Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	require_v	spirit_n	worship_v	1,990	5	8.9686	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A10795	Gods holy house and service according to the primitive and most Christian forme thereof, described by Foulke Robarts, Batchelor of Divinity, and prebendary of Norvvich.	Robartes, Foulke, 1580?-1650.	1639 (1639)	STC 21068; ESTC S121261	55,029	143

mistake and fearefully wrest the words bodily exercise Concerning the meaning whereof Interpreters do not readily agree But this I am sure of that of all the Interpreters which I have seene and I have purposely made some search not one doth understand them of those gestures of the body in Gods worship which we now treate of And it is manyfest that the bodily exercises whereof S. Paul speaketh are such as he setteth in opposition unto true godlines and yet such as wherein foolish people perverted by hypocrites and guided by idle conceits and no better then old wives fables do place Religion Abstinency from meate and from marriage v. 3. unto which we may adde long and frequent watchings pronouncing of long and many prayers lying on the cold ground wearing haire cloth and the like with such kind of disciplining of the body may profit something as they may be used Cor. 7. 26. For S. Paul deemeth those people happy in regard of the present necessity which were unmarried And he alloweth those which are married sometimes and upon some occasions to withdraw one from an other that they may the better dispose themselves to fasting and prayer Watching fasting and such other chastisings of the body are also of profitable use to tame the flesh and to bring it into subjection to the spirit and so to make the whole man the fitter for devotion But if men place true Godlinesse to consist in these very exercises and so conceive with themselves that whilest they performe them they are eo nomine for that alone very good people though otherwise they live in the custome and practise of foule and known sinnes then shall they finde that their bodily exercises do profit little that is nothing at all and that in vaine have they wearyed themselves therein And so if a man thinke that though he neglect the true duties of godlinesse he is yet a godly man because he is very exact in all the gestures of outward reverence in Gods worship I paralell that man with an other sect of hypocrites whose whole godlinesse consisteth in going to to some selected Church and in being present where a Sermon is though in the meane time they learne nothing and practice as little of any true godlinesse Both these sorts of men I acknowledge to be an hypocriticall and superstitious generation both a like And of them both I say that they have a forme of Godlines but deny the power thereof Though then bodily exercises profit not those who place their whole Religion and goodnesse in them as they are meer bodily actes Yet are they not unprofitable for Christian men who make the right use of them either to tame the body and to bring it into subjection by fasting sack cloth and ashes and the like or to make outward expression of inward devotion as by bending the knee bowing the body lifting up the hands and eyes and such like gestures in Gods worship As for the wordes of our blessed Saviour God is a spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and in Ps● 95. 6. trutb I aske those men which alledge them against outward reverence what they will say to holy and devoute David when he saith O come let us worship and fall downe and kneele before the Lord our maker Doth not the spirit of God here require the gestures of bowing downe and kneeling to be used in Gods worship But for further satisfaction herein we will spend a few lines though one would thinke words needlesse in so cleare a case in the exposition of our Saviours wordes Wee therefore give our brethren to understand that the word Spirit in scripture hath divers sinifications as i. The regenerate man is called the Spirit Matth. 26. 41. The Spirit is willing the flesh is weak 2 The will or inclination 2 Cron. 36. 22. The Lord stirred up the Spirit of Cyrus 3 The courage of a man Josh 5. 1. There was no spirit in them any more because of the children of Israel 4 Vnderstanding and knowledge Dan. 5. 12. An excellent Spirit and understanding and knowlegde were found in Daniell 5 Doctrine or teaching 1 Joh. 4. 1. Beleeve not every Spirit but try the Spirits So then take the word Spirit in any of these significations and it will nothing hinder the use of corporall or bodily gestures in the worship of God For to worship God in Spirit is to worship him with a regenerate or new man which after God is created in righteousnesse and true holynesse Eph. 4. 24. It is no compassing of Gods Altar without hands washed in Innocency Ps 26. 6. no praying to God without pure handes lifted up 1 Tim. 8. No comming into the marriage feast without a wedding garment Mat. 22. So it is not for any to performe the holy act of worship to the holy God that is not regenerate and holy and will so worship in spirit and truth i. in true holinesse For God requireth such to worship him 2. God must be worshiped in Spirit i. with a willing ready and chearefull mind Deborah in her song Iudic. 5. 2. doth prayse God for the people that became so willing And 1 Pet. 5. 2. Gods flock must be fed not by constraint but willingly and so Gods worship must be performed in Spirit that is willingly 3. God must be worshiped in spirit i. Not faintly and droopingly but couragiously and zealously in the fervency of the spirit as Rom. 10 11. 5 God must be worshipped in spirit and in truth i. with understanding and knowledge rightly informed Lastly God must be worshiped in spirit and truth i. Guided by the holy spirit of God as all the sonnes of God are led by the spirit Rom. 8. 14. which leadeth unto all truth Joh. 16. 13. And this is home to the text in spirit and truth when in Gods worship we so make use of either body or soule as by Gods word and spirit wee are thereto directed Corporall actes may be done in the Spirit as our Saviours going up to the mount Mat. 4. was a Corporall act and yet it was done in the Spirit For he was led by the Spirit v. 1. And to this effect are the words of the Schoole-man cleare and full in in the place before alledged Adoratio Corporalis in Spiritu fit in quantum ex spirituali devotione procedit ad eam ordinatur i. Bodily worship is 2. 2. q 84. ar i done in the spirit in as much as it proceedeth from spirituall devotion and is made to serve thereunto When our brethren Pray or Preach do they not use a bodily member viz. the toung to expresse themselves withall The using of the tounge is a bodily exercise as well as the bowing of the knee And yet I hope they thinke that they do both Preach and Pray in the spirit Are not eating and drinking bodily actions And yet I trust wee do eate and drinke in the spirit when wee do it in the feare of God and

