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	reason_n	7,423	5	5.8303	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25294	The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easie draught of the Christian catechisme in LII lectures on chosen texts of Scripture, for each Lords-day of the year, learnedly and perspicuously illustrated with doctrines, reasons, and uses / by that reverend and worthy laborer in the Lord's vineyard, William Ames ...	Ames, William, 1576-1633.	1659 (1659)	Wing A3003; ESTC R6622	173,739	322

us than any other vertue or grace and gift of God as charity temperance and the like Use 1. Is of Refutation against such as attribute justification to Faith as it is an act and part of our obedience as a condition required of God For thus the strength and life of justifying Faith is destroyed and Christ is robbed of his glory and the consciences of Christians of their solid comfort and tranquility of minde Use 2. Is of Direction that we may alwayes set the the eye of our faith directly upon Christ or on the grace and mercy of God in him that so we may from him draw Righteousness and Salvation Doct. 4. Iustifying saving faith consists not properly in any knowledge but in certain solid or sound affiance or trust Justifying Faith is an act and fruit of the experience of Faith and not the first affiance and trust that justifies Our Doctrine is hence gathered in that the object of Faith in this place is no intellectual or logical truth as such but some good as the object of the practical mind of preelection viz. the means of salvation which is a single or incomplex terme as Logicians call it in these words on the Lord Iesus Christ where not any thing of or about Christ but Christ himself is the object Next because Faith is said to be busied about this object as about a prop or stay so that the heart of a man otherwise destitute of all help and about to run into despair casts it self upon Christ as a stay that by him it may be sustained and upheld which is intimated by this phrase believe in our Lord Iesus Christ. By affiance we understand not any assent or act of the understanding about logical truth or affirmation or negation nor yet properly the confident expectation of the will which is assigned to our hope and confidence therein contained or from thence arising but that act of the will or heart which properly is called e●…ection or choyse whereby we rely upon Christ repose and rest on him and adhere to him as a fit and sufficient Mediator by whom we may be saved By this affiance we are said every where in the Old Testament to be united or joyned to God as Isa. 48. 2. 50. 10. And by this affiance properly we come unto Christ Ioh. 6. and are said to receive Christ Ioh. 1. 12. which things cannot be affirmed of any complex knowledge or assent of the understanding whether general or special It is true that such a knowledge on the behalf of such as belong to Christ is a necessary antecedent and the cause of this faith and affiance that justifies and so in that respect it hath the title of this faith as well in Scriptures as in commn discourse But yet when Faith is considered precisely as it justifies and saves then it is understood either as an act or as a disposition of the will or heart which followes the foresaid knowledge and for the begetting whereof that knowledge doth serve From this affiance if it be lively and vigorous and joyned with fitting knowledge there followes a certain perswasion of remission of our sins and therefore true Faith useth often to be described by this perswasion especially when the controversy is with Papists who oppose this perswasion as a vain presumption Yet this perswasion is not properly justifying faith but an act of hope and experience rather a fruit in him who already is justified It is also such an act that for some time may be wanting where yet true justifying faith is though insirm as experience in the godly teacheth and therefore it ought not to be proposed in the essence and definition of justifying Faith least so the weak consciences of some believers should thence be heavily troubled as if they had not tru faith when they feel themselves to have no such certain perswasion of the remission of their sins It will appear then to any rightly weighing all things that justifying Faith as such is properly the affiance of the hear not any complex knowledge or judgement of the understanding Reason 1. Because nothing in the whole Gospell is promised to any that hath yet no affiance or trust in Christ before this affiance therefore nothing can be known that hath the vertue to justify until it be trusted on and therefore no knowledge going before this faith of affiance can justify Reas. 2. We cannot conceive any knowledge before this affiance which is not found sometimes in such as are not justified As for example such as have a spirit of illumination and light but not of regeneration and therefore fall away afterwards from that glory which inseparably followes justification sinning against the Holy Ghost Reas. 3 Because in every part of Religion and so in Faith also these two things are distinguished to wit to know and to do To know what is to be believed and what all ought to believe and to give assent to truthes that are to be believed is not yet to do that which believing imports and is the proper obedience of Faith it self which is the root of all other obedience and therefore joyntly to be understood under this as both comes from Faith Rom. 1. 