Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	service_n	spirit_n	worship_v	1,834	5	8.9813	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26962	Naked popery, or, The naked falshood of a book called The Catholick naked truth, or, The Puritan convert to apostolical Christianity, written by W.H. opening their fundamental errour of unwritten tradition, and their unjust description of the Puritans, the prelatical Protestant, and the papist, and their differences, and better acquainting the ignorant of the same difference, especially what a Puritan and what a papist is / by Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1677 (1677)	Wing B1315; ESTC R13884	120,987	206

Princes and Magistrates to keep peace and order among them all Governing Glergie-men as they do Philosophers Physicians c. But yours hath an Utopian pretended Government of men on the other side the world whose Countries you scarce ever heard or dreamed of and an Usurpation of an impossible confounding kind and degree of Rule XII Our Religion is fitted to give Glory to Christ and his Grace and Kingdom But yours to set up Proud Usurpers over Princes and People in such an impossible Government making Subjection to him necessary to salvation As if a man unacquainted with Cosmography that never heard that there was such a Town as Rome in the world must be no Christian and be damned when yet the Popes name was never mentioned in our Baptism XIII Our Religion is Faith working by Love Christs Ministers that are truly of our Religion take only convincing evidence of Truth and unfeigned love and works of love to be their means of winning Souls And they take not Christs Discipline which worketh only on the conscience to be a leaden Sword or vain But yours is a hanging killing Religion Jails Strappado's Exterminating and Burning men are your means and works of love You take a Bonfire or the Ashes of the Bodies of such as will not believe in the Pope to be a great Medicine to save the peoples Souls Such Murders as were done on the Albigenses Waldenses in the Inquisitions the French and Irish Massacres Smithfield Flames Piedmont c. are your proof that you love God and Man and some of your good works XIV Our Religion tendeth to holy consolation and a heavenly mind and life For it teacheth us how to be certain of Gods love by its effects on our Souls and to know that we are justified by Christ and to trust the sufficiency of his Sacrifice Merits and Intercession and to believe that when we are absent from the body we shall be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 1. 7 8. and to desire to depart and be with Christ Phil. 1. 23. But yours leaveth a man uncertain of his Justification For you mostly deride such distinguished Fundamentals as received essentiate a justified Christian And your Doctors lay all mens necessary Religion and so their Peace upon their receipt of so much truth as hath been authentically proposed to them whereas no man living is certain that he hath received so much as hath been so proposed All men are guilty of neglecting some such Proposal at one time or other And gradual neglects the best are guilty of And you cannot ascertain men what is an authentick Proposal You also tell men of the necessity of their own satisfactions for the sin that Christ forgiveth and that in the Fire of Purgatory so that as is said before none such can dye comfortably that look to go hence into such a Fire where torment may make it hard to you to love God that tormenteth you It is a spirit of bondage that seemeth to actuate your very austerities and to turn your Religion into superstitious tasks of self-made Services Ceremonies and expectations of the expiating Flames in Purgatory But you shew too little of the Spirit of adoption of power love and a sound mind 2 Tim. 1. 7. of righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14. Terrour and Torments are temptations to you to desire the miserablest life on Earth much more a life of pleasure rather than to dye when such Flames must next follow XV. We offer God such Worship as we can prove by his Word that he commandeth and accepteth and such reasonable service in spirit and truth which is not unsuitable to the Father of Spirits and God of wisdom yet using all reverent and decent behaviour of the body as well as of the mind But it would be hard to number over all the Humane inventions of Formalities and Rites and Ceremonies and Images and other arbitrary external things by which you have corrupted the Worship of God and hid the body in your new fashioned Cloathing which you pretended to adorn And as worldly minds do cumber themselves as Martha with many unnecessary things and then say Is it not lawful to do this and that while they hereby alienate the thoughts affections and time which should be laid out on the one thing needful so do you in Gods Worship make such abundance of work with your Ceremonies for thoughts affections and time as maketh it very difficult to give the great and spiritual part of Worship its proportion far beyond what Augustine Epist ad Januar. so much complained of in his time and then think you justifie all if you can say How prove you this or that unlawful As if your Servant should instead of his work play at Cards most of the day and ask you How you prove it unlawful You never well studyed 2 Cor. 11. 