Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	peace_n	spirit_n	unity_n	1,812	5	8.9331	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42813	Essays on several important subjects in philosophy and religion by Joseph Glanvill ...	Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680.	1676 (1676)	Wing G809; ESTC R22979	236,661	346

to dissenters and prevent all vehemencies of captious dispute all schisms and unnecessary separations and many Wars and Persecutions upon the account of Religion For if the things in which Men differ be not Religion be not Faith and Fundamental If this be true and this truth acknowledg'd All these would want pretence and so Peace and Vnity would possess the spirits of Men. They saw that Religion which was shaken by divisions and rendred suspected of uncertainty through the mixture of uncertain things would stand safe and firm when 't was lay'd only upon the plain infallible undoubted propositions That holiness would thrive when Mens zeal was taken off from talking and disputing against others and directed inwards to the government of themselves and the reformation of their own hearts and lives That Papism which in those times of distraction began to spread even here would drop to the ground if it were believed That the necessary principles of Religion were few and plain and those agreed on For then there would be no need of an Infallible Interpreter and Judge I say They were sensible that all the great Interests of Religion and Mankind might be served by the acknowledgment of this one Reasonable Principle which they saw was the only way to bring us to stability and consistence ●…o Peace and Vnion In Consequence of this Spirit and Doctrine they discours'd the things wherein they differ'd from others with mildness and modesty without anger and damning sentences and afforded their converses to all sorts of good Men though they believ'd them mistaken They never exprest rage in their conversations or discourses against bare errours and mistakes of judgment But for the pride and confidence censoriousness and groundless separations that are the frequent attendants of different opinions These sometimes mov'd them to anger and expression of just resentment because they look'd on them as great Immoralities and very pernicious sins And on the occasion of these spiritual vices they were warmed with zeal against the Sectaries and Bigots for the taking down of whose pride and confidence They thought it necessary to detect the Impostors and to expose their vanities which they did successfully and shew'd That their Divinity consisted most in Phrases and their boasted spirituality in fond affections That their new lights were but freakish fancies and old Heresies revived and the precious Mysteries of their Theology but conceited absurdities and non-sense in a fantastick dress They happily drew the parallel between our Separatists and those antient ones the Pharisees and proved that the same spirit acted the Ataxites that govern'd those Jewish Fanaticks And because their pretences were taking and specious and had caught great numbers of the easie well meaning people of Bensalem Therefore to disabuse them they labour'd much to shew the shortness of their kind of Godliness and the danger of placing all Religion in Praying Hearing Zeal Rapture Mysteries and Opinions Accordingly they declar'd and prov'd That 1. Fluency and Pathetick eloquence in suddain Prayer may proceed and doth many time from excited passion and warm imagination from a peculiar temper and heated melancholly That these are no sign that a man prays by the spirit nor do they argue him to be one jot the better then those that want the faculty or any whit the more accepted of God for it That to pray by the spirit is to pray with Faith Desire and Love and that a Man may pray by the spirit and with a Form 2. That people may delight to hear from other causes then conscience and a desire to be directed in the government of their Lives That hearing is very grateful to some because it feeds their opinions and furnisheth their tongues and inables them to make a great shew of extraordinary Saint-ship They represented that meer animal Men and fond lovers of themselves may be much taken with hearing of the Gracious promises and Glorious priviledges of the Gospel when at the same time they are told they are all theirs and theirs peculiarly and exclusively to the rest of Mankind That pride and vanity and self-love will recommend and indear such preaching That it is most luscious to fond and conceited men to hear how much better and more precious they are then their Neighbours how much dearer to God and more favour'd by him what an interest they have in free distinguishing Grace and how very few have a share in it besides themselves How their enemies are hated of God and how sad a condition they are in who differ from them in practices and opinions To doat on such preaching and admiringly to follow such Preachers They shew'd was but to be in love with flattery and self-deceit That it was no sign of Godliness but an evident argument of pride malice and immoderate selfishness That these are the true causes of the zeal and earnestness of many after Sermons and of the pleasure that they have in hearing though they would perswade others and believe themselves that the love of Religion and sence of duty are the only motives that prevail with them 3. Concerning zeal They taught That zeal in it self is indifferent and made good or bad as it's objects and incentives are That meer education and custom natural conscience and particular complexion do sometimes make Men very zealous about things of Religion That though the fervours of the Ataxites for their Doctrines and ways were not all feigned but real and sincere Yet their zeal was nothing worth being but meer natural passion kindled by a fond delight in their own self chosen practices and opinions That their coldness to the great known necessary duties of Justice Charity Obedience Modesty and Humility was an evident sign that their heat for pretended Orthodox tenents and modes of worship had nothing Divine in it That true zeal begins at home with self-reformation and that where it was imployed altogether about amendments of external Religion and publick Government it was pernicious not only to the World but to a Mans self also 4. And because the heights of zeal ran up sometimes into raptures and exstacies which were look'd on as wonderful appearances of God in the thus transported persons Therefore here also They undeceived the people as I said in the general before by shewing That these alienations may be caused naturally by the power of a strong fancy working upon violent affections That they together may and do oft produce deliquiums of sense That the Imagination working then freely and without contradiction or disturbance from the external senses and being wholly imploy'd about Religious matters may form to it self strange Images of extraordinary apparitions of God and Angels of Voices and Revelations which being forcibly imprest on the fancy may beget a firm belief in the exstaticall person that all these were divine manifestations and discoveries and so he confidently thinks himself a Prophet and an inspired Man and vents all his conceits for Seraphick truths and holy Mysteries And by the vehemency

