Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	call_v	church_n	pillar_n	6,253	5	10.5659	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56658	The epitome of man's duty being a discourse upon Mic. 6.8, where hypocritical people are briefly directed how to please God.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1660 (1660)	Wing P795; ESTC R203168	52,419	134

to them if they do not shine so bright in contradiction to their lives that they are offended at it The Church of God is called the pillar and ground of truth 1 Tim. 3.15 because it doth hold forth the truth to men and support it in the world even as a pillar doth a proclamation which is affixed to it so that all that pass by may read it And this it doth not only by preaching and outward profession but by the sincere practice of a multitude of professors So that it is as easie for men to know their duty as to know what a Kings proclamation is which is not only cryed but likewise posted up in the market-place that all may read it Let us not then be so dull as to think on the one hand to plead Ignorance or weakness of parts or insuffici●ncy of light in excuse for neglect of our duty or so wild We cannot then plead Ignorance we need not be Seekers as on the other hand to turn Seekers in Religion as though no body could yet find the way to heaven The Lord hath shewed thee O man what thou hast to do and therefore thou shalt not be able to pretend that thou wantedst the means of knowledge and hadst no body to inform thee in thy duty And he hath shewn it so long ago that the world cannot be at this day to seek how to please God as if no body could tell what his mind was To pass by the former let it be considered concerning the latter that they he shrewdly to be suspected to believe no God or else not to know what they mean by the name who are to seek what Religion to be of For no man can be rationally perswaded of the being of a God and not be perswaded that he governs the world And if he govern the world it must be by Laws And if those Laws are incertain they are no better then none And if they be made for all his subjects they must be plain because many of them understand but little It is an easie thing to find what Gods will is if we be but impressed with such a sense of our dependance on him as begets that reverence and fear of him and that love and affection to him which easily and naturally flows from the sense of our dependance Gods mind is laid before us we need only open our eyes and look no further The way is plain though it be narrow the gate is open though it be strait You may easier find the way then walk in it you may sooner see the gate then enter in at it It is to be feared that they who seek for some new way find this too strait and narrow which they have been in and they would have a greater liberty to themselves then formerly their consciences durst let them take And then the Devil may soon shew them the way wherein they should walk and by a new light discover to them the paths of darkness But I dare say if any man have a mind to live godly to deny himself to walk humbly with his God he need not go to seek any further then this book There he may behold so much to be practised that if he will seek no further till he hath done that I may warrant him from being of the number of any other seekers then those that seek the Lord continually that they may walk in all his commandments blameless They are exceeding broad they are to have an influence into the whole life so that if the doing of those be our end we need seek for no more for they will hold us at work all our dayes THE third observation is The third observation proved That Gods demands are not unequall or that he doth not exact of us any duty that is hard and rigorous They are not Draco's Laws cruell and tyrannicall nor the heavy yoke of Moses grievous and painfull but the gracious commands of Jesus Christ the Laws that God himself lived by when he was in the flesh Co●in germans to those that rule in heaven Two things in the text likewise speak this besides that which is mainly intended First the Prophet calls it Good which the Lord shews to us He requires nothing that is for our harm or our reall damage or which a man should refuse if he was left to himself did he rightly understand And secondly the question likewise speaks it What doth the Lord require of thee As if he should have said what great matter doth he look for what canst thou except against it is it any thing strange and uncouth that was never before heard of Did thy mind never give thee notice of it Is it some monstrous task that the mind of man could never conceive it nor think of it No. 1. 1 God exacts not things impossible God requires nothing impossible as is apparent from two things which the text suggests to our thoughts 1. He doth not bid men offer their children to him which perhaps they have not He doth not bid them buy them as the Heathen sometime were fain to do for perhaps they are not able He doth not exact of men as the Prophet before said a thousand rivers of oyl which a whole Town or Countrey cannot afford But as Moses saith The commandment is not hid from thee neither is afar off It is not in heaven that thou shouldst say who shall go up to heaven and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it Neither is it beyond the sea that thou shouldst say who shall go over the sea for us and bring it unto us that we may hear it and do it But the word is very nigh unto thee in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou maist do it Deut. 30.11 12 13 14. He doth not bid us all be Schollars and understand all the books of nature He bids us not to climb up to heaven and follow the chariot of the Sun and track the paths wherein the Moon walks and number all the heavenly bodies things which all mens parts and employments will not reach but he saith plainly do justly love merty walk humbly with God things within us which we know well enough he requires of us And secondly you may observe that he saith What doth the Lord require or thee O man He doth not bid us make other men do justly and love mercy c. He doth not command us to quell other mens passions but our own nor govern other mens desires and lusts but those that are in our selves He exacts not of us their duties whether it be of our children or servants or any such impossible task but our own duty toward God and them When we have done what we can to make them understand and do their duty then saith the Scripture God will not require their blood at our hand But the soul that sinneth that shall die and every soul shall bear its own iniquity 2. Nor