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	let_v	word_n	2,323	5	4.1751	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91739	Divine efficacy without humane power. Opened in a sermon preached at St. Margarets Church in Westminster before the Right Honourable the House of Commons, June 28. 1660. Being the day of solemne thanksgiving for the happy return of the Kings Majesty. / By Edward Reynolds D.D. and chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty.	Reynolds, Edward, 1599-1676.	1660 (1660)	Wing R1246; Thomason E988_27; ESTC R203408	21,066	55

Spirit of God by whom alone the weapons of our warfare are mighty It is a spiritual Building and therefore not reared by humane power a Kingdom un-attended with worldly splendor and therefore cometh not with observation Luke 17. 20. The Enemies of it for the most part spiritual and therefore not vanquish'd but by a spiritual power Eph. 6. 12. 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. No humane power able to encounter no humane wisdom to disappoint the gates of Hell None but he who is the power and wisdome of God hath power enough to overcome or wisdome enough to defeat the Kingdome of darkness The special end which God had in erecting the Church was to glorifie his power wisdom and grace in the nothingnesse of the matter out of which he framed it The visible world as it doth by the beauty order and greatnesse thereof set forth the glory of God so in nothing more then this that al this great being is made out of nothing Now Gods glory is more magnified in the Church then in the world The Church is the Jewel the world but the Ring wherein it is set The World an House or Farme for Creatures and Tenants to dwell in The Church Gods own Palace wherein he dwells himself Psal. 132. 13. And the Excellency of this glory is That it is a Creation out of nothing no material aptnesse no Active concurrence of the subject unto the heavenly being which by Gods spirit alone is wrought in it We contribute no more to our own conversion of or from our selves then water doth to its own heating which naturally resisteth the fire that heats it We have no good in us either formally or potentially so as to be educed out of us all is to be superinduced by the Spirit of God upon us No flesh must glory but in free Grace which alone could raise a corrupted masse into so stately a Palace And therefore we must not despair when things seeme to Humane view helplesse and hopeless but look up to the Spirit of God who can beyond all our thoughts make those that dwell in the dust to awake and sing Whereas if we build our hopes on humane might or power we shall find them vain every man a liar sometimes weak and cannot help us sometimes false and will not help us alwayes mutable and may not help us The more we attribute to Persons the more we derogate from God Let us not therefore be troubled at mountains of opposition or any difficulties which we conflict with in the work of God It is his promise to bring all Christs Enemies under his feet Let us believe it and he will do it though we see not how And now to conclude bring all home to the mercies of this day There is no Nation hath had more experience of the truth of these words then we in this Land have had When the Lord had commanded the sword of a civil war back into the scabberd and things seemed to draw towards a comfortable close by the Kings gracious concessions in the last Treaty divine providence was pleased to carry us back into doleful confusions into the surges of the Sea again by the subtle counsels of a divided party who having possession of the sword and intending to use it to the altering of the fundamental constitution of government in order thereunto debarred the Peers of their right plucked out all such worthy persons from the other House who would 〈◊〉 their work laid the foundation of their Utopia in the Blood of their natural Prince and in the Exile of his children and family and concluded by Might and Power to carry all before them And now comes in the Spirit of the Lord to stop this career of domination And first he stirred up an Abimelech against these men of Shechem who liked not that threescore and ten Persons should raigne but rather to raigne himself By this hand a stop was put to their domination till by the strange conduct of the same providence his family was pulled down by the hands of his own Allies And so the threescore and ten get into the Throne again These confusions in State seconded with desperate confusion in Religion Ministry and Universities and all supports of truth and learning endangered and by a miscellany of all Religions way made unto none at all The Spirit of the Lord then works again mingleth a perverse spirit between them and their military Officers and divideth their Counsels and maketh use of another violence to thrust them out again The same divine providence awakeneth an Honourable instrument in the North to give a check to this new designe And on a sudden by the secret power of the Spirit of God the military Officers who had so long been the terror of the Nation became no man can tell why like women their hearts dismayed their Counsels confounded their Souldiers scattered and by that divine providence whereby they had so often justified their irregular actions were they in one day without Might or Power but meerly by impressions from the hand of God as it were annihilated and made utterly to disappear By the same divine impression are the hearts of the people of the land in all places strangely excited as one man to call for the Restoring of the secluded Patriots by them to make way for a free Parliament and by them to bring back from exile in the Chariots of Aminadab a willing people and upon the wings of Love our Dear and Dread Soveraigne not only to the Throne of his Father but to the hearts of his people They who had long known what it was to fear where they did not love were now ambitious to love where they need not so to feare And now that the Lord hath brought these Kingdoms upon the Basis of their ancient and fundamental constitution and hath restored into your bosoms a Prince of the greatest suavity and meeknesse of Spirit one of the best tempers in the world for Government that ever swayed these Scepters whom he hath trained up like David in a School of affliction to sit upon a Throne and fitted by a Crown of Thrones to weare a Royal Diadem and by the bitter cup of his own sufferings to provide against the sufferings and to heale the wounds of his poore exhausted people what remaineth but these two things 1. To fill our hearts and mouths with the praises of God for these so divinely contrived mercies without the effusion of one drop of blood beyond the view of humane counsel to have effected to ascribe all to the Spirit and Grace of God Not unto us not unto us but unto thy name give the glory To blesse him for this first fundamental step to settlement without which we should ever have beene in danger of flames and blood To blesse the Lord for inclining the heart of his Majesty to dedicate his Government with so Religious a publick Testimony against profaneness then which there is nothing which doth more loudly

