandalous Ministers or those whom ye were pleased to term so but I fear your own conscience will one day tell you plainly and I pray God not too late that private quarrels personal interests and self ends carried you all along in these unwarrantable courses of mischief and persecution for some of you to our knowledge who have been most forward to thrust forth of the Lords inheritance them that for many years together had ministred unto you in holy things have been the first that fell into dislike of their owne new choice and refused to give them maintenance according to the Law So weak and unstable is your judgement so sickle your affection so immoderate your desire of novelty so blinde your conscience in discerning your own hearts so squeamish your mindes to receive truth if it doth any wise make against your worldly advantage or touch upon your sins the which though never so grievous and manifest Hos 4.4 no man must strive or repove another for thy people are as they that strive with the Priest Neither are ye offended onely with the Minister for open but also for secret rebukes yea and for private admonitions and correptions sometimes be they never so necessary and gentle withall as I have seen it by often experience verified in many one more especially a very lewd person indeed who being mildly reproved by a Minister in my hearing for some scandalous sin replyed again It were better for us if ye Ministers held your peace because then we might sin with the lesse guilt and punishment To whom then shall I speak and give warning that they may hear Behold Jer. 6.10 their ear is uncircumcised and they cannot hearken behold the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach they have no delight in it Wherefore he that doth not please your humour or advance your faction or gratifie you in your beloved corruptions or sparing you strikes at your adversaries in a word will not be partakers of your sins by connivence or practise straight ways grows out of request with you as an unprofitable teacher or rather one not fit for your purpose however he be accomplished in all other respects and thus he is by little and little abandoned of you and another sought out more agreeable to your fancy and mind for a short season untill the date or time of pleasing you be expired also Insomuch as one Parish not many miles distant from the University of Oxford hath been known since these Times of trouble and distraction to have disliked and changed their Ministers as often if not more often then there be seasons in the year and yet scarce afford maintenance for a single man to live with them It is past belief what foolish exceptions they have had against those men who have upon triall or other occasions preached before them besides many against severall Ministers this they had against one not unknown to my self if I am not misinformed that he preached too long upon the same Text. I pray God this spirituall delicacy doth not presage a spirituall famine in the end whereby men may hunger and thirst after that Word which they despise and loath now because of the plenty and fulnesse thereof And here I may not passe by in silence a common but very dangerous errour that possesseth your mindes whereby ye fondly and falsely imagine that the successe of the Ministry doth depend upon the personall gifts of the Minister and not wholly upon the ordinance of Christ for which cause yee magnifie some above measure and despise others in comparison of them calling the first powerfull Preachers and not acknowledging the last for such because not men so well qualified for the work of the Lord as they The which conceit if I mistake not is not the least cause of your non-prosiciency by the meanes of grace For how can ye reap benefit from the Ordinance if ye come not duely prepared to it and how can ye come duly prepared to it if ye have not a just esteem of it that ye may answerably submit unto it For 1 Cor. 3.7 neither is he that planteth any thing neither he that watereth but God that giveth the encrease Let men therefore learn to have greater respect to the blessing from above then to the means below to the grace and gift of God then to the abilities and endowments of men in the great busmesse of their conversion and edification Again ye English people are generally indifferent or luke warm in Religion and so ye may enjoy the worlds good care not what doth become of the Truth of God the which ye hear indeed but learn and know not like those of whom we read 2 Tim. 3.7 ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth or if ye know it receive it not neither beleeving it with your hearts nor obeying it in your lives for although ye all professe faith and pretend to it as the main ground and pillar of your hope in God yet it is but a bare profess on and meer ostentation of that which ye have not in truth a few excepted who testifie the same by their innocent and holy conversation Jac 2.26 without which faith is dead being alone The rest

example preferring these to close worldly interests and carnall ends of pride vain-glory strife covetousnesse and desire of preheminence above your brethren yea what hopes might we yet conceive of peace and happinesse after our hot and bloudy contentions about that which hath not been hitherto fully determined what it is and the wasting calamities of unnaturall war were there a true affection with faithfull and univer sall endeavour in you towards the composure of your owne and of popular differences in judgement according to the minde and will of Christ Jesus But alas it is greatly to be feared the breaches are so wide that it passeth humane industry or skill to make them up again this being a worke of his wisdome who knoweth all things and of his power who doth all things as seemeth best to his godly will For that which most hindereth this desired union doth still stand in the way Namely the unwearied practice