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	worship_v	worshipper_n	5,153	5	12.8389	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31408	Antiquitates apoitolicæ, or, The history of the lives, acts and martyrdoms of the holy apostles of our Saviour and the two evangelists SS. Mark and Lvke to which is added an introductory discourse concerning the three great dispensations of the church, patriarchal, Mosiacal and evangelical : being a continuation of Antiquitates christianæ or the life and death of the holy Jesus / by William Cave ...	Cave, William, 1637-1713.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. Dissuasive from popery.	1676 (1676)	Wing C1587; ESTC R12963	411,541	341

enemies had taken him away by a most bitter and cruel death had guarded and secured his Sepulchre with all the care power and diligence which they could invent And yet he rose again the third day in triumph visibly conversed with his Disciples for forty days together and then went to Heaven By which he gave the most solemn and undeniable assurance to the World that he was the Son of God for he was declared to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead and the Saviour of mankind and that those doctrines which he had taught were most true and did really contain the terms of that solemn transaction which God by him had offered to men in order to their eternal happiness in another World 11. THE last instance I shall note of the excellency of this above the Mosaical Dispensation is the universal extent and latitude of it and that both in respect of place and time First it 's more universally extensive as to place not confined as the former was to a small part of mankind but common unto all Heretofore in Judah only was God known and his name was great in Israel he shewed his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel but he did not deal so with any other Nation neither had the Heathen knowledge of his Laws In those times Salvation was only of the Jews a few Acres of Land like Gideon's Fleece was watered with the dew of Heaven while all the rest of the World for many Ages lay dry and barren round about it God suffering all Nations in times past to walk in their own ways the ways of their own superstition and Idolatry being aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel strangers from the Covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the World that is they were without those promises discoveries and declarations which God made to Abraham and his Seed and are therefore peculiarly described under this character the Gentiles which knew not God Indeed the Religion of the Jews was in it self incapable to be extended over the World many considerable parts of it as Sacrifices First-fruits Oblations c. called by the Jews themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 statutes belonging to that land being to be performed at Jerusalem and the Temple which could not be done by those Nations that lay a considerable distance from the Land of promise They had it 's true now and then some few Proselytes of the Gentiles who came over and imbodied themselves into their way of worship but then they either resided among the Jews or by reason of their vicinity to Judaea were capable to make their personal appearance and to comply with the publick Institutions of the Divine Law Other Proselytes they had called Proselytes of the Gate who lived dispersed in all Countries whom the Jews call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pious of the Nations Men of devout minds and Religious lives but these were obliged to no more than the observation of the Seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah that is in effect to the Precepts of the Natural Law But now the Gospel has a much wider sphere to move in as vast and large as the whole World it self it is communicable to all Countries and may be exercised in any part or corner of the Earth Our Lord gave Commission to his Apostles to go into all Nations and to Preach the Gospel to every Creature and so they did their sound went into all the Earth and their words unto the ends of the World by which means the grace of God that brings salvation appeared unto all men and the Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven So that now there is neither Jew nor Greek neither bond nor free neither male nor female but we are all one in Christ Jesus and in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him The Prophet had long since foretold it of the times of Christ that the House of God that is his Church should be called an House of Prayer for all People the Doors should be open and none excluded that would enter in And the Divine providence was singularly remarkable in this affair that after our Lord's Ascension when the Apostles were going upon their Commission and were first solemnly to proclaim it at Jerusalem there were dwelling there at that time Parthians Medes Elamites c. persons out of every Nation under Heaven that they might be as the First-fruits of those several Countries which were to be gathered in by the preaching of the Gospel which was accordingly done with great success the Christian Religion in a few years spreading its triumphant Banners over the greatest part of the then known World 12. AND as the true Religion was in those Days pent up within one particular Country so the more publick and ordinary worship of God was