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
A64835	Things worth thinking on, or, Helps to piety being remains of some meditations, experiences, and sentences &c. never published till now : and now are as an addition to them which were formerly made publick: together with a sermon entituled The beauty of holines / by Ralph Venning ...	Venning, Ralph, 1621?-1674.	1664 (1664)	Wing V227; ESTC R38004	77,776	241

23.9 Bathsheba was very beautiful to look upon but her sin was more her shame than that her praise You heard before how this Beauty of Holiness was prefer'd and had the commendation beyond that of the face Prov. 31.30 And the Apostle gives the holy hand the honour above all 1 Tim. 2.8 A white hand if not innocent a neat hand if not holy though adorned with never so many rings and bracelets makes no fair shew in the eyes of God though lifted up to him in Prayer 4. The Artificial beauty which is short of the Natural must therefore of necessity fall short of this which is Supernatural The Ornaments of Gold and Silver Garnishings with Precious Stones for Beauty as 2 Chron. 3.6 Modish garbs and dresses which often bewitch and dazle the beholders eyes and hath many times more beauty than the wearer is infinitely short of the beauty of holiness And therefore the glory of the Kings Daughter Psal 45.13 14. is not given to her clothing though of wrought gold nor to her rayment though of curious Needle-work but to her inner beauty which is holiness she was all glorious within viz. pure in heart and her beauty is in forgetting her fathers house and in worshipping her Lord and King who would then desire her beauty Psal 45.10 11. for such he seeks to worship him as do it in spirit and truth in the beauty of holiness So St. Paul tells us that the best ornaments are not broidered hair or gold or pearls or costly array but modesty shamefastness sobriety and good works which becometh women professing Godliness 1 Tim. 2.9 10. That without this is nothing at all but this though without that is all in all And so St. Peter also tells us 1 Pet. 3.3 4. that women should not reckon those outward ornaments their beauty but the hidden man of the heart that which is not corruptible a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price and that 's the praise we should be ambitious of viz. which is of God and not of men Rom. 2.29 To be drest to the approbation and admiration of men to be renowned for beauty and not to have the approbation of God will afford but cold comfort while we live and when we die And therefore to declare the thing as it is and to dis-abuse this mistaken World let me tell them that they do but mis-call and flatter these sublunary things when they attribute to them and adorn them with the fine words and specious titles of beauty and bravery delight and delicacy pleasure and prettiness honour and happiness alas these are but great fancies pompous shews glittering and gaudy nothings The rosiness of the most orient beauty the whistling of the most silken bravery the chinking of white and yellow dust alias gold and silver the sparkling glories which tempt and captivate the amorous the proud the covetous the ambitious sons of men will one day appear to be but the cheat of imagination and that they who have courted them have jugled themselves out of true happiness into a false one and have espoused themselves to a meer paultry vanity which if it be any thing is a something less than nothing as the Prophet phraseth it Isa 40.17 they will find by the disappointment of their hopes that they did but build Castles in the aire and their false joys will end in true miseries 5. Holiness far surmounts the Morality and half refined Vertues of Philosophers Morality is indeed a very lovely thing in its kind and is a great rarity among men 't were to be wisht there were as much among some Christians as there was among some Heathens Christians profess more than they did but they did more than many who are profest-Christians For this Christ loved the young man but yet 't was not enough the one thing necessary was wanting he was not sanctified There are many fine things that may glitter but be no gold good inclinations sweet dispositions ingenious behaviour seemingly vertuous conversations may make a fair shew in the flesh and yet they who own them may be in the flesh and so cannot please God Rom. 8.8 A complexional or a constitutional meekness c. may be no vertue which is a conquest over opposition Philosophical Vertue which they place in obeying and conforming to the Placits of wise men and dictates of Reason or performing vertuous acts for vertues sake may be far from holiness which is as I clear'd above a conformity to the will of God as such sub intuitu divinae voluntatis with respect to his will and an eye to his glory Education Art and Prudence may and do oblige to and produce effects very resembling and like to them that are religious but the sweetest innocency and most glorious acts if not the result and effect of union with Christ and the love of God will profit nothing 1 Cor. 13.1 2 3. Though such persons may seem too good to go to Hell yet without holiness they will not be found good enough to go to Heaven but the person may be condemnable when the acts may be by themselves considered capable of commendation See Matth. 7.21 22 23. Yet again as to this head To teach or learn Moral Vertues apart from Christ is to have them apart from Heaven they are indeed required of and to be practis'd by Christians but so is more than they and they as springing from the fountain directed by the rule and terminated in the glory of God in Christ Otherwise though we learn to conceal or disguise Ungodliness we shall never learn to be godly and every thing but being and living godly in Christ Jesus leaves us under the first Covenant which is too weak to save us Philosophy and Morality may make us civil and good men but they will never make us holy and good Christians And as Doctor M. Causabon well observes Christless discourses are to little purpose the truth is saith he the consideration of Christ laid aside though good language and excellency of wit may go far with some men to perswade and with all or most to please and delight yet bare vertue of it self all things soberly considered will prove generally but a weak plea and as Brutus at his death is said to have bemoan'd himself rather a Name or Word than reality 6. and Lastly The Beauty of holiness far exceeds and excells Pharisaical righteousness The Pharisees if you would take their word and believe of them as they conceited of themselves were righteous more than others and therefore despised others and bid them stand afar off as unclean in comparison of them the more holy but these were no incense only smoak in the nostrils of God They had so obtain'd upon the credulous and easily deluded Vulgar that they also thought them Gods darlings and favourites in so much that 't was Proverbial among the many That if but two went to Heaven the one would be a Pharisee Our

