Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	holy_a	pillar_n	2,667	5	9.8906	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89580	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, now assembled in Parliament, at their publike fast, November 17. 1640. Upon 2 Chron. 15. 2. The Lord is with you, while yee bee with him: and if yee seek him, he will be found of you: but if yee forsake him, he will forsake you. / By Stephen Marshall, Batchelour in Divinity, minister of Finchingfield in Essex. Published by order of the said House.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1641 (1641)	Wing M776; Thomason E204_9; ESTC R212613	31,991	52

enterprizes came from Gods withdrawing from them for their unfaithfull walking with him in the matter of rebuilding his house and that thereupon the people were stirred up to consider their wayes and to build Gods Temple the Lord tells them vers. 18. that though their seed was not yet in their Barnes nor any of their trees had brought forth their burthen and so for ought they could see they were like to have as hard a year as before yet now saith the Lord from this day I wil blesse you Now you shall have a crop that there shal not be roome enough to receive it for if they would build his Temple he would come and dwell with them Thirdly Gods presence in his Covenant implyes his protection and defence of that people against all enemies It is said of Joseph he went into Aegypt he was sold for a slave but saith the Text God was with him and delivered him out of all his afflictions None could hurt him while God was with him Aboundance of excellent Scriptures speake this truth Observe two or three comparisons which the Holy Ghost frequently useth in Isai. 4. the later end the Lord speaks thus of the Churches of the Gentiles that he would create upon all the assemblies upon all the places where the people should assemble to serve him a pillar of a Cloud and a fire to keepe them safe day and night for upon all the glory shall be a defence Marke Gods presence in his Ordinances is their Glory and upon all the Glory GOD would create a Defence Hee compareth Himselfe to a Shield I am thy Shield Now the nature of a Shield is to take all the blo vs that the body cannot be hurt till the shield be pierced through In Zach. 2. 5. God saith he will bee a wall of fire round about them alluding to the custome of Travellers in waste wildernesses who used to make fires round about them in the night and then none of the wilde beasts durst come neare them such a defence is God to his people And he often saith he beares them upon Eagles wings Some observe that other birds carry their young ones in their clawes and then the young one may bee killed and the old one not hurt but the Eagle carries her young upon her back upon her wings and so they cannot be hurt till she be shot through Excellent is that expression in Isaiah the 46. where God comparing himselfe with the Idols of the Heathens speakes to this purpose Their Idolls must be borne but God beares his people They must be set in their place and bee kept least they be stolne or broken they must defend their gods but Iehovah defends his people In many places God calls himselfe the Watch-man of his people the Leader of them the Defender of them all signifying thus much that the safety and defence of his people rests upon his presence with them Some where I have read a Dialogue betwixt a Iew and a Heathen After the Iewes returne from the Captivity all the Nations round about them being enemies to them a Pagan asked a Iew how they could have any hope of safety because faith hee every one of them is as one silly sheep compassed about with fifty wolves I but saith the Iew wee are kept by a shepheard that can kill these fifty Wolves when hee pleaceth This God where ever he comes is the protector of his people who if he but speake the word all the enemies of his people are consumed and brought to nothing And this is the summe of all Balaams answer to Balaak Numb. 23. and 24. that neither force nor fraud could hurt the people of Israel while God was with them On the other side if God leave a people all their strength is gone as Sampsons was when his Locks were cut of A notable instance of this you shall find in Ier. 37. God was then withdrawing from his people tooke away the signes of his presence and told them they should be delivered up into the hands of the Chaldeans they thought yet to hold it out But saith the Prophet If yee had smitten all the army of the Chaldeans and none of them had beene left but a few wounded men they should come and burne your City Amaziah's case also is most famous hee had warre with a great company of malicious neighbour Princes that hated him and he hires 100000 valiant men of Israel and joynes them with his owne forces But there comes a Prophet and bids him send these 100000 people backe why for God is not with the Armies of Israel As if he had said Amaziah it were all one for thee to carry 100000 wisps of straw or a hundred thousand dead Carkasses into the Field to fight as a hundred thousand valiant men if God bee not with them While God was with Sampson he could carry the gates of a City upon his shoulders when God left him when his Locks were cut which were a pledge of Gods presence then they took him and made a foole of him at their pleasure If you be not yet satisfied that all these three things are implyed in Gods presence observe further that not onely of Jehovah but even of all the Idoll gods of the Nations the like things are spoken As first they are said to be fathers and friends of the people that worshipped them Thus the people of Moab who worshipped Chemosh are stiled the people of Chemosh When Iudah joyned himselfe in marriage with Idolaters God saith of him He hath taken the daughter of a strange god And elsewhere when God chargeth his people with Idolatry the Indictment runnes thus They say to a stocke thou art my Father that is thou art my God as neare unto mee as a Father to his Children Secondly all their prosperity was said to come from their gods supposedly present among them and propitious to them Wilt thou not possesse that which Chemosh thy god gives thee to possesse said Iepthah to the King of Ammon who tooke Chemosh for his God Thirdly their safety their victories are ever attributed to their gods whom they tooke to be among them Our God hath delivered into our hands Sampson our enemy And the attempts against the Heathen are said to be made against their gods as in Isaiah 46. 2. where there is a prophesie of the taking of Babylon by Cyrus it is thus expressed Bell boweth downe Nebo stoopeth c. Their gods are gone into captivity So in 2. King 18. 34. Rabshakeh vants that in his Masters name Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpad c. And it is observed as an ordinary practice of the Romans that when they came to besiege any City they would first intreat the gods of that City to leave the protection of it and come over to them as who should say leave you off their protection and then let us alone with them So then the summe of all this

