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
A61481	The whole parable of Dives and Lazarus explain'd and apply'd being several sermons preached in Cripplegate and Lothbury churches / by Joseph Stevens ...	Stevens, Joseph.	1697 (1697)	Wing S5499; ESTC R34607	84,584	212

happily bring them from under the power of Satan unto God I shall treat of both these distinctly beginning with the former First That the Scriptures are the only means appointed by God for the Conviction Conversion and the Salvation of Sinners drawn from Abraham's answer to the Rich Man's Petition that he would send Lazarus away with a special Commission to his surviving Brethren No they have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them The Word of God is a Declaration of his Will concerning Mankind who desiring their eternal Good hath by Moses and the Prophets sent and commissioned after him prescribed the Methods in a plain and familiar manner to be used and prosecuted to that end He therefore inserts his Prerogative and the undeniable claim he has to our Worship and the best of our Services as the Lord our God the Contriver and Builder of the Universe our Creator who breathed into us the breath of Life and we became living Souls And to strengthen the belief of those Truths written and dispersed by his chosen Servants graciously condescended to come down from Heaven eclipsed with Humanity and supplied the defects of his Laws delivered in the Minority of the World And lest by additions and seeming alterations the Jews with whom he chiefly conversed should stagger in the belief of the Mosaical Traditions tells them Matth. 5.17 Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets I am not come to destroy but to fullfil more emphatically to reveal the full intent and meaning of the Law anciently delivered that Men may be put out of scruple and doubt concerning their Duty and the terms upon which their Salvation is promised And therefore St. Paul to create a separate veneration and high esteem for Sacred Writ gives an excellent Commendation and pathetick Encomium of it 2. Tim. 3.16 17. It is profitable says he for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works That is the holy Scriptures termed the Old and New Testament are undeniably profitable to instruct us in the belief of those Propositions absolutely necessary to Salvation to convince us of any truth which consists with our happiness or of any sin the allowed practice of which will sink us into the Abyss of Misery to correct us when straying to shew us the right path and to bring us to rights to instruct us in that righteousness in which we must appear before God to the end that Christians may be as perfect in this frail state as they can be aptly prepared to every good work commendable and praise-worthy in the sight of God And in the 15th Verse he urges That the Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus they have sufficiency of Doctrine to make us wise enough to get to Heaven if we have a genuine Faith in Jesus Christ receiving him as our Saviour and a Faith assenting and agreeing to these holy Writings as the revelation of the Divine Will So that it is fond flattery for Men to disregard the Oracles of God as if they were only Human Inventions composed and written in a melancholy studious humour or by strength of fancy and expect extraordinary revelations to convince and convert them as an Angel from above cloathed with the brightness of glory with a special Commission in his Hand to make them believe that there is a Heaven and a damned Spirit from beneath with the woful marks of Divine vengeance upon him wringing his hands tearing his hair gnashing his teeth and telling them what terrible preparations God has provided for impenitent sinners to beget in them the belief of a Hell God is not obliged to convert Men after such an extraordinary manner nor indeed is it reasonable he should since he has revealed his mind concerning Mankind to his Servant Moses and to the Prophets after him and confirmed the same by his Son working mighty Miracles and astonishing Wonders and by him delivered to the Apostles who converted many convinced them of their errors and fixed them in the profession of Christianity and by them handed down to us Wherefore should God detract from the power authority and truth of his holy Word by reforming Men after a strange and unusual course The nice and stubborn Pharisees notwithstanding those numberless Miracles which our Saviour wrought in their view to possess them with the belief of his Divinity and that he had his Commission from God the Father impertinently required a sign from him something extraordinary more than he had already done expecting that such a Mission should be so confirmed Either perhaps that he would alter the course of the Sun or make it stand still as it did upon the Dial of Ahaz or that he would demand a Guard of Angels from Heaven who should testifie his Authority and that he was no Impostor as they prophanely suspected or it may be that he would cause a Voice from Heaven to thunder in their Ears that he was the Son of God and threaten them with Damnation if they disputed the Truth of it To this our blessed Lord answers An evil and adulterous Generation seeketh after a Sign but there shall no Sign be given them I have wrought Miracles enough to convince them if they were not harder than the nethermost Mill-stone I filled five thousand Persons with five Loaves and two Fishes and of the fragments thereof remained twelve Baskets full I raised Lazarus to life who had been dead four days With a word I have cast out Devils out of those who were possessed opened the Eyes of those who were born blind A Woman that had an Issue of Blood twelve years and had spent all her Substance with Physicians for cure was perfectly made whole by touching the hem of my Garment The Lame and Paralitick are restored to Health and Strength by me without medicinal Applications The Widows Son of Nain who was carrying forth in order to be buried received life again by my command Arise Abundance more Miracles of this kind I have wrought before you O ye of little faith to convince you that I am sent from God But still retaining Prejudice and Malice against me whereby you are hardened and seared with Infidelity there shall no other Sign be shewn to satisfie your vain Curiosity since enough has been done to make impartial and ingenuous Minds believe that I act by a Divine Power and consequently have received my Commission from God To run parallel God having revealed his Will concerning Mankind now called the Old and New Testament the former relating to Moses and the Prophets who were chosen and peculiar Ambassadors commissioned by and immediately employed under God to spread the knowledge of his Laws and to insinuate with his Creatures to revere the Sanction thereof The latter pertaining to the Blessed Jesus who was impowered and authorized by his Father to