confined only to one particular place of it viz. Jerusalem hence called the Holy City Here was the Temple here the Priests that ministred at the Altar here all the more publick Solemnities of Divine adoration Thither the Tribes go up the Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord. Now this was not the least part of the bondage of that dispensation to be obliged thrice every Year to take such long and tedious Journies many of the Jews living some Hundreds of Miles distance from Jerusalem and so strictly were they limited to this place that to build an Altar and offer Sacrifices in any other place unless in a case or two wherein God did extraordinarily dispense although it were to the true God was though not false yet unwarrantable worship for which reason the Jews at this day abstain from Sacrifices because banished from Jerusalem and the Temple the only legal place of offering But behold the liberty of the Gospel in this case we are not tied to present our devotions at Jerusalem a pious and sincere mind is the best Sacrifice that we can offer up to God and this may be done in any part of the World no less acceptably than they of old sacrificed in the Temple The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain Mount Gerizim nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth as our Lord told the Woman of Samaria in spirit and in truth in spirit in opposition to that carnal and Idolatrous worship that was in use among the Samaritans who worshipped God under the representation of a Dove in truth in opposition to the typical and figurative worship of the Jews which was but a shadow of the true worship of the Gospel The great Sacrifice required in the Christian Religion is not the fat of Beasts or the first-fruits of the Ground but an honest heart and a pious life and a grateful acknowledgment

yet that he would bear with them CXX Years longer in order to their reformation So loth is God to take advantage of the sins of men not willing that any should perish but that all should come unto Repentance In the mean time righteous Noah found favour with Heaven a good man hath a peculiar guardianship and protection in the worst of times and God orders him to prepare an Ark for the saving of his House An Hundred Years was this Ark in building not but that it might have been finished in a far less time but that God was willing to give them so long a space for wise and sober considerations Noah preaching all the while both by his doctrine and his practice that they would break off their sins by repentance and prevent their ruine But they that are filthy will be filthy still the hardned World persisted in their impieties till the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost and destroyed the World of the ungodly God shut up Noah his Wife his three Sons and their Wives into the Ark together with provisions and so many Creatures of every sort as were sufficient not only for food but for reparation of the kind Miracles must not be expected where ordinary means may be had and then opened the Windows of Heaven and broke up the Fountains of the Deep and brought in the Floud that swept all away Twelve months Noah and his Family continued in this floating habitation when the Waters being gone and the Earth dried he came forth and the first thing he did was to erect an Altar and offer up an Eucharistical Sacrifice to God for so remarkable a deliverance some of the Jews tell us that coming out of the Ark he was bitten by a Lion and rendred unfit for Sacrifice and that therefore Sem did it in his room he did not concern himself for food or a present habitation but immediately betook himself to his devotion God was infinitely pleased with the pious and grateful sense of the good man and openly declared that his displeasure was over and that he would no more bring upon the World such effects of his severity as he had lately done and that the Ordinances of Nature should duly perform their constant motions and regularly observe their periodical revolutions And because Man was the principal Creature in this lower World he restored to him his Charter of Dominion and Soveraignty over the Creatures and by enacting some Laws against Murder and Cruelty secured the peace and happiness of his life and then established a Covenant with Noah and all Mankind that he would no more drown the World for the ratification and ensurance whereof he placed the Rain-bow in the Clouds as a perpetual sign and memorial of his Promise Noah after this betook himself to Husbandry and planting Vineyards and being unwarily overtaken with the fruit of the Vine became a scorn to C ham one of his own Sons while the two others piously covered their Fathers shame Awaking out of his sleep and knowing what had been done he prophetically cursed Cham and his Posterity blessed Sem and in Japhet foretold the calling of the Gentiles to the worship of God and the knowledge of the Messiah that God should enlarge Japhet and that he should dwell in the Tents of Shem. He died in the DCCCCL Year of his Age having seen both Worlds that before the Floud and that which came after it 16. SEM and Japhet were the two good Sons of Noah in the assigning whose primogeniture though the Scripture be not positive and decretory yet do the most probable reasons appear for Japhet especially if we compute their Age. Sem was an Hundred Years old two Years after the Floud for then he begat