Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	abide_v	devil_n	father_n	1,602	5	5.6636	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42501	A collection out of the best approved authors containing histories of visions, apparitions, prophesies, spirits, divinations and other wonderful illusions of the devil wrought by magic or otherwise : also of divers astrological predictions shewing as the wickedness of the former, so the vanity of the latter, and the folly of trusting to them.	Gaule, John, 1604?-1687.	1657 (1657)	Wing G376; ESTC R29920	190,293	260

of the stars Eclipses conjunctions c. But if they be not necessary although falling out for the most part but may have some other natural causes hindring them those he can foretel but probably and by conjecture as showers storms tempests c. He can certainly foretel those malefices which by Gods permission he intends to act either by himself or by his sworn instruments He can disclose such corrupt cogitations as himself hath injected especially so far forth as he observed them to take impression with complacency And for secret lusts manners and actions such as himself hath been an intimate witnesse of he can reveal them to his Magical instruments and make them if God will permit object them to mens faces and bewray them to the world He is continually so going to and fro in the earth that he can tel what is doing even in remotest places and such is his agility can suddenly convey it to his absent instruments or Artists and make them relate it as if they were present Hidden treasures lost goods thefts murders secretly committed these because done in his presence and kept in his remembrance he can disclose to and by his Agents if men will consult and God give leave Yea he can presage many things from the prophecies of the Word whose historicall part he understands better then men 5. Why God permits the devil and Diviners oft times to predict things future Is it not to distinguish betwixt his special spiritual and saving graces and his extraordinary temporary and transient gifts That none might presume of an inlightened minde or a conformed will because of such acts as may be without the least touch either of the one or the other Nor arrogate to themselves a likeness to Angels for such presagitions as wherein the beasts may surpass them Is it not that ungodly men and profane may thus so much the more be given over to their own superstitions and diabolical delusions And to teach the faithful and godly not to covet affect admire or undiscreetly approve of those gifts which are no perpetual and infallible tokens of Gods grace and favour Especially neither to be acting in nor attending to those vain curiosities which Satan may suggest and wicked men and infidels may attain unto 6. Whether the devil or divining predictors ought to be believed should they foretel truth The Devil abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him When he speaketh a lye he speaketh of his own for he is a lyar and the father of it Joh. 8.44 Eve ought not to have believed him because he spake of his own Gen. 3. Ahab was not bound to be perswaded by him 1 King 22.20 21 22. Because though he had a Commission or permission from God yet he exceeded it and spake of his own But I make a question whether Saul ought not to have believed him 1 Sam. 28.19 Because he now spake not of his own God is to be believed even in the Devil himself But then it might be evident that he not onely speaks the things of God but from God that is both the truth and by a special warrant Otherwise there 's no accepting of his Testimony be it never so true if he take it up of his own Authority And therefore our Saviour Christ would neither assent to nor approve of the Devils although they spake the truth Mark 7.24 25. 3.11 12. No more did St. Paul to the truth that was spoken by the Spirit of Divination Act. 16.16 17 18. We are taught that Satan may transform himself into an Angel of light and so may his Ministers likewise And therefore we held our selves not obliged simply to believe either the one or the other even in the best they can say Because they may lye in telling truth may tell truth to deceive may prejudice a greater in uttering a lesser truth may usurp it of themselves may arrogate it to themselves When did God send the devil on a message to instruct his Church in the truth or to promise good unto his children If he be sent extraordinarily to pronuntiate to the wicked and reprobates their destinated judgements and deserts they may be so conscious within themselves as to have cause to believe them But as for holy men and elect if they be not tyed to believe their truth how much rather ought they to take heed of their strong delusions as not to believe their lyes 7. Whether a wicked man may prophesie or a godly man divine Although godly men are more subject to wicked mens sins then wicked men are capable of godly mens graces Yet godly men as godly men cannot be infected with wicked mens divining neither can wicked men as wicked men be endowed with godly mens prophecying Joseph is pretended to divine yet is it but a pretence of a pretence if it be taken in the worst sense as hath been said before Balaam took up his parable a dark saying which he himself understood not and God put a word in his mouth which never affected his heart But Balaam had no more the gift and spirit of prophesying then his Asse had the gift and spirit of speaking May we not then determine it thus God may be pleased so to dispense prophecying as sometimes to prompt a wicked man with the act sound or prolation of it but inspires or indues godly men alone with the gift sense and spirit of prophecy For the spirit of prophecy delights in sanctity and purity And to perfect prophecy is required not onely the illumination of the minde but the assent also of the will as to Gods revelation authority pleasure message truth glory which indeed cannot be in an ungodly man In Scripture a good man and a Prophet are Synonyma's and a man of God and a Prophet convertible terms And a bad man is never so called but with some epithete betokening the abusive appellation Goodness of manners though it necessarily prepares not of it self to the acquisition of prophecy because it is a free sudden extraordinary insult or illapse Yet badnesse of manners is alwayes of it self an utter impediment Onely God may be pleased in such singular acts so to abalienate or suspend corruptions for the present as sometimes to make good use of ill instruments for others sakes but not often or for their own as he hath been been pleased to act with those whose hearts he hath changed and renewed 8. How chance the Prophets that prophecyed not onely by words but by Facts and by Signes also and by so many and ordinary Signes yet none of them once prophecyed from the stars or their constellations Was not that vertue in them Or was it not observed in them in their time Were they fain to make use of terrestrial signes because the coelestials were out of their reach Nay was it not to let us understand That God and his Prophets could make the meanest signes upon earth to confirm their Prophecies whereas the devil and diviners

