Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	love_n	receive_v	unrighteousness_n	1,627	5	10.8118	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29171	The necessity & use of heresies, or, The third and last part of The great question about indifferent things in religious worship containing an answer to the objection against liberty of conscience, from the growth and spreading of heresies / by Edward Bagshaw ...	Bagshaw, Edward, 1629-1671.	1662 (1662)	Wing B419; ESTC R9550	18,228	28

Snares i. e. Psal 11.6 scatters Traps and Snares in their way that they may be taken There are some men who in Scripture are stiled the People of Gods curse the Vessels of his wrath Isa 34.5 Rom. 9.21 Jude v. 4. and by Jude Forewritten unto condemnation To whom Gods greatest methods of Goodness prove only means of hardning them to sin more desperately thus did Gods Word prove to the Israelites It was saith the Prophet Line upon Line Isa 2.8 13. and Precept upon Precept that they might go and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken And Christ to the unbelieving Jews became a Sione of stumbling and a Rock of Offence unto which 1 Pet. 2.8 saith the Apostle Peter they were appointed So the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to lost and perishing Wretches is a Savour of death But what these things do only by accident that Heresies do in their own proper nature 2 Cor. 2.15 i. e. they harden Unbelievers and make them more resolute in their opposing of the Truth As when God did intend Ahab should go down to battel and perish there 1 Kings 22.22 he let a Lying Spirit of Prophesie be in the mouth of all his Prophets For saith he thou shalt perswade him and prevail also So when God sees a company of lazy vicious men who are weary of the Powerful plainness of Truth then he lets some corrupt Doctrines be scattered abroad which may fit those Inclinations they are already principled with and likewise when others have curious itching Ears and sound Doctrine will not rellish with them then God suffers some lofty airy speculations to be broached by study of which they may grow drunk with Pride and Prejudice against more wholsom Tenets 2 Thes 2.10 12. It was this just Judgment of God upon mens willingness to be deceived that God gave them up to Antichristian i.e. to Papal Delusions As the Apostle hath it Because they received not the Love of the Truth that they might be saved For this cause God shall send them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the active power and efficacy of Errour Mat. 18. that they should believe a lie i.e. a false and feigned doctrine That they all may be damned who have not believed the Truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness i.e. in false and unrighteous Tenets And therefore as our Saviour sayes Wo to the world because of Offences so Wo to the world because of Heresies because as we set traps to catch Vermine so God appoints these to ensnare arrogant and self-presuming or vicious and self-defiling men Cause 2 2. The second Cause which concurs to the producing of Heresies is Satan exciting That evil Spirit whom our Saviour cals the Prince of the world and the Apostle the ruler of the Darkness of the world out of that innate hatred he hath to Truth by which his Kingdom is overthrown scatters the seeds of Errour and ignorance every where up and down the world and as he set upon our Saviour with misse quoted Scripture in which he appeared so dexterous and ready as if he intended to puzzle and non-plus his eternal wisdom So the most deadly and poysonous heresies have by him by a strange kind of Chymistry been extracted out of the same holy Scriptures Thus he brought in the practise of needless rigour and austerity of Life Col. 2. under pretence of Christian strictness and severity in those Precepts Touch not tast not 1 Tim. 4. handle not Thus brought he in the Doctrine of forbidding marriages under pretence of Christian Chastity and Abstinence 2 Cor. 11.3 which the Apostle in express words cals the Doctrine of Devils Thus he brought in Superstition Will-worship and idle Ceremonies under pretence of Christian Decency and Order thereby as the Apostle complains the Serpent beguiling many through his Subtilty Rev. 13. so that their minds were corrupted from the simplicity which was in Christ Thus lastly brought he in the cruel and incompassionate killing of men that would not worship the Image of the Beast and in some outward and visible manner acknowledge their conformity under pretence of Christian zeal and care of Truth In short as the greatest Cordials if not rightly prepared do prove the most deadly and killing Poysons so the most dangerous and destructive heresies have been compounded by Satans malice out of the most Soveraign Drugs of Sacred Truth but by him purposely ill mixed and tempered And here I desire to observe that though the Devil likewise doth stir up Persecution as our Saviour felt in himself when he said of his own Sufferings that then was the Power of darkness i.e. Hell was then broke loose Luke 22.53 and wicked men in crucifying Christ acted the Devils businesses so he foretels to the Church of Smyrna Fear none of those things thou art to suffer behold the Devil shall cast some of you into prison Rev. 3.10 that you may be tried Yet this is but Satans After-game for his great design is to eclipse the beauty of Truth by the Mist of Errour And if he finds that his Heretical Tares will not take root then under pretence of Faction Sedition and the like old charges which were laid both against our Saviour and his Apostles he destroyes those careful Husbandmen which would sow better Seed and leave no room for the Devils Cockle The Art and Policy of Hell lies in the quiet spreading of Heresie for this gains him souls whereas violence never got him any thing but the bodies of men that is it made them obsequious Slaves but not real Converts WE find therefore in the Revelation Rev. 12. that when the Woman under which the True Church is emblemed had brought forth the Divel stood by ready to devour her Child as soon as it was born and for some time endeavoured to maintain his footing in Heaven and till he was cast down from thence did not think of making war with her Seed The Moral of which Representation I take to be this That when Christian Truth begins to break forth then the Devil for a time endeavours to destroy it by disputing the case and venturing his cause upon Argument but when he finds himself mastered at that weapon then he changes the Subtilty of the Serpent into the Roaring of the Lion and with open mouth devours his Opposers But this way the Devil doth not ordinarily try till his False Doctrines have been baffled and foyled and he hath no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no Wile no craft left to countenance the grosseness of his Impostures Cause 3 3. The third Cause concurring to the necessary Being of heresies in the Church is Man himself begetting and ingendring of them For as the most fruitful and pregnant Seed if it be not cast into a warm and prepared Soyl soseth all its Vertue so those Seeds of Errour the Devil sowes if the heart of man was not a fit soyl for them would never

