Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	spirit_n	worship_v	worshipper_n	8,943	5	13.1108	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A69533	Five disputations of church-government and worship by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1659 (1659)	Wing B1267; ESTC R13446	437,983	583

Christianity and the two Sacraments of Christs institution and some short Catechism that containeth these And when we have done our best in publick and in private we leave many of them ignorant what these two Sacraments are yea or who Christ himself is And must we put them to so much more labour as to learn a Rationale or exposition of all the Ceremonies holy dayes c We shall but overwhelm them or divert them from the Essentials And here you may see the unhappy issue of humane wisdom and false means It is to be teachers of the ignorant that men pretend these Signs Images and Ceremonies to be usefull And yet they are the causes of ignorance and keep men from necessary knowledge If you doubt of this do but open your eyes and make use of experience See whether among the common people the most Ceremonious are not commonly the most ignorant yea and the most ungodly too It is a truth so notorious that it cannot be denyed Who more ignorant of the Sacraments then they that rail at them that fit in the act of receiving Who more ignorant of the doctrine of the Gospel who more obstinate enemies of a holy life more worldly self-conceited licentious prophane despisers of their faithfull Teachers then the most zealous persons for all these Ceremonies § 23. Reas. 21. Moreover these new Laws and services introduce also a new office into the Church There must be some of pretended Power to impose all these Ceremonies and see them executed or else all is vain And no such office hath Christ appointed Because men thought it necessary that all the Christian world should have but one way and Order in the Ceremonious worship which was commonly approved therefore they thought there was a Necessity of one Head to maintain this unity of order and so came up the Pope as to one cause And so in a Nation we must have some one or more Masters of Ceremonies when Ceremonies are kept a foot And so whereas Christ hath placed officers in his Church to teach and guide them and administer his own Ordinances we must have another sort of officers to make Laws for Mystical signs and Ceremonies and see them executed and punish the neglecters and teach the people the meaning and the use of them The Primitive Bishops had other kind of work we find directions to the Pastors of the Church containing the works of their office as to Timothy Titus c. But we no where find that this is made any part of their work to make new Teaching signs and Ceremonies and impose them on the Church nor have they any directions for such a work which surely they much needed if it had been their work indeed § 24. Reas. 22. When we once begin to let in humane Mystical Rites we shall never know where to stop or make an end On the same ground that one Age inventeth three or four the next think they may add as many and so it will grow to be a point of devotion to add a new Ceremony as at Rome it hath done till we have more then we well know what to do with § 25. Reas. 23. And the miserable plight that the Christian world hath lain in many ages by Ceremonies may warn us to be wise Augustine complaineth that in his time the Church was burdened with them and made like the Jewish Synagogue The most of the Churches in Asia and Africa are drowned too deeply in Ceremonious formality turning Religion into ignorant shews The Church of Rome is worse then they having made God a worship of histrionical actions and shews and signs and Ceremonies so that millions of the poor blind people worship they know not whom nor how And if we abate only of the number and keep up some of the same kind even Symbolicall Rites of mans institution to teach us and excite our devotion we shall harden them in their way and be disabled from confuting them For a Papist will challenge you to prove just how many such signs are lawfull And why he may not use threescore as well as you use three when he saith he is edified by his number as you say you are with yours § 26. Reas. 24. It is not inconsiderable that God hath purposely established a spiritual kind of worship in the Gospel telling us that God is a Spirit and will be worshipped in spirit and in truth Such worshippers doth God require and accept Bodily exercise profiteth little The kingdom of God is not in meats or in drinks but in Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Neither Circumcision availeth any thing in Christ Jesus nor uncircumcision but a new creature and faith that worketh by Love God would never have so much called men off from Ceremoniousness to spirituality if he had delighted in Ceremony § 27. Reas. 25. The Worship of God without his blessing is to little purpose No man can have encouragement to use any thing as a Means to teach him and help his devotion which he hath no ground to believe that God will bless But there is no ground that I know of to believe that God will bless these Instituted Teaching signs of mans inventions to the Edifying of our souls For God hath no where bid us devise or use such signs 2. Nor no where promised us a blessing on them that ever I could find And therefore we have no encouragement to use them If we will make them and impose them our selves we must undertake to bless them our selves § 28. Reas. 26. As vain thoughts and words are forbidden us in Scripture so no doubt but vain actions are forbidden but especially in the worship of God and yet more especially when they are Imposed on the Church by Laws with penalties But these Mystical Rites of humane institution are vain You call them your selves but Things indifferent And they are vain as to the use for which they are pretended that is to Teach and Edifie c. having no promise of a blessing and being needless imitations of the Sacraments of Christ. Vanity therefore is not to be imposed on the Church My last Reason will fullier shew them to be vain § 29. Reas. 27. We are sure the way in which Peter and Paul and the Churches of their times did worship God was allowable and safe and that Princes and Prelates are wise and righteous overmuch if they will not only be more wise and righteous then the Apostles in the matters of Gods worship but also deny their subjects liberty to worship God and go to heaven in the same way as the Apostles did If Peter and Paul went to heaven without the use of Images Surplice the Cross in Baptism kneeling in receiving the Lords Supper and many such Ceremonies why should not we have leave to live in the Communion of the Church without them would you have denyed the Apostles their liberty herein Or will you be partiall Must they have one way and we