power and force to convince and reform Men than a singular special miracle wrought to that purpose can have is this It is not only the appointed means but God has ordained no other to reclaim men He will not that they be convinced so much by Sense as by Reason not so much by Ocular Demonstration as Rational Conclusions And therefore it argues that those men who are not won and brought over by the insinuations of the Gospel but expect some extraordinary dealings to convict them are desperately hardened and must perish without remedy It would infinitely detract from the power and authority of Gods word and render it insignificant and invalid if when men out of a fond humour and perverse disposition refuse to hearken to and be converted by it God should deviate from the ordinary rule by permitting Spectrums or Apparitions to discourse with and persuade them to break off their sins by a timely repentance His promises and threatnings would take but little effect nay men would scarce have Faith enough to believe them if such extraordinary methods were commonly used to cure Men of their obstinate blindness and perverse infidelity But wherefore should God answer Mens vain curiosity Why should he confute them of their Errours by new and strange means when the truth of Christianity hath been attested by wonders and miracles by the blood of Martyrs who died for the Confirmation of it and by the Conversion of many thousands since It must be concluded that they were weary of their lives very soft and easie melancholly fanciful Persons who would thus embrace death relinquish their interests goods and possessions for the sake of the Truth of which they had no apparent testimony They must imagine the world has lain a long while in Ignorance and Darkness amused only with fictious Relations and vain Genealogies and that those who died long since in the belief of the Scripture are without hope Or otherwise how is it that the Oracles of God are not more credited by them Why are men so seared and impenitrable that the word of God which is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged Sword loseth its Vertue and its healing Operations upon them quit defeated And furthermore If God had discovered any insufficiency in his Holy Word that it was not able to turn mens hearts he would have used some other methods to that end and not have permitted so many thousands to have lived and dyed in their sins to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever He would not suffer poor Souls to run into the Labyrinth of Despair nor others to be hardened if his word alone which hath brought Life and Immortality into the world was not capable or had not sufficiency of Doctrine to instruct and guide them in the path that leads to Heaven Nor would our blessed Saviour have pronounced such terrible woes against the Unbelieving Jews nor had Divine providence cursed them who were once his peculiar People a chosen Generation a royal Priest-hood as he did by scattering them all the world over but no where incorporated into a Nation a standing and visible mark of Vengeance upon them I say this people would not have been so severely dealt with upon the account of their infidelity If the word preached by the Holy Jesus and confirmed by miracles and unusual signs was not convincing and influential Wherefore it is sadly recorded of them John 12.40 That God hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart that they should not see with their eyes and understand with their heart and be converted From hence I draw this Conclusion That when men arrive to such a pitch of daring presumption as to give little or no heed to the written word of God all other means used for their Conversion such as Preaching friendly Counsel and Admonishment seldom affecteth or worketh a change in them Hence a Friend becometh anothers Enemy because he tells him the truth mildly reproves him for his sin sorrowfully tells him what a desperate condition he is in and what he must expect if he persists and dies in an irrepentant state By such Gods Ministers and their wholesom Discourses are reproached those Sermons which they should use as medicaments to heal their wounded Souls are made their sport and pastime fitting only to be Subjects of vain wit and frothy drollery It is a sad presage of final ruine when the standing Revelation of Gods Will doth not work upon men to the changing of their manners and turning them from under the power of Satan unto God In all probability neither an Angel from Heaven nor a damned Ghost from beneath could ever reach and overcome them For if that word which was ushered into the world with Thundrings and Lightnings delivered by the Prophets by God's special Order and Inspiration and to strengthen the credibility of it was rehearsed and promulged by Jesus Christ and that the knowledge thereof might be universally spread was delivered by the same Jesus to the Apostles and that succeeding ages might not be brought up in ignorance and live and dye without the knowledge of God and their Duty was handed down from the Apostles to Us That word that reformed three thousand Souls at one time Converted Heathens who had no other sense of their Maker than what they received from the Book of Nature and brought over multitudes to the Profession and Practice of Christianity who never heard of it before I say if this word of God which has abundantly evidenced its power and efficacy and is the means of that Piety and Religion practised in our days cannot prevail with men their stubbornness and wilful infidelity defeating its aptness and influence we may very reasonably conclude that if a special miracle was wrought to convert them it would be to no purpose But here notwithstanding what has been already urged some may yet say in the Language of the Text But if one rose from the dead we would repent The Motives and Arguments of the Gospel being still and the same and which by experience we find have not power enough to reclaim us some new method used for our Conversion as an Apparition or Ghost would above any thing else persuade us Now how little this would affect them I shall shew in the prosecution of the second Point which is Secondly That should God condescend to gratifie a Wicked Mans vain Curiosity by causing one to rise from the dead and to testifie unto him that the course he takes without speedy amendment will be the eternal ruine of him and that the preparations in Hell are very terrible and insupportable yet he will invent Arguments and propound Reasons to fortisie himself that he may not be affected with and instuenced by such an Apparition and frightful Relation as heretofore he did to withstand the prevalent Motives of Religion It is not to be disputed but that if a Spectrum or Ghost should appear to a very wicked man suppose it to