Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A23772
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The vanity of the creature by the author of The whole duty of man, &c. ; together with a letter prefix'd, sent to the bookseller, relating to the author.
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Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing A1168; ESTC R19327
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37,491
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120
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about his Vineyard with Peace and Prosperity but so soon as that Hedge was broken down and erroneous yea Heretical Doctrines were let in like so many Beasts of prey to devour then how quickly did these prove Turncoats and Apostates from the Faith But as for the true Christian he is like a Rock Mediis immotus in undis That although the waves are always swelling against him yet is he the same man still in his Reformed Religion and wavers not or else like that House built upon the Rock against which the Floods came and the Winds blew but it fell not because it was built upon a Rock And such a well-built house was St. Basil who being threatned with death by Valens if he would not advise further and turn Arrian answer'd with this brave resolution I need not any further advice than I have taken already about this matter for to morrow I shall be the same man that I am to day therein and no other And here know that some things are of Necessity wherein we cannot but change as in natural civil and moral things and to change in there is only humane Others again are of Duty and these either prohibited or enjoyn'd 1. Prohibited as in evil and erroneous things and to change here is pious and divine and not to change either Weakness or Obstinacy 2. Enjoyn'd as in sacred and religious and to change here is impious and Diabolical and not to change true Christian Fortitude and Constancy Whatsoever things we see then wheeling about in the world as Governments Families and the like nay howsoever we may change our selves or be chang'd in some things of an indifferent nature by those that have dominion over our Bodies and Estates yet is there no man that hath dominion over our Faith But this is Gods peculiar and therefore in this we must not change It is not with saving Truths as it is with Clothes which alter every year as the fashion doth for the fashion of the world passes away says St. John but true Religion is ever in fashion with good men and alters not And herein we may justly take occasion to bewail the unsteadiness of some in these times who are mere Scepticks in Religion always conceiving some new Opinions in it and always in pain till they be deliver'd of their new conceptions though never so monstrous and deformed That which was truth with them yesterday is no such thing to day and what is so to day is otherwise to morrow such Changelings there be in this last Age who like the Moon do never appear the same two days together And I would to God says St. Ambrose that their change were no worse than that of the Moon for she returns again within a little time to her full light but these never And he is blind that sees not this among us namely how some turn every day to Popish Superstition but more to Anabaptistical Fancies some unto Socinian Blasphemies but most unto Atheistical Notions and all into Sensuality this being the common Sewer into which all the former run and are ultimately resolved But as St. Paul said to his Galathians so do I to such O foolish Galathians who hath bewithc'd you that you should not obey the Gospel And it is a metaphor says one from Sorcerers who use to cast a mist before the peoples eyes that so they may not take a right view of what is presented to them As if he had said Who hath cast a mist before the eyes of your understandings to make that appear unto you for truth which indeed is not What Are ye so foolish that having begun in the Spirit ye will be perfected in the Flesh So Are ye so foolish that having begun in truth ye will end in falshood or can ye be so simple as to exchange Gold for Dirt Wheat for Chaff and your pretious Faith as St. Peter calls it which is the substance of things hoped for for Errours of all sorts and mere shadows of Truth I trow not For if Errour as our Kingly Divine said well have any advantage it consists in Novelty or if Truth any it consists in Constancy Was the Doctrine then of the Reformed Churches and the Harmony of our Confessions grounded upon evident and pregnant Scriptures maintain'd by the Orthodox and Primitive Fathers and conveyed to us by the constant tradition of the Universal Church the Faith of Christ once deliver'd to the Saints and the Truth of God yesterday why so it is to day and will be to morrow also And therefore to day in our profession of it we must be as yesterday and to morrow as this day because as God is the same yesterday to day and for ever so also is the Truth of God That which was once so will be so always and cannot be otherwise Oh that we would then be exhorted in the Apostles words To stand fast in the Faith to quit our selves like men and be strong and not to be as children toss'd to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine but to be as men in understanding stedfast and immoveable that so God may have cause to glory on our behalf as he did on Jobs Hast thou consider'd says God to Satan my servant Job So hast thou consider'd such a servant of mine Seest thou to how many changes I have subjected him to changes in his Children to changes in his Estate to changes in his Liberty to changes in his Friends and Acquaintance Nay seest thou how many of his Brethren are chang'd of late from a febrish distemper before now into a sleepy Lethargy Seest thou how indifferent they are for their Religion round about him and how many shaken reeds there are on every side of him And yet for all this as my servant Job did so doth he still hold his integrity But enough of this Secondly Gods end also in it is To reform our Lives and do us good by his so various dispensations towards us Hence we read Isa. 30.28 of a sieve of vanity wherein God says he will sift the Nations and shake them to and fro one after another that so he may winnow them from that chaff of sin that is within them For why was Moab at ease from his youth why setled he upon his lees and held still his corrupt tast but because he was never disquieted nor emptied from vessel to vessel Ier. 48.11 Thus a sedentary life we find very subject to Diseases and a long standing Prosperity to a Nation is like a standing Pool whose water doth soon puddle and putrifie And this is the reason of that speech of David Psal. 55.19 Because they have no Changes therefore they feare not God making by it the uncheckt prosperity of worldly men a great occasion of their continuance in sin and so an Index of Gods Wrath upon them rather than of his special Favour to them And therefore now we have seen the Angel of God moving the waters of
