Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	faith_n	true_a	truth_n	4,594	5	5.5207	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26915	Directions and perswasions to a sound conversion for prevention of that deceit and damnation of souls, and of those scandals, heresies, and desperate apostasies that are the consequents of a counterfeit, or superficial change / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1658 (1658)	Wing B1243; ESTC R15278	227,645	552

will themselves forsake them and take up another way and be as consident in that and take no warning by the experience of their former deceit And thus they go oft from one Opinion to another till at last finding themselves deceived so oft some of them cast off all Religion and think there is no certainty to be found in any Suspecting Religion when they should have suspected their false hearts And all this comes to pass because they never received the Truth in the love of it that they might be Sanctified and Saved by it 2 Thes. 2. 10 11 12. Nor ever gave it deep entertainment in their hearts that it might throughly Convert them but took it as a bare Opinion into the brain to polish their tongues and outsides and deceive themselves as much as others And thus I have shewed you the difference between a sound Convert and an Opinionist or one that hath but a overly superficial Change that you may see which of these is your own condition To return now to my Advice and Exhortation I intreat every person that readeth or heareth these words to see that they stick not in an Opinionative Conversion To which End I further desire you 1. To consider that it is a higher matter that Christ came into the world for then to change mens bare Opinions and it is a higher matter that the Gospel is intended for and that Ministers are sent to you for For it is more then a corruption of mens Opinions that siane hath brought upon you and therefore it is a deeper disease that must be cured The Work of Christ by his Gospel is no less then to fetch you off all that which flesh and blood accounts your Happiness and to unite you to himself and make you Holy as God is Holy and to give you a new Nature and make you as the dwellers or Citizens of Heaven while you walk on Earth Phil. 3. 20 21. And these are greater matters then the changing of a Party or Opinion The Holy Ghost himself must dwell in you and work in you and imploy your Soul and life for God that you may study him and love him and live to him here and live with him for ever Do but think well of the Ends and meaning of the Gospel and how much greater matters it drives at and then you will see that there 's no taking up with an Opinionative Religiousness 2. Keep company if it be possible with the most Sober Spiritual and Heavenly professours that will be drawing you to the observation of your own heart and life and opening to you the riches of the Love of Christ and winning up your affections to God and Heaven And be not the companions of unexperienced wranglers that have no other Religion but a Zeal for their Opinions and will endeavour rather to make you like Satan then like God by possessing your minds with malice and bitter thoughts of your brethren and employing your tongues in reproaches and vaine strivings and making you fire-brands in the places where you live Neither be companions of them that hold the Truth no deeper then Opinion For though some such may be usefull to you in their places yet if you have not more edifying familiars your danger will be very great lest you should let go the life of Religion and take up with meer notions and formalities as they 3. When you have considered that every Truth of God is a Message to your Hearts as well as to your Heads and hath a work of God to do upon them look after that work and when you have heard or read a Truth go down into your Hearts and see what it hath done there And if you find not in your Will and Resolutions and Affections the Image and fruits of the Truth you have heard fetch it up again and ruminate upon it and do not think you have received it or done with it till this be done yea take it but as lost and sinfully rejected if it have not done you some good at the very Heart 4. Also be sure that you Practise all practical Truths upon the first opportunity as soon as you have heard them Imprison them not in unrighteousness Cast them not out in forgetfulness use not a Lecture of Divinity as if it were a lesson of Musick or a meer Philosophical or Historical discourse Read not the Doctrine of Salvation and the Promises of Heaven and the forewarnings of everlasting misery as you read a common story or a groundless conjecture in an Almanack But as a Message from God which tells you where you must dwell for ever and as a Direction sent from Heaven to teach you the way thither Fall to work then and practise what you know if you would be Christians indeed Be yee doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves For the Opinionative hearer seeth but a slight appearance of the Truth as a man that lookes on his face in a glass which he quickly forgets But he that is a Sound Believer and practiser and not only an Opinionative forgetful hearer is the man that shall be blessed in his deed Jam. 1. 