Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	know_v	speak_v	word_n	9,131	5	4.2861	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50488	A funeral sermon preached upon the sad occasion of the death of that emiment and faithful servant of Christ, Mr. Thomas Rosewell who departed this life February the 4th : and whose remains were interred February th 19th. 1691/2 / by Mathew Mead.	Mead, Matthew, 1630?-1699.	1692 (1692)	Wing M1554; ESTC R20429	28,985	38

Bed and the multitude of his bones with strong pain This is a sad way of speaking and must necessarily make sorrowful hearers When God speaks in punishing Man must needs hear in pain He sets down a threefold Effect of this Pain The first is loss of Appetite and loathing the necessary supports of Life His life abhorreth bread and his soul dainty meat verse 20. A second Effect is a total waste and universal decay of Nature verse 21. His flesh is consumed away that it cannot be seen and his bones that were not seen stick out A third Effect is a readiness to expire and give up the Ghost verse 22. His Soul draws near to the Grave and his Life to the Destroyers And this is a second way of God's speaking to Man 3. A third way is by a Messenger sent from God to teach Man Which Messenger is described two ways 1. By his Character 2. By his Message 1. By his Character He is an Interpreter one among a thousand Which is meant of the faithful Ministers of Christ for they are his Messengers As the Father hath sent me so send I you John 10.21 And they are sent to be Interpreters of the mind and will of God to sinners And that as to Peace and Reconciliation and as to Grace and Salvation so also to Duty and Holiness of Conversation And it is a rare skill to be a true Interpreter between God and Sinners To be able to discover the mind of God aright to bring the Soul to a firm closing with the great Truths and Promises of the Gospel To know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary Isa 50.4 and so to ease the wounded Conscience by directing it to its true rest Mat. 11.28 These are right words and how forcible are right words Job 6.25 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how powerful to sway the Judgment Mah nimretsu and carry the mind after it One word rightly timed and suited to the case O what a relief it is to the troubled Conscience He that can do this is an Interpreter indeed not of Tongues and Languages but of Secrets and Mysteries He is taught of God he hath given to him the Tongue of the Learned And such an Interpreter is a rare thing He is one among a thousand O how should this teach you to prize faithful Messengers when the Lord sends them and how readily should you receive the Grace of God which is tendered by them and how deeply should you lay it to heart when the Lord doth at any time remove them for it is a great Judgment And so is the taking away this Messenger of God from you unless the Lord help you to improve the Message he delivered to you And that brings me to the second thing 2. He is described by his Message which shews what his work and business is And that is in the next words to shew unto Man his uprightness or his righteousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be understood either way But whose Righteousness is this called here His Righteousness which the Messenger shews to Man Some understand it of the sick person in the fore-going verses who hath an uprightness of his own and doth not know it His heart by renewing Grace is right with God and yet his Spirit is dark and clouded so that he cannot see it It is no new thing for the best of the Children of God to be in great darkness at some times about their spiritual state They may have attained to great Grace by seeking and yet may sometimes have all their Grace to seek Sometimes Corruptions from within and Temptations from without and Descritions from above may so darken his Sky as that there may not be the appearance of one Star to give him light It is seldom that a Believer can read the Evidences of the goodness of his state by any other light then that of Gods Countenance But alas that doth not shine always Where is the Christian that hath always sat in this Sunshine without any gloomy days or winter storms Who ever tasted of the waters of life but they have drank less or more of those waters of Marak There are few that ever found God but may say that they have often lost him And it is a distressing case for a Man to want communion with God after he hath once enjoyed it To be shut out of that Heaven which the light of God's Face makes in the Soul must be to a Saint as Hell it self So it was to Heman Psal 88. 3d to verse the 7th My Soul is full of troubles and my Life draweth nigh to the grave I am counted with them that go down to the pit Free among the dead like the slain that lye in the Grave whom thou remembrest no more Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit in darkness in the deeps Thy wrath lyeth hard upon me and thou hast afflicted me with all thy ways What despairing Language is this out of the mouth of an eminent Saint and Servant of God as if he were dropping into Hell and past all hope As the enjoyment of God is a good that puts lightness into all our Troubles so the loss of him is an evil that clouds all our Comforts The loss of another mercy is but a particular evil it is but as the blowing out our Candle at noon when we have light enough to see without it But the loss of this is as the setting of the Sun which leaves us dark and comfortless No presence can make up his absence Nothing looks so like Judgment as this In other afflictions a Christian doth but conflict with Creatures but in this there seems to be a contest between him and God And as God is infinitely above him so the sense of his Wrath is ready to sink him And when God is thus hidden it is no wonder tho a Believer be hidden to himself If the light of God's Face be clouded his Evidences are very apt to be obscured and then he questions his Right because he can't see to read his Title As the Comforts of a Believer are a secret to others so the Graces of a Believer are many times a secret to himself He is like a Tree in Winter that seems dead tho there be life in the root So when Temptations and Doubts prevail upon him he gives all up for dead Job 19.28 tho the root of the matter is in him There are two things very difficult one is to convince a presuming Hypocrite that his Confidence is groundless and his case is full of danger the other is to perswade the doubting Christian that his heart is right and his state sure As many are confident of the goodness of their condition whom yet the Lord abhors so many condemn themselves for Hypocrites and Cast-a-ways who are his Jewels and and in whom he delights And in this case there needs a Messenger an Interpreter one among a thousand to shew

