Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A35320
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The excellency of the Protestant faith as to its objects and supports in a sermon preached November 5th, 1689 / by T. Cruso.
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Cruso, Timothy, 1656?-1697.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing C7438; ESTC R24865
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18,093
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32
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Rock to be better than our own Briefly there may be these three grounds and reasons of it First There is a mighty Evidence in some Truths which cannot be resisted by Men of the most corrupt minds The Light of Nature is not so far put out in the vilest Persons but that they do see some of the Differences between good and evil Indeed the deep Mysteries of the Gospel are such as cannot be known by Natural Men 1 Cor. 2.14 but there are other Truths so manifest and notorious that they cannot easily be ignorant of them 't is almost impossible to hide them from their understandings and Conviction breaks in against their Wills. It may be in their power to deny many things which 't is not in their power to disbelieve their Tongues perhaps may speak in opposition to that which their Judgments do necessarily assent to as the Devil may be the Author of Atheistical Suggestions to others tho' he cannot doubt of the being of God himself I question not but that our Enemies would judge their Rock to be better than ours if they could bring their thoughts as well as their Words so much under their own Command therefore we must conclude that they think thus because they are not able to avoid it by thinking otherwise Secondly Signal Rebukes of Providence do many times make this Truth more plain to our Enemies of the Incomparable Excellency of our Rock Then it becomes as legible to them as the Handwriting upon the Wall to Belshazzar and they discern it as clearly Exod. 8.19 as Pharaohs Magicians did the finger of God when they could no longer imitate the miraculous Works of Moses by their Enchantments If Dagon cannot stand before the Ark of the Lord 1 Sam. 5.2 even in the house of Dagon but like a poor helpless God be driven of from his own dunghil it must needs in some measure open the eyes of those that are most in love with darkness When God frustrates the most probable tokens of the Lyers and turns the wisest counsells into foolishness When he brings his wheel on a sudden over their necks that are trampling upon others and makes Men's own contrivances and preparations most pernicious and fatal to themselves When Enemyes that were wont to be attended with the strangest successes fall afterwards under as surprizing disappointments and the stream of prosperity which hath carried all before them runs as strong against them This will certainly make them reflect though Satan bend all his cunning to stiste such Reflexions upon the weakness of the Rock which they trust in There are some appearances of God in all his works he does nothing but what declares the glory of the Agent nevertheless there are particular dispensations also towards the Enemies of the Church Psal 9.16 wherein the Lord is eminently known by the Judgments which he executeth Thirdly The Terrours of God are a Demonstration of this truth sometimes to Adversaries even in the midst of their prosperity I do not think that Babylon even while she sits as a Queen can fortifie her Children against inward Convulsions or that they who seem above the fears of any visible disturbance are therefore alwayes perfectly at ease the Worm of Conscience may be biting while their Gourd is flourishing the Spirits of Israels troublers may be troubled and when their voice to others is as the roaring of a Lyon. God may speak more dreadfully in his Wrath to them Psal 2.5 He who can touch the Mountains so as to make them smoak can make the Pillars of the Antichristian Kingdom tremble and their Hearts astonished at his reproof This way of God's dealing with the minds of Men is worse than the heaviest strokes of Providence falling upon their outward concerns 't is many times indeed industriously cover'd and dissembled by those that feel it who know how to laugh when they have more cause to howl but it cannot be totally escap't nor quietly endur'd It will unsettle Men from their lees and beget a sense of God's excellent greatness and it may be will extort such an acknowledgment also as it did from lofty Nebuchadnezar at the beginning of his Reign Dan. 2.47 that our God is the God of Gods. If God do work upon the Souls of Enemies as he is able to do without letting loose his visible hand against them he can bring every knee to bow and every tongue to confess If any should now ask Q. Why Our Enemies cleave to their Rock still seeing they must be secretly convinc't that our Rock is better the Answer is easie First A. 1. Common Convictions such as they at any time lye under are very weak and ineffectual as to the altering of Mens state and customary practice The meer speculative knowledge of Divine Truths hath but small influence in producing a Reformation when they are not deeply imprinted by the Spirit of God and backt with an Holy experience No man says our Saviour having drunk old Wine Luk. 5.39 desireth new but