Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A53518
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A Sermon preached in an Anabaptist meeting in Wapping, on Sunday the 19th of February by the reverend T.O., D.D. upon this text, Heb. Ch. XI, v. 1, Faith is the evidence of things not seen.
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1699
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Wing O55; ESTC R16261
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8,273
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14
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A SERMON Preached in an Anabaptist Meeting IN WAPPING On SUNDAY the 19th of February Printed at the request of his Congregation for Zachariah Marshal near the Long-Cellar in Wapping 1699. Price 3 d. HEB. Chap. XI Part of the 1st verse Faith is the Evidence of things not seen Dearly Beloved WHo was the Author of this famous Epistle to the Hebrews whether St. Paul as Cornelius à Lapide and his Disciple St. Jerome would have it or whether it was written by some other converted Jew which was the opinion of Alexander ab Alexandro and some other Lutheran Divines that opposed the proceedings of the Council of Constance in the sixth Century it is not material here to determine For my part I must own that St. Paul seems to have the fairest title to it but tho I have Sworn to a thousand bold things in my time yet I would not swear Beloved that this Epistle was written by the aforesaid Apostle But leaving this Controversie where we found it let us now proceed to our Text. Faith is the Evidence of things not seen From which words I draw these four Propositions First That Faith is an Evidence Secondly If Faith is an Evidence that an Evidence consequently ought to be beleived Thirdly That there are many things talked off in the world that were never seen Fourthly and Lastly That an Evidence and through him any Nation may nay ought to believe in things not seen First I say then that Faith is an Evidence The sacred Writer of this Epistle positively asserts it how then dares any man that professes himself a Christian revile censure and speak contumelious things of any Evidence I don't speak this because it was my own Case to be one of this number but because the truth requires it and the truth ought never to be stifled An Evidence ought to be respected and his words should in all civilized Nations be received for Oracles for if Faith is an Evidence why then may not we be saved by an Evidence as well as by Faith I believe my Beloved you remember the time when I was the top Evidence in the horrid Popish Plot but if you don 't I do When ever I came to Westminster-Hall or to the Old Baily or to any well-affected Coffee-house in the City the people ran in shoals to view my person and made a lane for me as I passed along One cry'd make room for the King's Evidence there How says his Neighbour is the Gentleman there with his mouth in the middle of his face he that sav'd our Wives and Daughters from being ravished by the Man of Sin Thus was I respected and admired by all Truly I may say it without vanity that little England never since it was little England had so much Faith as when the Lord made me his unworthy instrument to broach the Popish Plot at both ends The Nation believ'd my Salamanca degree and the White-horse Consult they believed my Forty thousand Pilgrims with black Bills and Father Ireland's forty thousand Masses In short they in effect believed when I said the words that Chalk was Cheese and that Cheese was Chalk These were blessed times now my Beloved for an Evidence to live in And accordingly then it prosper'd with the Nation for their extraordinary Faith We hanged up scores of Idolatrous Priests and sent their Bishops to Grass we seized their Collars of Brawn for concealed Jesuits and their Silver Tankards and Gold Watches for Popish relicks In short we made the Whore of Babylon take down her sign so that the Protestant Religion flourished exceedingly But when the Nation began once to be possest with the Spirit of Infidelity and my Evidence was not received as formerly observe then my Beloved how the Lord powr'd the vial of his indignation upon these sinful people Popery came upon us like an armed man and Superstition over-ran our Pastures like a Flood Magdalen-College was disparked and laid out to the Common the Boys of St. Omers bearded us in Westminster-Hall we had four Popish Biships like the four winds blowing from the four corners of the Map The Monks walked publickly in their Habits and Carted Bawds had the impudence to set up for Converts This in short was the condition of our Affairs when my Evidence was rejected and my Testimony turn'd out of doors Thus I have made it plain that Faith is an Evidence I come now to the Second point If faith then is an Evidence it follows consequently that an Evidence ought to be believed The Talmud observes that the Prophets in the old Testament were called Evidences and it was a proper title for they confirmed their messages with an Oath As my Soul liveth saith Nathan to David in Samuel to instance in no more Is it not plain and manifest therefore that an Evidence is to be believed Moreover as it is said that no man is a Prophet is his own Country may it not