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	justify_v	5,380	5	8.8463	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60588	A sermon preached before the right worshipful company of merchants trading into the Levant, at St. Olaves Hart-Street London, Tuesday June, 2. M.DC.LXVIII. By Tho. Smith, M.A. fellow of Magdalen College in Oxford, and chaplain to the right honourable Sr. Daniel Harvey, His Majesties embassadour to Constantinople.	Smith, Thomas, 1638-1710.	1668 (1668)	Wing S4252; ESTC R222747	24,313	60

the Lord and therefore there was no need they should long and wish for Christs descent into the lower Parts who before had been made Partakers of the benefits of his death and passion as some strangely gloss from Zach. IX 11 12. As for thee also by the bloud of thy Covenant I have sent for thy Prisoners out of the Pit wherein is no Water Turn ye to the strong hold ye Prisoners of Hope Which words in their Literal sense import only thus much That God either had or would for his Covenants sake free the Jews the People of the daughter of Sion v. 9. out of their Babylonian slavery bring them from the dry and parched and sandy places of Chaldaea where they were carried Captive according to their hopes and expectations And 2. For the Souls of the unfaithful and disobedient who dyed in their sins and at defiance with God They were shut up in Prison never to be released The Sentence was past upon Them and there is no hope or possibility of ever getting it reversed nor were they in a capacity of receiving benefit by the Preaching of Christ. There is no saving faith no effectual repentance in those infernal Regions Rivers of tears there poured out cannot wash off the stain and guilt of Sin After death immediately follows the Judgment and the Soul at its departure knows its Doom and what it must trust to for ever 3. It is contrary to the end and design of the Gospel which only respects the living in its Publication Go ye and teach all Nations St. Mat. XXVIII 19. and more fully St. Marke XVI 15. Go ye into all the World and preach the Gospel to every Creature was the Commission Christ gave the Apostles after his Resurrection that is Publish the Gospel through all the Parts of the known and Habitable World make known the Doctrine of the Cross to all the Nations of the Earth and make Proselytes and Disciples by Baptism and instruct them in the true Faith it is not Descend into the Regions below and there Preach me as some have fancyed the Apostles to have done after their death that they might speak congruously to their Hypothesis But we know and are assured from Scripture that He that now refuses and slights the overtures of Life and Salvation that rejects the offers of a Saviour and prefers a few brutish Pleasures which perish in the enjoyment and yet leave a deadly sting behind them before the Promises of unmixt Joy and Glory must never expect the benefit of an after-Faith or Repentance in another World If we would be happy hereafter it must be procured in the time of life Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of Salvation even while we live and the night cometh that I may apply that of our blessed Saviour St. John IX 4. the night of death wherein no man can work Thus you see this First Exposition however it was so greedily swallowed down by some of the Antients and gained credit from their Authority is very weak and bottoms upon a Sandy Foundation and signifies just nothing as to the true sense and meaning of the Words 2. Others there are who rejecting the Literal sense fly to a Mystical one understanding by the Spirits in Prison sinners in general who are imprisoned and shut up in darkness and infidelity while they live and are in the Flesh and are slaves to their carnal desires who were disobedient after the manner and likeness of those that lived in the times of Noah But against this Exposition I have these Two things to allege 1. In General That it is a sure Rule of the Schools and ought to be followed in the explaining of Scripture Scripturae verba proprie accipienda sunt quando nihil inde absurdi sequitur that the words of Scripture are to be taken properly and according to their Literal meaning and as they are vulgary understood when nothing of absurdity nothing that is disagreeable to Faith or the common notices of Mankind can follow from such a literal acception And therefore to seek for Allegoryes in plain sense and find out Mysteries where none were intended is neither safe nor proper for if a liberty be once indulged herein what bounds can be set to a roving fancy which loves to sport it self with pleasing Idaeas and Phantasms it self has raised and men too are very favourable to the issue of their brain those fine and nice conjectures and interpretations that owe their conception and being to a strong and ungoverned imagination And how much Religion has been prejudiced and the truth of Scripture-story brought into question by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this vein and humour of Allegorizing which Origen by his great Name and Learning brought into the Church having borrowed it from Philo the Jew I wish there was no cause to complain especially in this Age of ours wherein every Pretender out of an itch of vain-glory to seem wiser then others presently sets up for an Origenian and vents his ill-grounded conjectures for proofs and demonstrations and revives Old opinions very uncertain and vain and heretical and justly condemned as such by the Zeal and Learning of former Ages as the great Truths of God as if Providence could not be justified without their admittance nor the Articles of Faith and the Attributes of God Salved unless we believe a Praeexistence of Souls Genii living in the Air and vehicles formed out of Aether by the Plastick life and virtue of the Soul after its departure out of the Body But it is to be feared that while they follow Origen too close even in his errors and take up his way of interpreting some parts of Scripture according to a pretended Cabbala and a mystick Theology fetched from Plato and Proclus they have given occasion to Atheists and profane Persons to deny the Truth of all 2. In special That the Text does expresly refer as was said before to the times of Noah and to those that lived in them and therefore cannot be meant as the learned Grotius would have it of Christs preaching by the Apostles to the Gentiles after his Ascension For this would be to confound two distant Ages of the World together and to make St. Peter speak unintelligibly and contrary to all usage and custom for who can rationally imagine that St. Peter when he saith Christ preached to the Spirits in prison which were sometimes disobedient should mean this preaching of his own and after Ages who is so careful first to tell us of what persons he meant it of and then is so express and punctual about the right timing of it for the Spirits that were preached to were disobedient but when why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Old which being a general reference of time and so might comprehend all from the Creation He limits and restrains to the Age just before the Floud Besides this there is another Figurative