Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	word_n	world_n	write_v	1,041	4	5.1311	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77079	A taste of the spirit of God, and of this vvorld, as they have appeared in opposition heretofore, so now latest of all at New-Windsor. Occasioned through the violence, and reproach of evil men, against the temple and tabernacle of God, and them that dwel therein. Presented in a narrative to the honourable committee, for the propagating the Gospel. / By Robert Bacon, preacher by the allowance of God, and the nation, now these five years there.	Bacon, Robert, M.A.	1652 (1652)	Wing B371; Thomason E669_13; ESTC R207030	41,008	52

other and new offences arose for it is necessary that offences be but woe unto them by whom for which cause and upon which account I was a while suspended by the Military power here it being the first and the last exercise of it that way as I have heard of in the land that the doors were forcibly shut a while against me and the whole town so that the Church it self as they call it was for a while as by the Pope of old Excommunicate till it was opened again by the endeavor and authority of that worthy and faithfull Gentleman * Mr Holl. the Burgess of this place This conflict being over which yet continued long and extended somewhat far for the debate of it was through complaint against me had in the Great and high Council of State in which interim I had opportunity a while to visit on the first day the Neighbour Towns especially on the morning for it was agreed on for a while that I should be deprived of the morning Exercise here for it was judged it might be for the greater esteem honor and use of the morning Exercise in the Castle which was a while upheld by some of the Fellows of Eaton but not without an Order from as they say the Council of State which at length centred but did not long continue in Mr Lockier who was not long after called away for a more publique and special service of the State so that had there not been a supply by me in the Town there had been silence as to matter of preaching either in Castle or Town in this I continued faithful to God this Nation and this place but not in peace or quiet save onely in my heart and life to God for in this time it was agreed on that the people should come together to make choyce of a Vicar who coming together more headily then advisedly for their time was not yet fixed on a certain man Mr D. who was as they say faulty as to the State and suffered and doth suffer upon that account a deprivation as men speak of his spiritual promotion so that as they were disappointed so they did disappoint them that set them upon the thing so that upon the disagreement they had among themselves as it fell out for Paul sometimes I had a further liberty among this people though to my disadvantage greatly as to my outward estate yet the Lord being in it I had joy sufficient for a recompence of all I had sustained or should sustain in time to come About this time or a little before there was a Lecture begun in the Town which was judged meet to be the day before that I was assign'd and desired to I confess I suggested my willingness of the Neighbor-Preachers concurrence with me which was a little after layd hold on both of them and those that particularly applyed themselves to the thing but so as that I might be excluded as was well agreed on among them though an humble address were made to them without either my knowledg before-hand or desire and that by two of the most grave men of the Town Mr D. and Mr R. but the Preachers having a man engaged as they were engaged to him to vote as they pleased they gave * The Gov. him the chair that would have had it themselves a little before to determine for them it being indeed his design by them the better to remove me SECT III. AFter a while and being often in their company invited where they were and reasoning with them as I had allowance and liberty given me inwardly in my heart of God not ever intending in the least degree contention or strife with them or other I at length writ as followeth to them to which I had no Reply Sir In the behalf of God his Church this Nation and in particular this Town and my self I desire by this Assembly in account and I hope in truth the Ministers of Christ to be resolved by the Word of God in this Enquiry Whether my forced silence in this place as to the work I was conversant in and exclusion from your Company in that work be according to the Scriptures and the minde of God there declared This I humbly desire for a double cause 1. Because if I should be and willingly abide in Transgression it would be the damnation of my Soul 2. Because you cannot * * Which I spoke not as out of doubt but to urge an answer from them possibly be conceived to be onely lookers on but must needs be judged if not promoters of yet such as consent to the silencing of me in this place unless you declare your selves to the contrary but if you have consented this I lay at your feet begging you to shew cause by the Word of God why that if I am in an error I may by the Grace of God be Revoked Yours in the Truth of our Saviour R. BACON It was not long after this but there was an endevor to invite and bring in sometimes one and sometimes another of the Lecturers and at length the broad Seal was got and 5 li. more then ever was given I think for a Bishops License payd by a very forward Gentleman of the Town one as will