such is the incredulity of this Apostate age be applied to the Evidences viz. that no man is an Evidence in his own Country As I told you before Brethren my Evidence was received at first and how why Unversally by King Lords and Commons I had my Guard of Beef-eaters to protect me from being insulted or assassinated my ten pound per Week duly paid without deductions Venison Pasties and Westphalia-Hams flew to my Table without sending for I was as much stared at at the Amsterdam-Coffee-house and at Dick's as a Foreign Ambassador when he makes his entry through Fleetstreet But when an Unbelieving Generation of Scoffers strated up of whom the Observâ—tor was the Ring-leader and began to examine my Narrative with the Carnal Eye of Reason when they were so malicious and ill natured as to lay aside their Faith and to enquire after the credibility of the things by me deposed when they impudently asserted that my Plot would not hold water and that there were several irreconcileable contradictions in my Book never to be solved then these Sons of Amaleck neglected me their Deliverer and Saviour who like Samson slew their Enemies with the Jawbone of an Ass It fell out unluckily for me I must own that I swore Circumcision a thing that may easily be discovered upon the Minister of Duke's place My forty thousand Spanish Pilgrims were improbable Devils with a witness for who the plague could bring so many of 'em together however though they looked so foolish and ridiculous who could disprove them whereas to swear circumcision against a man unless the case had been certainly so was the greatest folly in the Universe and if ever I repent I shall put it among my Retractations Every Midwife or Matron nay in this knowing age a raw Girl of Thirteen can tell whether such an allegation be true but I may thank the Devil or if the Devil and a certain Noble person may be put together without a Scandalum Magnatum I may thank a certain Lord too for bringing me into this misfortune who makes
up with the scurvy employment of a Hog-driver For is it not a sad thing dearly Beloved that where a man generously offers to hang half for a Kingdom and consequently to ease it of a World of troubleso me fellows that are a burden to it he shou'd be brow beaten by a sawcy Judge or cross-examined by any of your impertinent Counsellors that will have an Oar in every man's Boat and at last for twelve illiterate Raskals call'd the Jury to bring in the Bill Ignoramus forsooth after a man has been at the expence of contriving and tacking together a plausible story and perhaps swore till he is black in the Face I wou'd have hanged Sir George Wakeman and the Popish Lords and Parson Eliot and a thousand more that I cannot think of at present But the Government I thank them were such fools as to obstruct my designs For my part I did all that lay in the power of an Evidence to do but some person that shall be nameless wou'd not let me go through stitch with my work and therefore if Popery is not ruined root and branch they have none to blame but themselves They would not reverse my Sentence when it might have been for the common advantage and when my Friends solicited it So now I don't care a groat if it continues on till to the end of the Chapter for tho' perhaps I may not meet with my due reward in this World yet those that throughly know me say I shall certainly find it in the next Having I presume cleared these four points to your satisfaction give me leave to say a word to some Objections that may be raised either against the Truth of my Evidencing or the freedom of my Language in calling a Spade a Spade Or Lastly against my leaving the Church of England whereof I have professed my self to be a Member several years to return to the Religion of my Forefathers and joyn my self with the Brethren of the Anabaptist perswasion Object the First If Doctor your Evidence was true say these Gentlemen how came it about then that among so many Priests and Papists of all sorts that you hanged not one of them should own the Crime for which he was brought to the Gallows but make a perpendicular leap to Hell with a lie in his mouth whereas say they in George P r's Plot all of them had the Grace to confess the fact for which they died To this I answer First It is plain from Suarez Escobar and the whole Herd of their Casuists that a Roman Catholick may equivocate and perjure himself for the good of the Church This I take to be so notorious a truth that I defie any Raskal of a Jesuit to deny it But People will reply If this is the standing Doctrine of that Communion how came Charnock and Rookwood to be without it or why should they squeak any more than their Predecessors Therefore I affirm Secondly That the seasons have been so confused an ddisturbed and jumbled ever since the late Earth-quake that as that great Philosopher Mr. Flamsted believes perhaps the Axis of the Earth is not where it formerly stood So then if so solid a body as the Earth has been removed from its center what wonder is it if the Church which is composed of weak wavering uncertain men has likewise varied a little from its principles I could have wished indeed that all or at least some of my Raskals had done the same as Captain P r's Rogues have done for it might have served to corroborate