Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	great_a	know_v	speak_v	4,061	5	4.0748	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26868	An appeal to the light, or, Richard Baxter's account of four accused passages of a sermon on Eph. I,3 published in hope either to procure the convincing instructions of the wise, or to humble and stop the erroneous resisters of the truth.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1674 (1674)	Wing B1190; ESTC R10225	5,296	10

was holy and just and sober and honest in my stead and person And yet Salvation as to the Thing it self is the free gift of God merited only by Christ for us but it is a reward to our obedience only as to the Order of collation of that free gift As a Father will give a piece of Gold to his Child that will humbly thank him and not to him that will despise it III. I said that God indeed commandeth no Duty which he is not ready to help us to perform and that he that commandeth us to Believe Repent and Love him doth by effectual grace cause all his Elect to Believe Repent and Love him and sincerely to obey him and persevere herein but that it is not true that his Commands and Promises and Operations are of equal extent so that he Promiseth and Giveth all that he Commandeth either to All or to the Elect For unless we will say as some Papists that there are Counsels which are no Laws and Venial Sins which are but Analogically and not properly called sins we must believe that all men are Commanded to Love trust and obey God with all their mind and soul and might yea perfectly and that all sin is forbidden even imperfection of holy duty and every vain thought and word and deed And he that saith he hath no sin is a lyer for in many things we offend all and sin is a transgression of the Law And it is not meet for a Godly man's mouth to say either that no man or no elect man ever sinneth or that God breaketh his promise as oft as any of them sin which must be if he promise and Give all that he commandeth and not only help or enable men to do more than they do All the other Counterfeit Priviledges I pass by because I hear of none accused particularly but these and if herein I erre I crave hereafter the charitable Teaching of them that by accusing shew that they think their knowledge of these matters is more clear professing my desire thankfully to Learn and to buy the truth at a dearer rate than a recantation of my error But if I have only opened a weighty part of Christ's Gospel which babes should understand and all sober Christians do or should agree in and have only sought to keep God's Doctrine Church and Servants from such Corruption as looketh too like another Gospel and if prevalently practised would be mens utter ruine and also to vindicate God's Servants from such scandalous errors as some envious Writers with great scorn endeavour to fasten on them I humbly a●monish all sober Christians that they own not those errors and justifie not those accusers and harden not any insulting adversaries and ensnare not honest injudicious Christians or posterity and to fear lest they should hainously injure that Christ and that sacred Gospel which they love And if they will not Learn of one that differs from them that they would consider what it is that they defame lest they take that brand upon themselves as being of the contrary judgment which I would have saved them from and lest they do many Souls such hurt as they cannot cure IV. And on the by perswading Teachers not hastily to engage the common hearers though godly in such Controversies as they are unfit for and are past their reach lest they turn their practical Religion into wordy contentious sidings and make their Churches Militant against themselves and other brethten I did aver to them upon my long observation and experience that so much of those difficult Controversies among Christians doth lye in bare ambiguous words and notions or unrevealed things as will hardly be believed by such as have not throughly tryed it yea not only among Protestants but some such Controversies with the Papists themselves where I told you by distinction that our Controversies with them are of two sorts 1. Some that a carnal interest bred and feedeth such as their Papal usurped Power and Tyrannical Church Government and Indulgences and their Carnal way of worship and all those Doctrines as Purgatory and such others which serve the same interest and ends And in all these our difference is great indeed and unreconcileable unless they change But 2. There are some points which no carnal interest but the meer difficulty of the matter and the weakness of man's understanding make a Controversie such as I named them about Election and Reprobation and Physical predetermination and universal Redemption the definition of man's Power and free will the way of Divine operations on the Soul the nature and difference of effectual and sufficient Grace Perseverance God's providence about the causation of sin and other such like And here I say again so much of the difference lyeth in words differently understood as few believe And a man well skilled in opening such wordy ambiguities and truly stating Controversies might force many to confess that they mean the same thing while they trouble the Church by rendring each other odious for the difference And that in the foresaid points the Papists more differ one from another than the Protestants do among themselves or from the adverse part of them The Synode of Dort and the English Articles and Doctrine not going near so far from the very Jesuits or Arminians or Lutherans as the Dominicans and Jansenists do and I would have no Christians think or say that they differ where they do not nor make the worst man seem worse than he is nor wrong any adversary and harden them by wronging them and that to our own hurt and dishonour But instead of this which I thus delivered it hath been reported abroad the City that I said the difference between us and the Papists was but in words and all the said distinction and instances left out And I humbly now propose it to such Brethren whether this be serving the Lord or his Truth or profitable to the hearers and reporters Souls or safe or honourable to themselves and who is served and gratifyed hereby And whether those Teachers that have bought their little knowledge at as dear a rate as any of them deserve not better Justice from them if not the charity of personal conviction or instruction instead of all this behind our backs when we cannot right our selves or save the hearers and whether such requital for our labours will be their peace at last or their honour to posterity Though to me it must be a small thing to be judged of man being going to the judgment of the Lord and small to be denyed the praise of Man which is the Hypocrites poor reward And I doubt not but that which the erroneous accuse will be profitable to impartial teachable persons and as errors have in all ages been shorter lived than truth so the age that followeth may entertain that which prejudiced mistaught persons at present do resist And it is sound Doctrine that must make sound Christians and sound Churches which must not by any faithful Minister be betrayed especially not for fear of displeasing them who would hate their errors if they did but know them and who expect that we should flatter neither Princes nor Prelates were we to preach to them who yet can offer us far greater temptations than these offended persons from whom we crave and expect no more but entertainment of Gods truth as far as we prove it or at least to stay while they impartially consider it and not fearlesly to speak evil of that which they never understood But if with some mis-led hearers so much wisdom and conscience is not to be hoped for I am perswaded that in England few Ministers of Christ will prove so weak as to propagate or approve such errors POSTSCRIPT I Must here also tell the World that there are divers Sheets published and cryed about as mine with my Name prefixed as one called Mr. Baxter's Directions for Family Duties another of Sentences about Conversion and more such which are none of mine but are falsly so pretended to my wrong some said to be Printed by Iohn Conniers in Southwark and some by others FINIS