anon appear more hasty in his undertakements then beleeving or successful though in this they say his wisdom hath secured him for he hath got his mony again of our body corporate This undertakement failing rather through the ill accommodation and undesire of the people then by any endevor of mine to oppose it it hath been upon second thoughts of me which they say are best agreed on at length I should take my turn which as not being ashamed of my Testimony rather then of a willing mind otherwise I yeelded to In this I have been thrice only in their hearing and have at least appearingly and I hope in truth some acceptance with them which I desire not for mine own sake so much as theirs lest they should become guilty of disowning the Love of God which is true in me to them SECT IV. THese things I have written briefly as Introductory to that which followeth these being onely the wounds I have received in the house of my friends for my Mothers Children have been all along more or less offended with me But as it was said of the Lord to Jeremiah If in the Land of Peace wherein thou trustedst they wearyed thee or were an offence to thee How wilt thou do in the swellings of Jordan for behold the Tide is turn'd among us and we are as it were on a sudden as We Were before this War began I mean as to attainment in the matters of God The people that have been in a sort these many years asleep unless only in some few heads of them to their loss and prejudice are anew awake among us some say by the sound of the late Act of Pardon These people are so many

next day or the same day at even we having stayed by the way we overtook them again about Marlborough when of the man that was with us they enquired my name which when they knew they stayed and spoke to me going over a Bridge I willingly went softly to have some speech with them they telling me in effect they were yea that they were Jews and that the time of their gathering together out of all Lands especially this was come and that they should away for Hierusalem yea that they must be circumcised and so forth To all which I replyed that in a sence I approved of all this but not in their sence or as they applied it but said that he is a Jew and of the seed of Abraham that believs whose praise is not of men but of God yea the very same too said I are the Circumcision which worship God in spirit and so have the true Circumcision which is yet that made without hands Lastly the place of these I judged to be no other then Hierusalem but that I mean come down from Heaven into which no unclean thing shall be admitted as they liked not mine so I disowned their sense of these things as I am sure I had the greater cause after about half a miles riding I left them I going another way about a twelve-moneth after I came to London and as I was going to dinner in Fleet-street about eleven of the Clock or a little after there met me a Merchant that formerly I had knowledge of and some acquaintance with told me that there were some at his house had a great desire to speak with me I left my dinner and went with him to a fair and great house where I had never been before he had me into an upper Room where when I came I heard a very great noyse of one speaking I knew not what with exceeding great fervency I would have stayed and heard further there but he urged me to go where it was into the next Room where I saw at the Table the forenamed Garman writing having before him an Hebrew Bible there was some two or three men besides this Gentleman whose house then it was and my self in the Room was a Bed and one sitting up in it speaking as I said before and claping his hands with exceeding seeming height of confidence but the words he spake I did not understand only they seemed to me to be a mixture of Latine and some other tongues they said Hebrew and all other Languages I confess I remembred he mentioned oft Melchise deck the High Priest or Priest-hood the name Judah and Jesus with such zeal that the fire seemed to me even to sparkle out of his eyes he did besides I remember curse with great bitterness the Priest-hood as he said that was not after the order of Melchisedeck by his side there lodg'd a Woman which I confess I did suspect was the Woman I had seen before at Wells and after that upon the Road but not understanding and indeed not approving of yet wondring I confess at the business after less then a quarter of an hour I departed and have never seen them since Now the truth is as I have had opportunity I have related the matter as I here have done to such as I thought good and in particular did so now in my last journey to one at Bristol from whom peradventure Mr. Wood hath had this Relation or else I know not whence it should arise and peradventure this man would I should have gone and made some complaint of these people as the manner of some is to be very severe in complaining against sometimes but the seeming evils of others but in mean time very sparing of their own abominable lusts the Seed and Posterity of Saul who kill and make an end with great zeal forsooth the lesser Cattel of the Herds and Flock of Amaleck but in mean time save alive the fat and strong The Scriptures we all know declare how that our Saviour was himself not only in the Company but left alone in the presence of an Adulterous Woman whom the unseen Adulterers had brought there before him to accuse so that certainly there is no cause of blame for my being as I was and coming