my Evidence however it s my comfort that the Nation believed me without it and as we find it in the Text Faith is the Evidence of things not seen Object the Second But Doctor if you are a sincere Christian say they why then don 't you take more care to clap a Padlock upon that unruly member your Tongue Why do you call Rogues and Raskals so plentifully since the Gospel tells us that the man that uses this Pagan Language even to his Enemies will be troubled for 't hereafter The answer to this is easie and plain We must so interpret Scripture as not to make one part of it clash with another Now we are positively commanded in several places to speak the truth of all persons so that if a great man at Court or a Prelate in the Church happen to be Raskals pray whose fault is it to give them their true titles My Father Samuel was an honest Weaver and his Son Titus here will be Crucified over and over before he will turn the Devil's Upholsterer and sow Cushions to the Elbows of iniquity tho' it wears a Star and Garter Besides when this Precept of not calling our Brother Fool and so forth was given the Church was but in it's Cradle or Infancy and if it had any Rogues they were but little diminitive ones whereas the Church is now grown to Woman's Estate and consequently many of its Children have arriv'd to their full Stature in Raskality and this I take to be the Case The third and as they imagine the most terrible Objection is still behind For Doctor say these Gentlemen pray do us the favour to tell us what Church you belong to that we may know where to find you First you were a plain Primitive Protestant of the Anabaptist Cut. Then you faced about to the Religion then in fashion went to the University and took Orders in the Church of England After that you made a Trip to St. Omers and Salamanca swallowed the Eucharist as glibly as your Father did the Scotch Covenant and were a most zealous Papist This wou'd not satisfie your turn but in a few years you veer'd about to the old Point and hanged all the Priests and Jesuits that came in your way Then you showed a strange warbling in your Guts to be a Presbyterian Now at last you herd among the Anabaptists on Sundays but all the week wear the ungodly Livery of the Establish'd Church So that say they you are a perfect riddle and mystery to us and the Devil only can tell where to have you To this heavy charge I reply that ever since I knew my right hand from my left I carefully observed the Golden Rule of being ill to all men that I might gain some mony As for my going to St. Omers and pretending to be a Proselyte to their Church 't was a meer trick of Youth and no more I only did it with a design to fathom their dark Intregues and if possible to break the neck of them which I think I perfectly perform'd for I truss'd up their Priests by dozens In consideration of these Services the Nation gave me a title not inferiour to that of the greatest Heroes and callâ—d me their Saviour and Deliverer If Papists will equivocate with us Protestants why should not we Protestants turn their equivocating Canon upon them and maul them with their own Arms. Judith out off Holofernes's Head but how not with her own Sword I trow because she was a Woman and wore none but with Holofernes's own tilter and yet we find her commended for it But then say they if it had been your luck to have trooped off when you lived in an Idolatrous Communion what had become of you then Why perhaps I had been damned but what of all that If I had a mind to hazard the going to the Devil in order to save the Nation I humbly conceive they ought to thank and not reproach me for it I am sure a great Minister has since done the same and made me the compliment to follow my Copy To conclude I have at last thought fit my Beloved to settle among you in obedience to the Apostles command Try all things and hold fast that which is good for really I find the men of your perswasion are good and the women are good and likewise your refreshments and Collations are good yea exceeding good In the next place my Father was one of you and like an obedient Son I am returned to his way of worship and this nature teaches the very Insects Observe a Summer fly in May and after he has flown and buzzed about for some time you will find him at last by downright instinct as it were settle in the original Cowturd where he was hatched And be not scandalized I beseech you that on the week-days I wear the rag of the Church The malicious world tells a thousand lies of me but I value them not Thus they formerly charged me with the sin of Rigbeism as they now call it and to stop their mouths I was forced to marry and yet these censorious persons are not satisfied with my doing so but still give out that I am for the old Sport because forsooth I have struck never a Child since out of my Wives Body not considering that I am too Fat and Corpulent for that Drugery Now if on the week-day I appear in the Canonical equipage 't is only done with an intention to disgrace it They whipt my sides for me and I have no other way to requite them for 't but by wearing their habit in order to bring them into Disgrace and Contempt which that it may happen to them let us all Pray and every one of us lend a hand to bring about so pious a Work FINIS