5. And in very truth such is the formal reason of obedience in true Faith that under this name and nature it ought to be referred unto the will properly because it is the part of the will and not of the understanding to obey Reas. 4 Because by this act of the will we have an inward union with God in Christ even as amongst men there is a greater conjunction by a constant inclination and affection of the will than by the judgement of the intellect Reas. 5. Because the act of faith is such that by it we cast our selves wholly upon Christ or upon the mercy of God in Christ. But the act of the understanding properly and immediately doth not transfer the whole man but the act of the will which alone therefore properly is called the act of the whole man Nor can it be heer answered that Faith is an aggregate thing consisting partly of knowledge and partly of affiance because unto such aggregate things single and distinct operations can not be attributed as are attributed unto Faith For example the health of the whole body hath no distinct operation but is conceived as a single thing extends it self alike to soundness of all and of every part and as holiness as it is in this or that virtue hath no distinct and single operation Moreover no more reason can be given why knowledge affiance should make up one aggregate thing than knowledge and hope or knowledge and love or than knowledge and justice or temperance Besides all this however knowledge be aggregated with true Faith yet because a great part of this knowledge which goes before affiance is found also in the Devills themselves neither yet can any knowledge be shewn that goes before affiance which is not

of life and death over us not of the body onely but of the soul or that which is eternal 3. That we believe all and rest in them by true faith which he witnesseth and proposeth unto us because otherwayes we cannot give him the glory of his omnis●…ience truth c. 4. That with certain hope we look for all that he hath promised because also we cannot give him the honour of the truth of his promises unless with belief of them we be so affected with them as to desire and hope for the accomplishment of them 5. That with greatest love we cleave to him as the chief good because as the quidditative notion of God doth its self denotate the Fountaine and Author and so the possessor of all highest and most perfect goodnesse so the honour due to God contains in it that affection that is raised up by the meditation and apprehension of the chief good which is pure and perfect love 6. That we expresse all these duties and exercise them by a devout hearing of his Word and calling upon his name with the like exercise of divine worship because we can neither powerfully be affected about the honour of God without such operations wherein such affections are put forth neither is the honour we owe to God contained within the bounds of individual disposition or affection Nor lastly can a lively affection of honouring God be cherished or kept in our minds without such means whereby it is as well begotten in us as preserved and improved Use 1. Is of Reproof against such as think they have God for their God and keep this command well enough if they deny not God with their mouths though they never rouse up themselves to give God this honour before spoken of Of which sort of men are all such as 1. deny not themselves that they may be wholy subject to God and his will 2. All such as rest in their ignorance 3. Such as endeavour not to build up themselves in true Faith Hope and Love 4. Such as contemn or neglect the exercise of Piety publick or private of all these it may truly be affirmed that while they endeavour not thus to give God his due honour they have him not really for their God Use Is of Exhortation that by such considerations we stir up our selves to a greater care of Piety unlesse we would be like such as are without God in this world and so can look for no other than to be separated from God in the world to come Doct. 7. Who so giveth this honour or any part of it to any other than God they set up a false God to themselves and so are Idolaters It is gathered from this Ye shall have no other God That is give not this honour to another that is not true God by nature or essence For against this cōmand men sin three manner of ways 1. If we give not this honour to God 2 If we give it to another that is not God 3. If we fight or dispute against God or this honour of his Who so sin against God in the first way they are prophane in the second they are Idolaters in the third they are enemies to God Use 1. Is of Refutation against Papists who give a great part of this honour to creatures Use 2. Of condemnation against such as have their minds so fastned to worldly things that it may be truly said of them that they have their affiance hope and love chiefly placed in them concerning whom the Apostle warns us that they have their belly for their god and their substance riches and the like The thirty fifth Lords dayes Exod. 20. 