Arphaxad now the Floud happened just in the DC Year of Noah's Age whence it follows that Sem was born when his Father was Five Hundred and Two Years old But Noah being expresly said to have begotten Sons in the Five Hundreth Year of his Age plain it is that there must be one Son at least two Years Elder than Sem which could be no other than Japhet Cham being acknowledged by all the Younger Brother And hence it is that Sem is called the Brother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Japhet the Greater or as we render it the Elder They were both pious and devout Men having been brought up under the religious Institutions not only of their Father Noah but their Grand-father Lamech and their Great-grand-father Methuselah who had for some Hundreds of Years conversed with Adam The holy story records nothing concerning the state of Religion in their days and little heed is to be given to the Eastern Writers when they tell us of Sem that according to the command of his Father he took the Body of Adam which Noah had secretly hidden in the Ark and joyning himself to Melchisedeck they went and buried it in the heart of the Earth an Angel going before and conducting them to the place with a great deal more with little truth and to as little purpose As for the Patriarchs born after the Floud little notice is taken of them besides the bare mention of their names Arphaxad Salah Eber. Of this last they say that he was a great Prophet that he instituted Schools and Seminaries for the advancement and propagation of Religion and there was great reason for him to bestir himself if it be true what the Arabian Historians tell us that now Idolatry began mightily to prevail and men generally carved to themselves the Images of their Ancestors to which upon all occasions they addressed themselves with the most solemn veneration the Daemons giving answers through the Images which they worshipped Heber was the Father of the Jewish Nation who from him are said to have derived the title of Hebrews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus tells us though there want not those who assign other reasons of the name and that the Hebrew Language was preserved in his family which till his time had been the mother-tongue and the common Language of the World To Eber succeeded his son Peleg a name given him out of a Prophetical foresight of that memorable division that hapned in his time For now it was that a company of bold daring persons combining themselves under the conduct and command of Nimrod resolved to erect a vast and stupendous Fabrick partly to raise themselves a mighty reputation in the World partly to secure themselves from the Invasion of an after-deluge and probably as a place of retreat and defence the better to enable them to put in practice that oppression and tyranny which they designed to exercise over the World But whatever it was God was displeased with the attempt and to shew how easily he can baffle the subtillest Councils and in a moment subvert the firmest projects on a sudden he confounded the Language of these foolish Builders so that they were forced to

herein he literally made good the character of Elias who is described as an hairy man girt with a Leathern girdle about his Loins His Diet suitable to his Garb his Meat was Locusts and wild Honey Locusts accounted by all Nations among the meanest and vilest sorts of food wild honey such as the natural artifice and labour of the Bees had stored up in caverns and hollow Trees without any elaborate curiosity to prepare and dress it up Indeed his abstinence was so great and his food so unlike other Mens that the Evangelist says of him that he came neither eating nor drinking as if he had eaten nothing or at least what was worth nothing But Meat commends us not to God it is the devout mind and the honest life that makes us valuable in the eye of Heaven The place of his abode was not in Kings houses in stately and delicate Palaces but where he was born and bred the Wilderness of Judaea he was in the Desarts until the time of his shewing unto Israel Divine grace is not confined to particular places it is not the holy City or the Temple at Mount Sion makes us nearer unto Heaven God can when he please consecrate a Desart into a Church make us gather Grapes among Thorns and Religion become fruitful in a barren Wilderness 4. PREPARED by so singular an Education and furnished with an immediate Commission from God he entred upon the actual administration of his Office In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the Wilderness of Judaea and saying Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justin Martyr calls him the Herald to Proclaim the first approach of the Holy Jesus his whole Ministry tending to prepare the way to his entertainment accomplishing herein what was of old foretold concerning him For this is he that was spoken of by the Prophet Esaias saying The Voice of one crying in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths straight He told the Jews that the Messiah whom they had so long expected was now at hand and his Kingdom ready to appear that the Son of God was come down from Heaven a Person as far beyond him in dignity as in time and existence to whom he was not worthy to minister in the meanest Offices that he came to introduce a new and better state of things to enlighten the World with the clearest Revelations of the Divine will