Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	life_n	spirit_n	worship_v	1,905	5	8.8109	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25421	The right government of thoughts, or, A discovery of all vain, unprofitable, idle, and wicked thoughts with directions for the getting, keeping, and governing of good thoughts, digested into chapters for the ease of the reader : whereunto are added four sermons / by ... John Angel ...	Angel, John, d. 1655.; T. B.	1659 (1659)	Wing A3162A; ESTC R13149	89,280	271

the other for the worship of God Christ diverts her opinion of Jacobs Well by telling her of a Well of water springing up unto everlasting life ver 14. and her opinion of Gods worship in Samaria by resolving her that salvation is of the Jews and diverting her to think of a worshiping of God in spirit and in truth ver 22 23. If I should prescribe one object in the multitude of your evill thoughts to turn them unto it should be God who is infinitely long and broad and wide beyond the extent of the souls desires or thoughts Kingdoms cannot satisfie ambition Gold as the dust of the street cannot satisfie covetousnesse pleasures to satiety and loathing content not the flesh and the mind is as unsatisfied with thinking and knowing onely God is of that infinitenesse and of that excellency that all thoughts and desires are terminated in him and all thoughts and desires that turn themselves unto God are bettered by looking upon him 3. If evil thoughts still presse in upon thee if they will not be stop'd nor diverted break them off with some violence if they be unreasonable and justle out better thoughts lay hands upon them 1 Cor. 9. 27. if the body grow unruly it must be kept under and brought into subjection Some thoughts are so wicked that they will not be cast out like those Devils without fasting and prayer If any thought within thee shall crosse Religion or reason resolve to crosse it There are some cursed imaginations which are the mother-roots of a multitude of sins as those which move Questions seriously of Gods Essence Personality Mercy Justice Power Providence and whether the Scriptures be the word of God whether the souls of men be immortal whether there be a Heaven or a Hell such thoughts as these should not be disputed withal muchlesse allowed but expelled or kill'd if but such thoughts as these be suffered and allowed within they will make a soul as desolate of grace as a City is without an inhabitant he that hath no rule over his own spirit certainly 't is true in this case is like a City that is broken down and without walls Prov. 25. 28. I shall never marvel that he is a wicked man whom I know to allow himself or others in such thoughts as these but I shal think grace is ruined in that man that disputes these things determines them against the Scripture 4. If wicked thoughts will not begone yet thou hast this remedy left call in help against them pray them away pray God in to thy help against them pray for a change of thine own nature of thine own thoughts Was not this the thing which David prayed for Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me Psal 51. 10. 'T is plain it was Let us lift up our hearts in prayer against all our sinnes in thoughts but especially against them that are wicked ones heavy thoughts and vain thoughts are errours and not excuseable from sin but wicked thoughts are of a worser generation we must purge our selves from these with greater diligence I know foolishnesse is bound up in the heart of a child an evil heart cannot but think evil Prov. 22. 15. What can I look for from an Adder but her poison and her sting yet we may pray out foolishness out of our hearts And I believe Paul often used this help against the evils of his own heart for he saith When I was a child I spake as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things 1 Cor. 13. 21. It may be thou art a child in thy speaking in thy understanding in thy thinking pray that thou mayest become a man and be able to put away childish things Thus much of the evil of thoughts and how we may by Gods assistance remedy the same I beseech you Brethren apply these remedies to the severall errours of your thoughts and they will doe you much good Object not an impossibility for any to remedy the infirmities and sinfulnesses of thoughts what nature cannot do grace may and what man cannot do God can Every Christian who hath the spirit of God is enabled by that spirit within him to do all things Evangelically or with a Gospel allowance whereunto he is called of God If God would have the thoughts of a righteous man to be just God hath not made it an impossible work what nature within thee is averse to do and what grace within thee cannot do that the spirit within thee can do and the Righteousnesse of Christ without thee hath done wherefore despair not of the work but go about it CHAP. X. ANd now Beloved I am come to speak of good thoughts with the means how to get them and the manner of their government In the handling of this so needful a duty and so fruitful a subject I must premise some introductory particulars to shew the possibility and necessity of this work it is necessary or else God would not have commanded it it is possible or else God would not have promised assistance to performance 1. Hear how God commands this duty O Jerusalem wash thy heart from wickednesse that thou mayest be saved how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee Jer. 4. 