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
A40077	A discourse of offences delivered in two sermons Aug. 19, and Sept. 2, 1683 in the Cathedral church of Gloucester / by Edward Fowler.	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1683 (1683)	Wing F1702; ESTC R6859	22,108	40

of Folly and Wickedness not to interpose by his Omnipotency in hindring the folly and wickedness which are in mens hearts from being the causes of Offences Upon which account we reade in the Prophesie of Ezekiel Chap. 3. 20. of God's laying a Stumbling-block before him that turns from his righteousness and committeth iniquity And it is an idiom of the Hebrew Language which we find often in the Holy Scriptures to express that as done by another which is onely permitted to be done To give but one instance of this God is said in one place to move David to number the People whereas 't is said in another that Satan moved David hereunto so that the meaning of God's doing it must be that he permitted Satan for great and wise reasons to doe it Now 1. One Reason wherefore God hath determined not to hinder the folly and wickedness of men from being the causes of Offences is the same that is given why there must be Heresies or why he will permit Heresies to be The Apostle saith 1 Cor. 11. 19. There must be also Heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you Even so there must be Offences and Scandals that there may be a manifest difference and discrimination made between the sincere and the insincere Professors of Religion For this reason hath God determined not to restrain foolish or wicked men from the laying of Stumbling-blocks The cause of this Necessity is far from being his immutable Decree that men shall doe foolish or wicked things and so cause Scandals God forbid we should entertain so impious a thought But the cause thereof is the folly and wickedness of men occasioned by the abuse of their Liberty and God's determining not to prevent their causing Scandals his determinating this for great reasons One of which I say is that by them a Tryal may be made who are Upright-hearted and who Hypocritical in the Profession of Religion Who have the Power of Godliness and who the External Form onely That a difference may be made between those Wise Builders who have founded their houses upon a Rock and those Foolish ones who have built them upon the Sand Between those who have embraced Religion for its own sake and those who have embraced it for the sake of their Temporal interest and are engaged in the ways thereof from corrupt Motives and carnal Principles Thus did God Almighty permit False Prophets to work wonders by the Power of the Devil to draw the People to Idolatry in order to the making of this discrimination as may be seen Deut. 13. 1 2 3. If there arise among you a Prophet or a Dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a Sign or a Wonder and the Sign or the Wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying Let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken unto the voice of that Prophet or that Dreamer of dreams For the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. That is the Lord your God permitteth this stone of stumbling to be laid in your way that it may be as it were a Touch-stone for the Tryal of your love to him that a discrimination may be hereby made between those who sincerely love him and those who only pretend to love him For the same reason likewise did not God restrain Ieroboam Ahab or the other wicked Kings Who made Israel to sin from laying before their People the great Offences and Scandals of the Golden Calves c. and temptations to Idolatry by their Precepts and Examples And by this means an apparent difference was actually made between those who were onely Iews outwardly and those who were Iews inwardly By this means were those seven thousand who hated Idolatry distinguished from the rest of the People I have saith God by the Prophet reserved unto me seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal 2. Another Reason why God hath determined the not restraining of men from giving Offence or being the Causes of Scandals is that by them the Obdurate may in his just judgment be more hardned For instance He permitted Simon Magus and his Followers to be the Authors of such mighty Scandals for this reason as we reade 1 Thess. 2. 11 For this cause God shall send them strong delusions or shall permit them to be sent that they may believe a lie or that the hypocritical Professors of Christianity may believe a lie that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness And we may be assured that for both the Reasons now given God hath permitted the Roman Hierarchy to bring so horrible a Scandal upon the Christian Religion for so many Ages past by debauching it with such corrupt and damnable Principles and Practices viz. 1. To make a difference between the Sincere Christians and Hypocrites which I need not tell you hath by this means been made in innumerable instances Many thousands having chosen the loss of all and even the most Cruel deaths rather than to embrace those Principles and comply with those Practices and rather than not to Protest against both And 2. In his just judgment to harden such more in their wickedness as turn the grace of God into lasciviousness For 't is well known nothing is better known than that the whole Systeme of Popery is so contrived as to reconcile light with darkness the thickest darkness with the most glorious light gross Idolatry of several kinds such Idolatry as that grosser is not to be found among the Pagans unsatiable Covetousness and Ambition and monstrous Cruelty with true Christianity and a careless and dissolute life in this world with the hopes of Happiness in the other And for both these reasons hath God we may be sure permitted also fearfull Offences and Scandals to come by Protestants by those who make a Profession of this our holy Religion of true and genuine Christianity purged from all Popish mixtures which unto all sincere and pious Protestants are matter of most bitter Lamentation Particularly the Drunkenness Vncleanness and Profaneness of Multitudes that profess the Reformed Religion and the Scandal of Rebellion and Treasonable Conspiracies that some of them have incurred the guilt of and that in this Kingdome now very lately Though all good Protestants do bless God heartily for the Discovery of such Conspiracies and for the Defeating of open Resistences of the Higher Powers and secret Plots against them yet 't is a heart-breaking Consideration to such that there should be such Antichristian doings found among us by which a woefull Blot is cast upon our Religion and particularly by this last wicked Conspiracy of some Mad Desperate People who call themselves Protestants Now I say for both the forementioned reasons we may be assured God Almighty hath permitted such fearfull Offences and

