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	world_n	4,002	5	4.4108	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62600	A sermon preach'd before the Queen at White-Hall, March the 8th, 1688/9 by John Tillotson ...	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1689 (1689)	Wing T1237; ESTC R4814	16,700	44

very weighty Reasons The first I have already intimated because it is so very hard to behave ourselves towards Enemies as we ought This we shall find to be a difficult Duty to Flesh and Blood and it will require great Wisdom and Consideration and Humility of Mind for a Man to bring down his Spirit to the Obedience of this Command For the fewer Enemies we have the less occasion will there be of contesting this hard Point with ourselves And the other Reason is I think yet plainer and more convincing because Enemies will come of themselves and let a man do what he can he shall have some Friendship is a thing that needs to be cultivated if we would have it come to any thing but Enemies like ill Weeds will spring up of themselves without our care and toil The Enemy as our Saviour calls the Devil will sow these Tares in the night and when we least discern it will scatter the Seeds of Discord and Enmity among men and will take an advantage either from the Envy or the Malice or the Mistakes of Men to make them Enemies to one another Which would make one wonder to see what care and pains some men will take to provoke Mankind against them how they will lay about them and snatch at opportunities to make themselves Enemies as if they were afraid to let the happy occasion slip by them But all this care and fear surely is needless we may safely trust an ill-natur'd World that we shall have Enemies enough without our doing things on our part to provoke and procure them But above all it concerns every man in prudence to take great care not to make personal Enemies to himself for these are the sorest and the surest of all other and when there is an opportunity for it will sit hardest upon us Injuries done to the Publick are certainly the greatest and yet they are many times more easily forgiven than those which are done to particular Persons For when Revenge is every bodies work it may prove to be no bodies The general Wrongs which are done to Humane Society do not so sensibly touch and sting men as personal Injuries and Provocations The Law is never angry or in passion and it is not only a great indecency but a fault when the Judges of it are so Heat of Prosecution belongs to particular Persons and it is their memory of Injuries and desire to Revenge them and diligence to set on and sharpen the Law that is chiefly to be dreaded And if the truth were known it is much to be fear'd that there are almost as few private as publick Acts of Oblivion pass'd in the World and they commonly pass as slowly and with as much difficulty and not till the grace and good effect of them is almost quite lost II. Secondly If we ought to be thus affected towards our Enemies how great ought our kindness and the expressions of it to be to others To those who never disobliged us nor did us any Injury by word or deed to those more especially who stand in a nearer relation to us to our natural Kindred and to our spiritual Brethren to whom we are so strongly link'd and united by common Bond of Christianity and lastly to our Benefactors and those who have been before-hand with us in obligation For all these are so many special Ties and Endearments of men to one another founded either in Nature or Religion or in common Justice and Gratitude And therefore between all these and our Enemies we ought to make a very wide and sensible difference in our Carriage and Kindness towards them And if we do not do so we represent our Saviour as an unreasonable Law-giver and do perversly interpret this Precept of his contrary to the reasonable and equitable meaning of it For whatever degree of Kindness is here required towards our Enemies it is certain that so much more is due to others as according to the true proportion of our tie and obligation to them they have deserved at our hands nothing being more certain than that our Blessed Saviour the Founder of our Religion did never intend by any Precept of it to cancel any real Obligation of Nature or Justice or Gratitude or to offer Violence in the least to the common Reason of Mankind III. Thirdly Hence we learn the excellency and the Reasonableness of the Christian Religion which hath carried our Duty so high in things which do so directly tend to the Perfection of Humane Nature and to the Peace of Humane Society and which if all things be rightly consider'd are most agreeable to the clearest and best Reason of Mankind So that those things which were heretofore look'd upon and that only by some few of the wiser sort as Heroical Instances of Goodness and above the common rate of Humanity are now by the Christian Religion made the indispensable Duties of all Mankind And the Precepts of no other Religion that ever yet appeared in the World have advanced Humane Nature so much above itself and are so well calculated for the Peace and Happiness of the World as the Precepts of the Christian Religion are for they strictly forbid the doing of Injuries by way of prevention and in case they happen they endeavour to put a present stop to the progress of them by so severely forbidding the revenging of them And yet after all this it must be aknowledg'd to be a very untoward Objection against the Excellency and the Efficacy of the Christian Religion that the Practice of so many Christians is so unequal to the Perfection of these Precepts For who is there in the Changes and Revolutions of Humane Affairs and when the Wheel of Providence turns them uppermost and lays their Enemies at their Feet that will give them any Quarter Nay that does not greedily seize upon the first opportunities of Revenge and like an Eagle hungry for his Prey make a sudden stoop upon them with all his force and violence and when he hath them in his Pounces and at his Mercy is not ready to tear them in pieces So that after all our Boasts of the Excellency of our Religion where is the practice of it This I confess is a terrible Objection indeed and I must entreat of you my Brethren to help me to the best Answer to it Not by any nice Distinctions and Speculations about it but by the careful and honest Practice of this Precept of our Religion This was the old Objection against Philosophy that many that were Philosophers in their Opinions were faulty in their Lives But yet this was never thought by wise men to be a good Objection against Philosophy And unless we will lay more weight upon the Objections against Religion and press them harder than we think it reasonable to do in any other Case we must acknowledge likewise that this Objection against Religion is of no force Men do not cast off the Art of Physick because many Physicians do not