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
A96266	The narrow path of divine truth described from living practice and experience of its three great steps, viz Purgation, illumination & union according to the testimony of the holy scriptures; as also of Thomas a Kempis, the German divinity, Thauler, and such like. Or the sayings of Matthew Weyer reduced into order in three books by J. Spee. Unto which are subjoyned his practical epistles, done above 120 years since in the Dutch, and after the author's death, printed in the German language at Frankfort 1579. And in Latin at Amsterdam 1658. and now in English.	Weyer, Matthias, 1521-1560.; Spee, J.	1683 (1683)	Wing W1525A; ESTC R231717	176,738	498

when all exercises and all strength of our own faileth even then are these the exercises of God and his strength When all our strength is vanished away and we have so long laboured under the Law that we can do no more then is God present whether we will or no for here a man must go on nor is it permitted him to go back again for he is in the hand of the Lord into which he often desired to come and that hand will not then let him go till it hath rightly broken him in pieces by afflictions and hath tumbled him up and down thorough various cases Whence it comes that healwayes more and more loseth himself till he be freed from all his flesh and is made capable of the heavenly influence Whoever they are who are not thus exercised but abide in their own labour can never be advanced higher but stand at a stay always in the same state and if one shall return after the space of a year or two years yea of ten unto them he shall find them still as he formerly left them how much soever they exercise themselves under the Law and severity and good works and labours and fastings and abstinence c. Yet they all stop their course here being still inwardly unchanged and unregenerated and of the new creature or regeneration know nothing because they are not exercised in the hand of the Lord by means of the aforesaid sufferings for affliction alone is this way to the new Generation to Wisdom and to true Knowledge The aforesaid labour also must be under the Law yea and go before that other else we cannot arrive at the said state of suffering so that no one abides therein for the mind is not yet so purified and there still sticketh unto its bottom somewhat that is worldly though one may appear otherwise outwardly Consequently we become not in our minds partakers with Christ until being purified by that purgatory and these sufferings we are made capable of him for light and darkness Christ and Belial dwell not together Those middle things which are interposed between God and us and unto which we always remain fixedly holding our eye so as we cannot see God those middle things I say are to be removed by the means of sufferings from God if we are to be united to him If Gold could be sensible and speak it would certainly say what it should suffer before it could be purified and so the Earth would say how much it must suffer and how much it would stand in need of before the seed is produced out of its bowells When a man hath brought all his labours to an end nor cannot go on further then is the chiefest and highest work yet before his hands lying as undone If this must be perfected and done it must be done by God for it behooveth that he should accomplish these things which are impossible for a man to do CHAP. XXXII A Man who hath begged help from the Lord judges other men honester then himself for he confesses that if others had had this grace which was done to him that they had been more faithful and more honest by much then himself is Whence also he abstaineth from rash judgment and commiserates poor men because he beholds their future misery out of which he himself thorough the mercy of God without any merit of his own is snatched and therefore he cannot extol himself above others nor tax them or delude them but rather humbleth himself beneath all and burneth with a universal charity Moreover he would willingly renounce his own Salvation that others might but be saved Nor can he do otherwise because this is the property of regeneration He who hath regeneration and is arrived at the true substance adhereth to no things whatsoever he does or omits to do or eats or drinks or goes or stands whether he be with others or whether he be alone but he alwayes is free from all and unces●antly beholdeth God whose he is properly and for whose sake he useth all things At what time he is rapt upwards he is put beyond himself and is without all discretion and when he is let down again from that same mountain he uncessantly looketh back upwards again The new man by a continual ascent every houer and moment goes away unto God nor doth he ever stop his course because God is unsearchable and past finding out He regards not temporals though he may seem so and though he does eat drink sleep and is cloathed for if he should regard them he would still stand in time but all the aforementioned things are snatched from him by fire that he might ascend above time and stand in God He dyed and rose again in God he fell oil from all things and perished both in Body Soul and Spirit At first every one is an infant then a youth and thence he goeth into man-hood and at length into old age then we falter and can no longer enjoy the pleasure of youth and at last we say I remember that I have been a young man but time is gone When young men rejoyce I am in sadness and whilst they live I dye CHAP. XXXIII THere is not a letter in the Holy Scriptures which ought not to be understood and interpreted concerning the body of Christ now there are many members of Christ's body that which is not in one member is in another The whole Scriptures of the Old and New Testament with all figures and ceremonies prefigure the very substance of the matter and is a type of the internal truth as the Image in the glass is the representation of the face And as the Image cannot be in the glass of whom there is no truth or substance So there is no representation of Scripture or of ceremonies or of figures to which there belongs not some truth and substance When therefore a representation or Image is true there is also a true essence or substance There is no shaddow without a body nor figure or Image without an essence The Book of Psalms begins maturely with man and continues with him unto old age and even to his end and with man it riseth up from bottom to top No Christian transcendeth the exercises of the Psalms nor can he get so high but the Psalms accompany him still and express his mind How long doth the faithful man wait for God till he cometh and when he is come he departs again and hides himself that a man cannot find him And by this very thing God will purge a man that he may learn truly to possess him without appropriation for at first he assumeth God with appropriation and this then is that same subtile flesh of hi● which ought to be consumed CHAP. XXXIIII FAith is a most desolate thing Ju●● as when many things are reach● out to any one and he catcheth at the● but then they are pull'd away again but at last a door of escape is opened 〈◊〉 him which then

