Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	age_n	church_n	time_n	2,142	5	3.6322	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53432	The best guide in the worst of times delivered in a sermon at the Guild-Hall Chappel on March 27, 1681 before the honourable the aldermen and several eminent citizens of the city of London / by William Orme ...	Orme, William.	1681 (1681)	Wing O437; ESTC R23123	28,642	60

an House and the power of preserving and defending a City when built not unto the Men themselves but unto the Great God who is the Maker and Upholder of all things Except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it Except the Lord keep ' the City the watchman waketh but in vain Psal 127.1 After the same manner he attributes all Conquests and Victories not to the courage and conduct of Generals and their Armies but unto the God that goes along with them and fights for them Psal 108.11 12. If thou O Lord go not forth with our Hosts we cannot be saved from trouble for vain is the help of Man Nay though David was considerably assisted sometimes by Princes and Allies and though he had often seen the undaunted briskness and courage of his own Souldiers in many Battels yet he at last found it experimentally true That it was better to trust in the Lord than to put any considence in Man That it was better to trust in the Lord than to put any considence in Princes And at another time when this Royal Prophet was in the greatest straits and dangers and few would side with him or fight for him yet even then he was confident of Deliverance and Victory and that because he sound God to be his Friend The Lord is on my side I will not fear For what can Man do unto me The Lord taketh my part with them that help me therefore shall I see my desire upon mine Enemies Psal 118.6 7. And as all the power and force of Armies without God's favour and assistance is frail and weak so the most subtil and deepest contrived designs of the ablest Politicians without Divine help and approbation withers and proves abortive With what wrath and malice did Sanballat and Tobiah the Arabians the Ammonites and the Ashdodites sit in Council and secretly conspire to surprize and fall upon Nehemiah and the Jews just as they were employed and busie in building the walls of Jerusalem But God saith the Text defeated this stratagem for God brought their Counsel to nought Nehem. 4.7 8 15. In all David's Kingdom there was not a greater States-man than Achitophel and we find he proved a good Counsellor as long as he was Loyal to his Prince But when he entred into a conspiracy with Absalom to raise a War and Rebellion against his King and Father how soon was all his wisdom turned into foolishness And the Text tells us it was God himself that did it 2 Sam. 17.14 For the Lord had appointed to defeat the good Counsel of Achitophel to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom Now then if God's love to us and helping of us be so absolutely necessary as that without it we cannot either do what we design nor finish what we are doing nor be released from what we suffer nor be secured and saved from what we fear then it will be our highest wisdom and greatest Interest to engage God if possibly to espouse our Cause and take our part For according to the measure of God's will revealed and the usual proceedings of Providence in this World we shall find that Good and Holy Men have never been forsaken of God in any portion of their Lives For God is such a Lover of Goodness and Righteousness and what is like himself that he hath given us all possible Assurances of providing for the Innocent defending the Helpless relieving the Oppressed and of favouring the Righteous dealings of Men. Upon which account it is that God is so oft in Scripture call'd a Tower a Castle a Fortress a Rock of Defence a Refuge in due time of Trouble a Saviour and Mighty Deliverer And if we can but in any reasonable measure imitate David in his sincere Piety and Holiness we shall then have the same cause and occasion to say with him That the Angel of the Lord pitcheth his Tent round about them that fear him That the Lord never faileth them that put their trust in him That he is a Sun and a Shield that he will give grace and glory and no good thing will he with-hold from them that walk uprightly Psalm 84.11 Suitable to which are those words so confidently spoken by St. Paul We know that all things work together for good to them that love God Romans 8. 28. To which may be adjoyned the assurance of Christ himself If ye seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness all these things shall be added unto you Matth. 6. 33. Seeing then that a Holy Religious Life is so beneficially operative and prevailing with God we ought in evil and perilous days to be then most carefully employed in it For then is the time we stand most in need of God's Power Love and Protection when we see our selves forsaken of all worldly helps and assistances And when there is nothing but Clouds and Darkness round about us then is the light of God's countenance most chearing and refreshing Nor doth Divine wisdom and Power so much delight and ravish our Souls as when it discovers the Snares that were laid for us and saves us just upon the brink of falling into them And that a good and holy Life is thus prevalent with God to protect and defend save and deliver us in evil and dangerous times we have the Testimony of Men in all Ages both of the Jewish and Christian Church who by one signal Demonstration have declared it to be an undoubted Truth and the constant matter of their Faith And this Demonstration was their usual exercise of one solemn Religious Duty or Service peculiarly appropriated to the particular time of worldly Adversity and Temporal Judgments call'd by the name of Fasting and Humiliation For we all very well know that publick or private Fasts are never appointed or kept but when a Kingdom or Person is under some heavy Pressures and Afflictions or the fear and apprehensions of some approaching danger and misery or for the commemorating some signal Judgment and Calamity that is past and we were mercifully saved and delivered from Now what is this Fasting or Humiliation but a taking a Revenge on our Sins which caused God to be our Enemy A putting our selves upon bettering our lives and to be for the Time to come more Godly Righteous and Sober in this present World And what is the end and design of exercising these Religious Duties upon such particular Days but only to seek and find if possibly God's favour to reconcile our selves to him and to prevail with him to stand our Defence and become our Saviour So that we can never religiously observe days of Fasting and Humiliation but it 's with a belief that if we do amend our ways and better our lives then God will be favourable to us and deliver us from all the Judgments we groan under and prevent the Sorrows and Calamities which we justly fear are coming upon us But against what I have said I know it