3. I 〈◊〉 lest by any means as the Serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ nor Col. 2. 18 19 20. 22 23. nor Act. 15. 28. nor Rom. 14 and 15. nor Ioh. 4. 20 21. An ignorant Woman set upon Christ just as you pervert all holy discourse with turning all to Which is the true Church Our Fathers Worshipped in this Mountain and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men should Worship But Christ answereth you in her The true Worshippers shall Worship the Father in spirit and in truth For the Father seeketh such to worship him God is a Spirit c. Those that by Custom be not ingaged in your way of numerous Formalities and bodily actions can hardly think that you are spiritually and seriously worshipping God or can believe that Infinite Wisdom would be pleased with such things as I am loth to denominate or describe XVI Our Religion teacheth us that without Holiness none shall see God and none but the Pure in Heart and Life are blessed and if any man have not the sanctifying spirit of Christ he is none of his and that God must be loved above all and our treasure heart and conversation must be in Heaven and none but Saints are saved I think you deny none of this And yet you Canonize a Saint as if he were a wonder or rarity and you call a few sequestred Votaries Religious as if all that will be saved must not be religious And your Doctors are permitted to teach all that 's cited in the Jesuites Morals and Mr. Clarkson fore-cited Even that it is not commanded that God be intensively loved above all Tolet. li. 4. de Instruct Sacerdot c. 9. see our Morton Apolog part 1. l. 2. c. 13. Stapleton l. 6. de Justif c. 10. Valent l. de Votis c. 3. This Precept of loving God with all the mind is doctrinal not obligatory see my Key chap. 33 34. 38. And yet you have the Fronts to perswade men that we are for only Imputative Holiness and against good works

all their Mercies to Body and Soul Remission Justification Holiness and Glory They put up all their Services as into and by the Hand of Christ and from his Mediatory Hand they expect all mercies They take the Holy Ghost within them to be Christ's Advocate and Witness to them of his Truth and Love and their Witness Earnest Seal Pledge and first Fruits of endless Life They take Eternal Glory for their full Felicity and this World and Flesh Pleasure Riches and Honour to be so far useful as they signifie Gods Love and further our Love and Service to him but to be Vanity as separated from God in our Hearts and Enmity or Mischief as Competitors or as against him In a word Faith working by Supream Love and Obedience to God and Brotherly Love to Man by Honour to our Superiours Justice to all and by all the good that we can do in the World and by Repentance for our Sins patience in sufferings and by a Heavenly Mind and Life is the Sum of their Religion or plainlier as is said at first The Gospel-Covenant as expounded in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue as the Summary of things to be believed desired and practised and the holy Scriptures as the full and comprehensive Records of the Doctrine Promises and Laws of God containing the Essentials Integrals and necessary Accidentals of Religion This is the Christian Religion and the Puritan in question is but the SERIOUS CHRISTIAN distinct from the HYPOCRITE or dead Formalist But if you add Non-conformity to the sense of the Word and to his Character so I need not tell you what the Impositions are which some deny Conformity to as to Oaths New-Covenants Subscriptions Declarations Practices c. which he protesteth that he would never deny Conformity to if after his best enquiry he did not believe that God forbiddeth it As you may see at large in their Savoy Petition for Peace to the Bishops These two it seems you join together and what their Objective Religion is I have better told you than you have told your Relations But as to the clearness of their Judgment in it and the measure of their Practice of it there are I think as various Degrees as there are Persons no two Men in the World being in all things just of the same Degree And now Sir give me leave patiently to ask you these two Questions 1. Why would you by temerity go about to deceive your Relations and other Readers by talking to them against that which you did not understand Even then when you blame others as dealing so by the Papists And why do you dishonour your own Relations so as to make so bad a Description of them Are they such as have no Love to God as God no delight in Holiness no Heavenly Minds nothing almost but fear and its effects Have they still the Flames of Concupiscence and greedy desires of Money and the things of this Life c. If it be not so you should not have told the World so of them If it be so I am sorry for them I suppose it is contrary to their profest