Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	hour_n	worship_v	worshipper_n	1,747	5	12.2779	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41383	A discourse of Christianity laying open the abuses thereof in the anti-Christian lives and worship of many of its professors, especially the Romanists : and shewing the way to a holy life in the character of a true Christian / written originally in French by the famous Monsieur de Gombaud ; and now done into English by P Lorrain.	Gombauld, Jean Ogier de, d. 1666.; Lorrain, P. (Paul), d. 1719.	1693 (1693)	Wing G1023; ESTC R14522	47,226	176

Felicity and to assent to his Word who says That whosoever loves Father or Mother or any thing else more than him is not worthy of him But for all this they are resolved to follow the Examples of so many Honest Men they alledge not considering that the Turks can at least say as much that the Pagans could say yet more and they had rather keep to those ill chosen Principles than examine the best Doctrine that can be proposed to them Besides they are as it were listed and made Slaves to live and dye under the Tyranny of certain Leaders who pretend they cannot err and say that they have the Spirit of God assisting in their Consistories and directing them in all their Decisions that they are the Commissioners of a Sovereign Court and over and above this know how to reconcile Religion with the Advantages and Pleasures of this World This is a thing they easily suffer themselves to be perswaded of as being more agreeable to their humour and subservient to their Designs They gladly lend an ear to Calumny take delight to see them convinc'd of Error who speak for the Truth which indeed they suspect and dare not so much as cast an Eye towards it lest being taken with its transcendent Beauty they should be oblig'd to follow it and undergo some just severities and hardships which their wilful Humours could never yield to They are willingly ignorant of those Maxims they have no mind to practice as finding some kind of quiet in this Ignorance and are loath to receive a Law how just soever it be that may force their Liberty For the truth is that Afflictions make up a great part of the Profession of the Gospel is enough to deter Worldly Men from it They had rather yield to the swift Stream that carries them along than to row against it They had rather be drousing in a sweet Sleep full of pleasant Dreams than hear their troublesome Voice who awake them only to afflict them O brutish stupidity O visible Obstinacy What must then Vices and Errors that are grown Publick lose their Name and acquire that of Virtue and Wisdom and must Custom have so much Power over Men as to hinder them from being reasonable Creatures But who doubts but that those who are by the Scripture said to be Drunk are so far depriv'd of their Senses and Judgment as to take Falshood for Truth and not to perceive what their Eyes see Who doubts but that they are like those People who had so used themselves to Poison that at last it served them instead of Food XXXIII In the mean time they have reduced all Religion to Human Traditions and Superstitions Neither Reason nor Understanding are once call'd in to give their Verdict in the case and I do not know by what Error or how it is come to pass that most Men who are curious of all other Sciences do not so much as inquire into that which is the most necessary They with the Barbarians have no other Knowledge of GOD but such as is obscure idle empty fruitless and dead and had they been born among the Turks they would have been of the same Belief with them having nothing but an Acquired Faith that depends only upon Tradition which never saved any Man This Faith they have in common both with the Devils and wicked Men who as well as they confess that God is Almighty that he has created the World and sent his Son the whole Mystery of whose Birth Life and Death they believe and yet must not pretend to have any share in his Kingdom and Glory It is a thing that deserves both our Pity and our Horror to see the indiscreet zeal of a People who pray they know not what who feed themselves with Shews and suffer themselves to be led away by such Teachers as make them thirst more after their Neighbour's Blood than his Salvation A People imposed upon and deluded with vain Things who fancy God is better pleased in one Place than in another and who go to seek among Strangers what they might as well find in the midst of themselves An ignorant and unthinking People that without considering what they do under the Gospel revive Judaism in direct opposition to the Word which saith That the hour is come when the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth What can Places or Pilgrimages conduce to this Or all those Religious Services which are valued only for their Number not for their Quality and the performance whereof is imposed neither out of Piety nor Faith but as certain Tasks they put upon themselves and certain Numbers which they attribute some Virtue to and do affect much after the same manner as Magicians do Devotions full of Superstition Scruples and Jealousies as of Men that are afraid to know the Truth and to whom the Light is hurtful who conceive nothing of the true Religion but what is told them by the very Enemies of it who can entertain nothing better for it than hatred and calumny always representing it in the most hideous shape they can imagine Indeed it is an easie matter to perswade them any thing who have already been perswaded to that blind Obedience to which they give their consent with as much Unmanliness and Senselessness as if they should say I will be stupid I will be sensible of nothing For if once they say they will follow the Church they contradict themselves and own that they will follow what they know Now how many things must a Man know to be able to discern the false Church from the true To what purpose is Blind Obedience in them whom God has endu'd with Reason and after that given them his Ordinances with an express Command to Parents to teach their Children the same and to all to search the Scriptures which alone plainly shew the Way to the Kingdom of Heaven But how should those instruct others who are so ill instructed themselves who for a just Punishment for worshipping things inanimate are struck with such a prodigious hardness that to ask them for Advice or Answers would be the same as to consult Marble XXXIV Ye Blind don't you perceive that you lose your Senses only by applying your selves too much to things insensible Don't you see that Reason it self makes you inferior to the Object of your Adoration and that your wicked inclinations have made you less then the Work of your own hands O ye Fools leave Puppets and Babies for Children they are ridiculous for an Age that can exert Reason Ye are no less guilty than the Atheists for with them you annihilate the Deity when you fix the form thereof to any Matter whatsoever and when you represent Him who is a Spirit by a piece of Wood or Stone notwithstanding that he has said with so much jealousie To what will ye liken me Thus you rashly make him that has made you and through an unaccountable insolence and ingratitude