the new may still satisfie those that never had any more than a Notion of the goodness of the Old. 1 Pet. 2.2.3 Those Spiritual tasts and relishes which Believers have incline them to a love of the Word and keep them from following after Fables Secondly The Pride of their Hearts will not suffer them to destroy what they have been building up for so many hundreds of Years They must pull down the whole frame of their Church if they entertain any thoughts of a new foundation They must abandon all that they have been fiercely contending for so long if they espouse our Rock and quit their own It will not be enough to give up a few less material points but their main principles must be renounc't also And this is too hard a saying for those who have puff't up themselves with a vain Opinion that they cannot err Thirdly The powerful Temptation of Worldly Interest will hinder such a change For they must then strip themselves of all that pomp and grandeur and lay aside all those cunning Artifices of robbing the People to increase their Churches Treasure which recommends that Religion so much to the Lusts of Men. They know not how to sacrifice the pleasure of Domination or to leave that profitable Trade of the Merchandise of Souls which they must do if they make choice of our God and be reconcil'd to our Religion Great Possessions and Honours do very often even in lesser cases prejudice Men against the Doctrine of the Gospel Fourthly Their Consciences are Judicially seared as the Apostle Paul foretold of these Grand Apostates in the latter times 1 Tim. 4.2 2 Thess 2.11 They are under strong delusions as the same Person speaks of them elsewhere by the Righteous Judgment of God who because they have left the truth hath left them to themselves Perhaps God may have a Remnant of People that are yet in Babylon whom he will call out
from thence before the time of her final destruction but as to the Generality and main body of that Church and more especially the Learned Men in it they seem to be deliver'd over to a reprobate mind and the hardness of their hearts is become both their sin and their punishment too So hopeless an Attempt is that of Healing those whom God hath determined to cut off In the last place I am to Apply all this with some relation to the Day Several things may be Inferr'd from the foregoing Discourse which are very proper to be consider'd by us now First If our Enemies themselves cannot but judge that their Rock is not as our Rock then we have a Witness for us in their own bosoms that our Separation from them was just and necessary They cannot blame or censure the Reformed Churches that have forsaken their Communion without some inward check upon their Spirits When they call us Hereticks and give us all the other opprobrious Names they can invent 't is scarcely possible that they should forbear to think as Saul said to David that we are more righteous than they and therefore their contradicting and blaspheming like those malicious Jews is the greater sin Acts 13.45 As Pilate even when he condemned Christ did declare him innocent and faultless so while our Adversaries revile us and thunder out their Excommunications against us there is still something within them which gives sentence for us How little then is the evil which they speak to be regarded when their own Hearts tell them that they lye in speaking it Secondly This teaches us that we may very well pray in Faith for their Confusion The Scripture encouraging us to expect this much more than their Conversion Their Rock is but a Quick-sand which will swallow them up or as a Milstone to drown them Instead of a foundation to bear them What therefore should make us afraid of using the Psalmist's words Psal 97.7 with the same hope that was in him of their accomplishment Confounded be all they that serve graven Images that boast themselves of Idols What should make us doubt but that the doom denounc't by the Prophet will be executed on their Gods Jerem. 51.18 They are vanity the work of Errours in the time of their visitation they shall perish During the time of God's forbearance and of the patience of Jesus Christ we should be praying that this time of visitation may be hasten'd as Men who are assur'd that their fall shall be great and that after it they shall never rise more Rom. 11.2 Let all that make Intercession against Babylon as Elias did against Israel believe this firmly that the Golden Cup which is now in her hand full of abominable filthiness shall run over at last with Divine fury Thirdly This shews how foolishly and unjustly the successes of God's Enemyes are at any time attributed to their own Rock This hath been their practice often as the Philistins offered a great Sacrifice to Dagon their God Judg. 16.23 24. when they had gotten Sampson in their hands So the Adherents of Antichrist have praised their Gods of Gold and Silver of Wood and Stone and made their acknowledgment to their several Imaginary Saints when they have prosper'd in any of their Designs But how much are they mistaken and deluded in all this How do they offend like the Caldaeans of old in imputing this power to their God which they receive from ours Habac. 