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	see_v	word_n	4,873	5	4.1895	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48289	Eyaggeloigrapha. Or, Some seasonable and modest thoughts, in order to the furtherance and promoting the affairs of religion, and the gospel, especially in Wales Mainly tending to the discovery of the evills of extreams, and the spirit of errour and dissention, that hinders the success, and the begetting of a due temper and moderation of judgement, with an universall love and peace amongst us. All, rationally, materially, and very moderately handled. By J.L. Esquire.	Lewis, John, Esquire.	1659 (1659)	Wing L1840A; ESTC R218109	32,748	45

great crime saith they were no Robbers of Churches and in another place Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit Sacrilege as if a greater sin if possible than Idolatrie I know how some may flatter themselves with a late sense of the Word I partly know how all Nations and Religions and Christian Ages hath taken it and I think the mistake of these times about it comes from a prejudice and misunderstanding the word superstition as thinking that to bee superstition which many times is not so and so make good our Saviours Proverb Strain at a Gnat and Swallow a Camel but thus much I find and all others may both by the Histories and experience of all times that God hath never suffered this sin to pass without some signal Judgements either upon the parties or their neer posterities and the learned Grotius makes it his wonder that many are not deterred from it from the Example of Achan in the old and Ananias in the New Testament And absolutely thinks a place well worthy the perusall of Princes and Governours of the Christian World That the miseries tumults and wars of Christiandome continue as a just vengeance of God for this sin And sure I am the Lord hath ranked it amongst the Catalogue of his Judgements upon a Nation I will iay wast your Cities and bring your Sanctuaries to desolation I will conclude all upon this word with a very remarkable passage out of once a learned Statesman of this Land which is so much the more to be admited that he so long before should foretell the humour and as it were the fortune of Religion in these dayes hee there discoursing of the Armie of Israel removing their Camp and the care and reverence they had of the Tabernacle which saith he all ages have in a degree imitated Now in this superfine age all reverence of the Church where God is to be worshiped and served is accounted a kind of Poperie insomuch that time would have it if it were not resisted that God would be turned out of Churches into Barns and thence into fields and Mountains and the office of the Ministry robbed of all dignities and respect and b●● as contemptible as those places all order discipline and Church Government left to newness of opinion and mens fancie yea and soon after as many kinds of Religions would spring up in England as there are Parish Churches and every contentious and Ignorant person cloathing himself with the Spirit of God insomuch when truth shall appear which is but one unto the simple multitude no less variable than contrary to it self the faith of men will soon after dye by degrees and all Religion will be held in scorn and contempt Every word and syllable is his own to bee seen in the cited place and whether it was the foresight of a great Brain or Prophesie I know not but I pray God it may prove a false one I further humbly conceive as I shewed formerly from words so also our mistakes and dissentions grow from our misconceiving the scope and use of the holy Scriptures as sometimes strai●●ing them to give us light and direction in such things as happily God hath not ordained them to reveal unto us as in most things as concern externall worship as Order Decencie c. as our Mr. Cradock doth well observe wee mistake sayes he if wee take the Scriptures to be Aphorismes Canons and Theorems and where they hold forth no light hee referrs us to the laws of Nature and right Reason the custome and practice of the Saints in their Generations for sayes he if it hath been a general custome in the Church and hath been practised by the Saints time out of mind and God hath not determined it I will go along with them and further sayes he for my part when I observe any custome in any Church any thing that is laudable and comely and God hath not determined it there is a kind of honour and reverence that strikes into my heart c. Thus he not unlike the determination of Augustine in the like case In his de quibus nihil certi statuit scriptura mos populi dei vel instituta majorum pro lege tenenda sunt that where the Scriptures are dark and silent there the customes of Gods people and Iudgement of our fore-Fathers are to be observed The Scriptures no doubt are perfect and alsufficient as to those ends God hath ordeined them that is to reveal unto us the Doctrin of Faith and Salvation but as to other appurtenances to the state and solemnities of Religion and externall worship about which our unhappy quarrells are well were it wee could suffer our selves to be guided by the Judgement and Rules mentioned the want of this is our pronenesse to reproach each other with superstition and prophanenesse and Antichristian all of them I confesse great evills but surely many times misunderstood which causeth so much scupulosities tortures of conscience and uncharitablenesse amongst us and therefore I could heartily wish those words were once rightly stated amongst us methinks to conclude all things superstitious that are not expresly warranted in Scripture is of some perillous consequence and of the two great evills I humbly conceive superstition to be less than prophanenesse for superstition is acknowledged to be a cultus perversus or a kind of Religion looking awry whereas prophanenesse in its proper sense is the great opposite of Religion and yet such a prejudice and mistake there is about then that wee easier and with lesse reluctancie rush into Prophanene than into superstition I find the learned deriving the word Prophanenesse from disorder and confusion and any degree to the contempt of divine worship and the places imports the guilt and were these words rightly rendred and understood doubtlesse it would take off much of our matter of differences and contentions 2 I shall mention another mistake of some places of Scripture fomenting contention as those texts that are produced and wresled to make against natural parts Knowledge and learning as the 1 and 2 to the Corinth Where is the Scribe c. God hath made foolish the wisdome of this World and such other places whereby simple people are brought to conceive hard thoughts of Gods excellent gifts and ignorance most strangely promoted the consequence whereof I leave to the Judgement of the wise and truly Religious doubtlesse the Apostle doth not condemn true wisdome and knowledge but the false and counterfeit wisdome of the Grecians in those times to whom Christ and his Doctrin seemed foolishnesse did wee know what knowledge is wee would infinitely be taken with the beautie of it for what is it but the improvement of natural Reason and what is Reason but a beam and ray of that divine light and a drop of that infinite Fountain of all excellencies and perfections which is God Every good and perfect gift is from above and commeth down from the Father of light and