all their hearts and with all their soule and all their strength when he hath most neede of them If a woman will doe many things for her husband yet if her heart goe more after her Puppets her cloaths her servants than after him especially in times of his necessity her heart cannot beeinterpreted to be with her husband because he is not acknowledged in the due place of an husband So if there be any thing any cause any person that we rather ingage our selves for than for God and his cause wee cannot be said to be with God So now you have the meaning of the Condition of enjoying God while yee are with him It is 1 To be reconciled to God and to walk with him as an holy people 2 To continue with him in the purity of his worship 3 To stand by him in every cause which doth concerne his glory The deductions which might flow from this Doctrine for our use are many I shall confine my selfe to these two as being most sutable and seasonable to the time and your worke First matter of Humiliation and mourning before God for time past Secondly matter of Duty for time to come For the first Honourable and beloved you stand this day before the Lord to afflict your soules and though you bee the chosen men of your Tribes lifted up above your brethren yet you are now called not onely to bemoane your owne iniquities but to beare the iniquity of the whole Kingdome And me thinkes I looke upon you as upon the Prophet Ezekiel when he was to beare the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah hee was to lye upon his side and to eate his bread made of Wheate and Barley and Beanes Lentiles and Fitches miserable coarse bread and baked with the dung of man and to drinke a little water for many dayes together How sad and heavy the Prophets spirit must needs be when he was thus to beare such a burthen is easie to judge Such a temper of spirit would this day well become you And now could I but speak to you from the Lord how sad things there are against England in this point of not being with God could you with patience and grace heare me and would the Lord affect my heart and yours in handling and hearing of them we should make this place a Bochim a place of weepers the stoutest heart would be as Queene Huzzab and her Ladies when they went into Captivity tabering on their breasts and mourning as Doves yea howling after the manner of Dragons Could I as in a mirrour set before your eyes how infinitely farre off the body of this Kingdome is from being with the Lord we should wonder that the Lord hath not wholly forsaken us long agone and that instead of injoying this liberty of pleading with God for our lives for our Prince and Countrey and for whatsoever is precious to us we are not left like unto Sodom and made like unto Gomorrah Take a view of all the three particulars mentioned in the point First are we an holy people I am now pleading Gods cause and though a poore unworthy man I stand betwixt God and a Kingdome I aske again are we an holy people Are our Princes our Rulers our Magistrates our Ministers and the body of the people holy Doe wee walke according to the rules of Christianity the summe whereof for the practicall part is laid downe in the ten Commandements and those expositions that our Lord gives of them Doe we walke thus I know there is no man here so ignorant as to imagine that we doe Alas the Prophets speech too well befits us Ah! sinfull Nation a people laden with iniquity a seed of evill doers Children that are corrupters The whole head is sicke the whole heart is faint from the sole of the foote even to the head there is no soundnesse in it but wounds and bruises and putrifiedsores Aegypt was never more bespread with Locusts and Frogges than our Kingdome is with horrible prophanenesse uncleannesse oppression deceit and whatsoever is a stench in the Lords nostrills The generality of people wearing indeed the Lords Livery being Christned and doing the Devills work all the yeare long Nay is there any thing this day so hated as holinesse have we not gotten termes to scoffe down all goodnesse is not almost every man who will not sweare and be drunke and be deboyst as a Turke or worse cryed downe with the odious name of a Puritan That as Ambrose said of Paulinus a yong noble man of Rome at whom when he was converted to Christ and left the worlds glory to carry Christs Crosse there was more wondring than if a Mule had cast a Foale And as Bede said of the ancient Britaines immediately before their destruction by the Saxons that they were come to that height of wickednesse as to cast Odium in Religion is professores tanquam in adversarios God knowes many thousands are guilty of the same in this Land this day the measure of our iniquity seemes to be more than full O that our hearts could this day bleed for it Secondly see what wonderfull cause wee have to bee abased for all the injury the Land stands guilty of in abusing God in the poynt of his Worship which is the defiling of the marriage bed betwixt God and his people God hath visited all the Reformed Churches brought most of them almost to nothing yet passe over and see whether ever any of them have provoked the Lord in this kinde so much as wee have done Let mee name foure or five things too much practised and too little lamented God in mercy affect our hearts with them this day First the Articles of our faith the depositum the good thing committed to us which we received from our fore Fathers and should transmit entire to our posterity oh the miserable defection that wee have made from God adulterating thereof Tell mee beloved what one poynt what one Article of Faith controverted betwixt us and the Church of Rome is there that our Pulpits and Presses and University Acts have not beene bold withall as if we were weary of the Truth which God hath committed to us as if indeed for our not receiving the truth in love God were giving the Nation up to believe lies Secondly let me instance in the Lords Day a day which is a signe betwixt God and his people that He is their God that sanctifieth them That as Idoll-worshippers are knowne by keeping holidayes to their Gods So Gods people are knowne to bee his people by observing of his Holy day It is most true that our ancient Doctrine established is purer in this poynt than can be found in most of the Churches and excellent Lawes we have for the backing of it but I believe there hath not beene in all the Christian World such high affronts offered to the Lords day as of late hath beene in England and I am confident