Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	mountain_n	spirit_n	worship_v	2,218	5	9.6432	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28171	The common principiles of Christian religion clearly proved and singularly improved, or, A practical catechism wherein some of the most concerning-foundations of our faith are solidely laid down, and that doctrine, which is according to godliness, sweetly, yet pungently pressed home and most satisfyingly handled / by that worthy and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, Mr. Hew Binning ...	Binning, Hugh, 1627-1653.; Gillespie, Patrick, 1617-1675.	1667 (1667)	Wing B2927; ESTC R33213	197,041	290

the Lord a living and self-being Spirit Then must he not have Worshippers Beasts are not created for it it is you O sons of men whom he made for his own praise and it is not more suteable to your nature than it is honourable and glorious This is the great dignity and excellency you are priviledged with beyond the brute beasts to have spirits within you capable of knowing and acknowledging the God of your spirits Why then do you both rob and spoil God of his glory and cast away your own excellency Why do you love to trample on your ornaments and wallow in the puddle like beasts void of Religion but so much worse then beasts that you ought to be better were created for a more noble design O base spirited wretches who hang down your souls to this earth and follow the dictates of your own sense and lust have not so much as an externall form of worshipping God How farre are you come short of the noble design of your Creation the high end of your Immortall souls If you will not worship God know he will have Worshippers certainly he will not want it because he hath designed so many souls to stand before him and worship him and that number will not fail He might indeed have wanted worshippers For what advantage is it to him But in this he declares his love and respect to man that he will not want honour and service from him it is rather to put honour upon him and to make him blessed and happy than for any gain can amount to himself by it for this is indeed the true honour and happinesse of man not to be worshipped and served of other fellow-creatures but to worship and serve the Creator This is the highest advancement of a soul to lye low before him and to obey him have our service accepted of his Majesty I beseech you strive about this noble service Since he must have Worshippers O say within your souls I must be one if he had but one I could not be content if I were not that one since the Father is seeking Worshippers ver 23. O let him find thee Offer thy self to him saying Lord here am I Should he seek you who can have no advantage from you Should he go about so earnest a search for true VVorshipers who can have no profite by them And why do ye not seek him since since to you all the gain profite redounds Shall be seek you to make you happy and why do ye not seek him and happinesse in him It is your own service I may truly say and not his so much for in serving him thou dost rather serve thy self for all the benefit redounds to thy self thogh thou must not intend such an end to serve him for thy self but for thy names sake else thou shalt neither honour him nor advantage thy self I pray you let him not seek in vain for in these afflictions he is seeking Worshippers and if he find you you are found saved indeed Do not then forsake your own mercy to run from him who follows you with Salvation As none can be ignorant that God is and must be worshipped so it is unknown to the world in what manner he must be worshipped the most part of men have some form in worshipping God please themselves in it so well that they think God well-pleased with it but few there are who know indeed what it is to worship him in a manner acceptable to his Majestie Now you know it is all one not to worship him at all as not to worship him in that way he likes to be worshipped Therefore the most part of men are but self-worshippers because they please none but themselves in it it is not the worship his soul hath chosen but their own invention for you must take this as an undeniable ground that God must be worshipped according to his own will and pleasure not according to you●… humour or invention therefore his soul abhorres will-worship devised by men out of ignorant zeal or superstition though there might seem much devotion in it much affection to God as in the Israelits sacrificing their childrē whatmore seem ing self-denyal And yet what more real self-idolatry God owns not such a service for it is not service obedience to his will and pleasure but to mens own will and humour therefore a man must not look for a reward but from himself Now it is not only will-worship when the matter and substance of the worship is not commanded of God but also when a commanded worship is not discharged in the appointed manner Therefore O how few true worshippers will the Father find True worship must have Truth for the substance and spirit for the manner of it else it is not such a worship as the father seeks will be pleased with divine worship must have truth in it that is plain but what was that truth it must be conformed to the rule pattern of worship which is Gods will pleasure revealed in the word of truth true worship is the very practise of the word of truth it caries the Image and superscription and command upon it which is a necessary ingredient in it and constituent of it Therefore if thy service have the Image of thy own will stamped on it it is not divine worship but will-worship Thus all humane ceremonies and ordinances enjoyned for service of God carry the inscription not of God but of man who is the author and original of them so are but adulterated and false Coyn that will not passe current with God I fear there be many rites and vain customes among ignorant people in which they place some Religion which have no ground in the word of God but are only old wives fables and traditions How many things of that nature are used upon a religious account in which God hath placed no Religion Many have a superstitious conceit of the publick place of worship as if there were more holinesse in it than in any other house so they think their Prayers in the Church are more acceptable then in their Chamber But Christ refutes that superstitious opinion of places so consequently of dayes meats and all such externall things The Jews had a great opinion of their temple the Samaritans of their mountain as if these places had sanctified their services But saith our Lord vers 21. The hour cometh when yee shall neither worship in this mountain c. but it s any where acceptable if so be ye worship in spirit and truth Many of you account it Religion to pray mutter words of your own in the time of publick prayer but who hath required this at your hand If you would pray your selves go apart shut the door behind thee saith Christ private prayer should be in private and secret But when publick prayer is your hearts should close with the petitions and offer them up

