Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A89617
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Mary Magdalen's tears wip't off. Or The voice of peace to an unquiet conscience. Written by way of letter to a person of quality. And published for the comfort of all those, who mourn in Zion.
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Martin, T., 17th cent.
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1659
(1659)
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Wing M850; Thomason E1913_2; ESTC R202880
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54,570
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127
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as they who sin after Baptism do is intollerable and a sign of one that hath forfeited the Grace that is given him and is judicially hardned by God SOLUTION 10. TO sin and to relapse into sin after a Vow against it is that thing indeed which every baptised Christian doth and in those who are Adult or at years of discretion not invincibly ignorant of their Obligation is infallibly not only a very great Aggravation of sin but a sin it self and such an Offendour is in very truth not only a great Dishonor to the Gospell of Christ but a great scandol to the Communion of Saints dis-inherited and that actually of his interest in the Kingdom of Christ whilest he continues in that state of Impenitency but when the course is broken the case is quite the contrary and the Prodigal returning capable of as benign and as hospital a Reception in his Fathers house as was that other Son able to boast of his good demeanour from his Childhood This is the case of Repentant Sinners and for such it is that when they nay though but a single one return There is joy in the presence of the Angels of God Luke 15.12 But for the Vow in the Baptisme I am not for the present of opinion that it is any aggravation of sin till the baptised Person comes to years of Discretion and hath either actually taken upon him the performance of his Baptismal vow or else hath attain'd so much knowledge of his Profession as that he hath or may have information that he was initiated thereinto and admitted under such a solemn Stipulation But when I speak of Actual taking upon him the performance of this Vow I do not mean that solemn direct oral and publick transferring the Obligation on himself in Episcopal Confirmation but also the doing any Christian duty of Communion whereby he doth though but implicitely own his Faith and consequently his Obligation thereto made on his behalf by Suretyes in his Baptisme And again you must conceive that every willfull sin against Knowledge and Conscience even in those who are adult and have Actually put themselves under the performance of the Vow is no abdication of our Vow in Baptisme neither do I apprehend that Person which so offends to be guilty of Perjury upon every Act of such sin of Wilfullness no more than I believe that every single disobedience of her Husband may be interpreted to be a perjury in the Wife because she hath promised and solemnly vowed to obey him in the Mariage Contract I confess that an habitual course of wilfull sin in such as do own their profession nay that any sin presumptuously committed against the Divine Majesty doth imply a breach of this vow as well as final Apostacy yea that the abnegation of any evident Fundamental of Religion as the Resurrection of the Dead the Doctrine of the ever blessed and holy Trinity after first and second Admonition Tit. 3.10 c. is a breach of the Vow in Baptisme but that every Act of willfull sin is such is to my Apprehension no more a truth than for a Christian of the Protestant perswasion to deny Christs local descention into Hell which hath no undenyable ground in Scripture and for that error for to that Perswasion the Church is not infallible to be held guilty of perjury in breaking the second clause or branch of this Vow in Baptisme requiring him to believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith as well as doth the first and third exact from him a forsaking of the Devil the World the Flesh and the keeping of Gods holy Will and commandements all the days of my life But let the most that you fear be granted you be held guilty of as many perjuries as you committed other sins and this not only in your own esteem but in the opinions of learned Divines yet still this may render that condition to be more lamented but it cannot make it irrecoverable for is there any thing in Scripture more frequent than Gods Messages by his Prophets to the People of the Jews calling them to repentance that after Covenant-breach and promising them pardon if they would repent and convert unto him The Prophet Jeremy may supersede your searching any other Scriptures to this purpose who indeed is abundant in those promises of Mercy and therefore a Book very fit to comfort every penitent Soul and likewise as fit by reason of the Threatnings therein to convert the Impenitent As for that you speak concerning judicial induration or Gods hardening mens hearts in Judg ement Mat. 25.28 Luke 8.18 I confess that there is a taking away the Talent from the sloathfull Servant a withdrawing of Grace from him that doth not use it to that end for which it was given him by God but that such a judgement is not ordinarily revealed save by the treasuring up of wrath against the day of wrath the final impenitence of him who is thus judicially hardened by God will be difficult to prove there being no very sure example of this Induration in Scripture save that of Pharoah in whom those consequents were most visible and of those obstinate and incredulous Jews to whom our Saviour preach'd or in whose presence or Country he wrought so many Miracles mentioned in Mat. 13.14 15. but that you are in danger of such judicial Induration as this is a very remote fear and to my judgment wholly inconsistent with your present Christian Deportment OBJECTION But you say my Sins are confessedly very great being accompanyed with such circumstances as they are even withall the Allowances your Charity or Judgement can afford them they cannot then but require a proportionable Grief for them which as yet I find not in my self Moses Rod that drew water from Rocks of the Wilderness being not able to break and wound my stony Heart into Rivers of Tears such as are fit to cleanse and wrince away these stains of Sin SOLUTION VI. 11. THis complaint is but a retrive of one of those Aggravations of your sins mentioned by you at the first and by me deferred to be satisfied at that time I say therefore that it cannot be denyed but that Grief for sin committed ought to bear some proportion with the heinousness of our Crimes for which we desire to grieve and lament but you may be very unfit to judge of this proportion especially seeing your Grief and Revenge with an intermixture of other Irascible passions hath made you already too obnoxious to the devices of Satan 2 Cor. 2.11 and Peter three times denyed that he knew his Master Mark 14.66 and that with Cursings and Swearings Imprecations perhaps upon himself if he knew any such man Luk. 22.55 Here was a Complication of very gross sins as Swearing Cursing Denyal of his Master whom lately he professed to be the Son of God and all this a flat Perjury yet you never read of Tears shed for these Sins more then once Mat. 26.75
