Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	faith_n	receive_v	word_n	4,831	5	4.4556	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89580	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, now assembled in Parliament, at their publike fast, November 17. 1640. Upon 2 Chron. 15. 2. The Lord is with you, while yee bee with him: and if yee seek him, he will be found of you: but if yee forsake him, he will forsake you. / By Stephen Marshall, Batchelour in Divinity, minister of Finchingfield in Essex. Published by order of the said House.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1641 (1641)	Wing M776; Thomason E204_9; ESTC R212613	31,991	52

all their hearts and with all their soule and all their strength when he hath most neede of them If a woman will doe many things for her husband yet if her heart goe more after her Puppets her cloaths her servants than after him especially in times of his necessity her heart cannot beeinterpreted to be with her husband because he is not acknowledged in the due place of an husband So if there be any thing any cause any person that we rather ingage our selves for than for God and his cause wee cannot be said to be with God So now you have the meaning of the Condition of enjoying God while yee are with him It is 1 To be reconciled to God and to walk with him as an holy people 2 To continue with him in the purity of his worship 3 To stand by him in every cause which doth concerne his glory The deductions which might flow from this Doctrine for our use are many I shall confine my selfe to these two as being most sutable and seasonable to the time and your worke First matter of Humiliation and mourning before God for time past Secondly matter of Duty for time to come For the first Honourable and beloved you stand this day before the Lord to afflict your soules and though you bee the chosen men of your Tribes lifted up above your brethren yet you are now called not onely to bemoane your owne iniquities but to beare the iniquity of the whole Kingdome And me thinkes I looke upon you as upon the Prophet Ezekiel when he was to beare the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah hee was to lye upon his side and to eate his bread made of Wheate and Barley and Beanes Lentiles and Fitches miserable coarse bread and baked with the dung of man and to drinke a little water for many dayes together How sad and heavy the Prophets spirit must needs be when he was thus to beare such a burthen is easie to judge Such a temper of spirit would this day well become you And now could I but speak to you from the Lord how sad things there are against England in this point of not being with God could you with patience and grace heare me and would the Lord affect my heart and yours in handling and hearing of them we should make this place a Bochim a place of weepers the stoutest heart would be as Queene Huzzab and her Ladies when they went into Captivity tabering on their breasts and mourning as Doves yea howling after the manner of Dragons Could I as in a mirrour set before your eyes how infinitely farre off the body of this Kingdome is from being with the Lord we should wonder that the Lord hath not wholly forsaken us long agone and that instead of injoying this liberty of pleading with God for our lives for our Prince and Countrey and for whatsoever is precious to us we are not left like unto Sodom and made like unto Gomorrah Take a view of all the three particulars mentioned in the point First are we an holy people I am now pleading Gods cause and though a poore unworthy man I stand betwixt God and a Kingdome I aske again are we an holy people Are our Princes our Rulers our Magistrates our Ministers and the body of the people holy Doe wee walke according to the rules of Christianity the summe whereof for the practicall part is laid downe in the ten Commandements and those expositions that our Lord gives of them Doe we walke thus I know there is no man here so ignorant as to imagine that we doe Alas the Prophets speech too well befits us Ah! sinfull Nation a people laden with iniquity a seed of evill doers Children that are corrupters The whole head is sicke the whole heart is faint from the sole of the foote even to the head there is no soundnesse in it but wounds and bruises and putrifiedsores Aegypt was never more bespread with Locusts and Frogges than our Kingdome is with horrible prophanenesse uncleannesse oppression deceit and whatsoever is a stench in the Lords nostrills The generality of people wearing indeed the Lords Livery being Christned and doing the Devills work all the yeare long Nay is there any thing this day so hated as holinesse have we not gotten termes to scoffe down all goodnesse is not almost every man who will not sweare and be drunke and be deboyst as a Turke or worse cryed downe with the odious name of a Puritan That as Ambrose said of Paulinus a yong noble man of Rome at whom when he was converted to Christ and left the worlds glory to carry Christs Crosse there was more wondring than if a Mule had cast a Foale And as Bede said of the ancient Britaines immediately before their destruction by the Saxons that they were come to that height of wickednesse as to cast Odium in Religion is professores tanquam in adversarios God knowes many thousands are guilty of the same in this Land this day the measure of our iniquity seemes to be more than full O that our hearts could this day bleed for it Secondly see what wonderfull cause wee have to bee abased for all the injury the Land stands guilty of in abusing God in the poynt of his Worship which is the defiling of the marriage bed betwixt God and his people God hath visited all the Reformed Churches brought most of them almost to nothing yet passe over and see whether ever any of them have provoked the Lord in this kinde so much as wee have done Let mee name foure or five things too much practised and too little lamented God in mercy affect our hearts with them this day First the Articles of our faith the depositum the good thing committed to us which we received from our fore Fathers and should transmit entire to our posterity oh the miserable defection that wee have made from God adulterating thereof Tell mee beloved what one poynt what one Article of Faith controverted betwixt us and the Church of Rome is there that our Pulpits and Presses and University Acts have not beene bold withall as if we were weary of the Truth which God hath committed to us as if indeed for our not receiving the truth in love God were giving the Nation up to believe lies Secondly let me instance in the Lords Day a day which is a signe betwixt God and his people that He is their God that sanctifieth them That as Idoll-worshippers are knowne by keeping holidayes to their Gods So Gods people are knowne to bee his people by observing of his Holy day It is most true that our ancient Doctrine established is purer in this poynt than can be found in most of the Churches and excellent Lawes we have for the backing of it but I believe there hath not beene in all the Christian World such high affronts offered to the Lords day as of late hath beene in England and I am confident

