Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	service_n	spirit_n	worship_v	1,834	5	8.9813	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34538	The kingdom of God among men a tract of the sound state of religion, or that Christianity which is described in the holy Scriptures and of the things that make for the security and increase thereof in the world, designing its more ample diffusion among the professed Christians of all sorts and its surer propagation to future ages : with The point of church-unity and schism discuss'd / by John Corbet.	Corbet, John, 1620-1680.	1679 (1679)	Wing C6258; ESTC R23940	125,145	296

inherent righteousness by which the faithful are truly named righteous not only before men but in the judgment of God himself and which can be no more without good works then the sun without light That this is so perfect as not to lack any thing necessary to the true nature of righteousness nor to be maimed in any principal part thereof though in respect of degrees and some accidental parts it be imperfect That the faithful cannot by this inherent righteousness abide the strict tryal of divine justice but they are acquited from the guilt of sin and their deserved punishment by the meer grace of God in Christ. That Christs righteousness is so far bestowed on believers and made theirs that in the merit and consideration thereof they are freed from the curse of the Law and the condemnation of hell are justified unto eternal life and adopted to the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom And imputed righteousness in this sense cannot be gain-said That no faith is justifying but that which works by love and brings forth the fruit of good works That the condition of the new covenant for the remission of sins and everlasting life is faith alone not as excluding repentance and new obedience but as excluding the works of the Law or legal covenant and this is no derogation from the freest grace That the faithful keep the commandments of God and in some sense may be said to fulfill the Law that is not in the strictness of the covenant of works but in the observance of duty without reserves in the sincerity of love towards God and man as the Scripture saith love is the fulfilling of the Law That obedience every way perfect is required of the faithfull as their duty but not under the penalty of eternal death yet under that penalty they are obliged to sincere obedience That good works have relation to eternal life as the means to the end in that manner as the seed to Havest as the race and combat to the Prize as the work to the Reward not according to equality or condignity or merit strictly so called but according to free compact or congruity That the faithfull may be assured of their own justification by a true fixed persuasion that excludes hesitation and suspense and causeth holy security peace and joy and that they ought to labour for such assurance which ariseth partly from the divine promises and partly from the sense of their own infeigned faith That though godliness stands not in absolute perfection yet it stands in that integrity of heart and life an indubitable evidence whereof cannot be had without a very carefull and close walking with God and continued earnest endeavours of perfecting holiness in his fear That all human actions must have an actual or habitual reference to Gods glory and that all things are to be done in the best manner for that end That notwithstanding the power of divine grace which works mightily in Gods chosen whosoever will be saved must watch and pray and strive and bestow his chiefest care and pains therein and so continue to the end and particularly in the constant exercise not of a Popish outside formal but a Spiritual and real mortification and self denial in continual dependance on Gods grace who worketh in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure In the positions aforegoing all nice obscure perplexed and unnecessary notions are avoided and the plain sense of Gospel doctrine is attended This simplicity and plainess makes the truth much more intelligible and less controvertible where a multitude of nice terms and notions are vain and hurtfull superfluities that muffle the truth and cloud mens judgments and multiply controversies and cause much confusion CHAP. III. The due ordering of Gospel Worship FOrasmuch as divine Worship is the first and nearest act of Piety and aims immediately at the glorifying of Gods name and the keeping of the soul devoted to him the due ordering thereof must needs be one of the highest concernments of true religion Whereupon such an order thereof must needs be most desirable as hath most tendency to exalt the honour of Gods name and to advance the souls pure devotion And doubtless that hath most tendency thereunto which is most according to the nature and will of God Notwithstanding the fetches of mens wit in commending their will-worship God best knows what service will please him best and do us most good It becomes us neither to contemn Gods authority in the neglect of his institutions nor to controle his wisdom in the addition of vain inventions And this will bring us into the way of a reasonable service most acceptable to God and profitable to our selves In the fulness of time our Lord Christ being to establish a more perfect way than what had been before lays this foundation God is a Spirit and they that worship him must Worship him in Spirit and truth Accordingly he antiquated the old legal form great in outward furniture and visible spendor but comparatively small in substance and inward power and instituted an other of a far different strain wherein the rituals and externals are few and plain but their substance and inward power is great and mighty And when he abrogated former things which for their time had the stamp of divine authority because they suited not with the Gospel state and were in a comparative sense called carnal ordinances that were not good doubtless it was not his mind and will that men should erect new frames of their own devising after the similitude of those old things that are passed away To worship God in the Spirit after the simplicity that is in Christ according to the Gospel dispensation as it is most agreeable to the nature of the divine Majesty which is Worshipped and best fitted to glorifie him as God indeed so it is also most efficacious to make the Worshippers more knowing in religion more holy and heavenly in Spirit and conversation and every way more perfect in things pertaining to life and godliness Irreverence rudeness sordidness or any kind of negligence in the outward service of God is not here commended under the simplicity and Spirituality of Gospel worship Due regard must be had to all those matters of decency the neglect whereof would render the Service undecent such as are convenient places of assembling commonly called Churches comely furniture and convenient utensils therein a grave habit not of special sanctity but of civil decency for a Minister all which should not be vile and beggarly but gracefull and seemly likewise a well composed countenance and reverent gesture is requisite in all that present themselves before the Lord. Sitting or lolling or covering the head or having the hat half-way on in prayer is among us unseemly except natural infirmity call for indulgence herein but laughing talking gazing about in our attendance on religious exercises is no better than profaneness and to come into the congregation walking with our hats on

