Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	seek_v	spirit_n	worship_v	7,034	5	9.8542	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64835	Things worth thinking on, or, Helps to piety being remains of some meditations, experiences, and sentences &c. never published till now : and now are as an addition to them which were formerly made publick: together with a sermon entituled The beauty of holines / by Ralph Venning ...	Venning, Ralph, 1621?-1674.	1664 (1664)	Wing V227; ESTC R38004	77,776	241

23.9 Bathsheba was very beautiful to look upon but her sin was more her shame than that her praise You heard before how this Beauty of Holiness was prefer'd and had the commendation beyond that of the face Prov. 31.30 And the Apostle gives the holy hand the honour above all 1 Tim. 2.8 A white hand if not innocent a neat hand if not holy though adorned with never so many rings and bracelets makes no fair shew in the eyes of God though lifted up to him in Prayer 4. The Artificial beauty which is short of the Natural must therefore of necessity fall short of this which is Supernatural The Ornaments of Gold and Silver Garnishings with Precious Stones for Beauty as 2 Chron. 3.6 Modish garbs and dresses which often bewitch and dazle the beholders eyes and hath many times more beauty than the wearer is infinitely short of the beauty of holiness And therefore the glory of the Kings Daughter Psal 45.13 14. is not given to her clothing though of wrought gold nor to her rayment though of curious Needle-work but to her inner beauty which is holiness she was all glorious within viz. pure in heart and her beauty is in forgetting her fathers house and in worshipping her Lord and King who would then desire her beauty Psal 45.10 11. for such he seeks to worship him as do it in spirit and truth in the beauty of holiness So St. Paul tells us that the best ornaments are not broidered hair or gold or pearls or costly array but modesty shamefastness sobriety and good works which becometh women professing Godliness 1 Tim. 2.9 10. That without this is nothing at all but this though without that is all in all And so St. Peter also tells us 1 Pet. 3.3 4. that women should not reckon those outward ornaments their beauty but the hidden man of the heart that which is not corruptible a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price and that 's the praise we should be ambitious of viz. which is of God and not of men Rom. 2.29 To be drest to the approbation and admiration of men to be renowned for beauty and not to have the approbation of God will afford but cold comfort while we live and when we die And therefore to declare the thing as it is and to dis-abuse this mistaken World let me tell them that they do but mis-call and flatter these sublunary things when they attribute to them and adorn them with the fine words and specious titles of beauty and bravery delight and delicacy pleasure and prettiness honour and happiness alas these are but great fancies pompous shews glittering and gaudy nothings The rosiness of the most orient beauty the whistling of the most silken bravery the chinking of white and yellow dust alias gold and silver the sparkling glories which tempt and captivate the amorous the proud the covetous the ambitious sons of men will one day appear to be but the cheat of imagination and that they who have courted them have jugled themselves out of true happiness into a false one and have espoused themselves to a meer paultry vanity which if it be any thing is a something less than nothing as the Prophet phraseth it Isa 40.17 they will find by the disappointment of their hopes that they did but build Castles in the aire and their false joys will end in true miseries 5. Holiness far surmounts the Morality and half refined Vertues of Philosophers Morality is indeed a very lovely thing in its kind and is a great rarity among men 't were to be wisht there were as much among some Christians as there was among some Heathens Christians profess more than they did but they did more than many who are profest-Christians For this Christ loved the young man but yet 't was not enough the one thing necessary was wanting he was not sanctified There are many fine things that may glitter but be no gold good inclinations sweet dispositions ingenious behaviour seemingly vertuous conversations may make a fair shew in the flesh and yet they who own them may be in the flesh and so cannot please God Rom. 8.8 A complexional or a constitutional meekness c. may be no vertue which is a conquest over opposition Philosophical Vertue which they place in obeying and conforming to the Placits of wise men and dictates of Reason or performing vertuous acts for vertues sake may be far from holiness which is as I clear'd above a conformity to the will of God as such sub intuitu divinae voluntatis with respect to his will and an eye to his glory Education Art and Prudence may and do oblige to and produce effects very resembling and like to them that are religious but the sweetest innocency and most glorious acts if not the result and effect of union with Christ and the love of God will profit nothing 1 Cor. 13.1 2 3. Though such persons may seem too good to go to Hell yet without holiness they will not be found good enough to go to Heaven but the person may be condemnable when the acts may be by themselves considered capable of commendation See Matth. 7.21 22 23. Yet again as to this head To teach or learn Moral Vertues apart from Christ is to have them apart from Heaven they are indeed required of and to be practis'd by Christians but so is more than they and they as springing from the fountain directed by the rule and terminated in the glory of God in Christ Otherwise though we learn to conceal or disguise Ungodliness we shall never learn to be godly and every thing but being and living godly in Christ Jesus leaves us under the first Covenant which is too weak to save us Philosophy and Morality may make us civil and good men but they will never make us holy and good Christians And as Doctor M. Causabon well observes Christless discourses are to little purpose the truth is saith he the consideration of Christ laid aside though good language and excellency of wit may go far with some men to perswade and with all or most to please and delight yet bare vertue of it self all things soberly considered will prove generally but a weak plea and as Brutus at his death is said to have bemoan'd himself rather a Name or Word than reality 6. and Lastly The Beauty of holiness far exceeds and excells Pharisaical righteousness The Pharisees if you would take their word and believe of them as they conceited of themselves were righteous more than others and therefore despised others and bid them stand afar off as unclean in comparison of them the more holy but these were no incense only smoak in the nostrils of God They had so obtain'd upon the credulous and easily deluded Vulgar that they also thought them Gods darlings and favourites in so much that 't was Proverbial among the many That if but two went to Heaven the one would be a Pharisee Our