Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	worship_n	worship_v	wrought_v	43	3	7.9967	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48888	The reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures	Locke, John, 1632-1704.	1695 (1695)	Wing L2751; ESTC R22574	121,736	314

in their Duties and bring them to do them than by Reasoning with them from general Notions and Principles of Humane Reason And were all the Duties of Humane Life clearly demonstrated yet I conclude when well considered that Method of teaching men their Duties would be thought proper only for a few who had much Leisure improved Understandings and were used to abstract Reasonings But the Instruction of the People were best still to be left to the Precepts and Principles of the Gospel The healing of the Sick the restoring sight to the Blind by a word the raising and being raised from the Dead are matters of Fact which they can without difficulty conceive And that he who does such things must do them by the assistance of a Divine Power These things lye level to the ordinariest Apprehension He that can distinguish between sick and well Lame and sound dead and alive is capable of this Doctrine To one who is once perswaded that Jesus Christ was sent by God to be a King and a Saviour of those who do believe in him All his Commands become Principles There needs no other Proof for the truth of what he says but that he said it And then there needs no more but to read the inspired Books to be instructed All the Duties of Morality lye there clear and plain and easy to be understood And here I appeal whether this be not the surest the safest and most effectual way of teaching Especially if we add this farther consideration That as it suits the lowest Capacities of Reasonable Creatures so it reaches and satisfies Nay enlightens the highest And the most elevated Understandings cannot but submit to the Authority of this Doctrine as Divine Which coming from the mouths of a company of illiterate men hath not only the attestation of Miracles but reason to confirm it Since they delivered no Precepts but such as though Reason of it self had not clearly made out Yet it could not but assent to when thus discovered And think itself indebted for the Discovery The Credit and Authority our Saviour and his Apostles had over the minds of Men by the Miracles they did Tempted them not to mix as we find in that of all the Sects of Philosophers and other Religions any Conceits any wrong Rules any thing tending to their own by-interest or that of a Party in their Morality No tang of prepossession or phansy No footsteps of Pride or Vanity Ostentation or Ambition appears to have a hand in it It is all pure all sincere Nothing too much nothing wanting But such a compleat Rule of Life as the wisest Men must acknowledge tends entirely to the good of Mankind And that all would be happy if all would practise it 3. The outward forms of Worshipping the Deity wanted a Reformation Stately Buildings costly Ornaments peculiar and uncouth Habits And a numerous huddle of pompous phantastical cumbersome Ceremonies every where attended Divine Worship This as it had the peculiar Name so it was thought the principal part if not the whole of Religion Nor could this possibly be amended whilst the Jewish Ritual stood And there was so much of it mixed with the Worship of the True God To this also our Saviour with the knowledge of the infinite invisible supream Spirit brought a Remedy in a plain spiritual and suitable Worship Iesus says to the Woman of Samaria The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father But the True Worshippers shall worship the Father both in Spirit and in Truth For the Father seeketh such to worship To be Worshipped in Spirit and in Truth With application of Mind and sincerity of Heart was what God henceforth only required Magnificent Temples and confinement to certain Places were now no longer necessary for his Worship Which by a Pure Heart might be performed any where The splendor and distinction of Habits and pomp of Ceremonies and all outside Performances might now be spared God who was a Spirit and made known to be so required none of those but the Spirit only And that in publick Assemblies where some Actions must lie open to the view of the World All that could appear and be seen should be done decently and in order and to Edification Decency Order and Edification were to regulate all their publick Acts of Worship And beyond what these required the outward appearance which was of little value in the Eyes of God was not to go Having shut out indecency and confusions out of their Assemblies they need not be solicitous about useless Ceremonies Praises and Prayer humbly offered up to the Deity was the Worship he now demanded And in these every one was to look after his own Heart And know that it was that alone which God had regard to and accepted 4. Another great advantage received by our Saviour is the great incouragement he brought to a virtuous and pious Life Great enough to surmount the difficulties and obstacles that lie in the way to it And reward the pains and hardships of those who stuck firm to their Duties and suffered for the Testimony of a good Conscience The Portion of the Righteous has been in all Ages taken notice of to be pretty scanty in this World Virtue and Prosperity do not often accompany one another And therefore Virtue seldom had many Followers And 't is no wonder She prevailed not much in a State where the Inconveniencies that attended her were visible and at hand And the Rewards doubtful and at a distance Mankind who are and must be allowed to pursue their Happiness Nay cannot be hindred Could not but think themselves excused from a strict observation of Rules which appeared so little to consist with their chief End Happiness Whilst they kept them from the enjoyments of this Life And they had little evidence and security of another 'T is true they might have argued the other way and concluded That Because the Good were most of them ill treated here There was another place where they should meet with better usage But 't is plain they did not Their thoughts of another Life were at best obscure And their expectations uncertain Of Manes and Ghosts and the shades of departed Men There was some talk But little certain and less minded They had the Names of Styx and Acheron Of Elisian fields and seats of the Blessed But they had them generally from their Poets mixed with their Fables And so they looked more like the Inventions of Wit and Ornaments of Poetry than the serious perswasions of the grave and the sober They came to them bundled up amongst their tales And for tales they took them And that which rendred them more suspected and less useful to virtue was that the Philosophers seldom set on their Rules on Men's Minds and Practises by consideration of another Life The chief of their Arguments were from the excellency of Virtue And the highest they generally went was the exalting of humane

