Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	according_a	spirit_n	word_n	3,264	5	4.1172	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A17888	A spirituall combat a tryall of a faithfull soule or consolation in temptation. Written in French by I.P. Camus Bishope of Belley, and translated into English by M.C. P. of the Eng. Coll. of Doway.; Lutte spirituelle, ou encouragement à une âme tentée de l'esprit de blasphème et d'infidélité. English.	Camus, Jean-Pierre, 1584-1652.; Carre, Thomas, 1599-1674.	1632 (1632)	STC 4553; ESTC S107507	60,746	308

feruour of your first Charitie * But in very deed THEOPISTE I doe not proceede with you in spirit of guile but speake out of the abundance of my hart* and according to the true sense of my soule A sense so true and solide that all the holy Scripture which is the word of Truth of Truth and of life euerlasting * is all full of it nor are pious bookes furnished with any other instructions vpon the matter of temptations Which I assure my selfe you will be constraind to confesse vnto me if allaying for a while the tumult of your hart and silencing the noise of your disquiete you would call to mind the precepts of our B. F. in the fourth part of his Philothee For what he speakes there of temptations in generall ought and may easely be applyed to yours in particular And if my ignorance dare adde any thing to so great an Oracle I beseech your humilitie to arme her selfe with patience to reade what I am about to put downe An holsome Feare CHAP. VII YOv thinke you are lost and I hold that you walke in the way of saluation You repute your selfe an Ethnike worse then an Infidele and I admire your Faith you apprehend your selfe defeated and I sing not your victorie For all victorie proceeds from the God of Hostes but the victorie of the Tryumph of Gods Mercy in you You neuer saw your selfe say you so feeble in point of Faith and I neuer saw you so constant in it It is true in deede that your aduersarie like vnto a roreing Lion doth roame about endeuouring to make you his prey marrie the resistance you make against him by the force of Faith * doth make me iustly beleeue that grace superaboundeth where you deeme sinne doth abounde * For you haue to doe with an enemy whom IESVS CHRIST by his death did so weaken that he can gaine no aduantage against vs but by our owne disloyaltie and dasterdlinesse all the feelings which he can rayse vp in vs not being able to forme any sinne at all without our consent So that as from Grace which is neuer awanting all our succour comes so from our selues alone is our ruine * Which when it arriues we are not so much to accuse the enemyes force as our owne malice But you feare say you to fall by consent and that force of the Tempest driueing your fraile vessell against the shelues you may suffer shipwrake in Faith * which is the most deplorable that can be suffered in spirituall life While I for my part dare assure you that he is blessed who feares continually * for he that feares to offend God doth truely loue his Law * and his Faith This feare of our Lord doth driue away sinne * and permits it not to raigne in the soule * DAVID tearmes it the ferme Pillar and firmamēt of the mynd * Who knowes not that it is the will of God that we should worke our saluation in Feare and Trembling * O Lord said DAVID pierce my flesh with the nayles of thy Feare and make me to dreade thy iudgemēts * I should be exceeding sorie THEOPISTE that this Feare should forsake your hart and I should intertayne a farre worse opinion of your desease if your pulse did not beate so hard That which makes you sorrowfull glads me what afflictes you comforts me what you conceaue to be signes of death are to me markes of life in you To doubt and to consent are incompatible CHAP. VIII YOu stād in feare THEOPISTE that your consent should follow your sense or feeling and I hold according to all Diuinitie a farre better warranty then your apprehensions that it is as impossible to ioyne a doubt and a consent together as a certaine with an vncertaine thing For consent doth presuppose so full and absolute aggreement and yeelding vp of it selfe and so constant a determination that it leaues no doubt at all behind it The Archer that hath a shaking hand hardly euer hits the white The ayme to be leuell and straight must also be stiddie and constant The surest signe that we consent not is to doubt that we consent So that the same thing which doth trouble you doth free and cleare my iudgement of all doubt Thus your blinding