Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	body_n	spirit_n	worship_v	2,550	5	9.5500	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30814	A glimpse of God, or, A treatise proving that there is a God discovering the grounds of atheism, with arguments of divers sorts against atheists : shewing also, the unity of the Godhead, and the trinity of the persons ... / by ... Mr. Thomas Byrdall ...	Byrdall, Thomas, 1607 or 8-1662?	1665 (1665)	Wing B6404; ESTC R14883	155,901	472

their being they are kept by the power of God but God is immortal absolutely and independently 3. Angels and souls of men are immortal per participationem by participation God makes them partakers of his immortality 4. There is an analogical mortality in Angels and the souls of men though they cannot cease to live yet they may cease to be happy and to live miserably to eternity The damnation of the Apostate Angels is a kind of death so the damned souls suffer a kind of death Damnation is called in Scripture the second death it were better that such souls did perish as the souls of beasts and when they cease to live this natural life in the body that they did cease to be CHAP. V. Vses drawn from the life of God IF God be the living God then Vse 1. he is the onely true God to be feared of all and to be worshipped 1. To be feared because he only can kill and make alive he alone preserves men from destruction and turns men into destruction The vanities of the Gentiles can neither do good nor hurt neither save nor destroy they have hands but cannot strike a man into destruction nor pluck a man from destruction When Daniel was cast into the den of lions the living God preserved him from death when his accusers were thrown in their Idols and golden images could not preserve them but the living God destroyed them See what a good use Darius an heathen King made of it and what a charge he giveth Dan. 6. 26. I make a decree that in every dominion of my Kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel the reason followeth for he is the living God the Images whom we adore for God are dead things how doth he prove that God is a living God vers 27. he delivereth and rescueth c. therefore fear and tremble before him the gods whom we serve can neither deliver nor rescue nor work signs and wonders the like argument Christ useth to perswade us to fear God because being a living God he can destroy both body and soul 2. He is the onely true God to be worshipped because a living God and therefore can hear help and save all such as worship him in spirit and truth men shew no greater madness in the world nor do more un-man themselves then in worshiping dead stocks and stones who have carved hands but are dead hands and cannot save have carved ears but are dead and cannot hear such were the gods of the Heathen and to adore dead stocks was the fruit of their blind Religion and the Papists that pretend to know the true God are no less sottish what is their Bread-Worship Altar-Worship Crucifix-Worship but a robbing of the living God of his glory and giving it to dead senseless creatures Vse 2. Is God a living God then commit your lives to him in well-doing trust the eternal living God with your mortal lives and fear not the rage and malice of evil men for they cannot take away your lives from you unless God permit them not an hair shall fall from your head without his knowledge then much less shall a drop of your blood fall much less a limb shall be cut off from your bodies much less shall they take away your lives from you if the living God will keep them and preserve them See Davids practice in a time when his enraged Enemies consulted to take away his life from him They devised to take away my life but I trusted in thee O Lord I said thou art my God my times are in thy hand deliver me from the hand of mine enemies c. Psalm 31. 13 14 15. all our times are in the hands of the living God our time of life the continuance and length of it our time of death the manner moment and instrument of it all is in the hands of the living God thy life and death are not in thine enemies hands they cannot take away thy life at their pleasure wherefore commit thy life to God and fear not the rage of enemies Should we at any time forsake God to please men for the preservation of life and betake our selves to sinful shifts it may fall out to us as Christ foretold He that saves his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for Christs sake shall save it even this natural life or the eternal life of the immortal soul Therefore if ye will have us to dye let us not be much troubled but be ready to give up our lives into the hands of the living God and if he will have us dye we can but dye as the Leapers said at the gate of Samaria the living God can give us a better life and if the Lord will he can deliver us from death The three Children were more regardful of their duty to God then of their lives Dan. 3. 