True God our Saviour found the World But the clear Revelation he brought with him dissipated this Darkness made the One Invisible True God known to the World And that with such Evidence and Energy that Polytheism and Idolatry hath no where been able to withstand it But where ever the Preaching of the Truth he delivered and the Light of the Gospel hath come those Mists have been dispelled And in effect we see that since our Saviour's time the Belief of One God has prevailed and spread it self over the face of the Earth For even to the Light that the Messiah brought into the World with him we must ascribe the owning and Profession of One God which the Mahumetan Religion had derived and borrowed from it So that in this sense it is certainly and manifestly true of our Saviour what St. Iohn says of him I Iohn III. 8. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil This Light the World needed and this Light it received from him That there is but One God and he Eternal Invisible Not like to any visible Objects nor to be represented by them If it be asked whether the Revelation to the Patriarchs by Moses did not teach this and why that was not enough The Answer is obvious that however clearly the Knowledge of One Invisible God maker of Heaven and Earth was revealed to them Yet that Revelation was shut up in a little corner of the World amongst a People by that very Law which they received with it excluded from a Commerce and Communication with the rest of mankind The Gentile World in our Saviour's time and several Ages before could have no Attestation of the Miracles on which the Hebrews built their Faith but from the Iews themselves A People not known to the greatest part of mankind Contemned and thought vilely of by those Nations that did know them And therefore very unfit and unable to propagate the Doctrine of One God in the World and diffuse it through the Nations of the Earth by the strength and force of that Ancient Revelation upon which they had received it But our Saviour when he came threw down this Wall of Partition And did not confine his Miracles or Message to the Land of Canaan or the Worshippers at Ierusalem But he himself preached at Samaria and did miracles in the Borders of Tyre and Sydon and before multitudes of People gathered from all Quarters And after his Resurrection sent his Apostles amongst the Nations accompanied with Miracles which were done in all Parts so frequently and before so many Witnesses of all sorts in broad day-light that as I have often observed the Enemies of Christianity have never dared to deny them No not Iulian himself Who neither wanted Skill nor Power to enquire into the Truth Nor would have failed to have proclaimed and exposed it if he could have detected any falshood in the History of the Gospel or found the least ground to question the Matter of Fact published of Christ and his Apostles The Number and Evidence of the Miracles done by our Saviour and his Followers by the power and force of Truth bore down this mighty and accomplished Emperour and all his Parts in his own Dominions He durst not deny so plain Matter of Fact Which being granted the truth of our Saviour's Doctrine and Mission unavoidably follows notwithstanding whatsoever Artful Suggestions his Wit could invent or Malice should offer to the contrary 2. Next to the Knowledge of one God Maker of all things A clear knowledge of their Duty was wanting to Mankind This part of Knowledge though cultivated with some care by some of the Heathen Philosophers Yet got little footing among the People All Men indeed under pain of displeasing the Gods were to frequent the Temples Every one went to their Sacrifices and Services But the Priests made it not their business to teach them Virtue If they were diligent in their Observations and Ceremonies Punctual in their Feasts and Solemnities and the tricks of Religion The holy Tribe assured them the Gods were pleased and they looked no farther Few went to the Schools of the Philosophers to be instructed in their Duties And to know what was Good and Evil in their Actions The Priests sold the better Pennyworths and therefore had all the Customs Lustrations and Processions were much easier than a clean Conscience and a steady course of Virtue And an expiatory Sacrifice that attoned for the want of it was much more convenient than a strict and holy Life No wonder then that Religion was every where distinguished from and preferred to Virtue And that it was dangerous Heresy and Prophaneness to think the contrary So much Virtue as was necessary to hold Societies together and to contribute to the quiet of Governments The Civil Laws of Commonwealths taught and forced upon Men that lived under Magistrates But these Laws being for the most part made by such who had no other aims but their own Power reached no farther than those things that would serve to tie Men together in subjection Or at most were directly to conduce to the Prosperity and Temporal Happiness of any People But Natural Religion in its full extent was no where that I know taken care of by the force of Natural Reason It should seem by the little that has hitherto been done in it That 't is too hard a thing for unassisted Reason to establish Morality in all its parts upon its true foundations with a clear and convincing light And 't is at least a surer and shorter way to the Apprehensions of the vulgar and mass of Mankind That one manifestly sent from God and coming with visible Authority from him should as a King and Law-maker tell them their Duties and require their Obedience Than leave it to the long and sometimes intricate deductions of Reason to be made out to them Which the greatest part of Mankind have neither leisure to weigh nor for want of Education and Use skill to judge of We see how unsuccessful in this the attempts of Philosophers were before our Saviour's time How short their several Systems came of the perfection of a true and compleat Morality is very visible And if since that the Christian Philosophers have much outdone them yet we may observe that the first knowledge of the truths they have added are owing to Revelation Though as soon as they are heard and considered they are found to be agreeable to Reason and such as can by no means be contradicted Every one may observe a great many truths which he receives at first from others and readily assents to as consonant to reason which he would have found it hard and perhaps beyond his strength to have discovered himself Native and Original truth is not so easily wrought out of the Mine as we who have it delivered ready dug and fashon'd into our hands are apt to imagine And how often at Fifty or Threescore years