Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A56635
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A consolatory discourse perswading to a chearfull trust in God in these times of trouble and danger. By Symon Patrick rector of St. Paul Covent Garden.
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Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.
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1665
(1665)
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Wing P777; ESTC R216914
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13,373
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17
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stedfastly believed to raise up your sinking spirits Will it give you no joy to think that you are so sure to be under the care of God You would have had him promised you perhaps that you shall never be sick or that you shall not be sick of any contagious disease or that you shall have long life or come to great riches and honours without which you cannot be content Poor Fools He hath promised you far nobler enjoyments and would not have you set your hearts on things of so low concernment Besides those that I have mentioned there are three most remarkable things which he hath passed his word and faith for which if you believe I shall soon give you satisfaction in the lesser matters of which you are so desirous First he hath promised forgiveness of sins if you heartily amend An inestimable favour and which imports us more then to be well to be rich or to en joy all the pleasures on earth For they are in truth no pleasures whensoever a man thinks of Damnation at the last Secondly he hath promised the gift of the Holy Ghost to help and sustein us to comfort and cheer us to guide and conduct us in our way to the third thing that he hath assured us of And that is Eternal life to reward our Piety our fidelity our Patience and Adherence to him This St. John hath see a mark upon as the most illustrious of all other saying This is the promise that he hath promised us even eternal life 1 Epist 2.25 As if he would have us fix our eyes on this above all other things and have us to think that if God hath not said so much concerning temporal enjoyments as we desire the reason is because his word is a thing which it is fit his Majesty should pass in matters of more moment and of which there might be greater doubt And truly these things which I have named are such that if we can believe them upon his word we may well trust him for all the rest without his word For who can think that he who will give us heaven will deny us any thing that is fit for us upon the earth or who can be such an Idiot as to imagine that he who is so liberal as to bestow eternal life will be sparing of a long life to us here if he judg it most convenient And that will bring me to the second thing which is II. To direct you to place a confidence in God that he will give you whatsoever is best for you though it be not promised It is a great imperfection and robs men of much comfort not to be able to rely on God unless they have his word for every thing Is not the Nature of God think you as great a security to us as that can be Truly they that understand things judg it to be rather greater because it is that which gives credit to his word Why do you believe I beseech you what God saith Is it not because you know his Truth and Goodness to be so unspotted that he cannot possibly deceive you Let us then be of good cheer From hence we may derive our comfort as well as from any thing else Nay this is the very Original and fountain of all our consolation and support that God is of such a Nature that he delights in the welfare and contentment of his Creatures From this we may fetch as much joy as we please We need not doubt to conclude from hence that we shall have all that is good for us though there were not one word said of it And he is neither good nor wise that will desire more and not rest himself contented in this perswasion Let us have recourse if you please to our dealings one with another for by them I told you we should best understand what it is to trust in God Do we never repose a confidence in an excellent person unless he give us his word or his bond Are there not some men of whom we have such an high opinion that we readily deposite our money our jewels our Deeds or any thing else in their hands and never so much as ask them to give us their promise that they will safely keep them for us Why do we think it strange then to depend on God in this manner Why do we not think that we have assurance enough from the absolute perfection of Gods Nature that it shall go well with us what is the matter that we cannot be satisfied without he pass his word and that we are not confident in himself that we shall want no good thing In my poor judgment this is rather to trust in God then the Other I mean he is more properly said to trust in God who perswades himself that he is so good as to give him all things needfull though not particularly promised then he that relies only on his word For this latter is rather to be called Faith then Trust Between which two there seems to be this difference that faith hath respect only to the word of God to what he saith and expresses but Trust goes further and hath respect also to God himself It looks not only at what he is ingaged to do but at what he is inclined to do for us Conclude therefore with the Psalmist and pronounce it in a joyfull and triumphant manner 84.11 12 The Lord God is a Sun and shield the Lord will give grace and glory and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly O Lord God of hosts blessed is the man that trusteth in thee He doth not envy any of his blessings to us He is as free of his favours as the Sun is of his beams He is no more backward and unwilling to do us any good then that great Lamp of heaven which is as it were his Visible Image is to impart its light and heat to the world And therefore he is in a blessed Condition that trusts in God He hath united himself by that means to the very fountain and source of all good things and so cannot fail to enjoy in every condition that which is most profitable for him Be it health be it riches be it long life which we think is best for us if God think so too we may resolve his bounty will not let us want it but certainly bestow it upon us I shall stay till anon to ask you if you can find no comfort in this perswasion and now proceed to tell you in the third place that in order to your full content III. You must in this confidence commit your selves to his good providence that he may dispose of you as he pleases If you verily believe that God will have a care of you then you cannot choose but yield up your self and all you have to his wise goodness desiring that every thing may be as he not as you will For doth not he that trusts in another whether in his word