Spiritual strain which is most agreeable to the things of the Spirit of God and which as coming from life and Spirit is better discerned than described There is a speaking not in words which mans wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth And though this more eminently took place in the Apostles and such other extraordinary persons yet there is no sufficient reason to restrain it to them alone St. Paul may well be understood to speak of this as a gift received by them that had received not the Spirit of the world but that which is of God and as something suted to the perception and taste of all Spiritual men It doth not exclude the use of human wisdom though the wisdom of the Spirit sway in chief For no doubt even Paul's human learning and prudence was herein serviceable though in subserviency to the influence and conduct of the Spirit This Spirituality of expression is conformable to that of the Spirit of God in Scripture though not confined to the words thereof Surely the mysteries of Salvation cannot be better handled than in those terms in which they were first delivered to wit in Scripture expressions or others consonant thereto solidly and pertinently used and to call this canting savours to much of that Spirit to which holy language is unsavory Without controversie the strongest reason is of greatest force to gain the wills of men to imbrace true Religion For that which crosseth sensuality selfishness and all the depraved appetite of our lapsed nature as Religion doth must needs have its greatest strength next under the power of divine grace in the force of right reason But care and skill is requisite that it be so prepared offered and set home that it may be sutable to them that should receive it and that the cogency thereof may so reach unto and fasten upon their judgments as to gain their wills Philosophical ratiocinations are too remote not only from low and dull capacities but also from the greater part of them that are competently apprehensive and intelligent and so being too much estranged from them they do not touch them to the quick A familiar natural plain and obvious way of reasoning comes home to all men and is most felt at the heart and that by Scholars themselves though their intellect may be more delighted in more accurate or reserved Speculations Scriptural preaching is indeed the most rational as coming with such reason as is of greatest force with men in matters of Salvation For Gods written word is a treasure of divine wisdom that throughly furnisheth the man of God Besides the infallible testimony thereof hath more authority than Philosophical reason though sound and true can have upon Christian hearers and it peirceth deeper and sticks closer And arguments taken and words spoken from Scripture wherewith the people converse dayly are more easily apprehended and retained and so are more instructive and every way more usefull than other reasonings Though numerous citations of sentences out of human Authors be an unprofitable kind of ostentation yet the Sentences of Holy Writ which is the evidence of our Christian hope and the testimony of him who is truth it self are most effectual to edification And whosoever is able to speak reason in divine matters is to make a rational use of Scripture and if any quote it impertinently and absurdly it is through defect of reason and they would be as injudicious in their Sermons without those quotations But nice and haughty wits mostly cavil without cause and charge profitable Preachers with injudiciousness meerly through their own vain curiosity and inconsiderateness Scripture quotations are sometimes used by way of allusion or for illustration not for strict proof and that which is brought for proof if it be not full and cogent yet it may add some weight and then it is not abused Besides if a passage be used in a sound and pious though not in its proper sense it is pardonable It is fit indeed that in citing Texts we know their true import and go more by weight than number shunning impertinency and superfluity yet it is not unfit to note that all sound and good Preachers are not alike judicious and those that are very solid may be guilty of some oversights and 't is a bad matter that their Ministery which God hath owned and honoured with good success in his Service should be set at nought for a few mistakes perhaps more pretended than real about the sense of some Scripture when it is not applyed otherwise than the Analogy of faith will bear and nothing is defended but known truth I have known a pious but strangely mistaken sense of a Scripture sentence cast into the mind and there fixed to have been the first occasion of seriousness in Religion to one that afterward lived and dyed a godly Christian. Now that which was causal in this conversion was the godly truth it self which was written in Gods word and the mistaking it to lie in such a sentence where it did not being but accidental was no hinderance I do in no wise countenance the irrational use of Scripture but am sensible of the importance of good judgment and due care about the sense thereof yet I cannot approve the scornful haughtiness of some men who deride godly persons well instructed in the Scripture as having nothing but words and Phrases and senseless notions either because they come short of Scholar-like exactness or because they speak of the things of God in a more Evangelicall and Spiritual strain than these can well bear In speaking the best use of art is to speak to best purpose and for that end in divine matters to speak with greatest Majesty and authority And this is done not by ostentation of wit by puerile and effeminate rhetorications by a rapsody of flanting words by starched speech by cadency of sounds or any too elaborate politeness that please the shallow fancy but by the evidence of reason set forth in a masculine and unaffected Eloquence that hath power over the wills of men which are tough and knotty peices Perspicuity is a great vertue and felicity in discourse for hereby what is offered gains attention and enters the mind and abides therein but intricacy and obscurity is a bar to its entrance and entertainment Hereunto an easie and obvious method evident coherence and plainness of expression conduceth mainly Wherefore he that minds what he hath to do is not careful by a more curious artifice to please the fancies of some itching hearers but hath most regard to that composure that makes most for a general benefit and edification And for this cause as he would not multiply words without need and become tedious so he would not be too succinct and close and by that means either too dark or too quick to inform or effect the people In vulgar auditories a dilating of the matter is most necessary so that idle tautologies and prolixity be avoided and it may be