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
A52343	Of adoration in spirit and truth written in IV. bookes by Iohn Eusebius Nieremberg native of Madrid. S.I. And translated into English by R. S S.I. In which is disclosed the pith & marrow of a spiritual life, of Christs imitation & mystical theology; extracted out of the HH. FF. & greatest masters of spirit Diadochus, Dorotheus, Clymachus, Rusbrochius Suso, Thaulerus, a Kempis, Gerson: & not a little both pious & effectual is superadded.; De adoratione in spiritu et veritate. English.	Nieremberg, Juan Eusebio, 1595-1658.; Strange, Richard, 1611-1682.	1673 (1673)	Wing N1150A; ESTC R224195	255,001	517

OF ADORATION IN SPIRIT AND TRVTH Written in IV. Bookes by IOHN EVSEBIVS NIEREMBERG Native of Madrid S. I. And Translated into English by R. S. S. ● I H S In which is disclosed the pith marrow of a spiritual life of Christs imitation mystical Theology extracted out of the HH FF greatest masters of spirit Diadochus Dorotheus Clymachus Rusbrochius Suso Thaulerus a Kempis Gerson not a little both pious effectual is superadded Printed Anno M.DC.LXXIII The Translatour to the Reader Courteous Reader I Present thee here with a stranger whom I have put in an English vest and if thou deem him not worthy to be naturalizd at least I pray entertain him civilly When thou art throughly acquainted with him hast dived into a discovery of his perfections thou wilt find rich pearles shrowded under a course shel I am confident it wil never repent thee no more then me of his acquaintance One that knowes how to distinguish fruit from leaves pith from bark a solid substance from a superficial show one that delights in truths seeks rather his own spiritual advance then a frothy feeding of his fancy wil here find entertainment right for his purpose that is both substantial and delightful He wil teach thee how to serve God in spirit truth not by an empty sound or canting use of these two words as do our sectaries who when they have named them think all done but by a real practise of Christian vertues in the discharge of our incumbent duty to God our selves and our neighbour To speak without metaphor I offer thee a plain Translation of a Latin treatise a piece in high esteem with me and many and I require only thy perusal therof to make thee esteem it so too That which moved the Author to compile it moved me also to translate it yet with this difference that he sought only his own behoof I my own chiefly others He a Parent of many such issues having labourd long with his pen for the advance of his neighbour in the way of vertue judgd it but meet to a make some provision for himself as a store house of spiritual truths maximes which he might have ready at every turn both for his meditation and practise And I think he was much in the right since charity begins at home it availes very little to perfect others if we be stil truants our selves self-interest ought to be the first concern nor are we to let our family starve at home while our endeavours are labouring to feed others abroad This prudent ceconomy and sage care of his own good is the common case of us all who have a soul to save it being also our task to provide in the first place for its indemnity that being the grand affair of our whole life which if not done all is utterly undone And how can we provide better then by making use of his provisions where the common exigence is the same For by the dictamen of charity it seldom happens that one is so treacherous to himself as not to provide himself of the best if what was best for him cannot be but good for us what he communicates without envy let us make use off with much freedom little cost a harty welcome There is not so much applause in translating as writing but the common benefit no whit the less yea more because no man of judgment wil translate what he deems not more then ordinarily good taking but who can promise so much of his own conceptions amidst so many miscarriages abortions as daily happen This our age kingdome is a little unfortunate in this respect that our best wits are forcd so to employ their pens for the defence of Catholick religion against the common adversaries and their assaults as that they cannot fully attend to what is as necessary in its kind the writing of spiritual treatises for the preservation encrease of piety in the harts of the faithful The former indeed is necessary but is a misfortune it is so upon such a score or that among the children of the same Mother some should be found so rebelliously bent especially with such prejudice to the latter this being the nursery of devotion consequently promoter of vertue and piety Spiritual bookes are the ordinary tongue by which God speakes to our soules the conveyancers of his holy inspirations when he is pleased to knock at the dore of our hart for entrance yea the key which unlocks it How many by reading them receive both light in their understanding love in their wil not only to acknowledg but perform what conduces to a vertuous life How many have quit the filth of sin in which they wallowed by wonderful conversions how many more of better principles found therby effectual incentives to Christian perfection Certainly the benefits redounding thence are unspeakable great pitty it is that we are not better stored with such books for as our appetite cannot feed long upon the same meat without being cloyed though otherwise both wholsome savory no more can our understanding without a nauseousnes employ it self in matter of reading unles there be variety to season it I have heard even spiritual persons bemoan their own the common scarcity in this kind Besides the excellency of the treatise it self this was a motive to me to contribute my mite towards some smal redress of the aggrievance This premisd I must speak a word or two of the Title it carryes which is Of Adoration in Spirit and Truth the which he borrowes from the words of our B. Saviour to the Samaritan is the subject of the whole work In that conference Io. 4. the great master Of Spirit Truth told her the time would come when true adorers should not be confined to Ierusalem or the mountain in Samaria but were to adore God in spirit Truth for God being a spirit covets to be adord in spirit Now what it is to adore him in Spirit Truth he explaines through the whole treatise chiefly in the 4. first Chapters of the first Book where he explicates what he understands both by the one other so clearly that nothing needs to be superadded Only it wil not perchance be amiss to forewarn some les skilful Reader that he be not frighted into a prejudice of the Book by the title it seeming to sound somwhat of the Sectarist who hath nothing so frequent in is mouth as I said above as Spirit Truth nothing les in substance The words indeed are easily named and may serve for canting among the ignorant but if one go to the pith substance of spirit truth as the Authour uses them to a true denial of our selves more then a lipp-love of God here the sectary wil be found as void of spirit as truth in both a nut without a kernel When the reader sees the Authour