1.11 We read of the Holy City being given to the Popish Revel 11.2 Gentiles to tread under foot for a limited time now who can give it to them besides the Lord of all who does it when he pleases in order to wise and holy ends An Idol which is nothing in the World 1 Corinth 8.4 i.e. hath no efficacy or vertue is worthy only to inhabit the praises of such as the horse and mule which have no understanding Fourthly If out Rock be so much better than theirs how carefully should we walk before him that he may continue to be Ours That we may not be dispossest of our Interest in him nor broken off from our Relation to him The same God who hath turned our Captivity from us is able to bring it back again and he that hath set our feet in a large place can yet shut us up into the hands of our Enemies 'T is easie with God to undo all that he hath done if we abuse his Mercy by groundless presumption and wilful impenitency The greatest Judgments do sometimes times come after the greatest deliverances Jude 5. The Lord having saved the People out of the Land of Egypt afterward destroyed them that believed not 'T is very possible Josh 23.15 that God may bring all evil things upon the same Persons upon whom all good things have come Our Mountain does not stand so strong but that our sins may breed an Earthquake to unsettle and remove it No humane Policy or Power can protect us if our God should depart from us We read that the Army of the Syrians came with a small Company of Men against the Israelites 2 Chro. 24.24 and the Lord deliver'd a very great Host into their band because they had forsaken the Lord God of their Fathers And if these Nations should so lose their God after such amazing Instances of his Presence with them how dismal would their condition be If God should be provok't to turn away his wrath from our Adversaries Prov. 24.18 and pour it out afresh upon us to whom should we flee for help If our Rock should sell us who of our Confederate Neighbours is able to Redeem us Fifthly Let our Rock have the Glory due unto his Name for the TWO Great Salvations which This Day brings to our remembrance I mean That which was wrought for our Fore-fathers so many years ago and That which was wrought for us but One year since God hath honoured this Day with a Double Mercy let us honour God by yielding to him a Double Sacrifice of Praise binding it as with a twisted Cord to the Horns of the Altar Psal 118.27 Let us raise a Pillar of thankfulness with such a lasting Inscription as neither Time nor any other Hands may ever be able to deface Both our Fore fathers and we were deliver'd from the same Enemies tho' not strictly from the very same methods of Conspiracy formerly they aim'd at the destruction of the Lawgivers by one blow but lately at the subversion of the Laws themselves by more gradual measures in the Powder Treason they had contriv'd to blow up the Persons of our Governours and for some years past they have been laying the Train to blow up our Constitution Blessed be that God who so seasonably prevented both the one and the other This Day might have been a Day of trouble and rebuke and blasphemy 2 Kings 19.3 as Hezekiah once complain'd and so it would have been indeed if when the Children were come to the birth there had not been strength to bring forth I mean if God had frown'd upon the Glorious Undertaking of our Present Soveraign which this day begun to take effect Let not Darkness therefore nor the Shadow of Oblivion ever stain this day let no cloud dwell upon it let no mournful voice be heard therein Who is there that bears Good will to our Sion that will not reckon it the best in our English Calendar and most worthy above all others to be joyned to the Days of the Year In short Let Our Mouths be filled with God's Praise and with his Honour all this Day long and let our Conversations practically express it all our Life long That our Holy Gratitude for the Mercies which we have may fit us for those which we want that our Sun may neither go backward nor stand still but make hast in God's due time to finish its remaining course THE END BOOKS Sold by John Salusbury at the Rising Sun near the Royal Exchange in Cornhil THE Mighty Wonders of a Merciful Providence in a Sermon Preached on the Thanksgiving-day Jan. 31. 1689. The Duty and Support of Believers in Life and Death The Period of Humane Life determined by the Divine Will. The Usefulness of Spiritual Wisdom with a Temporal Inheritance The Churches Plea for the Divine Presence to prosper Humane Force in a Sermon preacht on the Fast-day Jan. 5. 1689. All 5 by the same Author A Rational Defence of Nonconformity Wherein the Practice of Nonconformists is vindicated from promoting Popery and Ruining the Church imputed to them by Dr. Stilling fleet in his Unreasonableness of Separation Also his Arguments from the Principles and Way of the Reformers and first Dissenters are Answered And the Case of the present Separation truly stated and the blame of it laid where it ought to be And the way to Union among Protestants is pointed at by Gilbert Rule Minister of the Gospel The Conformists Charity to Dissenters and Concurrence with the Favour granted them in the Act for Toleration proved from the Works of the most Eminent Divines of the Church of England Certain Sermons or Homilies appointed to be read in Churches in the time of Queen Elizabeth in Two Parts in Twelves price 3 s. Chirurgorum Comes or the whole Practice of Chirurgery begun by the Learned Dr. Read Continued and Compleated by a Member of the College of Physitians in London