afflicted condition or as a cordial to stay up our spirits in the saddest and most distressed times and to teach us patience and contentedness in them that so as in prosperity we should not say we shall never be moved so neither in adversity that we shall never be delivered when we shall consider that what weight of affliction soever we lye under is not of a continuant but of a changeable nature And to this end we have the sure staff of Gods promise unto his children to lean upon as in the tenth Chapter to the Hebrews where he says thus Yet a little while or rather as it runs in the Greek yet how very very little while with a double diminutive and he that shall come will come and will not tarry And in the precedent verse he tells them they have need of patience that they may receive this promise And in the twelfth Chapter to the Hebrews the Apostle takes up an exhortation to it from the Wise man and makes a consolatory use of it to his Hebrews withal taking them to task for their forgetfulness of it And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto you as unto children My Son despise not thou the chastning of the Lord nor faint or be not broken in mind as others translate it when thou art rebuked of him For we had says he the fathers of the flesh who verily chastened us a few days after their own pleasure and we were patient under their rod and gave them reverence but God a few days only for our profit Shall we not then be much rather in subjection to him who is the father of spirits and live Thus when Boetius that Christian Consul and Martyr at Rome was wrongfully deprived by Theodoricus of his Honours Estate and Liberty Philosophy brings in what we call Gods Providence comforting him in these words I turn about my wheel continually and delight to tumble things upside down why then doth thy heart shrink within thee when as this changeableness of mine is cause enough for thee to hope for better things And so also when many of our Brethren were heretofore in Exile for their Religion in Queen Maries days what I pray did that Jewel of our Church comfort them with but onely this Haec non durabunt aetatem These will not endure an Age as indeed you know they did not her Reign being not full out six years time And with the same consideration also should we chear up our selves now under that black cloud that hangs over the Church that it will not endure an Age but be as Ephraim's righteousness was even as the morning cloud or as the early dew that passes away To this end it will not be amiss to note how the afflictions of Gods people in the Scripture are run out not by any long tract of time as by an Age Year Month Week or the like but by the shortest measures that can be as by a Day now a Day you know holds not long but is quickly gone even as a flying Bird or a Poast that runneth by And thus good Hezekiah calls the time of Sennacheribs rage against Judah a Day of trouble Isa. 37. v. 3. Or if this be not enough you have them then contracted within a lesser room and measur'd onely by a Night which is no more but the dark side of a natural Day and therefore is a great deal shorter And this made the Prophet David say Psal. 30. v. 5. That heaviness may endure for a Night but joy cometh in the Morning The time then that heaviness shall endure to the Godly can be but a Night at the longest but whether it shall be so long or no the Prophet is very uncertain and unsatisfied for which cause he expresses it here with a May be Heaviness may endure for a Night But if this expression be not full enough to set forth the brevity of them our Saviour doth it then by an Hour which is shorter yet and but the four and twentieth part of a natural Day for so he calls the time of his persecution by the High Priests and Elders of the people Their hour and the power of Darkness Luke 22.53 Or if this be yet too long a space to set forth the brevity of their afflictions and to give a through Comfort to Gods people their little continuance is then express'd by a Moment which I am sure is short enough so you have it Isa. 54. v. 7. For a small moment says God to his Church have I forsaken thee but with great mercy will I gather thee And again v. 8. In a little wrath I hid my Face from thee for a moment but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy upon thee Or last of all if any time can be shorter than this it must then be the present time yet such are the sufferings of Gods children in St. Pauls account but the sufferings of the present time Rom. 8.18 and a shorter time than this there cannot be For as the French our Neighbours are said to be for their inconsiderateness Animalia sine praeterito futuro Creatures that have respect neither to time past nor time to come so may we say of the present time That it is as short a measure as can possibly be imagined having in it nothing either of time past or future the first of the two being dead already and the later of them being not yet born unto us And yet we see here for all this that St. Paul when he had cast up the account of all which he suffered in the cause of Christ how he reckons and concludes it to be onely the suffering of the present time and not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed A Prayer ALmighty God who rulest the Sea of this World by thy power and whose paths are in the roughest Waters We the unworthiest of all thy Servants commit our frail Barks with all that we have to the Steerage of thee our great Pilot and faithful Preserver beseeching thee so to order by thy good hand of Providence all outward contingencies to us that we may be able to bear up through them with a steady and even Course against the several Storms we shall meet with in this passage to our blessed Harbour of Eternity And however earthly things may like Watery Billows be every day rowling up and down in their vicissitudes about us yet suffer oh suffer not the Heavenly truth of our Reformed Religion to flote about any longer so uncertainly among us nor our selves to be as Children toss'd to and fro with every Wind of Doctrine But let us be constant and unwavering in the profession of that Holy Faith we have received and Thou that art the God of Truth be graciously pleased to stay us up firmly in it by the sacred Scriptures which are thy Word of Truth and the sole Anchor of our Faith to rest upon Lord pull in the Sails of our desires towards fleeting and transitory substances for who will cast his eyes upon that which hath wings to flee away as an Eagle towards Heaven Ballast our Spirits with Humility in a prosperous condition and when we have the highest and most pleasing Gale of the worlds favour for us give us to strike our spreading Sails of Pride and to make our Lenity and Moderation to be known to all men for the Lord is nigh at hand But if thou in thy just judgment against us for our manifold and hainous sins shalt cause some cross wind or other to blow upon us and give us over to Shipvvrack in our temporals Supply then we entreat thee their want with thy spirituals of Patience Faith and other suffering graces That although the tempest be never so boisterous without yet we may enjoy within a Christian calmness of Spirit in a happy quietude and contentedness of mind with all thy dealings towards us and not set down our rest upon the Creature which is so restless with us but amidst the sundry and various changes of the world may there fix our Hearts where onely true and unchangeable joys are to be found through Jesus Christ our Lord. FINIS