Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	apostle_n	church_n	particular_a	2,274	5	6.8998	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85551	Truths victory against heresie; all sorts comprehended under these ten mentioned: 1. Papists, 2. Familists, 3. Arrians, 4. Arminians, 5. Anabaptists, 6. Separatists, 7. Antinomists, 8. Monarchists. 9. Millenarists, 10. Independents. As also a description of the truth, the Church of Christ, her present suffering estate for a short time yet to come; and the glory that followeth at the generall resurrection. / By I.G. a faithfull lover and obeyer of the truth. Imprimatur, John Downame.	Graunt, John, of Bucklersbury.	1645 (1645)	Wing G1597; Thomason E277_7; ESTC R200005	70,586	79

subordinate is the salvation of the Saints the chosen ones of God from the beginning of the world And this is the faith that justifieth that comforteth that overcommeth that excelleth whose dignity and excellencie every where shineth throughout the Scriptures the ignorance of which this very age yea I say it again this very age of ours deserves all these present judgements and more also then lie upon us at this time we having had from God afforded us so great meanes to come to the knowledge of it which sort of faith whosoever hath shall never perish but men may partake of both the other sorts to their condemnation Other acceptations the terme Faith hath in the Scriptures also having reference sometimes to God himselfe and therein importing the stedfastnesse and unchangeable truth of his decree and promise And in other places it is to be understood of the doctrine of the Gospel and so also of their faithfull discharge of their office that are gifted to declare and preach the glad tidings of peace and salvation Of which office it is hard for an Antinomian holding such principles as he doth to come to understand wherefore repent in time lest at last you turn all Familists which you cannot avoid if you continue in your principles Her We have had the experience of this new found conceited light that such as have been dazled with it have been staggred in the truth and some have been so blinded therewithall that they have fallen from the faith But what say you to us We have the doctrine of the Gospel pure and cleare we hold faith and repentance to be the first works to life and salvation and that the Church of God are a company of holy beleevers and that now the time is come that the Church shall bee delivered from all her sufferings according to the testimony of the Prophets and Apostles the purity of Christs Ordinances shall be established Christ shall bee set up upon his Throne and his Church shall have the rule and preheminence in the world in greater power dignity and externall authority then all the Monarchs that ever have been in the world before And in this outward glory shall shee continue till her Lord come to translate her Truth You speak like those that maintaine that the Church of Christ shall now so flourish and prosper as that it shall extend its bounds and borders all Christendome over and most part of the world besides into a Monarchy and as formerly the temporall power in Christianity hath had the rule and greatnesse so now the Ecclesiasticall power shall take place and the Scepter of Christ in the censure of the Church shall be advanced and bear rule above all other government And that now already it is begun that God makes the kingdomes of this world our Lords and his Christs and that now it is come to passe that the godly shall rule over the wicked for now they are given to be captives to Gods people whose captives Gods people were before this time Wherefore I answer Great are the privileges and prerogatives that the Scriptures speak of Gods Church and people in the world to come after the resurrection is plain and evident in holy Writ but to apply those prophesies and promises to the Church in this present evill world it is not well considered of you for the Lord by his servants speaks of his Church in a double consideration as oppressed afflected and suffering here in this life and as delivered perfected and saved in the life to come then to rule but here to suffer then to bee advanced into Christs Throne but now and here to submit to the Crosse now his house is a house of mourning but then it shall be a palace of glory Jerusalem the Citie of the great King shall be set up the praise of the whole earth And in regard of his Churches present suffering her Lord himselfe thus speaketh to her Feare not little flocke and comforts her with the grace and favour of God for the time to come in these words For it is your Fathers pleasure to give you a Kingdom And it is a truth concluded of by all if we follow Christ in the estate of regeneration we shall be made partakers of his glorification if wee suffer with him we shall reigne with him the one condition is here the other hereafter the one in this world the other in the world to come This is the testimony of our Lord and all his servants Matth. 19. 28. 2 Tim. 2. 12. And that short time or while of suffering Saint Peter speaks of is this present life and the time of making such sufferers perfect is the life to come 1 Pet. 5. 