14. What is that great Commandment in the Law is it not to love the Lord thy God But how Mat. 22. 37. is it not with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength Unlesse the mind and heart be in our love and obedience there will be no strength in them nor acceptance with God of them 2. God hath promised mercy unto all who willingly endeavour to turn away from all their evil thoughts and turn unto him with all their hearts God requires a heart washed from iniquity that the soul may be saved as ye read but now and God promiseth not onely to be abundant in mercy to pardon what is past but also to perfect the work begun Isa 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon I may adde that it is a part of our regeneration to be renewed in our thoughts the Apostle urgeth it Be ye renewed in the spirit of your minds Eph. 4. 23. And further that Gospel-light requires Gospel-thoughts it was prophesied of these dayes At that time they shall call Jerusalem the Throne of the Lord and all the Nations shall be gathered unto it to the name of the Lord to Jerusalem neither shall they walk any more in the imagination of their evil heart Jer. 3. 17. When God makes the Church his Throne and the Nations gather into it to worship the Lord then shall they leave off their wicked thoughts and walk no more after them We live in these

The Right GOVERNMENT OF THOUGHTS OR A Discovery of all vain unprofitable idle and wicked THOUGHTS With Directions for the Getting Keeping and Governing of good THOVGHTS Digested into Chapters for the ease of the READER Whereunto are added four Sermons By the Reverend JOHN ANGEL sometimes Lecturer at Leicester Prov. 4. 23. Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life London Printed for Nath. Ekins and are to be sold at his Shop at the Sign of the Gun in S. Pauls Church-yard 1659. CHRISTIAN READER THe Almighty wise God hath in divers and sundry manners spoken unto men that they might know him and his Sonne Jesus Christ and knowing might believe in him and worship him according to his will to the saving of their soules To this purpose we have the Scriptures which are Gods written Rule of Faith and Life unto us the ministery of men not of men but by men as a standing Ordinance in the Church untill Christ come and the writings of godly and industrious men as adjutory helps But men have sought out strange inventions and that naturall imagination bordering betwixt sense and reason which is in all men works out it self in various wayes of opposition to revealed truth This discourse aymes to give a stop to our walking contrary unto God in our first settings out to Sin which on this side naturall corruption begin at our thoughts I have sometimes wondred to see how busie Satan is in his instruments whose Fancies comply with his suggestions to subvert the truth once delivered to the Saints But I check my self again when I consider that he is Satan an adversary to God and Christ and the salvation of men and that mens imaginations are fruitful wombes impregnated by Satan and numerous in their births as the Serpents in their spawne Amongst other his wiles I would immind every good Christian that in nothing to my apprehension the enemy and his party have prevailed more against the truth and with the fancies of men in our late times then by disputing the many doctrines of the Gospel in Pulpit in presse in open and private Assemblies and that in an irregular way betwixt weak defendants and wrangling Sophisters it may be Jesuites or men of Jesuited principles for in an orderly way by them that know how to distinguish and before them that are wise I am no opposer of disputations that the truth may be manifested and not subverted But otherwise these are the Civill warres raised in the Church and fomented by the seditious to divide the Kingdom of Christ against it self and bring it to nothing By this way of contention especially before them that are weak we have seen heaps upon heaps It 's time to grow wise for the cause of Christ and for our selves lest we suffer these stumbling stones to lye so long in the way of weak Christians that at last they be bedded as in their proper place and will not be removed with all our might Ye have sometimes seen a stone cast into a poole move a little Circle at the fall which after multiplies and widens it self to the bank side We sometimes find the original of errour to be very small like a very Center which inlargeth it self to a circumference such as imagination will make it and such strange thoughts are lodged in mens minds by these means that they are haunted ever after with them as some houses