16 17 18. this was the sum whether God would deliver them or not deliver them they were not anxiously careful they were careful to serve God but careless about the saving of their lives Better it were that the fiery Furnace should consume their lives then that the fire of Hell should consume their souls Vse 3. Hence there is good ground we should place all our confidence in God and in no creatures whatsoever because they are all dead perishing vanities if we may confide in any creature then may we put confidence in Princes because they are great and powerful they are Gods on earth and can afford the best aid and help to men in distres yet consider that in Psa 146. 3 4 5. Put not your trust in Princes nor in the son of man in whom there is no help Princes though they are great in power yet they are the Sons of men and obnoxious to the common condition of mankind they are vain mortal they dye and perish and when they dye all their thoughts perish all the purposes plots designs and intentions of Princes to do men good dye with them and their favourites are left to shift for themselves Then the Psalmist Vers 5. breaks forth into admiration of such a man who maketh God his help his aid his confidence and hope he is a living God he cannot dye he is a great God and his greatness is a living greatnes and none of all Gods thoughts perish but they endure from one generation to another if we must not put confidence in Princes then much less are we to trust in uncertain riches in uncertain honours in in Houses and Lands for these are all dead things and more vain and less able to help then man when riches are gone and perish the living God will and can aid us all the creatures are by fits but so many dead dogs before the living God Vse 4. ●s God a living God and the fountain of all life and motion then we should not despair of any though they through corrupt lusts do even stink in the nostrils of the godly

omnia therefore most perfect therefore but There 's none good but God verè perfectè summè simpliciter one God who is infinitely wise infinitely good infinitely powerful infinitely holy there is none good but God truly perfectly chiefly simply If there should be more Gods then one then there should be a distribution of excellencies there would be some perfection in one God which is not in the other so each of them would be imperfect neither should be God because each imperfect for there is no imperfection in the Godhead an imperfect God is no God Because that which hath Being from Arg. 2. himself and is an absolute independent Being can be but one now God hath an absolute independent Being from himself therefore he calls himself Jehovah which implies two things for our purpose sc that he hath being from himself and gives being to all other things In him we live and move and have our being Act. 17. and of him are all things Now that there is and can be but one Being from himself this reason may evince because otherwise there would be progressus in infinitum if God's Being be from another then that which gave God his being should be God and that had his being from another and so you may reason infinitely so t is absurd both in Divinity and Philosophy There can be but one first Cause Arg 3 and one first mover and one last end of all things therefore but one God who is the first cause of all things and the last end of all things Rom. 11. 36. There can be but one infinite Being one Almighty Being one Omnipresent Arg. 4. being therefore but one God who is onely Infinite Omnipo●ent and onely every where Cujus centrum est ubiqùe circumferentia nusquam as T●ismegist● Trismegistus speaks of God There can be but one Infinite for if there were two distinct Infinite Beings then there would be something in one which is not in another then where there is any thing wanting that is not Infinite and so no God There can be but one Omnipresent Being as Athenagoras argues well if there be more Gods where are they seeing the one onely true God is every where The fifth Argument is from the Arg. 5. Gentiles who though they Worshipped ●any Gods yet still did acknowledge there was but one true God Because the Divine nature is indivisible A●g 6. cannot be divided into parts it is indivisible because God is one simpliciter unum simplicissimum one most simple thing admitting no parts nor number if the Divine Nature were divisible into parts then were it not one simple but a compound entity CHAP. III. Sheweth the grounds how it came to pass men made so many Gods besides God NOw the grounds whence it cam● to passe that men made so many God's besides the true God wer● Jon. 1 6. these 1. One Reason was the great benefits which sometimes they receive● from men who were eminent in som● Heroicall vertues the blinded Gentiles would therefore honour and reverence them as Gods 2. The creatures that were usefull were worshipped as gods because of their usefulness by those deluded Heathens thus the people of Judah when they fell to Idolatry burnt incense as they termed it to the Queen of heaven poured out drink offerings to her and made her cakes to Worship her Jerem. 