Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	keep_v	know_v	liar_n	2,027	5	11.5863	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51227	A sermon preach'd before the Lord Mayor, and the Court of Aldermen, at Guild-Hall Chappel, on the 28th of May, 1682 by John Moore ...	Moore, John, 1646-1714.	1682 (1682)	Wing M2552; ESTC R20127	21,938	53

end all the Precepts of our Lord all his great actions and grievous sufferings were directed But for the further illustration and proof of this point give me leave to offer these three things to your Consideration 1. That not any of the Discourses or Sermons of our Saviour were made upon Subjects purely speculative The Sermons he Preacht were to teach men to be humble meek pure and peaceable to bear reviling language patiently and willingly to submit to Persecution for Righteousness sake to put hypocrisy out of Countenance and to reform such notions in Religion as were impediments to real Piety and upheld men in wicked life And in this Course he was carefully follow'd by his Apostles and those who were joyned with them in planting his Religion Concerning the Original of the Soul whether it be immediately Created or infused or deriv'd from the Parents and the manner of its Union with the body concerning the orders ranks and numbers of the Angels and how they converse and convey their thoughts to each other concerning the bounds figure and capacity of Heaven the Scholemen have written great Volums but the Inspired Writers have treated very sparingly because an accurate skill in these nice speculations and much acquaintance with them will not make us one jot the better men since we may have our heads ful of these curious notions without advancing one step nearer Heaven and being in the least degree more acceptable to God 2. The revelation God has made of himself in Scripture is such as most Conduceth to the promotion of Godliness and of his great design of putting us upon the attainment of these qualifications which can only fit us for the Kingdom of Heaven and are the necessary terms of our Salvation for there we constantly find God to be set forth as Just and Righteous in all his works as pure and holy in all his ways and as the rewarder only of them who love and fear him and keep his Commandments Nay God is there pleased to ascribe unto to himself the passions of men love hatred anger revenge hope grief and repentance not that these passions are properly in God who is wholy free from the imperfections which cause them in us but meerly in Condescension to the weakness of our Nature and to help the slowness of our understanding to the end that what is there declared to be the object of Gods Love and Hatred his Grief or Anger might be the object of ours likewise and more strongly affect us And as an Evidence of this we may Observe that these passions hardly ever are attributed to God in Scripture but to encourage Virtue or discourage Vice So true is it that the several descriptions the Bible giveth us of God are accommodated to the Doctrine of Godliness and do tend to the advancement of it Now as this seems to be the only Reason why God has made some discovery of the Perfections of his blessed Nature unto us that we should profoundly reverence him and sincerely love him and Religiously conform our selves unto his Will so if we neglect to answer the ends of this glorious manifestation God will declare at the day of Judgment that he knows us not as he has already declared we know not him he that saith he hath known him and keepeth not his Commandements is a liar and the truth is not in him Upon this Argument St. Basil speaks excellently taking his occasion from those words of our Lord. I know my sheep and am known of mine What do you mean by knowing do you understand what Gods Essence is or can you measure his greatness no my sheep know me that is they hear my Voice See then by what means you may Arrive at the knowledg of God it is by hearing his Commands and doing them when you have heard them The knowledg then of God consists in the observation of his Commandments not in a curious prying into the nature of his Essence and the things above the World not in the contemplations of Invisible Beings my Sheep know me and I know Mine It is enough for you to know you have a good Shepherd who hath layd down his life for the Sheep Let this then be the bounds of your knowledg of God But the questions that concern the immensity of the Divine Nature are dangerous to him who puts them and can never be penetrated into by him who undertakes to answer them the best cure for such is silence So that knowledg and practice how much soever they may differ in our notions of them are in Christian Religion but two terms importing the same matter And as they who keep not the Commandments cannot in a Scripture sense without a lie pretend that they know God so neither at the day of Judgment will Christ know them who lived in disobedience to the great laws of his Religion and neglected the chief instances of their Duty Insomuch that to those who have eaten and drank in his presence and heard him Preach in their Streets and upon that score only do claime a knowledg of him and an interest in his Death and Sufferings he will reply I tell ye I know not whence you are depart from me all ye Workers of iniquity Wherefore that man does but deceive himself and will in the end certainly miscarry who diligently Searches after Knowledg only that he may gratify a vain curiosity and qualify himself to become an able Disputant in Religion for all our knowledg will avail us nothing unless it have an influence upon our practice and prove serviceable to us in the reformation of our manners In this State then of Imperfection and tryal of our Obedience we need to enquire no further after the Essence of God and study the mysteries of his incomprehensible Nature then it may either serve to instruct us in such Instances and Cases as 't is our Duty to imitate him and be as conformable to him as we can or furnish us with Arguments that will give us courage to break through the difficulties and opposition that we may meet with in our Christian Race and minister Patience and Comfort to us under the bitterest Persecutions we shall suffer for the sake of our Master and because we would not do violence to our Consciences Indeed in the life that will follow this we shall see God as he is and all the glories of the Divinity will lie open to our eys Then in the Company of the whole Church Triumphant of all the Saints and Angels we shall stand round about the Throne and for ever behold search into admire and adore the infinite wisdom and goodness and Power of God and with the highest transport of Love and joy we shall bless and praise and magnify the Lamb with whose blood all our defilements are washt away and our Robes made white and by whose all-powerful mediation we are admitted into the glorious presence of God and shall continue to all Eternity as much as

