Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	concern_v	time_n	write_v	2,871	5	5.4131	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67013	The great charity of instructing poor children A sermon preached at St. Botolph Aldgate; upon Lord's-day, Mar. 24. 1700. On the occasion of a charity-school newly erected in that parish. By Josiah Woodward, minister of Popler.	Woodward, Josiah, 1660-1712.	1700 (1700)	Wing W3517; ESTC R221049	13,866	35

ashamed to acknowledge themselves ignorant of that in which they perceive many little Children able to be their Tutors So that we cannot be too urgent with all Parents and such as have the Management of Children that they begin early to instruct them in the Scriptures and in their Catochisms and that they take Care that they learn to read betimes that they may of themselves Draw water out of the Wells of Salvation For it is a most deplorable and moving Case that God should send us a Book from Heaven concerning our Eternal Salvation and that any among us should say as those Isa 29. 12. I cannot read it for I am not learned T is written in unknown Characters as to me because I was never taught to read We many times now hear such Ignorant Persons blaming their Parents for neglecting them in their Youth when they come to perceive the want of such Learning as they might have attained in their Youth and t is to be feared that too many such Parents will hear the more doleful Accusations and Curses of their wretched Children in their Torments hereafter Where it may probably be said by many a Person had my Parents taught me better I might have escaped these Everlasting Burnings This leads me to my Third Observation viz. III. THAT the Neglect of Good Education and Early Instruction is the Ruine of many a Person in both Worlds ' They are brought up negligently they live viciously and dye desperately This was so sadly verify'd in the Case of Eli's Sons 1 Sam. 3. that t is enough to terrifie every sensible Person out of such Neglect His Sons were first Children of Darkness then Sons of Belial and then Sons of Perdition And thus alas it usually fares with Uncorrected Ungovern'd and Uncatechiz'd Children as it will further appear in the five following Particulars which demonstrate the dismal Case of Ignorant and Undisciplin'd Youth 1. THEY cannot live as Christians if they know not the Fundamentals of the Christian Religion A Man can act no better than his Principles dictate to him And such as are not taught the Principles of the Christian Religion are never like to have them An express Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is necessary to the Salvation of a Christian Mar. 16. 16. He that believeth not shall be damned But how can they Believe on him of whom they have not heard How can they come to know the Person the Offices the Covenant the Sacraments and the Will of our Lord and Saviour except they learn it by the Instruction of their Parents and Friends out of their Bibles and Catechisms 'T is true the Foundation of the Sacred Morals of our Religion is laid in Nature it self and the Equity Fitness and Reasonableness of them is discernable by Natural Light For Why of your selves judge ye not that which is right Says our Blessed Lord Luke 12. 57. But then the Light of Nature is so dim and faint that it will soon be obscured and overlaid by sinful Customs and if the Light which is in Men be darkness how gross is that Darkness Mat 6. 23. How extravagantly vicious will those Affections and Passions be which have no Light by which they may steer and no good Principles from which they may act Such uncatechized Children I say cannot be good Christians yea they usually prove the worst of Men. For 2. For want of being grounded in the Essentials of Christian Doctrine they are easily misled into any Error or Heresie It may be Observed that there was scarce ever any foolish Opinion started but the vain Author found some as vain as himself to follow him in it As in the Case of Mahomet Mugleton and others And it can be nothing but Ignorance that is the Mother of such Devotion The Ignorant catch at any thing And hence proceed those Unhappy Divisions and Parties that are among us which is in a great measure owing to the want of due Catechizing The Enemy sowed Tares whilst those were asleep that should have sown better Grain 3. These Undisciplin'd and Uncatechized Persons usually prove ill Members of the State and the very Pest of the Neighbourhood in which they live One may indeed call them the very Vermine of the Publick Body Hence come those Swarms of idle pilfering and purloining People of which we hear daily Complaints and feel the dismal Effects Some of which are so crafty in their Devices and so harden'd in their Wickedness that they seem to be the very Black Guard of the Prince of Darkness and a fruitful Nursery of a sort of People which fill the Goals and load the Gallows A very sad but a very great Truth 4. These Untaught and Uneducated People are they who chiefly bring a Reproach on our Religion and the Church of Christ amongst us They live like Infidels in a Christian Land And many of them being bred up to no Employment at Home are forc'd by their Necessities to seek their Bread abroad and so they carry our Shame together with their Villanies into Forreign Parts And many Forreigners take up a Prejudice against our Nation and against our Religion by what they see and suffer from these Profligates which has proved a great Bar to the Progress of the Christian Religion 5. THAT which is yet the most dreadful Thought of all is That the God that made them will reject them at the last They are a People of no Vnderstanding saith the Prophet Isaiah therefore he that made them will not have Mercy upon them and he that formed them will shew them no Favour Isa 27. 11. They bear the Image and Superscription of their Father the Prince of Darkness and will be adjudged to him by the just Judgment of him In whom there is no Darkness at all They have long lived in Defiance and Enmity to him that came to be the Light and Life of the World they hated the Light of the Gospel and the Guidance of his Holy Spirit they have pleased themselves with the Delusions of the Devil and therefore they fall a Prey to him as Apostates from their Creator And as they loved Darkness more than Light they must inevitably take their Portion in Eternal Darkness For They die without Instruction and go astray from God and his Beatifick Presence O Dreadful End of such as are neglected in reformed Enough to create Horror in every Soul that considers it Who is there that has any thing of the Spirit of Christ in him that would not think a great part of his Care Pains and Estate well laid out if he may but be Instrumental to save some few yea but one single Person from this Eternal Ruine And that I may encline every one that hears me to take this moving and mournful Case into Consideration I now come to apply what has been said SINCE the Case of gross Ignorance is thus dreadful and deplorable We may see Infer 1. To how Divine and Blessed a State the Holy Gospel