Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	line_n	page_n	read_v	3,449	5	9.8327	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96885	Christ-mas day, the old heathens feasting day, in honour to Saturn their idol-god. The Papists massing day. The prophane mans ranting day. The superstitious mans idol day. The multitudes idle day. Whereon, because they cannot do nothing: they do worse then nothing. Satans, that adversaries working-day. The true Christian mans fasting-day. Taking to heart, the heathenish customes, Popish superstitions, ranting fashions, fearful provocations, horrible abhominations committed against the Lord, and His Christ, on that day, and days following.	Woodward, Ezekias, 1590-1675.	1656 (1656)	Wing W3482; Thomason E868_3; ESTC R207652	24,177	32

National Sect. 3. Church do serve the Devil on that day and the twelve dayes following Suppose it so we did pray to God and praise God all day long and night also oh how devout are we on the birth day of ou● bl●ssed Savion●● suppose it so as doub●less such devout persons men and women there may be not a few more devour that day then any day ●or it is a day devised of our own hearts we will be devout on that day how d●ssolu●e so●ver on the L●rds day the manner of these d●vout ones they will do no manner of work on this day as they say the Bird will no carry a straw to i●s nest on Ascension day it will on the Resurrection day though it mour● all good Friday But as we were saying suppose it so we were as devoue as devotion it selfe ou● that day o● on some of the twelved dayes following Hear what that excellently Learned Man D. Owen saith for it is not possible to find words more fit for our purpose The most stopendious endeavours of men the most laborious drudgery of their Souls in duties Pag. 230. not commanded are so far from obedience that they are as high rebellions against God as they can possibly engage themselves into CHAP. VI. WEe will now offer four things to your considerati●n hoping you will allow them some weight in your seriour thoughts God hath abolished his own d●yes Jewish we mean all those festivals that had his own stamp of institution upon them And Sect. 1. can we think and think like men that he will give liberty to man to set up other dayes as they did their Idols of old according to their own understauding If this could be imagined that upon Gods abolishing his own men should have liberty to set up theirs then the Christians were under a more heavy bondage and grievous paedagogue then ever the Jewes were ' for it is better to have an hundred days of Gods ' appointment Vpon Hos 2. 403. then one of mans it is more honourable said excellent Burroughs Consider whether the rising of this day in the heart as to the Sect. 2. observation of it be not the sinking of the Lords day we mean whether the observers of this day are not most notorious profaners of the Lords day and from both the horrible contempt Sect. 3. and prophanation of the Lords day and more then heathenish Bad joy strips God of all No evil carries the heart so totally from God as evil joy It carries away the heart and every heart string A man is very heartily very totally wicke● every faculty every sinnew stretch themselves to sin when sinrul injoys Mr. Lockr Col. 1. p. 234. observation of this day whether a deluge of damnable errors and pernicious opinions threatning a d●luge of wrath be not broken in upon us Be pleased to consider whether the Devil be served by us so affectedly so zealously so industriously so warrantably as the people think taking a command from men and their own lust for a law any season of the year as at this season Not to tell you the observation of the Heathen which was hinted before do men and women so exceed in the pleasures of sin in rioting and drunkenness in chambering and wontonnesse in all excesse of wickedness as they do at this time you call Christmass It is true the Lords day is fearfully profanned as if it had its name from the name Bacchus which was Plutarchs conceit that signifies to live jovially as we say and to speud the day riotously and in mad merriment Yet they onely so spend the Lords day making it the Devils day who are mad upon that Idol day making it as to their observation of it the Lords day So true is that saying we are marvelously pleased with our own inventions specially those that pleaseth flesh as seldom or never do we invent that which crosseth the flesh unlesse upon an after advantage which to our seeming shall reach as high as heaven and so may crosse the flesh at present in hope of after glory the meritorious product of that Crosse You may have read also what a Child in years but a Man in understanding hath written Mans idle time Mr. Ven●ing is the Devils working time he doth most when men do least For as holy Latimer said after his manner The Devil hath more service done him in one day we call holy then in many working dayes Therefore in the last place Consider what you may have read That a whole National Church how is ours declined now tantum non unchurched Sect. 4. her self● some hundred years ago appointed a solemn Fast upon those very dayes we foolishly without a Scripture warrant call the birth and circumcision day of Christ because of the notorious abuses heathenish customes and dam●●ble usages wont to be upon those days we strange that they saw more clearly in their mid-night then we do in our mid-day Are we not dark with light we proceed to tell you our hope and so to an end of this matter CHAP. VII WE