Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A53326
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A present for teeming vvomen, or, Scripture-directions for women with child how to prepare for the houre of travel / written first for the private use of a gentlewoman of quality in the West, and now published for the common good by John Oliver.
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Oliver, John, 1601-1661.
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1663
(1663)
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Wing O276; ESTC R30076
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85,614
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176
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his sins lest you be partaker of his plagues Or if you resolved to take more notice of your godly neighbours about you who are made as the offscouering of the world and to make it more manifest that your delight is in the Saints and that you hate them that hate the Lord yea hate them with perfect hatred and count them your enemies Or if you would remember who have provoked and offended you by slandering you or otherwise and now shew your selfe courteous and loving to them especially requiting them good for evill and never remembring or upbraiding them with their offensive miscarriages towards you Or if you would resolve to spare somewhat more from your super fluities (a) Divitis â—uperfluae Pauperi sunt necessaria alieâ—a retinet qui ista tenet Aug in Ps 147. and sinfull expences for the preservation of the lives of many starving poor and to that end alway keep a stock by you to lay out as occasion shall require for pious ases (b) R. Bolâ—ons Gen. Direct p. â—62 Exod. 35. â—5 yea if you sought out objects of your charity and sent to some of the more modest poor to know how 't is with them that you might buy or make cloaths for the naked as Dorcas did and every good woman Acts 9 3â— Prov. 31.20 as Solomon describes her should doe and get food for the hungry physick for the sick harbour for the destitute imployment for the diligent c. This was a motive to Peter to raise up Dorcas that she had cloathed the poor widows And this sayes one was the practice of the blessed Virgin who having great gifts from the three wise men (a) Supponendum est quod illa munera pauperibus erogaverat N. Hanap Patr. Hierosul virtutuÌ„ vitiorum exempla cap. 125. p. 166 Levit. 5.7 that followed the star yet bestowed all on the poor and shortly after at her purification had but two turtle Doves or two young Pigeons to offer which was by Gods appointment the manner of the poorer Jews who were not able to buy a lambe Thus I have given divers instances of such particulars as you may make the matter of pious Resolution And if in these or any other of like nature you fix your intentions of abounding more and growing more fruitfull in every good work it will be doubtlesse thank-worthy with God if he see your heart thus firmly bent to observe that precept of his Psal 50.15 Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me How would you glorifie God when he delivers you What by a meer verbal acknowledgement and not by some signall testimony of your thankefullnesse and some sureable return for so great a mercy Wherefore I say again resolve if God deliver you to be more faithfull to your principles more usefull in your generation more alive to God more affectionate to Christ and his members more dead to the world more eminent in some particular service to God whereby you may shew forth his praise and acknowledge him in your works and shine with your light before men And thus having in some measure dispatched the duties before mentioned you may the more boldly addresse your self to what next follows viz to exercise and strengthen your faith CHAP. XII To labour for faith in Christ or if they have faith to endeavour to exercise it in trust and dependance upon God for pardon of sin is also the duty of Women with child TO get faith and to get an interest in Christ are great words more commonly spoken than understood Know therefore that faith is not a beleeving that I am pardoned or that I have true grace and shall certainly be saved this is not the nature but fruit of justifying faith But Faith is a believing the Gospel which represents and offers Christ to us as the onely all sufficient Saviour and the receiving him as such Faith looks on Christ as revealed in his word to be our Priest Prophet and King or the way the truth and the life Accordingly it causeth us to renounce our own Righteousnesse to renounce our own Reason and to believe all mysteries of godliness upon his bare Word thus becoming fools that we may be wise in him and to deny our selves and renounce our own wills and all things that oppose themselves against Christ and to make his will our supreme rule in all our actions Thus faith receives Christ with all his benefits graces laws yea with his yoke crosse reproach counting the treasures of the world as nothing in comparison of the meanest and poorest things that appertain to Christ and have his name upon theÌ„ So that they who thus receive Christ believe in him are justified by him yield to Christ the chief interest in all that is theirs in their understanding by believing him in their affections by loving him in their wills by obeying him in their time strength estate and all things they are or have by serving him with their whole heart their whole soul and their whole strength all their dayes And such have doubtlesse an interest in Christ Wherefore if you doubt complain and torment your self with such inward feares as would all be removed if you once knew that you believed and had an interest in Christ then stir up your self now to receive him as he is offered be willing to be saved by him in his own way let his interest prevail in you above all other interests and you shall find that faithfull and obedient compliance with him will sooner bring comfort than meer complaints Be not then slothfull in this businesse but fervent in spirit seeking the Lord for increase of faith and help against your infidelity Doe not by a heart of unbelief depart in the least from him upon any termes but lay aside every sin that hath easily beset you else your complaints are not in earnest patiently persevere in well doing and in a way of holiness accept comfort Yet look not presently and too eagerly for a high measure of sensible joy and assurance for that is scarce a promised mercy given to a few who are most eminently holy and with them it doth not alwayes abide neither And if you are wholly without joy or peace in thus believing you are not streightned in God but in your selfe because you either retain some sin which grieves the Spirit or listen to temptations or cherish your fears and refuse to be comforted Wherefore for your further help consider the freenesse fulnesse suitablenesse and multitude of those exceeding great and precious Promises whereby you have all things that pertain to life and godlinesse promises of pardon and promises of deliverance promises to your soul and to your body promises of all needfull good and of all things working together for good in this life and promises of all good in the enjoyment of God who is the chief good and that with life everlasting Search then
