Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	work_n	world_n	worldly_a	90	3	7.7937	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B20729	A letter of Mr. John Cottons, teacher of the Church in Boston in New-England, to Mr. Williams, a preacher there wherein is shewed that those ought to be received into the Church who are Godly, though they doe not see nor expressely bewaile all the pollutions in church-fellowship, ministery, worship, government.	Cotton, John, 1584-1652.; Williams, Roger, 1604?-1683.	1643 (1643)	Wing C6441	9,474	16

willing in true meekenesse of Spirit to receive satisfaction the body of the members whom we receive doe in generall professe the reason of their comming over to us was that they might be freed from the bondage of such humane inventions and ordinances as their soules groaned under for which also they professe their hearty sorrow so far as through ignorance or infirmity they have beene defiled Besides in our daily meetings and especially in times of our solemne humiliations we generally all of us bewaile all our former pollutions wherewith we have defiled our selves and the holy things of God in our former Administrations and Communions but wee rather choose to doe it than to talke of it and wee cannot but wonder how you can so boldly and resolutely renounce the Churches of Christ for neglect of that which you know not whether they have neglected or no and before you have admonished us of our sinfulnesse in such neglect if it be found amongst us Object 3. Your third Objection is taken from Hag. 2.13 14 15. a place which you desire may be throughly weighed and that the Lord would hold the scales himselfe The Prophet there tels the Church of the Jewes that if a person uncleane by a dead body touch holy things those holy things become uncleane unto him and so saith he is this Nation and so is every worke of their hands and that which they offer there is uncleane And this as you conceive argueth that even Church Covenants made and Ordinances practised by persons polluted through spirituall deadnesse and filthinesse of Communion they become uncleane unto them and are prophaned by them Answ Now surely if your selfe had hearkned to your owne desire and had throughly weighed the Scripture and had suffered the Lord to have held the scales himselfe you would never have alledged this place to your purpose Your purpose was to prove that Churches connot be constituted by such persons as are uncleane by antichristian pollutions or if they be so constituted they are not to be communicated with but separated from To prove this you alledge this place when the Prophet acknowledgeth the whole Church of the Jewes to be uncleane and yet neither denyeth them to be a Church truely constituted nor stirreth up himselfe or others to separate from them If you say why but they were uncleane I Answer be it so but were they therefore no Church truely constituted or to be separated from yea did not Haggai and Zachary themselves communicate with them and call others also to come out of Babell to communicate with them even whilest Joshua the High Priest was still polluted with his unclean garments Zac. 2.6 7. with 6.3.8.3 But if indeed you desire to know what upon due weighing of the place I conceive to be the meaning of it you shall finde it to be this The occasion of the words arise from a worldly distemper which the time grew upon all sorts of the members of that Church who were so farre carryed away with care of their owne outward accommodations that while every man looked to his owne house and the seiling of it the Temple of the Lord and the building thereof was generally neglected of them all Prince Priest and People whence it was that God neither delighted in their spirituall services nor in their bodily labours but left them without a blessing in both Hagg. 1.6 to 11. Now to cleare the justice of Gods proceeding against them in that case he alledgeth a secondable law for it out of Moses The former is written in Levit. 6.27 where the Law saith that a garment touching any holy flesh of the sin offering should be holy But if the garment which toucheth holy flesh shall touch other things as the person that weareth it or any pottage or Bread or wine or any touch of other common thing the thing touched is not thereby hallowed by the touch of such a garment Againe there was another Law that whosoever touched any uncleane body should be uncleane seven dayes and if in that time hee touched the Tabernacle or the holy things thereof they shall be uncleane Numb 19.13 Now to apply these Lawes to the scope of the Prophet the touch of a dead body did type out either fellowship with dead workes as Ephes 5.11 or dead persons 2 Cor. 6.14 15 16 17. or dead world Gal. 6.14 but of these three it was the dead world wherewith Priest and Prince and all the people were at that time generally defiled in that they tooke more care and paines for worldly conveniences then for the Lords holy Ordinances Whereupon according to the answer of the Priest agreeable to the Law the Prophet pronounceth them in the sight of the Lord all to be uncleane From both these Lawes and the Interpretation of them by the Priest and the application of them by the Prophet it appeareth that there were two sorts of these people and both uncleane Some that did not touch the holy flesh or offerings but on the outside of their garments onely to wit in bodily presence and the body is but the garment of the Soule 1 Cor. 5.4 and such were all the Hypocrites amongst them Others were sincere as worshipping God in firme Truth as Zorobabell Jehoshua and many more but yet now defiled with touching a dead body that is with laying hold on a dead world their worldly accommodations which made their hearts and hands slow or dead to set forward the Temple worke and in this condition both sorts their persons their oblations their bodily labours were all uncleane and found neither acceptance nor blessing from the Lord till the Lord stirred up the Spirits of them all to addresse themselves more seriously to the Temple worke Hag. 1.12 13 14. This I take to be the true and genuine meaning of the place which if you apply to the point in hand will reach nothing neare to your purpose Hypocrites in the Church and godly Christians themselves whilst they attend to the world more then to the things of God their persons their labours their civill oblations are all uncleane in the sight of God therefore the Church of Christ cannot be constituted of such or if it doe consist of such the people of God must separate from them You might well have gathered therefore the Church of Christ and the members thereof must separate themselves from their hypocrisie and inordinate love of this world or else they and their duties will still be uncleane in the sight of God notwithstanding their Church estate This collection tendeth to edification the other to dissipation and destruction of the Church and of them that wrest blood in stead of milke from the breasts of holy Scripture The second stumbling blocke or offence which you take at the way of these Churches is that you conceive us to walke betwixt Christ and Antichrist First in practising separation here and not repenting of our preaching and printing against it in our owne country Secondly in reproaching