Nabal refused to send him and his men provision and compare him with David humbled under the hand of God when Absolom rebelled and Shimei cursed him and then judge how easie an hard duty is to a prepared heart and how hard an easie thing is to a froward heart 3. We may not betake our selves to carnal shifts for avoiding any danger which assaults us in doing duty If the Lord set us on work he is able without our sinne to deliver us Gods alsufficiency is an invincible argument to sincerity Gen. 17. 1. Why should I make my selfe beholding to a sinful shift when I have an alsufficient God There were some Christians in the Apostles time who out of confidence in their own knowledge and strength to stand would venture to eat meat at the Idols table thereby keeping in with their Idolatrous friends for fear of persecution To these the Apostle giveth 1. A sharp Exhortation to take heed of falling when they think they stand 1 Cor. 10. 12. 2. An answer to their fears that God will not suffer them to be tempted beyond the strength which he will supply them withal verse 13. 4. We may not therefore shrink from duty upon any discouragement but follow the call of God and be upright before him When it is our duty to obey it is his promise to protect Say not with Solomons sluggard There is a Lion in the way Prov. 22. 13. but remember there are Angels with us to bear us in our way Psal. 91. 11. Jonah was afraid to go to Niniveh a great and a wicked City one man to threaten so many thousands with speedy destruction it was the next way to be swallowed up and destroy'd himself He thinks there was no means to flie this danger but by declining duty And now he that feared the raging of the people met with the tempest of the sea he that feared to be swallowed up of danger was swallowed up of present death into the belly of the Whale and the Lord by delivering him from that death taught him to trust on his power who could as well have delivered him from any other The Lord hath called you Right Honourable unto arduous and weighty services A very difficult work it is to cure complicated diseases to extricate and unravel the intangled interests of divided minds to allay animosities to calme jealousies to moderate rigours of judgement to close distant opinions to separate the gold from the drosse the precious truths and worship of God from those many prodigies of error and madnesse which had so long assaulted it to settle the house of God and the hearts of men upon firme foundations of truth peace and righteousnesse to joyn together the sticks of Ephraim and Judah and to make whole the broken staves of beauty and bands If you shall now say as David did make thy way strait before our face as Iehosaphat did we know not what to do but our eyes are upon thee as Paul did Lord what wilt thou have me to do Thou hast done great things for us whereof we are glad thou hath delivered our eyes from teares our ●ee from falling what is it that we now shall render to the Lord for all his benefits truly Lord we are thy servants and would willingly act in our places for thy name and for the Interests of thy Christ and of his Church we have no higher design then this That the God who hath wrought wonders for us may be alone magnified and advanced by us in Orthodox doctrine in pure Ordinances in spiritual worship in united affections that no unnecessary thing may remain as a ground of offence and fomes of division and separation but that all healing and closing counsels may be used to make us all of one heart and of one soul If you thus in singleness and uprightness of heart do bespeak the Lord I can confidently say from him to you that he will be with you and uphold you that his Spirit will level all mountains before you and break in pieces any gates of brasse and cut in sunder any bars of iron which stand in your way the service he requires of you he will work for you he will not only command you by his Authority but assist you by his Grace When our interests and Gods are folded up together when we make his Will our will and his End our end we are sure never to fail in our designs because he can never miscarry in his We have seen how the Lord encourageth his servants against all difficulties which might dismay them in his service Now the means by which he doth it is by a Word This is the VVord of the Lord unto Zerubbabel Nothing can so effectually uphold the spirits of men above difficulties and discouragements which they meet with in the duties whereunto they are called as a seasonable word spoken unto them from God The VVord of the Lord to Zerubbabel is confirmation enough against all the oppositions of most potent adversaries So it was to Josua I will not fail thee nor forsake thee c. Jos. 1. 5 8. So to Asa when he heard the words of the Prophet he took courage 2 Chron. 15. 8. The righteous are bold as a Lion Prov. 28. 1. And their confidence is founded on a word And well it may if we consider 1. The Truth of it confirmed by signes and wonders by the solemne Oath of God Now it is impossible for God to lie every word of his is founded on his own immutable being and these are grounds of strong consolation Heb. 6. 17 18. 2. The Authority of it which is sufficient to animate any man unto obedience A man that hath an ample commission from a supream power acteth with courage as knowing the power he hath to back him No commission so full of power as that which God gives This made Moses and Aaron venture on Pharaoh and all his Sorcerers Amos an herdsman upon the Court of Ieroboam a King Peter and Iohn illiterate men to speak boldly notwithstanding the inhibition of the chief Priest and his Council Acts 4. 19 20. Acts 5. 29. 3. The Efficacy of it Nothing more operative then the Word of God It was a Word only which made the world He said let there be light and there was light By the VVord of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth Psalme 33. 6. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Euseb. calleth it And it is a word only which upholds the world Heb. 1. 3. and the word is able still to give being to every promise and subsistence to every purpose of of his towards his people It is a commanding and a creating word Psal. 44. 4. Isa. 57. 19. Gods purposes and promises are ever seconded by his power He will not leave till he have done what he hath spoken Gen. 28. 15. I have spoken I will bring it to pass I have purposed I will