Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	father_n	spirit_n	worship_v	16,413	5	10.3152	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44035	The one good way of God contrary to the many different ways of mens making : with loving warnings, exhortations & cautions to all sorts of men, concerning their souls, and to be at peace amongst themselves / by Richard Hodden.	Hodden, Richard.	1661 (1661)	Wing H2283; ESTC R28665	62,810	78

heaven that Christ said is within the heritage of heavenly love is found and repossessed in mans soul for it is not so easily found as many usually suppose nor is it a work of one day onely but attained by much waiting in the light sweeping searching watching praying and silent mourning before the Lord and as the heart and conscience becomes purified then he shall finde that homely and peaceable presence of Jesus Christ the pearl of great price in the glimmering shadow of pure shining brightness in his soul But though Jesus Christ is so hid in the soul yet no man is any whit the better thereby that doth not there finde him and feel his operations spiritually but remains as it is written a reprobate whatsoever he may be otherwise And a great mercy it is to man that this Jewel was lost where it may be found again by the light in the scarching and watchful soul where Jesus Christ full oft calleth and knocketh by his privy voice stirring reproving and inviting the soul to a diligent search and withal to abandon other lovers vanities and entanglements that hinder the hearing of his voice for as it is said this daughter must consider and forget her own people and her fathers house of worldly thoughts loves cares and fears which hinder the soul that it can neither see him nor hear him and therefore all troublesome thoughts restless noise and imaginations are to be put away as Hagar the bond-woman that may not be heir with the son of the free woman for while the soul is in the bondage of corruption there is nothing within but black clouds and spiritual blindness with fleshly thoughts and desires crying against it in the dark conscience but as the inner eye of the soul is opened in the light which is of Jesus Christ in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily there is that pure sight and sweet love of endless vertue and blessed rest which is found within the soul by the great and burning desires for him whereby all other loves and lovers are cast out and not suffered to rest in the heart which is a right seeking for him this hid Treasure And as this stirring and waiting in the light waxeth firm stable and unmoveable it will be holpen and comforted by inward and spiritual strength of love and sweet savour in the soul with light of continual springing faithfulness and assured knowledge of him and the powers of the thoughts onely upon him and freed from every other affection to rest in the sweet anointing which is the shadow and taste of Jesus Christ and the better any soul finds him the more it will desire him in cleanness of heart and pureness of conscience to meet him more singly in the same way he appeareth and wherein it hath seen and found him at first and other times since most savourly And though thou art altogether blind and seest nothing rightly in thy self or of the Godhead of Christ yet consider seriously what thou wantest and what thou hast lost for thy soul can have no true content or sure satisfaction but in God from whence it is and if thy heart say I want and would have Jesus Christ and nothing but him onely wait therein for him as not satisfied with that appearance and follow him as he leadeth thee and more and more press forward to know him and the power of his resurrection and fellowship of his sufferings and to be made conformable to his death and so grow up in him as he moves and grows in thee and yet know that when thou hast found the most of him in the highest ravishments of spirit as Peter and Iohn in the mount or as Paul mentioned thou hast not therein fully attained to him as he is in his joy for he is still above that any soul feeleth as the fountain of all joy and sweetness but thou art ever to know and feel a spiritual longing after him and a loathing of all things else and then thou wilt find him more worth then all things even then all visions and revelations though not without visions and revelations then all joy in heaven and earth if it might be had without him for thou wilt then say in thy soul as David whom have I in heaven but thee and I desire nothing in the earth besides thee as feeling and finding that his pure presence onely gives understanding to the simple he teacheth fools knowledge whereat the Nations are angry the people and their teachers rage and imagine a vain thing against him and his holy One as not willing to know him for fear of the Cross and the shame which he despised for the joy set before him and are therefore grieved that any others should Conversion is properly a turning from evil to good from lust to pure love which is God and this conversion is ever accompanied with repentance from dead works that are past and out of that nature love and liking wherein they were wrought to serve the living and true God and therefore it is not every turning of mans body and mind from one outward form or practice to another as it were thereby to serve and worship God for then the divers Political turnings of former and latter times would be conversion to him which he may not so accept because he changeth not but is the same at all times even the unerring Father of spirits and so to be worshipped in spirit and in truth and these are outward turnings from one act of mans will to another or from evil to worse as the Proselytes that the Pharisees made sevenfold worse then before whilst the ground of sin with its branches remain standing uncut down or toucht from whence such traditional turnings arise to oppose that one truth and good way of the Lord wherein all obedient souls are made free from such shifts and changes but while men have either not know the fear of the Lord or are departed from it left and lost the power of godliness and simple truth in themselves so that their salt is without savour their minds run abroad and their hearts are filled with fleshly desires loves and fears wherein they labour night and day to gain and keep the love and friendship of this world which is enmity to God with the profits and pleasures thereof and therein serve themselves like the beasts that perish and have their hearts oft filled with wrath and revenge like unreasonable beasts against others of their own kind when they are hindred of any their desired ends and likewise against such as so hinder them not therein unless by standing in their way as the Angel before Balaam and so touching their more quick and tender parts and that onely in love to bring them back into the light and fear of the Lord that their blind and dead souls might be lighted and enlivened to have regard to the honest principle of God in themselves and others that would rule all