believe Sir by this time you see cause enough to improve all your Rhetorick among your people for the throwing down of this Idol day Y●t if you have not enough we will make bold to remember you one thing more and so draw to a close we read the Jewes some of them put this question to themselves What should that sin be which provokes God more against us then ever he was provoked surely said they there is some greater sin then we yet have committed but we cannot finde any offence beside the killing of Christ to be a greater offence then Idolatry surely then the great sin is the rejecting and crucifying the Son of God If we should put this Question to our selves what is the sin which provokes God more against us then ever he was provoked Judge you whether this must not be the answer We reject Christ in the offers and tenders of the Gospel yet pretend to receive him at the Lords Table We have no appetite no desire after him at the hearing place but a Dogs appetite we have to the bread on his Table representing his sacred body there Again we worship him according to our own understanding we for the most part all the National Church over and in every parochial Church there put all the dishonours upon the Lord Christ and his onely holy day such a Church are we so notorious for our brutishness while yet we give honour to this day of his Birth as we call it and serve him all the day long after our own manner Shall not God be avenged of such Idolaters as we are shall not he send a curse upon us will he not curse our blessings yea hath he not cursed them already because we lay it not to heart Hath he not punished us with the sorest punishment what is that A punishment made of sin The Lord hath delivered us up even the greatest part of that bulky body the National Church into a reprobate mind void of judgement we are abominable Idolaters we Idolize days and places and duties and the graces those we have we idolize too we lean to any thing to every thing but him whom onely we should make our ●ean to A just judgement upon such Idolaters as are we and now our eares are seated against instruction Thunder in the eare of an Idolater a strict observer of this day and other dayes of mans institution and he hears no more then doth the deaf stone nor doth he move any more then a Mill-Post A sore judgment upon Idolaters a superstitious Christian a ceremonial Hypocrite he observes a day devised of his own heart he is more hard and Rocky then a Turk is Jews or Pagans are and he is as cruel too as cruelty it self A bloody man if he be a super●●itious man so saith Luther as bloody as Paul while he was in his Cell though my shoulders are weak with fasting yet had he lived in those times he would have carried some Faggots to make the fire wherein John Husse and Hirron of Prague were burnt more burning Idolaters all and every one of them men and women and all are hard-hearted and bloody ones all as Edom was he did pursue his brother with the sword and did cast off all piety his anger did tear perpetually and kept his w●ath for ever So true is that which that excellent man hath upon Jer. 15. 19. Superstition and persecu●ion will-worship and tyranny are inseparable concomitants Therefore Sir bend your Tongue against these superstitious persons else it may be feared you will bend your Tongue the other way and speak to your self in Pauls Language your labour is in vain with your people if you prevail not with them in this thing mind well that learned mans words Docter Owen of Tol. p. 78. in a case not very differing Your not opposing here is providing you allow that you oppose not there being no middle thing betwixt those two Lift up Christ Jesus the Lord and you lift up his day too and throw down man and you throw down his Idol day also where Christ is lifted up self is abased and the rising of his day will be the falling of the other The spirit that stoopeth lowest you have hea●d and we hope you know is best prepared to become a thrown for Christ And to shut up if you know those as sure enough you do that lift up this day which every good man we think will throw down till him or them they have no morning in them their light is like that in the grave where the light is darkness and how great is that darknesse But here is a double comfort 1 The folly of these is now manifest to all m●n they shall not proceed much farther 2 the Devils are Christs prisoners and should not be suffered to walk up and down in the world but that there is need of them And for your sel●e Sir we hope you know your duty and are learning it every day more perfectly and to do what you know looking up to him and calling for his spirit which leadeth us by the light of his word into all necessary truths Amen ERRATA Page 1. line 1 for promised read premised FINIS

