Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	lie_v	speak_v	word_n	3,929	5	4.2262	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57059	A sermon preach'd at the funeral of Sir Alan Broderick, Kt. who dyed at Wandsworth in the county of Surrey, on Thursday, November 25th, and was interr'd there on Friday, Decemb. 3d., 1680 / by Nathanael Resbury ... .	Resbury, Nathanael, 1643-1711.	1681 (1681)	Wing R1129; ESTC R36714	16,078	32

truth and assurance that he hath been almost asham'd to endeavour that satisfaction to the World I pray God grant we may none of Us live to see the day wherein the foolish Legends of some Rebel and Dunghil-Saints may not be obtruded with easier success or the contempt and disbelief of them by a fierce and insolent urgency upon us prove more costly and hazardous than that by which we now with so much security deride most important and significant matters of fact However as to the truth and certainty of this joyous instance whose Funerals we now solemnize I shall for once swear to it in the words which the Pen of an Apostle hath already hallow'd for me Gal. 1.20 Behold before God I lie not I do speak to you the words of truth and soberness when I tell you that for some Years before this Gentleman was taken from us the bent and tendency of his life and actions was devout and religious Such was his love to all publick Solemnities of Worship that he seldom fail'd and that not unless prevented by sickness or most indispensible occasions his attendance every day at the Prayers of the Church which himself also by a stated allowance procur'd that they should be every day perform'd His carriage and demeanour in those Services had so much the figure of a warm and transported devotion in it that I could not forbear sometimes casting a glance at him that by viewing him I might my self excite and enkindle in my own bosom a new flame from the fire that seem'd to blaze so upon his Altars His private intercourse and communion with Heaven I question not but was very frequent and very rapturous because for some considerable time lateward I hardly ever could be alone with him but he would be discoursing some Cases of Conscience about retir'd Closet-prayer or the nature necessity or qualifications of a true and adequate repentance I remember in his last sickness long before either himself or his Friends had any apprehensions of the nearness of his end when my self in company with another * Mr. R. Kidder Reverend Person were giving him the visit he did with tears in his eyes in strange affectionateness bewail to us some perplexities of mind he then labour'd under and that was that he thought himself under a mighty incumbency to pray and yet such was the ineptitude of his mind at that time through the indisposition of his Body that he could not think with that strictness and collection of himself that becomes that Holy and Awful Majesty to whom he was to pray that what between the Conscience he had of a necessity of praying and the jealousie upon himself lest he should not at that time perform it with all becoming Reverence and seriousness his mind was much harrast and anxious what to do For Look you saith he my Conscience is now as tender as wet Paper torn upon every apprehension of the least guilt before GOD. As to the Nature and Qualifications of an effectual Repentance in general he made it the main of his business and study of late days to consult the best and most distinct Authors and Treatises upon that Subject and though he had as conductive an apprehension of things in his own large Mind as he could expect to meet with in Books yet was he so humble and condescending so little opinionated of himself that he would turn over any Volume that he believ'd did not trifle upon the Argument and sometimes consult some difficulties even with my self whom whiles he had reason to know he could inform and instruct yet would he as humbly and obligingly enquire of as if he expected satisfaction in something that had perplext him To which purpose I having sometime since run through the Explication of the Lord's Prayer in several Discourses which he through a long sickness had not been present at excepting one or two that concluded the whole he was so little in the thoughts of himself as to make it his request to me that I would go over those Discourses again in publick it having been a matter of his own strict thought and enquiry a great while what the extent significancy and distinct variety of those Petitions in that excellent form should be And as he much revolv'd the Nature and Qualification of Repentance in general so he would make the Application with severity enough upon himself more than once complaining to me that he had a great jealousie upon himself lest he had not yet conceived an horror answerable to his past exorbitances of life and had not made those smart and pungent reflections upon himself that might become one that had so long and in such exalted degrees as he said violated the Laws of his Maker and made himself so obnoxious to the vengeance of his Judge Yet even as to this he told me that if the cutting off one of his Hands by the help of the other were but a proper or likely way through the anguish of such a Wound to give him a just horrour for his sins he would do that as willingly as he ever did any one action that had given him the greatest pleasure of life This he spake with that peculiar vehemency that if there had been any stander by beside my self he must readily have judg'd him to have been in earnest However he hath further told me that he had thus far an assurance with himself that he had attained one of the main and most likely requisites in a solid and unfeigned repentance that by the grace of God he had such a sense and conviction of the folly and unreasonableness of sin that no argument no temptation should prevail upon him to do the like again Which indeed amounts to the whole condition required and expected from the Penitent in the Holy Scriptures and gives a just claim and interest to that promise which assures us Pro. 28.13 that whoso confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have mercy And in truth I have reason to believe that his resolution to abridge himself in what formerly he had perhaps too liberally allowed himself in his too long and too intire abstinences made that change upon the crasis and habit of his Body that hasten'd his end and our grief He had for many years practis'd in the Politicks of this Nation and having so nearly attacht himself to one of the greatest E. Clarend L. Ch. Ministers of State that this Kingdom ever knew whose mistaken Wisdom and Integrity perhaps hath been since better understood by the want of him made himself no small Figure in the administration wherein I must needs say I never perceiv'd his Conscience reflecting upon him the reproach of any injustice and unrighteousness of Counsel or Action but as he always assoyl'd himself in that so I never heard of any Enemy that objected it against him Yet did he for many years before his death make a voluntary retreat from all the business or preferments that

