Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	holy_a	light_n	spirit_n	3,931	5	4.9658	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82314	The city-ministers unmasked, or The hypocrisie and iniquity of fifty nine of the most eminent of the clergy in and about the city of London. Cleerly discovered out of two of their own pamphlets, one intituled, A serious and faithful representation; the other A vindication of the Ministers of the Gospel, in and about the City of London. Together vvith a prophesie of John Hus, touching the choosing of a new ministry; and an ancient prophetical farewel of Hildegards, to the old corrupt ministry. Both very useful for the knowledg of the long deceived nations. / By a friend of the Armies, in its ways to justice and righteousnes.	Dell, William, d. 1664.	1649 (1649)	Wing D920; Thomason E546_2; ESTC R206085	24,534	40

all the showres of Heaven aswell as all sorts of disvantages from men their courage was in no measure cooled but rather kindled and was not this like Eliahs sacrifice who being to offer sacrifice without earthly fire to make it evident that God was the Lord he first poured many buckets of water upon the wood till he filled the trench yet the heavenly fire came down and licked up all the water and burnt up the wood c. and then the people when they saw that said the Lord he is the God But our Clergy will not be brought to see and say any such thing notwithstanding such clear appearances of God seeing they conceive all these to be to their prejudice And so though they councell the Army to deny the experiences of God in all former providences and not to own his councell in them yet we will sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb saying Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God almighty just and true are thy wayes thou King of Saints who shall not fear thee oh Lord and glorifie thy name for thou only art holy for all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy Judgments are made manifest Now in this matter of Providence they hook in the example of David who though he had through a providence an opportunity to have killed Saul yet refused to do it because he was the Lords anointed But this is a far different case from that of the Parliament and Army for why did God reject Saul viz. not for levying war against the people of Israel and murthering and slaying those whom he should have protected but for his unbelief and disobedience to God therefore was he rejected of God as you may see 1 Sam. 1. 5. and Samuel told him that the Lord had sought out another man after his own heart to be Captain of his people who should manage the Kingdome in the strength of faith and that was David And now David had no cause nor call to take away Sauls life for his sin that immediately concerned God having done the people no harme no nor yet for his seeking and hunting after Davids own life for a man in his own particular cause is not to avenge himselfe though he have opportunity seeing God hath said vengeance is mine I will repay and also if David had then slain Saul in the Cave he had slain him as a private man in his own cause and without the supream Authority of the people And so this of David and Saul sutes not to this case But suppose Saul had waged war against the people of Israel whom he ought to have protected and killed many thousands of the choisest of them and the Lord had delivered him into the peoples hands whether or no might not the people and heads of the Tribes have justly tryed him for his life and put Saul to death for a murderer there is no question at all to be made in this matter among just reasonable and unbyassed men But you are miserable interpreters of Scripture who will needs make them serve your own turn though their sense be clean contrary The second peece of your Councel is That it is not safe or them to be guided by impulses or pretended impressions of Spirit without or against the rule of Gods written Word This in it self is good Councel but falsly applyed For their impulses and impressions to use your own words were apparently from God and his Spirit and that according to his written word and to moral precepts as hath already been sufficiently declared And those of them that are godly are better able to judg of the vertues and influences of the holy Spirit which dwels in them and is truth and no lie and manifests it self to be so by its own light then they can that are destitute of the Spirit themselves and yet will be judging of the operations of it in others And for the rest of the Army that are not godly it is a wonderful thing to consider how God by a special influence of providence hath spirited them to the same work with his own people making the earth to help the woman as was foretold And so you might have reserved this part of your Councel also for a fitter occasion The third fragment of your Councel is That they sh●●●● not pl●●d necessity for doing thus If God had indeed brought them into a necessitie of doing this why should they not plead it yea and act accordingly God had strengthened them with his own power and subdued and brought down every person and party both in this and the other Kingdom by their hands who did or might stand ●● opposition to this work and so prepared the way for them ●● execute this high and impartial peece of Justice and if after all this they should have started aside like a broken bowe how should they as much as in them lay have utterly made v●●● all Gods former works which he manifested from Heaven 〈◊〉 this self same purpose Yea how had they also betrayed all the honest 〈…〉 the Kingdoms and among them the honest Presbyte●●●● themselves who have been seduced into this Sect in the simplicity of their hearts into the bloody hands of an inrag●● Tyrant Wherefore to preserve themselves innocent from the blood of all the godly and wel-affected in this Kingdom they were absolutely necessitated to this work Besides they were not at their own liberty to do this or not to do it but their hearts were so inclined by God to this work That they could not get off from it though they had 〈◊〉 desire And this blessed necessity as they were brought into it so might they well plead it You indeed according to your wonted ingenuity and candor call it a necessity to sin and a pretended necessity and a necessity contracted by their own miscarriages But you are used in speaking much to speak so little truth that hereafter but few will regard what you say Upon the whole ●●tter You exhort them to recede from their evil ways you like the false Prophets your predecessors calling good evil and evil good all along But they see what you say and are resolved not to take your judgment for infallible who have deceived both your selves and the Nations for so many hundred yeers together But God hath now remembred your iniquities and the reward of your works is at hand And therefore men shall name you no more the Priests of the Lord you shall no longer be called the Ministers of our God but you shall be cast off as the degenerate plant of a strange Vine even as the Vine of Sodom in the fields of Gomorrah whose Grapes are Grapes of Gall whose clusters are bitter whose Wine is the poyson of Dragons and the cruel venome of Asps And the Lord shall choose a new Ministry out of a new people formed by the Spirit who shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord and in