10. agreeing with his brother Paul who according to the wisdome of God given to him had cast up his accounts in these words I reckon saith he that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us Even then saith S. John when Christ which is our life shall appear then shall we appear with him then shall we be like him in his dignity as in this life we are like him in his ignominy 1 John 3. 2. And friend looke into the Scriptures and you shall find the Church the blessed assembly described now to suffer to mourn to bee hated to weep to be persecuted for righteousnesse sake and the contrary estate to be none of Gods Church or inheritance Woe be to yee that laugh and rejoyce that are full and enjoy greatnesse and prosperity those that are rich here have received their consolation those that are full in this life shall hunger in the life to come those that are merry laugh and want not here shall weep and waile when the day of redemption comes then shall be fulfilled to him that suffers not here these words Thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and to him that suffered here these words He his evill things therefore thou that sufferedst not art tormented but thou that didst suffer thou art comforted Matth. 5. Luke 6. and Luke 16. When Gods suffering people shall bee rewarded then such as have enjoyed their prosperity here shall be condemned I beseech you as you love the truth decline this doctrine of yours for by it you doe revive againe that old tenent of Popery For what ever you affirme in your confession they have maintained it with fire and sword execration and excommunication for they would prove that their Church by Christs appointment was to have supreme authority power and jurisdiction over all they place themselves above the starres of God And as in power so in title he must be called and stiled the Lord God the Pope And so he challenged worship also that Kings and Emperours must kisse his stinking feet and toes in token of their slavish subjection in honouring him with the power of heaven and earth to kill make alive to pardon and retain sins falsly

of God the Father descend from thence and now judge the world and all these things in a mysterie a Metaphor and Allegory You read say they of these things in the letter 1600. yeers ago but now they are in the newnesse of the Spirit and according to these principles expound all the Scriptures both of the old and new Testament Now say they is the wedding of Cana of Galilee fulfill'd in the spirit where righteousnesse is the Jesus the union between God the Father and the Son the Bride and the Bridegroom the mother of Jesus they say is the word of truth that brings to passe this holy marriage and the turning of water into wine is the oldnesse turned to newnesse flesh into spirit so that thereby the new man becomes co-deifi'd with God and God again co-hominifi'd with man and that now Christ whips out the buyers and sellers out of the Temple meaning by Christ righteousnesse and by the buyers and sellers sins and corruptions and by the Temple mens bodies expounding that Text Hebr. 1. 13. Sit on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool to be meant of their holy anointed ones and when Christ which is righteousnes is risen in them by regeneration then that saying is brought to passe that is written Hos. 13. 14. 1 Cor. 15. 54. Death is swallowed up in victory they say they are Moses and the children of Israel and all naturall men are Egyptians which by conversion become Israelites and that now Moses is contending with Pharaoh the Devill to bring the chosen of God through the red Sea and barren hard and desolate wildernesse into Canaan the land of rest the peace of conscience and favour of God and that now God calls Abraham out of Vr of the Chaldees making it the land of devills as the Hebrew word signifies to set forth to us every unregenerate mans dark and sinfull estate naturally and Gods calling of Abraham out of it to go to a land he would give him to signifie unto us the conversion of a sinner to God and Davids killing Vriah to signifie the quenching the Spirit the Apostle dehorts from and Reubens going up to his fathers bed the weaknesses of such as are babes in Christ as St. John speaks of calling them little children and young men 1 Joh. 2. 12 13. And that in this nonage this youth of theirs it is with their anointed ones as it was with Christ which signifies anointed Mat. 3. 