Religion and you may have the greater hopes to make them Papists II. What wonder is it that you that were no better a Puritan than you describe are turned Papist You that profess you were a Puritan must needs be judged to tell us what a one you were your self when you tell us what they are Alas poor Man How came you to be so false to your own Profession against your Baptismal Vows as to keep so much of the World at your Heart in greedy desires after Money and to have no more Love to God and Man no more Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Could you think that a Man could be saved without Love and good works Were you deluded by such Antinomian conceits as you describe and took that for Puritanisme How else did you quiet your Conscience in such a state of Hypocrisie If God and Holiness had not your chief Love as well as Fear you were but an Hypocrite And here give me leave to repeat what I have oft written What wonder is it at any Mans turning Papist when according to your own Principles no Protestant Puritan or other Christian turneth Papist that doth not thereby declare that he was a false-hearted Hypocrite before and had no true Love to God in his Heart And was not this your case For 1. You affirm that all Men that have true prevalent Love to God are in a state of Grace and have right to Salvation till they lose it 2. You affirm that none of us are in a state of Grace and Salvation that are not of your Church that is the Subjects of the King or Pope of Rome 3. Therefore it followeth that you take none but such Subjects or Members of your Church to have the true prevalent Love of God But you know that in our Christian Covenant and Profession we all take God for our God the infinite and most amiable Good our Father in Christ and Love it self and that Faith working by Love is our Religion And if any Man saith Saint Paul love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha And he that loveth the World the Love of the Father is not in him 1 Joh. 2. 15. So that by turning Papist you confess that before you were no true Christian nor had any true Love to God and Godliness nor to Jesus Christ And if so you were a false-hearted Hypocrite For as a Christian you profest and Covenanted it And what wonder then if God forsook you and gave you up to strong delusions when you would not receive the Truth in the Love of it that you might be saved 2 Thes 2. And note here that if any Man know that he truly loveth God and Goodness you tell him that he is none of those that you perswade to Popery For you perswade none to it but those that are ungodly Hypocrites having no true Love of God within them But can you think Sir in good earnest that Popery tendeth more to fill Men with the Love of God than our simple Christianity doth Is not Popery a Religion of Bondage and Servitude consisting mainly in Terrour and its superstitious effects What are most of your Tasks of Pilgrimages Penances and abundance such but the effects of servile fear The best of Religion next Heaven should be that which is nearest to Heaven And do you think you can love God better in the Fire of Purgatory Torments than if he took you unto Christ in Paradise Could you love God better in this Life if he tormented you in the Fire than if he give you comfort by his mercies You say that the Puritan is made negligent by his trust in Christ to adorn his Soul with Piety Charity Meekness Patience Humility and other Christian Vertues partly thinking them impossible to be attained partly deeming there is no absolute necessity of them

Difference Verily our Differences here in England and the Neighbour Protestant Churches have shewed in us much personal peevishness unskilfulness and other faults but in my judgment they are such as greatly commend our real concord in the same Religion and partly our Conscience in valuing it and being loth to lose it If you see Latine Grammarians reviling one another about the spelling or pronunciation of a word or two and critically contending with Varro Gellius c. which is the right when a man that never knew a word of Latine but Welch or Irish never strove about such Questions in his life which of these will you think have more agreement in their Language I would say that those men that disagree but about the pronunciation of a few words are very much agreed in comparison of a Barbarian that agreeth not with them in a Sentence or a Word Even the old Schoolmen were in Language more agreed with Erasmus Faber Hutten and other Critical Grammarians that derided them than any illiterate man was with any of them All Gruterus his Volumes of Grammatical Controversies shew not so much distance in Language as the peaceable silence of an unlearned man doth And no one strives much about that which he doth not much care for Countrymen can contemptuously laugh at Logical Disputes or Criticisms Horses or Oxen will not strive with us for our Gold or Jewels Clothes or Food as we do with one another and yet they are not so like us in the estimation of such things as we are to one another When I hear religious persons contentiously