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	word_n	6,560	5	4.2187	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93153	A few words concerning the fast which God requires the antiquity, necessity, and universality of it.	Shewen, William, 1631?-1695.	1680 (1680)	Wing S3422; ESTC R42493	7,259	15

witness a returning into Paradice into the favour of God into innocency uprightness and true holiness again which mankind lost by eating the forbidden Fruit which God commanded and commandeth to abstain or fast from and these are the people that are in a capacity to keep a Fast well-pleasing to God And this is the blessed end of God in speaking to our Fathers to Moses to the Prophets and last of all by his only Son even that mankind might come to keep the blessed Fast which God ordained in Paradice and that he might no more hunger and thirst after the forbidden Fruit but after Righteousness Peace and Joy in the holy Spirit in which stands that Kingdom the increase thereof hath no end he that can receive it let him for short of this all sorts of Profession and Religion is vain And among these people the fruits and effects of keeping the Fast the Lord chuseth shews forth themselves being ready and willing to relieve the oppressed to take off the heavy Burthens c. as before expressed And to and among such the Light is risen out of obscurity and the Darkness is become as Noon-day and the Lord guides such continually and satisfies their Souls in drought and their Bones are made fat and are like the watered Garden and like a Spring whose Water never fails These and many more Blessings were promised to such as kept the Fast which God chuseth And a remnant that are come to the keeping of it are living Witnesses that he is faithful that promised and hath fulfilled the same and can praise the Lord in the sense and enjoyment thereof though there be many sorts of Fasters in Christendom that know nothing experimentally of the fulfillings of these and many other precious Promises because their Fasts have not been of God's chusing or appointing but of their own so the fruit and effect hath been strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness though under a solemn Form of afflicting their Souls for a day bowing down their heads cloathing themselves in Sack-cloth and it may be cutting their Flesh with Whips too accompanied with abundance of other Acts voluntary humility which finds no acceptance with God but is spread as Dung upon their Faces being not the Fast neither for matter nor manner which he delights in And this is found true by woful experience throughout whole Christendome whose Fruits and evil Conversation one towards another may compare with any Nation under Heaven whereby the name of Christ and Christianity or the Christian Religion is become odious to Jews Turks and Infidels And a remnant that are Christians indeed and are keeping a Fast to God are grieved to hear a great noise of holy Church holy Fathers holy Scriptures holy Traditions holy Orders holy Bread holy Wine holy Water holy Vestments and holy Places while all lies in pollution while all unholiness abounds especially among men pretending to holy Orders who think they do good service to Plot and Contrive the Ruine and Destruction of mens Lives who cannot believe their Church to be holy as they say This Cainish murtherous Spirit is not only contrary to true Christianity but also inconsistent with humane Society and the well-being of mankind This is so great a Beast of Prey that it is not safe in these Protestant Countries to suffer his Horns to grow strong much less to have Crowns upon them one great end of Magestery being to take care that one man prey not upon another And nothing proves more ravenous cruel and unnatural than what is bred and generated through a false opinion of Religion the ground indeed of many Massacres and much Bloudshed in Christendom Now in as much as God by his immediate hand of Power stirring in the Hearts and Consciences of wicked men who were Instruments in and privy to the late Bloudy Popish Religious Plot hath so wrought as to bring them to make some Discovery of the same whereby the Pit and Snare they have digged and laid by Council from the depth of Hell is in some measure discovered if not clearly seen This all true Christians cannot but acknowledge to be the mighty merciful hand of Almighty God to the Inhabitants of this Island in particular and to all tender hearted well-meaning Protestants in Europe for which great Mercy it is their bounden Duty to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God who hath discovered the Danger discovered the Pit and Snare and brought to light the hidden things of darkness that they may witness a safe and full Deliverance therefrom Now it is not enough to appoint a day for a Fast and to make a Book of Prayers to be read on that day and to hear a few studdied Sermons c this is not that which God regards but every particular is to breath and cry mightily unto God and every one is to turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands this is that which God took special notice of and had only regard unto in the Fast of the King and the Citizens of that great City Niniveh These were neither Jews nor Israelites neither had they the Law of God by Moses given to them yet God had more regard to their Fast then to the Fasts of the Jews who notwithstanding their frequent formal Fastings continued doing evil and these Assyrians Gentiles or Heathens turning every one from the evil of his way found favour and acceptance in the sight of God this clearly shews that the just God is no respector of persons but in every Nation those that fear him and work Righteousness shall be accepted and the contrary rejected let them profess as they will and talk of being within the Pale of the Church and of the Apostolical Faith and in holy Orders and Administrators and Partakers of holy Ordinances c. all this talk is vain and frivolous if there be not a turning every one from the evil of his way This is the word of truth to all whom it may concern It 's said God saw their Works and that they turned from their evil ways This is the principle part of the Fast that God takes notice of where this is wanting all other circumstances as hath been hinted before avails nothing this alone turns away the wrath and anger of God from a person or people from a City or Kingdom even by turning every one from his evil way which is no less than a forsaking the Devil and all his Works the Pomps and Vanities of this World and all the sinful Lusts of the Flesh and to keep God's holy Will and Commandments This is the Duty of every Christian and all that are found therein are keeping a Fast to God Let all strive to exceed each other herein though of different Names in different Forms Disciplines Ceremonies and Circumstances let all see that his heart is sincere to God and that he stands approved in what he doth in the eye of