Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	devil_n	father_n	liar_n	1,960	5	10.7881	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79474	The man of honour, described in a sermon, preached before the Lords of Parliament, in the Abbey Church at Westminster, March 26. 1645. The solemn day of the publique monethly-fast. / By Francis Cheynell, minister of Gods Word. Die Jovis, 27. Martii, 1645. It is this day ordered by the Lords in Parliament, that this House doth hereby give thanks to Master Cheynell for his great pains, taken in the sermon, he preached on the 26. of this instant March, in the Abbey Church Westminster, before the Lords of Parliament, it being the day of the publique fast. John Brown, Cler. Parliament.	Cheynell, Francis, 1608-1665.	1645 (1645)	Wing C3812; Thomason E279_3; ESTC R200026	64,263	74

Protestations have lost their credit they usually go a strain higher in this dissembling age and take Religious Protestations but most Irreligious Oaths for when they have once engaged their honour and given their oaths they hope they may abuse the Common-wealth without suspicion for the poor silly people dare not so much a● suspect that they are abused no not when they are most grossely abused because it is accounted a most absurd unmannerly and uncharitable conceit that the Lords will forfeit their honour or break their oaths My Lords this Sophism passes currant at Oxford for a Demonstration as it did of old at Athens where the oath was conceived sub hac specie Jure populum nullis injuriis affectum iri and therefore Aristotle saith it is better policy to flatter in plain English to cheat the people then to threaten them and thereupon advises the great ones to dissemble and swear that they will not wrong the people Surely my Lords by all their proceedings at Oxford it appears that all men in Honour are not men of Honour for they have studied Aristotles Politiques more then Solomons Proverbs the purest Politiques But truely wh● ever he be that sails by this compas●e it is impossible he should steer aright especially in a tempest for though policy sets the compasse yet pride and vainglory fill the sails and folly I mean Atheism sits at stern My Lords I say Atheism a sin which will stain all the pride and glory of that man who is guiltie of it in the sight of the Searcher of hearts It was the speech of a good Statesman and a good Christian Men saith he talk of the sins of the Court but truely for my part I think the Court is guiltie but of one sin of Atheism the fruitfull mother of every sin and my Text is of so large a compasse that it doth certainly comprehend nay as some Expositours conceive directly point at Atheism Man that is in honour and understandeth not that there is a God above him whom he is bound to serve and honour he it is that is compared to the beasts that perish For an Atheist is of all others the grossest fool and the foulest Beast Give me leave to throw my first dart at this Beast in an U●e of Reproof What need we my Lords look out for a stronger Argument to prove That some men in honour do not unstand that there is a God above them then this That they do usually make little or no conscience of cursing their own practises and damning their own souls by false Protestations Oaths and Covenants They who do not understand God to be omnipotent and omniscient just and true they do not understand him to be a God But men that make no scruple of violating their Oaths and Covenants for the compassing of their designes do neither judiciously practically understand or truely beleeve God to be omnipotent and omniscient just and true Therefore they are Atheists and arrant Beasts who make no conscience of Oaths and Covenants In a Promissory Oath or Covenant be pleased to consider that you call God to be your Witnesse your Suretic your Judge 1. Your Witnesse to testifie the truth of your intentions and purposes You know none can bear witnesse that the intentions of your heart are sincere and true but the Searcher of hearts and yet how few are there that look up to God as a witnesse when they take a solemn Oath And therefore men do too often hold correspondence with those Covenant-breaking sins of malice and ambition even after they have taken the solemn Covenant Oh it is a sad thing for which the Land mourns that God is not discerned in an Oath nor Christ in the Sacrament by some that take themselves to be men of discerning spirits 2. You call upon God to be your Suretie for the performance of those things which you swear and covenant to perform If you never intend any reall performance year● downright Atheists or else you would never put such asolemn jear upon the God of Heaven 3. You call God to be your Judge in case you be deceitfull in promising or unfaithfull in performing I admire how men can professe that they beleeve God to be true when they do what I even tremble to speak call God to do the Devils office to bear witnesse to a lie It were more proper because more suitable to their purposes and principles for such men to swear by the Devil rather then by God for it is the Devils proper office to bear witnesse to a lie he being a lier from the beginning and the Father of Lies Certainly these men must conceive that either God doth not love truth or else that he doth not know it and what is this but to deny him to be God Moreover these bold Atheists cannot beleeve God to be just and omnipotent able and willing to revenge himself and his people upon such Honourable enemies as they are for if they did they would never go about to deceive God and the Kingdom by the pretended religion of an Oath They would not thus out-brave God and dare him to his face to take vengeance on them if they did beleeve that there is a God or a Devil Heaven or Hell Certainly these religious blasphemers will be religiously I mean assuredly damned if they repent not for their very pretended Religion will sink them into the bottomlesle pit of fire and brimstone nay into some lower and more tormenting Hell Hypocrites shall have their portion with the Devil and his Angels Matth. 25. 41. Now great men are very apt to dissemble else David who was well acquain ed with King-craft as they call it would never have acknowledged that great men are a Lye Observe it they are more prone to cogg and lie then meaner men Surely ●aith he Psal. 62. 9. men of low degree are vanitie and men of high degr●e are a Lie and if laid in the ballance they are alike or altogether lighter then vanitie I need say no more 2. Moreover they who understand and beleeve that there 〈◊〉 a God cannot dare not live in a constant contempt of godlinesse And yet how many are there who in a Civil account are men of Honour yet in a Religious account are so dishonourable as to contemn Religion and permit their great and much-observed families to live in a constant Contempt of pure Religion I appeal in this Point my Lords to your Honours consciences whether the Power of godlinesse I say the Power of godlinesse be not usually contemned and scoffed at in the Families of Noble-men 3. Consider That Heathens will rise up in judgement against these Right Honourable Atheists for an Atheist is a Nabal the carcase of a man or a man of withered principles one that hath no more reason in him then there is sap or juyce in a withered leaf for so the word Nabal imports Nabal or as very a fool as Nabal is