4. who as soon as God testified to him from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and when he had fasted and separated himself from his naturall wayes and sinfull affections forty dayes and forty nights as Moses was fortie dayes and fortie nights in the holy mount where hee received the covenant of perfection in a figure And the Text saith afterwards he was an hungred that is this new man hungred and thirsted after righteousnesse and as the Text saith The tempter came to him the meaning is say they the sinfull flesh the enemy to the Spirit said to him If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread but the new man answereth it is written the man Christ shall live by the truth the Word of God then the tempter uses other means to have him to be a self-justifier and account of himself as the holy Citie of God makes him to be advanced in his own thoughts as the highest of all as a pinacle is above the rest of the building and then to presume in his infancie as if he had the experience of old age and perfection it self and so the holy childe answers thou oughtst not to tempt but to wait patiently on thy Lord thy God His third and last temptation is the proffer of the whole world unto this young man in Christ but being now grown in strength in righteousnesse makes a speedy answer Get thee behind me Satan God is only to be worshipped and served so the tempter left him and the Angels ministred unto him in all passages of service till they brought the holy One from one degree to another to sit down at the right hand of the Father and to come to judge the world And of this spirituall estate do they understand all the Scriptures that speak of the resurrection of the body understanding it this spirituall body and this spirituall resurrection and that Christ is dead or alive in every man in the world dead in the naturall or sinfull estate and made alive and raised in the illuminated estate and the terms in Scripture of this present world to be the sinfull estate and the world to come the regenerated estate which they call perfection eternall life and the glory of the Father the world without end affirming there shall be no end of the heavens and of the earth the whole creation but that it shall continue for ever successively one generation after another and as man comes from God so he goes to God in matter and time infinitely These and a thousand grosse and blasphemous doctrines are the tenents of the Familists which are the very depths of Satan from which I wish thee to repent if it may be by any means obtained and learn to leave off your scorn and contempt of Scripture-learning and labour to be taught by the Spirit of truth in the true meaning of Gods Word Heres These doctrines which you call Familists are the tenents of N. H. that is Henry Nichols who lived in Germany and writ divers small books as The Gospel of the kingdom The Prophecy of the spirit of love The Glasse of righteousnesse and divers others but although he be a seducer and grosly deceived to the overthrow of the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ in affirming holinesse and righteousnesse to be Christ the Lord now I am so far from his opinion that I think Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth to be only man that is meere man and not God and man and to partake of the Deity no more then any other naturall man doth Truth You expresse your selfe to be an Arrian for Arrius that proud Bishop whose time was above 200. yeeres after the Apostles and did then fall from the truth of the Scriptures as they clearly set forth our blessed Saviour in his divine nature as well as in his humane and invented and broacht divulged and published this heresie that Jesus Christ was only man and not God which heresie backt with his authority proved a great and cruell persecution against the faithfull and true Christians 150. yeers together as Ecclesiasticall Histories according with the plain and holy Word of God do declare as it appeares in the first of John compared with Genesis 1. and Prov. 8. 22 23 24. and John that beloved of the Lord Revelations the 9th chapter makes a full and plain description of the person of Arrius his power authority and the compleat time of his persecution and false doctrine where

body so is Christ 1 Cor. 12. 21. and again by one Spirit wee are baptized into one body vers. 12 13. that is the whole Church whether we be Jews or Gentiles So then to follow the Apostles argument if there can be no Independency of the members of or in one body then no particular Congregation or Church can be independent from the rest and the reason is beyond answering because all particular Churches make but one which is the body of Christ and this is the Apostles inference and so also is Christ vers. 5. so we being many are one body in Christ and every one members one of another so then see the membership and Church-way of Gods Church in a spirituall and supernaturall respect and not in a humane voluntary covenant of which the Scripture saith they confederate but not by me saith the Lord therefore acknowledge not a confederacy to all them to whom this people saith the Lord shall say a confederacy Isa. 8. 