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	jesus_n	lord_n	4,121	5	3.4974	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35111	Severall letters and passages between His Excellency, the Lord Generall Cromwell, and William Dundas, governour of Edinburgh Castle, and the ministers therein, since His Excellencies entrance into Edinburgh whereunto are annexed some quaeries that were then sent to the said governour and ministers.	Cromwell, Oliver, 1599-1658.; Dundas, William, 17th cent.	1650 (1650)	Wing C7167; ESTC R18846	7,541	10

he doth abuse it judge It a man speak foolishly ye suffer him gladly because ye are wise if erroneously the truth more appeares by your conviction stop such a mans mouth with sound words that cannot be gain●aid if blasphemously or to the disturbance of the publique Peace let the Civill Magistrate punish them if truly rejoyce in the truth and if you will call our speakings together since we came into Scotland to provoke one another to love and to good works to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and repentance from dead works to charity and love towards you to pray and mourn for you and for the bitter returns to and incredulity of our professions of love to you of the truth of which we have made our solemn and humble Appeals to the Lord our God which he hath heard and then witnesse to if these things be scandalous to the Kirk and against the Covenant because done by men of civill callings we rejoyce in them notwithstanding what you say For a Conclusion in answer to the witnesse of God upon our solemn Appeal you say you have not so learned Christ to hang the equity of your Cause upon events We could wish blindnesse bath not been upon your eyes to all those marvellous dispensations which God hath wrought lately in England But did not you solemnly Appeal and Pray did not we do so too and ought not you and we to think with fear and trembling of the Hand of the great God in these mighty and strange appearances of his but can steightly call it an Event Were not both yours and our expectations renewed from time to time whilest we waited upon God to see which way he would manifest himselfe upon our Appeals And shall we after all these our Prayers Fastings Tears expectations and solemn Appeals call these bare Events The Lord pitie you surely we fear because it hath been a mercifull and gracious deliverance to us I beseech yo● in the Bowels of Christ search after the minde of the Lord in it towards you and we shall help you by our prayers that you may finde it out for ye● if we know our hearts at all our Bowels do in Christ Jesus earn after the godly in Scotland We know there are stumbling-blocks which hinder you The Personall prejudices you have taken up against us and our wayes wherein we cannot but think some occasion has been given and for which we mourn the apprehension you have that we have hindered the glorious Reformation you think you were upon I am perswaded these and such like binde you up from an understanding and yeelding to the minde of God in this great day of his Power and Visitation and if I be rightly informed the late blow you received is attributed to prophane Councels and Conduct and mixtures in your Armie and such like The naturall man will not finde out the cause look up to the Lord that he may tell it you which that he would do shall be the fervent prayers of Your loving friend and servant O CROMWELL Edinburgh 12. Septem. 1670. For the Governour of Edinburgh Castle these TH●se Queries are sent not to reproach you but in the love of Christ laying the before you we being perswaded in the Lord that there is a Truth in them which we earnestly desi●e may not be laid aside unsought after by any prejudice either against the things themselves or the unworthenesse or weaknesse of the person that offers them If you turn at the Lords reproofs he will power out his Spirit upon you and you shall understand his words and they will guide you to a blessed Reformation indeed even to one according to the Word and such as the People of God wait for wherein you will find us and all Saints ready to rejoyce and serve you to the utmost in our places and Callings 1. Whether the Lords Controverse be not both against the Ministers in Scotland and England for wre●●…ing straining and improving the Covenant against the Godly and Saints in England of the same Faith with then in every Fundamentall even to bitter perfection and so making that which in the main intention was Spirituall to serve politicks and carnall ends even in that part especially which was Spirituall and did look to the glory of God and the comfort of his people 2. Whether the Lords Controversie may not be for your and the Ministers in England sullennesse at and darkning and not beholding the glory of Gods wonderfull dispensations in this Series of his Providences in England Ireland and Scotland both now and formerly through envie at Instruments and because the things did not work forth your Platforme and the great God did not come down to your mindes and thoughts 3 Whether you carrying on a Reformation so much by you spoken of have not probably been subject to some mistakes in your own judgments about some parts of the same laying so much stresse thereupon as hath been a temptation to you even to break the law of Love towards your Brethren and those Christ hath regenerated even to the reviling and persecuting of them or to stir up wicked men to do the same for your Forms sake or but some parts of it 4 Whether if your Reformation be so perfect and so spirituall be indeed the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus it will need such carnall policies such fleshly mixtures such unsincere actings as to pretend to cry downe all Malignants and yet receive and set up the Head of them and so act for the Kingdom of Christ in his Name and upon advantage there of and to publish so false a Paper so full of specious pretences to piety as the fruit and effect of his repentance to deceive the mindes of all the godly in England Ireland and Scotland you in your own consciences knowing with what regreat he did it and with what importunities and threats he was brought to do it and how much to this very day he is against it and whether this be not a high provocation of the Lord in so grossely dissembling with him and his People For the right Honourable the Commander in Chief of the English Army My Lord Your Papers I have communicated to these with me whom they concerned who have desired me to return this answer The Contents of these Papers do concern the publick differences betwixt you and those of the three Kingdomes who have faithfully adhered to the Solemn League and Covenant and are awed by the oath of God from accession to the guiltinesse of clear and evident breaches of Covenant and have been so often and fully answered in the publick Papers of this Kirk and Kingdom In the resolutions of the Assembly of Divines in England and in the published Writings of the soundest Divines there yea and of all the reformed Kirks That they conceive it needlesse though a matter of no great difficulty to give a particular answer especially since the late Generall Assembly have authorized their Commissioners to take into consideration matters of publick concernment to this Kirk unto whom if you please you may hereafter direct Papers of that kind In the mean time they rest fully perswaded in their minds that the event of a battel though ordered by a just and wise providence is no infallible proof of the equity or iniquity of a Cause seeing there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked to him that sweareth and to him that feareth an oath as it is clear in the cause of Israel against Benjamin about the men of Gibeah I am My Lord Your most humble servant W. Dundas 12. Septem. 1650. Finis

