Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	believe_v	christian_a	faith_n	3,911	5	5.5853	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30430	A sermon preached before the House of Peers in the Abbey of Westminster, on the 5th of November, 1689, being Gun-Powder Treason-Day, as likewise the day of His Majesties landing in England by the Right Reverend Father in God Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1689 (1689)	Wing B5889; ESTC R4055	13,400	39

deprest Thus though they themselves were the most inconsiderable Party in the Nation yet they have so managed the matter by shifting sides as their Interests led them to it that they who could not have stood it out by their own strength yet by joining themselves to those who needed such an accession and were willing to support themselves by it came not only to preserve themselves but to make a much more considerable Figure among us than without those their Practices and our own Follies they could ever have pretended to They had Art enough on the one hand to make one side maintain vigorously some indifferent things while they could on the other hand engage the other to as obstinate an opposition to them They knew well that in this Dispute which side soever lost they must needs gain both by the weakening that it gave us and by the advantages that it furnished them For while we grew afraid only of one another and angry only at one another they were no more lookt after and so they had opportunities to work so long under ground and unobserved that they had almost quite undermined us before we were sensible of our danger And when they could conceal it no longer but that the Mask must fall off they even then could so far work on our mutual Animosities as to make us Instruments for doing half their work while some were so far deluded as to be their Tools in the destroying our Civil Liberties and others who had complained of the former had yet no sooner an opportunity offered them than they struck in to overthrow all the Security that we had for our Religion under the pretence of enjoying a Toleration when the price of it was the owning a Dispensing Power that must needs have devoured all in a little time So that both sides have deserved by Turns this Reproach That our Enemies could manage their Passions so as to graft their own Designs on them and to make them grow out of them only with this difference That the last deceived are certainly the more inexcusable since they had seen and censured other mens Errors and yet fell into the same Follies themselves when the Designs were become more barefac'd and by consequence Errors of that sort were the more Criminal This we have all felt so long that it may be now reasonably expected that the Experience of past-times and the publick and solemn Promises that were made in the late Distress should now bring us to a right temper and that we should now join all our Forces together for we shall have occasion for our whole strength while we struggle with such powerful and vigilant Enemies 3. But the second Artifice which comes nearer to that in my Text has been no less succesful to Them than fatal to Us and that is The vitiating all our Notions of Religion and the corrupting the Morals of the whole Nation It is plain that they thought it was a good step to bring us over to their Religion once to make us have none of our own True Morality can never bear a Religion that dissolves all Duties and dispences with all Obligations nor can a sense of Religion once rightly awak'ned bear the impositions of Tyranny Superstition and Infallibility Therefore it was necessary for them to propagate Atheism among us since men that had no Religion could easily be brought to profess that which is next to none and that agreed best with their Interests And this they carried on in one respect very avowedly for in their Books they studied plainly to prove That men could have no Certainty for the Christian Religion unless they took it on their word and so they set themselves to weaken the force of all those Arguments by which the Truth of the Christian Faith is proved and to put the whole Authority of it upon the Testimony of the Church This was no small comfort to the Atheists who from the common Principles of Sense saw the unreasonableness of believing or submitting implicitly to the Authority of the Church and so were glad to be told that this was all the Evidence that could be brought for Christianity it self But the debauching our Morals was that which seemed chiefly necessary for the compleating their Designs and in this their Agents had too much matter to work upon The folly and hypocrisie of some that in the late Times had given great Advantages against the profession of Religion was a handle that they failed not to make use of to render all secret Prayer the reading the Scriptures and the observation of the Lord's Day together with all the shews of Piety ridiculous Morality was thought the effect of a mean Education and of a narrow Mind True Piety was despised as a Cant The strictness of Virtue the fidelity to the Vow of Marriage Chastity and Sobriety were put out of countenance as signs of ill-breeding or of a weak and superstitious temper It look'd big and gallant to laugh at Religion to despise the Worship of God to affront those that Ministred in Holy Things and to set up for the most avowed Disorders on that Day which is dedicated to the Worship of God. The open practice of the blackest Vices was a good step to assure a man of their favour and to make him pass for one on whom they could depend Instruments of Vice were ready to carry on the Design and as if we had been to be drawn to their Idolatry by the same sort of persons that were sent in by Balak to corrupt the Israalites their Balaks had likewise their Moabitish Women to send among us which was practised almost as barefacedly as when Zimri brought in Cosbi before the door of the Tabernacle in the face of the whole Congregation This was a Train that being once laid and having taken fire could not but prove fatal to a Nation that is but too apt to be corrupted and the effects of it we feel to this day For Vice having over-run us so entirely as once it did we cannot be soon freed from so infectious a Disease which wheresoever it once takes root drives it so deep that it cannot be easily extirpated When a Nation is once given up to pleasure and to a profuseness of living to Falshood and Treachery and to all the arts of dissembling and supplanting one another it must be the work of an Age to bring men back to a decent Frugality and Sobriety to an exactness of Truth and a strictness of Virtue Nature will be long of the side of Pleasure and Interest these things being soon learned and foarce ever forgotten Out of a due reflection on all these things we must come at last to know the Righteousness of the Lord God has disappointed the Councels of our Enemies and made all their Diviners mad they have been taken in their own Craft and in the Net which they laid for us was their own foot taken In every step that they made a Spirit of Giddiness