12. For the confederacy or people convenanted together by God the Apostle calls all the suffering Saints these are the body of Christ in these words for his body sake which is his Church Col. 1 24. Wherefore now see in a word how by mistaking Gods Word you mistake the Scriptures and the meaning of Christs faithfulness in his house as a son in comparison of Moses faithfulness as a servant Heresie In this his saying hee reproaches us all for his speech against the externall and outward gathering of Churches whether Authority allow of it or no is against us all in particular for we all agree in that and in the freedome and liberty of our consciences without question or any controul of any power authority or magistracie whatsoever Truth Indeed this is the doctrine you all teach and cry out for with one voyce or consent for which cause I term'd you all at first all one enemy bound together wich the new-found common With of Independency which under a fair pretence as under the pleasant object of green grasse lies the Snake or Serpent to destroy the very truth of God and how ever you endeavour to bind Sampson the holy childe of God as Dalilah the Harlot did yet the With of your own invention which you call Independency can the child and mother of Truth break in sunder like a straw of Rye and grasse of the field to be burned with fire never again to be reckoned amongst the matter of Gods building and that we may discover this straw and stubble more cleerly let us consider what you say in that you all agree in the freedome and liberty of conscience c. whereby the term Conscience without due distinction you put upon us most grosse and absurd conclusions For what do you say in the generall you all say as much for Popery Familisme Arrianisme Arminianisme and all the rest of the Heresies in particular as for your selves Wherefore to cleere the question by the rule of truth note and observe that the Scripture speaks of the term conscience in a manifold distinction first generally of two sorts good and bad secondly apart and of both particularly and First for the good which is to be considered in a double respect a strong conscience and a weak conscience so distinguished because some are strong through experience of the truth and a great measure of knowledge others through want thereof are weak which weak conscience ought not to be forc'd but born withall and supported as 1 Thes. 5. 14. 1 Cor. 8. 7 9 10. 11. and chap. 9. 22. both which consciences the Scripture calls good pure washed and purged 1 Tim. 1. 5. 1 Pet. 3. 21. 2 Tim. 1. 3. Heb. 9. 14. and 13. 18. Again in the generall sense the bad or evill conscience that ought not to be born with and supported in no respect whatsoever which conscience hath a twofold distinction also for every man by nature the elect as well as the reprobate hath an evill conscience and therefore the Apostle speaking in the person of the regenerate elect Heb. 10. 22. saith thus Having our hearts sprinckled from an evill conscience and our bodies washed with pure water cleerly shewing hereby that the consciences of the elect themselves are wicked and evill by nature before regeneration And in the second place the Apostle to Timothy and to the Church of Thessalonica speaks of a higher degree of an evill conscience even of such as had known the truth and yet had not received the love of the truth for which cause God sends such strong delusions that they should believe lies 2 Thes. 2. And as such do not love the truth so they depart from the true faith and in stead thereof give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of Devils speaking and preaching lies in hypocrisie having their consciences seared with a hot iron 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. And the Spirit of God speaks expresly of the latter times in which last dayes of the world wee now live in which dayes and times wee by experience find to be perillous and dangerous and by reason of the crafty cunning devillish doctrines that are invented and sown amongst us that wee find our Lords words true If it were possible they should deceive the very elect for under fair speeches and religious pretences they broach and sow dangerous doctrines one cries out for Popery and all the abominations thereof another with his pretended new light doth even darken the true light of men others say the Spirit of adoption is in all men a shining and burning light in the regenerate and in the naturall obscured and covered over with corruptions as the fire is rak'd up in ashes others say a man hath no more soule then a horse and that the resurrection shall be alike between men and beasts others say there is neither Angel nor Spirit neither heaven nor hell neither resurrection nor perfection others say they are Christ the prophesied Messiah others affirm of themselves they are the two Witnesses the two Olive-trees the two Prophets and the two Candlesticks others blasphemously say that our Lord Jesus Christ was a deceiver and so was the Apostles they also speak sleighly of the Scriptures and say of themselves that they can write as good scripture as any of those wee have others are meere Atheists and say all things come by nature and that they know not nor hope for any better condition then the present and will say these words and such like Let us eat and drink and be merry for to morrow wee shall die these and a thousand such blasphemies are maintained amongst us and will every one of them plead it is their conscience so to believe which by your doctrine should all be suffered without opposition and punishment for shame never plead any longer for Baal but search the Scriptures the Word of God and it will teach you that the mouths of such Heretiques and blasphemers must be stopped 1 Tim. 1. 11. and St. Paul is as