censuring each other about some little points of Ceremony Order Discipline or Form which are but the fimbria or the Welts and Laces of Religion I am angry at their weakness and defect of love but I must needs think that there is very great concord in the Faith and Religion Objective of these men who differ about no greater matters than such as these If men that were building a Palace would fall together by the Ears only about the driving of a Pin I should marvel at their concord that differed in no more though I could wish them like wrangling Children whipt for their folly and frowardness till they were quiet The great things that Protestants have paltrily wrangled about are 1. The Doctrinal Controversies called Arminian 2. And the matters of Discipline and Ceremonies The former I have shewed lately in a large Volume hath much more of verbal than of real difference and is cherished by the ambiguity of words and the unskilfulness of too many to discuss those ambiguities and find out exactly the true state of the Controversie It is oft but Stubble that maketh the greatest blaze And as for the other I would not undervalue the least things of Religion but I will say that Engagement Faction and worldly Interest are magnifying Glasses to many men and make a Mote to seem a Beam and a Gnat to seem a Camel And it is one of the Devils old Wiles to keep men from learning of Christ how to Worship the Father of Spirits in spirit and truth by starting such Questions as whether in this Mountain or at Jerusalem men ought to worship and to hinder godly edifying by doting about questions that gender strife And fighting for Shoo-buckles may shew the quarrelsomness of men but it proveth not the Greatness of the matter 2. Note further that though Subjective Religion the measures of our belief Love and Obedience be as various as persons are yet the Objective Religion of all true Protestants is the same Not only the same in the Essentials one God one Saviour and Lord one Baptismal Covenant one Creed one Spirit one Body of Christ and one Hope of Glory Eph. 4. 4 5 6. but also the same in all the Integral parts For it is Integrally the Holy Scripture which containeth all that they take with the Law of Nature to be the whole Law of God and so the Rule of Divine Faith Desire and Duty They may subjectively have some difference in understanding some Texts as the most Learned and holy in the world have But Objectively they have no other Divine Faith or Religion 3. And note that the Church that Protestants yea Greeks Armenians Syrians Abassines are of are all certainly one and the same Church For a Church is constituted of the Ruling and the Ruled Parts And they perfectly agree that Christ is the only Essentiating and Universal Head In him they all unite and confess that there is no other Even the Patriarch of Constantinople as I have shewed claimeth but a Primacie in the Empire and not the Government of all the World no not of us in England And as for the Ruled Constitutive part we are agreed that it is All Baptized Christians that have not apostatized nor forsaken any Essential part of Christianity nor are excommunicate by Power from Christ So that we are clearly all of one and the same Church But how far the Papists differ in the Greatness and number of their Controversies I think to tell you a little more anon IV. I may not stay to shew at large how they vary their shape and course as may fit their Interest How sometime they put on the person of Infidels or Atheists to plead men into an uncertainty of all Religion that they may be loose enough to follow them into theirs For even so Car. Boverius would have perswaded our late King Apparat. ad Consult The first thing is saith he seeing true Religion is to be inquired after by you that before you address your self to search for it you first have all Religions in suspicion with you and that you will so long suspend or take off your mind and will from the Faith and Religion of the Protestants as you are in searching after the truth Reader doth not this tell you whence much of our late Atheism and Infidelity cometh and what it tendeth to I tell thee not the words of a Novice but a person chosen to have seduced our King when he was Prince in Spain And is not this way very suitable to the end How must men become Papists Boverius will teach you First suspect all Religion and with your very Mind and will cease to believe that there is a God or that he is Powerfull Wise or Good or that we are his Creatures and Subjects or that there is any Heaven or Hell or Life to come or that Christ is not a Deceiver but a Saviour or that any of the Bible is true Cease from Loving Fearing Obeying or trusting God and from loving man for his sake Cease praying to him and forbearing any wickedness injustice cruetly perjury or filthiness as being forbidden by him and this as long as you are searching after the truth Verily this devilish counsel is so notoriously followed now by some that we may fear what truth it is that they are searching after Certainly this way is of the Devil and how it can lead