Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	world_n	write_n	write_v	503	4	5.1932	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23697	The causes of the decay of Christian piety, or, An impartial survey of the ruines of Christian religion, undermin'd by unchristian practice written by the author of The whole duty of man.	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.	1667 (1667)	Wing A1097; ESTC R225979	242,500	456

attendance on practick Duties and so whilest we quarrel with one another give our great Master too just ground of quarrel with us all by neglecting the great and indeed only Business entrusted to us NOW indeed that our contentions do thus divert us is too apparent to any that shall consider it in any of the three forementioned particulars for first for our time they do not only insensibly steal away much of it a modesty which most other diversions do still retain but Magisterially exact it and accordingly have large parcels of it solemnly and avowedly devoted to them the scanning old questions and raising new ones having been the profest Business of many mens lives their very Vocation and Trade wherein they have arrived to such eminence as shews they made liberal oblations of their Time to it And of this every age has left so many Records as the meer reading them would allow few vacant minutes to the succeeding And had not time a little reveng'd his own quarrel and consum'd many of those writings by which himself was wasted the Hyperbole would not be very extravagant in this case which we find warrantably us'd in another Io. 21. that even the world its self could not contain the Books which have been written As it is there are more than enough to employ nay devour time for when men once launch into the vast Sea of Controversie they are tossed there endlesly and seldom recover a harbour Difficulties like waves crouding one upon the neck of another And accordingly we see in Polemick Disputes how every rejoynder swells bigger and bigger till like Gehazies cloud from a hand breadth it over-spread the Heavens every little Manual becomes the Parent of vast Volumes and unless the evil cure its self by majoration unless the greatness of the task bring in despair to supplant curiosity and keep men from reading the spectators will have as little respite as the Combatants both Writers and Readers will be so ingrost that they will have little leisure for any thing else And I dare in this appeal to any that have engag'd deep either way whether they have not found it experimentally true I wish they would but snatch some broken parcel as a plank from the common shipwrack of their time rescue a few minutes for a sober reflection and audit what real Profit accrues to them from the expence of so many precious Hours how much it advances that grand business for which their Time here was allotted and according to which their Eternity hereafter will be awarded always remembring that if it promote it not it hinders it by diverting that time which should have been so employed And indeed there cannot be a more comprehensive mischief than this of the loss of time it being that which virtually contains the frustrating of all other Advantages whereby we should work out our Salvation The operations even of Christ himself were he tells us limited to a certain season I must work the work of my Father whilest it is day the night cometh when no man can work and if the Night overtake us it matters not how we are stored with instruments of Action since they all at once then become useless Our Laws anciently set a greater penalty upon the stealing Beasts of breed than on other Cattel of the same species as calculating the dammage by the possibilities of which the Owner was robb'd Time is the universal womb of things and actions and therefore when we lose that we suffer an accumulative prejudice forfeit our Rights in reversion as well as our Possessions our capacities as well as enjoyments As in an Abortion the unhappy Mother besides the frustration of her hopes and child-birth pains sustain'd acquires an aptitude to miscarry for the future and never to be able to bring forth a vital birth And thus God knows multitudes of Embryon purposes perish and the misery of it is they are our best that do so We generally pursue our frivolous projects with an active vigour but keep our great and concerning affairs only in design till death come and surprize us which like the fatal Metamorphoses the Poets talk of fixes us in the posture it finds us and so presents us to Iudgment Now I would know of the most eager Contender whether he would not chuse then to be found with his hands stretcht out in prayer to God or alms to the poor rather than dealing blows amongst his fellow servants if he would certainly 't is his concern to put himself into that form he would then appear in to husband his little span of time so as may stand him in stead when time shall be no more BUT if men will needs be improvident yet why will they be ridiculous too if they will barter away their time methinks they should at least have some ease in exchange but to be industrious ill-husbands to lose all their advantage and none of their toil is such a solemn piece of folly as is at once matter of Scorn and Wonder yet this is the very case here our wranglings do not only exhaust our time but our strength too We pursue them with so vehement an intention as if our Faith propos'd not to us any other victory but over this sort of Opponents We run our selves breathless in this race where the prize is only a few fading Leaves or what is more transitory a little popular applause and make not towards the incorruptible Crown till we are grown too feeble and decrepit for the other pursuit Men macerate their Bodies and waste their Spirits in Polemick studies prescribe themselves no time of discharge from that War till they are able no longer to weild their weapons and then when meer Impotence makes them peaceable begin to cry out of contention snatch up Devotion when Controversie begins to be too heavy for them and at their Death pray for that peace of the Church which they have made it the business of their life to disturb This as it sufficiently attests what mens thoughts are in their cool blood what apprehensions they have of the way when they draw near their journeys End so does it abundantly evince the unspeakable prejudice Piety receives from our Disputes Those have the active and vigorous Abettors while That is turn'd off to languishing bed-rid Votaries So that the division between these two is like that of the Cattel between Iacob and Laban all the stronger to the one and feebler to the other Would God the Scene were not in one respect chang'd and that the Syrian had not here got the better share But in the mean time what greater advantage can Satan wish for our strength and industry is diverted upon these foreign expeditions and Sion is left to be guarded by the lame and the blind such only as are not able to follow the Camp and then 't is not strange to see what succesful assaults he has made that that true practick vertue which once made such victorious salleys on