Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	old_a	youth_n	zeal_n	13	3	7.5277	4	false

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

may my Nephews exercise themselves the most they can in those endeavours that they may learn to repress their youthful and inordinate affections and appetites which will without doubt spring up in them at their own season The Lord seasonably grant to them to own the witness of their conscience against all these that being kept safe from them all they may never consent to any depraved inclination EPIST. XIX That there is a certain especial difference between the exalted rational Zeal and the Zeal that is pure and Christian To the same Person My Dr I Have recommended thy case and purpose to the Lord who can safely keep us all by his Grace and shew to us our errors for though we are for that purpose subjected to sufferings yet nothing is more wholsom for us than a discovery of our spots and defects which is not wont to be done without our indignation and opposition But if the Spirit of Christ must restore and enliven us all then plainly must there be no place left in us for bitterness of spirit against any one For this is alone the Doctrine of Christ Learn of me for I am meek and humble in heart For all hearts that are puffed up are in his time to be brought low even as alas we find it in many The Lord keep us most miserable worms for I never am frighted with greater horror than when behold my self The natural man scratcheth to himself by appropriating to him self all things whatsoever God bestows upon him out of free grace so that all thing also which are in themselves pure by this appropriation become as it were infected with poyson Now if Nature were deadned and the understanding purified then indeed such usages of Gods gifts would not be so multiplied But now that evi● which we call I is so great and our corrupt Nature through its own self-pleasing is so faln and sunk into its own self that we wait not for the time of trials with some difficulties and rest●●int and prayer together with a hope 〈◊〉 the promises of God to be fulfilled in a fit season as it hath been foretold by the Lord. The Lord be mindful of wretched me that write thus and be helpful to thee according to his own and not according to my will I also very earnestly intreat thee that thou take not in bad part this my freedom in writing to thee for my mind never desisteth from having a kindness for thee But high pride of heart and a contemning esteem of our Neighbour as also the doing him injury never is allowed a place in the Christian State but rather that which hath a fair shew of some sort of Zeal that is natural mixed with Mosaical rigour For nothing hath appeared in Christ but meer sufferings and death silence and patience even to the Cross upon which even to the last gasp of his life he signalized his obedience in which he was subjected to his Father withour murmuring also that his Majesty of his eternal Godhead he did not take up again as he might have done but rather bore in himself humanity and imbecility and abiding in hu●●●ty and contempt even to the very death he was crowned with Victory For if the external assaults of his enemies could have moved the internal nature of his eternal birth then indeed that which is immovable could have been moved by some outward violence even as alas it most commonly happneth to us that our whole humanity is shocked inwardly and outwardly when yet we do think it to be the zeal of the Lord. But before we can come to the purity of these motions as it manifested it self in Christ against them who dishonoured God and profaned his Temple certainly there are many things to be eradicated out of our fleshly part if we would be thought to be wholly burning in zeal of spirit But as I hope the Lord will in his time manifest these things to us more clearly for when we are grown old we must carry so no things with great pains which whils● youth flour sheth with a flaming zeal we cannot own and undertake Because all that is talked of death and dying to young persons they cannot in good truth come to them seeing that their bones and marrow are alwaies full of all fleshliness with that fervent vigour together with a full strength of the growing faculty and voluptuous tendency which for the sake of its own power and the glory of self-will is wont to oppose it self to God But then if any one proceed further and draweth forth all his strength even unto the top of all his age then comes decreasing that we are unwillingly lead into the will of God by a manifest other process and then those judgments seem to hang over us which once we decreed to others and that youthful life free and wanton swelling with zeal is now by the just judment of God under the decreasings of old age condemned to death but then at length succeeds understanding and discretion together with continual sufferings in the ways of the Lord even unto our death and the proper sentence pronounced to us for just as all that ought to dye that is possessed of life also is that matter here For God alone if he be truly in us is conjoyned with death but not with our life because no flesh how pure so ever it be can abide in his sight For whatever shined forth externally in Christ even that by a like death must be done inwardly in us if so be we are willing in the resurrection to be incorporated into a communion of his glory Otherwise we stick only but in the flesh of Christ though glorious contemplating alone the life of Christ's humanity not yet glorified but we hinder the growth of that fruit which through the death of Christ in the resurrection by the supernatural birth and a new life is poured forth into us with eternal grace The Lord open my mind to you for here I acknowledge my understanding to be too weak and slender EPIST. XX. An acknowledgment concerning the disputation held at Francfort between John Calvin and Justus Velsius of the power of Man or of free-will To A. G. THe Grace of our Lord and his mercy be upon thee and on all those who fear the Lord and seek his truth Most beloved A. concerning what thou didst write to me about that dispute held at Franckfort betwixt Velsius and Calvin my opinion is That Velsius did stumble therein whilst he attributed too much to the power of man for humane power is judged and condemned by the Lord if it be before a man is made partaker of the divine birth because what is new born is of God and not of man it is eternal and immortal even as he is who begat it But on the contrary Calvin failed in that point wherein he rejected all the powers of man universally which indeed I allow to be true unless that I also judge that that knowledge

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