Scandals to come by professed Protestants Viz. 1. To make a discrimination between those who are well Grounded in our Religion and those that are not so Those who are well Grounded in our Religion and embrace it like Wise and Understanding men viz. because of the excellency of its Principles will not be tempted to think one jot the worse of it in regard of these Offences Such will consider that if these can make a reasonable objection against the truth of the Protestant Religion the same objection lies every whit as strong against the truth of Christianity For even in the First and Purest Ages of Christianity there were as wicked people found among the Professors of it and men that did as wicked things as ever were before or since to be found in the World Such will consider too that the Protestant Religion is no more to be charged with Rebellions or any other Licentious Principles than is Christianity For this Religion is nothing else but Pure and Uncorrupted Christianity Nay they will consider that Rebellion and Treason and whatsoever hath any tendency that way and all kinds of immorality whatsoever are expresly forbidden by our Religion under pain of Damnation They being so forbidden as by the Precepts of the Gospel and the Doctrine of all the Reformed Churches so especially by the Doctrine of the Church of England as by Law established derived from the Gospel And therefore these Offences are no objection to Understanding and well Grounded Protestants against the truth of their Religion whilst those that have embraced it onely because it is the Religion of their Countrey or on such like weak and sleight Grounds do often find this Objection too strong for them and it frequently occasions their Apostasie And then especially are such in danger of Apostatizing by means of this Scandal of Treasons and Rebellions particularly as often as these sins are found among Protestants when the Adversaries of our Religion do assault them with the Sophistical Argument drawn from this Scandal with all the Advantage of their Sophistry Obj. But you may say If the Popish Treasons and Conspiracies are used by us as an Argument against that Religion why should not the Papists make use of the Treasons and Conspiracies of Protestants as an Argument against our Religion This seems to be Fair Play Sol. I answer that Popish Treasons and Conspiracies may not be used by us as an Argument against the Popish Religion nor are they so used by any wise man that I know of because for the reason already given this is a fallacious Argument But our Argument against them is that their Treasons and Conspiracies are suitable and agreeable to the allowed Principles of Popery provided at least that they be levelled against Heretical Princes And if those committed among us can be shewed to be suited to the Protestant Principles and by them encouraged then will not I for my part ever more open my mouth for the Protestant Religion But this can never be shewed but the perfectly contrary who cannot shew And as for the Principles that some Protestants have imbibed they are not Protestants in imbibing them nay they are Papists in so doing For 't is very well known they at least Originally received them from their Books Particularly from the Books as I can shew of these Jesuits Suarez Lessius Mariana Father Parsons with divers others Again Secondly God also permits these grievous Offences to come by Protestants as for the making the forementioned discrimination between Protestants and Protestants so for the farther hardening in his just judgment of wicked people For the farther hardening of irreligious people against all Religion and of obstinate Papists against our Religion In Rom. 2. 21 22 c. the Apostle saith Thou that teachest another teachest thou not thy self thou that preachest a man should not steal dost thou steal thou that sayest a man should not commit Adultery dost thou commit Adultery thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit Sacrilege thou that makest thy boast of the Law through breaking the Law dishonourest thou God then it follows For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you To keep to the instances of Rebellion and Treason the Papists when they see such doings among Protestants willingly overlooking the innumerable instances of this nature which themselves are so infamous for throughout the world And seeming not to know what Principles they have to encourage them in such Practices they immediately cry out These are your Protestants and this is their Religion 't is good for nothing but to make men Rebels and Traytors Princes can have no security from these Protestants And they urge the same Argument for the utter destruction of the Protestant Religion that was used by Bishlam and his Company to King Artaxerxes against the Rebuilding of Ierusalem viz. This City is a Rebellious City and hurtfull unto Kings and Provinces And no doubt of it our Adversaries will not be wanting in improving this Argument to the utmost at this time Though there are no sort of men in the world but might with a better face doe it And so by this means they more harden themselves if they can be more hardened in their Enmity to our Religion and more harden others And as I said for this reason no doubt God permitteth in his just judgment this sort of Offences as well as others to come by Protestants I mean still by Professors of the Protestant Religion for the Authors of such Offences cannot be more than in Profession Protestants Nay considered as guilty of such Offences they are truly Papists so far forth they deserve that name I may apply to this discourse those words of our Saviour Iohn 9. 39. For judgment am I come into this world that they which see not might see and that they which see might be made blind That those which sit in darkness may have the light and that those who have the light but wilfully shut their eyes against it as one would think those Papists do who live among us and will not be convinced by the strongest and most powerfull Arguments may be made blind And Offences or Scandals are great instruments in the hand of the Divine Justice for this purpose III. I come to shew that Offences are of woefull consequence We learn from our Text that they are so to the world or to men in general Woe unto the world because of Offences And likewise to those particular persons by whom they come but woe to that man by whom the Offence cometh Now First As to their being of woefull consequence to the world or to the generality of men It hath been intimated already that such is the Folly and Wickedness of the Generality that when these Snares are laid before them they occasion their falling into Sin and also Multitudes in all places are mightily hardened in sin by the means of them 1. They occasion their falling into sin to the great endangering of