22 23 24 25. Opinion without Practise is building on the Sand but hearing and sound Believing and doing is building upon the Rock where the building will stand after all assaults Matth. 7. 26 27 28. An Opinionist doth but seem to be Religious while he keeps his reigning sinnes and therefore his Religion is in vain but the Practical Religion is the pure and undefiled Religion Jam. 1. 26 27. Hearty obedience will not only shew that your Religion is deeper then meer Opinion but it will also advance it to a greater purity and root it more deeply then it was before A man that hath studied the Art of Navigation in his closet may talk of it almost as well as he that hath been at sea but when he comes to practise it he will find that he is far to seek But let this man go to sea and joyn practise and experience to his Theory and then he may have a knowledg of the right kind So if a man that hath only read over Military Books would be a true Soldier or a man that hath only studied Physick would be a true Physician what better way is there then to fall to Practise And so must you if you would have a Religion that shall save your Souls and not only a Religion that will furnish you with good Opinions and expressions 5. Moreover if you would get above Opinion be still searching more and more after the Evidences of the ancient fundamental Truths that you have received and lay open your hearts to the power of them Think it not enough that you take the Christian Religion for true but labour after a clearer sight ot its truth For you may possibly upon some conjecture take it for a Truth by bare Opinion whenas the sight of fuller Evidences and a full sight of those

12. Luke 16. 15. 5. The Sound Convert is so acquainted with the defects and sinnes and necessities of his own Soul that he is much taken up at home in his studies and cares and censures and his daily worke The acting and strengthening of Grace the subduing of corruption and his daily walk with God are much of his employment Above all keeping he keeps his Heart as knowing that thence are the issues of life He cannot have while to spy out the faults of others and meddle with their affaires where duty binds him not as others can do because he hath so much to do at home Gal. 6. 3 4. Prov 4. 23. But the Opinionist is most employed abroad and about meer notions and Opinions but he is little employed in such heart-searching or heart-observing work His light doth not pierce so deep as to shew him his heart and the work that is there to be necessarily done As the change is little upon his Heart so his employment is little there He is little in bewailing his secret defects and corruptions and little in keeping his Souls accounts and little in secret striving with his heart to work it into communion with God and into a Spiritual lively fruitfull frame He is forward to aggravate the sinnes of others and oft-times severe enough in censuring them But he is a very gentle censurer of himself and a patient man with his own corruptions and puts the best construction upon all that is his own He hath much labour perhaps in shaping his Opinions but little for the humbling and Sanctifying his heart by the power of the Truth 6. And as the difference lyeth thus constantly in the Heart so it is usually manifested by the tongue Matth. 12. 34. The Sound Convert is most desirous to discourse of those great and saving truths which his very heart hath taken in and which he hath found to be the seed of God for his Regeneration and the Instruments of that Holy and happy change that is made upon him He feeleth most savour and life in these great and most Necessary points which formed the Image of God upon him and upon these he daily feeds and lives Read Joh. 17. 3. 1 Cor. 15. 1 2 3 4 5 6. 1 Cor. 2. 2. Phil. 3. 8 9 10 11. 1 Tim. 3. 16. Acts 26. 22 23. In these Scriptures you may find what points they were that the greatest Saints did study and live upon But the Opinionist is most forward to discourse of meer Opinions and to feed upon the aire of notions and controversies of lesser moment For one hours Holy Heavenly experimental heart-searching discourse that you shall have from him you shall have many and many hours discourse of his Opinions I mean it indifferently of all his Opinions whether true or false For though falshoods cannot be fit food for the Soul yet Truths themselves also may be made of little service to them A man may be a meer Opinionist that hath true Opinions as well as he that hath false Almost all the free and zealous discourse of these men on matters of Religion is about their several sides and parties and Opinions If they be set upon a point especially wherein they seem to themselves to be wiser