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	word_n	1,825	5	4.0980	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67779	A sovereign antidote, or, A precious mithridate for recovery of souls twice dead in sin, and buried in the grave of long custome, to the life of grace. With hopeful means (God blessing the same) to prevent that three-fold (and worse than Ægyptian) plague of the heart; drunkenness, swearing, and profaneness. Wherein is a sweet composition of severity and mercy: of indignation against sin, of compassion and commiseration to the sinner; with such Christian moderation, as may argue zeal without malice; and a desire to win souls, no will to gall them. By R. Younge of Roxwell in Essex.	Younge, Richard.	1664 (1664)	Wing Y191A; ESTC R218572	39,339	35

excess in sin with further obduration not only delivers them up ●o Satan the God of this world who so blinds their minds and deludes their understanding● that the light of the glorious Gosp●l of Christ shall not shine unto them 2 Cor. 4.3 4. Eph. 2.2 2 Thes 2.9 But he gives them up even to a reprobate judgment to the hardness of their hearts and to walk in their own counsels Psal ●1 11 12. Rom. 1.21 to 32. And better be given up to Satan as the incestuous Corinthian was than thus to be given up For he was thereby converted saved as God used the matter making the Scorpion a medicine against the sting of the Scorpion the Horseleech a means to abate the vicious and superfluous bloud so ordering Satans craft and malice to ends which himself intended not Whereas these are given over as a desperate Patient is given over by his Physician when there is no hope of his recovery As thus Because they will not receive the truth in love that they might be saved for this cause God gives them up to strong delusions that they should believe lies that all they might be damned who believe not the truth but take pleasure in unrighteousness they are the very words of the Holy Ghost 2 Thes 2.10 11 12. If any vvould see more touching the woful condition of a deluded worldling and how Satan gulls wicked men with a world of misprisions that he may the better cheat them of their souls Let them read The Drunkards Character and The Cure of Misprision for in this I study all possible brevity being loath either to surfeit or cloy the Swearer who is commonly short-breathed in well-doing and lest adding more should hinder him from hearing this for Satan and his corrupt heart will not condescend he shall hold out to hear his beloved sin so spoken against Memb. 5. Sect. 1. Only I will insert a few notions aphorisms or conclusions touching the former point of Gods forbearing to punish the most flagitious sinners when they so horribly provoke him together with some pregnant examples of some that he hath executed Martial Law upon even in this life Cornelius Gallus not to mention many nor any that every Author sets down died in the very act of his filthiness as Plutarch well notes Nitingal Parson of Crondall in Kent was struck dead in the Pulpit as he was belching out his spleen against Religion and zealous Professors of the Gospel It was the usual imprecation of Henry Earl of Schuartzbourg Let me be drowned in a Jakes if it be not so and such was his end You may remember one Lieutenant of the Tower was hanged it had wont to be his usual imprecation as he confessed at his death Earl Godwin wishing at the Kings Table that the bread he eat might choak him if he were guilty of Alphreds death whom he had before slain was presently choaked and fell down dead Yea his lands also sunk into the Sea and are called Godwins sands where thousands since have made shipwrack It was usual with John Peter mentioned in the Book of Martyrs 〈…〉 say If it be not true I pray God I may rot ere I die and God saying Ame 〈…〉 t he rotted away indeed A Serving-man in Lincolnshire for every trifle used to swear Gods precious bloud and would not be warned by his friends to leave it insomuch that hearing the bell tole in the very anguish of death he started up in his bed and swore by the former oath that bell toled for him whereupon immediately the bloud most fearfully issued as it were in streams from all parts of his body not one place left free and so died Popiel King of Poland had ever this wish in his mouth If it be not true I would the Rats might eat me and so it came to pass for he was so assailed by them at a banquet that neither his guards nor fire nor water could defend him from them as Munster mentions The Jews said Let his bloud be upon us and upon our children and what followed Sixteen hundred years are now past since they wished themselves thus wretched and have they not ever since been the hate and scorn of the world Did they not many of them live to see their City buried in ashes and drowned in bloud to see themselves no Nation Was there ever any people under heaven that was made so famous a spectacle of misery and desolation They have had what they called for to the ful and it 's just that they who long for a curse should have it Yet how many among us do