Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A51697
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The axe at the root of professors miscarriages in a plain detection of, and a wholesome caveat against the miscarriages opposite to faith in God / by Thomas Mall ...
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Mall, Thomas, b. 1629 or 30.
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1668
(1668)
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Wing M328; ESTC R12069
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51,837
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51
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true as the light or visnal-faculty is planted in the eye or else he cannot comprehend that light that shines unto him The evidence then which a true believer hath of any truth of God which he embraceth is the manifesting of that truth unto the Spirit not only by a form of words to the natural understanding but beyond that by a kind of demonstration unto the spiritual mind as the evidence of any object to the eye is by the shining of the light upon it which makes it to appear to be such as it is This kind of testifying or evidencing things Rom 8 16 in a spiritual way the Apostle calls The witnessing of Gods Spirit with our Spirit mentioning expresly two Spirits whereof if either be wanting there can be no Divine testimony But is not our belief grounded upon the testimony of Reason upon the consonancy of Scripture-revelations to right Reason And is not the testimony of reason an humane testimony Yea Do not we believe upon an humane testimony when we believe any thing written in the Scriptures for the testimony of the Scriptures If that we believe the Scriptures themselves upon the general consent of the Church or upon the probability and reasonableness of the things therein delivered or upon the observation of the truth of those writings in most things which all make up but an humane testimony This the same learned and judicious Divine proves thus White c p 98 99 The assent unto one thing for another is built upon that to which we first give our assent as a stone in a wall though it lyes immediately upon that stone that is next under it yet it is indeed supported by the foundation which bears up all the building We say we do believe but is not our Assent without sutable impressions upon our hearts and without a sutable carriage in our lives Doth the reality of Gods being believed Baxter's Divine Lise on John 17 3 make us look upon our selves and all things as nothing without God as nothing in comparison of God and to let the beeing and reality of our love desire and endeavours be let out upon the most real and transcendent Beeing Doth the belief of Gods Vnity contract and unite our stragling affections and call them home from multifarious Vanity Doth the belief of Gods Immensity and Incomprehensibility fill our Souls with admiration Doth the belief of Gods Eternity draw our Souls from transitory to eternal things Doth the belief of Gods Simplicity make us in love with holy simplicity Doth the belief of Gods Invisibility make us mostly esteem and value things invisible Doth the belief of Gods Immutability beget in us unchangeable resolutions for God Doth the belief of Gods Almightiness sill us continually with holy fear and promote trusting in him Doth the belief of Gods Wisdome make us delight in the wisdome which is from above and to choose God for our Teacher and Counsellour Doth the belief of Gods Goodness fill our Souls with a superlative love unto God and industrious desires to be conformâ—d to his goodness in our measure Doth the belief of Gods Holiness cause us to have most high and honourable esteems of holiness in the creature and to fall in love with it and wholly conform our selves to Gods holiness in Christ Doth the belief of Gods Truth and Faithfulness make us resolved for duty and an holy life seeing the commands of God are serious and the promises and threats true The true and sound assent to any Divine Revelation as an holy truth includeth a correspondency in the believer to the thing believed Such an assent descends from the understanding to the affections and so to the conversation True Faith and right Obedience cannot be separated for he that believes the truth of Gods promises fill'd with such things as he doth most want must needs desire the good contained in them and seeing God hath declared the effect of his promises attainable only in wayes of obedience if he neglect that means it is manifest he doth not desire the end Certainly if our assent doth not cannot act no more than a dead body can rise and walk it is but a dead faith The Apostle doth not say as one well observes Faith is dead without works Manton on Jam 2 20. but Faith without works is dead I here is a difference between these predications as there is between those A man without motion is dead and a man is dead without motion Works are not the cause that give life to Faith but yet they are the effects that argue life in Faith Faith is not alwayes alike lively but yet it is alwayes living and operation is the necessary effect of life O! What cause have we to repent of our dead Faith And what Shall it alwayes remain dead Take heed I beseech you not only of setting no your rest in a Knowledge but in a Faith falsely so called Take heed of pleasing your selves any longer with the name of Faith and remaining destitute of the vertue of Faith for the crucifying your lusts and corruptions and conforming your hearts and lives to the Commandements of God To assent to truth with the neglect of goodness or with lazy desires after goodness is but a vain Faith That assent that doth not now subdue sin Gen. 23.4 will not suppress fear when you come to dye What! will ye not yet bury your dead out of your sight Chap. III. The Miscarriages opposite to Consenting to have God to be your God the third Act of Faith 1. Against resusing God REfusing God Beware of still refusing to have the true God to be a God unto you and a God over you to have him to be your Portion and Soveraign To be God Gen. 17.1 7. Rom. 9.5 implies to be enough unto all to be an all-sufficient and self-sufficient good and to be over all and above all to be an all-commanding good Ephes 4.6 To refuse God is to refuse to place our happiness in him and to come under his government Hath not this been your sin God hath offered himself to be your chief good and absolute Soveraign but have not you refused such offers Yea do not you still refuse them There are many degrees of refusing as one well observes Although we may be free of some of them Ob. Sedgwick's Fountain opened c. chap. 6. yet are not we comprized in some one or other of them Are not some guilty of refusing by way of presumptuous persecution Are not others by way of malicious opposition Are not others by way of scornful derision Are not others by way of open though not malicious resistance And if we be not guilty of any of these refusings yet are not we guilty of refusing by way of dissent or unperswasion Are not we yet unperswaded to accept of God upon his own tearms Certainly there is no medium 'twixt Faith and Infidelity 'twixt receiving of God and refusing of God