4 5 6. Verse 4. Thou shalt not make to thee any graven image or the likenesse of any thing that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth 5 Thou shalt not bow down thy self to them nor worship them nor serve them for I the Lord am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments VVE have here the second Command and the sanctification of it It concerns the means of worshipping God It is expressed by Negation and Distribution of means and description of the use that is wont to be exercised about such means The Distribution is taken from the places of the means Heaven Earth Waters The Description is from the Adjunct of Adoration or bowing down to them The Sanction consists in a threatning and promise the nature and ratifying power whereof is expounded from the nature of God I am Iehovah thy strong God This command is distinguished from the former in that there essential and natural worship of God was commanded but here accidental and of free institution And this instituted worship as to the Negative par●… is declared Synecdochically by an image because by the abuse of images this worship of God useth most to be violated Doct. 1. In such way and by such means God is onely to be worshipped as he hath commanded himself to be worshipped by his word This is gathered from this Precept in that by image is to be condemned all will worship brought in by men so that no other is approved but that which himself hath prescribed This Doctrine seems also to be clear in these words Thou shalt not make unto thy self that is at thine own pleasure and as thou likest best thou shalt bring no worship to God For although this phrase hath sometimes the sense thou shalt not make any thing so as to have it for thy self alone yet both the short and comprehensive manner of speech in the Decalogue and the matter it self that is here handled perswade us that it should be here taken in the former sense This Doctrine is expressed Exod. 23. 33. Deut. 12. last verse Reas. 1. Because God alone knows what is acceptable to him and sutable to his nature and will Reas. 2. Because the whole blessing and fruit of our worship that we owe to God depends on him and it is not for us to prescribe to God by what means he should work on us or we blesse him Reas. 3. Because worship not commanded hath not the nature of obedience in it But it is Gods will and it belongs to his honour that by obeying we worship him and by worshipping we obey him Reas. 4. Because such is the vanity and futility of mens imaginations in things divine that if it had been left to us to choose unto our selves the means of divine worship it would have been turned all into traditions and vain observations as experience witnesseth that the Devill by this way hath led away men into empty superstitio●…s almost through all the world Use 1. Is of Refutation against Papists who have defiled all parts of Divine-worship with their Will-worship traditions of mens devising and

is handled the testimony of one given on the behalf of another for getting of belief or trust of them This then is also amongst the things that belong to our neighbours For it either tends to his good or to his hurt as the belief that is given to this testimony may either do him good or do him harm God in this Commandment therefore shews us that we ought not onely not to hurt our neighbour in his honour or life or chastity or goods but also that no effectual occasion of harm should be given him either by words or by a witnessing though he should not thereby be immediately hurt but either by the comming between of his own or some other bodies credit or endavour The general sin that is here forbidden is called a false witnessing that is whensoever by our credit authority or testimony we confirm that as truth which we know to be false which is the very nature and definition of a lye Doct. 1. Every lye with whatsoever pretence it may be excused as it is a witnessing of falshood it is a sin Reas. 1 Because it contains an in●…ury to our neighbour who from the very law of nature hath this right that he may challenge of us that we say nothing to him as true as that is not true no more than we would thrust upon him a piece of false coin for true or currant gold or silver which yet is but a counterfeit Reas. 2. Because there is a base and dishonest disorder in the false witnesse that lyes while his tongue and speech disagree quite from his minde and it is as if the Interpreter of some Princes should speak things quite contrary to those that he got in commission from his Prince to declare Reas. 3. Because the inconveniences that are brought forth and furthered in the world by lyes are very grievous and heavy because by them all trust in which lyes the very knot and foundation of humane society is troubled in every kinde and there is no evill that in any other sort is done to any but both may and useth also to be brought about by lies so as by lies sin is committed against the honour the life the chastity and the outward goods of men as also against his religion so that all the foregoing Commandments by breaking of this Commandment by lies may also be some way broken Reas. 4 Because by a lie the nature of the Devill himself is in a special manner followed and as it were put on like a garment Ioh 8. 