Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	hear_v	sinner_n	tempter_n	42	3	17.0371	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63888	Eniautos a course of sermons for all the Sundaies of the year : fitted to the great necessities, and for the supplying the wants of preaching in many parts of this nation : together with a discourse of the divine institution, necessity, sacredness and separation of the office ministeriall / by Jer. Taylor ...	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1653 (1653)	Wing T329; ESTC R1252	784,674	804

God confirmed by miracles was an intire faith and although they might have false opinions or mistaken explications of true opinions either inartificiall or misunderstood yet we have reason to beleeve their faith to be intire for that which God would have the Heathen to beleeve and to that purpose prov'd it by a miracle himselfe intended to accept first to a holy life and then to glory The false opinion should burn and themselves escape One thing more is here very considerable that in this very instance of working miracles God was so very carefull not to hear sinners or permit sinners till he had prevented all dangers to good and innocent persons that the case of Christ and his Apostles working miracles was so clearly separated and remarked by the finger of God and distinguished from the impostures and pretences of all the many Antichrists that appeared in Palestine Cyprus Cr●te Syria and the voicinage that there were but very few Christians that with hearty perswasions fell away from Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Galen It is not easie to teach anew him that hath been taught by Christ And St. Austin tels a story of an unbeleeving man that being troubled that his wife was a Christian went to the Oracle to aske by what means hee should alter her perswasion but he was answered it could never be done he might as well imprint characters upon the face of a torrent or a rapid river or himself fly in the air as alter the perswasion of a hearty and an honest Christian I would to God it were so now in all instances and that it were so hard to draw men from the severities of a holy life as of old they could be cousened disputed or forced out of their faith Some men are vexed with hypocrisie and then their hypocrisie was punished with infidelity and a wretchlesse spirit Demas and Simon Magus and Ecebolius and the lapsed Confessors are instances of humane craft or humane weaknesse but they are scarce a number that are remarked in Ancient story to have fallen from Christianity by direct persuasions or the efficacy of abusing arguments and discourses The reason of it is the truth in the text God did so avoyd hearing sinners in this affair that he never permitted them to doe any miracles so as to doe any mischief to the souls of good men and therefore it is said the enemies of Christ came in the power of signes and wonders able to deceive if it were possible even the very elect but that was not possible without their faults it could not be the elect were sufficiently strengthened and the evidence of Christs being heard of God and that none of his enemies were heard of God to any dangerous effect was so great that if any Christian had apostatized or fallen away by direct perswasion it was like the sin of a falling Angell of so direct a malice that he never could repent and God never would pardon him as St. Paul twice remarks in his Epistle to the Hebrews The result of this discourse is the first sense and explication of the words God heareth not sinners viz. in that in which they are sinners a sinner in his manners may be heard in his prayer in order to the confirmation of his faith but if he be a sinner in his faith God hears him not at all in that wherein he sins for God is truth and cannot confirm a lye and when ever he permitted the Devill to doe it he secur'd the interest of his Elect that is of all that beleeve in him and love him lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting 2. That which yet concerns us more neerly is that God heareth not sinners that is if wee be not good men our prayers will doe us no good wee shall be in the condition of them that never pray at all The prayers of a wicked man are like the breath of corrupted lungs God turns away from such unwholsome breathings But that I may reduce this necessary doctrine to a method I shall consider that there are some persons whose prayers are sins and some others whose prayers are ineffectuall some are such who doe not pray lawfully they sin when they pray while they remain in that state and evill condition others are such who doe not obtain what they pray for and yet their prayer is not a direct sin the prayer of the first is a direct abomination the prayer of the second is hindred the first is corrupted by a direct state of sin the latter by some intervening imperfection and unhandsome circumstance of action and in proportion to these it is required 1. that he be in a state and possibility of acceptation and 2. that the prayer it selfe be in a proper disposition 1. Therefore wee shall consider what are those conditions which are required in every person that prays the want of which makes the prayer to be a sin 2ly What are the conditions of a good mans prayer the absence of which makes that even his prayer returns empty 3ly What degrees and circumstances of piety are required to make a man fit to be an intercessor for others both with holinesse in himself and effect to them he prays for And 4ly as an appendix to those considerations I shall adde the proper indices and significations by which we may make a judgment whether God hath heard our prayers or no. 1. Whosoever prays to God while he is in a state or in the affection to sin his prayer is an abomination to God This was a truth so beleeved by all Nations of the world that in all Religions they ever appointed baptismes and ceremoniall expiations to cleanse the persons before they presented themselves in their holy offices Deorum Templa cum adire disponitis ab omni vos labe puros lautos castissimósque praestatis said Arnobius to the Gentiles When you addresse your selves to the Temples of your Gods you keep your selves chast and clean and spotlesse They washed their hands and wore white garments they refused to touch a dead body they avoyded a spot upon their clothes as they avoyded a wound upon their head 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That was the religious ground they went upon an impure thing ought not to touch that which is holy much lesse to approach the Prince of purities and this was the sense of the old world in their lustrations and of the Jews in their preparatory baptismes they wash'd their hands to signifie that they should cleanse them from all iniquity and keep them pure from bloud and rapine they washed their garments but that intended they should not be spotted with the flesh and their follies consisted in this that they did not looke to the bottome of their lavatories they did not see through the vail of their ceremonies Flagitiis omnibus inquinati veniunt ad precandum se piè sacrificasse opinantur si cutem laverint tanquam libidines intra pectus inclusas ulla amnis abluat

