Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	care_n	zeal_n	zealous_a	18	3	8.9617	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47301	The measures of Christian obedience, or, A discourse shewing what obedience is indispensably necessary to a regenerate state, and what defects are consistent with it, for the promotion of piety, and the peace of troubled consciences by John Kettlewell ...	Kettlewell, John, 1653-1695.	1681 (1681)	Wing K372; ESTC R18916	498,267	755

Offices and Affairs against the plain Precept of studying to be quiet and to do our own business 1 Thess. 4.11 But the endeavours which we are to use and the means whereby we must try to secure to our selves an unpersecuted freedom in religious Ordinances and Professions must be such as are within the sphere of private men We must be upright and exemplary in the practice of it our selves and press a like exemplariness in the practice of it upon others By our humble modest quiet peaceable and submissive carriage we must convince such as are in Power that it deserves protection and by our affectionate fervent and importunate prayers to Gods we must endeavour to have it put into their hearts to protect and preserve it We must plead its Cause and represent that truth and goodness which may recommend it and try to wipe off the aspersions and rectifie the mistakes of such as plead against it or think hardly of it These and such like means are the laudable service in this Case and the proper business of private Christians And whilst their care is contained within this compass and they act thus within their own sphere it is excellent and praise-worthy they seek to preserve Religion and their seeking to do it in this way is it self very pious and religious 2. In shewing their care to preserve the free and unpersecuted profession of Religion they must exercise such only of those actions within their own sphere as are lawful and innocent but by no means endeavour to maintain it by such as are sinful and disobedient They must not defend it by lyes and forgeries by wrath and bitterness by fierceness and revenge by slandering and reviling of their Opposers They must so defend Religion as not to disobey it because that is not defending but betraying it A free profession is no further desirable than it tends to an upright practice So that to disobey for it is to lose all that wherefore we endeavour after it Truth must never be bought with the loss of innocence nor must we ever commit any one sinful action to promote a freedom of orthodox and true professions 3. In evidencing their care in preserving the free and unpersecuted profession of Religion they must be zealous in the first place for the practice and preservation of religious Laws and next to that for religious Ordinances and Opinions S t Paul directs us to the great Object of all religious zeal when he tells us that Christ came into the world to purchase to himself a peculiar people zealous of good WORKS Tit. 2.14 Nothing in the world is so warrantable a matter of a mans zeal as Gods Laws and mens obedience For the Laws of Christ's Gospel are that part which he esteems most he has made them the measure of life or death the Rule of our eternal absolution or condemnation And as he accounts of them so should we too Our zeal for them must be more warm and our care more watchful than for any other thing because God himself is most especially concerned for them and all men are most highly concerned in them they being that whereby all men must live or dye eternally This I will says S t Paul to Titus that thou affirm constantly That they which have believed in God may be CAREFVL to maintain GOOD WORKS these things are good and profitable unto men Tit. 3.8 So that the practice of religious Laws must be the great point wherein we are to be zealous and careful in the first place Next to which we must take care of those opinions which have a great influence upon and are the great productive instruments of all obedient practice such as are all opinions which are either motives or inducements helps or encouragements to obedience In which sort of opinions our Religion abounds there being as I said no idle Article in the Christian Creed but such Doctrins and Declarations concerning God and Christ and our selves and the other world as are either absolutely necessary or very helpful to a holy life All which according to their several proportions in promoting piety and obedience to Gods Laws we are to be zealously concerned for in the next place as we are for that pious obedience which is wrought by them in the first But when we have shown our good affection to substantial piety and Religion by a just zeal for obedience and plainly practical opinions then may it be very fit for us to shew our zeal for other true Doctrines and Professions likewise For it is a great honour to God and an ornament to Religion that we have it pure and sincere free from all things that are liable to just exception and from all mixture of errour and falshood And it is also a great happiness to men to have orthodox apprehensions in Religion and to embrace nothing for Gospel truths but what God has thereby declared to them But it is a further happiness still and such whereof men are the most sensible to be free from the imperious imposition and tyranny of errour so as neither to be forced upon the impossible belief of that which in our own minds we see is false and therefore cannot believe nor upon the feigned and hypocritical profession of believing a thing when really we do not believe it one of which two is mens unhappiness when their professed Religion falls under persecution Now both these are severe and rigorous impositions For the first is utterly impossible to any so long as it continues a free and impartial head as the latter is to any whilst it remains an honest and obedient heart So that all men have very great reason so far as they can by all innocent and honest ways to be zealous against them and to use all the lawful care and caution that possibly they can to avoid so powerful a motive as a sharp persecution is to tempt them to a thing so unreasonable as is the first and so wicked and sinful as is the latter So long then as men will moderate their zeal for the unpersecuted use of religious Ordinances and profession of religious Opinions with this discretion let them be zealous and concerned for it in God's Name For it is their Duty so to be and God will reward and all good men commend them for it If they take care that their zeal transport them not beyond their own sphere that it carry them not against their Duty and that it be concerned in the first place for Laws and practical opinions they may allow it after that to spend it self upon other Points which have more of speculative truth but less of practice This zeal now is excellent 't is truly pious 't is religious But if they have a zeal without obedience if for preventing of persecution in the profession of true opinions they run upon sinful means and undutiful transgressions their zeal is ungodly and all their pretended care of Religion is plainly irreligious For