as I did to this place wherefore they have the greater sin who have made it first evil and wicked in their own hearts out of which as the root of all filth they have cast it again forth if it were possible for the staining the innocency and truth of God in me so that I confess I do not reject the story as I have given it and as it is as the spirit and end for which it is produc'd The third is Mrs Ceenee's Lodging sometimes at my house Mr. Wood by this minds me of the rule which they say was Matchiavels if a man be never so innocent yet the way effectual to ruine him is audacter calumniare aliquid haerebit lade him with reproach and some if not all will be beleev'd of most verily I have been so dealt with to some purpose by this and some other my friends at Windsor the Scriptures speaking of these latter times says among others there are these two Characters of the evil men found in them that as they are such that have eyes full of adultery or the adulteress so they have an heart exercised with covetous practises Mr. Wood shall find where the latter is in the heart sure it will be found in his which is Adultery as to God for it is covetousness forsooth no sin in these times which yet saith the Apostle is Idolatry and the very radix and root of all sin there I say without all peradventure is the other if not in the body yet in the eye this sure at least was in the eye of Mr. Wood he would else not have reproacht me with the entertainment of this Woman for assuredly she was in my account yea doubtless in the account of those made her the Matron of the Savoy a Woman sober and of good report yea I suppose with the Governour and others here who had speech and acquaintance with her as well as I she having two Children in these parts and one of them at Eaton-School as touching her entertainment at my house I am confident it was design'd if by any means they might by her ensnare me a practice used by the Heathen of old against the holy men and Martyrs of God to find occasion against them to take away their lives she came I confess in an affright to my dwelling in the Castle she being denyed of the Souldiers to return as she said to her Lodging I advised her that being innocent she had no cause to fear to go before the Governour before whom they told her she must appear she did accordingly when being as she said threatned to be put into the custody of the Marshal she desired she might have leave to go to her wonted Lodging which was at one Harrises in the Castle by no means this might be but saith the Governor you may see whether you may not stay at Mr. Bacons wherefore at his moving she came to desire me to go to him when I came the Governors first demand of me was whether I would passe my word for Mrs. Ceenee I told him no nor ye for any one else the next was whether to prevent her going to the Marshal she should abide at my house I said I thought rather then that she should be in distress my Wife would provide some Lodgings for her which she did and I consented to in the simplicity and uprightness of our hearts it was a frequent charge the Pharisees brought against Jesus that he was a friend of Publicans and Harlots God hath had mercy on me in this to drink of the same Cup from men of like spirit with them but rejoyce and be exceeding glad for this hath been the lot of the just from the beginning of the World The last of Mr. Woods good speeches of me is that he and others cannot tell when if at any time they come to hear me whether I will speak either from or of God or the Devil say we not well said the Jews to our Saviour thou art a Samaritan and hast a Devil yet we know that beleeve of what spirit our Saviour was how by the finger of God he cast out Devils yet they said it was by Beelzebub wherefore said he and I say the like to Mr. Wood all sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto men save that against the holy Spirit but I will conclude with only these two sayings They that are of God hear and can hear alone his word and he that knoweth God and is born of him heareth us and he that is not of God heareth not us in this or by this we discern betwixt the spirit of God and the spirit of this World the spirit of truth and the spirit of error Mr. Wood and others of the same mind with him professeth in this charge that he hath no discerning of the one of these from the other and so must needs be a peece of that man of sin of which the Scripture saith should come and even now is in the world FINIS

mind of his is committed to me for sure it seems much more becoming a Christian then a Heathen to profess as Horace did Non egit Mauri jaculis nec arcu integer vitae scelerisque purus Who faultless is and walks with God Needs not as others use the rod. My best strength through grace is the doing in Christ the most holy Will of God wherefore I retired my self to a place convenient for a hearing of what would be said and made observation especially of these two things in his discourse he endevoring after the acceptance of the people though it were to the prejudice of the most holy Word and truth of God The first was his bending his speech to a justification of the observation of days and times especially according to the form and custom of the late much-talk'd of Church of England for which intent according to the rubrick were the Chapters read and his discourse thereon assuring That as such things were of old in the first and best times so they ought of good Christians to