was rejected and also man cast out of Paradice from the sweet presence of God into this visible world to take his portion where his proud heart had chosen it in the knowledge of good and evil inventions and lusts without and contrary to God and how this begot in him an evil opinion of God trouble of Mind and condemnation in himself whereby sorrow of soul seised on him love meekness and humanity was lost and he was dead unto God and all good but alive to every lust and fleshly delight inwardly as a devil and outwardly as a beast by his so abusing his trust insomuch that he then esteemed God who before was his life and delight as his enemy and became affraid of him and could in no wise change his mind to love and trust God again though the Lord God changed not but covered himself with outward things as Fig-leaves and hid himself from the presence of God amongst the trees when he heard his voice there in the cool of the day Or how Adam excused himself concerning his nakedness his fear or the prevalency of the temptation by reason of his light or loose-mindedness how he was driven out of the Garden and Cherubims with a flaming sword set up to turn every way and keep the way of the tree of life or what was figured out thereby concerning mans having his chosen portion in this world of his own will selfish wisdom and earthly glory by which sin entred and death by sin came over all men inasmuch as all have sinned and come short of the glory of God by turning his truth into a lye worshipping and serving the Creature instead of the Creator who is God over all and rich unto all that call upon him and so are become enemies in their minds through evil works and to every good work reprobares and no way to be recovered but through the love and tender mercy of the Lord God so much abused in the then promised seed to bruise the Serpents head destroy his sinful will and wisdom in mans mortal body and restore him again to God from whom by transgression he fell by turning his mind into the eternal counsel will and thereby bringing in an everlasting righteousness in the new man created in Christ Jesus by the spirit of holiness to good works and walk in them to the restauration of all things c. But of these things briefly that I may be more large touching the end of mans Creation and his duty in relation thereto in which Abel offered an acceptable sacrifice Snoch walked with God pleased him was translated and not found by any tentation for God took him into the eternal heavenly hearing seeing tasting feeling of love and firm obedience wherein the Lord GOD accepts every man that so comes unto him in Christ Jesus the same unchangeable way truth and life as babes and sucklings and so receive his kingdom as little children and in the new spiritual birth and by the sincere milk of the word grow up in him and become wholly his and for him in his eternal counsel and will and have their conversations in heaven hating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God and partaking of his holiness and glory wherein the Tempter cannot find them though he may contend as he did about the body of Moses But though Enoch so walked with God and after him Noah was singular in his generation yet as it is written The wickedness of man was great in the earth the imaginations and thoughts of his hears onely evil continually for all flesh had corrupted their way the earth was filled with violence insomuch that the Lord repented that he had made man on the earth but man by his Deed causing this repented not to give glory to God in any general way yet for all this the Lords love and long suffering waited in the days of Noah and afterwards suffered the evil manners of his people the natural seed of Abraham in the wilderness and endured as now he doth the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction by unbelief hardness of heart and rebellion against him that spend their times and weary their wits about eating drinking revelling dancin and serving their lusts of all kinds with violence in vicious living as if that were the very end of mans Creation The Lords love in tendering redemption his outward chastisements inward smitings and sufferings in his beloved servants whereby he warneth all men to repentance and to take heed how they allow or plead for their sins as most do saying They must have their sins while their souls are in their bodies or as some speak until their last gasp but it were better said by such men That they may but will not come to Christ to be led otherwise by his light and spirit of holiness to be cleansed from all unrighteousness were they but willing to follow him in his blessed footsteps before the Lords jealousie and wrath be yet farther kindled against them that so wax old in their evil ways by custom therein specially in these times of tryal while he is working wonders in the earth and delivering his chosen ones avenging his elect that cry to him executing the judgement written as well for the rebellious as for proving and purging his own houshold-servants or think the time not near when he shall say They are turned to their idols let them alone They that are filthy let them be filthy still Why should they be smitten any more Let them go to the gods they have served Give them their portion c. As ignorance is ever the mother of Devotion in erroneous principles Opinions and Practises so consequently it is of Divisions in those erroneous-paths whereby wilful ignorance is turned into immodest Zeal and hasty frowardness to make by-ways with gaudy and guilded shews for others to fall down before and worship but my business being here specially to give some directions to weary Travellers that are going out of their way and yet would know and enter the door of mercy and hope to find refreshment for their souls and likewise to the rebellious that are in bondage that the Lord God might dwell amongst them and bring them also into his fold and freedom of glorious liberty with the sons of God and therefore briefly touch and pass over the many by-ways that lead to and thorow Presumption into Despair and thence into endless misery as the way of Cain Nimrod the old world Jannes and Jambres Ishmael Esau Core and his company Nadab and Abibu Balaam and sundry other false Prophets Apostates and Persecutors as recorded in holy Scripture over-many here to mention and at this time too manifestly in use to be now hid III. The covetous prophane worldly men in their several ways chuse their portions in this world their great desires hopes fears and cares being to get save and possess an earthly inheritance which is their portion and their hearts there also some taking