between both Houses of Parliament Lords and Commons may avoid contention and preserve Libertie Honour Religion all And let me once more remember you That you had need be quick and nimble in these Active times Cunctatione non opus est ubi perniciosior sit quies quàm temeritas All the danger in Civil Wars is in not being active enough Tyrants saith the Politician do miscarry because they are not Tyrants enough let us make an Antidote of this poyson and conclude That honest zealots may miscarry because they are not zealous enough He was no fool that said Inter ancipitia deterrimum esse Mediasequi The strength of our Kingdom would be seen in the Field if every true hearted man would take the boldnesse to declare himself Every magnanimous person hates n●●tralitie and is as Aristotle hath it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} open-breasted in his love and hatred If he be your friend you shall know it and if he be your enemy he will make you feel it Brave souldiers love to follow professed Patriots Qui aperte in causam descendunt tanquam Culpae vel gloriae socii Come come my Lords Honesty is the choicest policie Come then and shew your Wisdom your Justice shew your Zeal your Valour your Magnanimitie your Pietie for God and your Countrey This this is the way to encrease your Honour with more ease and preserve it with lesse envy But stay stay saith some much Honoured Silk-worm If I should loose my life in the quarrell what becomes of my honour then Alasse when I am gone all the world is gone with me Why then look after another world and a better life look after it in the first place though I handle it in the last and so I passe to my Third Quere How may one gain an immortall glorious Honour in the highest Heaven This Quere concerns all estates and degrees of men The poor and the Noble may be Peers in Heaven I have in part answered this Quere already for I have shewn you cleerly That we must be justified regenerated converted or else the greatest is not truely noble in our Spirituall and Christian account My Lords If you desire this new honour you must lead new lives and you 'l never do that till you have new natures new-bearts by a new creation Ye must be new creatures in Jesus Christ For God in Christ is the Fountain of all Christian Nobility and glorious Honour And if any man be in Christ he is a new creature 2 Cor. 5. 17. Now Christ puts forth his creating power in his Ordinances and therefore you must all high and low attend upon the quickning Ordinances of God that ye may be made new creatures in Christ by the effectuall working of the Holy Ghost Oh that this day might be that happy working-day the day of Christs power transforming all our deformed souls into the beauty of holinesse that we might become the willing subjects of Jesus Christ as it is written Psal. 110. 3. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power in the beauties of holinesse Oh that whilst I am directing what ought to be done our Lord Jesus would put to his Fiat and say Let it be done it shall be done this very hour My Lords I am affectionately desirous of you as the Apostles speaks and willing to impart unto you not onely the Gospel of God but that very Character which the Gospel by the Spirit hath stamped upon my own beloved soul because your pretious souls are dear unto me My Lords Remember your selves You are not now in your Robes sitting in State to passe sentence upon that Word whereby you must be judged But you and I and all here present are holding up our hands at the bar Come open your bosomes the Spirit is now about to set the Word home upon your conscience the Spirit of God tels you plainly That notwithstanding your great birth you were born in sin and we have too many of us nay too many of you lived as if you and we had been born to no other purpose then to sin My Lords What do you mean Brethren what do you mean not onely to live in sin but to die in sin O it is a dangerous thing to live in sin but it is a desperate thing to die in sin for he that dies in his sins perishes in his sins and is damned eternally It is no matter of what strain or complexion your sins are or how they rellish when the pallate is distempered be they sweet or sowre sins of pleasure or malice nay ignorance sins of gain shall I say sins of Honour Yes this ignoble age hath plotted how to dishonour God in an honourable way In a word Be your sins old or new sins received by Tradition from your forefathers and therefore received with honour as if they were some noble vices which ought to be standers to your noble Families yet consider and sadly consider it He that resolves to live in any sin but till to morrow morning may for ought he knows die and perish in his sin the Divell may come and fetch away his soul this night and he may be in Hell ere morning The God of Heaven set that consideration home to your hearts you must fall down upon your faces and acknowledge That God is in this Meditation of a trueth The Lord Jesus did presse this point home in his powerfull preaching you may read it thrice in one Chapter John 8. 21 24. It is one of the most fearfull threats in Scripture for it doth indeed contain all threatnings in it My Lords Will nothing touch your hearts yes I beleeve your hearts have been touched to day and touched to the quick Now then my Lords what say you now Why sure you are come to this resolution ye would not die in your sins that were to die basely to die dishonourably Why then my Lords If you would not die in your sins ye must not live in them Oh but how shall we be saved from all our sins our ignoble sins Why though Joshuah be called Jesus Heb. 4. 8. and the people were wont to bow every time that Text was read yet there is but one Jesus the Lord Jesus who can save us from our sins Matth. 1. 21. Oh now your hearts relent and give a little Now now consider how you have abused and undervalued how you have crucified and tormented this Jesus who alone can save you from your sins How you have made a sport and pastime of those sins which let out the heart blood of Jesus Christ What are your hearts like Nabals dead within you Or are you cast into a trembling fit are you fainting and even swowning under the weight of Gods wrath and your sin why now now you are in this agony and bloody sweat the Lord Jesus offers himself to be your Saviour upon fair and honourable terms do you deliberate whether you should be saved Why then