then others they have a fire of zeale for it in their brests that makes them desirous to be propagating it to others About the Orders and Ceremonies of the Church about the formes of Prayer and the accidents of worship about Infant Baptism or other such controversies in Religion is the freest of their discourse Yea you may perceive much of the difference even in the very manner of their conference A Serious Christian even when he is necessitated to speak of lower controverted points yet doth it in a Spiritual manner as one that more savoureth higher Truths and makes a Holy and Heavenly life his end even in these lower matters and deals about such controversies in a practical manner and in order to the growth of Holiness But the Opinionists even when they speak of the most weighty Truths do speak of them but as Opinions and when they discourse of God of Christ of Grace of Heaven it is but as they discourse of a point in Philosophy or little better They go not through the shell to the kernel they look after the Truth but they have but little relish of the Goodness The like may be said of their reading and hearing of Sermons The sound Convert feeleth life spirits in that which is little savory to the Opinionist It is one thing in a Sermon or Text that is pleasant to a true Christian and another thing usually that is most pleasant to the Opinionist The true Christian delighteth in and feedeth on the inward life of Spiritual Doctrine and the Good which they offer him that is indeed it is upon God and Christ himself that he is feasting his Soul in reading and hearing For this is the Soul of all without which letters and words are but a carcass But the superficial Opinionist is much more taken up either with the History or the Elegancy of Speech or with the rational light of the discourse still sticking in the bark and savouring not Christ and the Father in all As a man that reads the deeds or lease of his own Lands delights in one thing and a cleark that reads the same or the like in a book of Presidents for his learning delights in another thing So is it in this case 7. And hence is follows that they are several sorts of duties and exercises usually that these several sorts of persons are most addicted to The sound Convert is most addicted to those Spiritual means that tend most to the strengthning of his Faith and warming his heart with the Love of God and promoting Holiness and destroying sinne But the Opinionist delighteth most in those means that tend to ●●rnish him with speculative Knowledg and discourse and to satisfie his fansie or curious mind The sound Convert is much addicted to Prayer even in secret and to Heavenly Meditations and gracious disourse But the Opinionist is much more addicted to reading Histories or Controversies or dogmatical Divinity or Civil and Political matters The sound Convert savoureth best those Preachers and Books that speak the most weighty Spiritual Truths in the most weighty Spiritual manner in Power and Demonstration of the Spirit But the Opinionist relisheth those Preachers and Books most that either speak curiously to please the eare or exactly and learnedly to please the natural intellect or that speak for the Opinions or partly that he is addicted to But others he hath less mind of 8. Moreover the sound Christian layeth out most of his Zeal Affections and Endeavours about the great Essentials of Religion and that as I said in a practical manner But the Opinionist layeth out his Zeale upon Opinions Right or wrong it is but as Opinions Of these he makes his Religio● For these he contendeth He loveth

Evidences might raise you from Opinion to a working saving Faith 6. Lastly take heed lest any thing be suffered to keep possession of your Hearts and so to confine the truth to your braine When the world is kept up in life and power and is nearest the heart there is no room for the Word there but it must float upon the top and swim in your Opinion because it can go no deeper your lusts and profits having possession before it The Word can never go to the heart with unmortified men but by casting your Idols out of your hearts nor will it take rooting in you but by rooting out the world O Sirs if you knew the misery of a meer Opinionist you would sure be perswaded now to practise these Directions that may raise you higher An Opinionist is a deceiver of himself and oft of others a troubler of the Church 〈◊〉 he have any Zeal for Opinions and hit as usually he doth on the wrong And when his Religion is right he is wrong himself being out of the way even when he is in the right way because he is not right in that right way For he doth but sit down in it when he should travaile it A runner shall not win the prize by being in the right way only unless he make hast The knowledg of the Opinionist doth but serve to aggravate his sinne and cause him to be beaten with many stripes but is not of force to Sanctifie his heart and life and to save him Jam. 2. fully shews Stick