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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	day_n	lord_n	see_v	3,711	5	3.5921	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75970	The Agreement of divers ministers of Christ in the county of Worcester, and some adjacent parts, for catechizing or personal instructing all in their parishes, that will consent thereunto. Containing I. The articles of our agreement. II. An exhortation to the people to submit to this necessary work. III. The profession of faith, and catechism, which we desire them first to learn.		1656 (1656)	Wing A773; Thomason E1653_2; ESTC R208988	22,810	45

the Love of Christ shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Ghost Rom. 5.5 And the Spirit to write Christs Law within you Heb. 10.16 Then would you long for more of Christ and run after him in his Ordinances with thirsting souls and delight in his Law and meditate in it day and night and love his Teaching and delight to do his will Rom. 7.22 Psal 1.2 3. Psal 10.8 119.24.77.35 40.1.2 These things would not only be your business but your Pleasure even your meat drink Job 23.12 O that you did know in this your day the things that belong unto your Peace before they are hid from your eyes Luke 19.41 42. And that you would once soberly Consider what it is to be in Everlasting Joy or Torments and that you would live as men that believe these things indeed We do yet again beseech you in the name of him that Made you and Redeemed you and for the sake of your own immortal souls that you will not be so stout or self-conceited or so careless or so contemptuous of the Grace of the God as to refuse to come to your Teachers to be Catechised and Instructed or to bestow your labour in learning these Principles You can lose but little by it and only that which however you shall shortly lose You may get that which shall never be lost O what a Glory would it be to our Parishes and to the Land if you would all joyn as with one mind to learn and study the things of Christ what a Joy would this be to the hearts of your Teachers to see you readily with one accord to come to them for Instruction and obey the word All the wealth of the world would not so glad them or do them so much good as this would do But what a Grief is it to our hearts at present to think that so many of you do live in wilful Darkness and will not use the means to get out and to think what is like to b●come of you for ever if death shall find you in this sad Condition Now we are neer you and fain would see your hearty change But then betwixt us and you what a gulf would there be set Luk. 16.26 The word of God will certainly be made good And he hath expresly said that if the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the Image of God should shine unto them 2 Cor. 4.3 4. And people perish where vision faileth and for lack of Knowledge Prov. 1.22.29 29.18 Hos 4.6 And when a people have no understanding he that made them will not-save them he that formed them will shew them no Favour Isai 27.11 that the heart be without knowledge it is not good Prov. 19.2 To know God and his son Christ is Eternal life John 17.3 How sadly doth God call even to the Heaven and Earth to hear his Complaint against his people Isa 1.3 4. because he had brought up a people and they rebelled against him the Ox knew his Owner and the Ass his Masters Crib but Israel knew not God his people would not Consider Give not God cause to complain thus of you lest you prove your selves the complainers in the end It grieveth us also to see so many untaught children and families among you to see the Lords day so idly spent when you have so much of this necessary work to do To see so many of you either live without the Lords Supper and the holy Communion of the Church or else expect it when you know not what you do And it much grieveth us when we come to visit the sick and would fain speak Comfort to their departing souls and find them in so Ignorant and Carnal a state that we dare not do it O what a trouble must this needs be to our minds You look that we should speak Peace to you at the hour of Death that will nor learn the way of Peace in your life but rather abhor it and wilfully reject it But that is a thing that we may not do and if we should do it we should but deceive you Brethren take time and mercy while the God of mercy doth offer it you Think not a little labour too much to learn that which must be Learned upon pain of Damnation and which may make you Happy for ever It is the highest the noblest and sweetest work that you can mind or be imployed in Other things are drudgery to this and must give place to it Harden not therefore your hearts against the Instruction and help that is offered you It is none of our purpose to question you in matters of Scholarship but of meer Christianity nor to shame the Ignorant but to teach them nor to puzzle you with hard unnecessary Questions but to speak to you according to your several Capacities You can learn a trade to live by And could you not lea●n the way to Heaven if you were as willing and diligent you pray that the will of God may be done and will you not learn to do it you pray that his Kingdom may come and his Name be Hallowed and will you not learn to Know the nature and dignity of his Kingdom and how to hallow his blessed Name God is willing to Teach you and therefore hath sent his Son to be your Teacher All Christians are his Disciples or Schollars and it s an ill Schollar that Refuseth to Learn or be taught Christs way of Teaching is joyntly by his Ministers Word and Spirit If you Refuse these you refuse Christ And though you may think it is but a man that you despise yet God himself saith He that despiseth despiseth not man but God 1 Thes 4.8 And he that despiseth you despiseth me Luke 10.16 And he that despiseth him shall be lightly esteemed and despised by him in the day of his Necessi●y 1 Sam. 2.30 Prov. 1.24 to the end And he that de●piseth Knowledge shall be destroyed Prov. 13.13 O how much better would it seem to us if you would go along with us Cheerfully in the way of Salvation then to force us to be witness against you to your Condemnation For Christ hath said that if people receive not his M●ssengers and hear them not they must depart shake off the dust of their feet as a testimony against them And he ha●h assured us that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Judgement then for that City Mark 6.11 Math. 10. 14 15. Finally Brethren we conclude with the repetition of our former request that if God have so much interest in you if Christ and the holy Ghost have so much Interest in you if your own Salvation be any of your Interest or if we your Teachers and friends have any Interest in you we earnestly beseech you that not one