and to acquaint them with counsels brought from the bosom of the Father to put a period to all the types and umbrages of the Mosaick Dispensation and bring in the truth and substance of all those shadows and to open a Fountain of grace and fulness to Mankind to remove that state of guilt into which humane nature was so deeply sunk and as the Lamb of God by the expiatory Sacrifice of himself to take away the sin of the World not like the continual Burnt-offering the Lamb offered Morning and Evening only for the sins of the House of Israel but for Jew and Gentile Barbarian and Scythian bond and free he told them that God had a long time born with the sins of Men and would now bring things to a quicker issue and that therefore they should do well to break off their sins by repentance and by a serious amendment and reformation of life dispose themselves for the glad tidings of the Gospel that they should no longer bear up themselves upon their external priviledges the Fatherhood of Abraham and their being God's select and peculiar People that God would raise up to himself another Generation a Posterity of Abraham from among the Gentiles who should walk in his steps in the way of his unshaken faith and sincere obedience and that if all this did not move them to bring forth fruits meet for repentance the Axe was laid to the root of the Tree to extirpate their Church and to hew them down as fuel for the unquenchable Fire His free and resolute preaching together with the great severity of his life procured him a vast Auditory and numerous Proselytes for there went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea and the Region round about Jordan Persons of all ranks and orders of all Sects and Opinions Pharisees and Sadducees Souldiers and Publicans whose Vices he impartially censured and condemned and pressed upon them the duties of their particular places and relations Those whom he gained over to be Proselytes to his Doctrine he entred into this new Institution of life by Baptism and hence he derived his Title of the Baptist a solemn and usual way of initiating Proselytes no less than Circumcision and of great antiquity in the Jewish Church In all times says Maimonides if any Gentile would enter into Covenant remain under the wings of the Schechina or Divine Majesty and take upon him the yoke of the Law he is bound to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering and if a Woman Baptism and an Oblation because it is said As ye are so shall the stranger be as ye your selves entred into Covenant by Circumcision Baptism and a Peace-offering so ought the Proselyte also in all Ages to enter in Though this last he confesses is to be omitted during their present state of desolation and to be made when their Temple shall be rebuilt This Rite they generally make contemporary with the giving of the Law So Maimonides By three things says he the Israelites entred into Covenant he means the National Covenant at Mount Sinai by Circumcision Baptism and an Oblation Baptism being used some little time before the Law which he proves from that place Sanctifie the People to day and to morrow and let them wash their Clothes This the Rabbins unanimously expound concerning Baptism and expresly affirm that where-ever we read of the Washing of Clothes there an obligation to Baptism is intended Thus they entred into the first Covenant upon the frequent violations whereof God having promised to make a new and solemn Covenant with them in the times of the Messiah they expected a second Baptism as that which should be the Rite of their Initiation into it And this probably is the reason why the Apostle writing to the Hebrews speaks of the Doctrine of Baptisms in the plural number as one of the primary and elementary Principles of the faith wherein the Catechumens were to be instructed meaning that besides the Baptism whereby they had been initiated into the Mosaick Covenant there was another by which they were to enter into this new Oeconomy that was come upon the World Hence the Sanhedrim to whom the cognizance of such cases did peculiarly appertain when told of John's Baptism never expressed any wonder at it as a new upstart Ceremony it being a thing daily practised in their Church nor found fault with the thing it self which they supposed would be a federal Rite under the

plainly confessed that he could be content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to die a thousand times over were he but assured that those things were true and being condemned concludes his Apologie with this farewell And now Gentlemen I am going off the stage it 's your lot to live and mine to die but whether of us two shall fare better is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unknown to any but to God alone But our blessed Saviour has put the case past all peradventure having plainly published this doctrine to the World and sealed the truth of it and that by raising others from the dead and especially by his own Resurrection and Ascension which were the highest pledge and assurance of a future Immortality But besides the security he hath given the clearest account of the nature of it 'T is very probable that the Jews generally had of old as 't is certain they have at this day the most gross and carnal apprehensions concerning the state of another Life But to us the Gospel has perspicuously revealed the invisible things of the other World told