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	speak_v	word_n	7,138	5	4.4441	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43569	Advice to an only child, or, Excellent council to all young persons containing, the summ and substance of experimental and practical divinity / written by an eminent and judicious divine, for the private use of an only child, now made publick for the benefit of all.	Heywood, Oliver, 1629-1702.	1693 (1693)	Wing H1758; ESTC R18548	63,918	191

more but that you may be affected more 4. Hear the Word attentively and diligently because it is your Life Deut. 32.46 The things spoken do concern the Soul and are most Momentous how slightly and carelesly do multitudes of People hear the word Preached as if it were a matter of small concern Which might justly cause God to take away the word from us when the Mother sees that the Child doth but play with the Breasts she puts them up 5. Labour to be affected with the word I mean not with some elegant Expressions or pleasing Comparisons that are brought in a Sermon to tickle the fancy of a Delicate Hearer If these only affect you you get no good but suck wind rather than Nourishment The Bee lights not on the Rose which hath the freshest Colour and sweetest Smell but on the Thyme which is an Herb of little beauty A Devout Soul rests not on Truths curiously deckt with Eloquence but upon plain naked Truths to fetch Honey from It likes the most saving weighty and powerful Truths the Spiritualness of the matter the Holiness of Soul-Searching Doctrines such Doctrines as beat down Lust and Corruption But a formalist is only delighted with the History the Elegance of Language the quaint Notions or the Rational Evidence of the Discourse and so rests in the outward shell and tasts not the Kernell If these things only do affect you in hearing you did never yet really tast the goodness of Sermon-Milk or the sweetness and pretiousness of Christ in a Sermon which if once you had tasted how would your Heart be affected and ravisht with it It 's only the tasting of the Hony-Comb that makes one affected with it and to long after more 6. Ponder upon what you hear lay it up in your Heart so as to retain it Thus did Mary by Christs sayings she kept them all and pondered them in her Heart Luke 2.19 The word is a Jewel lock it up in the Cabinet of your Heart It 's pondering on the word in the Heart that doth make it Nourishment to you by Digesting of it and turning it into the Blood and Spirits of Holiness This is the Squeezing of the Hony-Comb of the word into the Heart which makes it yield abundant store of refreshing sweetness Yea and presseth it so that it slides down deep into the Heart so as it is made to abide there When the Minister hath laid on a healing plaister Meditation binds it fast on makes it stick and abide which otherwise would rub off again presently without doing any good it fastens on our Hearts the truths which we have heard 7. If you would profit by the word preached then pray for the Minister before you go to Church Col. 4.3 Eph 6 19. Pray to God to direct him to speak a word in Season to you that might be suitable to your Condition and work upon your Heart I am perswaded that one reason why People reap no more benefit by the word is because they do not before pray for the Minister or for a Blessing on the word that he shall preach to them Consider that thus praying for him you pray for your self if the Mother have a full Breast it is the benefit of the Child St. Austin praised God for furnishing his Nurse with Milk when he had perished without it O pray to God constantly before you go to Church that he would enable the Minister to do the work of a Spiritual Nurse well and then you will find that you will have matter to praise God for the good that you shall reap after by his Church Nursery 8. When you come home retire your self a little and repeat over to your self the most practical truths which you have heard make Application of them to your self and press them home upon your own Heart Think not how the Doctrine you have heard doth fit others this hinders your profiting by the word but think how it fits your self CHAP. XXIX Of Receiving the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 1. NEglect no opportunity of being a guest at this Sacred Feast of the Lords Supper and take care that in all your Approaches to it you come worthily This would be a prime and most Soveraign means to your living well which is the design of all the Advice that I have given you O what Excellent and Heavenly Lives did the Primitive Christians lead while they received the Sacrament every day or every Lords Day They were thereby inflamed with such Zeal and Holy Courage that they were said to come from the Sacrament like Lyons breathing fire and hence in Cyprians time they had it every day that they might be the more animated to lay out their Blood for Christ This Sacrament saith Chrysostom is for the Noble Eagles that would have their thoughts on high it helps Souls mightily to mount up with wings as Eagles to run and not be weary to fly swiftly through difficulties and duties and to make them ascend up in a fiery Chariot of Love Christians may hereby be brought unto and preserved in a Holy Galantry of Spirit and briskness and liveliness in well doing and to move as in the Chariots of Aminadab with nimble vigor The Elixir of Christs Blood in the Sacrament will make the believer full of Life and Spirits Hereby a Christian saith Bernard is made more meek to be reproved more patient to labour more fervent to love more ready to obey and more Devout to give God thanks In a word your Heart by this feast of fat things and refined Wines will be more strengthned to the practice of all Holy Virtues to the mastery of all Corruptions and to the Conquest of all Temptations and support to go on in its work and way without sinking under its burthen 2. Besides how could you think that you live well if you should live in the neglect or omission of so great a Duty as this of Receiving the Sacrament which was the Request and Legacy of your dying Saviour with strict Command appendant and annext thereunto Do thus in Remembrance of me Would not that be a living in Rebellion against his Law a slighting of his Body and Blood while you have a Command to Communicate therein Unpreparedness may be your Sin but cannot be a warrantable plea for abstaining 3. Now that you may so make your Addresses hereunto as to come worthily be careful of these four following particulars 1. To know and understand the Nature and Ends of this Feast 2. To be such a Person as the Master of the Feast would have his guests to be 3. To make your self ready before you come to it 4. To behave your self so at it as becomes a guest at that Royal Banquet CHAP. XXX Of the Nature of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper ENdeavour to get a right understanding of the Nature of this Divine Mystery so as to know what you feed on there All People love to have light when they are at a Feast to see