live by faith their life being placed in difficulties when yours in delicacies and having more experiences of God and his presence power truth faithfulness love mercy Justice all along in their course and so being better instructed in the cause of God then your selves which you it seemes have drawn back from since you perceive it is not like to performe what you first hoped for and expected from it And truly in my poore Judgment it would have been a sad thing for the Army after such great and continued experiences of God to have turned aside to have asked councell of you what to do whose councels many times heretofore if they could have prevailed and most certainly in the former Summers work about the City Ingagement and peradventure in the last Summers war the Army had not now been alive to have asked any Councell at all But I was told that the Army sent not to you to receive any satisfaction from you in the work they were about being satisfied already that it was of God but if it might have been to have given you satisfaction that you might have been taken off from reproaching and reviling that work and way of God which he had ingaged them in and this also was for your own sakes and not for the works seeing this work must have prospered whether you would or no If you would have gone along with them in this work of God they would willingly have taken you by the hand not desiring to have this Honour alone but you being unwilling to serve God in such difficulties and for himselfe only they could as willingly let you alone seeing Gods work depends on himselfe only and not on the Instruments whether many or few wise or unwise honourable or contemptible But why it should be sutable for private persons to desire your resolutions as you say and not for publique you sure have some meaning underneath that durst not shew its open face And that in some places you call them only private persons and here reckon them more then so is it not because your fancies and imaginations are inconsistent with one another at severall times But had they asked your resolution you here tell them what your answer would have been which without any more adoe you bolt out thus That they instead of proceeding further in such unwarrantable courses should testifie their timely and godly sorrow for what they had already acted And I must needs say you cut them very short telling them at first dash their courses were unwarrantable and they must repent of them And so you prove their courses to be evill much after that manner that the High Priests proved Christ himself to be an evill doer before Pilate Why saith Pilate when the high Priests brought Christ before him that he might condemn him what evill hath he done oh say they if he had not been an evill doer we would not have brought him to thee intimating that Pilate must take their words for that matter for say they we are the High Priests of God and do you think that such holy men as we would have brought him to you to be condemned if we did not know he was an evill man but Pilate not being satisfied with what they said they after undertook to make it good if they could which because they could not do with truth they did with clamour and violence After this maner they deal with the Army touching their present courses as they call them telling them they are unwarrantable and they must repent of them for if they had not been so you would not have judged them so for are not forty six or fifty nine able learned orthodox men to be believed in their Judgments and they tell your Officers and Army that your courses are unwarrantable and you ought to repent But the light of the word hath now so shined that they cannot rest upon your bare testimony what ever names you have clothed your selves withall but they will expect that you prove what you say by clear Scripture in a sound sense or you may be confident they will never believe you Lastly you tell them in your preamble That they move out of their Sphere and sure this is very ill done if you say true which you are seldome guilty of throughout these discourses but it is plain to them and to all other honest and sincere hearted men that they move and act in that very place and sphere wherein Gods own hand hath both set and preserved them maugre all your Sion or rather as you now use it your Babylon Colledge conventicles and conspiracies And if you moved as regularly in your sphere as these have done in theirs you had been more spirituall in the Church and less turbulent in the world you had preached the Gospel of peace more and blown the bellows of sedition less And if you plead in your Vindication that you Ministers as Subjects and members of the Common-wealth might intermeddle with the affaires of the Kingdame might not the Souldiers as Subjects also do the like but it seemes that Souldier-subjects medling with the affaires of the Kingdome wherein they have interest are out of their sphere but Minister-Subjects medling with the like affaires are in their sphere and sure it is so because the Kingdomes of the world are now become more naturall to these Ministers then the Kingdome of God But this would be worth your minding when you are in your pulpits that you are not there as Subjects for then every one of the Parish might be there aswell as you but as Ministers and so you ought to do the work of Ministers only there that is to preach the gospel of Christ and not to kindle flames in the State and when you are to appear as Subjects you must do it so as others may stand on equall ground with you that are in the same capacity and that sure is out of your pulpit or way of ministery But you who challenge other men for moving our of their Sphere let all rationall men in the Kingdome judge if there be any men so irregular as your selves in this particular And if the Army have been called forth by God to act high and strong in this matter as his own arme and power in the Kingdome for this purpose do not you quarrell them for moving out of their sphere for so it may be you may quarrell Gods work more then theirs If you say you cannot see it to be so I answer how should you when you first and after some body else hath shut your eyes But I shall not follow you further to every particular where your pen hath halted and stumbled and fallen downe for then I should too much trouble my selfe and every one that reads wherefore I shall only content my selfe to gather up the chief crimes you charge upon the Army and to enquire upon what good grounds you have done it and to see if you your selves