mercy make thee not fear and tremble before him and do not separate thee from thy sins if remission of sins be not the strongest perswasion to thy soul of the removing of sin certaiuly thou dost in vain presume upon his mercy Now consider what influence all this glorious Proclamation had on Moses it stirs up in him reverence and affection reverence to such a glorious Majesty great desire to have him amongst them and to be more one with him If thy soul rightly discover God it cannot but abase thee he made bade haste to bow down and worship O Gods Majesty is a surprising and astonishing thing it would bow thy soul in the dust if it were represented to thee labour to keep the right and intire representation of God in thy sight his whole Name Strong Mercifull Iust Great and Holy I say keep both in thy view for half representations are dangerous either to beget presumption and security when thou looks on mercy alone or despair when thou looks on Justice and power alone Let thy soul consider all joyntly that it may receive amixed impression of all this is the holy composition and temper of a Believer Rejoice with trembling love with fear let all thy discoveries of him aime at more union communion with him who is ●…ch a self-sufficient al-sufficient and eternal Beeing Joh. 4. 24. God is a Spirit and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth WE have here something of the Nature of God pointed out to us somthing of our duty towards him God is a spirit that is his Nature and man must worship him that is his duty that in spirit in truth that is the right manner of the duty if these three were right pondered till they sink in to the bottome of our spirits they would make us indeed Christians not in the Letter but in the Spirit That is presupposed to all Christian worship walking to know what God is it s indeed the Primo cognitum of Christianity the first Principle of true Religion the very root out of which springs grows up walking sutably with worshipping answerably of a known God I fear much of our Religion be like the Athenians They builded an Altar to an unknown God and like the Samaritanes Who worshipped they know not what Such a Worship I know not what it is when the God worshipped is not known The two parents of true Religion are the knowledge of God and of our selves this indeed is the beginning of the fear of God which the wise Preacher cals the beginning of wisdom And these two as they beget true Religion so they cannot truly be one without the other It is not many notions and speculations about the Divine nature it is not high strained conceptions of God that comprises the true knowledg of him many think they know something when they can speak of these mysteries in some singular way and in some tearms removed from common understandings which neither themselves nor others know what they mean thus they are presumptuous self-conceited knowing nothing as they ought to know there is a knowledge that puffes up there is a knowledge that casts down a a knowledge in many that doth bu●… swell them not grow them It s but a rumor full of wind a vain and empty and f●…othy knowledge that is neither good for edifying others nor saving a man●… self a knowledge that a man knows and reflects upon so as to ascend upon the height of it and measure himself by the degrees of it this is not the true knowledge of God which knows not it self looks not back upon it self but straight towards God his holinesse and glory our basenesse misery and therefore it constrains the soul to be ashamed of it self in such a glorious presence and to make haste to worship as Moses Iob Isaiah did This definition of God if we did truly understand it we could not but worship him in another manner God is a spirit Many ignorant people form in their own mind some liknesse and Image of God who is invisible you know how ye fancy to your selves some bodily shape when you conceive of him you think he is some Reverend and Majestick Person sitting on a Throne in Heaven But I beseech you correct your mistakes of him there is outward idolatry and there is inward there is idolatry in action when men paint or ingrave some similitude of God there is Idolatry in imagination when the fancy and apprehension runs upon some Image or likenesse of God The first is among Papists but I fear the latter be too common among us it is indeed all one to form such 〈◊〉 similitude in our mind and to ingrave or paint it without so that the God whom many of us worship is not the living and true God but a painted or graven Idol When God appeared most visible to the world ●…s at the giving out of the Law yet no man did see any liknesse at all he did not come under the percep●…ion of the most subtile sense he could not be perceived but by the retired understanding going aside ●…om all things visible therefore you do but fancy ●…n idol to your selves in stead of God when you ap●…rehend him under the likenesse of any visible or sen●…ble thing so what ever love or fear or reverence ●…ou have it is all but mispent superstition the love ●…nd fear of an idol 1. I know then that God is a Spirit and therefor he is like none of all these things you see or hear or smel or taste or touch The heavens are glorious indeed the light is full of glory but he is not like that If all your senses should make an inquiry and search for him throughout the world you should not find him though he be near hand every one of us yet your eyes and ears all your senses might travel the length of the earth and breadth of the sea and should not find him even as you might search all the corners of heaven ere ye could hear or see an Angel if you saw a man asunder and resolve him in atomes of dust yet you could not perceive a soul within him why Because these are spirits and so without the reach of your senses II. If God be a Spirit then he is invisible dwels in light inaccessible which no man hath seen or can see then ou●… poor narrow minds tha●… are drowned as it were and immersed into bodies of clay in this state of mortality receives all knowledge of the senses cannot frame any suitable notion of his spiritual and abstracted nature We cannot conceive what our own soul is but by some sensible operation flowing from it and the height that our knowledge of that noble part of our selves amounts to is but this dark confused conception that the soul is some inward principle of life and sense and reason