cannot so soon learn our profession we shal expect at least that they learn the Creed the Commandments and the Lords prayer and endeavour to learn the rest in further time as they are able or if any pretend scruples against our Profession or the allowed Catechism they shall use any Orthodox Catechism which themselves will choose VI. When we receive an account from them of what they have learned of these heads of Chatechism we shall also faithfully endeavour to help them in the right understanding of them and to get the truths which they learn into their hearts and lives in all which we shall endeavour as prudently as we can to suit our Instructions and Q●estions to the capacity of the persons to whom we speak Not seeking to disgrace them or puzzle them by hard unnecessary questions or words but express the plainest necessary truths in the plainest words and if they understand not one phrase we shall try whether they understand the same truth in other phrases nor shall we stand so much on their words as their meanings and if they be not able to deliver a fundamental truth in any tolerable words of their own we shall try by their affirmations or negations whether indeed they understand it or believe it when they hear it exprest by us we shall endeavour also to use such love and meekness as may win and avoid such harsh imperious speeches as may offend and to use such seriousness as may tend to awaken the stupid and secure lest all our labour with them be lost and yet such tenderness as that the weak may not be discouraged And because it is a work that requireth such great prudence and holy skill together with zeal and patience we shall the more reverently and cautelously attempt and mannage it avoiding all rashness observing and lamenting and striving against our imprudency unskilfulness and other unfitnesses and earnestly beg of God more fitness for his work VII Those that have not learned the words of any of the aforesaid Principles or Catechisms we shall yet desire to come to us with the rest of their families that we may have opportunity familiarly to discourse with them and instruct them VIII We shall desire that the most learned or judicious and Godly people among us would submit to this course as well as others though they have not the like need lest their forbearance be a pretence to others to keep off especially seeing the wisest and Godliest men are bound by God to obey their teachers and guides as well as others and all Christians have need to keep the great fundamental truths still in memory for their daily use that they may live upon them and the best may yet get some advantage by such conferences which Ministers will fit to their riper state IX Having procured this our Agreement to be printed together with an exhortation to our people to submit to this work we shall first read both to them in the publique assembly upon some Lords day and afterward give and cause to be delivered one Copy thereof to each family in our several parishes that will accept them desiring them that they may be read to all the family X. As for those that after sufficient admonition shal contemptuously and obstinately refuse to be either Catechised or Instructed thus personally by us giving us no valuable reason of their refusal if they are such that have professed themselves members of our Charge in the particular Churches whereof we are Pastors we shall proceed as in other cases of scandal or impenitency til we have either prevailed for their reformation or else rejected and avoided them And if they are such that are only members of the Parish and have withdrawn themselves from our charges and the particular Church by refusing to own and profess their membership we shall yet so far difference them from the rest of the parish who are Tractable and Teachable though refusing to be of our particular Church and charge as that we shall in regard of Communion and the application of sealing and confirming ordinances deal with them as the obstinate despisers of instruction should be dealt with THE reasons which move us to this Agreement and Resolution are these following 1. As it is undeniable that the everlasting perdition of multitudes is caused by their Ignorance and people perish for lack of knowledge so is it most evident that catechizing and familiar personal instruction is a great means to overcome that killing ignorance and that much of the darkness of this Land is chargeable on the neglect of this necessary work 2. The aged among us are too commonly more Ignorant then the younger sort and though their souls should be as much regarded by them yet have we no hope of prevailing with these to come publikly on the Lords day in the face of the congregation to be catechised but yet we are in hope that fewer of them will refuse to come to us in private and seeing we are thus necessitated to deal in private with one part of the family if it be their desire we shall take all together in the same way Perhaps one will encourage another We observe also that the younger when they are once married will come no more to be catechized publikely and so too many forget that which before they had learned which this course may prevent 3. It is the principles and fundamental truths that life or death doth most depend upon in which the essentials of Christianity do consist which therefore no man may be utterly ignorant of that hopeth for salvation and which the ripest Christians have the greatest daily use for and most continually live upon as their bread and drink and those that are well grounded in these fundamentals are likest to stand in a time of trial and to resist temptations and to hold fast and grow up in the knowledge of the superstructure and it is the want of being well grounded in these fundamentals that is the cause of much of the heresie and apostacy of this Age. It is the improvement of these principles that is the true Christians daily work for the managing of his duties the quickening and ordering of his affections and the guidance of his life and it is the want of sound digesting and improving of these that is the cause of much of the hypocrisie and self-deceiving opinionative and factious kind of Religiousness that hath so prevailed In a word the benefit of right Catechizing and the mischiefs that follow the neglect of it are more indeed then we can express or conceive 4. We finde by sad experience that the people understand not our publike teaching though we study to speak as plain as we can and that after many years preaching even of these same Fundamentals too many can scarce tell any thing that we have said when yet we finde that they better understand and lay to heart a familiar Conference 5. The Lords day is short enough for the