false calumny and barbarous cruelty raised and maintained thirty yeeres persecution against the Christians devising and inflicting horried tortures upon Abdas or Audas a Bishop upon Benjamin a Deacon and also upon Hormisda a Nobleman Theoteclinus a Magician of Antioch under Maximinus by magicall force caused an Image of Iupiter to poure forth Oracles and such they were as served to whet on the Emperours persecution and to exasperate the hatred of the Citizens against the Christians 11. Of the divining envy dissimulation calumny blasphemy and enmity not onely against Christian Religion but even against Christ himselfe MIlesian Apollo being consulted about Christ whether he was God or man gave this answer That he was mortall according to flesh or body wise in portentous or monstrous workes but being apprehended by armes under Chaldean Judges with nailes and clubs he made a bitter end Upon which Lactantius his comment is That although the Oracle as it was forced began to speak truth yet it did it so subtilly and perversely as with intent to deceive the consulter being altogether ignorant of the mystery of God and man and so seems to deny him to be God by confessing him to be man But in that it acknowledgeth him to be mortall according to the flesh it is not inconsequent although against the mind of the Oracle but that he was immortall and God neverthelesse according to the Spirit And why must he needs make mention of the flesh when as it was enough to say him mortall but being pressed with truth he could not deny the thing to be as it was as he also was forced to confesse him to be wise And what saies Apollo to himselfe If he be wise then is his doctrine wisdome and no other and they are therefore wise that follow it and no other Why then doe their vulgar account us vain and foolish since we follow a master and Teacher wise by their Oraculous gods own confession In that he saith that he did portentous works by which he merited the faith of a Godhead he seems to assent unto us because he saith him to doe those very things which rightly understood and believed we glory in Neverthelesse he recollects himselfe and returnes to his daemonicall frauds of calumny and blasphemy For albeit he spake some truth as necessitated yet he seems to be a betrayer of himselfe and the gods in as much as he would have enviously concealed through an inimicall and deceiving lie that which the truth partly wrung from him And therefore he saith him to have done wonderfull workes but he meant it should be understood not by a divine but by a magicall or divining power But whereas he saith further that he was apprehended under Chaldaean Judges c. I demand hereupon whether they were Chaldeans by nature or by profession The first is not to be conceded as concerning Herod and Pilat nor yet properly as touching Annas and Caiaphas and therefore since he will needs call them Chaldeans the latter is rather to be supposed it is not strange to be believed that any one of them might be of the Chaldean profession or addicted to it And why might not the Chaldaeanizing Oracle be drawn to confesse so much against it selfe And might it not be one end of the Ecclipse at his passion to make even all the Chaldaeanizing Astrologers to confesse with some of their fellows that it was no other but the God of nature that now suffered One asking Apollo what God he might appease whereby to recall his wife from Christianity The Oracle gave this answer as St. Augustine cites it from Porphyrius a great enemy of Christ and Christians Sooner mayst thou write in water or fly in the ayre like a bird then remove the opinion of thy impious wife let her goe on as she will and sing a dead God in vaine fallacies and false lamentations whom the Judge rightly determining an ill death hath ended This Porphyrius cites and expounds blasphemously as if Christ died deservedly from the just sentence of his Judges But St. Augustine conceives Apollo spake not thus but his vaticinating Diviner and yet not he but this magicall calumniator that durst blaspheme above the devill himselfe For Apollo himselfe durst not but speak well of him saying he was such a God and King as made the heavens the earth and Sea and the deep things of Hell to tremble of whom both he and his fellow Daemons were afraid Such also was the answer of Hecate concerning Christ and so were all the rest of them Among some forced and dissembled truths abundance of blasphemy and calumny against Christ and Christian religion The Pythian Oracle being consulted again and again by the Athenians what religion was best to be set up would stil answer their Fathers or Countries customes rites or ceremonies Not but that he would false religion in all variety but that he feared a change of religion might make way to reformation of Christianity 12. Magicians Astrologers Diviners Diabolically praedicting maliciously envying malefically imprecating and venefically murdering such as inhibited opposed confuted contradicted them or their arts That is either by violence treachery or sorcery seeking and venturing their adversaries destruction whether they were Kings or Priests Christians or Persians VItellius having commanded by his Edicts that the Chaldeans Mathematicians Magicians judiciall Astrologers and Diviners should depart the City of Rome and be banished all Italy within the Kalends of October Thereupon the Chaldaeans set up an imprecatory and devotory libell threatning that Vitellius Germanicus by the day of the same Kalends should be no where or not in being And yet not that by Fate so much as vaticinall malesice Domitian having decreed the banishment of the Astologers although he much presumed to be an Astrologer or Diviner himselfe they likewise casting his constellation told him what time he should die Ascletarion the Mathematician especially threatned his death to his own face At which Domitian angerly demanded what death found he by his art that he should die himselfe He answered that he himselfe should be eaten up of dogs which saith the story fell out as prodigiously as inevitably Now those dogs being divels without doubt it was easie for the Divell to suggest unto the Astrologer what he meant to effect himselfe so easie is it for Astrologers to predict those things whereof they intend to be the instruments or by their effascinating predictions to instigate others to commit And if they understood not these very things by diabolicall instinct to satisfie their tempting invocations how should Apellonius Tyanaeus disputing in the Schooles at Ephesus stop on a sudden with defixed eyes and distracted conntenance cry out at the very instant that Domitian was slaine at Rome well done Stephanus kill the Tyrant that Tyrant Domitian is even now wounded slayne dead Well might a Magician be advised of the act when it was a soothsaying divination that provoked to doe the deed Iustine Martyr was slain by the treachery of