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	unrighteousness_n	2,384	5	11.3357	5	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