we are capable to partake more and more of the Divine Perfections 3. There is no fundamental Doctrine of Christianity but an obligation naturally flows from it to some instance or other of a good Life If the Doctrine be that God is the maker of Heaven and Earth does not an obligation from thence lve upon all his Creatures to Gratitude and Praise if the Doctrine be that God is the great Soveraign of the World does not a duty plainly follow that we his Subjects are to govern our selves by his Laws does not the Doctrine of his Infinite Goodness make it our duty to love him and imitate him and that of his irresistible Power to dread the giving him the least offence and to submit our selves to his pleasure does not the Doctrine that Truth is one of his Essential Attributes make it our duty to believe him and to depend upon his promises does not the Doctrine of his unsearchable Wisdome oblige us to give up our wills unto his and to leave the Events of things to his wise Disposal does not the Doctrine of his Omnipresence his all seeing Eye engage us to have a constant and awful regard of him and to walk circumspectly in all our paths The Doctrine of Gods providence being concerned not only in our most weighty affairs but also extending even to those small things of which we our selves take no thought what powerful motives does it afford us against dejection pensiveness of mind and immoderate cares the Doctrine of all things working together for the good of the faithful Servants of God what a mighty obligation does it lay upon us to be contented and easy in our present condition how much soever it may be beset with adversities and afflictions and to take no indirect course to use no unlawful method or meanes to get out of it the Doctrine of Gods only having such a power over our Souls that he can destroy them how plainly does it imply that we are to dread God more than man and to disobey man rather than God The Doctrine of the necessity of the Sufferings and Passion of Christ does it not make it our indispensable duty to mortify the Flesh and to crucify the Lusts thereof and to prepare our selves rather to suffer Affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of Sin for a Season and should not the Doctrine of his Resurrection and Ascention carry our thoughts and great designs into the other World and fix our Hearts and all our Affections upon the Treasure which is in Heaven In a word does not the Doctrine of a day of Judgment in which sentence shall pass upon all men for every Thought Word and Deed Oblige us if we have the least love of our selves and dessire of our own eternal welfare to put our Accounts in exact Order and to break off our Sins by a timely and sincere Repentance And this was the method generally of the Apostles when they have delivered a Doctrine they presently draw an Inference from it which is in the nature of a Precept and where they do not express the Precept it is ever imply'd and easy thence to be Concluded Seeing all these things shall be disolved what manner of Persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness i. e. if ye believe this Christian Doctrine of the dissolution of the World your lives must come up to your Principle and your faith be render'd effectual by the holiness of your Conversation every man that hath this hope in him he purifyeth himself even as he is pure do you hope to see God it unquestionably followes that you are to endeavour to be like him by imitating his purity if ye then be Risen with Christ seek those things which are above i. e. if ye believe Christs Resurrection and as believers of it have been Baptized into a profession of the Christian Faith then it becomes you to mind those things which will procure your own Resurrection likewise As ye therefore have receiv'd Jesus Christ the Lord so walk ye in him if ye have receiv'd the Doctrine of Jesus Christ let not your behaviour carry any thing in it unsutable to his holy Doctrine but be ye mindful to Govern your selves by the Practical Rules therein contein'd But against the point I am now upon some will be apt to object that one great Doctrine of our Religion the mystery of the holy Trinity does not seem at all to concern a good life now tho it may so seem to them who slightly examin things yet those who shall be at the pains more exactly to consider this Doctrine will be otherwise perswaded For when we consider God so loved the World as to send his only begotten son to save all them from perishing who shall believe on him does not this lay the highest obligation upon us which is possible to make all the returns of praise and love and gratitude and obedience When we consider there was that aversion in the divine nature to sin that God would not pardon it before ample satisfaction was made at the Cost of the blood and life of his own Son can there be any argument in the World more effectual to deter a man from sin and if he have any ingenuity to make him abhor the thoughts of it when we consider that this very same Son of God who was the brightness of his Fathers glory and express image of his person is now our high Preist and has entered the holy of holies and does daily offer up our prayers to God and constantly there intercede with him on our behalf will not this be apt to create in us a mighty confidence to address our selves to the throne of Heaven in all our wants and strong hopes that God will never forsake us in distress When we consider the holy Spirit has consecrated our bodies and made them the Temples wherein he will vouchsafe to dwell which is the peculiar privilege and mercy of the Gospel is there not a deep engagement thereby laid upon us to prepare these bodies for his reception by keeping them pure from intemperance and filthy Lusts for fear we greive this holy guest and cause him to desert such unclean habitations and vex him that he turn to be our enemy And so I hope the sense of the 2d Point is cleared and the truth of it establisht that it is the design of the Doctrines of the Gospel to advance Godliness and that there is an aptness and direct tendency in them all to enforce the practice of it upon Christians this notion the Ancients had of Christian Religion when they stiled it an institution according to Godliness and an institution that comprehends all virtue and accordingly the first Christians as Minut. Felix observes were distinguisht from other men not by any thing peculiar in their habit and dress but by their innocence and modesty There was no other mark of