A shield of the truth, or, The truth of God cleared from scandals and reproaches cast upon it by scandalous and reproachfull tongues which the devil in all ages did make use of, whereby he blasphemed the truth of God, striving to present it odious in the eyes and ears of all people, that so he might uphold his own kingdom, but the day hath made him manifest, & the Lord is come, & is coming to make war with him, and bind him, and cast him into the bottomless pit and all who bears his image, and under his dominion is written by ... Iames Parnel.

We are accused to deny the Church.

I answer, the true Church which is in God we own, and wit∣ness through death, but the worlds Church we deny; for the true Church is the Body of Christ, made of tried stones, elect and precious, washed and cleansed by his blood and spirit, that he might present it a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle; but this is not a house of Lime and dead stones, nor the people that meets in it; for all manner of unrighteous persons meets there, which is the synagogue of Sathan, and a Cage of unclean Birds, and like people like Priest; but who comes to be elected into the Church of Christ which is spiri∣tual, denies the worlds Church which is carnal, and the worlds Teacher who is carnal, selling the carnal for carnal mony and earth; for Christ himself is the Teacher of his Church, who feeds it with living eternal food freely, and it needs no other Teacher; and this Church we own and witness, but all other Churches we deny; for the Church is but one & the Temple of God we own, which is at new Jerusalem, the City of the living God, but all other Idol-Temples we deny, which is the inyenti∣on and imaginations of man, & though God commanded So∣lomon to build him a Temple, nevertheless God that made the world dwels not in Temples made with hands; & when Christ the substance came he prophesied against it, & also Stephen was stoned to death when he prophecied against it, & this we wit∣nesse

whose bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost, who are now stoned and persecuted by such as know not the living God, but worship Idols because we speak against their Idols Temple, which God never commanded to be built, but was set up by the imagining Idolizing Papists, and upheld by the blind Protestant so called, and so they cast out the Papists, and uphold their Idols, and so the inchanters Diviners and Sorcerers of England, leads silly people in blindnesse to wor∣ship Idols telling them they are the houses and Temples of God, which is a meer delusion.

Notes

• 1 Thes. 1. 1.
• Isa. 54. 13. John 14. 26. Ephes. 4. 4. 1 Cor. 8. 10. Acts 7.
• 1 Cor. 6. 19.