Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A53750
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A true and lively representation of popery shewing that popery is only new-modell'd paganism, and perfectly destructive of the great ends and purposes of God in the Gospel.
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Owen, Thankfull, 1620-1681.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing O830; ESTC R18583
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46,596
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82
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their souls act with the greatest ease and pleasure and constancy and delight he designed by the promulgation of the Gospel 2. In the first place the utter Extirpation and rooting Idolatry out of the World For this is a sin so heynous and so derogatory to the Perfections of the Divine Nature that however it may be subtilized and refined by the crafty Patrons of it yet it doth most certainly thwart and cross that glorious purpose of God in making men like to himself And the reason of it is because it sinks mens minds too much into Body and Matter and so instead of purging their Souls from the gross affections and allurements of the Flesh it depresses and debases their thoughts to the lowest degree of Sensuality Now that when the Evangelical Dispensation should take place upon Earth all Idolatry was to be extirpated and destroyed the Prophets of old have clearly testified Isai 2.17 18 20. The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day and the Idols he shall utterly abolish In that day a man shall cast his Idols of Silver and his Idols of Gold which they made each one for himself to worship to the Moles and to the Bats That this Prophecy respects the times of the Messiah is acknowledged by the Jews themselves and may receive a further confirmation from the second and third Verses And it shall come to pass in the last days that the Mountain of the Lords House shall be established in the top of the Mountains and shall be exalted above the Hills and all Nations shall flow unto it For out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem i. e. That in the days of the Gospel which is frequently denoted in Scripture by the last times the worship of the true God shall take place and be established among all Nations and that this Evangelical Dispensation which should be carried and propagated over all the world should begin from Jerusalem where the Apostles of our Lord Jesus received their full and compleat Inauguration into this Office of preaching the Gospel by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them and then in that day all the false Gods and Images of the Heathens shall be utterly thrown asitle and men shall honour and worship the true God only and that in Spirit and in Truth And again Zephan 2.11 The Lord will be terrible unto them for he will famish all the Gods of the Earth and men shall worship him every one from his place even all the Isles of the Heathen i.e. God will abolish and destroy all the Idols and false Deities of the Heathen and all Nations shall be reduced to the worship of the true God the Creator of Heaven and Earth every one in his own Land so that men shall not need to go up to Jerusalem or be obliged to worship God here or there but as Christ speaks the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth And more plainly yet in Zech. 13.2 And it shall come to pass in that day saith the Lord of Hists that I will cut off the names of the Idols out of the Land and they shall no more be remembred and also I will cause the Prophets and the unclean Spirit to pass out of the Land And that this unclean Spirit which sollicited mankind to spiritual whoredome and fornication was chased out of all those parts of the world where the Gospel was preached by the Apostles and their immediate Successors is evident not only from Ecclesiastical story but from the complaints of the Heathen that since the Religion of Jesus prevailed their Oracles were silent and their Sacrifices were offer'd in vain to their phantastick Deities And that this was a main design of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus he himself assures us in his discourse with the Woman of Samaria Joh. 4.21 22 23 24. where when the Woman told our Saviour that the Samaritans worshipped in Mount Ephraim at Shiloh but that the Jews taught that God was to be worshipped only at Jerusalem v. 20. He replies Woman believe me the hour comes when ye shall neither in this Mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father Ye worship ye know not what we know what we worship for Salvation is of the Jews But the hour comes and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth for the Father seeks such to worship him God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth The most genuine Interpretation of which-seems to be given by that pious and learned Person Mr. Mede viz. that the Samaritans who worshipped in the Temple of Mount Gerizim though they worshipped the true God yet it was under the visible representation of a Dove and circumcised their Children in the name thereof therefore says Christ ye worship ye know not what i.e. ye worship the God of Israel indeed but 't is under a Corporeal Representation which is an argument you do not know him but God must be worshipped in Spirit and in Truth that is conceiving him as a Spirit and not under any visible shape Therefore Idolatry is a belying God and Idols are termed lyes Amos 2.4 Their lyes caused them to err And Jer. 16.19 Surely our Fathers have inherited lyes the Chaldee have worshipped a lye Our blessed Lord and Saviour coming into the world to correct what was amiss and to reform the manners of mankind and to introduce a more spiritual Religion than the Jewish was it is not to be thought but he would in the first place design the Eradication of Idolatry which so much debases the soul of man and dishonours the Supreme Deity by representing him in a gross and material way and likewise by giving his Incommunicable Excellencies and Perfections to a Creature Sure it is the Primitive Christians retained so clear and vigorous a sense of the heynousness of this sin and the perfect inconsistency of it with the spirituality of their Religion that they chose rather to endure all manner of torments and die a thousand deaths than in the least manner pollute their souls with so gross an immorality Pertinent hereunto is that observation which is made that in the first part of the Jewish Talmud which was made about 200 years after Christ there is no accusation or complaint brought against the Christians for this Idolatry of Image-worship but in the second part which was finished about the year 500. when the Church of Christ began to Paganize there and in all the Commentaries of the Rabbins published in the Tenth or Eleventh Age the Jews call the Christian Churches the Houses of Idolatry It being plain then that Christ Jesus came to eradicate Idolatry which both spoiled the nature of the soul by sinking it into matter and fearfully dishonoured the true and ever-living God I come now to shew wherein the Pagan Idolatry chiefly consisted which was in these two things