some circumstances in Worship which they like not 4. When you come home from the Publick be careful to spend your time in Religious Exercises Meditate on what you have heard and having like a diligent Bee gathered abroad in the Publick Assembly the sweet of heavenly Flowers work your Honey-comb within your own Hive Digest well by private Meditation that spiritual meat which was set before you in the Dishes of the Publick Ordinances Meditate also on the Attributes of God the Works of God and especially the Mercies of God that you may be stirred up to holy rejoycings praises and thanksgivings which are the most proper work of the day which is a day of thanksgiving and commemoration of the Mercies of God especially of the Resurrection of Christ and the great work of Redemption 5. Be careful that your Servants do not prophane or mis-spend this day as being tender of their Souls as well as your own Solomon's virtuous Woman gave a portion of holy Instructions as well as of Food to her Servants and Maidens Prov 31.15 26. CHAP. XXIV Of Holy Duties in general 1. BEfore you go to any Duty address your self to Jesus Christ for a supply of grace for the performance thereof If you be to go to a new act of praying or hearing or receiving the Sacraments you must eye Jesus Christ again put forth a new act of Faith towards him and labour for new Influences and a fresh supply of Spirit from him 2. Do not only number your Duties but weigh your Duties how many how many look only how oft they go to Duties but never seriously how or in what manner they perform them and so cheat themselves everlastingly concluding themselves to be in a state of Grace because of their constancy in Duties but miscarry everlastingly for want of a right manner of performing them as out of a right spring and principle and to a right end and with sincerity and fervency of affection Though the Tree bear many large and fair fruits yet it is not much valued unless they have a good rellish If the fruits that your Soul brings forth have not a good tast through the sincerity and right ends thereof or tast not of the Love of God they will not be acceptable unto God Let all your works be done in Love 1 Cor. 16.14 3. Do not only perform holy duties but love holy duties so they will be more acceptable to the God of Love An ungodly Man or Woman may often go to prayer but they love it not they may hear the Word but they receive not the Truth in the love of it But a good heart loves duties So long as you cannot find any rellish in Ordinances or private Duties but are in an indifferency whether you perform them or no or have your frequent intermissions of these meals so that sometimes you take them and sometimes you let them alone it is a sign you are not sound within or if you do constantly take them if it be without an appetite and perform holy duties only to stop the mouth of Conscience it s an argument your Soul is not in health Till you find sweetness in Ordinances the case is not well with you as it should be the Soul is out of frame If once you love duties they will be a delight and refreshment to you All the ways of Christ are Beds of Spices and Roses and can you walk on such and not be requited for it with sweet and fragrant smells Those that carry bundles of Spices from Arabia have their Spirits refresht with the sweet Odours that breathe from them A good Christian is refresht in duty the Soul can sing at her work Love turns all pains into pleasures Though the Mother take a great deal of pains in tending the Child yet she finds a sweet delight in it because of her love to it A good Christian can say with David O how I love thy Law Psal 119.97 And I delight to do thy Will O my God! Psal 40.8 CHAP. XXV Of Prayer 1. DO not rush on Prayer presently without some serious consideration before Read therefore some portion of Scripture before you pray This will afford you matter of meditation which will furnish you with matter for Prayer for so you may turn what you have read into Prayer A good Heart is by one Duty quickned and prepared for another as the Wild Bores by whetting their Tusks with their other Teeth make them sharp and so every Tooth mutually sets an edge on another If therefore you be to read Pray before by some short Address to God if to Pray read before Yea Pray also before Prayer that God would Assist you in Prayer and deliver you from the Evil Infirmities of your Prayer Holy David Prays for his own Prayers Psal 141.1 2. 2. Look not upon Prayer as a task but as a priviledge O! what a great and glorious priviledge is it that the poorest Saint may with boldness have access to God! Eph. 3.18 Rom. 5.1 2. Is it not a Royal Priviledge to have a Key in our keeping that opens Heaven Gates and lets into the Presence Chamber of the King of Glory To speak with him at any time If you would thus look upon it I should not need to perswade you to go to Prayer constantly Morning and Evening This would be in stead of a hundred Arguments that Prayer is so High and so Royal a Priviledge that you may thereby go boldly to the Throne of Grace draw near to God himself and lay your Petition in his Bosom and plead your Cause before him and fill your Mouth with Arguments and Reason out your great Concernments with him and receive his Answers 3. Pray Earnestly Lazy Devotion and Key-cold Prayers will never prevail You must wrestle with God in Prayer like Holy Jacob that you may prevail In wrestling one single Person strives with another so the Devout Soul with God they go to it singly as it were Hand to Hand and have as it were a single Combat in private The Devout Saint loves to wrestle with God in the Closet when no Body is present the Door being shut he loves not to have Spectators of it he then comes up close to God and gets within him takes hold of his Everlasting Arms. Thus the Woman of Canaan Wrestled with Christ she stands to it though she had many Repulses from him The Soul thus Wrestles with God as a Child with the Father who is much delighted and pleased to let it get the better on him to encourage it and after takes it up from its Knees into his Arms when you go to Prayer you must set all your faculties on work you must open and spread the Sails open and spread forth your Affections as wide as you can that they may gather wind enough to waft you over to the Land of Promise 4. See that your Prayers be followed with Diligent and Serious Endeavours for effecting of that which you have Prayed for