of powerfull subtile and secret Agents to continue and enlarge your divisions even to the utter confusion and desolation of the Church And would to God your owne disaffection unto peace errour from the Truth and unequall conversation in respect of Evangelicall parenesse and perfection did not too much further the hellish designes and attempts of these men For doth not the same fire of distempered zeal still burn in the breasts and flash sometimes in the mouths of those who did heretofore set all on a flame is not your power rather restrained then your will reformed and if there be a change is it not because of your present condition not from your inward disposition and affection Jude 11. to preserve the fruit of falsehood and the reward of unrighteousnesse after which yee have greedily ran with Balaam and I pray God ye perish not in the gainsaying of Core Can you be so vaine as to imagin that the specious pretenses and plausible excuses wherewith yee have smoothed the eares of men to make way for their good conceit of your bad proceedings will finde like acceptance with God the searcher of the heart Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed in his sight as the potters clay Is 29.16 with 15. Now such as these as well as others have risen of your own selves in the last and worst age of the world speaking perverse things against the Doctrine Discipline government and Governours of the Church to draw away Disciples after them as it is Act. 20. handling the word of Christ deceitfully and forming their Doctrine not according to the impartiall rule of Truth but after their own fancy and as it might best suit with the present humour and passion of the giddy multitude preaching or rather crying up one point of doctrine to the disparagement of another Faith to the vilifying of charity and good workes of repentance and mortification as though there was no necessity of these in order to salvation because not concurring with Faith in the businesse of justification Insomuch as some have been traduced by their followers as Popishly affected for no other reason but for that they did inculcate and presse upon the consciences of men in their homilies or Sermons the duties and workes of sanctification as necessary in our Christian practice both in respect of Gods command and mans obedience due unto it and also of the heavenly reward notwithstanding nothing can be more consonant thenthis doctrine to the precepts of Christ Jesus In like manner they limited the gracious Act of Divine Predestination to those of their own sect or faction onely as if they alone had been the truly called of God the rest of men no better then castawayes for some of their disciples and those not weakly principled according to their fashion have in our hearing accounted of others who did not adhere to their way as of carnall or at the best but meer civill and morall men who were perchance partakers of common grace but aliens from that which they term Speciall and is of a saving virtue Neither have there been wanting those who have proceeded yet farther like the false Prophets of old false teachers among the people now under the Gospell foretold by the Apostle S. Peter privily bringing in damnable heresies 2 Pet. 2.1 even denying the Lord that bought them as it is to be feared bringing upon themselves swift destruction the which because unfit to be mentioned I shall passe by at the present and the rather for that many have already more then enough enlarged themselves upon this subject As for the universality of Redemption and liberty of humane will to accept or to reject divine grace offered to the choice thereof with such like doctrines agreeable to these or directly thwarting the same not to be comprehended perchance by mans understanding at least not to be clearly evidenced or proved unto either opposite party by any deductions of reason from the word of God so far as to satisfie all objections and to reconcile all seeming repugnances of controverted places the which both adversaries hold forth as their bestweapons whether for defence or for offence in this fight what fierce contentions and hot disputes to say no more have some raised about these as if Salus ecclesiae did wholly depend upon them and not rest upon a sure foundation of evidence and truth enlarging the power of mans will or freedome thereof to a morall capacity of admitting or resusing grace tendred unto it according to its pleasure while others did as much contract and limit it or rather indeed utterly deny it this pretended liberty as inconsistent with primigeniall corruption and privation of originall righteousnesse common to all who naturally descended from the loyns of our first Parents and being in truth nothing lesse then a spirituall death of that living soul which God first breathed into mortall flesh one part maintaining the divine decree concerning mans salvation or damnation to be absolute in God the other to be conditionall in man grounded upon prevision of faith and obedience in the elect of unbelief and disobedience of the truth in those that are reprobate and from hence endeavouring to shake the others confidence and certainty of perseverance unto the end the which they did apprehend that apply unto themselves from the immutability of Gods counsell purpose and will In the mean while what shiftings and fallacies have been used of both to hold their ground and to evade or elude the force of the adversaries reason insomuch as some have taught themselves and others to say in defence of the absolute decree as just and equall in it self contrary to the expresse word of Christ himself Mat. 26.24 Mat. 26.24 that it is better to have a being though in endlosse torments under the wrath of the Almighty then not to be at all a meer speculative nicety of Metaphysicall heads and too small a wyer whereon to hang the weight of such a controversie But what did the people gain