familiarly curse their wives children c Nor is it seldom that God pay them in their own coin men profane Gods Name and he makes their names to stink When the pestilence rageth in our streets blasphemy and execration must confess that they have their due wages Blasphemers live swearing and die raving it is but their wages Sect. 2. He punisheth some in the Suburbs of Hell that they might never come into the City it self The evil he now suffers uncorrected he refers to be condemned Sin knows the doom it must smart here or hereafter Outward plagues are but favour in comparison of spiritual judgments and spiritual judgments but light to eternal torments God doth not punish all flagitious sinners here that he may allow some space to repent and that none may doubt his promise of a General Judgment nor does he forbear all here lest the World should deny his providence and question his justice Memb. 6. Sect. 1. But what do I urge reason to men of a reprobate judgment to admonish them is to no more purpose than if one should speak to life-less stones or sence-less plants or wit-less beasts for they will never fear any thing till they be in Hell-fire wherefore God leaves them to be confuted with fire and brimstone since nothing else will do it If there be any here that believe a Resurrection as I hope better things of some of you all such I would beseech by the mercies of God before mentioned that they would not be so desperately wicked as to mock their admonisher scoff at the means to be saved and make themselves merry with their own damnations but that they would entertain this message as if it were an Epistle sent from God himself to invite and call them to repentance Yea consider seriously what I have said and do not oh do not mock at Gods Word nor sport away your souls into those pains which are easeless endless remediless Shall we give an account at the day of judgment for every idle word we speak Mat. 12.36 never give a reckoning for our wicked swearing and cursing We shall be judged by our words v. 37. Are you willing to be saved if you are Break off your sins by repentance Dan. 4.27 Cease to do evil learn to do well Isa 1.16 17. Seriously grieve and bewail for the millions of times that you have

vices As who by looking in a Glass shall spy spots in his face and will not forth with wipe them out A wise man will not have one sin twice repeated unto him And these may be resembled to wax which yieldeth sooner to the seal than steel to the stamp But Sect. 3. Secondly others are like Tullies strange soil much rain leaves them still as dry as dust Or the Wolf in the emblem which though she suckt the Goat kept notwithstanding her wolvish nature still For speak what can be spoken to them it presently passes away like the sound of a Bell that is rung Let testimonies examples never so much concern them they prove no other than as so many characters writ in the water which leave no impression behind them Who may be resembled to an Hour-glass or Conduit that which in one hour runneth in the same in another hour runneth out again Or the Smiths Iron put it into the fire it is much softned again put it into the water 't is harder than before Yea let them never so much smart for their sins they will return to them again until they perish Resembling some silly fly which being beat from the candle an hundred times and oft singed therein yet will return to it again until she be consumed Prov. 23.35 All those Beasts which went into the Ark unclean came likewise out unclean Sect. 4. Thirdly another sort will very orderly hear the Word and delight in it so long as the Minister shall rove in generalities preach little or nothing to the purpose But if once he touch them to the quick drive an application home to their consciences touching some one sin of theirs as John Baptist served Herod then they will turn their backs upon him and hear him no further as those Jews served our Saviour Joh. 6.66 The Athenians Paul Acts 17.16 to 34. and Ahab Micaiah 1 Kings 22.8 Sect. 5. Sore eyes you know are much grieved to look upon the Sun Bankrupts cannot abide the sight of their counting books nor do deformed faces love to look themselves in a true glass For which read John 3.19 20 21. But let such men know that to fly from the light and reject the means puts them out of all hope That sin is past cure which turns from and refuseth the cure Deut. 17.12 Prov. 29.1 As what is light to them that will shut their eyes against it or reason to them that will stop their ears from hearing it If those murtherers of the Lord of life Act. 2.23 had refused to hear Peters searching Sermon in all probability they had never been prickt in their hearts never been saved ver 37 38. And take this for a Rule if ever you see a drowning man refuse help conclude him a wilful murtherer Sect. 6. Fourthly and lastly for I pass by those blocks that go to Church as dogs do only for company can hear a powerful Minister for twenty or thirty years together and mind no more what they hear than the seats they sit on or the stones they tread on