rise up again in so large an harvest of absurd and impious Heresies Were the winds never so fierce yet if the water of the Sea were not of an unstable and moveable nature there would never be any Tempest So how impetuous and violent soever the Gusts and Breath of Satans Temptations be yet if our nature were not of it self ductile and pliant the world had never been so prodigiously tossed up and down nay often overturned by erroneous Maximes Now there are Two Principles in man which are alwaies susceptible of any false and Heretical Impression the one is his Ignorance in spiritual matters the other is his Pride inNatural Knowledge By his Ignorance he is apt to mistake Errour for truth and by his Pride he is apt to propagate it that like Simon Magus the first noted Heretick in the Church of Christ he may appear some body in the eyes of a few partial Followers Acts 8. and this is it which makes his Errour Heresie So that till we can find some Art to change the Nature of man to make his Understanding more refined sublime and spiritual till we can purge the Will from prejudice design and partiality till we can alter the course of his Affections and set them afloat another way to love God in stead of himself and to prefer Truth before applause till we can do this we have as little hope to see the Church free from Heresies as to have our Gardens clear from infectious Mists and Vapours which have the Sun to exhale the wind to convey and a Bog hard by to ingender them But besides these Causes which do absolutely necessitate the Being of Heresies There are two other Occasions which do mightily conduce if I may so speak to the well-being of them i. e. to their easier growth and spreading And they are 1. Scripture-difficulty 2. Christian Liberty Occasion 1 1. The Difficulty of Scripture is a very great occasion for the increase of Heresies because of that variety of Interpretation which many places especially in the Apostle Pauls Epistles are capable of Whose Writings even in the Apostle Peters time were liable to much misse-construction For to omit that the things themselves recorded by him 2 Pet. 3. are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 soarcely intelligible being full of mysterious and fathomless depths they are written by that excellent Apostle in a style so dissonant from all Rules of ordinary Grammar that it requires great pains meerly to find out his Literal Meaning Which Industry very few who read him with prepossession and prejudice have leisure for and therefore hastily expound their own sense without attending to his So that as Tertullian observes De Praescript Haeretic God seems to have ordered the Text of Scripture on purpose that it might afford opportunity to Heretical Glosses For as in the works of Providence though the whole Frame and Systeme of the world be admirably well-composed composed yet if we consider them in patcels we shall meet with many things which will startle us into jealous and missebelieving Thoughts So is it in that compleat body of Divine Truth contained in Scripture the whole Connexion and Series as it relates to the Messiah foretold in the Old and fulfilled in the New Testament together with those ravishing heights of Heavenly Directions for life is most ineffably curious and excellent But if we take those things asunder and consider them distinctly by Chapter and Verse we shall meet with Mistakes in Chronology Variations in Names Diversity of Readings and some lesser seeming contradictions which to a snarling and quarrelsom wit are so many Bones for him to spend his mouth upon without minding more wholsom and digestible Food And yet this makes very much for the plausible entrance of an Heresie that it hath the Letter of Scripture to countenance it The Papist will urge for his Implicit Faith Hear the Church Mat. 18. without ever considering that by the Church there is not meant what he fancies a Pope or Cardinals or Councils or Fathers but a Select Number of Christians which is the only sense wherein that word Church is taken throughout the whole New Testament when it is used by our Saviour and his Apostles So the Socinian shelters his impious denying of our Saviours Divine Nature under that which he finds our Saviour speaking The Father is greater then I not considering in what capacity our Saviour spake these words viz. John 16. according to the Person he then took or how many other places there are wherein his equality with the Father is asserted The Arminian wants not the same Plausibilities for his Free will and in short no Heresie that ever yet was in the Christian world but pleaded Scripture for its defence and Patronage which such strange Variety of Opinions could never have done were not the Scripture exceeding difficult and hard to be understood and thereby an occasion given for the Rise and Conceiving of them Occasion 2 2. The second Occasion of the large growth and spreading of Heresies is Christian Liberty Which in no Religion is allowed nay commanded in that Latitude as in ours For we are enjoyned to try all things 1 Thes 5.21 1 John 4.1 Cal. 1.8 and then to hold fast that which is good We are bid to try the Spirits and though an Angel should come form Heaven and preach to us we are not to believe him if he teach any thing contrary to this Gospel We are commanded to see with our own eyes and to chuse for our selves without depending any further upon the Authority of Fathers and Doctors Isa 8.20 then as they speak according to this word which under the severest penalties we are obliged to study and peruse For as God in the old Testament Mal. 1. would not have the blind for sacrifice so neither will he in the New and they had as good not worship him at all who like the Samaritans John 4. worship him they know not why And as in point of Judgment we are to be thus free so likewise in point of Practise 1 Cor. 7. Mat. 15. Gal. 5.1 as to Religious Rites and Orders we are commanded not to be the servants of men not to worship God by the Precepts of men not to be entangled with any yoke of Bondage but to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free James 1.1 2. Whereupon our Gospel is called the Royal Law of Liberty and we are so to speak and so to do as those that shall be judged by that Law Yea further as we are to be thus free in our selves so we are to be exceeding charitable and tender towards others bearing with our weak brethren and if they do but hold the Foundation of Faith and good works to tolerate the Hay and Stubble which they may build upon it And the reason of this is because our Religion as it sprang from Heaven so is it maintained from thence as the