our own progress in grace and frights and scares others from coming into the ways of God which are attended with such consequences And therefore he uses all Arts and Devices to obstruct the Christian's comfort Sometimes he sills the Soul with Doubts and Despondencies about its spiritual state Sometimes he tempts it to downright sinning against God And when upon any fall into sin the Spirit of God comes with new Convictions and opens the sluce of godly sorrow then doth Satan set in and aggravates the guilt till the Soul concludes it unpardonable and thus he raises a flood that the waters do even sink the Soul And this was David's case Psal 69.1 2. I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me Some times he lays his Brats at the Believer's door charging those sins to his account which are properly his own This is very common especially in the case of thought-sins unclean thoughts murderous thoughts blasphemous thoughts c. Satan doth inject them into the mind and then the Believer not discerning the cunning of Satan on the one hand and knowing the filthiness of his own heart on the other takes them to be his own and charges himself with the guilt of them as if he were the filthiest sinner and vilest blasphemer in the World And this must needs extinguish comfort Some times he charges our Duties with sin and then argues from the sinfulness to the non-acceptance of them Is not God a holy God and can Duties that are done with such a dead frame such a wandering mind such distracted thoughts and such carnal affections ever sind acceptance with such a God Thus by discouraging the Christian in his work he cuts off his comfort which usually comes in this way Some times he puzzles him about his Election and so sets him to the wrong end of his work that he may have no comfort in working whereas we are not to intangle our selves with the intricacies of Election but to look to our Calling This being cleared clears the other Tho God's choosing be the first act yet our believing is the first Evidence The Husbandman knows it is Spring by the putting forth of the Earth tho he be altogether ignorant in the position of the Heavens Some times he poses him about the time of his Conversion and so robs him of the comfort of the thing by puzzling him about the time as if the work could not be wrought unless I know the time of working it Will a man question the water in the stream because he knows not the head of the River Shall I deny that the Sun shines because I do not know what hour it rises the truth of Grace is best known by the fruits of it the fruit shews that the Tree lives tho we know not when it took root Some times he makes a man question the truth of all his former evidences tho they have been many and great He so far unravels the work within as to perswade the Soul all was but delusion which he took for a well-grounded hope Thou a Believer what hast to shew thy deeds are all forged thy evidences were never sealed in the Spirit 's Office but with the counterfeit Seal of a self-deluded heart That which thou hast taken for assurance of the goodness of thy state is nothing but groundless presumption And thus by bringing a man to let go his evidences he cuts off all his comfort at once These are some of the many ways which Satan hath to rob a Christian of his comforts But they that are the ransomed of the Lord may setch comfort and support from this truth under all the temptations of Satan for neither principalities nor powers shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Tho Satan be a potent enemy yet he is a conquered enemy his Temptations may vex and trouble Believers and possibly may in this or that particular case draw them to sin and defile them but they shall never prevail so far as finally to overcome them If he should finally conquer any one Saint he would conquer Christ for every Saint is a Member of Christ Matth. 16.18 and he hath said it That the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against them He who hath delivered them from going down to the pit will e're long deliver them from all Satan's snares Rom. 16.20 It is his promise to tread Satan under your feet shortly Christ don't think it enough to have him under his feet unless he hath him under yours too John 16.33 In Christ we have peace now but shortly we shall have Victory and a Crown And is not this comfort 4. Here is comfort against that which is so much the matter of our fear and that is Death Why should you be afraid to die Would not every good man be willing to injoy the utmost of what Christ hath purchased Why then he must be willing to die for the best lies beyond the Grave When God calls you to die it is only a call to come and inherit the full of what Christ purchased for you when he gave himself a ransom O what comfort is this against the fear of Death it may dissolve us but it cannot hurt us nor hold us Deliver him from the pit I have found a ransom Lastly It is comfort in that this ransoming work will never be compleated till every Believer be brought to Heaven He never reckons he hath a full return of the purchase made by his Blood till all his Members are glorified Christ took up our flesh redeemed us from Hell in our flesh purchased Heaven for us in our flesh ascended thither in our flesh and is glorified there in our flesh and all this as our Head and therefore every Member of his shall in his own flesh be e're long glorified with him It is his will it should be so John 17.24 Father I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold i. e. partake of my glory Therefore every true Believer may say with as much confidence as Job did Job 19 26. Tho worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall Psee God And this is the next great work which our Lord Christ hath to do here in this World for tho he is gone yet he is to come again there is a great deal of business yet lies upon his hand unfinished He said of the work of his Satisfaction Joh 19.30 It is finished But he never said so of the work of Salvation that will not be finished so long as one Believer is out of Heaven And therefore this is the business of his next coming He came before to finish transgression Dan. 9.24 but when he comes again it is to finish Salvation So says the Apostle Hebr. 9.28 Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him shall he appear the