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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	time_n	world_n	2,761	5	4.2527	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48116	A letter of advice to a young gentleman of an honourable family, now in his travels beyond the seas for his more safe and profitable conduct in the three great instances, of study, moral deportment, and religion : in three parts / by a True son of the Church of England.	True son of the Church of England.	1688 (1688)	Wing L1566; ESTC R7895	45,890	138

too in the best degree imploy the most considerable part of your Time especially now whilst you have Leisure Opportunity and few Avocations at your Book and in your Study For First As this will adorn your Soul with the greatest Treasures this World can afford so you 'l have cause to congratulate to your self your own Happiness and God Almighty will bless and prosper you in your Endeavours Who even in Paradise would not allow Pleasure to the first Adam tho certainly as Noble as any of his Descendents without Labour and Industry Nor can your retired and seeming Obscurity in your Studies lessen your Gentility since there 's no well-bred Scholar that can fail of the Reputation and Character of a Gentleman But besides Secondly You 'l hereby become not only more courteous and obliging to all you converse with but more capable also of managing with Prudence and Discretion those weighty Affairs which may await you at your Return and your Birth and Education will intitle you to both of Justice and State. Besides you 'l better understand what Respect and Encouragement is defervedly due to Learned Men such I mean as are diligent sober and pious and herein your dear and worthy Father may be a Pattern to you who by his discreet and obliging Carriage has extreamly endear'd himself to all Scholars but the Orthodox Clergy of the Church of England especially And hence 't is very observable that those Gentlemen only who have purchased to themselves the honour of Learning and true Breeding know best how to value and esteem and are most willing to encourage those Attainments in others which will also have a mighty Influence upon all your Dependents as well as others below you who do usually either respect or contemn wise and good Men by the Examples of their Leaders Consider Thirdly That whereas the Vertues or Vices of private Men do commonly pass without much Notice or Censure you 'l beset as it were a Beacon upon an Hill and as the Words of great Men are usually Maxims and Theorems so their Actions become Examples Rules and Presidents for others to steer and walk by Besides you 'l be no less esteemed and admired for the Excellency of your natural and acquired Abilities than herein for the sway and influence of your Authority nor can any thing be more base and inglorious than a Gentleman only by name whose Soul is ignorant and Life immoral Fourthly There 's nothing in this World which can countervail the great Expence of your Time and Pains c. but Learning and Experience as before which are only attainable by Study and a sutable Conversation with Scholars and Men of Parts for hereby you may be qualified both for Action and Speculation and excel the Mobile as much in Understanding and Vertue as Nobility of Birth and gentiel Extraction Now these are the genuine and proper Fruits of Education and Study and unless you imploy and improve your Time and Faculties to these purposes tho perhaps you may gratifie and please your Fancy with vain and empty Delights yet your Understanding will prove unfruitful and after many tedious and dangerous Traverses you may return Home with a shatter'd Body and a barren and empty Soul. These are all such generous Inducements as will prevail with your ingenuous Temper and Inclination to keep close to your Studies But as a further Obligation and Inforcement give me leave to remind you of the Miscarriages of some who would neither be persuaded to love Learning nor Books which may be a sure Caution to you to avoid those Sins and Indiscretions of licentious and ungovern'd Youth For alass we have many deplorable Instances the Sparks and Blades of our Age who consume their Time Parts Wit Estates c. in pursuit of the greatest Fooleries and Vanities in the World to the greatest shame and disgrace of themselves and scandal of others as if they were a distinct Species from all Rational Beings and made only for a Sword or a Horse or a Dog and the other brutish and sensual Exercises of Luxury and Profaneness I am no Enemy to moderate and innocent Pleasures but those Sots and Ignaro's make it their Trade and way of Living to observe all Modes and Fashions drink swear curse whore game sight and quarrel like Hectors and Madmen despise and scorn all below them and run on in a full Carreer of Sin and Extravagance Insomuch that I 'm afraid they have scarce leisure to say their Prayers or look on a Book and therefore wholly unfit for Christian or ingenuous Converse their Dogs Horses c. being usually the Subjects of their Discourse in their more serious Intervals By all which inhuman Methods many of them are become so barbarously Ignorant and void of all Learning that they have almost forgot that ever they were at Schools or Vniversity unless they happen to remember some Pranks they play'd there and are as much strangers to Humanity Philosophy History c. as if there had been never any such thing as Books or Learning in the World. Nor are these the Faults only of our home-bred Gentlemen for we have many learned wise and good Men who never had the Curiosity nor Convenience of Travel but even of those who have seen many Foreign Countries Cities Delights c. yet neglecting the Business they went about as we have observed already have returned home after many impertinent Wandrings more vain and prodigal wicked and irreligious than those Companions of Ignorance and Epicurism they left behind them For what pleasure and satisfaction has that Man who has seen all the Novelties and Curiosities in the World if he has studied nothing else but to please and pamper his own Appetite All that we can say of him is that he has bestowed much pains to no purpose or for that which is worse and bought his Sins and Vanities at a dearer rate than others Thus I have set before you those Arguments and Motives and Dangers and Hazards on the right hand and on the left which your Prudence will consider betimes so that you may improve all those Opportunities that fall in your way to the best advantages lest you should unhappily miscarry in your great Adventure as those miserable Instances we have already noted which the Lord of his great mercy avert Consider again that your Station Quality and Parts may dispose you at your Return for Offices of Honour and Trust wherein you may be highly Serviceable to your King and Country as your worthy Father is and has been before you Nor can any Magistrate be duly qualified to administer Justice or Counsel with ease and satisfaction to himself or for the benefit of others but by such habitual Accomplishments as are the proper Results of Study and Observation Insomuch that Charles the Great Emperour did solemnly declare That he had rather abound in Knowledge than Riches and Honour But besides those foregoing Topicks you 'l find by Experience that the Pleasures as