44. You are of your Father the Devill and the lusts o●… your Father you will do He was a Murtherer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him When he speaketh a ly he speaketh his own for he is a lier and the Father of it The Use is of Admonition that out of conscience towards God we keep our selves from all lying whether it be that of a pernicious lye or an officious lye or a merry lye Whether it be spoken of our selves as in our vaunting and dissimulations or of others as in calumnies slanders backbitings flatteries soothings c But these lyes are chiefly to be shunn'd as use to be committed in publick judgments and matter of great weight and importance 1 Because with how much more advisedness a man lyes by so much his sin is the greater 2. Because by how much the greater the danger is that another is brought into by the lye by so much the sin is the heavier 3 By how much the greater obligations come together binding us to speak truth by so much the sinne is multiplied And that we may abstain from lying we must abstain from such things as make way for lying as are rash suspicions and too great easiness to believe and receive false reports and a talkative and twatling nature which by many useth so to be exercised as without that consideration whereby they should alwayes put a difference between truth and falseshood and the like Doct. 2. We ought to love truth and according as occasion serves further and advance it This is gathered from the words of the Commandment because veracity whereby we both love truth and according to occasion witnesse the same is that virtue here commanded and is contrary to that sin that is here condemned in bearing false-witnesse So that speculative truth is not properly here treated of neither that which is true generally but onely morall truth that is such as belongs to mens manners and consciences and that is such a truth of our words as that they agree with our minde and our minde also with the thing it self as far as we are bound to know or professe that we know And this veracity is to be followed and highly to be prised for these reasons Reas. 1. Because it is not the least part of that Image of God that we ought to shew because in a speciall manner God is and is called the God of truth Psal. 31. 6. and his word the word of truth and truth it self so that truth hath a peculiar agreement with the nature and perfection of God Whence also it is that God though in other commands hath sometimes used a kinde of exception and as it were dispensed with it for a time as in the matter of Theft with the Israelites for he made that to be no theft by a speciall explication of that command which otherwise had been theft and of some marriages both before and under the Law which by extraordinary approving of them he made lawfull yet in this command about speaking truth he never granted any explication or dispensation because from the very nature of the thing it self it hath more of Gods Image in it and of divine and immutable justice yea which is more God hath absolutely forbidden us that we lye not although for his cause much lesse for our own or for any mortal mans Reas. 2. Because this veracity is a speciall perfection of man while it excludes these deviations and crookednesses of mens minds whereby they are perverted unto a custome of lying and subjected unto the base affections either of fear or fraud or the like Hence also from the very light of nature it is a singular honour to any if they be lovers of truth and stick fast to it and are constant both in defending and furthering of the same Reas. 3. This is also the foundation of all civill society and conversation so that it being taken away men would become rather Wolves and Foxes to one another than men Reas. 4 By the exercise hereof and the love of it our mindes are the better disposed for embracing that truth which leads to our salvation The Use is of Direction that in our conversation with men we follow after this truth for though it be not required either that we know all that is true nor yet that at all times we speak all that we know to be true yet against the truth at

see their felicity to wit that they are coheirs with Christ in the heirship of life and eternal glory Rom. 8. 7. Use 2. Is of Admonition to all that they hear the voice of Christ with all submission according to that command sent down from heaven This is my Son in whom I am well pleased hear him Doct. 2. Christ is the Son of God in a farre more perfect and a divine way than any creature is This is from the particle The or That Son The reason is because Christ is the Son of God by nature not by adoption or creation Christ is called the natural Son of God not because in his first or proper nature he is the Son of God for so the good Angells may be called the natural Sons of God if they be compared with men who now after the fall are not thus the natural Sons of God but onely in their second nature and generation that is their regeneration and adoption but Christ is the natural Son of God because the Father begot him not of free choice or decree of wisdome and will going before but of natural necessity as light engenders light Moreover Christ hath the same most single and singular nature with the Father wherof there can be no