whereof is the divers Methods that God hath made use of in delivering the System or Rules of either dispensation unto both People A 3d sence may be this the Apostle may intend by the Testimonie of the Spirit in Gods Children that Inclination and duct of Obedience which Gods Children do though not all of them in the same measure feel in their hearts sweetning their natures and bringing them gently to a complyableness with the Precepts of the Gospel and a putting their necks most willingly into the yoke of Christ his Commandments being no whit grievous to them 1 Jo. 5.3 like as yokes are very troublesome to Beasts not accustomed thereto as the Prophet speaks of the Jews Jer. 31.18 I was chastised as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoke but to such whose necks have been used to draw in them yokes are no way dreadful or troublesome In the first of these senses the word Spirit must be taken personally for the third Person in the ever Blessed and Glorious Trinity in the 2d it must be taken tropically the word not signifying in the natural and proper sense thereof but yet not without example Rom. 8.2 2 Cor. 3.6 Gal. 4.29 in the 3d sense it must signify metonymically the effect of the Spirit being called by the name of him that works that blessed effect in the Souls of Gods Children In the first and second of these senses the Testimony of the Spirit is communicated to all true Christians but in the third I know lyes the ground of your exception but because I shall have occasion to speak somewhat afterward directly to this point be pleased for the present to remember that I have told you that this inclination to obedience the duct of the Gospel is not alike efficacious upon all the children of God this Spirit being not given in the same measure to all the Sons of God As to the third branch of your Objection rather but one part of it viz. the want of the Testimony of your own Spirit that might witness together with the other that you are the Childe of God to give full satisfaction therein we must inquire into 1. the meaning of the word Spirit in this place 2. What the Testimony thereof is And of 3. what Authority in a business of this Importance the Testimony of a mans own Spirit is For the first the word Spirit in this place must signify I conceive one of these two things either first some noble and sublime Essence presiding in a Christian either as a Distinct subsistence from that which is one of the essential constitutive principles of every man or else as the Celestial and more Seraphical part of the Soul informing ordering and governing the rational faculties in all Spiritual and Divine things And in this sense it must be conceived to have some Resemblance with the office of the Imaginative faculty which being seated betwixt the outward senses and the Vnderstanding conveyes the Species of all sensible objects to the Intellectual facultie being it self of a middle nature betwixt rational and sensible To one of these senses I judge those Divines referre their opinions who assert man to consist of 1. Spirit 2. Soul and 3. Bodie unless by Soul in this tripartite division they understand an Essence capable of no other offices in Man but the performance of sensitive and vegitative operations Or 2ly the word Spirit in this place may signify and me thinks not at all incongruously some excellent gift of the Holy Ghost infused from above in our Baptism into the Souls of Christians whereby they are not only made capable of receiving divine Revelations and things above Reason but likewise inclined and encourain the performance of all those things which God requires at their hands to render them capable of obtaining the further inestimable degrees of his Love and Favour to Mankinde And therefore 2ly the Testimony of any mans Spirit is that Evidence which it gives concerning the whole Series of his conversation in reference to those principles of Faith and Obedience which God hath given him in his revealed Will as the Grounds and Rules of his Practice The 3d Authentickness of which Testimony doth manifest it self to every man partly by the known truth of the things attested which are not concealed from him but represented as the things of himself and partly from that power which God hath over it not only in rectifying any Errors thereof but likewise in shewing himself merciful toward us in such things wherein such a Testimony is not for but against us This Testimony you say you want because you finde not any Witness in your self that you are a Childe of God I conceive it is not impossible for your Spirit to give this Testimony though you have deafned your ear to it and take it for some deception of flesh and blood or a delusion of Satan using all the Devices he can to insnare you in carnal security but whether it be thus or no I shall advise you to endeavour to elicite and call up this Testimony by that which is the Test of it Do you continue in any wilful course of deliberate sin what know you by your self are you still guilty of any of those sins which in the judgment of the Apostle render a man uncapable of any inheritance with the Children of God if you are then look not for this Testimony till you have repented and amended your life nor then neither for it presently until such time as you have good experience of your Resolutions how they have held out in the time of tryal and Temptation and that the greatest and sharpest that in all likelyhood may happen unto you But if you are not thus guilty as for my part I believe you a re not of any mortal sin reigning in your bodie go to the Rule with this argument in your mouth The Holy Spirit of God saith Whosoever is born of God doth not sin willfully and deliberately Joh. 3.9 But upon a strict survey of my self I finde that I do not commit any such sin Therefore I am borne of God Upon the Truth of the middle Proposition depends the validity of this Testimony of your Spirit for the major is infallible and the Conclusion is undoubtedly true upon supposition that there be no such sin either of omission or commission in your conversation which may exclude you from your Sonship But yet for as much as the Apostle doth tell us that though he knew nothing by himself yet was he not thereby justified we ought in reason to lay no more weight on this disquisition and search of our selves then it will bear for our Knowledge being imperfect this search and inquiry into our own wayes cannot be absolutely perfect and consequently we subject to errors therein yet is it most certain that if we do it in sincerity of heart without partiality to our selves not only not allowing in our practise any the smallest sin but by deeds of Mortification