mercy upon his afflicted But Zion said The Lord hath forsaken me and my God hath forgotten me Can a woman forget hâ—â— sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb Yea they may forget yet will not I forget thee Behold I have graven thee upon the palmes of my hands c. Because he hath set his love upon me Psal 91.14 15. therefore will I deliver him I will set him on high because he hath known my name He shall call upon me and I will answer him Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee Isa 26.3 because he hath trusted in thee Cast thy burthen upon the Lord Ps 55.22 and he shall sustain thee Truly my soul waiteth upon God Ps 62.1 â— from him cometh my salvation My soul wait thou onely upon God for my expectation is from him With many other like places Now what can we expect for higher assurance then such re-iterated promises of that God with whom it is impossible to lie David therefore who was more then ordinary experienced in variety of afflictions and the comforting power of the VVord under them tells us I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living And thus plead with God Remember thy Word unto thy servant upon which thou hast caused me to hope And again This is my comfort in mine affliction for thy Word hath quickned me Let me here crave leave to transcribe a few sweet passages out of an excellent Author than whom none hath written more judiciously piously and plainly Mr. Ball 's Treat of Faith par 2. ch 7. p. 318. in our English tongue a The godly are allowed to live by Faith in times of affliction when calamities of all forts compasse them about For Godliness hath the promise of this life and that which is to come God hath promised 1 Tim. 4.8 Rom. 8.28 1 Cor. 10.13 Act. 27.25 that all things shall work together for good to them that love him and that he will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able And it is our duty to believe God that it shall be even as he hath told us The godly have had this confidence in former times whose practice is both a token of our priviledge and a pattern of our duty What time I am afraid I will trust in thee Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death Psal 56.3 Psal 23.4 I will fear no evil For thou art with me thy rod and thy staffe they comfort me God is hereby much glorified that we rely upon him as our rock of defence all-sufficient Saviour and surest friend in time of distresse It being one of his most royal titles Psal 68.5 9.9 10.14 to be a refuge for the oppressed a help to the poor strength to the needy c. And therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you and therefore will he be exalted that he may have mercy upon you Confidence in God doth the more binde and oblige him as it were to do us good Psal 37.40 If a friend rely upon our faithful promise we take our selves bound not to frustrate his expectation at a dead lift The Lord will never leave the soul destitute which trusts in him The faithful have promised themselves help because they trusted in the Lord Psal 57.1 143.8 9. And to hope in God and to have God for our help are linked togâ—ther in Scripture Ps 146.5 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help whose hope is in the Lord his God After serious humiliation of the soul Faith brings tidings that God will look down from Heaven in mercy and bring help in fittest season If their uncircumcised hearts be humbled Deut. 4.29 31 32. and they accept of the punishment of their iniquity then will I remember my covenant with Jacob Mich 7.8 9. c. When I fall I shall rise when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me This dependance on the Promises which Faith worketh is absolute without limitation of time measure of affliction or manner of deliverance All these it referreth to the good pleasure of his Will and reposeth it self securely on his faithful Word and Providence Fear rides post to out-run Danger and Folly would soon dispatch our mourning part to be in the house of laughter but he that believeth maketh not haste knowing that Gods truth never faileth his wisdome chuseth the fittest meanes and season and his Compassion is readiest when to sense and reason it is furthest off Thus he But seeing these Promises forementioned are general and you would willingly see perhaps something more expresly fitted to your own condition therefore I shall subjoyn a few other Scriptures which may abundantly satiafie in this case Hearken unto me Isa 46.3 4 O house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel which 〈◊〉 born by me from the belly which are carried from the womb And even to your old age I am he and even to hoary hairs will I carry you and will deliver you Fear not Zacharias Luke 1.13 14. for thy prayer is heard and thy wife Elizabeth shall beare thee a son and thou shalt have joy and gladness and many shall rejoice at his birth A woman John 16.21 when she is in travel hath sorrow because her hour is come but as soon as she is delivered of a child she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world Through faith in him that promised Sarah received strength to conceive and to bring forth Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childhearing Heb. 11.11 if they continue in the faith and charity and holiness 1 Tim. 2.15 with sobriety This last place is most full and remarkable for the Apostle had said immediately before that the woman was first in the transgression Now this transgression deserved all misery pain and torment both here and hereafter without any hope of end or deliverance but see the goodnesse and mercy of our God! saith he notwithstanding her sin God will save her notwithstanding the curse God will bless her For the curse that came upon women at first is wonderfully moderated and the rigour thereof abated even from the first denunciation thereof Though God had newly cursed the earth yet he had respect to Abel and his offering Though he cursed man yet it is not an onely curse but a command and is a blessing annext In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread Here is indeed a curse that their labour should be wearisome but a command that they should labour and a promise that in so doing they should have bread to eat So I say is the curse upon women I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception In sorrow shalt thou bring forth