the opportunity of the Sin returns for notwithstanding all the contrary desire this is acted at the next offer Obedience is not desired so much as their ease for they love it not so well as to be at the necessary pains for it It is a squeamish delicate desire it would obey if that could be without trouble but it will undergo nothing for obedience But this is a conceit as strange as it is destructive and such wherewith the simplest of men suffer themselves to be imposed upon in no other matters but only this which most of all requires their care and caution viz. the eternal welfare of their souls and the truth of their obedience For who ever took his desire of gain to be gain his desire of ease to be ease his desire of meat to be food his desire of cloaths to be rayment or his desire of knowledg to be knowledg And why then must that be true in Religion which is always false in common life and the desire of Grace be said to be Grace and the desire of obedience obedience Our desires are one thing but the thing desired is another Our desires are within but the object desired is without us Our desires are our own but the thing desired is wanting For so far is our desire of any thing from being the very thing it self which is desired that it is not always joined with it but we possess one whilst we are without the other For alas we find that those things which we need and have a mind to do not come at the beck of a desire nor are procured by a wish but we must do more than desire them endeavour after them and work or act for them or else we shall sit without them A man doth not presently possess meat because he is hungry or is Owner of a great Estate because he is covetous no he must labour and seek as well as desire both for the one and the other or else let him desire what he will he shall get neither 'T is true a desire of money is a great preparative to get money and a desire of knowledg a good disposition to attain knowledg because our appetites and desires are of all the passions the great and most immediate Spring of our outward works and operations For delight begets love and love ends in desire and desire carries us on to work and labour for the thing desired We seek after a thing because we long for it and take pains about it because we desire it And thus our desires of Grace and Obedience are Grace and Obedience That is Our desire of Grace is not Grace it self nor our desire of Obedience Obedience but a good step and degree towards them It is so metonymically it is the Principle and the Cause of it For therefore we acquire Grace and perform Obedience because we desire them We should take no pains about them were it not for our desires of them but because we have a mind to them therefore we labour after them But till our desires come on to this effect they have no title to the rewards of it Because although they are a gift of Gods Grace 't is true as well as Obedience it self is yet are they not that Grace which in the Judgment shall entitle us to pardon and happiness For the promise to the Desire of Obedience is one but the promise to Obedience it self is another If we sincerely desire to do Gods will i. e. if we desire it so as according to the best of our power to endeavour after it the promise to that is That we shall be inabled to do it For one promise of the New Covenant is That God will grant unto us to serve him in holiness and righteousness Luke 1.74 75 which he will then do when we desire it of him by giving his holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 But if we do indeed obey it the promise to that is That we shall be saved by it For Christ is become the Authour of eternal salvation to them that obey him Heb. 5.9 And it is said expresly of them that obey That they shall have right to the tree of life Rev. 22.14 So that to the honest desire of obedience all that God promises is the power to perform and work obedience but that whereunto mercy and life is promised is nothing less than obedience it self For to the working out our salvation it is required as S t Paul says that we be wrought upon not only to will what God commands but also to do it Phil. 2.12 13. The great pretence whereby men of idle unworking desires would plead for their unfruitfulness and support their hopes of a happy Sentence under a life of disobedience is a mistaken sence of these words of S t Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh so that ye cannot do the things that ye would Gal. 5.17 Which words they interpret thus The Spirit in all good men lusteth against the Flesh but not so far as to prevail over it for although they may will and desire with the Spirit yet they cannot do those things which they would And if this be so 't is plain that we have warrant enough to hope for mercy notwithstanding we only desire but are not able to perform But this is a plain perverting of the Apostles words from the Apostles own meaning For although he says that the lusting is on both sides both of the Flesh against the Spirit and of the Spirit against the Flesh yet as for the ineffectiveness or not doing what is willed and desired that he charges only upon one He leaves it purely and solely to the Fleshes share which can indeed lust and desire evil things even in regenerate men but is not able to prevail so far as to work and effect them because the over-ruling will of the Spirit checks and restrains it Through the victorious lusting of the Spirit against the Flesh saith he it comes to pass that you cannot do or do not those things which from the instigation of your Flesh you desire and would do And to shew this to be his sense I need do no more than set down his words in that order wherein they stand which is as follows This I say then Walk in the Spirit and you shall not work and fulfil the lusts of the Flesh. Not work and fulfil them I say notwithstanding you will still feel an ineffective and unconquering stirring of them For the Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and these two are contrary one to the other So that in walking or working as I said after the lustings and desires of the Spirit you fulfil not the lusts of the Flesh which are contrary to it ye cannot do or you do not the things that your Flesh lusts after which yet through its lusting ye would ver 16 17. Whereas