design to discover first what Lets and Obstructions lye most in the way and after to propound the Remedies and means to promote it Certainly our Lets and hinderances of successe proceed from some mistakes and dissentions amongst us and I have often mused seriously wherein this spirit of error and discord doth lye and in my poor judgement it chiefly lurks in meer words and I have thought it is no marvell the Apostle hath so often and emphatically warned us to beware of them charging before the Lord that they strive not about words and indeed if wee look upwards through the whole ages of the Church wee shall find they have been ever unhappy and fatall to it one word or rather syllable or letter rent and ruined the antient glorious Church of the East and Mr. Calvin bemoaning the same unhappinesse of Words in his time as when some not content with words the primitive Church was necessitated to make use of but would have words out of Scripture with more inconvenience they did saies hee ob nudas voculas digladiari so brabble and quarrell about words that veritas altercando amittitur charitas odiose rixando dissolvitur Truth Love and Charity was lost and gone And it please God wee had not cause to make it our own complaint in these dayes I verily think there hath not been an age more guilty of this vanity and unhappinesse than wee are I list not hear to offer you a list of the words wee contend and differ about I beleeve there is scarse a word that belongs to the Body of Religion whether those from Scripture or used in Divinitie and the Church that hath been left unquarrelled with by some or other and I pray God the word Scripture it self calling it Bible and the ancient Greek names and Titles of the Books as Genesis Exodus c. may be left quietly alone nay many words of the Language but of civill use are gain-said such a turbulent Villain is this spirit of Error and Dissention the Remedy whereof with all humble submission to the godly wise and especially safest for Religion were to rest and stand content with words as use and custome hath delivered them unto us for they have been ever held to be the sole Masters of Words and to give the Law and stamp unto them and it is worth taking notice of that many times words of good and harmlesse signification through Ignorance and prejudice become in time to be taken in the worse sense which did we understand and not behold them through the false glass of prejudice clearly in their first innocent institutions and right meaning a wise man would but laugh at the variances about them though some of them passing through the revolutions of corrupt ages may carry some cause of offence with them yet so to strive for them even to so much trouble and loss of Charitie I conceive is a Remedie worse than the disease and many can make that wise use of them as to bear with them as some petty monuments of the Truth and Antiquity of Christian Religion c. And I conceive it would bee a labour well bestowed for some able hand to open and explicate all such words in Religion as the Vulgar take offence at that every body might not call this and that superstition and Antichristian without more ground than his own weak fancie and doubtless it would be a course that would much conduce to settle mens judgements and allay their differences and a means to avoid that other mischief and cause of variances our pronenesse to bee falling and reeling from one extream to another as our care to shunne superstation wee slip sometimes into a worse angle and wider from Religion which is Prophanenesse both which words I shall somewhat open anon in the mean time I could heartily beg it from the able Ministers to make it more their work than hitherto I have seen to open and unfold unto the people those main and Cardinall words of Religion as that most glorious and awefull name God oh that wee could consider what wee speak when wee name it the Word of God the Spirit Heaven Hell and all other Principall and fundamentall words of Religion every which word is and is not much more than what every one thinks that have them frequent in their mouths this I say I could heartily commend unto the Orthodox good Ministers which people being solidly instructed and grounded in would doubtless more kindly and happily bring on the work of grace in them when those other speculations which I see without this ground-work doe but swell and distemper the fancie and thence the strange opinions and imaginations of many poor well-meaning souls in these dayes Thus farre of words in generall as they foment our Error and dissentions I will now offer as for our present design to open some usuall words which being not throughly understood by all do minister much matter of mistakes and contention about them as also some brief observations upon them but still with submission to the Judiciously godly The Word Propagation explicated THe word Propagation properly as every School-boy knows signifieth the cutting down of an old Vine and planting young ones in their stead but in the sense of Religion it hath ever very properly been used as much as to extend and inlarge and in that signification wee take it It being so let us grant the word a twofold sense as it hath been used and is in order to Religion the first wee may call the ancient Propagation as in the primitive times people from Infidells and Pagans were converted to acknowledge and beleeve Christ c. And as multitudes and Nations did come so to beleeve this was called the Propagation of the Gospell now in this sense some among us mutter at the word as a disparagement to our Country who from our Ancestors the Britains have received the Title of Christianity with some of the first of the World as all Histories and Antiquity doth grant and also to the honour of our Nation wee must confess as a great mercy of God to us that since that best Act one of the worst Kings ever did Henry the eighth our incorporation into England wee are much improved in all points of civilitie and Religion farre above what our Ancestors were now besides this we may also call Propagation in a more modern sense as when those that go under the generall name of Christians and yet are dissolute and unchristian and unholy in their lives and brought by means of the Gospell and converted into a better state of vertuous and holy Christian living and fear of God and in this sense wee may well admit of Propagation and heartily wish it amongst us and all the World for it is a sad observation that a great Author makes that Christians in that generall term and in gross are thought to be the impurest part of all mankind it is able