the majesty of the name of their God And of this rejection of the old Clergy and choice of a new Ministry John Hus that faithful servant and martyr of Jesus Christ prophesied long ago in these words Ex istis ulterius adverte incidentaliter quod Dei ecclesia nequit ad pristinam suam dignitatem reduci c. That is Moreover hereupon note by the way that the Church of God cannot be reduced to its former dignity or be reformed before all things first be made new The truth whereof is plain by the Temple of Solomon Like as the Clergy and Priests so also the people and laity or else unless all such as be addict to avarice from the least to the most be first converted and reclaimed as well the people as the Clergie and Priests Albeit as my minde now giveth me I believe rather the first that is That there shall rise a new people formed after the new man which is created after God Of which people new Priests and Clerks shall come and be taken which shall hate covetousness and the glory of this life hastening to a heavenly conversation Notwithstanding all these things shall come to pass and be brought about by little and little in order of times dispensed by God for the same purpose And this God doth and will do for his own goodness and mercy and for the riches of his great long-suffering and patience giving time and space of repentance to them that have long lain in their sins to amend and flie from the face of the Lords fury whilst that in like maner the carnal people and carnal Priests successively and in time shall fall away and be consumed as with the moth Thus far he Where you see he foretels of another kinde of Church-Reformation then our Presbyters imagine even such a Reformation where the whole Church must be made new both people and Ministers And there shall arise saith he A new people formed after the new man which is created after God and of these people the Ministers shall be chosen who shall hate covetousness and the glory of this life and hasten to a heavenly conversation A glorious people and a glorious ministry indeed and these make up a truly glorious Church And the corrupt and carnal professors and corrupt and carnal Ministers such as the generality and multitude now are and have cleerly discovered themselves to be shall be cast off and consume as a moth And so as this new people that are born of God and his Spirit shall arise and increase so shall they cast off this old carnal ministry and will have nothing to do with it but they will choose themselves Ministers out of themselves even a spiritual ministry out of a spiritual people And thus must this present corrupt carnal worldly ministry be certainly cast off and thrown away And when these false Prophets and Antichristian Ministers shall have finished the course of their iniquity and shall be discovered to the world through the bright shining of the Gospel the world shall take its leave of them in the words of Hildegards Prophesie who speaks of the ruine of Rome and its Priests and Fryers in these words And when as their wickedness and deceit shall be found out then shall their gifts cease and then shall they go about their houses hungry and as mad dogs looking down upon the Earth and drawing in their necks as doves that they might be satisfied with bread Then shall the people cry out upon them Wo be unto you ye miserable children of sorrow the world hath seduced you and the devil hath bridled your mouths your flesh is frail and your heart without savor your eyes have been unstedfast and your mindes delighted in much vanity and folly your dainty bellies desire delicate meats your feet are swift to run into mischief Remember the time when you were apparently blessed yet envious poor in sight but rich simple to feel but mighty flatterers unfaithful betrayers perverse distractors holy hypocrites subverters of the truth overmuch upright proud unshamefast unstedfast Teachers delicate Martyrs Confessors for gain meek but slanderers religious but covetous humble but proud pitiful but hard-hearted lyers pleasant flatterers but persecutors thought merciful but found wicked liberal but lovers of the world plausible among men but seditious conspirators lowly but desirers of honor religious in appearance but maintainers of mischief robbers of the world unsatiable Preachers men-pleasers seducers of women sowers of discord You have builded up on high and when you could ascend no higher then did you fall even as Simon Magus whom God overthrew and did strike with a cruel plague So you likewise through your false doctrine naughtiness lies distraction and wickedness are come to ruine And the people shall say unto them Go ye Teachers of wickedness subverters of truth brethren of the Sunamite fathers of heresies false Apostles yea sons of iniquity we will not follow the knowledg of your ways for pride and presumption hath deceived you and insatiable covetousness hath subverted your erroneous hearts And when you would needs ascend higher then was meet or comely for you by the just judgment of God you are faln back into perpetual opprobry and shame And therefore you Nine and fifty of the Clergy and all the rest of your spirit ways works and interests throughout the Kingdoms repent indeed and not fainedly and break off you pride hypocrisie treachery ambition covetousness envy distraction abuse and perverting the Scriptures reproaching and opposing the people of God contradicting and blaspheming the righteous ways of God with all the rest of your iniquities or else you see how the hand of God will shortly and certainly overtake you and what a sad farewel the people generally will give you The faithful having begun to take their leave of you already FINIS Represcm pag. 2. p. 16. Represent pag. 1. 2. 3. Represent pag. 6. Represent pag. 2. Vindicat. pag. 2. Represent pag. 3. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Represent pag. 3. Testimony against Tolerat p. 12. Represent pag. 5. Represent pag. 10. Numb. 16. Represent pag. 10. Represent pag. 14. Represent pag. 8. Vindicat. pag. 5. Represent pag. 11. Represent pag. 11. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Ligavit Par●us Zuinglius Testimony against Tolerat pag. 9. Testimony against Toleration pag. 12. Represent pag. 12. Represent pag. 13. Represent pag. 13. Represent pag. 14. John Hus his Prophesie Hildegards Prophesie