A SERMON Preached before the Honourable House of Commons now assembled in PARLIAMENT At their publike Fast November 17. 1640. Upon 2 Chron. 15. 2. The Lord is with you while yee bee with him and if yee seek him he will be found of you but if yee forsake him he will forsake you By STEPHEN MARSHALL Batchelour in Divinity Minister of Finchingfield in ESSEX Published by Order of the said House LONDON Printed by J. Okes for SAMUEL MAN dwelling in St. Pauls Church-yard at the signe of the Swan 1641. A Sermon Preached before the Honourable house of Commons at their publick Fast 2 CHRON. 15. 2. The Lord is with you while yee bee with him and if yee seeke him he will be found of you but if yee forsake him he will forsake you THis portion of Scripture is a part of a Sermon preached to the whole body of the Kingdome of Judah and a fitter I do not know in all the Bible to be preached upon to the Representative body of a Christian State especially on a day when they are drawing nigh to God The more inexcusable should I be in adventuring to shew my weaknesse at this time in this place were I not able to call the most High to witnesse that nothing but conscience of my duty kept me with Jonah from running away from the Lords worke But Amos the herdsman must prophesie at the Kings Chappell when God commands him The speciall end of your meeting this day is to afflict your soules before God that so with Ezra you might seeke a right way for your selves and the weighty affaires of his Majesty and the whole State and the speciall errand I have to deliver from the Lord is to assure you of the same truth although in other words which Ezra told the Persian Emperour that the hand of God is upon them for good that seek him but his power and wrath against all them that forsake him viz. That God will be with you while you be with him Which Text that you may the better understand give me leave to carry you a little back and give you a plain view of the state of the Church of Iudah at that time In the dayes of Rehoboam there had beene an horrible apostasie from the purity of Gods worship Religion was very much corrupted and the forces of the Kingdome were exceedingly weakned And in Abijahs time things grew worse and worse But now when Asa being a godly man came to the Crowne he begins at the right end and makes it his first work to set upon reformation of Religion taking away the Altars of the strange Gods and the high places brake down the Images cut downe the Groves commanded Judah to seeke the Lord God of their Fathers and to doe the Law and the Commandements casting out whatsoever was a stench in the Lords nostrills and he prospered in whatsoever he put his hand unto This done hee then calls all his Nobles and Princes and Elders together and tells them that they had sought the Lord in matters of Religion and God had beene found of them and that now they should goe and fortifie the Kingdome and so they did in all the Cities and prospered But in the midst of this worke comes out Zerah the Cushite the Ethiopian or rather the Arabian Ethiopia lying beyond Egypt with an Army of a thousand thousand and three hundred Chariots it may be the greatest Army that ever you read of in any story with these he breakes in suddenly upon Asa But he humbles himselfe before God betakes himselfe to prayer tells the Lord that it was all one with him to helpe by many or few And in the Lords name hee went out to encounter with that huge Army over which the Lord gave him a glorious victory and the spoyle of the enemies Country to boote Now as they were comming backe to Hierusalem the Lord calls out Azariah the sonne of Oded to make the gratulatory Oration for their safe returne and conquest in these words that I have read and so forward to verse the eighth and so I am come to my Text In which that I may make as briefe a way as I can possibly to the matter that I shall insist upon two things are to be unfolded First the scope and intent of the Prophet and that is laid downe in the latter end of his speech Bee strong therefore and let not your hands be weake that is goe on with the good worke of Reformation of Religion wherewith you were in hand before the enemy interrupted you Secondly the arguments whereby this is pressed and they are two The first is taken from their owne present happinesse who were in Gods wayes The Lord is with you while yee are with him and if yee seeke him hee will be found of you but if yee forsake him he will forsake you The second is taken from the misery of the ten Tribes who were out of Gods way concerning whom he speaks to this effect That for a long time Israel that is the ten Tribes had bin without God without a teaching Priest and without law and as they had cast off God so God had cast off them howbeit if they would have sought to God and turned to him God would have bin found of them but they going on in the way of desperate apostasie the Lord vexed them every where in the City in the Country in the Family every where God was too strong for them as certainly God will make every one to know that he hath a hard match to encounter with that dares to beare Armes against the Lord And so from their misery hee presseth Asa and his people to go on in the right course to prevent the like for comming upon themselves This second Argument of the misery of the ten Tribes belongs not to my worke I betake my selfe therefore to the other wherein I shall spend the allotted time for this exercise namely The present happinesse of the Church of the Iewes that were in Gods way in which observe these two things First what the happinesse was that they enjoyed in these words The Lord is with you Secondly the Condition upon which they enjoyed this happinesse or the termes upon which they held it and that is First more generally propounded The Lord is with you while you are with him Secondly more particularly and exegetically expounded in the next words If yee seeke him hee will be found of you but if yee forsake him he will forsake you I begin with the first of them The present happinesse of the Church of the Iewes Iehovah is with you Where there is but one question to bee answered for the cleering of the Doctrine that I shall a while insist upon and that is what presence of God is here intended by the Prophet Iehovah is every where Whither shall I goe from thy presence Nay he is not onely present every where but he manifests