A Consolatory DISCOURSE Perswading to a Chearfull Trust in God in these Times of Trouble and Danger By Symon Patrick Rector of St. Paul Covent Garden LONDON Printed by J. Hayes for S. Thomson at the Sign of the Bishops Head in St. Pauls Church-yard 1665. THe face of things is now so calamitous and there is so much sadness discovers it self in the looks of all those who are serious and affected with our present miseries that it seems as great a deed of charity to send some comfort to them as to call the careless would to Repentance There hath not a week of sate passed but we are told in the Bils of Mortality that some are dead of Grief The weight of many mens sorrows is so great that it sinks them to their Graves And they that are not yet so heavily oppressed yet groan under their burdens and we hear every day of some or other that are ready to faint by reason of the anguish of their spirits We have some hopes indeed that the number is not very great who are so sorely distressed but yet there is a General damp I observe upon the better sort of souls and there are many things concur to cast a cloud over their faces Some are very heavy for the loss of their friends and others for the fear of that loss It afflicts some to see such a decay of Trade and others begin to have apprehensions of Poverty and think it is possible they may fall into Want We see men startled very much to find the Burials swell'd to such an height the Week that is passed and again it affrights them to think of the summe that this Week current may mount them unto Most men are possessed with a fear of Death which now surrounds them on all sides and others that have been free from those terrors yet are in some dread of that kind of Death that domineers among us In so much that they are very numerous methinks whose very aspects beg for some consolation We can cast our eyes no where but we behold some or other imploring our help and craving something that may brighten their countenances by reviving and cheering their drooping spirits That is the errand of this little Paper which it came into my mind upon these considerations to send after a former Sheet That all those who truly repent them of their sins and apply their thoughts and endeavours to amend their lives may not make their lives a burden to them by fears or cares or grief or any other of those troublesome passions which we are apt to be haunted withall Now though there be many particular supports which are easie to be produced for mens relief under every one of those evils which are the cause of their complaints yet this discourse being confined to so small a compass as a Sheet it will be best to direct you to one remedy for all Diseases Especially considering that one Medicine will be better remembred then a great many that the application and use of it also will be more easie and that the mind being fixed in one point it will be the less subject to distraction by a multitude of thoughts And when I cast mine eye upon the Holy Books to find that which may be most proper for every mans case I can see nothing so much spoken of nothing so much magnified and applauded for a present Cure of all troubles as Trusting in God Our Fathers trusted in thee saith the Prophet in that mournfull Psalm 22.4 5. they trusted and thou didst deliver them They cried unto thee and were delivered they trusted in thee and were not confounded Here you have the practise and Experience of Ancient times which are a direction to us in like cases You have here so approved a Remedy and which this Divine Writer thought so safe that he resolved to take no other course in a time of such Contagion as this is For having observed that he who flies to the Most High as his Sanctuary abides under the shadow of the Almighty he determines to seek for no other comfort or security but thus concludes with himself I will say of the Lord He is my refuge and my fortress my God in him I will trust Psal 91. 1 2. Let us see then of what this famous and so much tried Remedy may consist Let us search of what an Antidote so powerfull is compounded If it be such an Universal Medicine it concerns us very much to be well acquainted with it that we may not mistake in the making of it either by leaving out or putting in of any thing which may spoyle its efficacy And to say the truth it is a very plain and simple thing which will not torture your wits to comprehend This is the beginning of your comfort that there is nothing in it but what is vulgarly known if it were but as well followed and put in use It is only to behave our selves towards God as we do to one of our Good Neighbours of whose skill and fidelity we have assurance and the business is done I. First then if an honest man give us his word for the performance of any thing we desire of him on this we rely as our security demanding no other from whence we are said to trust that person Which directs us if we will place our confidence in God to be throughly perswaded of the truth of all that he hath promised resting assured that it shall certainly be fulfilled Is there nothing that God hath given us his word for Doth he not stand at all ingaged to us Can we find nothing upon record that he hath said for our comfort and support in this world of sorrows Turn over the leaves of that Book which is deservedly called the Book of God and you will see that he hath tied himself unto us for the performance of several things that highly import us not only by his word but by his Oath He hath testified his singular care of the happiness of the world He hath shewn the great desire he hath that his creatures should live in good comfort and not be miserable in that he hath not only said but sworn that he will do them good He hath assured us in a more solemn manner then could be desired that he will provide for us that he will give us a competency of these worldly goods that he will never leave us nor forsake us that he will be our support and comforter in all afflictions that he will strengthen us on a bed of languishing and make all our bed in our sickness that he will lay no more upon us then we shall be able to bear and that all things shall work together for good to those that love him Of which promises you must no more doubt then if it were in your own power to bestow these blessings on your selves And is all this nothing think you to cheer a mans heart Is there no vertue in these words if