Theology and was counted the only Spiritual Doctrine In those days Men were taught that we are justifi'd only by the Jmputed Righteousness of Christ by which they said we are formally Righteous That Faith justifi'd only as it laid hold of that as they phrased it and that Inherent Righteousness was to be renounc'd and had nothing to do here These were the great dear Mysteries of their Theology that season'd all their Doctrines and Instructions which by this means also were rendred exceedingly fanciful and dangerous Therefore in this likewise those Divines interposed and demonstrated the vanity and mischief of such fulsome and groundless Conceits They stated the true and warrantable sense in which Christ's Righteousness is imputed viz. Metonymically and as to Effects That is That for the sake of his Righteousness God was pleas'd to pardon Penitents and to deal with them upon their Faith and sincere Obedience as if they had been Righteous themselves Not as if he past false and mistaken Judgements and looked on Christ's Righteousness as really and properly theirs but that for his sake He pardon'd their sins and accepted of their personal imperfect righteousness as if it had been perfect They shew'd that this account was agreeable to Scripture and the Analogy of sound Faith and Practice and that the other sense was no-where deliver'd in the holy Oracles but was a meer imagination contrary to the Attributes of God and to the Doctrines and designs of the Gospel and exceedingly pernicious to Christian Life and Vertue They alledg'd that Christ's Righteousness is no-where in Scripture said to be imputed That he is no otherwise made Righteousness to us then he is made Sanctification and Redemption that is He is the great Author and procurer of them and that in that sense he is the Lord our Righteousness They took notice how that by this odd Fanatick principle Personal Righteousness was undermin'd and disparaged and one of the first things the people were taught was to renounce their own Righteousness without restriction or limitation in which Counsel there is much shew of humility but much non-sense and much danger if it be not deliver'd and taken in a cautious sense For the Apostles and primitive Believers never renounc'd any Righteousness but that of the Mosaical dispensation in which some of them had gloried much before their conversion But after it were convinc'd It was nothing worth and counted it as dross and dung in respect of that Righteousness that Christ taught They never disparaged real inward Righteousness Yea they took ground of confidence and rejoycing from it viz. from the simplicity and sincerity of their conversation from their having a good Conscience in all things from their stedfastness amidst Tribulations and patience in their Sufferings and they plainly tell us That Religion was doing Righteousness and consisted in visiting the Widow and Fatherless and being unspotted with the World in denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts and living soberly righteously and Godly They warn us to beware of those deceivers that would perswade a man may be righteous withou●… doing righteously yea they declare the promises to be entail'd upon those that by patient continuance in well-doing seek for Glory and Immortality But said He I forget my self and run out too far into this Discourse in which I suppose I need not inform you the Scriptures being so full in it Here I took liberty to move a Question and ask'd him Whether those Divines did teach or allow Mens relying and depending on their own inward Vertues or outward Works To this he said They had not the least imagination that there was either Merit or Perfection in our qualifications or performances but that in those respects they renounc'd their own righteousness and obedience That they acknowledg'd and declared that our highest best services could never deserve the divine notice or acceptance by any worthiness in them But then added He They said also that Christ's obedience was Perfect and Meritorious and that God was so well satisfied with it that for his sake he promised to pardon the failings of our duties and to accept of Sincerity instead of Perfection That on this account our short defective righteousness was receiv'd as if it had been adaequate and compleat we being through Christ under a Covenant of Grace and Pardon and our obedience not judg'd according to strict measures and proportions but by the rules of mercy and favour Thus they stated that matter clearly and struck at the root of Antinomian follies and impostures ANd because Morality was despised by those elevated Fantasticks that talk'd so much of Imputed Righteousness in the false sense and accounted by them as a dull and low thing therefore those Divines labour'd in the asserting and vindicating of this Teaching the necessity of Moral Vertues That Christianity is the highest improvement of them That the meer first-table Religion is nothing without the works of the second That Zeal and Devoutness and delight in Hearing Prayer and other externals of worship may be in very evil men That Imitation and Custom and Pride and Self-love may produce these That these are no more then the Forms of Godliness That the power of it consists in subduing self-will and ruling our passions and moderating our appetites and doing the works of real Righteousness towards God and our Neighbour And because there was a Religion that had got into credit that did not make Men better but worse in all relations worse Governours and worse Subjects and worse Parents and worse Neighbours more sower and morose and fierce and censorious Therefore They prest Men to consider That the design of Religion was to perfect humane Nature To restore the empire of our minds over the will and affections To make them more temperate and contented in reference to themselves and more humble meek courteous charitable and just towards others On such things as these performed sincerely by the assistance and encouragement of Faith in Christ and from a desire to be ruled by his Laws they lay'd the whole stress ANd being the Age was unhappily dispos'd to place much Religion in their conceited Orthodoxy and Systems of Opinion to the destruction of Charity and Peace To the dissetlement of Religion and great hinderance of real Godliness They therefore zealously decryed this superstition of Opinions and smartly reproved Disputings and eagerness of contest about Notions and lesser Truths Shewing the inconveniencies and mischiefs of that spirit and it's inconsistency with Charity and the peace of Mankind They perswaded modestly in all extraessential Doctrines and suspence of judgement in things that were not absolutely certain and readiness to pardon the mistakes of those that differ from us in matters of speculation In order hereunto They made this one of their main Doctrines That The principles which are necessary to Salvation are very few and very plain and generally acknowledg'd among Christians This they taught and were earnest in it because they saw it would secure Charity