Egiptian fogges are to me a light as to the Israelite The darke cloud which doth incompasse you is to me a Pillar of fire * for its light a fire for strength a pillar I would to God that you had ether my eyes or at least would credit my words you should presently be cured That in the temptation we are to feare the fault and not the paine CHAP. IX BVt happily it is the too inordinate desire of health that delayes the cure Fire is fallen vpō them * saith the Psalmist speaking of the children of Israel nor haue they seene the sunne * Nothing doth so much hinder a man to discerne the light of reason as the heate of a violēt passiō which is neuer without smoke THEOPISTE I doe a litle doubt me that in this tribulation which doth afflict you you doe more fly the Paine then the Faulte or at least that you feare and flie not the Faulte but by reason of the Paine which followes it as the inseparable shadowe of this infortunate body This peraduentures is the roote of your euil God will be loued for his ownesake Not for the reward which he promiseth otherwise the reward would be loued as God and God as the reward He will haue vs to abstayne from sinne not so much for the feare of his Iustice as for feare to offend his goodnes Thence it may be he leaues you to be tempered and seasoned in this temptation By meanes of it he vrgeth you on by frightes to th end that being gotten to a higher degree of Charitie this sterne and seruile feare may giue place to filiall feare And then this yoke shall rott away that is shall burst by the application and force of that heauēly oyle * following the tearmes of one of the Prophetes Lay your hand vpon a good not an erroneous conscience and vpō an vnfayned Faith * and tell me in words of Truth * THEOPISTE whether I haue not put my fingar vpon your sore and touched you to the quicke For the knowledge which I haue of the goodnes of your soule makes me as I cōceaue clearely see that this feare causeth you to runne vp and downe searching for Dittanie to draw out of your thigh or rather out of your hart the arrow of tēptation the smarte wherof doth more trouble you then any ferme beleife you haue of faulte cōmitted But tell me then in simplicitie of hart my deare THEOPISTE if it be not as I say or rather as I coniecture since like vnto NABVCHODONOSOR you will haue me not onely to interprete but euen to arreade your dreames and thoughtes For loe Phisitians doe onely cure the deseases they know nor doe they know them but by a true relation which

Lord that I lifte vp my eyes who dost inhabite the Heauens * Alas doe not chastise me in thy fury correct me not in thine angar * And a number of others the like eleuations of of mind which the Psalmist breathes out in so many passages of his heauenly Canticles Whereby we are taught that Prayer is the towre of DAVID an Armory wherin are all sorts of armour against the assaults of temptation so that we alwayes conclude ouer prayers in those words of perfect resignation Let thy will ô Lord be done not myne * Be it done in earth as it is in Heauen * Be it done according to thy blessed pleasure not according to my guste or liking For if we desire that God should doe our will is it not most reasonable that we should submit our selues vnto his And that we should repute him our soueraigne law * put downe in the beginning of our booke * and engrauen in the midst of our hart We doe often aske and receaue not because we aske amisse * And God who is good doth sometimes out of Loue deny vs that which if he were offended with vs he would grāt vs. S. PAVLE petitioned to be freed from that shamefull temptation which did afflict him but was answered that grace did suffice him because his vertue was perfected in infirmity * So that he was heard in one sense and not in another Let vs therefore aske what we ought and as we ought and Gods promisse will neuer faile vs. For his Truth remaines foreuer and his word passeth not The word of God another Antidote CHAP. IV. BEsides Prayer there is yet another weapon very powrefull against temptations especially that with which you are afflicted THEOPISTE it is the sword of the Holy Ghost the word of God * whether it be heard for faith is by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ * read or spoken for its redounding is the voice of thunder which doth daūt the accursed spirits The tryall of this remedie was made by our Sauiours temptation in the desert who repelled the Tempters darts with the words of life life euerlasting * The Authour of it is S. HIEROME