not therefore in an Opinionative Religiousness DIRECT IX My next Direction that your Conversion may prove sound is this Acquaint your Souls by Faith with the Glory of the Everlasting Kingdom and see that you make it your Portion and your End and from thence let the rest of your endeavours be animated No man can be a sound Christian that knoweth not the Ends and Portion of a Christian. There is a great deal of difference between the desires of Heaven in a Sanctified man and an unsanctified The Believer prizeth it above earth and had rather be with God then here Though death that stands in the way may possibly have harder thoughts from him But to the ungodly there is nothing seemeth more desirable then this world and therefore he only chooseth Heaven before Hell but not before earth and therefore shall not have it upon such a choice We heare of Gold and Silver mines in the Indies If you offer a Golden mountaine there to an English man that hath an estate and family here that are deare to him perhaps hee 'l say I am uncertain whether their Golden mountains be not meer fictions to deceive men and if it be true that there are such things yet it is a great way thither and the seas are perilous and I am well enough already where I am and therefore let who will go thither for me I will stay at home as long as I can But if this man must needs be banished out of England and had his choise whether he would go to the Golden Ilands or to dig in a colepit or live in a wilderness he would rather choose the better then the worse So is it with an ungodly mans desires in respect to this world and that to come If he could stay here in fleshly pleasure for ever he would because he looks at Heaven as uncertain and a great way off and the passage seemeth to him more troublesom and dangerous then it is and he is where he would be already But when he sees that there is no staying here for ever but death will have him away he had rather go to Heaven then to Hell and therefore will be Religious as far as the flesh and the world will give him leave left he should be cast into Hell when he is taken from the Earth But take an English man that is in poverty and reproach and hath neither house nor land nor friend to comfort him and let him have the offer of a Golden Iland and a person of unquestionable skilfullness and fidelity that will promise in short time to bring him safe thither if he believe this person and can put his trust in him doubtless he will be gone and follow him over sea and land and though the passage may somewhat daunt him yet the promised possession will carry him through all So is it with the true Christian He is dead to this world and sees nothing here in which he can be happy he is burdened and wearied with sinne and suffering he is firmly perswaded of the truth of the Gospel and seeth by Faith the world that is to flesh invisible and believeth in Jesus Christ who hath promised to convey him safely thither and therefore he would away and though he love not death the stormy passage yet he will submit to it having so sure a Pilot because he loves the life which through death he must pass into and had rather be there then here Such as a mans principall End is such is the man and such is the course of his life He that takes this world for his Portion and makes the felicity of it his end is a carnall worldy unsanctified man whatever good and godly actions may come in upon the by It is he and only he that is a sanctified Believer who looks on Heaven as his only Portion and is sailing through the troublesome Seas of this world of purpose to come to that desired harbour not loving these seas better then the Land of Rest which he is sailing to but patiently and painfully passing through them because there is no other way to Glory As it is the desire of the Land to which he is sailing that moveth the Marriner or Passenger to do all that he doth in his Voyage and the desire of his home or journeys End that moveth the travailer all the way and the desire of seeing a perfect Building that moveth the Builder in every stroke of his Work so it must be the love of God and the desire after Everlasting blessedness that must be the very Engine to move the rest of the affections and endeavours of the Saints and must make men resolve on the necessary labour and patience of Believers Take off this weight and all the motions of Christianity will cease No man will be at labour and sufferings for nothing if he can avoid them It is a life of Labour though sweet to the Spirit yet tedious to the flesh which Christianity doth engage us in and there is much suffering to be undergone and this to the very last and to the denyall of our selves and if God require it to the loss of all the comforts of the world For no less then forsaking all that we have will serve to make us Christs Disciples And will any man do this for he knows not what Will any man forsake all that he hath unless it be for something better which may be as sure