much for the word Preaching The word Saints unfolded THe next word as most proper to follow Preaching is the innocent word Saint and certainly in the true Scripture-sense the word sounds alike as the word Christian Beleever or Elect and proper to be used so it be without affectation in the old Testament as I conceive sometimes it is used to import the people of the Jews in distinction from other Nations and in the use of the Church I mean not that of Rome alone it hath been anciently used partly to the Saints Triumphant in Heaven and those that have been very eminent in their times for Sanctity and Holiness of life or some remarkable service in the Church as a stile of honor unto them and in this sense it sticks unto the names of the Apostles the ancient Fathers and others I find the word in the Original to signifie a total opposition to earthly things {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ab {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} privat {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} unearthliless So that earthli-mindedness and worldliness and Saintship is inconsistent for my part I heartily wish all would labor to become such in holiness and innocency of life and to abandon all other unhappy names of Schism and divisions amongst us and once again meet in the old honest name Christian The Word Church explained with observations on it THe next and last is the word Church and this is of various significations even in Scripture the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} usually but improperly translated Church signifies any number Assembly or Congregation either in a good or bad sense That rout and company that would have killed Paul is called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Church and I beleeve had the Translators foreseen what strife there is about the word in our daies they would have used some other word for some now violently would restrain the word onely to a number of persons whereas they may be certain there is scarce one word in Scripture and those of greatest moment but admit of more sense than one and granting this the strife would bee at an end but indeed the English or Saxon rather word Church properly signifies place for Church in all the Northern Nations language as from their mother the Dutch signifies the place of Divine Worship and comes from {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Dominica or Lords house and our Welch word Eglwys doth more allude to {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} than the word Church Having seen something through the word the first thing observable is to see the force of passion and prejudice in some even to wrench and transport them from the Law and instincts of Nature as either not to allow such places or at least any regard or respect towards them for as from the Law and Principles of Nature all Nations never so barbarous acknowledge a supream Divine Power so as naturally they have an impression to assign some places to the worship of the same Power and some answerable respect and reverence to the places read you may of Nations that are so barbarous that they want Towns and other ornaments of civil Nations but none there is but have their Aras Templa their Rites and places to worship and indeed such a strong byas and impulse of nature there is thereunto that most and some Christian do slip rather into superstition and too much reverence than be short in the worst extream Prophaneness or too little to such places As they say the Emperor of Russia in his greatest pomp will alight from his horse at the sight of every Church and to his devotions and will not mount but go on foot whilst in sight of it I urge not for as the Papists extream undue superstitious reverence to such places as if there were inherent holiness in them but because of the end and the service they are ordained to I conceive them not to be so slighted and contemned as they are by many Methinks were there nothing else but that one example of our Savior of whipping the buyers and sellers out of the Temple and that with such indignation and deliberation it were sufficient to gain some regard to such places for our Churches are ordained to the same use and ends as the Temple was and it was not Solomons and the Merchandise was for religious ends for sacrifice from all which I conceive it is clearly evinced that if no honor and respect be to be given yet no scorn and contempt is to be offered to such places And what our common people in Wales are apt to in this kind out of this instinct of nature some charge them with superstition which when they slip so far unto I could wish them discreetly reproved and instructed but to suffer them to bend to the other worst extream and perswade them to have no account or esteem to such places but to value them as every other ordinary place this passeth my judgement and I know it begets very hard thoughts and I never heard or read any judicious Protestant Divines but seem to allow a kind of relative holiness to such places as for that place commonly alledged of the woman of Samaria that the true worshippers is in Spirit and Truth c. this place is but abused and wrested as if places of Divine Worship and to worship God in Spirit and Truth were inconsistent our Saviours scope there was to take off that fond conceit of the Jews that onely in Ierusalem is the place where men ought to worship and indeed by these words he imports the call of the Gentiles as if he should say the Jews conceive none are to be saved but they for so the opinion goes Salvation is of the Iews but they are deceived the Gentiles shall be as capable of salvation as they which is implied in his very next words and verse But the hour commeth and now is that the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth and what of all this is against Churches or places of divine worship here I might shew how Adam before hee sinned had a place in Paradise to worship God the Patriarks their Altars and the primitive Christians the first thing they did after the stormes of persecutions was over was to build Churches and Oratories and with what joy and solemnitie you may see by that famous Oration of Paulinus which for brevitie I omit and refer you to the place And for the next and last observation upon this word if I do distate any I beseech their Christian pardon that there is a great sir and ever by all the World so accounted which passeth amongst us with little or no notice and acknowledged by many to be no such sin at all which is called Sacrilege The Heathen Magistrate excusing the Apostles Innocency as quitting him from a