be with no less esteem respected now not considering either the Apostacy that hath been now yet of a long time nor yet the express forbidding of the Apostle the Church of the New Testament as it is Gal. 4. and Col. 2. The second was his Charity mistaken that all were to be reckoned of the brotherhood for that was his subject Love the Brotherhood that had the outward Baptism a very quick and easie way of uniting all Opinions of men all Europe and the World over for if the brotherhood be alone upon that account I may truly say there is no such thing at all as that of which the Apostle speaks but the truth is the world or which is all one the Synagogue of Satan whether in Rome or England have for a deceiving of themselves and others the more securely and without controul possest themselves as Babylon did of old of these and the like most holy utensils or vessels of the Temple or true Church of God so that he that describes the Brotherhood by any such like outward observation it is to me a sure sign that he hath little or no skill of the thing of which he speaks for as much as these things are found with much more glory in Babel then any where else SECT IX BY this Sermon the people of this place had again a taste of that which their Souls have these many years much lusted after but have been of God and Man in a great degree deprived of yet in this encounter the matter was through a cross endevor of other the people of this place almost as soon at an end as begun for they by Letter to Mr Holland as the other by Petition to the Lord Whitlock gave occasion of a debate in private above of the matters were more publique here in so much that their expectation became for the present wholly frustrate as to this man and meats yea some there were undesired of me though not without my knowledg thought good to put an end to the strife arising in this place as touching the formality name and title of Vicar for as for the thing it self the matter of preaching and the officiating in all things relating to the glory of God and the good of the people as the Parliament by their Authority have allowed and continued me here so I have with all gladness as to the Lord and them been faithful in the thing and trust have been commited to me according to the measure of Gods grace and presence with me which is indeed the rule according to which I walk I say there was upon this occasion by the consent of some for this intent this Letter writ to the Burgess of and for this place Mr Holland the import of which I have been of many of all sorts almost ever since the death of Mr Cleaver much urged to accept of but still refused upon this alone account that the matter needed not for it could add nothing to the thing I was conversant in saving onely a certain foolish and some say Antichristian name which I was not willing after all this war and trouble and struggle about matters of this nature to accept yet now at length through importunity and the consideration that as it could add nothing to me so it could indeed derogate nothing from me for let men call me what they please I shall notwithstanding through the help of God remain still the same as upon a like occasion being sometimes asked of one of the now chief Fellows of Eaton Colledg whether it were lawful to be a Fellow there yea or no I gave him onely this answer that set a light whether of a Candle or the like in the dark Cellar or elsewhere it will afford light as freely there as in the Chamber for certainly the Motto of every good man is as his was semper idem the same in one condition and place as another I say upon this account I consented to the writing and subscribing this Letter in the words and form following Very worthy Sir A Letter to M. Holland We are encouraged again the second time to present to you our desire as concerning Mr Bacon that having had an experience of his manner of life purpose faith doctrine and diligence in the work he delights in and we by him partake of we have judged our selves concerned and do in a manner fully perswade and assure our selves of your furtherance of us in this endevor that the Broad-seal sought for so often for others might be through your means and our charge fixed now at length on him not because he of himself either desires or needs it for a justification of him or the work he labors in but rather first to put an end to the strife is already here upon that account and secondly thereby is conceived hope of perfecting of the good is by him through the help of God already begun and finally it is conceived worthy of the State and you and this place to fix him to this place with suitable encouragement that hath to his outward prejudice so faithfully and so long served the Lord and you among us This if you procure we shall acknowledg our selves further bound to you and for that cause are bold to subscribe our selves Your humble servants and friends to serve you in the Lord at Windsor This was after a while seconded by the voluntary offer and endevor of one of the chief men of our Town who took opportunity at his being in London to apply himself both to Mr Holland and the Lord Whitlock from both which he had as he did profess encouragement as to my continuance here onely this they were pleased to say as well the one as the other that they did judg it meet not to burthen me with any such thing as the name and title of Vicar yet not expressing themselves as willing of Mr Kind's coming to a concurrence with me