Lord of Hosts the whole Earth is full of his glory which is repeated Revel 4.8 Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come This then that is the glory of God must needs be the perfection of the creatures beauty and so it will be found to be for 't is more to the glory of Angels that they are holy than that they are wise and mighty Zion was called the Perfection of beauty but 't was because of her being holiness to the Lord the Spouse the fairest among Women because she was undefiled and the Church is called glorious because holy and without blemish 'T is the glory of Gods Sabbath that 't is an holy Day and of his Commandments that they are all holy and so of all his Judgements too What wants holiness cannot be what is holy cannot but be glorious according to it's degree Among all the things that have been or are famous for any perfection Holiness bears the bell and though many have been justly celebrated and their renown hath been spread abroad for their beauty yet this of Holiness excells them all You will find many high sounding words joyn'd with beauty as Glory and Beauty Exod. 28.2 and 40. Job 40.10 Joy attends it but to see it Psal 48.2 Praise attends it as 't is said of Absalom 2 Sam. 14.25 Excellency Isa 13.19 Ornament Ezek. 7.20 Renown Ezek. 16.14 c. But the Beauty of Holiness exceeds them all and the rest is as a thing of naught where this is not That which may seem strange is you may hear a Woman and a Queen calling it Vanity Prov. 31.30 Favour is deceitful and Beauty vain but a Woman that feareth the Lord she shall be prais'd For what For a Beauty Her own works such as the Apostle speaks of 1 Tim. 2.10 in the language of my Text becoming Women professing Godliness Her good Works shall praise her in the Gate All the other glorious beauty is but a fading flower Isa 28.14 but this is the lasting and abiding beauty even for ever as in the Text as in 1 Pet. 1.24 with Isa 40.6 7. One rebuke of God if he do but blow upon it makes the most glaring beauty to consume like a moth Psal 39.11 yea of its self 't is in a consumption and dying daily But wickedness makes not only the person but the beauty to be abhorred Ezek. 16.25 There is more ugliness in the sin than there can be beauty in or on the person of a sinner though an Absalom among men a very None-Such or a Bathsheba among Women who was very beautiful 2 Sam. 11.2 The glory of young men is their strength Prov. 20.29 What to do wickedly no but when such young men as St. John speaks of 1 John 2.14 who were strong by the Word of God abiding in them and overcame the evil and wicked one so that this strength of Holiness is the true glory of young men And they that pride themselves and glory in their being mighty to drink woe unto them for they glory in their shame As for old men the same Text Prov. 20.29 tells us that the gray head is their beauty but when for it seems to need an interpretation why then 't is a crown of glory viz. the hoary head when 't is found in a way of righteousness Prov. 16.31 So that we see there is no glory allowed to any beauty but that of Holiness We may conclude as holy King David I have seen an end of all perfection but the perfection of beauty that is the beauty of Holiness which is as exceeding broad as all the Holy Commandments of God Holy David was so taken with and inamoured of this beauty which is the glory of God himself that he begs nothing but this or nothing like this of God in prayer Psal 27.4 One thing have I desired of the Lord and that will I seek after his heart is fully set and resolved that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the dayes of my life what to do to behold the beauty of the Lord a sight that passeth all sights And Moses the man of God prayes to see this glory Psal 90.16 17. Let thy work appear unto thy servants and thy glory unto their children and let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us c. The truth of it is to see the glory and beauty of the Lord is a sight not only worth praying but worth dying for it being no less than the Beatifical Vision I perceive I have been engaged sooner than I was aware of in the second thing the comparative consideration of holiness and yet I must proceed and make further progress to evidence this that nothing is worthy to be compared with her but that her beauty is incomparable There are many pretenders and competitors who are brought in by too many in this blinded world to vie with holiness But if we will believe so clear so great and so just a judgement as that of Gods The beauty of holiness is beyond comparison and competition 1. There have been and I am afraid there are with a sigh be it spoken to their shame that prefer sin before the holy Jesus and say as Isa 53.2 3. There is no beauty that we should desire him they despise and reject him they hide their faces from him and have no esteem for him but say as Isa 30.11 Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us and as the Devils Let us alone or away what have we to do with thee art thou come to torment us thou Holy One Luke 4.34 Woe and alas that the altogether lovely Jesus should be thus undervalued and that by them whom he had infinitely obliged to serve and honour him He had for us a love that passeth knowledge such as never was the like known unexampled and never to be parallelled by any great it was like that of his Fathers who sent him into the World from and in the strength of this love he came not only to make or give a Visit but to save us with a great Salvation from sin and wrath and shall not this man rule over us and be our Prince who is our Saviour Oh dis-ingenious ingrateful foolish people and unwise thus to requite the Lord with contempt scorn and hatred for his Good-will what alles this degenerate wicked World that they see not his glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of all Graces and Truth of Beauty I must confess that the Son of God did appear with many seeming disadvantages to sensual and sinful eyes for he being to take a journey into this World where he was to taste of death dis-robed himself of his Majesty and Glory becoming for a time not only little lower than the Angels but was pleased to put on our Countrey Cloths and came habited into the World like one of us yea in the form of a servant and in the likeness of sinful