resemblance found on earth in any creature but that which is unperfect Therefore Christ is also called the onely Son of God and the onely begotten For though as to the general denomination he hath many whom he vouchsafes to call brothers yet as to the special manner and foundation of this filiation of his he hath no brothers at all or like unto himself nor can he have any Use 1. Is of Direction of our Faith and thoughts ●…bout Christ. For though we use the same words of Christ and of our selves in relation to God for the ●…overty and want of peculiar and more proper expressions because God is called the father of Christ and our Father and we together with Christ are called the sonnes of God yet we ought alwayes to conceive all divine perfection in these titles and words that are attributed to Christ and in the same as attributed unto us a far inferiour dignity yet which is sufficient enough to our consolation Use 2. Is of Information how we ought to seek all that belong to our adoption and happiness onely in Christ and by him For because Christ is that son of God in whom is the principality and all the excellency of divine filiation or sonship therefore in him and by him we alwayes ought to seek all our participation of this dignity that we can have or may crave Doct. 3. Christ is the supream Lord in the Church of God Though this be not expressed in our Text yet because it is in order conjoyned with the antecedent words in the Apostles Creed commonly so called it will be conveniently in this place joyned to the preceding matter It is thus gathered from our Text Peter in the words set down had regard to the Messias whom all the Prophets had preached that he would be a King a Lord and a most glorious vindicator or restorer of his people And hither also the particle the or that looks in part For such a Messias the Jews at that time did look for as appears from Ioh. ●… 10. Thou art that son of God thou art the King of Israel as also in the words of the High-priest Mat. 26. 63 And Christ in his answer following explaines the matter how that his dominion is contained in these words Reas. 1. Because Christ is one and the self same God with the Father and God is the Lord of all that he made as well in the order of grace as of nature so also Christ is Lord of them all by right of creation for by him all things were made and by right of sustentation because he sustains all that he made with his mighty hand Heb. 1. 3. Reas. 2. Christ he is Mediator is Lord of the Church by right of Redemption For he that redeemed the whole bought the whole man to himself therefore he hath him in whole in part in his power and that by a debt of justice whereunto also accrues another debt of thankfulness Whence it comes to pass that a redeemed one wholly yeilds and gives up himself to his Redeemer Reas. 3. As Christ is considered as the party to whom we subject our selves and oblige our truth and fidelity to him by a most holy Sacrament oath or vow sealed sole●…ly with an outward badge or confession so he is our Lord by right of contract or bargain of Covenant of our religious assurance or truth giving of our promise And for these two last reasons more peculiarly and specially he is every where in the New Testament called our Lord even when he is together named with the Father and with the Holy Spirit viz. because he alone is thus our Lord in our nature he is onely our Lord who thus onely redeemed us Lastly we in special manner chuse him to be our Lord in our calling to Faith by our answer of a good conscience as Peter calls it whence it is also that we are called Christians or subjects of Christ and his Kingdome and call upon his name as his name is called upon us and professed that he is our Lord. Use 1. Is of Instruction to establish our Faith concerning the Godhead of Christ because none either can or may be called our Lord absolutely or God of the Church except God alone For First God onely is the Lord of mans life and of such things as belong to the goods of nature For Magistrates and Commonwealths are onely by Gods institution keepers of the lives of their subjects under them in order to the publick good of all and every Citizen or Subject is but a tutor and keeper of his own life and no absolute Lord or maker of it Secondly God onely may use or apply to his use the whole man according to his own free arbitrement Thirdly The things that belong to the goods of grace are of a more noble rank than those of nature If therefore God alone be Lord of this natural life than much more must it be granted that he is onely Lord of grace and spiritual life Fourthly He that dischargeth the part of Lord of the Church of God ought of necessiity to be omniscient omnipotent and omnipresent because to him belongs to have the care over the Church and all its members dispersed over all the earth and under the whole compass of heaven and to direct them in all their wayes and defend them against all sorts of evills and lastly to heap upon them all sort of good to their happiness Seeing then this is the sole●…e title of Christ that he is Lord in the Church of God it followes necessarily that he is also essentially and by nature God and not by office onely Use 2. Is of Consolation to all the faithfull that they have him for their