to inslave our consciences to Men be given up to so soar a bondage They shall be his servants that they may know my service and the service of the Kingdomes of the Country i.e. That they may know the difference between them the bondage of the one and the liberty of the other O that this may be your sin no more why should ye be any longer willing to be the servants of Men seeing one is your Master which is Christ 2. Sinful Incredulity Against Incredulity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Credere fidem habere testimonium accipere The assenting act of faith is a full perswasion of any truth upon a divine testimony The Hebrews the Greeks the Latines express it by such words as import believing or giving credit to Many think all Infidels are without the pale among Turks and Heathens But alas are not too many found in the bosomes of Churches The Israelites were Gods people and yet destroyed in the Wilderness because they believed not And may not we fear destruction for our unbelief Capel of temprations page 153 154. Are not we still guilty of not believing that God is what God is and what God saith One well observes that all sin comes from Atheisme for who would sin did he then verily believe that there were a God that saw all and would punish all And such a God God must be or no God And all sin tends to Atheisme for sin wipes out all the notions of a Deity as much as it can And when we are in sin we must be either willing to get out of it by Repemance or else we shall be willing to turn Atheists Guilt always saith another begets fear and fear hatred and hatred strikes at the being of the object hated Bates on Heb. 11.6 in M. E. at G. page 52. Gedolphins holy Arbor page 17 as is evident in Malefactors desiting there were no Law nor Judge Do not we say in our hearts there is no God so the fool the sinner doth It is Atheisme saith one when Men do but in their hearts say that it is all vanity which is spoken of God Are not we still guilty of not believing what God is Do not we deny if not expresly yet consequentially Gods absolute dominion to command us the goodness as well as righteousness of the law of God by which we ought to be ruled that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seeke him and the avenger of his adversaries that he sees our thoughts afar off and that our greatest secrets are naked and open to anatomized and diffected before his eyes that he is good yea the chief good Are not we still guilty of not believing what God saith which of us is yet fully perswaded that our losses for Christ shall be made up with the hundred fold in this life because he hath said Verily there is no Man that hath left House Luk. 18.29 30. mat 19 29. or Parents or Brethren or Wife or Children for the Kingdome of Gods sake who shall not receive manyfold in this present time He shall according to Matthew receive an hundred fold Which of us yet believes that God will repay what ever we lay out for his poor servants because he hath said Prov. 19.17 He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord and that which he hath given will be pay him again Which of us yet believes that if we will be Christs witnesses none of the World will cordially love us Mat. 10.22 because he hath said yee shall be hated of all Men for my names sake Which of us yet believes that all Hells and the Worlds hatred can do a Child of God no hurt because he hath said Blessed are yee when Men shall revile you Mat. 5.11 and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my Names sake We are indeed apt to beguile our selves and others in professing that we receive Gods testimony in all that he speaks but the Apostle tells us there is a denial of God in works Tit. 1.16 as well as in words and certainly denial in works is the strongest denial and manifests that our affirming what God saith in words is but meer hypocrisie that we do but flatter God with our mouth Psal 73 35 compared with v. 40 41. and lie unto him with our tongues Are not we still guilty of neglecting to get our hearts more and more established in believing that God is what God is and what God saith Is not this a lamentation and should it not be for a lamentation should we not mainly repent of our unbelief seeing it is not only the provocation but the cause of all our other provocations Hebr. 3 8. No wonder that God hath shamed the throne of our glory seeing we have rob'd God of his glory by our unbelief What is Gods declarative glory but his reputation in the World Unbelief takes away Gods reputation it makes him of no credit in the World it makes him a lyar 1 John 5 10. Rom. 3.3 By unbelief we attempt to make the faith of God i. e. his faithfulness of none effect O! repent repent that God who is no debtor to you who was never worse then his word hath so little credit with you who profess to be his servants his children his spouses No wonder that we are kept in the Wilderness yea in a manner brought back into Egypt We may thank our unbelief for shutting us out of Canaan Heb 3 19 They could not enter in because of unbelief No wonder that Gods promises the only solid grounds o◠comfort in times of tryal do not cannot comfort us alas Psal 27 13 they have no credit with us We faint because we believe not O that this sin may be your sin no more Take heed brethren lest there be in any of you for the future an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God Hebr 3 12 and thereby God be provoked to depart further and further from you until he hath left you totally and finally 3 Vnsetledness in Religion Hath not this been your sin yea Against unsetledness is it not still your sin Who believes without wavering without any fear lest the contrary should prove true Are not you troubled with a Vertigo in your Heads a giddiness in your understandings Have not some thought scepticisme very tollerable 1 Cor 16 13 Col 2 6 7 8◠2 Thes 2 2 Hath not the Apostle said stand fast in the faith Be established in the faith as you have been taught c. Beware lest any spoyle you through philosophy and vain deceit be not soon shaken in mind Brinsley's spiritual Vertigo p 9 10 11 c. And yet have not many been for an Academical and Pyrrhonian demur and dubitation concerning Scripture Revelations Have not more been actually carried about as wheels as chaff as waves as clouds with every wind of