Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	believe_v	jesus_n	overcome_v	2,418	5	9.1811	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47046	Of the rule of faith a sermon at the visitation of the Right Reverend Father in God, William Lord Bishop of Lincolne, holden at Bedford August 5, 1674 / by William Jackson ...	Jackson, William, 1636 or 7-1680.	1675 (1675)	Wing J95; ESTC R16801	18,948	43

Print in the frequent Meetings of Dissenters and other ways Opinions so repugnant to the Christian Faith and destructive of true Piety will now have the same malignant influence and effect upon both which heretofore they used to have And will diffuse a venom too strong for any help but that Power which planted the Faith in its first Purity And withall it is to be feared that the great dishonour done to the Majesty of God the injuries done to our meek and most blessed Saviour and to the most holy and sanctifying Spirit by these blasphemous opinions and by that wanton liberty they have of walking abroad with Publick connivence will bring upon us a guilt and wrath from God not to be expiated by another twenty Years suffering VI. The sixth means to defend the Faith is by a dayly and constant confession of it in all times and trials even of death and Martyrdom We are taught to profess our Rule of Faith twice a day in our publick prayers And upon good reason For as all truth desires nothing more then that beauty that is native to it to commend it to our belief and best defends it self against all contradiction when it appears most naked So certainly truths of so illustrious a magnitude as the Articles of our Creed cannot be better preached and maintained then by an open hearty and constant profession of them The most difficult service which they require of us in the greatest opposition is then but to own them with which alone we gain an absolute Conquest over all the World 1 Iohn 5. 4 5. This is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith Who is he that overcometh the world But he that believeth that Iesus is the Son of God Our Faith is the purchase of His exinanition and therefore the Cross the inseparable badge of it not to be laid aside when God puts it upon us without certain loss of those Heavenly Ioys that attend patient suffering for the truth and Martyrdom which as it is of peculiar benefit to those that faithfully wade through it sanctifying that death which we owe to Nature for sin and raising it as a gift of Faith and Patience offered up acceptably to God So it did of Old and always will give the greatest renown to the Christian Faith and Name being next the Miracles wrought by God himself the most pregnant and visible testimony of the Power of the Holy Ghost going along with the Faith And of this the first ages of the Church are a sufficient proof These are some of the proper and direct ways of contending for the Faith There are others that come in as Auxiliaries and serve onely by consequence The chief of which are these two 1. Holyness of life Purity of mind and conscience This is the proper vehicle of true Faith 1 Tim. 3. 9. Holding the mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience Cap. 1. 19. Which some having cast away concerning Faith have made shipwrack Long gathered habits of vertue or vice insensibly cast the Soul into a setled state of good or evil respectively In which case from the dictate of self-preservation as all things else it naturally seeks and adheres to such principles as will make good and maintain the condition it is possest of If the condition be good it appeals to Faith as the author and refuge of it in the strength whereof it stands and in the encrease of it doth triumph and glory If the condition be evil then Faith appears as a witness against us and a tormentor and the Soul cannot contemplate it without horror but must turn aside and betake it self to the refuge of lies some doctrines however false yet plausible that may help it at present to silence the fear of a Iudgement to come Which Article and severall others as remission of sins the resurrection and eternall life are absolutely inconsistent with a continuation and security in evil courses It is true Faith is supernaturall Grace infused into our Souls by God himself from above Yet it is liable to be disturbed yea and ejected too by the strength of our own corruptions and the powers of darkness raigning in us These stifle and extinguish those motions and illuminations whereby the holy Spirit doth usually work Faith in us Who though he delight to dwell in Tabernacles of Clay in the hearts of the Sons of Men yet abhorrs and flyes from the tents of the wicked especially the proud and the sensuall And it is notorious in the history of the Church that the great Heresies that troubled it of old had their birth from one of these either the Ambition or Debauchery of their first Broachers 2. The next means Is to preserve the dignity of the Ministers of the Gospel who are the Dispensers of this Faith Did Christians generally found their belief and practice upon those rules and principles by which they are to be measured there would be the less need of this But it is obvious to be observed that men commonly begin with the esteem of a Person or Party and then raise their Faith according to the dictate of that Person or Party This the Hereticks of all ages have seen and therefore made it their first business to worm themselves into vogue and credit being sure they must needs be Masters of their Faith whose understandings their reputation had first blinded And indeed we cannot reasonably expect that our Doctrine should gain much upon the minds of those that despise our Persons or Callings which God be thanked at present is not nor lightly can be done by any but such in whom Atheism or Fanaticism hath smothered if not destroyed the power of Religion All Nations not wholly barbarous have lookt upon it as both the security of their Religion and Glory of their Countrey to have the estate of their Priesthood maintained in honour and plenty And it were much to be wished that the Reformed Churches of Christendom had not been in this point more sordid and sacrilegious then all other Christians not to say Nations in the World We have seen verified in England what was upon this miscarriage in the Reformation foretold by the most learned and Iudicious Writer of his rank among the Protestants That the time of Religion and the Service of God would likely fall as the age of Man within seventy or eighty years and what followed would be small Ioy to them that beheld it And we are yet to pray and hope that the little that remains may escape if possible all fears and Iealousies from the luxury and profaness of the Age The naturall issue of which vices in conjunction is the devouring of holy things and then an open Apostafie from the Faith Unless Gods mercy make them childless as unlawfull embraces often prove I have now sufficiently tired you with a lame account of some things in the right management whereof the continuance of our Faith is greatly concern'd And had we hearts to make use