walked in the Temple c. Now as we conceive here is the very Hinge ●● the Argument from our Lords example observing that novel Feast for that is the force of the word is of the Argument Our Lord and Saviour observed that Feast a novel thing and meerly of mans institution Therefore may we observe the Feast of his Nativity Well It is not a day for mirth but rather in some respects of signing with breaking of the Loyns yet we cannot pass over this without a smile at least though we are serious for the truth and ridentem dicere vere quis negat so we say on and enquire into this farther we mean this Feast of Dedication that so we may try the strength of this H●●e whereon this Argument holds We read the Temple was Dedicated three times First by Solomon in the seventh Moneth 2 Kings 8. that was in the midst of Autum Then after the Temple was restored and built again by Nehemiah and his fellow-workmen It was Dedicated again by him the third day of the twelfth Neh. 12. 27. Moneth which falls out in our twelfth and first Moneths commonly called February and March It was a Festival time with them as we read but it held but that time we mean it was not Anniversary it was not observed the Year after neither by King Solomon nor by that Prince-like Ruler Nehemiah The third time after it was renewed and purged Dedicated by Judas Machabaeus in the Moneth Chisten which answers our tenth Moneth December therefore it was said in the Text And it was Winter It was ordered also that ●he Mac. 4. 59. Feast of Dedication be kept in its season from Year to Year by the space of eight days from the five and twentieth day of that Moneth called with us December Indeed to speak our mind here in passage onely and then to go on This their Feast and th●s your Feast we make bold to call it yours because you seem to own it and to hold for the observation of it falling out pat upon one day would make a wise man after the flesh as surely it doth mad upon that Idol-day to observe it as an holy-day and with more strict and solemn observation then he will or possibly can that onely Holy-Day which hath the stamp of the Lord upon it but of this anon That which is now to be done is to vindicate our Lord going up to that Feast And that in so doing it will not justifie us in our observation of that Festival Day the Church observes all over the Nation or the National Church there First then to justifie our Lords practise 〈◊〉 it needed ou● justification Sect. 3. This we say That our Lord did not observe the Feast but the season or opportu●●●● 〈…〉 of 〈◊〉 good As Paul who followed him obs 〈…〉 day of Prince at Jerusalem and afterward ●● Ephes●● Acts 20. 16 Co● 16. 8. See Calvin upon the place There he knew he should find a grea 〈…〉 of people very observant of their ow● days which are devised of their own heart as Jeroboams Feast was and have their own s●a 〈…〉 on them His heart was upon his work the doing 〈…〉 will He did it as chearfully as we eat and drink 〈…〉 the seasons and all advantages to do good the manner of all that walk as he walked He went up to the Feast though of mans institution and as the advise is spragit manum some good might be done some seeds might take as he well knew that knew all things And though i● was winter yet he went up Be it fair or foul Sun-shine or rain Summer or Winter it hinders not a true Christian from doing his duty for he doth in desire and endeavour as Christ did It is natural to the new Creature the divine Nature so to do But now if it be replyed here as we think it will That a Minister is never like to find such a Concourse of people at his meeting place as he may do on that day And therefore if all advantages of doing good may and ought to be taken why may not a Minister preach a good may and ought to be taken why may not a Minister preach a good Sermon on that day and take his Warrant from his Lords practise going up to Jerusalem on that Feast day To this we would briefly reply these things Sect. 4. ¶ 1. It is not always safe to do what we read the Lord did though we may urge him for our example Our Lord went over the Sea on foot he could that made the Sea make the sea solid like the land to bear him up we must not do so unlesse we have a more then his Example his word too as Peter had COME Again the Lord Christ went into a chiefe Pharisees house to dinner Mat. 14. 29. on the Sabbath day where there was great Company and answerably great Cheer probable it is it was a marriage feast Luk. 14. 1. He did not allow of the feast nor of the usage or manners of the guests there nor of our feastings on the Lords day but there he took the season to do good and to correct the ill and being Lord of time and Master of the means and end could remove as pleased him whatever hindered all this which the best Minister in the world is not able to doe which we take to be considerable at this point Secondly we should say granting this that all advantages are to be taken for doing good That as Master Burroughs an excellent preacher in his days saith A Sermon may be preached on that day and another on the following day it being a time of leisure a vacant idle time which no time should be the least minute whereof is too much to give to idleness or sin which is all one the one is the mother the other the daughter his meaning i● A good Minister should take all the advantages to doe good why then take the season give the people their expectation a Sermon on this day so we may do and do well too as he may choose his Text and handle it before the people which will be sure enough if he be a good Minister and a Godly man too to throw out the observation of this day their super●●itions her in and their heathenish customes all that time along which wil not be a good Sermon in the peopl●s eares But if this Sermon be for the holding up of that day the greater the concourse of people shall be the more hurt and mischiese he will do by his Sermon It is the word of institution from the Lord that makes the day holy And the words which the Minister speaks to the people must have a word from God for it else no word of blessing can be expected from the Lord upon it Gods word of blessing goeth along wi●h his word of institution So now we have done with the first undertaking to justifie our Lords pract●se