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	faith_n	great_a	4,566	5	3.4495	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63882	A sermon preached before the King on Easter-Day, 1684 by Francis Lord Bishop of Rochester ...	Turner, Francis, 1638?-1700.	1684 (1684)	Wing T3283; ESTC R38918	14,934	35

undoubted credit For the time when all this should come to pass that Messiah the Prince should be cut off and to make an end of transgression 't is so exactly set down in the Prophecy of Weeks in Daniel that I may call that Prophecy a persect Gospel The very time of Lent of fasting and mourning for our sins is expresly predetermined as I may say in the Prophecy of Zechariah chap. 12. ver 10 11. applied by the Apostle directly to the passion of our Lord They shall look upon him whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only Son and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first-born In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddo But that mourning in Jerusalem certainly was for that excellent King Josiah an undoubted Type of Christ And since it is here foretold that the Church of Christ the true Jerusalem should so mourn for Christ as the Jews did for Josiah it follows forcibly That as the mourning for Josiah was an annual or yearly Solemnity so ours for Christ must be and so is our Good-Friday and indeed the whole Great Week as 't is usually styl'd before this Capital Feast in memory of his Resurrection As for his Resurrection it self what Prediction more plain and clear than the Text in the 16th Psalm on which St. Teter made his Sermon Acts 2. on which St. Paul preach'd Acts 13. Therefore my heart Christs heart was glad and my glory rejoyced my flesh also shall rest in hope for why Thou shalt not leave my soul in Hell neither shalt thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption Whoever can but say his Creed may in that Verse find most of the prime Articles of the Christian Faith the Death and Burial of Christ his Descending into Hell his rising again from the Dead to which if my Text be added After two days he will revive us in the third day he will raise us up then what is wanting in this Confession that we ought to believe as Fundamental in the Dectrine of the Resurrection Some indeed think themselves most learned when they can shew these Prophecies literally fulfill'd in the Types of Christ as this in David himself Be it so but yet says the Apostle David saw corruption implying strongly that it was applicable to David in so poor and so low a sense it could hardly be so applied that even according to the Letter as we say it was more truly as well as more gloriously accomplish'd in Christ the Son of David To tell you the worst thought that can arise in an unbelieving heart It has been thought by some or said at least That some Enthusiastick Spirits writ these strange things we call the Prophecies of the Old Testament and then some others either as much transported with devout Phancies or else far engaged in design to set up a new Divinity have adapted those Characters and alluded from these seeming Predictions to such and such Passages in the Life and Death of Christ which Passages either they really credited in pious ignorance or cunningly pretended to do so But if we consider how undeniably prov'd are these Matters of Fact in the Story of Christ that answer to those Prophecies then I hope all is firm then the Foundation of God is sure Now 't is too short an expression to say we have the same assurance of the truth of these things in the Life of Christ as of any thing in the Life of Alexander the Great whose Victories and Monarchy were foretold and show'd him in the Prophecy of Daniel had we none but Quintus Curtius and the other Heathen Writers of the Greek Story we had reason enough to believe there was such a Conqueror as Alexander because indifferent persons have recorded it such as liv'd so near his time they could not be deceived nor could they have any interest to deceive us this may create a Humane Faith that 't is morally impossible such a Matter of Fact should be false But we have more reason by far to give credit to things attested by such persons as are mightily concerned and engaged by their Party to gainsay them Now 't is the peculiar strength of the Christian Faith that two Parties which hate it most I mean the Jews and the Heathens do very strongly support it and prove it against their Wills For the Jews confess and contend that such Prophecies as these were left them nay the most learned Jewish Doctors Ancient and Modern interpret most of these Prophecies to concern their Messiah whom they expected to come and to suffer many things though not Death But then our other Adversaries the Heathens Celsus and Julian and the rest cannot but acknowledge many of Christ's Miracles though most unreasonably they impute them to his skill in some forbidden Arts And for those Miracles which they are loth to confess yet they dare not deny but his Followers dy'd to attest not only their constancy to such a belief for so have Jews and Heathens done but to attest such Matters of Fact as they had seen with their eyes as well as such Matters of Faith once delivered to the Saints and such Evidence as this impossible not to be true must be allow'd as sufficient to found a Divine Faith upon which the Church is built as upon a Rock and the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against it For first I suppose that if Christ wrought such Miracles and rose from the Dead and gave his Apostles like power to raise the Dead then all that believe a God and his Providence must admit the whole Christian Faith For Miracles and especially raising the Dead are the Great Seals which God keeps in his own hands to set to his Truth when he sees occasion If the Devil himself were able to raise the Dead why has he never done so once at least after the Executioner has done his Office dextrously upon some one of his faithful Servants He has had above 1600. Years to try but could never shake Christianity as he might have done by raising the Dead so as the act might have born the Test of a fair and full Examination Secondly Then I suppose it possible for men of common sense to be infallibly sure of some notable and very remarkable Matter of Fact which they all believe and think that they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and their hands handle at the same time For if we cannot be sure of so much as this comes to then we may all be dead men or no men but beasts for any thing we can discern But if we can be certain of thus much then we must allow it as possible for those who pretended to have seen Christ raised from the Dead to be as infallibly certain that they were not mistaken Thirdly I suppose it very possible for some