indifferently by either name being sometimes called the Spirit and sometimes the Holy Ghost But although as I say for this reason the words Spirit and Holy Ghost are sometimes used promiscuously to signifie all or any of these extraordinary gifts indifferently yet what is very material to our purpose sometimes nay very frequently they are distinguished And then by the Holy Ghost is meant not all extraordinary gifts indifferently but particularly those which respect our understandings not executive powers consisting rather in illumination than in power and action of which sort are the gift of tongues of prophecy of discerning Spirits of knowledg of revelation and such like Thus the lying against that part of the gift of discerning Spirits which consisted in understanding the thoughts and purposes of the heart is called lying to the Holy Ghost For so S t Peter who was endowed with this gift tells Ananias when he would have imposed upon him Why hath Satan filled thine heart saith he to lye to the Holy Ghost Acts 5.3 And S t Stephen's being filled with an extraordinary revelation of Christ's sitting at God's right hand in Heaven is called his being filled with the Holy Ghost Acts 7.55 But more especially the gift of Tongues and Prophecy is dignified with that name Thus in the 10 th Chapter of the Acts when the Gentiles in Cornelius's house begun to speak with Tongues upon S t Peters preaching it is said that the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word and that on the Gentiles was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost v. 44 45 46. The Disciples at Ephesus who being baptized with the Baptism of John cannot be supposed ignorant of the many miraculous Cures so much talked of among the Jews and of the strange effects of the Spirit in Jesus whom John preached did yet tell Paul that they had not so much as heard of the Holy Ghost Act. 19.2 which might very well be because the Holy Ghost or gift of Tongues and Prophecy were not given till after Jesus was glorified Joh. 7.39 But upon the preaching of S t Paul they were made partakers of it for when Paul laid his hands on them the Holy Ghost came upon them and they spake with tongues and prophesied Act. 19.6 And to name no more instances in this matter that place which I now hinted in the 7 th Chapter of S t John is a full proof of this restrained acceptation For there after all the instances of curing diseases casting out Devils and other effects of the Spirit in miraculous operations which Christ shewed wheresoever he came it is yet expresly affirmed that the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified by his Exaltation to the right hand of God v. 39. The Holy Ghost i. e. these gifts of Tongues of Prophecy and the like which are all that remained still to be shed abroad and which came upon the Apostles at the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost Act. 2. Thus is the Holy Ghost set to denote not all the miraculous and extraordinary gifts of the Spirit promiscuously but particularly those which respect the mind or understanding such as the gift of Tongues of Prophecy of deep Knowledge and the like And on the other side as for the word Spirit it is set to express not all extraordinary gifts and effects of the Spirit in general but those by name which respect our executive not knowing powers and which consist not in illumination but in action Of which sort are the gift of healing diseases of casting out Devils of raising the dead and other miraculous operations Thus the miraculous courage and valour which was given to Othoniel is called the Spirit of the Lord Judg. 3.10 as is that likewise which was given to Gideon Judg. 6.34 and the miraculous strength of Samson is called the Spirit of the Lord upon Samson Judg. 14.6 And upon Christs working the miraculous cure upon the man with the withered hand S t Matthew applies to him that saying of the Prophet the Spirit of the Lord came upon him Mat. 12.18 and his casting out Devils he himself attributes to the Spirit of God I says he by the spirit of God cast out devils v. 28. As by the Holy Ghost therefore are meant particularly the gifts of illumination in Tongues and Prophecy so by the Spirit are signified the gifts of Power in healing diseases casting out Devils and doing mighty and miraculous works And both these together take up the full compass of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit and are both distinctly expressed by S t Peter when he says that Jesus was anointed with the holy Ghost and with Power Act. 10.38 These then are the several meanings of the words Holy Ghost and holy Spirit They denote as the third Person in the Trinity the Holy Ghost himself so also those gifts and effects which proceed from him Whether those gifts are ordinary either in the endowments of our minds or the vertuous tempers and dispositions of our wills and hearts or extraordinary and miraculous Wherein yet we must observe this difference that the gifts of the executive powers in healing diseases casting out Devils working Miracles are by a peculiar name called the Spirit and the gifts of the knowing or understanding Faculties in Prophecies Revelations speaking with divers sorts of Tongues are by a contradistinct name called the Holy Ghost And thus having shewn what is meant by the Holy Ghost I proceed now to show 2. What is meant by sinning against it and which of all those which are committed against it is the unpardonable sin The only way whereby any men are capable to sin against God as was observed is by affront and dishonour for God is out of our reach for any other sort of injury and we cannot otherwise hurt him than by shewing our contempt and disrepect of him And in regard the Holy Ghost in his own person is very and essential God this must needs be the only way whereby we can sin against him likewise We cannot injure him in his Nature but only in his Honour but then we sin against him when we walk cross to him and oppose him or any way slight and contemn undervalue or reproach him or any of those excellent and Divine gifts which proceed from him Now this we do more or less in every sin For this Spirit of God is an universal instrument of faith and good life it has taken the utmost care by miracles and other its convictive evidences to evince the truth of Christs Doctrine and doth now still by his daily suggestions and sollicitations excite men to the observance of it And seeing the Spirit of God has shown it self so much concerned for our faith and obedience every act of unbelief and disobedience is a direct opposition to it and reproach of it and therefore is a sin against it But every such sin is not the unpardonable fault here mentioned For our very