There are a generation of hearers who when a Minister does plainly reprove them for their sins and declare the judgments of God due unto the same to the end they may repe●t and believe that so they may be saved will carp and fre● spurn against the very Word of God for being so sharp searching thereupon persecute the Messenger as the Princes false Prophets did Jeremiah Herodias John Baptist and the Pharisees Christ Sect. 7. And this God takes as done to himself What saith Paul 1 Cor. 7.10 I have not spoken but the Lord and therefore as the Lord said unto Saul Act. 9.4 that he persecuted him though in heaven so they which resist any truth delivered out of the Word do resist God himself and not his Messenger as evidently appears by these Scriptures Psal 44.22 74.4.10.18.22.23 83.2 5 6. 89.50 51. 139.20 Prov. 19.3 Rom. 1.30 9.20 Mat. 10.22 25.45 1 Sam. 17.45 Isa 37.4.22 23 28. Act. 5.39 9.4 5. Joh. 9.4 1 Thes 4.8 Joh. 15.20 to 26. Num. 16.11 1 Sam. 8.7 Mar. 9.42 Psal 79.12 2 Kin. 2.24 O that the Gospels enemies would but seriously consider these Scriptures and be warned by them For certainly it is neither wise good nor safe either resisting or angring him that can anger every vein of their hearts Yea God hath Messengers of wrath for them that despise the Messengers of his love Sect. 8. But hear why they so mortally hate the naked truth Because it is the word by which they are condemned they loath as much to hear it as a prisoner doth abhor to hear his sentence from the just Judge And indeed if many as we know by experience love not to hear the worst of their temporal causes and cases nor yet of their bodily distempers with which their lives or estates be indangered How much more will wicked men decline from seeing their hainous abominations and themselves guilty of Hell and eternal damnation though thereof there be an absolute necessity if ever they be saved Sect. 9. Guilty sinners love application as dearly as a dog does a cudgel And no marvel for what Leper will take pleasure in the searching of his sores Nor were Satan his Crafts-master if he did permit them For if they could clearly see the loathsomness of their impieties it were impossible not to abhor them not to abhor themselves for them but their blindness makes them love their own filthiness as Ethiopians do their own swarthiness Besides they love not to have their consciences awakened but would sleep quietly in their sins And he that desires to sleep will have the curtains drawn the light shut out and no noise made Whence as good meats are unwelcome to sick persons so is good counsel to obstinate and resolved sinners Tell them of their swearing drinking whoring cheating they will fret and chafe and fume and swell and storm and be ready to burst again to hear it But let envy sweat swell and burst truth must be spoken And indeed why should not Gods servants take as free liberty in reproving as the Devils servants take liberty in offending Shall not the one be as loud for God as the other are for Baal and Beelzebub Sect. 10. Yea admonish them never so mildly they will say we take too much upon us as Korah and his complices twitted Moses Num. 16.3 not knowing how strictly God commands and requires it Lev. 19.17 2 T●m 2.25 Ezek. 3.18 to 22. 2 Pet. 2.7 8. Whence as the Chief Priests answered Judas What is that to us so they will blaspheme God tear Christ in pieces and more than betray even shed his innocent bloud digging into his side with oaths and say when told of it What is that to us when they might as well say What is Christ to us what is heaven to us or what is salvation to us For to us the one cannot be

without the other we shall never inherit part of his glory in heaven if we do not take his glories part upon earth And with God it is much about one whether we be doers of evil or no binderers For if we must not see our neighbours ox nor his sheep go astray or fall into a pit but we must reduce him a●d help him out of it Deut. 22.1 we are much more bound to help our neighbour himself from dropping into the bottomless pit of Hell And what know we but we may win our brother and so save his soul Mat. 18.15 Sect. 11. They will hiss like Serpents if we trouble their nests never so little And it is a sure sign the horse is galled that stirs too much when he is touched But what are these men like and how are they like to speed in the end They are like the Thracian flint that burns with water and is quenched with oyl their souls are the worse for Gods endeavour to better them His holy precepts and prohibitions do either harden them as the Sun hardens clay and cold water hot iron or else they enrage them as a furious mastiffe Dog is the madder for his chain Sect. 12. But to be exasperated with good counsel and in stead of penitency to break into choler when fury sparkles in those eyes which should gush out with water it is an evident sign of one that shall perish Prov. 29.1 Read the words and tremble A man that hardneth his neck being often reproved shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy see more Prov. 1.24 25 