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	lie_n	strong_a	3,401	5	6.7531	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33090	A declaration from the Commission of the General Assembly wherein the stumblng blocks laid before the people of God by their enemies are removed, complyance with these enemies is reprehended, and courage and constancie in the cause of God against them seriously recommended and enjoyned.	Church of Scotland. General Assembly. Commission.	1646 (1646)	Wing C4210; ESTC R26023	9,951	22

righteousnesse we will still hold fast and not let it go and our heart shall not reproach us so long as we live yea though our adversaries would write a book against us surely we would take it on our shoulder and bind it as a crown unto us The true and real causes of our back-sliding are to be sought amongst our selves If all the Watchmen of the house of Israel had bin faithful zealous in discharge of their trust then had the Lords people better known the excellency of the Gospel stuck closer to the profession of the same because of the negligence and perversnes of some of those have many halted for want of instruction lack of knowledge but from the corruptions which men have harboured in their own breasts hath mainly issued all the degrees of their declination There be amongst us many rotten and hollow hearts who though they joyned with us through subtiltie or fear did still abide in the gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity and wished nothing more than the subversion of our cause What wonder though such took advantage of a prevailing party to disclose their envy wherewith they were now growne big almost unto bursting And there is a generation whose ignorance and sloath hath detained them that they have not sufficiently examined nor rightly considered Zions controversie with those that plead against her because of her love to the Truth They conceive the debate to be about things civil at least not to go so high as the hazard of any thing important in Religion And such is the negligence of those that they despise the meanes of instruction largely offered and holden forth unto them in many Warnings and Declarations which they will not be at the pains to peruse Love to the things of the world hath stumbled men of earthly mindes who had rather choose to endanger their souls and make shipwrack of a good conscience than to suffer the spoyling of their Goods and ruine of their Estates And Atheisme prevailes in many which as it is not acquainted with the excellencie of JESUS CHRIST nor with the preciousnesse and sweetnesse of his wayes so hath it no regard to his Commandments to obey them nor respect to his Gospel to suffer any thing for it And seeing formalitie and profanitie abounds is it not just with GOD to send them strong delusion to believe lies who do not receive the Truth in love And what if some being puft up in mind have trusted to the power of their own strength and neglected to imploy that mighty One upon whom our help is laid Though we cannot but think that all such as are not given up to delusion and hardnesse of heart have already begun to consider the evill of their wayes and to remember their inconstancie with detestation and sorrow yet for convincing of the obstinate reclaiming of the more flexible and increasing of the repentance of those who desire to loathe themselves because of their back-sliding we cannot but discover the guiltinesse that many involved themselves into in the houre of temptation that came upon the Land As there be degrees of duties in the Covenant so degrees of offences against the same We would have none so grosse to plead innocencie because they have not broke forth in open opposition Indifferencie and neutralitie is no lesse against our Oath then professed enimitie And what also if it be as odious in the sight of GOD who spues the lukewarme out of his mouth How then shall we judge of back-sliding and expresse malignancie Surely disobedience unto publick order or prevarication in the same commending of adversaries their purpose power or carriage traducing the Instruments and Work of Reformation be but the bitter fruits of an evill heart dis-affected to the truth cleaving to the love of the paths of those who study the obstruction and dis-appointment of all those ends designed in the Covenant Silence when we had a calling to speak Setting on of Bonfires Preparing entertainment for the Rebels and receiving them into our Houses are but at the best sinfull temporizing in an evill time a betraying of our zeal for the Lord a strengthening of the ungodly in their wicked courses and yeelding unto them a ground of hope for further complying with them and an high contempt of the dreadfull sentence of Excommunication if any of those with whom fellowship was kept were under the same Intelligence and correspondence with the Enemie furnishing them with Men Money Horses Ammunition or Cloathes seducing of the people receiving Commissions or executing the same and joyning in actuall service Those things if done out of affection and not through fear as some of them hardly can be are sure tokens of a heart desperatly perverse and wholly malignant which esteems it but a light thing to hazard upon expresse perjury and howsoever done draw upon the doers a manifest breach of Covenant and fearfull guilt of helping those whom the Lord hates What though it be lawfull in some cases to capitulate yea with Turks or Pagans shall it therefore be lawfull to do that which may argue subjection and imply submission unto a perfidious Rebell and the sworn enemy of the League and Covenant with England going about to drive the people of the Land from their dutie for the Covenant to a complyance with him against it In this case all every one are called unto the asserting of the confession of their Faith and of their own innocencie and righteousnesse in joyning with England Both which they do betray and condemne and take with that guiltinesse of Treason and Rebellion which the Adversaries would fasten upon them when they capitulate to do any thing inconsistent with open and profest enimitie or that tends unto the disserting of those duties to which the Covenant doth oblige them Such Capitulations must needs be very sinfull and contrary to the Covenant Neither can we judge any better of Protections from such an Enemy because they do imply the authority of one who is forfeit by the State and excommunicat by the Kirk and do either expressely or tacitely engage the Receivers if not to joyne yet not to resist they lay a stumbling block before all the Inhabitants of the Land to make them forbear action or decline suffering by following such a course If all had done so it may soon be foreseen what should have been the end Though haply they who were the doers were not so apprehensive as to reach the depth of the evill yet the end of the work in it self and in the intention of enemies was to make them Masters of all the lives and estates within the Land Capitulations and Protections howsoever accounted of by those who walk after the wisedome of the flesh are destructive to our Covenant almost in all the Heads and Articles thereof They tend unto the corrupting of Religion in this Land and obstructing the Work of Reformation in England unto the countenancing and strengthening of the