of their Cause upon events but desire to have their hearts established in the love of the Truth in all the tribulations that befall them I onely do adde that I am My Lord Your most humble servant W. Dundas 9. Septem 1650. For the Governour of Edinburgh Castle SIR Because I am at reasonable good leasure I cannot let such a grosse mistake and inconsequentiall reasonings passe without some notice taken of them And first their Ingenuity in relation to the Covenant for which they commend themselves doth no more justifie their want of ingenuitie in answer to Col. Whaleys Christian offer concerning which my letter charged them with guiltinesse deficiencie then their bearing witnesse to themselves of their adhering to their first Principles ingenuity in prosecuting the ends of the Covenant justifies them so to have done meerly because they say so They must give more leave henceforwards for Christ will have it so will they nill they and they must have patience to have the truth of their doctrines and sayings tryed by the sure touchstone of the word of Gods and if there be a liberty and duty of tryall there is a liberty of judgment also for them that may and ought to try which if so they must give others leave to say and think that they can appeale to equal judges who have been the truest fulfillers of the most reall and equitable ends of the Covenant but if these Gentlemen which do assume to themselves to be the infallible expositors of the Covenant as they do too much to their Auditories of the Scriptures counting a different sense and judgment from theirs breach of Covenant Heresie no marvel they judge of others so authoritatively and severely but we have not so learned Christ We look at Ministers as helper of not Lords over the faith of Gods people I appeal to their consciences whether any trying their doctrines and dissenting shall not incurre the censure of Sectary and what is this but to deny Christians their liberty and assume the infallible Chair What doth he whom we would not be likened unto do more then this In the second place it is affirmed that the ministers of the Gospel have been imprisoned deprived of their Benefices sequestred forced to flie from their dwellings and bitterly threatned for their faithfull declaring the will of God c. And that they have been limited that they might not speak against the sins enormities of the Civill powers that to impose the name of rayling upon such faithfull freedome was the old practice of malignants against the Preachers of the Gospel c. If the Civill authority or that part of it which continued faithfull to their trust true to the ends of the Covenant did in answer to their consciences turne out a Tyrant in a way which the Christians in after times will mention with honour and all Tyrants in the world look at with feare and many thousands of Saints in England rejoyce to think of it and have received from the hand of God a liberty from the fear of like usurpations and have cast off him who trod in his Fathers steps doing mischiefe as farre as he was able whom you have received like fire into your bosome of which God will I trust in time make you sensible if Ministers rayling at the Civill Power calling them murtherers and the like for doing this have been dealt with as you mention will this be found a personall persecution or is sin so because they say so They that acted this great businesse have given a reason of their faith in this action some here are further ready to do it against all gainsayers But it will be found that these reprovers do not only make themselves the Judges and Determiners of sin that so they may reprove but they also took liberty to stirr up the people to blood and armes and would have brought a Warre upon England as hath been upon Scotland had not God prevented it and if such severity as hath been expressed towards them be worthy the name of personall persecution let all uninterested men judge whether the calling of this practice rayling be to be paralleld with the Malignants imputation upon the Ministers for speaking against the Popish Innovations in the Prelates times and the Tyrannicall wicked practice then on foot let your own consciences minde you The Roman Emperours in Christs and his Apostles times were usurpers and intruders upon the Jewish State yet what foot-step have ye either of our blessed Saviours so much as willingnesse to the dividing of an inheritance or their medling in that kind This was not practiced by the Church since our Saviours time till Antichrist assuming the infallible Chair and all that he called the Church to be under him practised this authoritatively over civill Governours The way to fullfill your Ministrie with joy is to preach the Gospel which I wish some who take pleasure in reproofes at adventure do not forget too much to doe 3. You say you have just cause to regreat that men of civill imployments should usurpe the calling and imployment of the Ministrie to the scandall of the reformed Kirks c. Are you troubled that Christ is preached Is preaching so inclusive in your function Doth it scandalize the reformed Kirks and Scotland in particular Is it against the Covenant Away with the Covenant if this be so I thought the Covenant and these could have been willing that any should speak good of the name of Christ if not it is no Covenant of Gods approving nor the Kirks you mention in so much the spouse of Christ Where do you find in the Scripture a ground to warrant such an assertion That preaching is included in your function though an approbation from men hath order in it and may do well yet he that hath not a better warrant then that hath none at all I hope he that ascended up on high may give his gifts to whom he please and if those gifts be the Seale of mission be not envious though Eldad and Medad prophesie you know who bids us cover earnestly the best gifts but chiefly that we may prophesie which the Apostle explains there to be a speaking to instruction and edification and comfort which the instructed edified and comsorted can best tell the Energie and effect of if such evidence be I say again ta●● he●d you envie not for your own sakes least you be guilty of a greater fault then ●●●ses reproved in Joshua for envying for his sake Indeed you erre through the mistake of the Scriptures approbation is an act of conveniency in 〈◊〉 of order not of necessity to give faculty to preach the Gospel Your pretended fear least error should step in is like the man that would keep all the wine out of the Countrey least men should be drunk It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousie to deny a man the liberty he hath by nature upon a supposition he may abuse it when