reason makes us sensible of but can neither remedy nor clearly discover In all the infinitely various and entangled Cases wherein men are concerned it never so much as once crosses their reason or understanding but always helps it forward It is the onely Doctrine that ever taught mankind to abstract from the world to disengage Religion from worldly designs and temptations without which it is impossible that our understanding should attain the full liberty of Iudging or the true measures of believing It calls up the mind to those sublime and heavenly contemplations to that divine and inflaming ardour as force reason to stand at a distance and acknowledge that her most refined and studied wits her most severe Stoicks and Recluses had not so much as the husks of that fruit which this Tree of knowledge and life affords That the strength of all her productions were they never so genuine cannot enrich her votaries with so true and solid learning with so pure and charming a holiness with so firm and delicious a happiness as the meanest of the students of this Book are enabled to attain It propounds mysteries of so high and glorious a nature with so much Naifvetie so much clear native perspicuity and so much commanding and dreadfull Majesty as cannot be communicated any whence but from that infinite and eternall Wisdom who is alone able as to discover and reveal so to comprehend fully the Mysteries contained in the Scripture Mysteries so much above our weak reason so attractive of it and so healing to it as may from their own nature and merit claim and exercise the Energy and Authority of a Rule of Faith IV. Lastly Scripture contains the onely doctrine that ever could obtain to give law to all the world and the first that ever pretended to so large a Iurisdiction But the Rule of Faith as it is absolute admits of no appeal so the extent of it is illimited and universall over all Persons to whom it is made known of what nation age quality or pretence soever And that both in respect of the contents of it which are of a like importance to all to receive and believe as of that power by which it stands which is a like Soverain over all Now call to mind what was done in the world for the first 4000 years at the end whereof this Doctrine was revealed and you will find as many Lawgivers and Masters of Religion almost as Countries Nor have there been since any pretenders to an Universall Monarchy in Religion besides his Infallible Holiness of Rome and the Seraphick Author of the Alcoran But S. Iude tells us this Faith was delivered when he wrote his Epistle and therefore both these are cut out by a far elder claim And the Ancients made use of this very Topick viz. The universall extent of the Gospel to prove that main point of Faith on which the rest depends namely the Divinity of Christ the Author of it No Book ever came neer that high pitch of historicall credit that this hath had ever since it was publish't And he that brings but that belief with him to the reading of it cannot upon reading but believe it is Divine and look for a Rule of Faith in it In a word it hath the two Essentiall properties required in a Rule Certainty in it self and Evidence to us both which appear a Posteriori from the constant Consent of all Churches in one abstract of things fundamentall to Salvation taken out of it And we have as much proof that it is to be such as we can possibly have suppose it were so And now surely it may seem a strange presumption in flesh and blood to attempt to put down this Oracle from that praeeminence and power over the Faith of Christendom wherein the Almighty did at first place it and wherein it hath by undoubted possession prescribed for so many ages since An attempt that could not have entred into the hearts of men if extream and overgrown corruption both in Faith and manners had not first thrown out all fear of him who hath threatned utter excision to all them that dare add to or detract from his word To him we must leave them who will stand by his own word and bring to light the hidden things of dishonesty and consider what returns of duty become us and they are especially three I. The first is that which is to appear in us in the first place upon the receipt of any mercy or blessing whatsoever and that is thankfulness and gratitude that we offer up a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving and that for this it be a dayly sacrifice because this word is of more necessary and frequent use to us then our dayly bread II. A chearfull and absolute resignation of our Faith and Understanding to it III. A zealous and unwearied endeavour to keep and maintain this Faith whole and untainted in all trialls and oppositions The third we are now to speak to expressed by S. Iude in these two words Contend earnestly which Iointly imploy these two things 1. The use of all means necessary to attain so noble an end 2. Zeal and perseverance in the use of them I. The means most likely to preserve our Faith are I conceive these that follow 1. The Preservation of the letter of Scripture intire and uncorrupt and a diligent study of the literall meaning of it For we do not by the Scripture understand the bare characters abstracted from the sense as a bold SerIeant of the Church of Rome is pleased to say of us but by what Authority appears not Possibly it may be some remnant of his weak Faith before his defection which by his defection seems to have gone no farther then the bare characters never to have been well grounded in the true sense and meaning of it We mean by Scripture the literall sense of it especially in the points fundamentall to Salvation which are the very points of Faith not as he saith of which this Rule of Faith is to ascertain us but of which it consists which make it up as the parts make the whole These we say are contained in the first and most obvious sense of the words of Scripture God being graciously pleased to lay them open to all capacities and so making it a common Salvation as S. Iude here calls it As common reason will teach us that any Writer that would be understood will endeavour to deliver the main parts and substance of his discourse most plainly and expresly And therefore it is no wonder that the mysticall exposition of plain Scripture prov'd so mischievous to the Faith of the Ancient Church But so long as we have the letter of Scripture whole and understand the literall meaning of it so long we have our Rule of Faith safe I shall not need to tell you how both the one and other are best done by a study of the Originals of both Testaments by comparing the severall