44. for say they to the Prophet When we did thus then had we plenty of victuals and were well and saw no evil ver 17. Therefore the Egyptians would worship Fire Cattel Onyons Doggs c. and the Persians would worship the Sun Moon and Stars 3. From a conceit that Devils did all mischief to them therefore they would worship even Devils themselves to pacify them 4. The Devil himself did earnestly labour to blind the eyes of the Heathen by foretelling things to come which begot in them an opinion of a Deity therefore they did offer sacrifice to them and would go to their Oracles to demand future things which gave them an ambiguous answer 5. Sometimes they would frame a God according to their own lusts and wicked conditions as those that were given to lust and adultery made Venus their Goddesse they that w●re given to theft made Mercury their God they that were given to murther and war made Mars their God 6. The Apostle gives the true reason of all sc God's judgement upon them giving them up to a blind mind and vain imaginations for their contempt of the true and only God R●m 1. 21. 22 23. Because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankfull but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish hea●t was darkened professing themselves wise they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things therefore God gave them up to their own hearts lusts and so they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the Creature more then the Creat 〈…〉 who is blessed for ever Amen ver 25. This is the reason why God gives men up to idolatry in these daies 2 Thes 2. 10 11. The Apostle having described the coming of the man o● Sin to be after the working of Satan with all power and signes and lying wonders and with all deceiveablenesse of unrighteousnesse in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might b● saved he then tells us that for this cause God shall send them a strong delusion that they should believe a lie when men shall resist the revealed truth of the onely true God he gives them up to believe lies 7. Another ground why they made more Gods then one was the very ground and argument of the Manichees affirming there were two pri●ciples or beginnings of things a summum bonum and a summum malum a summum bonum from whence sprang all good a summum malum from whence issued forth all evil Their argument and reason is from the contrary effects of things and the contrary works that are done there are divers and very contrary effects to one another Now two things will give full answer hereunto The diversity and contrariety of effects Arg. i. argu●s not a contrariety and diversity of causes one thing may be the principle from which issueth divers contrary effects as for instance As the Sun is one and the same cause and yet worketh diversly upon divers subjects his presence causeth light his absence darknesse it hardens clay soften's wax the Sun is the cause of the great heat in the Summer and of the cold in the Winter it ripeneth and rotteth fruit it ●awneth the Blackmore's skin it doth not do so to another Nation If contrary effects should argue contrary causes then there should be two Suns if one Sun can by his light and heat produce contrary effects why not one God form

ever he will never desert and forsake those that worship him in Spirit and truth but as he here promiseth Israel so he doth to all his servants the eternal God will be their refuge their habitation 2. If God be eternal then all those make an ill bargain that for the love of some base lust lose an eternal God who prefer the fruition of pleasures and profits before him What shall it profit a man to win the whole world and lose his own soul the same and more may be spoken to such persons what shall it profit a man to win a thousand worlds and to lose an eternal and immortal God The day is coming when all wretched worldlings shall cry out as Israel did at the sacrifice of Elijah The Lord God he is God the Lord God he is God Baal is not God so riches are not an eternal God honors are not an eternal God pleasures are not an eternal God but God only is eternal oh that I could now say the eternal God is mine It will be most just in that day for God to cast thee into eternal torments for rejecting him in this moment of thy life 3. Then surely they are blessed who have the eternal God for their resuge for their portion happy are the people that are in such a case saith the Psalmist Psal 144. ult speaking of outward prosperity who have barns and fields full of corn strong and fruitfull cattle Esau's blessing the ●atnesse of the earth but they rather are blessed that have the Lord to be their God who have the Lord for their portion who have the dew of heaven which is Jacobs blessing yea the very eternal God of heaven All earthly treasures which the word so greedily seeks after and on which wicked worldlings set their hearts will at one time or other take their wings and flee away and will be seen no more but the eternal God never forsakes those who take him for their refuge and portion he is e●ernal strength in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength Isa 26. 