26 to 33. Whence it is the Prophet tells Amaziah I know that God hath determined to destroy thee because thou hast done this and hast not obeyed my counsel 2 Chro 25.16 20. and that the Holy Ghost speaking of Ely's sons saith that they would not hearken unto nor obey the voice of their father because the Lord was determined to destroy them 1 Sam. 2.25 Yea it is an observation of Livy that when the destruction of a Person or Nation is destined then the wholsome warnings both of God and Man are set at nought And in reason that sin is past all cure which strives against the cure Herbs that are worse for watering Trees that are less fruitful for dunging and pruning are to be rooted out or hewn down Even salvation it self will not save those that spill the potion and fling away the plaister When God would have cured Babylon and she would not be cured then she is given up to destruction without further warning Sect. 13. Ignorant Worldlings who will believe nothing which comes not within the compass of their five senses think that because God strikes not he minds not Psal 50.21 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the children of me● is fully set in them to do evil as Solomon speaks Eccles 8.11 They are like the Israelites 1 Sam. 12.15 to 20. they will not believe without a miracle and it will be a miracle if ever they be saved For should they see miracle upon miracle should God forthwith strike one dead with a thunder-bolt and rain down fire and brimsto●e upon anoth●r and cause the earth to swallow down a third quick while they are blaspheming him they would be as far from believing as they were before as the examples of the old world the Sodomites Pharaoh Baalam Ahab Belshazzer M●lch●us and those great Clerks the Scribes and Pharisees together with thousands of the Jews sufficiently manifest Yea it is easier for a man possest with ma●y Devils to be disposs●st to ra●se one from the dead or to turn a stone into flesh in which God should meet with no opposition than perswade an habituated Swearer to believe these ensuing precept prediction testimonies of the Gospel or any other saving truth M●t. 5.20 12.36 25.30 to 46. 2 Thes 1.7 8 9. 2.12 Heb. 12.14.29 Rev. 20.12 to the end Deut. 29.19 30. Prov. 1.24 to 33. Sect. 14. Well may they believe what the World the Flesh and the Devil suggests unto them As Satan that he may make smooth their way to perdition will perswade the most impudent and insolent sinners Drunkards Adult●●ers Blasphemers Sabbath-breakers Blo●d-thirsty murtherers Persecuters of the godly and ●o●●emners of Religio● that they may take liberty to continue their sensual lusts by a testimony of Scripture and apply Christs passion as a warrant for their licentiousness his Death as a license to sin his Cross as a Lette●s patent to do mischief And hereupon as if a Malefactor should head his d●um of rebellion with his pardon they live as if the gospel were quite contrary to the rule of the law or as if God were neither to be feared nor cared for Hence they exercise their saucy wits in prophane scoffs at religion disgrace that blood whereof hereafter they would give a thousand worlds for o●e drop Hence they tear heaven with their blasphemies and bandy the dreadful Name of God in their impure and polluted mouths by their bloudy oaths and execrations hence they are so witless graceless and shameless as to swear and curse even as dogs bark Yea they have so sworn away all grace that they count it a grace to swear and are so far from believing what God threatens in his Word against sin and what is affirmed of his justice and severity in punishing all wilful and impenitent sinners with eternal destruction of body and soul that they presume to have part in that merit which in every part they have so abused to be purged by that blood which now they take all occasions to disgrace to be saved by the same wounds and bloud which they swear by and so often swear away to have Christ an Advocate for them in the next life when they are Advocates against Christ in this That heaven will meet them at their last hour when all their life long they have galloped in the beaten road toward hell And that though they live like swine all their life long yet one cry for mercy at the last gasp shall ●ransfo●m them into Saints And this is the strong faith they are so apt to boast of viz. presumption not confidence Or rather Hope frighted out of its wits For notwithstanding all this in believing the Scriptures they fall ●hort of the Devils themselves For the Devils do really believe that God is no less true and just then he is merciful as his Word declares him to be and thereu●●n they tremble as St. James hath it Jam. 2.19 whereas these men 〈◊〉 not a word that God speaks so as to be bettered by it Sect. 15. And no marvel for their wont hath been to believe Satan rather than God as did our first Parents Gen. 3. Therefore now after they have rejected all means of grace when they are so crusted in their v●llany that custom is become a second or new nature God that he may punish their hardness and