Because we now obey them not I have answered this already to which I add 1. It s a fine world when men will separate themselves from the Churches of Christ to avoid schism and they that are against separation and offer Communion to the Separatists must be taken to be the Schismaticks themselves It is schism that we detest and would draw you from or else what need we say so much for Concord and Communion 2. I have told you already that it is not one Minister of a Multitude in our Communion that did cast off the Prelates half of them did nothing to it and the other half were Ordained since 3. Nor can you truly say that now they refuse obedience to Bishops where there are none to obey or none that command them 4. Again I tell you it is not Episcopacy but only the sinful species of Prelacy which the Parliament and Assembly and Covenanters did cast off And what if you think this species best must all think so or else be Schismaticks And why not all Schismaticks then that are against the Papacy which is thought by others the best form I have here given you some Arguments to prove your Prelacy which was cast off to be against the will of Christ and the welfare of the Churches And I shall not believe that its schism to be against sin and the Churches ruine And I cannot but admire to read in your writings that Discipline and Piety are pretended by you as the things which you promote and we destroy when I am most certain that the destruction of Piety and Discipline are the very things by which you have so much offended your Brethren and we would heartily come as near you as we can so that Piety and Discipline may not be destroyed Had we not known that the able faithful Preachers whom you called Puritans conformable and not conformable that laboured in the word and doctrine were fitter to promote piety then the ignorant drunken worldly Readers and lazy Preachers that once a day would preach against doing too much to be saved and had we not known that Piety was better promoted by Learning the will of God and praying and meditating on the Lords Day then by dancing and by cherishing men truly fearing God then by scorning imprisoning persecuting and expelling them we would never have been so much against your doings as we have been But mens salvation is not so contemptible a thing as to be given away to humour the proud that cannot live in Communion with any unless they may drive them to destruction We will not sell mens souls to you at such rates nor buy your Communion nor stop the reproachful mouths of any by such horrid cruelties We talk not now to you of matters that are known by hear-say only we see which way promoteth Piety and which destroyeth it we see that most of the ungodly in the land are the forwardest for your wayes You may have almost all the Drunkards Blasphemers and Ignorant haters of godliness in the Country to vote for you and if they durst again to fight for you at any time I cannot be so humble as to say I am blind and see not what indeed I see because another tells me that his eyesight is better then mine and that he seeth things to be other then I see them to be I doubt not but there are some Pious persons among you I censure you no further then experience constraineth me But I know that the common sense of most that are serious in practical Christianity is against your formal wayes of worship and against the course that you have taken in this land and the spirit of prophaneness complyeth with you and doteth on you in all places that ever I was acquainted in Bear with plain truth it is in a cause of everlasting consequence There is somewhat in a gracious soul like health in the body that disposeth it to relish wholesom food and perceive more difference between it and meer air or toyish kickshaws then it can easily express In abundance of your most applauded Preachers the things of God were spoken with so little life and seriousness as if they had not been believed by the speaker or came not from the heart yea Godliness and Diligence for Heaven was the thing that they ordinarily preached against under the name of preciseness and being righteous overmuch And the Puritans were the men that Pulpits rendered most odious to the people and your Preachers exercised their wit and zeal against while almost all their hearers through the Land did take a Puritan to be one that was seriously Religious Many a place have I lived in where there was not a man that ever spoke a word against Bishops or Ceremonies but a few there were alas a few that would sometime read a Chapter in the Bible and pray with their Families and speak of the life to come and the way to it and for this they were commonly called Puritans If a man had but mildly askt a swearer why he swore or a drunkard why he would be drunk or had once named Scripture or the life to come unless prophanely the first word he should hear was O you are one of the holy Brethren you would not drink or swear but you will do worse in secret It was never a good world since there was so much talk of Scripture and Religion but the King and the Bishops will take an order with you and all the Puritans and Precisians in the Land I profess upon my common sad experience that this was the common language of the people that were ignorant and prophane in all parts of England that ever I came in which were not a few and these were the men that they called Puritans and on such accounts And what could the Prelates and Preachers of the Land have done more to mens damnation then to preach them into an hatred of Puritanism when it was known by all that lived among them that Piety was Puritanism in their account and no man was so free from it as he that would scorn at the very name of Holiness and drink and swear as if he had defyed God This is true and England knows it and if you will after this think that you have wiped your mouths clean by saying as M r Pierce that by Puritans he means none but men of blood sedition violence despisers of dominion painted sepulchres Protestants frightened out of their wits c. the righteous God that loveth righteousness and hath said Be ye holy for I am holy will make you know to your penitent or tormenting sorrow that the thing which commonly was reputed Puritanism in England was no such thing as you describe And that it s none of your wisdom to ●ick against the pricks and play with the apple of Gods eye and bring men to hate the members of Christ and then tell them you meant the members of the Devil and to thrust men into Hell in