Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	new_a	old_a	testament_n	6,607	5	8.4174	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49388	Humane life: or, A second part of the enquiry after happiness. By the author of Practical Christianity; Enquiry after happiness. Part 2	Lucas, Richard, 1648-1715.	1690 (1690)	Wing L3398; ESTC R212935	101,152	265

assaulted Secondly I will consider what ways the Date of Life may be lengthened Thirdly I will remove those Objections with which this Advice is encountered either from the promiscuous Events hapning alike to Good or Bad or from the early and immature Death of some righteous Persons To begin with the first of these First It has been too generally taught and believed That the Date of Humane Life cannot be protracted that every particular Man has a fixed and immutable Period decreed him beyond which he cannot go But this Opinion directly defeats the force of all Motives and Arguments to Vertue derived from Temporal Considerations and undermines our dependence upon God and redicules our Addresses to him as far as they concern this Life and the Things of it And how plain a step is this to the refutation and overthrow of Judaism which was built upon Temporal Promises and consequently to the overthrow of Christianity it self the Authority of the New Testament depending in so great a measure upon that of the Old I 'le leave every one to guess And were there no other Reasons to reject this Opinion besides these alone these I should think were abundantly sufficient since it is impossible that any thing should be consonant to Truth which is so repugnant to the Interest and Authority of Religion but there are so many more that I must be forced to croud them together that I may avoid tediousness and redundancy This Perswasion then is repugnant to all the Instincts of our Nature to what purpose is the Love of Life implanted in us by our great Creator why is Self-preservation the first Dictate and Law of Nature if all our Care and Diligence can contribute nothing towards it Vain and impertinent is that Law whose observation can procure us no Good nor its Violation any Evil. This is a Perswasion that flatly contradicts the Experience and Observation of Mankind in general how can the Period of Life be fixed and unalterable which we see every day either lengthened out by Care and Moderation or shortened by Excess and Negligence unless we can resolve to the utter overthrow of Religion not only that Life and Death but also that Vice and Vertue Wisdom and Folly which lead to the one and the other are alike predetermined necessary and fatal Nor is this Opinion less contrary to the Sense and Reason of the Wise and Prudent than to the Experience of the Multitude Self preservation is the first and chief End of Civil Societies and Humane Law but how foppish and ridiculous a thing were it for the Grave and Sagacious part of Mankind to enter into deep Consultation to frame solemn Laws and devise the strongest Obligations to fence and secure that Life which can neither be invaded one minute before its fatal hour nor prolonged one minute beyond it nor has Man only but God himself endeavoured to secure this Temporal Life by the strictest and most solemn Laws nor this only but he has made Life and Death the Reward of Obedience and Punishment of Sin This Opinion therefore is a manifest Calumny against the Wisdom and Sincerity of God against his Wisdom if he raise up the Pallizado's and Bulwarks of Laws to guard and defend that Life which can neither be violated before nor extended beyond its minute His Sincerity for his Promises would be ludicrous and insignificant and so would his Threats too if neither the Obedience of the Vertuous could lengthen nor the disobedience of the Sinner could shorten Life and in a word to what purpose does the Spirit in 1 Pet. 3.10 11. invite and encourage Men to Religion by the Proposal of Life and Prosperity if in the bottom and truth Life and Prosperity depend not on our Behaviour but our Fate and be not dispensed according to the open Proposals but the secret and unconditional the rigid and inflexible Decrees of the Almighty I would not stop here but heap together a multitude of other Arguments against this Error did I not remark that as it has prevailed too much to be despised so has it too little to be laboriously refuted and that it has so weak a Foundation that few of those that defend it do believe it or at leastwise so heartily as to suffer it to have any Influence upon their Counsels or Actions Turks Astrologers and the most superstitious Assertors of Fate being no more free from the Fears of Death or a Concern for Life than the rest of Mortals The truth of this Proposition being thus made out by unanswerable Reasons we are not to suffer our selves to be moved by any superstitious Imaginations by any obscure or subtle Objections or by any meer Colours or Appearances of Reason for what is once clear and evident ought to remain firm and unshaken thô we cannot unravel every Objection against it therefore thô I should not be able to reconcile this Doctrine with some obscure Texts of Scripture with a certainty of God's Prescience and with some particular Predictions of Men who have pretended to read the fatal Periods of Humane Life in the Schemes of Heaven yet ought its Authority to be preserved as built upon plain Texts and solid Reasons and attested by the Suffrages of the Prudent and Wise and by the daily Observation of the Multitude But the truth is there is nothing objected here but what is capable of a very easie answer the Scriptures which speak an appointed time for Man upon Earth are not to be understood of any particular personal Fate but of a general Law or Rule of Nature not of the extent of every particular persons Life but of the duration of Man in general or of the Mortality of our Frame and Constitution and the shortness of Man's residence here upon Earth and imply no more than that Man as well as all other Species of Animals and indeed of Vegetables for so far Job extends the Comparison hath his time appointed the Bounds of his Life or Abode here set him beyond which he cannot pass Psalm 90.10 The days of our Age are threescore years and ten and thô Men be so strong that they come to fourscore years yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow so soon passeth it away and we are gone As to Astrological Predictions if the Accomplishment of any of them be attested by unquestionable Authority and they be not like the Prophesies of Poets made of mended after the Event yet methinks were not the Minds of Men very prone to Superstition a thousand Errors should be sufficient to discredit and disparage one good Guess and no Man of Sense should have a value for a pretended Science whose Grounds and Principles are evidently uncertain and precarious no Man of any Religion should be fond of that which to say no worse of it seems to stand condemned by God in Scripture for thô I must not dissemble this Truth that the Idolatry which was ever blended with it seems especially to have drawn down