condemning its very dictamens and defires Perswade thy self that that is false which God holds not for true which the Angels disapprove which the Doctours impugne Philosophers refute reason disallows nor squares with Conscience All these find this self love this crafty fox ful of wiles guilty of forgery We are ful of deceyt because ful of self love and so much the more perniciously ful by how much it is not onely a domestique cheat but so linkd to us yea so engrafted in us that it never leaves us nor gives us the least respit from errour Hence not onely custome but even prescription in cozenage hath so hardend us that what is done viciously we maintain many times as done very prudently yea and according to gospel and seek to sanctify by the doctrine of Christ what is clearly repugnant to reason The mist of ignorance which man walks in renders him sufficiently miserable he needs not be missed with forgery yet ignorance is but a petty and inconsiderable misery its darknes being easily dispeld as soon as the light of instruction shines but the night of errour is so wilfully and pertinaciously blind that it is incapable of being illuminated with any precepts O it were hartily to be wishd we were onely ignorant and not seduced also This folly and imposture of worldlings raignes in a manner among all sorts and conditions of them Let them account themselves never so wise let them be the prime Doctours and professours of Vniversities they are idiots and ill-maximd and unworthy of such titles unles they be good and vertuous Pick out any one of these such as all the world holds for an Oracle of knowledg if thou shouldst but once see this man voyd his curious cupbords and cabinets of jewells and vessels of gold and throw away pearles and pretious stones to fill them up with dirt and dung couldst thou perswade thy self that this were a wise man who so prizeth the latter and misprizeth the former And how then shall he be accounted wise who not once but allwayes is stuffing his hart with aspirements to honours with desires of riches and pleasures and contemns the love of God the treasures of divine grace the merits of Christ yea God himself All which incomparably more surpass worldly honours treasures pleasures then gold doth dirt as much to wit as God the Creatour surmounts his creature What imports it if thou sayest that this proceeds not from his ignorance in undervaluing things but that this man knew well enough the difference betwixt spiritual things and temporal a thing which no body can doubt of though his proceedings be contrary what I say wil this avail for nether wil he be excused from madnes who should say that he knowes wel enough the value of gold above other things and how base dirt is in comparison of it yet nevertheles keeps dirt courts it embraces it kisses it yea and refuseth no danger nor labour in search of it but if gold be tenderd him he throwes it away and daigns it not so much as a look Certainly this hidden madnes and visible darknes is far more to be admired and thou darst not call such a one a wise man or well in his wits least thou should be houted at by all having lost thine owne How much more will he expose himself to the censure both of laughter and madnes who professing that the spiritual treasures of grace are much to be preferd before all the goods of this world covets nevertheles the latter and rejects the former Could he be accounted a learned man or sound in judgment or a good Christian who should cast the B. Sacrament of Christs holy Body out of a golden Ciborium consecrated to its conservation and place there insteed of it a piece of clay And how deserves he the name of a wise man who expels the Divinity it self out of his soule where it took complacence to reside as in its tabernacle and sets up in its place not dung but more filthy vices and sordid desires as the idols of his licentious devotions Therfore we must conclude that there is no wisdome no truth to be found in a worldly life The dread fullest instruments of revenge which Christ shall make use of to punish the sensles in the day of judgment shall not be the conflict of confounded elements nor the fall of the stars nor the eclipse of the sun nor the conflagration of the world nor the frightful voice of the Archangel nor that shrilsounding trumpet of God nor the countenance of the angry judge but truth alone Truth I say which shall then be rendred illustrious to all though now as it is veyld with our naughty desires we contemne it But although truth be certainly found in a spiritual life yet not altogether refined from the dregs of forgery both by reason of t●e subtilty and soothings of self love for soothing and flattery every where corrupts and sophisticates truth as also the wiles and malice of the divel who labours by all meanes to destroy created truth since he cannot the increated Therfore Christ our Saviour recommends to us as the glory of Euangelical perfection that we adore God in spirit and truth The true God ought not to be worshipped with a false life The onely begotten Son of God is truth and he that will be the Son of God must love truth and possess himself of it Wherfore whosoever evading the precipices of the flesh treads now the plaine paths of spirit let him not hold himself altogether out of dangerunles he walk the roadway of truth And to the end thou mayst follow this more securely take these admonitions which will teach thee to adore God and serve him unfaignedly in uprightnes of hart and make thee understand what truth speaks least some deceit mislead thy spirit but rather doing truth in charity we may increase in Christ by all our proceedings The II. Chapter Of the Truth of the Spirit DO not think that thy life will be rendred any whit more unpleasant and tetrical by the fellowship of truth it is a mere aspersion to say that truth is bitter and unsavoury A false imputed nick name must not make us out of conceit with a thing in it self most delicious Do not frame this discourse If the very outward name of truth be so bitter what may we judge of its interiour rellish if anothers discourse concerning it be noysome what will our own study and practise of it be if it sound so harshly to our hart to our conscience to our whole life Make not I say such illations for it is not the fault of honey if it tast bitter to a tainted pallate One that is giddy thinks the earth runs round when it stands stock-still We judge of every one by our own misdemeanours and seek to patronise our humane frailties by ascribing the same to the Divinity Truth is innocent sweet and displeasing to none but the c●●nal and such as are displeasing to God