Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A66401
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Sermons and discourses on several occasions by William Wake ...; Sermons. Selections
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Wake, William, 1657-1737.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing W271; ESTC R17962
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210,099
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546
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even unto him and with all our Heart Words very Emphatical and which offer to us two great Conditions which are absolutely necessary to render our Conversion every way such as it ought to be First That it must be hearty and sincere There must be nothing of the Hypocrite mix'd with it our Souls must go along with our outward Performances and these penitential appearances be the true Declariations of that real inward sorrow which we feel in our Hearts for our Offences For God is not a Man that he should be mocked He sees into our very Souls and knows the secrets of all the Children of Men. And Secondly That it must be intire and without reserve As we must be sorry for every Sin we have already committed so we must resolve against ever committing any for the time to come For God is of purer Eyes than to behold the least Iniquity and if our Repentance be sincere so shall we be too The same Piety which moves us to hate any Evil will equally fill us with an Aversion against all And if we desire to continue but in one Offence it is because that we do truly repent of none So that now then if we will answer the design of this day if we will render our Fast such as the Lord has chosen and has promised to reward with the Blessings both of this life and of that which is to come we must not think it enough that we comply with the outward Ceremonies and shew of Repentance but we must indeed resolve to bring forth the Fruits of it Whilst we address our selves to God for Pardon we must take heed to dispose our Souls in such a manner that we may be fit to receive it And if we thus improve the great Solemnity of this day we shall not fail to meet with a favourable acceptance at the Throne of Grace God will be jealous for his land and pity his People He will perfect the great Deliverance he has begun for us and once more render us the fear and the terror of all our Enemies round about us Our Faith which has so often triumph'd over all the Arguments of its Adversaries shall now no less triumph over all their black Designs to root it out and to destroy it and shew to all the World that though for our Tryal God may sometimes permit the Winds to blow and the Floods to rise and the Storms to beat against our Church yet has he founded it on that Rock that shall never fail Nor shall the gates of Hell either the Power of France or the Cunning of the Jesuit or the Malice of Both ever be able to prevail against it And this brings me to the other thing I am to speak to Our Encouragement to this Duty II. For God is Gracious and Merciful slow to anger and of great Kindness and repenteth him of the Evil. It is not at all needful for me to enter on any particular Explication of all these Attributes and shew what Arguments every one of them affords to engage us to Repentance Two things in general there are which will at first sight arise from them to excite us to it viz. First The Goodness and Mercy of God to the greatest Sinners upon their Repentance God is Gracious and Merciful and of great Kindness Secondly His unwillingness to pronounce any Judgments at all against them and his readiness to recal them if they repent He is slow to Anger and repenteth him of the Evil. And First Of the Goodness and Mercy of God to the Greatest of Sinners upon their Repentance He is Gracious and Merciful and of great Kindness When God proclaimed his own Name in the midst of the People of Israel we read Exod. xxxiv that he chose to do it not so much in the terrible Attributes of his Majesty and Power as in the soft Ideas of his Mercy and Goodness The Lord the Lord God Merciful and Gracious long-suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth keeping Mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin And if we look into all the following Representations which he makes of himself whether by his Holy Prophets under the Legal but especially by our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles under the Christian Dispensation we shall find there is no Character he so much delights in as this of being Good and Gracious not willing that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance 2 Pet. iii. 8 And now what more forcible Encouragement can any one desire to bring him to Repentance than to be thus assured of the Goodness and Mercy of God to the greatest of Sinners if they Repent That he will not only forgive him upon his return but will even assist him with Grace and Strength in the doing of it That he desires not the death of the most profligate Offender but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live In a word That he has promised forgiveness without exception to the most wicked Men upon their Repentance so that if they will but yet break off their evil Course and keep his Statutes and do that which is lawful and right they shall surely live they shall not die Ezek. xviii 21 Many are the ways and excellent the Methods that God has taken to convince us of his Mercy and the time would fail me to enter on a particular Consideration of them Sometimes he declares not only that he is ready to pardon us if we repent but that he even desires we should repent that he may forgive us And lest his Word should not be sufficient he confirms that desire with an Oath Ezek xxxiii 11 As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the Wicked but that the Wicked turn from his way and live Turn ye turn ye from your evil ways for why will ye die O House of Israel Sometimes he Expostulates with us in the way of Reasoning to see if by that means he may be able to bring us to consider his Love and Affection to us Isai. i. 16 Wash ye make ye clean put away the Evil of your doings from before mine Eyes cease to do evil learn to do well Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord Though your Sins be as Scarlet they shall be white as Snow though they be red like Crimson they shall be as Wool If he Exhorts us to Repentance he always does it upon this Promise That he will Pardon us if we repent If we turn from our Sins Iniquity shall not be our ruine If he threatens Judgments yet still he keeps a reserve for Mercy to triumph over Judgment and will rather be thought inconstant in his most peremptory Decrees than inexorable to Repenting Sinners Thus he commanded Jonah to go to Niniveh and to pronounce an utter Destruction against it He fix'd the very time too Yet forty days and Niniveh shall be overthrown