GODS HOLY HOVSE AND SERVICE According to the primitive and most Christian forme thereof described by Foulke Robarts Batchelor of Divinity and Prebendary of NORVVICH Psal 26. 8. I have loved the habitation of thine house and the place where thine honour dwelleth LONDON Printed by Tho. Cotes and are to be sold at the Grey-hound in Saint Pauls Church yard 1639. To all such as through weakenesse of judgement with some superstitious feare and not by any malevolent spirit of opposition and schisme are offended at the Decency of our Churches and the Reverend demeanure of our outward expressions in Gods publique Worship Loving Brethren THe worship of God hath of late yeares beene so carried in many places among us as if therein men were not about any businesse relating unto God The places of meetings being so ruinous and sordid the people in the act of prayers and praises demeaning themselves so as if they sate in counsell with God a gesture of which Tertulian saith that in prayer it is irreligiosissimum a most irreligious L. de orat thing rather than devoute and humble worships Much irreverence was in administring and receiving the holy Communion I have often conceived hereupon that either Papist Turke or Pagan observing our fashion would thinke that either our Churches were not the houses of the holy God or that the people in them were not about Gods worship Our present most reverend Metropolian hath in his Metropoliticall visitation layd those grounds which have already reformed much and I trust will by Gods mercy soone reduce all things in Gods worship to due decency and reverence all England over Not doubting of the like successe in other places which we finde in the Diocesse of Norwich For while the right reverend Father now Lord Bishop of Elie for the time his Lordship was our Diocesan as an other Elishaeus in the spirit of Elias his Lordship so proceeded in this pious worke as that the worke of the Lord prospered in his hands The house and service of God shineth among us in the primitive splendor to the great good liking of all sober Christians But as when S. Paul preached of the resurrection Some beleeved others mocked Act. 17. So upon sight of this good worke so happily begunne and so effectually followed some joyfully conformed others frowardly opposed The one encouraged the other exasperated my poore zeale first by preaching and private communications now by printing this slender treatise to put forth my selfe a weak labourer under such Aholiabs Bezaliels master workemen I doe not in all this little treatise frame any one proposition which I doe not in my conscience conceive to be the truth of God Nor doe Iuse any argument or reason but such as I apprehend naturally to inferre the conclusion My desire herein God knoweth is your satisfaction and right information in that which not a little concerneth Gods glory and your good Thinke not that I would reduce all Gods worship to bodily gestures Neither imagine that it belongeth to the soule alone The soule is the most excellent part whose intentions recommend the expressions of the body unto God But the body is a part and an essentiall part of the man and must beare his part with the soule in Gods worship If the body act alone then doth God say Man where is thy soule If the soule alone take all upon it then saith God where is or what doth thy body Where are thine eyes thy hands thy knees thy legges to declare and accompany the lifting up the humility and the confidence of thy soule Thy whole man is to be imployed in my worship It is for God and for his glory that I do pleade thus earnestly with my bretheren How decent a thing is it in the eye of man to behold bodies and soules accord and joyne together in the holy worke How doth the visible and expressive devotion of one Christian beget and encrease the same in an other And how powerfully shall the reverend behaviours and gestures of an whole Congregation together worke one upon an other Is not God the more glorified when our devotion is quickned and advanced O my bretheren be not froward but meeke and tractable Boy strous men in a spirit of error or opposition or both have made too much stirre troubled and affrighted honest hearts On the other side some men expressing devotion outwardly give too much scandall through want of probity But I beseech you turne away your eyes from men turne them upon God and then turne them home upon your selves And then tell me doe you not perceive the Majesty of God to be so great as that it becommeth the whole man soule and body to demeane himselfe in all points of humility and reverence inward and outward when he is in Gods speciall presence Is not the excellent goodnesse of God such as drawes all mens eyes upon him and feedes them all with expectation Is not his bounty such as filleth every living thing with plenty of his goodnesse Shall not the eye then looke up towards God in admiration and hope Shall not the hand be lifted up shewing the heart ready to receive the blessing and to reach out thankes Speake to God with the intention judgement and fervency of the soule Speake also by the expressions of the members of thy body Speake by thy tongue Speake by thine eyes Speake by thine hands and by thy knees The tongue interpreteth the meaning of the soule by words The eyes and hands interpret the confident expectation of the soule by their elevation The knees interpret the humilitie of the soule by bowing And so the rest of our decent gestures doe interpret the soule every one in its owne language which God intendeth understandeth and accepteth when they truly declare outwardly what the soule conceiveth inwardly But I am asked what neede these gestures and postures more now than heretofore Whereto I answer that there is no more neede to use these decent and reverend gestures and expressions in the worship of God now than heretofore And that if heretofore wee have been defective in what was requisite it is time that now we be reformed Againe if by heretofore yee understand the space of 40. or 50. yeares last passed I confesse that what we performe now may seeme a novelty But if by heretofore you meane the best and primitive times of the ages next the Apostles and before the dayes superstition crept on then I say that there is no more required now than what was in use in the practise of Christians heretofore God therefore give us grace to discerne truth from error and light from darkenesse and not to bee put out of the way of true devotion through a panike feare of a supposed superstition heartily prayeth At my Study in Norwich March 4. 1638. Your loving brother Fowlke Robarts The Contents Cap. 1. OF Holinesse 2 Of the holy place 3 Of the consecration of Churches 4 Consecration of Churches is