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	lie_n	3,415	5	9.0726	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65694	Eighteen sermons preached upon several texts of Scripture by William Whittaker, late minister of Magdalen Bermondsey, Southwark ; to which is added his funeral sermon preached by Sam. Annesley.	Whittaker, William, 1629-1672.; Annesley, Samuel, 1620?-1696.	1674 (1674)	Wing W1718; ESTC R29271	230,495	446

all and none can pluck them out of my Fathers hands The very innitiative Covenant by which Christ espouseth a Soul to himself carries the longest date along with it I will never leave thee nor forsake thee thou art mine and shalt be mine I do love thee and I will love thee for ever John 13.3 He loved his own to the end he gives grace and he will give glory But though it is true that cannot be lost yet the strength and improvement and the evidence of this interest may be blotted and darkned it may be intermitted and interrupted our spiritual comforts may be clouded by inbred corruptions breaking in upon the Soul Godmay suffer the Soul to be foyled and born down for a time this you shall find in the most chearful and the most improved Christians and those that have had sometimes the clearest discoveries of Gods love to their Souls what a damp hath sometimes been upon their Joys insomuch that David was fain to call himself to an account Why art thou cast down O my Soul How have even he best of Saints many times thought themselves meer cast-aways and such as whom God had forsaken utterly Indeed to discouse how far a Child of God may go backwards in his Comforts is a task too large to speak to but questionless there may be a great decay in spiritual strength in the strength of improvement Grace may feem to be quite withered and dried up Rev. 2.4 5. The Church of Ephesus had lost her first love her flourishing her vigorous love The Church of Sardis seemed to be quite dead at least ready to die Rev. 3.1 Thou hast a name to live but art dead as to outward appearance We say a reai Christian can never be under such a deprivation of all kind of spiritual life and sense he may be so as to others he may have no symptoms of spiritual life left yet there may be some struglings for life remaining And as for Assurance they may be bronght so low as to be upon the very brink of despair yet they can neither fall totally nor finally how should this make us to walk humbly for if once we begin to be tickled with spiritual pride concerning any spiritual improvement because we outstrip others God can quickly suffer us to fall into the common level whith the meanest Christian As Grace is our spiritual strength and this is subject to decays and declinations so thirdly the great thing that such as rightly understand themselves that renders the life of nature desirable to them it is in order ot their improvement in this spiritual strength O spare me Why that I may recover strength He doth notsay that I may obtain riches and worldly greatness and compass great matters for my self in these outward things but that I may recover my strength The life of nature is in it self the highest of outward mercies for all other mercies are but as so many Cyphers without is if it were not for lise we were not capable of enjoying them hence it is as Solomon speaks A living Dog is better than a dead Lyon when Death comes it puts us in an utter incapacity of partaking of any refreshment from these outward comforts therefore it is the Devil said to Job Skin for skin and all that a man hath will be give for his life It was a truth though from the father of lyes now though it be in it self a very desirable thing yet that which makes it more desirable is in order to this spiritual improvement How sad must needs be the condition of such who only live here to the gratifying of their senses the longer we live the more we shall encrease our score and the more guilty we shall make our selves Certainly we are to live to better purpose Nor can we be said more truly to live then when our Souls do most thrive and flourish in Grace The Heathens themselves thought that meerly to breath to eat and drink and converse with men and to have a being in this world as men was not worthy the name of living and therefore they made a distinction between being and living and others have been said to be in the world and to pass a little time in the world but not to live not to live well is a kind of dying a life below the life of a Christian Applic. Then what cause have we to be thankful-you see Grace is our strength it is that by which we lay hold on Christ and God who is our strength and it is our improvement in Grace that makes our evidences more clear and apparent then if this be the great business to make life desirable our improvement in Grace then remember for what purpose you came into this world God hath not given you lives only that you may live as those Epicureans because they had but a little time to live therefore they will make as much of it as they can because they had so little a time to live in the world to enjoy the comforts of it therefore they would take their fill of them Come let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die should we make this use of all Gods forbearance of us when God hath swept away thousands by the destroying pestilence and when the arrows of God have flown so thick about us when several have faln on our right hands and on our left shal we make this the end of the goodnes of God in sparing us because more time is given us therefore we will give our lusts their swing this would be very sad and a fore evidence against us though God hath spared us yet if we do so our deliverances are not deliverances but reprivals it is one thing to be delivered from a calamity and another thing to be reprieved to be spared for a time that God may punish us more severely hereafter and if we consider in those destroying flames that have laid waste the habitations of others that any of ours have been preserved shall we make no better use of it than thus when God hath under so many several judgments shewed that kindness to us which he promised to Ebed Melech Jerem. 39.18 Notwithstanding when he had threatned all those miseries against them I will surely deliver thee because thou hast put thy trust in me saith the Lord. God doth not know how to cast off them that cast themselves upon him Thou hast reposed thy trust in me and I will be faithful to that trust I will do it for thee But our care should be to improve our time to the utmost we have but a little time to be here and when we go hence we shall be no more That is no more to preparatory opportunities and in this lies our greatest concerns consider the sadness of their condition who go hence in their sins they do at once leave all their comfort and they exchange comforts for sorrows how can these persons go hence in their sins