are said to be with spirits of the night Sober men wish that some provisions were made for the safety of soules against these spirits its possible if they that are in power would be carefull in such a work their own lives might be bound up in such a provision But Gentle Reader Thou shalt not need to fear any such questions of doubtful disputation in this short Treatise here is nothing but sober and uncontroverted truths such as may administer Grace unto thee by the blessing of God upon thy reading Thou shalt have nothing here leading to a strange God or another worship but that which may be profitable to all Christians though of divided interests whose minds are not blocked up with prejudice against the sober writings of men This tract teacheth the government of thy own thoughts aright a government of principal concernment to all men for hence arise as from their spring-head both words and works of men and the whole frame of Christian Conversation if therefore this fountain be clean the issues will be more pure and if any can so purge himself of all filthinesse of flesh and spirit that his very thoughts are just it must be granted that such an one hath a Virgin-soule and is perfect pro statu viatoris as a travailer to heaven though not as one actually possessed in heaven And for this end I commend this book to thy reading and meditating thoughts Besides it is an argument rarely handled in print for ought I know some indeed have brief and accidental notions upon it but purposed tracts of this subject are few in our English Tongue and therefore let it be thought the rather useful to the Church of God and a subject more fit for that accomplished servant of Jesus Christ to appeare by in the world again now he is absent from the body and present with the Lord. The Authour of this small Tract was Mr. John Angel who had been twenty years together Lecturer at Leicester and approved by all that knew him to be a man mighty in word and doctrine though at last clouded by some malevolent aspects upon him occasioned as it is said not for vice or heresie but non-engagement yet Governments as men have their mortalities and God who knew to use his servant in several places stirred up the hearts of a religious people at Grantham in Lincolnshire to set him up a Candlestick there where he shone as a burning light untill God translated him to shine above as a star for ever and ever Here moreover are no high swelling words to amuse the Reader but a grave and a plain stile suited to all but especially to them that are of lower forms in the School of Christ for the government of their thoughts I commend it therefore to thy reading for the Authours sake and for thy safety in the reading of it as also for the rarity of the subject the general concernment that it is of and for the plainnesse of the matter and method thereof And I leave thee to the Grace of God the Father and of our Lord Jesus Christ By him who is a Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ and of all that love him in sincerity T. B. THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. Containing the Preface Division Interpretation and scope of the Proverb fol. 1. CHAP. II. The Argument or matter subject of the whole that a man ought to have good thoughts and to be the Master and Governour of them 8. CHAP. III. The needfulnesse of good thoughts Eight Reasons 13. CHAP. IV. Of the Errours of

worst men especially and from which regenerate persons are in a great measure set free Let us come to speak of the first sort of these wicked thoughts I call them wicked for they have not onely vanity in them but also sin and this is when thoughts of evil draw in the will and affections to a complacency to a wishing and longing and sometimes a fainting desire to enjoy some unlawlfull thing suppose an unlawful pleasure or some unjust gain ungodly honour unwarrantable victory bloody spoyle or such like Gen. So Eve saw the forbidden fruit as a thing to be desired so Amnon lusted after his sister Thamar till he became as one of the fooles of Israel So Ahab coveted Naboth's vineyard till he was sick with desiring and wicked in gaining the possession So Absolon thought of a kingdom and is and so ambitiously covetous of it that he attempts to usurp the Crown though by unnatural rebellion against his Father This is that which the Apostle calls the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life 1 John 2. 