crosse thy corruptions and evidence the stamp of God on thy affections the more divine it is And therefore to serve God in these is to serve him in truth Practice hath more of truth in it then a profession When your Fathers executed judgement was not this to know me Duties that have more opposition from our natures against them and lesse sewel or oyl to feed the flame of our self love and corruption have more truth in them and if you should worship God in all other duties and not especially in those you do not worship him in truth Next let us consider the manner of Divine Worship And this is as needfull to true Worship as true matter that it be commanded and done as it is commanded that compleats true worship Now I know no better way or manner to worship God in than so to worship him as our worship may carry the stamp of his Image upon it as it may be a glasse wherein we may behold Gods Nature and Properties For such as himself is such he would be acknowledged to be I would think it were true worship indeed which had engraven on it the Name of the true living God if it did speak out so much of it self That God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him diligently Most part of our service speaks an unknown God carries such an inscription upon it To the unknown God There is so little either reverence or love or fear or knowledge in it as if we did not worship the true God but an Idoll It is said that the fool sayes in his heart that there is no God because his thoughts and affections and actions are so little composed to the fear and likenesse of that God as if he did indeed plainly deny him I fear it may be said thus of our Worship It sayes There is no God it is of such a nature that none could conclude from it that it had any relation to the true God our prayers denie God because there is nothing of God appears in them But this is true worship when it renders back to God his own Image and Name Unde repercussus redditur ipse sibi As it is a poor clean Fountain in which a man may see his shaddow distinctlie but a troubled fountain or myre in which he cannot be hold himself So it is pure worship which receives and reflects the pure Image of God but impure and unclean worship which cannot receive it and retain it I pray you Christians consider this for it is such Worshippers the Father seeks and why seeks he such But because in them he finds himself so to speak His own I mage and superscription is upon them His mercy isengraven on their faith confidence His Majestie power is stamped on their humility and reverence His goodnesse is to be read on the souls rejoicing His Greatnesse and Justice in the souls trembling Thus there ought to be some engravings on the soul answering the Characters of his glorious Name O how little of this is among them that desire to know something of God How little true Worship even among them whom the Father hath sought out to make true Worshippers But alas How are all of us unacquainted with this kind of Worship We stay upon the first principles practices of Religion and go not on to build upon the foundation Sometimes your Worship hath a stamp of Gods holinesse and justice in fear terrour at such a Majesty which makes you to tremble before him But where is the stamp of his mercy grace which should be written in your faith and rejoycing Tremble and fear indeed but rejoyce with trembling because there is mercy with him Sometime their is rejoycing and quietnesse in the soul but that quickly degenerates into carnal confidence makes the soul turn grace into wantonness and esteem of it self above what is right because it is not counterpoised with the sense and apprehension of his holinesse and justice But O to have these joyntly written on the heart in worship fear reverence confidence humility and faith That is a rare thing it is a divine composition and temper of spirit that makes a divine soul For the most part our Worship savours and smels nothing of God neither his power nor his mercy and grace nor his holinesse and justice nor his majesty and glory a secure saint formal way void of reverence of humility of servency and of faith I beseech you let us consider as before the Lord how much pains and time we lose and please none but our selves profit none at all Stir up your selves as in his sight for it is the keeping of our souls continually as in his sight which will stamp our service with his likenesse The fixed and constant meditation of God and his glorious properties this will beget the resemblance between our worship and the God whom we worship and it will imprint his Image upon it then it should please him then it should profit thee and then it should edifie others But more particularly The Worship must have the stamp of Gods spiritual Nature and be conformed to it in some measure else it cannot please him There must be a conformity between God and souls this is the great end of the Gospel to repair that Image of God which was once upon man and make him like God again Now it is the way that Jesus Christ repairs this Image brings about this conformity with God by the souls worshipping of God sutable to his Nature it is the more and more like God and happy in that likenesse Now God is a Spirit therefore saith Christ you must worship him in spirit truth The worship then of Saints must be of a spiritual nature that it may be like the immortal divine Spirit It is such Worshippers the Father seeks he seeks souls to make them like himself and this likenesse and conformity to God is the very foundation of the souls happinesse and eternall refreshment This is a point of great consequence I fear not laid to heart The Worship must be like the Worshipped It is a Spirit must Worship the Eternal Spirit it is not a body that can be the principle and chief Agent in the businesse What Communion can God have with your bodies while your souls are removed far from him more than with beasts All society and fellowship must be between those that are like one another A man can have no comfortable company with Beasts or with Stones and Trees It is men that can converse with men and a Spirit must worship the self-being-spirit Do not mistake this as if under the dayes of the Gospel we were not called to an external and bodily Worship to any service to which our outward man is instrumentall this is one of the deep delusions of this Age into which some men reprobate 〈◊〉 the Faith hath fallen That there should be no externall