Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	heart_n	know_v	speak_v	4,049	5	4.4293	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46652	A sermon preached before the King and Queen, at White-Hall, in November 1692 by William Jane ...	Jane, William, 1645-1707.	1692 (1692)	Wing J458; ESTC R3438	13,891	32

Idols before the living God they might the more easily and of their own accord yield an explicit consent to his proposal totally renounce and detest all false worship and adhere to the true Religion with their utmost vigor and resolution And this effect it had upon them v. 15. God forbid say they that we should forsake the Lord to serve other Gods and v. 21. Nay but we will serve the Lord. Whereupon for the greater solemnity of the whole transaction Joshua sets up a stone as a memorial to them of the obligations they lay under and also a testimony against them if ever they fell off from such a deliberate resolution And surely whoever undertakes the business of religion will be sensible in a little time that it required and needed the most solemn and serious deliberation He will soon find it to be an enterprize that will engage his whole strength and all his powers for the atchievement of it that it is a work of difficulty as well as importance and accordingly represented in Scripture under the harsh names of Mortification and Crucifixion that it is a striveing to enter into the straight Gate and walking in the narrow way the subduing our most forcible inclinations the cutting off a right hand and the plucking out a right eye an utter detesting of the dearest closest and most affectionate lusts and the denying our selves some of the most pleasant gratifications of flesh and blood He will quickly experience the frailty fickleness and inconstancy of his will the subtilty of Satan the deceitfulness of sin and the treachery and falshood of his own heart the snares that are laid for him the dangers that surround him the enemies that lye in wait for him the temptations from within and from without that are by one means or other alwaies thrusting him upon his ruin And when he has but slightly considered this he will need no argument to convince him that all his most specious and glittering resolutions will quickly vanish and come to nothing unless they are founded in a deep sense of the importance of the duty of the motives and arguments to embrace it together with the labour he must undergoe the delays he must sustain and the discouragements he must meet with in the discharge of it The want hereof is the true and immediate Cause of most of those shameful Apostacys which have caused the enemies of God to blaspheme and made the way of truth to be evil spoken of when men beginning in the spirit have ended in the flesh and after they have known the way of righteousness turn'd from the Holy Commandment delivered unto them Many there are that are sometimes in a good mood in a fit of devotion when their hearts are warm'd with some affectionate discourse when they are surprized with some sad accident or disaster which disappoints them of the pleasure that they expected from iniquity or when God lays siege to them by Sickness or some other pinching affliction so that the provisions of lust have lost their relish with them for the present and the calamity has embitter'd the pleasantness of the temptation In this case it is very usual with men to be very liberal in their promises Covenants and resolutions But when the fit is over when Gods hand is taken off and the allurements of sin grow strong enough to present themselves again they unravel all their former vows the heart returns to its old byas and upon the approach of the next temptation their goodness vanishes like a morning Cloud and like the early Dew it passeth away When Nebuchadnezar laid Siege against Jerusalem Jer. 34. the Jews made a solemn Covenant with the Lord to set free their servants but no sooner had the King removed his siege but they retracted and repealed their vows and brought their servants back again into their former bondage And the reason hereof is plain For in such a Case the motive of their resolution is not adequate to the matter they resolve upon the foundation is too narrow for the superstructure and where the principle is particular and temporary it can never be a sufficient ground of a general and constant resolution A resolution that arises from the sense of a present evil or the fear of an approaching danger will ordinarily last no longer than the calamity that occasioned it And so as mens fears abate their virtuous resolutions fall off together with them since that short and transient principle which first gave them life is no longer able to support them For there can be no more strength in the conclusion than in the premises and as their motives change their resolutions must change too No wonder therefore if the temtations return as strong as ever and prevail as much against the resolution as ever the resolution prevailed against the sin And this is usually the fatal issue of all those other hasty light vain and unsettled purposes of men which arise from heat or passion or a sudden transport of zeal or any the like principle which is not commensurate to the whole compass and extent of their duty The principles are weak and wavering and so can beget no other than faint and floating resolutions The Jews Jo. 6.15 upon the sight of our Saviors miracles were of a sudden so highly transported with love to him that they resolv'd nothing should hinder them but they would e'en take him by force and make him a King And yet at another time when the Pharisees who knew well enough how to doe it had slily insinuated into their pliable and unresolv'd affections they cryed out against him as against a slave Crucify him Crucify him we have no King but Caesar This then is the difference between reason and passion in forming a good purpose and resolution The former does not prevent or anticipate but slowly follows and attends the mature Counsels of the mind it first brings the matter to a grave and calm deliberation and thence wisely and sedately proceeds to action and execution But the other is impatient of serious thinking as being a tedious and irksome task and so setting forward too speedily without Counsel usually comes off too cowardly without Courage This is that temper which old Jacob reproves in Reuben his first-born Gen. 49.4 Unstable as water which some render rash and hasty others light and inconstant and the one is ordinarily a consequent of the other and therefore he could not excell not only in the number of his tribe Deut. 33.6 but neither in valour courage or any excellent atchievement The same is taxt by Solomon Pro. 14.29 he that is hasty of Spirit exalteth folly i.e. he makes his folly manifest to the world by rashly adventuring upon that which when it comes to tryal he is not able to go through with They that are the most forward and bold in an undertaking are often found to fall off most shamefully in the encounter and the greatest boasters before a danger are commonly