16. which are the three great idols of the world This wickednesse in thoughts so farre pleaseth some that when they cannot enjoy the thing desired yet they account it a speculative happiness to have the thing desired in their minds though it be but an image thereof it pleaseth the covetous man to dream of his Bonds Bills Morgages Assurances dayes of payment and this earthly mindednesse will let him mind nothing else so another tosseth fleshly pleasures from one thought to another and from one desire to another when the power of the flesh perisheth in them they grow to feed their phansies with contemplative fornications in the like case the contentious man dreams of wrangling suits the man of blood of fire and faggots swords and battels Thus the great mans thoughts are taken up with his honours revenues attendancies the Gallant with his gay clothes the old man pleaseth his phansy with remembrances and discourses of what he hath been and what he hath done the young man with what he may be his hopes and possibilities delight him as if they were present enjoyments thus the imagination of things that are not work upon us the same affections as if they were Jacob doth as feelingly grieve for the supposed death of Joseph as if he had been dead indeed and so men take the same delight in their supposed wickednesses as if they were really effected These and such like thoughts in the heart are the things which defile a man whether they be proud imaginations or covetous thoughts thoughts of revenge against others or thoughts of Blasphemy against God of what kind soever our thoughts are if they draw in the will to consent unto their evill they are wicked thoughts they are wicked suo genere in their own nature but when they work the will into co-partnership they are higher in the degree of wickednesse it is sin but to think that which is evil but to think of it with liking and consent is a greater degree of sin God reproves him and setteth his sins in order before his face who saw the thief and consented unto him and was partaker with the adulterer Psal 50. 18. 23. The second sort of wicked thoughts come to passe when the thoughts having gained upon the heart to delight in evil and with a kind of roveing desire to expect it the understanding also is drawn in by an opinion of an imaginary happinesse to plot and bestirre it self unto the furthest of its natural or acquired invention to produce by all means the evil thought upon into action This in every kind is the height and extremity of evill thoughts this person so devising to do mischief is probably the man whom Saint John puts into the Devils mouth saying He that com-commits sin is of the Devill 1 Joh. 3. 8. That is not only thinks of it and delights in it but also plots for it so the Devil sins from the beginning desiring plotting contriving acting it himself and tempting others to it of such a remarkable person the wise man saith he that deviseeth evill that is by resolved devising all means and leaving no stone unturned men shall call him the Authour of sin Prov. 24. 8. or a mischievous person against these thoughts and the thinkers of them the Prophet Micha exclaimes Woe unto them that devise iniquity and work evill upon their beds when the morning is light they practise it because it is in the power of their hands Micah 2. 1. Such are the thoughts of the men of this world their hearts are filled with an hidden treasure of evil inventions how to do mischief and when they have done it they lay plots how to dawb over their unanswerable actions and endeavours with witty and deceitful Apologies to prevent the evil opinions and speeches of men for though the thoughts of the just are Righteous yet the counsels of the wicked are deceipt These wicked thoughts have much of their Father the devil in them for he is full of devices or wiles whereof the righteous are not ignorant 2 Cor. 2. 11. and so are all wicked men and more when they are men of parts and place in the world Solomon notes that there is a a man of wicked devices that is one that desires and plots wickednesse Prov. 12. 2. so the Churle deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor Isa 37. 2. And David speaks of his enemy that he devised mischief upon his bed Psal 36. 4. if that enemy there meant was Saul 't is manifest that he oftentime thought in his heart to kill David and laid many snares for him to take away his life some ignorantly think that nothing is sinful that is not acted by the bodies instruments but alas 't is but their ignorance and therefore also the vanity of their thoughts for a Prophet records it for a truth the heart of a vile person will work iniquity Isa 〈…〉 in sin there is heart-work and head-work as well as hand-work CHAP. VI. ANd thus I have also discovered those evil thoughts which surpasse the dulnesse and vanities of them being in themselves evil and infecting the heart with wicked complacency and the understanding with wicked inventions Having thus far proceeded in searching out the errours and wickednesse of mens thoughts I shall now endeavour by the assistance of God to prescribe some remedies or means of redresse and the Remedies will be of two sorts the first equally oppose all errours of our throughts whether dull or vain or wicked the second are more particular fitted to cure some kind or other and not so much respecting all First the mind that travelleth and feeleth it self heavy laden with any of the former incumbrances and would be refreshed with the rest of God must make a conscience of his thoughts contrary to the common opinion of Carnalists and time-serving Formalists who think and often say it That Thought is free