the Morning and our righteousness as the Noon-day God shall come and shall not keep silence He shall save us from our Enemies and put them to shame that hate us He shall arise and all our Adversaries shall be scatter'd they also that hate us shall flee before us Like as the smoak vanisheth so shall we drive them away terror and dread shall fall upon them Thus shall all our Mourning be turned into Laughter and our Heaviness into Joy and we shall yet sing the Song of Moses and of the Lamb when he shall have given us rest from all our Enemies round about us Salvation and Glory and Power and Praise and Thanksgiving be to him that sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for Ever and Ever Amen OF Contending Earnestly for the Faith Which was once delivered to The SAINTS A SERMON Preached at MERCERS-CHAPEL January 8. 1687 8. JUDE iii. Beloved when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the Common Salvation it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the Faith which was once deliver'd to the Saints IT is generally agreed by Learned Men that this Epistle was written by St. Jude upon the same Occasion and to the same Persons to whom St. Peter had not long before address'd his Second whose Thoughts he pursues and whose very Words he seems in some places to have transcribed And the Subject and Design of both we have here express'd to us in the words of my Text viz. to exhort the Christians dispersed abroad among the Jews neither to sink under those Persecutions that were brought upon them for their Faith nor to suffer that holy Doctrine which had been so fully and purely deliver'd to them by the Apostles to be corrupted by the Errors of those pernicious Hereticks who even already began to creep in among them Great was the danger of these Christians and great the concern of our Apostle for them To persevere constantly in the Faith at a time when the severest Tryals were made use of to affright them from it and to preserve it in its Purity when so many subtile Hereticks made it their whole business by any means to corrupt the Truth of it And no wonder if St. Jude thought it not only becoming that Character our Blessed Lord had honour'd him with in his Church to write unto them but even necessary for him so to do and to exhort them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to strive with all their might and as our Translation has very well rendred it To contend earnestly for the Faith which was once deliver'd to the Saints For the due prosecution of which words as they lye before us in the Context I shall consider these Four things I. What that Faith is which the Apostle exhorted them to contend for II. How they were to contend for it III. The great reason they had at that time more especially so to do IV. By what means he advised them to contend for it that so they might secure their Faith in those dangerous times I. What that Faith is which the Apostle here exhorted them to contend for Now this the Character here given of it in our Text will clearly shew 'T is the Faith which was once deliver'd to the Saints That Faith which the Holy Apostles had once for all instructed them in and which therefore both they and all succeeding Ages in the Church were both faithfully to retain and earnestly to contend for for ever So that here then we have a plain account what the true Christian Faith we are to profess is and where we are to seek it 'T is not the Faith of this or that Church or Party 'T is not the Faith of this or that Country or Century Let Men and Times make what Changes and Alterations they please in it The Faith that was once delivered to the Saints is what we are to contend for not for any Inventions or Additions of Men that have since been brought into it I shall not need to tell you whither you are to go for this Faith The Spirit of God by providing us a rule of it and assisting and directing those holy Men who first preach'd the Gospel to the Saints that then lived to send it down in writing to all the other Disciples that were to follow after to the end of the World has sufficiently directed us both whither we are to go for it and indeed where it is that we can alone be sure to find it And however Interest has made some of late the better to defend their Errors and to maintain an usurped Authority over Mens Consciences to pretend to some other Directions Yet since it is confess'd that the Holy Scriptures were written for that very purpose that they might be the Rule of our Faith and St. Paul has expresly told us That they are able to make the Man of God wise unto Salvation and throughly furnished to every good work we shall have little reason to seek to any other Rule till some good Account can be given why this is not sufficient or by what Authority it is that they pretend to impose any other of their own inventing upon us and who gave them this Authority But however be the Rule of this Faith what it will that is not my business at present to dispute Let it only be resolved that the Faith it self must be no other than what was once delivered to the Saints and then I am sure it will be our duty not only readily to receive it but earnestly to contend for it be the means of its conveyance what they will This is the next thing to be considered by us II. How we are to contend for this Faith And here if the Question be concerning the manner of the Contention I have already observed that the Original Expression is very emphatical and implies a great vigour and earnestness in the doing of it To teach us with what zeal we ought to adhere to the Truth and defend it against all such as would endeavour either to affright or to seduce us from it Indeed whosoever shall consider the great value of that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints and what our concern is in the preserving of it will be forced to confess that we can never be too earnest in our contending for it Truth is in all things so worthy and desirable that a generous Spirit will think he can never prize it enough We see the greatest Men have made it the whole business of their Lives to pursue it even in the smallest instances and have thought their labours worthily rewarded if with the greatest Application and it may be with some danger and loss too they have but been able to find it out at the last Much more certainly ought that Truth which the Son of God himself came down from Heaven to discover and which had he not revealed it to us