so much despis'd that he could not dissemble it even in his last Will and Testament wherein he hath made express provision that his Herse should by no means be garnish'd with the usual Ornaments of a Family and no Escutcheon should either there or elsewhere appear Perhaps having that opinion of vulgar admiration and gazing with the Moralist that it so little adds to the value of him whom in such trifles they admire that it is a symptom of madness in the wonderer Arr. in Epict. L. 1. c. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who are those you would be admired by are they not such whom you were wont to call madmen and will you be ambitious of the opinion of a madman 2. It would add sense to the affliction of our loss could I tell you what treasures of Knowledge were shipwrack'd when this Vessel split But for me to endeavour a commendation here would be almost as ridiculous as for the Pigmee to pretend to an history of the Gyants reckoning he had told you of Prodigies of stature when he had rais'd the Gyant some few inches measure beyond himself I must profess my self in an Orb so many Regions below what this Great man was fixt in that it might have been as reasonable for himself when alive to have pretended to add lustre to the Angels in describing their perfections as for me to greaten his Name by telling what a Master in all the parts of Science he was Yet give me leave to say something who have for some years been gleaning after His mighty Harvest Certainly this Age though more fertile in the Sons of Wisdom than former Ages perhaps have been yet cannot exhibite many beyond this Gentleman in whom there was so happy a conjuncture of quickness and sharpness of Wit with maturity and strength of Understanding comprehensiveness and tenaciousness of Memory with choice and discretion of Judgment that is not usual I may say hardly repeated in any one instance again His Memory was under that command and empire of Judgment that it never lost a Jewel committed to its keeping and the Judgment so well skill'd and faithful that it would never cumber that great Repository with a trifle or counterfeit He had so clear and distinct a sense of things that though he had travell'd all the Regions of Learning yet had never bewilder'd himself and though he had amast a treasure of very heterogeneous materials yet were they all so orderly and methodically dispos'd that he could fetch from every proper Cell what might be most delightsome or most useful in all the varieties of Conversation he maintain'd and as he had been a mighty devourer of Books so his very disgorgings if I may use the word had generally more relish than the first cookery because his judgment had pick'd out and thrown away all the needless and superfluous mixtures before he would deign a repetition that to Me his censure either of Books or Men which yet had always its candid leaning and byass seem'd a very just cynosure and steerage in my choice or neglect of them He if any hath made void that old observation of Aliquis in omnibus nullus in singulis In Philosophy there was no old or new hypothesis but he had so well digested so far at least as became the Majesty of so great a Mind to condescend to the little sports of conjecture that he could with all easiness either explain or redargue it In Anatomy he could almost talk as wondrously as he was made In Poetry he had so choice a collection in memory and so lucky an art in using it for the cheer of conversation that both the ancient and modern Poets liv'd in him and when he had any just occasion to bring them into Company he gave them a dress so decent and suitable that their wit through all the changes of Ages and Humour did still when introduc'd by him appear modish and fashionable In History he was so universally accomplisht as to all its parts especially Topographical and Chronological that if any imputation can be upon his memory it must be upon his modesty and reservedness in this particular that he hath not made some essays in History to which he might equally have pretended with any one Author extant wherein he might have given Laws as to method and his censures as to credibility in the sallacious or disputable reports of Antiquity Neither let me pass over in an ingrateful silence the advantages my self have reap'd from him as to that knowledge that lies directly within the sphere of mine own function for in Divinity he was so throughly vers'd that he could give a strict account of though he had no delight in the Wars and controversies of it and had determin'd himself in the Truth not because he knew not the Errors but because he knew and could argue that they were so But as the Polemick part in Divinity had made him so uneasie that he almost contemn'd the Schoolmen whose method of dogmatizing he though had been if not the original yet at least the Nursery of these jars and contentions in the Church and could not but bewail the short and imperfect insight that Humane Nature it self was allow'd in this World by which the best minds could not think the same things nor hardly bear with each other in their differences so thanks be to God I dare say that for some considerable time before the close of his days he was a zealous and exemplary proficient in the practick part and made it his business not only to think and talk these great things but to live them too And I am glad I am now entred this best Scene of his life that I can in the terms of my Text tell you that the Righteous and the Merciful man is taken from us I pray God forbid the Omen that he is taken from the Evil to come And indeed as to all that I have hitherto said Himself under the sense he had of greater things was so slenderly opinionated in such lower accomplishments For he was if in any thing affected in design'd and study'd unaffectedness that had not the best and Noble part of him taken flight beyond the disturbances of what happens in this Mortal state it would find it self uneasie that such contemn'd and neglected topicks of praise should be mention'd or insisted on towards the establishing of his value amongst Men. And because my Text points to a twofold Qualification in a Person that may render the death of such an one a common misfortune and calamity I shall direct my Discourse with respect to both of them as they were eminently visible in him The first Qualification is righteousness the other is mercy Under the former I shall consider his Religion and Devotion toward God Under the latter his Charity and usefulness toward Men. 1. As to his Religion his Profession was that of the Reform'd as the Doctrine and Discipline of it is establisht in the Church of