to the Roman Catholicks and wholly unknown to the Old Church of Rome in her Primitive and Gospel Purity For these Errors and Delusions seem to have been contrived on purpose for the Support and Maintenance of the Pride and Covetousness of the Bishop of Rome and his Clergy as well as the Advancement of the Stateliness and Grandeur of their Church I could easily make it appear to you in all the Particulars that there 's not one of these Articles that has any Foundation in Scripture or Primitive Antiquity but are contrary to both and do undermine and overthrow almost all the Articles of our Christian Faith. But what I have said already concerning these Doctrins may be a sufficient caution to you not to venture your eternal Salvation upon such a Bottom lest you communicate with them in their Plagues Rev. 18.4 I have taken some pains to digest the whole Body of Popish Controversie into Order and Method for the satisfaction of my Self and Friends which I thought of necessary use at this time There are other excellent Authors which may be more valuable but you may command this if you please 't is not very large yet Methodical But to return As the Doctrin and Principles of the Church of Rome in those Instances wherein they differ from Us are heterodox absurd and erroneous so Secondly Their Practices are the natural and genuin Results and Consequences of such Principles Not to mention their private and personal Immoralities which may consist well enough with that Religion especially considering the Liberty and Indulgence allowed them which do more professedly belong to those of that Communion than any other we shall consider their Practices as Popish which are warranted to them by the Examples and Sanctions of their Superiours And of this Rank are Their Worshiping of Images Relicks Crosses Angels Saints and particularly the Virgin Mary all which are a most direct Violation of the Second Commandment and therefore they leave it out of all their Catechisms Manuals Mass-Books c. lest it should rise up in Judgment against them which Practices are also contrary to the whole Word of God and the Doctrin both of the Old and New Testaments Such also are their Dealings with the Laity who rob them of the Bread of Life in denying them the reading of the Holy Scriptures the Cup in the Sacrament and in commanding the whole Worship of God to be celebrated and perform'd in an unknown Tongue which few of their Laity and perhaps some of their Priests do not understand Tho they cannot but know that our blessed Saviour has expresly commanded that all indefinitely both Priests and People should search the Scriptures drink of that holy Cup and pray with the Spirit and pray with the Vnderstanding also Which no Person can in their Communion unless he understands Latin well and the strange Mumblings of their Priests who being generally too ignorant themselves are afraid that the People should know it O horrendum Nefas that such Practices as these should be so much as tolerated by those that are call'd Christians And yet there are still others as bad or worse than the former viz. Their Spiritual Tyranny in exacting a blind Obedience in Matters of Faith their innumerable Ceremonies and Superstitions which almost swallow up the whole Substance of Religion their notorious Schism many degrees worse than that of the Donatists and Novatians in separating from all other Churches far more Pure and Orthodox than themselves and yet because they cannot be the Pope's Subjects therefore they shall be none of Christs To say nothing of their School Points and Casuistical Divinity 't is evident that their whole Religion is only the bare shadow and outsides of Christianity and meer Pageantry and Formality of Devotion For alass their poor simple and ignorant Laity say hear and do they know not what and return from their Churches as void of Instruction and Christian Admonition and Edification as when they went and yet for all this which is the highest aggravation of their Sin and Misery they are obliged to believe that this their blind Devotion is not only acceptable but meritorious Besides how many notorious and damnable Sins pass for Venial and how easily are they atton'd for Insomuch that a few Drops of Holy Water and Cross upon their Breasts or Foreheads will throughly wash off the Stain according to their groundless Apprehensions and expiate the guilt of all their heinous and crying Sins Their notorious Equivocations have scarce left any room for Truth whereby they deceive others and offer violence to their own Consciences But tho poor ignorant and unwary Souls may be imposed upon and deluded yet it cannot be so with an All-seeing God who will one day convince all Men and expose their Sophistical Villanies and Reservations to the open and publick view both of Men and Angels Now this Liberty and Indulgence of theirs is so pleasing and acceptable to sensual and carnal Men that 't is no great wonder that they gain so many Proselytes to their Party as some do presumptuously and vainly boast But then if we give our selves the trouble to enquire what sort of Persons they are whom they have perverted we shall find that many of 'em are silly Women and Men notoriously debauched or ignorant or of mercenary Spirits who expect Preferment in that Way And therefore we have no great cause to regret the loss of them and if our number be less yet we are not the worse For if all our Licentious Hypocrites and Malefactors who are not worthy to live in the World should go over to their Communion we shall have no great cause to complain But alas these erroneous Principles and worse Practices of the Papists who being the more intelligent and judicious sort of that Communion cannot be so much the error and mistake of their Judgments as the perverseness of their Wills And tho a simple and ignorant Popeling who lies under such Temptations and Obligations as before may be saved yet I am afraid the more Learned and Discreet having made Shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience are in a very dangerous State if they live and die according to those corrupt Principles because they are in the number of those damnable Heresies the Scripture speaks of What I have already offer'd are Truths as clear as the Sun nor can any thing in the World be more demonstrative to a Person throughly acquainted with the Principles and Practices of Popery And yet for all this 't is a thousand to one you 'l meet with some bold and cunning Sophisters who 'l tell you a great many plausible Stories and endeavour to elude the most clear and convincing Reasons which can be urg'd against them whereby they do strangely impose upon and many times entrap poor ignorant and unwary Souls To instance in some Particulars And First A Catholick say they so living and dying even by the Confession of the Protestants themselves may be saved