4. He gives eternal comforts eternal honours eternal riches eternal pleasures Psal 16. ult Eternal glory and if he be once thine he is thine to Eternity 4. Since God is eternal learn hence what ground we have to put all trust and confidence in him trust ye in the Lord for ever Psal 26. 4. There is no trust to the favour of creatures to man the greatest of men because their breath is in their nostrils the doors are always open mans breath goeth forth he returneth to his earth Psal 146. 4. but God lives for ever He is an eternal refuge therefore thou mayest trust to him always in all dangers His strength is eternal therefore thou mayest trust him in thy greatest weaknesses his mercy endureth for ever therefore thou shouldest never despair but trust in his mercy for ever and ever Psal 52. 8. All in God is eternal his Word his Faithfulness his Truth he keepeth truth for ever Psal 146. 6. 5. This should encourage us to undergo momentany crosses losses disgraces troubles for God when God calls us to it because he is eternal Suppose thou endurest the loss of riches they are but momentany God will be eternal riches If thou endurest momentany disgrace and dishonour God will give thee eternal honour and glory I reckon saith S. Paul that all the afflictions of this present time are not worthy to be compared with that glory that shall be revealed Rom. 8. 18. much less worthy are they to be compared with the eternal God of glory 6. Here is an Use of Terrour to wicked men who impenitently live and die in their sins for if God be eternal then your damnation your curse and sorrows in Hell shall be eternal The fire in hell is eternal fire because the eternal God made it and will preserve it to eternity therefore your damnation to that fire O sinners is eternal because God is an eternal Judge and his sentence and punishment shall be eternal Isa 30. 33. Tophet is ordained of old c. he hath made it deep and large the pile thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it CHAP. V. IN the next place consider if God be eternal then is he a King eternal and his dominion is for ever This may appear 1. From the continuance of his government and dominion even from the foundations of the world Earthly Kingdomes have had and have their waxings and wanes their increase and decrease their glorious exaltations and their heavy downfalls and ruinous desolations but the Kingdome of God is the same yesterday to day and for ever All creatures are under his dominion and in subjection to his commands now as at first there is no decay in his government nor in creatures obedience but still his will is fulfilled 2. By his continual protection of his Church and People from generation to generation his Church never wanted Enemies vowing the ruine and desolation of her from her foundation it hath been in all Ages like a Candle set upon the top of an high Hill the blustring winds of malice opposition and persecution pussing blowing and storming against it yet the Eternal King hath preserved it that they could never blow it ou● There is a whole Hell of Devils and a World of wicked Men whose hearts Satan hath filled with malice against the Church yet the gates of Hell could never prevail against it 3. Because God to day and yesterday binds the Consciences of men and so for ever Conscience is God's Vicegerent and Lord Deputy in the hearts of men that Government endureth his Laws do still bind the Conscience Men's Consciences are terrified for the breach of his Laws 't is none but he can speak peace or continue terrour 4. His Kingdome is for ever for at the destruction of the world he will reign as absolute King in Heaven and over Hell In Heaven a glorious King over Hell a just and terrible King honouring his Subjects with Crowns of immortal glory and punishing the Rebels with Chains of utter darknes he will tread down his Enemies and they shall be trodden down into the pi● of everlasting confusion But it may be said Albeit God be Object an eternal King yet the Enemies do sometimes prevail against the Church how then doth he continually protect it 1. It is true they may and do prevail Sol. over part of the Church but not over the whole and never shall prevail they may destroy the suburbs of this holy City but never shall they rase Jerusalem down to the ground 2. They may and do sometimes prevail over persons not over the the cause which is the Truth of God and his ●eligion the bodies of God's Saints have been cast into the streets like mire by the Antichristian party but the Truths of God which they professed shall be preserved as a Jewel in a Cab●net 3. The sufferings of