Imprimatur March 12. 1678 9. Guil. Jane R. P. D. Henr. Episc Lond. a Sac. Dom. A true and lively REPRESENTATION OF POPERY SHEWING That Popery is only New-modell'd PAGANISM AND Perfectly destructive of the great Ends and Purposes of God in the Gospel Jer. 10.2 Learn not the way of the Heathen Gal. 5.1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not intangled again with the yoke of bondage LONDON Printed by R. Everingham for W. Kettilby at the Bishops Head in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1679. A true and lively Representation of Popery THAT there is but one true way to Salvation is readily acknowledged by all that profess themselves Christians but whether this way lye on the right hand or on the left whether through the Church of Rome or in the Reformed Religion that is made a Question And though the Romanists with confidence enough vainly arrogate this to themselves as if there were no way to Heaven but by associating and joining in Communion with their Church and will hardly unless in a good mood allow a dying Protestant to be saved yet I doubt not but I have sufficiently made it appear by such evident and clear Demonstrations as are within the sphere and comprehension of an ordinary Capacity not only that the Reformed Religion is hugely agreeable and subservient to those Grand purposes of God in the Gospel for the Salvation of Mankind but that Popery is infinitely prejudicial and destructive of them And although considering the various Artifices and subtle Stratagems the Popish Emissaries make use of not only in gaining but confirming their new Proselytes I cannot hope to recover such as are already ensnared by them yet I may reasonably suppose that these few sheets if they chance to fall into the hands of some one or other who desires impartially to seek and embrace the Truth where-ever he meets with it or by what hand soever it be brought to him may be so fully perswaded and satisfied of the Goodness of the Protestant Religion and of the gross Impiety and Wickedness of the Popish as that whatever censure he pass upon this yet of the other he may say that God is in it of a truth 1. I consider therefore that the great End and Design of the Christian Religion is to form in men the sacred life and nature of God for so S. Peter assures us That those glorious and inestimable Promises which God through Christ was pleased to make to the World were designed to recover men from their Sins and Corruptions into a participation of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 And that we may not conceive and think this to be a mere airy Notion and an insignificant sound of Words our blessed Saviour himself expresses it by the name of The new Birth Except a man be born again And his Holy Apostle S. Paul styles it the New Creature Joh. 3.3 All which being of a like signification and respect denote a certain state and condition of life Gal. 6.15 to which men are brought by the Power and Grace of God in the Gospel whereby their hearts and minds are tuned into an universal Consent to Gods holy will That state of sin and misery into which all men by their first Prevarication and Rebellion are involved is nothing of the true nature of our Souls but an Extraneous and Adventitious thing a meer Usurpation upon the Lords Inheritance whereby the minds and spirits of Mankind are preternaturally forced against their proper bent and inclination and God by the Gospel comes to free them from this heavy Pressure and Bondage and quickens and invigorates their decayed Powers with a strong and potent endeavour towards a Restitution and Freedom And this Conatus or Effort whereby they endeavour to throw off their uneasie load is expressed and decypher'd in the Holy Scriptures by the Name of Spirit as in Rom. 8.1 where the Apostle puts an opposition between the Flesh and the Spirit and says they are two several Laws and States of Being the one tending wholly to the abasing and dishonouring and captivating the Soul to vile and low purposes and making it drudge like a Slave to promote an Animal and sensual life but the other being nothing but a Law of Holiness and Righteousness and consequently connatural to it endeavours the freeing it from all that violence and force used upon it And this very same active and enlivening Principle shall be so far quickned and invigorated by the assistance of God's Holy Spirit that it shall at last through his benign and powerful Influence break into a Flame and consume all Terrestrial Dregs and Incumbrances and immortalize these our dull and sluggish Bodies So the Divine Apostle tells us If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you Rom. 8.11 he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by the Spirit that dwelleth in you Now that this blessed frame and temper of mind may be raised and renewed in us God sent his Son into the World and he incites and encourages us to the attaining of so desirable a State by mighty and stupendious Promises suited and adapted to our best and highest Capacities and that we may not think the participation of the Divine Nature or the new Creature that is that constitution of mind and soul which the Gospel came to implant in us to be a thing which we can have no rational Idea or Conception of I shall give such a brief and comprehensive Character of it as that Eternal Wisdom has legibly engraven in the frame and contexture of the Christian Religion Thus therefore I conceive of it That it is a Holy Principle of Life and Power implanted in the Soul by the Spirit of God bringing every Thought Word and Action into conformity and obedience to the Divine Will and begetting such a natural and genuine sense of what is Holy and Righteous that it is as hard for a man truly possessed of this excellent nature to act contrary to it as to suffer a Discission of his bodily life and though we bear this precious Treasure in Earthen Vessels and it be surrounded with the frailties and infirmities of flesh and blood yet does it fill our minds with comfortable hopes and assurance that our mighty Saviour and Redeemer who expressed the greatness of his love by dying for us will perfectly release and set it free from the heavy pressure of those Earthly Bodies and at last Crown it with such a body of Light and Glory as he himself is possessed of in the highest Heavens This is indeed the main end and scope of the appearing of the Grace of God to the World and that the Son of God might take possession of his own Inheritance and effectually and fully accomplish the recovery of Mankind from the cruel Bondage of Sin and Satan into this so desirable a state of Liberty and Freedom wherein