till by their own experience in the future access of age they also do attain unto prudence The Lord grant to them his grace that they may well place their time as well in studies as in piety in which all consisteth seeing that the Lord ought to be the end of all studyes To this mark therefore are they to aim and to seek the glory of God and not their own nor are they to fall into themselves Also I hope that my Uncle will deliver them to you with all advice unto obedience and subjection and I hope that they will persevere in the fear of the Lord according to the capacity of their age But we conside in you that you will not be wanting to them in the best counsels especially that they may lead a Godly and sober life and that they may be turned away from all youthful appetites and from such errours as break forth at such an age moreover that if they commit any thing against the Lord according to their slender wit they may in time be brought to the observation of their conscience by the benefit of which they being more diligently restrained may always abhor to sin My D. that I thus write nothing but my inclination towards my Nephews causeth it for else I am aware that you will educate them prudently and in the fear of the Lord wherefore pardon the liberty I take that I blush not to propose somewhat like thereto inasmuch as that what I do is with an eye to that zeal wherewith we are both heated to find out the ways of the Lord when as I apprehend us to be both alike and to have altogether the same inclination of heart mutually one towards the other The Lord help us yet more and more in love as far as pleaseth him so that we may but be found in a continual progression thorough his grace least our time be found to prove empty and void of fruit before the Lord but that we may always proceed from righteousness to righteousness Even also I wish the same to my Nephews that forthwith at the very beginning some agreable distinction of Religion may be instilled into them that they may learn to discern all things with judgment and not easily to take up their rest in outward means one only excepted viz. Jesus Christ as expressed in his true obedience finished in his Soul even unto the death of the cross He is set before us for an example as our only scope by the benefit of which we may in true illumination come to the eternal mercy of God It will be therefore very profitable for them to be led as it were by the hand unto this scope and that they may learn radically to satisfy their own consciences exercising themselves in them from their tender years and to have no confidence in any other meanes set or contributed out of themselves And although they should find some virtue in themselves such as it wont to be found in the serious studyes of some of the heathen such as are Temperance Long-suffering meekness rigour and severity of discipline or any other that may be introduced into our minds by sedulity and natural discretion yet are not all these that very thing which is proposed to us in the image of Jesus Christ For their aim was no other then to temperate and govern their bodyes under the discipline of honesty and to keep them in due order by the moderation of Nature but in Christ a certain kind of life is produced which consists not in nature but above nature and unto which the Wise Gentiles could never arrive because they were led only by the light of nature in which God doth only so far operate and manifest himself as far as he can be know out of himself from his creatures which also hath its defects and limitations and may be changed which things are such as are not in God because he remains eternally and abides glorified in his own subsistence and essence for ever and ever Now how much they have written concerning the knowledge of God which is in Man and which they have in diverse places attributed to the mind that ariseth not from elsewhere then from the ingenious principles of the purer wisdom a●far forth as they were able to comprehend of it in their more elevated reason But they had no light and virtue of a certain real and essential immutation as it were in its own self as being that which manifesteth it self far beyond science and that by this way our most high God expresseth and giveth forth himself not only notionally but also essentially in all who receive him with a superabundance of those graces which in his Son he poureth forth upon us so that our labour diligence and studys are plainly useless to this matter but the grace of God alone produceth this supernatural life and new creature in man the natural man all this while together with all his old age being utterly silent and condemned yea dead Therefore no active power nor any life can remain extant in us for if any such thing sheweth forth it self in us then in truth we are not dead to our selves but we yet live in our own proper work neglecting the promise and grace which hath appeared in Christ I do not therefore say thus because I can contemn and reject that same honest and tried life of the Heathen for I wish that we all could subject our life to such a discipline and that we could by far outstrip them There are not therefore to be deprived of their praise but rather we ought more commonly to be filled with shame seeing that we will boast of a greater grace from the Lord and yet are not come to that state of virtue which was in the heathen but we are hurried too and again in all confusion of carnal lusts The Lord correct us in his mercy and help us all seriously to endeavour to insist on the best ways even as also I heartily pray in the behalf of those my Nephews that they being lead thorough their whole youthful age in the wayes of the Lord may subject themselves to discipline and apply the bridle to their carnal inclinations even from their tender youth satisfying their consciences and the testimony of a most close examination made before God and their own Souls that they may be further advanced by the Lord if it shall so please him to that eminent grace and expression of his most high glory in the life of the spirit which being in a flourishing condition all things past do vanish away together with their glory that all may be renewed by the first fruits of Christ and the powerful hand of God manifested in the Resurrection of the Lord. Now therefore I trust in the Lord that he will effect all things well and direct them unto the best end yet let us employ all the diligence we have lest being conquered by sin we become subjected to our flesh and

