Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	apostle_n	doctrine_n	spirit_n	2,517	5	4.9028	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38021	The plague of the heart its [brace] nature and quality, original and causes, signs and symptoms, prevention and cure : with directions for our behaviour under the present judgement and plague of the Almighty / by John Edwards ...	Edwards, John, 1637-1716.	1665 (1665)	Wing E209; ESTC R41111	40,611	53

which the Wise man knew well when he said of sinners they lay wait for their own bloud they lurk privily for their own lives And this madness is long and lasting as the same Preacher delivers it the heart of the sons of men is full of evil and madness is in their heart while they live I might add another Symptome near of kin to this which sometimes attends the Bodily Plague but always the Spirituall I mean a strange vertigo and meagrim which every wicked man is troubled with else he would not stagger so shamefully as he doth and decline his duty and giddily rush into evil company and suffer himself to be shaken from the truth and as the Apostle phrases it be carried about with every wind of doctrine Again look as when the Poyson hath seized on the whole mass of bloud and got possession of the heart the usuall and equall mixture of the bloud is spoiled and thence followeth a coagulation and stagnation of the spirits so is it in the Spirituall Plague which makes the sinner cold and dull benummed and indisposed to every vertuous action his heart like Naballs dyes within him and he becomes as a stone The Holy Spirit is stifled then it is no wonder that the man grows stupid that his pulse is so low and languide swoonings and faintings are no unusuall things in the Plague But then in the next place the bloud being putrified and invenomed and it's motion retarded we see that boiles and swellings spots and the like tokens discover themselves in the outward parts And are there not as sad breakings out of sin are there not fouler blemishes and spots upon every wicked man else what mean those palpable risings of lust and uncleanness What are those swellings and tumours of pride What are those dismall characters and worser sort of Carbuncles in the intemperate person and common drunkard What are those lamentable and apparent marks those blows and bruises which oppression and cruelty are the cause of What are those curses and oaths which I hear from the swearers mouth such breaking out at the lips is no good sign in the spirituall patient Alass how many ways doth a naughty heart discover it self How many Plague-sores doth the sinner carry about with him Upon this must follow another effect and consequent namely Filthiness pollution and noisomness but of this loathsome attendant on the Spirituall Plague I shall speak some what when I come to consider the cure of it The next sad companions of the Plague as of most sicknesses are anguish and aches pain and disease Sure I am they are the inseparable associates of the Plague of sin out of the corruption of mans heart is soon bred the worm of conscience Horrour and a certain looking for of judgement a sting and tortures these are things that flagitious sinners know at the first naming and as wounds and sores do usually prick and pain most towards night so when death approaches the guilty conscience finds it's torments doubled and redoubled upon it I might add another Indication and Symptome which is common to the Plague with all other sicknesses and that is a certain nauseating and refusing of food as it must needs be when the pallate is out of taste and cannot relish and the corrupt matter hath infected the stomach Thus is it with a sick sinner he hath lost his spirituall taste and cannot savour the things of God but in the mean time the sweets and delights of the wicked world strike briskly upon his vitiated pallate and are taken down with a huge complacency But to leave these more common Signs I pass to another direct and proper Symtome which is the Pestilentiall malignity and Contagion which ever waits upon the Plague it is of that ill nature that it propagates and derives it self from one to another Adam was the first that had the Spirituall Plague and he got it by eating the forbidden fruit and since it hath sadly spread and descended from one to another All sin to this day is Epidemicall and catching we are corrupted our selves and we corrupt others How many are there that take a course to damne themselves but that is not all they must damne their friends and neighbours too This this is the nature of sin it diffuses it self in a large circle it runs as in a train and doth mischief on all sides it over-runs the whole man soul and body Our Inward man that is first depraved and infected Alas the brain is faulty the understanding blind and dark it is dull to conceive what is good and vertuous but it pursues vain unprofitable and fruitless notions it is stuffed with carnall reasonings fleshly wisdome fond disputes pride and false principles there is errour folly rashness and unbelief raigning in the judgement We are vain in our imaginations and our foolish heart is darkned We are wise to do evil but to do good we have no knowledge In the affections too there is inordinacy coldness and inpotency a loving of what we should hate and a hating of what we should love The infection seizes also on our memories as Thucydides tells us of some persons who were infected in that great plague at Athens that by reason of that sad distemper they forgot themselves their friends and all their concernments Most certain it is that by the Spirituall infection men forget God and their duty and their memories are onely tenacious in holding what is evil especially vanities and injuries The will likewise receives no litle damage by the contagion it being made weak and feeble and wholly indisposed to good it draws back at the proposall of vertue but is resolute obstinate and stubborn in the ways of unrighteousness The conscience is dull and dead and as the Apostle well expresses it is seared with a hot iron it discharges not it is office aright either in acquitting or condemning but is sadly insensible presumptuous and desperate I might proceed to shew you how all the parts and members of the body are tainted and infected and are in the Apostles words instruments of unrighteousness unto sin But I will say something of the adherency and pertinacy of this Spirituall disease the infection sticks close and cleavs to our nature it is like the fretting leprosie in the wall the wall must be pulled down before it can be extirpated We must be striving every day against our lusts but they will not be quite rooted out the leprosie of the soul will not wholly be removed till the wall be thrown down till the house be dissolved even our house of clay And as we see the Pestil●nce lyes still and dormant for a long time and then breaks forth more furiously being rouzed as it were from sleep it gets up and spreads it arms wider to take in greater numbers into it's fatall embraces so is it oftentimes with this Spirituall distemper it seems to be quelled and conquered but soon after it regains it's