There is nothing next to Divine Wisdom and Power which can preserve our Kingdom and Religion but that which nourish'd Christianity in its Infancy and gave It strength to Travel into all Countries and that was God's Blessing upon the faithful Endeavours and exemplary Holy lives of its Professors Secondly Let us Seriously and Earnestly apply our selves to those other Vertues call'd Meekness Moderation and Peaceableness of Mind Our blessed Saviour gloried in this Character that He was meek and lowly in Heart and proposed it to all Men as worthy their Learning and Imitation And whatever the conveniency and comforts are which accrue to every particular Person by following and promoting Union Brotherly Love and things that make for Peace I am sure the Publick will have the Greater share in it and flourish the better for it It was the saying of our Saviour That a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand And I heartily wish that our Popish Enemies do not believe it a Greater Truth than We do For upon this Maxim they make our Divisions as firmly believing they will certainly Ruine us And we at this very Time keep up our Divisions as supposing they will do us no harm or as if we believed that Christ was a Good Divine but no Statesman Oh Consider therefore and Mournfully Pity the Distressed and Distracted State of this our Protestant Jerusalem And let us like men of Prudence and Valour countermine this Popish Plot of ruining us by Divisions with Resolutions of Uniting to the Maintenance and Defence of our Established Government and Religion REV. 14. 13. And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me Write Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth Yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their Labours and their Works do follow them HAd Man continued as he was made Innocent without Sin he might have been what his Maker would have had him to be Immortal without death for God created him to be Immortal and to be an Image of his own Eternity he made not Death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living but death came into the world through the envy of the Devil and the disobedience of man had it not been for this we should have been like so many Enoch's and have passed from Earth to Heaven not by death but by a Translation But because we sin'd God sentenced us all to Die and to return to the Dust out of which we were first taken It was Sin that made the first gap whereby death entred into the world death entred by sin and so death hath passed upon all men for that all have sinned The Noble the Honourable and the Rich they sin like other men and therefore they die like other men neither Riches nor Honours neither Profit nor Pleasure neither Favour nor Friends can exempt them from it Heavens decree is past that all that sin must die and there is no appeal hence death is called in Scripture the way of all flesh and the way of all the earth all must go this way though not at the same time nor after the same manner some go suddenly others by degrees not one half of the world arrives to the natural age of man threescore years and ten and those that do their bodies become their burthens and their years then but labour and sorrow Man that is born of a woman saith Job is of few daies and full of trouble he cometh forth as a flower and is cut down he fleeth as a shaddow and continueth not he dieth and wasteth away he giveth up the Ghost and where is he This is the startling and amazing question that troubles the greater part of man-kind namely what will become of them after death Some are ready to cry out with the Heathen I have lived in doubt I die in fear and I know not whither I am going Others that are taken up with the profits and pleasures and other enjoyments of this world dream of enjoying the like in another like the Mahometan's who believe that after death they shall live again to enjoy large estates stately houses curious gardens beautiful women and the like Others that live like Brutes think they must die like them too perish and come to nothing But we that have learned Christ better are assured that there shall be a life after death unto which all shall rise some to go on the right hand into joy and happiness others on the left into woe and misery They that die in their sins shall be accursed they that die in the Lord shall be blessed So the voice from Heaven bid St. John write blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them That John should hear a Voice from Heaven may be believed without any wonder if we do but remember that he was a special Favorite of Heaven he is dignified with the title of The Disciple whom Jesus loved he had the honour to be still next his Master and to lean on his bosom a sign that he had greater favour and familiarity with him than the rest he was one of the three that were admitted to Mount Tabor at the glorious Transfiguration of Christ where he saw his face shine as the Sun and his rayment white as the light and where he heard a voice out of a bright cloud that over-shadowed him and the rest saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him he was the person to whose care Christ commended his Mother the Blessed Virgin Mary for by his last Will and Testament made upon the Cross where there were witness enough by he appointed him to be her Guardian whereupon he took her into his own house and made her a principal part of his charge and care He being then so greatly beloved of Christ it was no wonder that he had some Heavenly Secrets revealed unto him and so it was for being in the Spirit or a spiritual rapture extasie or transportation he heard a voice from Heaven of which voice I may truly say what the Jews out of flattery blasphemously said of the Voice of Herod when he made an Oration unto them It is the voice of a God and not of a man Or if it were the voice of a man it was the voice of Christ the Son of God as well as the Son of man it was a voice from Heaven and therefore the more to be regarded for when Heaven speaks it is fit that the Earth should hear there never yet came any voice from Heaven but it concerned the Earth to hear it A voice from Heaven was heard by Moses on the Mount and it was to confirm the Law and establish our Faith in God the Creator A voice from Heaven was heard by Peter James and John at the Transfiguration and it was to confirm the Gospel and establish our Faith in Christ