which lieth hid in man and convinceth him doth yet partake of reason and humane power although the Lord doth afterwards offer to the heart the light of the Gospel and the understanding of a man submitteth it self to that But for all that he is not yet one with the light for no man receiveth this light but he in whom the reason and strength of man are on the Cross become dead with Christ now such a one thence-forward because of the communion he hath received with the death of Christ is also again raised up by the same Spirit of Christ so as the Spirit of Christ thence-forward becometh his life his own reason and all his own powers abiding in death nor is there a Soul living in him but by the vertue of God and thus the man comes to renounce all his own strength and all his own righteousness in the sight of God and becomes conformed to the righteousness of God in himself which the natural man never knoweth nor can arrive thereat Therefore because the Judgment of Calvin reaches not so far and he himself is not yet dead to his own reason strength he indeed bore witness against his own self because that which in the Epistle to the Romans is demonstrated to be death by the Gospel Rom. 8.10 11. and 6.5 6. keeps him in life the light of the Gospel serving him for that purpose even to his own proper commodity For the Gospel was not divulged till after the Resurrection of Christ And then at length Christ the Son of God was acknowledged to be in us otherwise our acknowledgement was not concerned but only about the person of Christ according to the flesh from whence it is apparent that we our selves are still carnal and though we be not plainly like to the ruder part of the World and do account our selves for imitators of Christ who have left all yet still we are to be made liker unto Christ and to be planted into his death Furthermore I here further acknowledge that no man by the strength of Nature derived from Adam can ever attain unto the eternal mercy of God That study indeed and that labour by which such a man in his solicitous endeavours is tired our before he can arrive at the grace of Christ I acknowledge for humane and that it is subject to the Law but that righteousness which one acquireth by this study is not as yet that righteousness which is prevalent in Gods sight for this is at last after the Law constituted in us by Christ First therefore a man must labour under the rigour of the Law even to the highest perfection of himself and to the greatest innocency he possibly can yet when all this is done the Soul is to feel at length the judgment of God and seeing it cannot possibly abide therein it falls manifestly down into death and then at length is it by Christ raised again into the life of the Spirit But now the acknowledgment of the righteousness of God in common is by the Church which is nearer to us proposed in such a manner as this That God thorough and by Christ crecteth salvation meerly without any addition of works which I grant But because these under the law obtained no righteousness by the benefit of Works there being put no study or rigour therefore they also cannot for Christ sake renounce nor forsake their goods seeing as yet they had gained none For they would have them renounce what they have not but in the interim they suffer loss also in that which they have not yet arrived at That therefore which they say is true but it is not rightly apply'd by them as all the Scripture doth demonstrate that it is by their own faults that they come not to the truth Nevertheless I am unwilling to deny unto them all grace for their portion and according to the measure of their gifts seeing that they study with all their might for Christ and by the help of the Scripture do hear somewhat of him provided they be faithful in what they acknowledge and that to the utmost He that neglects this is condemned by his own proper judgment EPIST. XXI The difference between Repentance and Regeneration in relation to a little book of Diederick Phillips which was printed concerning the New Creature To. J. W. DEarest John that acknowledgment of Diederick Phillips concerning the New Creature I do partly own for truth if it be not stretched further then it reacheth viz. that it can according to the testimony of Scripture lead to Repentance and to lead a pious life But if that Repentance and life so corrected thereby he would have to be put for the New Creature whilst yet the Conscience is still under the burden of sins then is it erroneous for whilst that no death hath as yet happened and still sin lieth so powerfully in the whole man that by means of an accusation it often driveth the soul into sadness the Soul is yet under the Law for by the Law in our consciences we are convinced of sin And though a man may force into silence that accusation and that burden of sin that tormenteth our conscience and that by Scripture-promises and so comfort himself yet it must be confessed that then he still abides in the state of the old Man and is not yet arrived at the death of it For the New Creature is not subject to sin therefore also no accusation of the Law in the Conscience can touch it for then a man liveth wholly under grace and his mind stands in no need to be sustained by the external comforts of the Scriptures or also by the absolution from sins according to the testimony of Scripture it should bring forth to him a greater confidence for his life is in the Spirit and consisteth under the Law of the grace of God wherefore also the conscience in its purity enjoyeth the highest peace remaining sealed by the Holy-Ghost but in them who are still under conscience the Law of sin still exerciseth its power and conscience doth still accuse perpetually for some sins so that it hence appears openly that such are not yet dead to the Law because the accusation of the Law doth still remain in its power so long as by the transgression of the Law somewhat is committed against conscience and though we will not confess that we are under the Law or under the accusation thereof notwithstanding that there can be no accusation but by virtue of the Law still reigning here or there yet is the thing manifest by conscience its self which thorough an accusation for sin rendreth us guilty If therefore we could stand in purity by the blood of Christ according to the inward man then indeed the Law by its virtue which it hath in the Conscience thorough sin durst not so assault the Soul of a man as that he must seek comfort out of the Scriptures and to be reconciled with God and to be confirmed by