were better able to believe and hope for it than comprehend it Seeing the vast distance there is between Heaven and Earth they could not think of any means to fill up their great Abyss and were not informed there were any Steps by which they might ascend to Heaven save only by Jacob's Ladder Yet Reason does for all that give its assent to things that happen beyond Reason it self and helps us apprehend that at last which at first it could not so much as in the least make us imagine Since therefore it teaches us that a Mean ought equally to partake of both Extremes and doth unite them howsoever disagreeing they may be that a Mediator ought to be capable of the Sentiments and Affections of both Parties he intends to reconcile and set a just Estimate upon the Right or Wrong of either of them Who doubts but that he that for this end is sent to us from Heaven is fully possess'd of all the Qualities requisite for him as such that he partakes of the Humane and Divine Nature in a Word that he is Man and God both together Moreover who doubts but that he is a Man conceiv'd otherwise than other Men lest his Natural Corruption and Sin should make him incapable of an intimate essential Union with the Divine Justice and Purity For if he were not Man we could have no share in him neither could his satisfaction be imputed to us If he were not God he could not communicate his Immortal Virtues Glory and Felicity to us If he were Man only he could not overcome Death nor raise himself from the Grave but sink under the Burthen and be soon reduc'd to nothing And if he were God only he could not have Died nor received from himself that Payment to which we are bound by the Law Therefore he must suffer and yet be altogether incapable of Dying he must die and yet withal be Immortal too He must descend into Hell and come up thence again He must be above all the Infernal Powers and shew that to him truly belong all the ways that lead to as well as the Issues from Death He that will deliver others from the Curse must undergo and overcome it and to the end there might be some proportion between the Offence and the Punishment there must be a Person of an infinite Worth and Excellency to make a temporal and finite torment of infinite Merit For certainly it is more with God that his Son dies for the Sins of the World then to see all Mankind perish together Now tho' there be no Law that allows the Innocent to suffer for the Guilty neither is there any that forbids it provided he offer himself willingly and be not absolutely destroy'd by the Punishment but have power as to lay down his Life so to take it up again XVII O the Wonders of the Eternal Power and Wisdom who in the Beginning was pleased to take out of Man a Woman that caused us all to Die that afterwards out of the Woman he might take a Man that will make us all alive again Thus Humane and Divine Nature in the fulness of time are by a stupendious Mystery united together and without any the least alteration in the properties of either the Son of God has joyn'd himself in Unity of Person with the Son of Man I say the Son and not the Father for we cannot have him for an Intercessor who is to be interceded with He that does send cannot be sent and because the Father does nothing by himself but all things by his Son it is reasonable that he should exert the Second Creation who was the Author of the First And who could speak better on our behalf than he who is the Word it self Who could reprint the Divine Image better in us than he that formed it there at first or intitle us better to the right of Children than he that possesses it in the highest degree But it is not enough that he should make satisfaction and that this satisfaction should be imputed to us but he must also confer that Grace upon and apply it to us and this is the Office of the Spirit which equally proceeds from the Son and the Father He it is that enlightens and purifies us that enables us to understand love and believe these Mysteries that impregnates us as he did the Blessed Virgin and makes us conceive our Saviour He is that Band of Love which unites us to the Divinity that real Unction wherewith we are all anointed and thereby made Kings Prophets and Priests In short it is he that gives himself for a Pledge and Security of the Promises of the Life to come of the Resurrection and Glory XVIII This great Mediator therefore is come such as he was foretold not like some great Conqueror a Cyrus or an Alexander but in the form of a Man full of sorrows and acquainted with griefs like one Consecrated by suffering to be a Propitiatory Victim for Mankind whose Merit is sufficient for all but appliable only to them that believe in him He is come not to shed another's Blood but his own and combate Rebellion with Obedience Strength with Weakness Pride with Humility This is that which makes him appear greater and more Divine This is that which overcomes and ravishes us into admiration and obliges us to fall down and worship him This is the sole Object of Religion which is not only the Art of saving Man but of making a God of him without any the least prejudice to the Divine Unity or the Holy Trinity For what name can be given to the Son of Man who makes but one and the same Person with the Son of God And of what Extract must we esteem them to be whom he has vouchsafed so far to honour as to call them his Brethren Now this RELIGION has been established not by any Bribings Companies or Combinations not by the Favour of Princes or the Votes of People not by the Subtilty of Philosophers or the Perswasion of Orators In a word not by a Multitude of Men as the Mahometan nor a great Number of Gods as the Pagan but only by the plain Proposal of a simple and naked Truth Which Truth has notwithstanding all manner of Opposition and Gain-saying made it self to be heard throughout the World and at its appearance has seen all Errors confounded all Sects dissipated and vanishing all False Oracles struck Dumb and all Idols and their Worshippers fall down before it CHAP. V. XIX AFter all that this RELIGION lays before us of the only Way for Man to be sav'd what can all the Religions in the World besides teach us And what can Mahomet pretend to perswade us if the Name of a Christian be so odious to him and he so little agree with Christ who does so perfectly agree with all the Prophets Is it not a wonderful thing that so many Men should be inspired in so different Places and at so different times