Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	great_a	see_v	word_n	2,798	5	3.6685	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45958	An invitation to the aforementioned society, or little common-wealth shewing the excellency of the true Christian love and the folly of all those who consider not to what end the Lord of heaven and earth hath created them.	Plockhoy, Pieter Corneliszoon, fl. 1659.	1660 (1660)	Wing I291; ESTC R28720	11,486	18

a few bags to lay the foundation of our praise upon the prayers of the poor to make the cross of Christ our glory and not to efchew the dissavour of man as the reward of our well-doing In a word to put off all desire of fame and renown as also to refer all desire of revenge to the judgement of Christ we shall be able to do all this if we forget not that our God is the most faithful of all Debtors and the most sure of all Securities if also we never forget that his praise which shall be given to us in the presence of men and Angels is the most glorious praise and that his renumerations and recompences are the most noble and everlasting To how happy an hour are we born if we do enter upon this communion or fellowship And from how many vexations will it release us Whereof the Heathens having obtained but a shadow how magnanimously did they in their mindes soar aloft above all Kings and worldly glory how did they despise all terrene affairs as they that from above look down upon that which is below and had pitty on them and so did indeed avoid the greatest miseries of mans life But since Christian Religion is come into the world it is a wonderful thing to consider what a light brake in together with it viz. such a light that all they whose hearts were touched therewith throwing all from them betook themselves to it for refuge as to a true and stedfast liberty after a long and horrible captivity easily forgetting their riches state rule and possession forsaking Parents Wife Children Relations and whatsoever before was most neer and dear unto them not being by any temptations of Tyrants to be drawn from the sweetness of the Christian life The same have appeared in the memory of our Fore-fathers when the bonds of Antichrist it is strange to think how firm they were were broken when they vvho a little before were forced to creep upon the ground began to rise up with what readiness that syrannical Worship of Invocating so many deceased Saints was rejected and the unconfined Worship of God re-entertained And with what readiness that vain though gainfull fancy of Invocating Christ by so many Intercessions came to nought so that it appears in all respects how much God hath chalked out in nature it self the pure and true Worship as also the amicable and friendly conversation of man and likewise how easily those things which are contrary thereto perish and come to nothing and how far our Religion with-draweth us from all Theatrical or Stage-play gestures and countenances and all those troublesom Ceremonies wherewith we torture our selves in speaking eating saluting walking cloathing yea and in all the actions of our life But on the contrary how conformable it maketh us to the coelestial Hierarchie and natural Policie and yet in these petty and altogether childish things men are so hard to be convinced and drawn off from them as if all their well-being depended thereon and the beatitude or happiness of all mankind had all its foundation therein and never give so much scope to reason and well-guided understanding as either to acknowledge their vanity or if it be known to them rather to throw it off then to retain and daily augment it with new and exottick bawbles In truth as often as we do strictly ponder to what end God the Creator and Ruler of all things hath brought every one of us into this great Fabrick of the World and yet for us to observe that the life of almost all men is either unprofitable idle wicked or hurtful to mankind we have reason to be afraid and jealous of our selves least peradventure either by the corruption of the times or our education we have applyed our selves to some manner of life which is not sutable to the will of God and the end of our Creation being not able to give a just account wherein we have lived to the glory of God and the advantage of mankind Certainly to have eaten to have drunk to have slept yea to have read much writ much seen heard and travelled much and let this also be added to have managed an Estate to have kept Hounds Horses and Servants to have had Arts and Learning in great esteem to have trimmed up Houses to have often made Banquets to have born Titles of Honor to have collected many Books together in a word to have been imployed and very busie to the uttermost in things that do not relate or belong to Christ let them be what they will certainly all that will never satisfie God nor endure the touch or tryal of the fire but being consumed as stubble will leave man bare and naked a Malefactor and guilty in the presence of God for his lost time and his neglect of friendship and union with God together with the neglect of the Endowments as wel of body as of spirit so that there will be an horrible distance between them and those whose faith in God and love to man hath been steadfast and firm Let us take heed Brethren least those among us who either in understanding learning riches beauty or arts excel others do conceit that God is therefore more gracious and favourable to them then others and that they have attained to the best life for such men do grosly deceive themselves because the manner of Gods judging is quite different from that of the World his eyes are quite other kind of eyes and his pollicy differs from the Worlds pollicy as much as Heaven from Earth as one vvho chuseth the unvvorthy and despised rejecteth and abhorreth that vvhich the World do highly esteem If any think this our Society and Fellovvship to be a nevv thing so that he cannot as it vvas in old time so much as point out five pair of such friends he hath reason with me to lament that while men do curiously and with anxity of mind search into the course of the Stars Planets the vertues of Plants Vigitables yea into the very bowels of the earth yet they are so neglective of their salvation that they do not in the least so much as seek and look after that life for which they would not need so much Silver and Gold so many Titles of Honor so many Buildings such Clothes so much Furniture for their Houses so many Messes and Dishes at their Meals so many Arms and Ammunition or Warlike provisions so many Judgements or Decrees of Law so many Medicines nor so many Books all which are causes of vast trouble so that the men of the World themselves if they were but wise would avoid these occasions or as they themselves do confess necessities of sinning This Society or fellowship hath not always been so rare and so thin sown but was very rife in the primitive times till the enemies of the first innocency did insinuate themselves thereunto whereby the life which men were bound to live as in obedience to the

