Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A54068
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Three queries propounded to the King and Parliament, in the fear of the Most High, and in the tender love of my soul to them
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Penington, Isaac, 1616-1679.
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1662
(1662)
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Wing P1208; ESTC R220473
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7,425
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11
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hand of the Lord Sure I am the Lord is able to overturn you as easily as he overturned them that were in power before you What is man to the Lord what is his flesh to the Lord's Spirit What great tree could stand before the late vehement-wind where the Lord gave it power which was terrible and dreadful tearing up by the very roots which might be a figure and warning where the Lord gives eyes to reade After ye have done all ye can even made Laws as strong as ye can and put them in the strictest course of execution ye can one night from the Lord may end the controversie and shew whether we please the Lord in obeying him or ye in making Laws against us for our fidelity and obedience to him And as the Lord is able to overturn you so if ye mistake your work misinterpreting the passages of his Providence and erring in heart concerning the ground of his former displeasure and so through the error of judgment set your selves in opposition against him replanting the plants which he will not have grow and plucking up the plants of his planting do ye not in this case provoke the Lord even to put forth the strength which is in him against you We are poor worms alas if ye had only us to deal with we should be nothing in your hands but if his strength stand behind us we shall prove a very burdensome stone and ye will hardly be able to remove us out of the place wherein God hath set us and where he pleaseth to have us disposed of And happy were it for you if instead of persecuting us ye your selves were drawn to wait for the same begettings of God which we have felt out of the earthly nature into his Life and Nature and did learn of him to govern in that then might ye be established indeed and be freed from the danger of those shakings and overturnings which God is hastening upon the Earth Now because ye may be apt to think that I write these things for my own sake and the sakes of my Friends and Companions in the Truth of God that we might escape the sufferings and severity which we are like to undergo from you and not so mainly and chiefly for your sakes lest ye should bring the wrath of God and misery upon your souls and bodies to prevent this mistake in you I shall add what followeth Indeed this is not the intent of my heart for I have long expected and do still expect this cup of outward affliction and persecution from you and my heart is quieted and satisfied therein knowing that the Lord will bring glory to his Name and good to us out of it but I am sure it is not good for you to afflict us for that which the Lord requireth of us and wherein he accepteth us and ye will find it the bitterest work that ever ye went about and in the end will wish that the Lord had rather never given you this day of prosperity than that he should suffer you thus to make use of it Now that ye may the more clearly see the temper of my spirit and how my heart stands in this thing I shall a little open unto you my faith and hope about it in these ensuing particulars First I am assured in my heart and soul that this despised people called Quakers is of the Lord 's begetting in his own Life and Nature Indeed had I not seen the power of God in them and received from the Lord an unquestionable Testimony concerning them I had never looked towards them for they were otherwise very despiseable in my eyes And this I cannot but testifie concerning them that I have found the Life of God in me owning them and that which God hath begotten in my heart refreshed by the power of Life in them and none but the Lord knows the beauty and excellency of Glory which he hath hid under this mean appearance Secondly The Lord hath hitherto preserved them against great oppositions and is still able to preserve them Every Power hitherto hath made nothing of over-running them yet they have hitherto stood by the care and tender mercy of the Lord and the several Powers which have persecuted them have fallen one after another Thirdly I have had experience my self of the Lord's goodness and preservation of me in my suffering with them for the Testimony of his Truth who made my bonds pleasant to me and my noisom prison enough to have destroyed my weakly and tenderly-educated nature a place of pleasure and delight where I was comforted by my God night and day and filled with prayers for his People as also with love to and prayers for those who had been the means of outwardly-afflicting me and others upon the Lord's account Fourthly I have no doubt in my heart that the Lord will deliver us The strength of man the resolution of man is nothing in my eye in compare with the Lord. Whom the Lord loveth he can save at his pleasure Hath he begun to break our bonds and deliver us and shall we now distrust him Are we in a worse condition than Israel was when the Sea was before them the Mountains on each side and the Egyptians behind pursuing them He indeed that looketh with man's eye can see no ground of hope nor hardly a possibility of deliverance but to the eye of Faith it is now nearer than when God began at first to deliver Fifthly It is the delight of the Lord and his glory to deliver his People when to the eye of sence it seemeth impossible Then doth the Lord delight to stretch forth his Arm when none else can help and then doth it please him to deal with the enemies of his Truth and People when they are lifted up above the fear of him and are ready to say in their hearts concerning them They are now in our hands who can deliver them Well were it not in love to you and in pitty in relation to what will certainly befall you if ye go on in this course I could say in the joy of my heart and in the sence of the good will of my God to us who suffereth these things to come to pass Go on try it out with the Spirit of the Lord come forth with your Laws and Prisons and spoiling of our goods and Banishment and Death if the Lord please and see if ye can carry it For we come not forth against you in our own wills or in any enmity against your Persons or Government or in any stubborness or refractoriness of spirit but with the Lamb-like nature which the Lord our God hath begotten in us which is taught and enabled by him both to do his Will and to suffer for his Name sake And if we cannot thus overcome you even in patience of spirit and in love to you and if the Lord our God please not to appear for us we are content to be overcome by you So