writing to his EVSTOCHIVM deliuering her verie particular and ample documents touching it S. GREGORIE in his Moralls S. BASILE in his short Rules and CASSIAN in his twenty two Conference all who with one consent doe aduise vs to store our selues with sacred darts opposite to the vices which temptation doth suggest as with so manie sharpe arrowes quiuered vp in our memorie where of we may make vse in time of neede to beate downe all the enemys plots by a constant and couragious cōter-batterie Howbeit I must ingeniouslie confesse this remedie is not so commō nor is it vsefull for euerie one but such as are conuersant in holie write or bookes of spiritualitie And indeed THEOPISTE I speake to you as to one that knowes the law * as S. PAVLE saith that you may make vse of this weapon in this your extreamitie according to the skill you haue therat All the Holie Fathers hold it soueraigne Hence DAVID said that the arrowes of God that is of his word were sharpe headed powerfull aboue his workes fit to beate downe the enemies of the King of Glory * That melancholie is to be auoyded CHAP. V. BVT I perceaue the tempest of your mynd requiers that I should sound search your wound yet deeper and presse and prie with more diligence into your sore O God THEOPISTE take-heade least that bitternesse of mynd which doth possesse you proceeding frō the smart of your euil endured with melancholie and impatience may be worse then the temptation it selfe It is a remedie which nature without the helpe of Grace can applie vnto it selfe while yet in lieu of disengaging it selfe it inueigles it selfe in lieu of curing it impoysones its woūd in lieu of lightening it makes its owne burden more vnweldie In vaine THEOPISTE in vaine doe you striue to build your interiour house vpon a solide and sure foundation vnlesse God put his hand to the worke If God keepe not the Citie of your soule in vaine doe you stand sentinell in vaine you walke the round of the walls * Vnlesse that strong armed keepe the Fort you are neuer to hope for Peace * If he awake not if he speake not the storme will not cease * the calme will not come * If you thinke to find out the meanes in your selfe whereby to conserue your Faith against the powers of darkenesse * you seeke for birds in the sea fishes on the drie land you looke to finde out fountaines of liuing water in broken cisternes and in Nature fruites not to be found in her garden effects that are beyōd her reach Yes for Faith being infused into our hart by a diuine and supernaturall way she will not be stayed there By humane meanes nor by our endeuours strife alone If you thinke by your owne endeuours to quite your selfe of the assaultes which are made against you you shall neuer be freed from them because this buckler is not of a temper strōg enough nor is this armour proofe The more that you drinke of the water of your Cisterne * the more you demand the more you are inflamed the more your thirst is augmented and your melācholie will increase by the very meanes you vse to remoue and put it away It is as oyle cast into the fire which in steede of extinguishing doth kindle it Haue recourse therefore to God in this behalfe in him you shall find Peace and repose for he assures vs that his yoake is sweete and his burden light * But that I may no further dilate my selfe vpon this remedy I referre you not to the bare reading but to the diligent and faithfull practise of the eleauenth and twelueth Chapter of the fourth part of our B. F. his Philothee where he speakes of vnquietnesse saddesse There you shall find soueraigne receptes for your desease and in the storme wherein you are tossed the Seagalls calme In fine that Peace of God which passeth all vnderstanding and all humane conceipt That we are in no wise to omit the ordinarie exercises of our vocation CHAP. VI. ABOVE all things THEOPISTE be ware that this affliction of mynd which doth crosse you doe not delay you as an importune Remora in the course of your nauigation that is in the exercises of your vocation For as the Crampe-fish hauing takē downe the fishers baite sends out by the line such a mūnesse into his arme that he is forced to lett all goe so the Angell of darknes who striues still as the Prouerbe goes to fish in troubled waters perceauing him selfe not able to staggar a soule by temptation takes pleasure at least to put him out of the racke or path of his dutie casting woode on his breade * as well as snares in his way * that he may forget to eate that or at least stumble at this He thinkes he