Laws of Christ began to be accounted such as a man may chuse whether he would imbrace or no and take up a meritorious and superoragatory life comprizing such a sanctimony or holiness as was more then necessary to salvation and was onely to be used by such as desired a greater reward in Heaven then others which opinion gave a beginning to many Orders of lazie and wanton beasts I mean Monks and the like and of many thousand fables cheats which things when men came to themselves they did justly reject and when they are grown wiser they wil totally cast off even those poor ones who now scrape and rake together the riches of the World as also those seeming humble and lowly persons that now take up the high Seats of the World and such pretended simple ones who now fill and disturb the whole World with their cunning and deceit But for us let us hold fast that which is in this life the best thing viz. The universal love to Gods creation and if we be insufferable to the World and they be incorrigible or unbetterable as to us then let us reduce our friendship and society to a few in number and maintain it in such places as are seperate from other men where we may with less impediment or hinderance love one another and mind the Wonders of God eating the bread we shall earn with our own hands leaving nothing to the body but what its nakedness hunger thirst and weariness calls for to help our necessity and health then it will appear how many things we may well be without what things we may refrain and what kind of matters we ought not to know how many things we may avoid in what things we may best quiet our selves and how far easier we may satisfie Christ in his little ones with a penny then the World with a pound For Princes are not born on purpose to rear up stately Pallaces the Le●rned are not born for the writing of many unprofitable and for the most part frivolous Books the rich are not born to boast of their gold silver and christal-Vessels the rest of the people are not born for so many various unprofitable Handy-crafts In a word mankind is not born for so many kinds of education of being rich and running into excess but all these racks of the mind it hath invented of it self and now made a custom and habitual so that it hath made the life more grievous to it self every day under so many painful and laboursome inventions Now I would that they that stand and admire at the fine Wits of our age and the sublime learning of our times did but consider with me Whether these things which daily please our eyes with their novelty be indeed such for which we may justly rejoice or whether on the contrary it were not much better since they are the cause of so many griefs and troubles in mans life that we were wished and advised by our learned men to put them away far from us For what greater fruit of Wisdom or what greater glory of the new revived learning could there possibly be then by that to bring humane matters to such a posture that we may attribute our well-being and felicity in this life to them under God that by the wholesom instruction thereof that which is superfluous useless and unnecssary might be thrown away and that which is nugatory trifling and unprofitable might be cut off and that we might truly be distinguished from the barbarous savage people not by Books nor by Titles of Honor nor by Universities but by such morality as Christian Philosophy doth prescribe Let there come forth from the Studies and Liberaries of our Wise men into the light not a continuation or prosecution of old Errors or an heaping up of new to the old but on the contrary a Rule or Direction for a new and reformed life in Christ which may demonstrate that as we are professors of the best Religion we are also imitators of the best life then shall we return to their Society or Fellowship and be subject to their good Lavvs and Orders and observe their rational Customs In the mean time let them not take it ill that we do not make any great ac●ount of these Sciences that are void of Christ that we do not desire to know them and if we have drunk in any such yet we desire to unlearn them and with singleness of heart to become as children who are altogether unacquainted with voluptuousness ceremonies riches and foolish labour henceforward we desire to live towards God in unincumbredness void of carking for the multiplicity of super-necessary things exercising a delight in real equality and for the rest acknowledge Christ onely for our Lord and Master and in this School of his we hope that neither Divine Mysteries nor secrets of Nature nor the contemplation of rare matters shall be wanting to us since he formerly hath made it evident by the example of his Apostles and holy men how powerful he is in teaching and then especially he displayeth his riches and opens his unexhaustible treasures when humane Wisdom ceaseth and the skill of the World melteth away But that we now are so weak the strength of our Religion that is grown so faint with us that the Majesty of the Divine presence with the miraculous working is removed from us whom shall we accuse for this but our selves who in the midst of the Divine Light have scarce retained any more then the bare name being content if we may but be called Christians as to the rest being altogether like to the World So that it is no marvel that we who do not excel others in the pursuit of honest actions as Justice Mercy and the propagation of the Name of Christ nor in the education of children do not also in the least go beyond them in those gifts which were peculiar to upright and zealous Christians and yet we ought in so clear a light of the Gospel as we have to be so far distinguished as to excel other men so that if others do not commit Adultery we should not so much as desire another mans Wife if they do not commit Murther we should not at all be angry with our brother if they love them that are like to them we should love our enemies if they do lend to those that have to give again we should lend to those from whom we cannot hope to receive any thing again for it becometh us who hope for the inheritance of an eternal life in all things to go beyond those that know onely this present life But if nevertheless we be found beneath these or if we be found but like to them and no more how much will their accusation press us down and condemn us to the like yea to a more grievous punishment Let us look back to the former Ages and it will appear that the Divine Power was then most of all vigorous and