extraordinary spirit if they pretend to teach according to Scripture must be examined by the measures of Scripture and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit and stands or falls by the rules of every good mans religion and publike government and then we are well enough But if they speak any thing against Scripture it is the spirit of Antichrist and the spirit of the Devil For if an Angel from heaven he certainly is a spirit preach any other doctrine let him be accursed But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride errour and delusion a snare to catch easie and credulous souls which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face it is the parent of folly and giddy doctrine impossible to be proved and therefore uselesse to all purposes of religion reason or sober counsels it is like an invisible colour or musick without a sound it is and indeed is so intended to be a direct overthrow of order and government and publike ministeries It is bold to say any thing and resolved to prove nothing it imposes upon willing people after the same manner that Oracles and the lying Daemons did of old time abusing men not by proper efficacy of its own but because the men love to be abused it is a great disparagement to the sufficiency of Scripture and asperses the Divine providence for giving to so many ages of the Church an imperfect religion expressely against the truth of their words who said they had declared the whole truth of God and told all the will of God and it is an affront to the Spirit of God the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge of order and publike ministeries But the will furnishes out malice and the understanding sends out levity and they marry and produce a phantastick dream and the daughter sucking winde instead of the milk of the word growes up to madnesse and the spirit of reprobation Besides all this an extraordinary spirit is extremely unnecessary and God does not give immissions and miracles from heaven to no purpose and to no necessities of his Church for the supplying of which he hath given Apostles and Evangelists Prophets and Pastors Bishops and Priests the spirit of Ordination and the spirit of instruction Catechists and Teachers Arts and Sciences Scriptures and a constant succession of Expositors the testimony of Churches and a constant line of tradition or delivery of Apostolical Doctrine in all things necessary to salvation And after all this to have a fungus arise from the belly of mud and darknesse and nourish a gloworm that shall challenge to out-shine the lantern of Gods word and all the candles which God set upon a hill and all that the Spirit hath set upon the candlesticks and all the starres in Christs right hand is to annull all the excellent established orderly and certain effects of the Spirit of God and to worship the false fires of the night He therefore that will follow a Guide that leads him by an extraordinary spirit shall go an extraordinary way and have a strange fortune and a singular religion and a portion by himself a great way off from the common inheritance of the Saints who are all led by the Spirit of God and have one heart and one minde one faith and one hope the same baptisme and the helps of the Ministery leading them to the common countrey which is the portion of all that are the sons of adoption consigned by the Spirit of God the earnest of their inheritance Concerning the pretence of a private spirit for interpretation of the confessed doctrine of God the holy Scriptures it will not so easily come into this Question of choosing our spirituall Guides Because every person that can be Candidate in this office that can be chosen to guide others must be a publike man that is of a holy calling sanctified or separate publikely to the office and then to interpret is part of his calling and imployment and to do so is the work of a publike spirit he is ordained and designed he is commanded and inabled to do it and in this there is no other caution to be interposed but that the more publike the man is of the more authority his interpretation is and he comes neerest to a law of order and in the matter of government is to be observed but the more holy and the more learnd the man is his interpretation in matter of Question is more likely to be true and though lesse to be pressed as to the publick confession yet it may be more effective to a private perswasion provided it be done without scandal or lessening the authority or disparagement to the more publick person 8. Those are to be suspected for evil guides who to get authority among the people pretend a great zeal and use a bold liberty in reproving Princes and Governours nobility and Prelates for such homilies cannot be the effects of a holy religion which lay a snare for authority and undermine power and discontent the people and make them bold against Kings and immodest in their own stations and trouble the government Such men may speak a truth or teach a true doctrine for every such designe does not unhallow the truth of God but they take some truthes and force them to minister to an evil end but therefore mingle not in the communities of such men for they will make it a part of your religion to prosecute that end openly which they by arts of the Tempter have insinuated privately But if ever you enter into the seats of those Doctors that speak reproachfully of their Superiours or detract from government or love to curse the King in their heart or slander him with their mouths or disgrace their persons blesse your self and retire quickly for there dwells the plague but the spirit of God is not president of the assembly and therefore you shall observe in all the characters which the B. Apostles of our Lord made for describing and avoiding societies of hereticks false guides and bringers in of strange doctrines still they reckon treason and rebellion so S. Paul In the last dayes perillous times shall come the men shall have the form of Godlinesse and denie the power of it they shall be Traitors heady high minded that 's their characteristic note So Saint Peter the Lord knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse and despise government presumptuous are they self willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities The same also is recorded and observed by Saint Jude likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh despise dominion and speak evil of dignities These three testimonies are but the declaration of one great contingency they are the same prophesy declared by three Apostolical men that