us what that Heaven is which is promised to good men a state of spiritual joys of chaste and rational delights a conformity of ours to the Divine Nature a being made like to God and an endless and uninterrupted communion with him 9. BUT because in our lapsed and degenerate state we are very unable without some foreign assistance to attain the promised rewards hence arises in the next place another great priviledge of the Evangelical Oeconomy that it is blessed with larger and more abundant communications of the Divine Spirit than was afforded under the Jewish state Under the one it was given by drops under the other it is poured forth The Law laid heavy and hard commands but gave little strength to do them it did not assist humane nature with those powerful aids that are necessary for us in our present state it could do nothing in that it was weak through the flesh and by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof it could make nothing perfect 'T was this made it an heavy yoke when the commands of it were uncouth and troublesome and the assistances so small and inconsiderable Whereas now the Gospel does not only prescribe such Laws as are happily accommodate to the true temper of humane nature and adapted to the reason of mankind such as every wise and prudent man must have pitched upon but it affords the influences of the Spirit of God by whose assistance our vitiated faculties are repaired and we enabled under so much weakness and in the midst of so many temptations to hold on in the paths of piety and vertue Hence it is that the plentiful effusions of the Spirit were reserved as the great blessing of the Evangelical state that God would then pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground that he would pour out his Spirit upon their seed and his blessing upon their off-spring whereby they should spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses That he would give them a new heart and put his Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them And this is the meaning of those branches of the Covenant so oft repeated I will put my Law into their minds and write it in their hearts that is by the help of my Grace and Spirit I 'le enable them to live according to my Laws as readily and willingly as if they were written in their hearts For this reason the Law is compared to a dead letter the Gospel to the Spirit that giveth life thence stiled the ministration of the Spirit and as such said to exceed in glory and that to such a degree that what glory the Legal Dispensation had in this case is eclipsed into nothing For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth for if that which was done away was glorious much more that which remaineth is glorious Hence the Spirit is said to be Christ's peculiar mission I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter even the Spirit of truth which was done immediately after his Ascension when he ascended up on high and gave gifts to men even the Holy Ghost which he shed on them abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified Not but that he was given before even under the old Oeconomy but not in those large and diffusive measures wherein it was afterwards communicated to the World 10. FIFTHLY The Dispensation of the Gospel had a better establishment and confirmation than that of the Law for though the Law was introduced with great scenes of pomp and Majesty yet was the Gospel ushered in by more kindly and rational methods ratified by more and greater miracles whereby our Lord unquestionably evinced his Divine Commission and shewed that he came from God doing more miracles in three years than were done through all the periods of the Jewish Church and many of them such as were peculiar to him alone He often raised the dead which Moses never did commanded the winds and waves of the Sea expelled Devils out of Lunaticks and possessed persons who fled assoon as ever he commanded them to be gone cured many inveterate and chronical distempers with the speaking of a word and some without a word spoken vertue silently going out from him He searched men's hearts and revealed the most secret transactions of their minds had this miraculous power always residing in him and could exert it when and upon what occasions he pleased and impart it to others communicating it to his Apostles and followers and to the Primitive Christians for the three first Ages of the Church he never exerted it in methods of dread and terror but in doing such miracles as were highly useful and beneficial to the World And as if all this had not been enough he laid down his own life after all to give testimony to it Covenants were ever wont to be ratified with bloud and the death of sacrifices But when our Lord came to introduce the Covenant of the Gospel he did not consecrate it with the bloud of Bulls and Goats but with his own most precious bloud as of a Lamb without spot and blemish And could he give a greater testimony to the truth of his doctrine and those great things he had promised to the World than to seal it with his bloud Had not these things been so 't were infinitely unreasonable to suppose that a person of so much wisdom and goodness as our Saviour was should have made the World believe so and much less would he have chosen to die for it and that the most acute and ignominious death But he died and rose again for us and appeared after his Resurrection His