Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	sermon_n	young_a	youth_n	39	3	7.4783	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61391	The husbandmans calling shewing the excellencies, temptations, graces, duties &c. of the Christian husbandman : being the substance of XII sermons preached to a country congregation / by Richard Steele.	Steele, Richard, 1629-1692.	1668 (1668)	Wing S5387; ESTC R30650	154,698	309

if thou do not pray But he cannot trouble thee whether God will or no but God can damn thee whether he will or no. They that now terrifie thee will run to hide themselves and will none of them come between thee and an angry God for the sins thou hast committed or duties thou hast omitted by their inducement And therefore Math. 10. 28. Fear not them that can kill the body and have no more that they can do but fear him that can cast body and soul into Hell O fear him and let them talk SECT IX IX THe Ninth Temptation of the Husbandman is Affected Ignorance His Intellectuals are but obtuse and Education did not befriend him his occasions many and his time scant whereby ordinarily he wants that necessary knowledge that should light him to Heaven And the abuse of knowledge in others and the excuse his continual labours suggest to him do tempt him to rest in and defend his Ignorance and so it grows Affected ignorance In this he lives and without Gods grace herein he dies But God forbid we should charge all persons of that Calling with this evil no there are many very many have better learned Christ able with much gravity and distinctness to give an account of all material Points of Religion that want not an Argument to d●…end the Truth though they cannot put it in Mood and Figure yea divers that in the Arts come not short in the Languages exceed some that sit in Moses seat And as to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ that consists not so much in mental as experimental apprehensions multitudes in this are excellent Schollars that can describe Faith to the life though they cannot define it that can tell how to repent though they know not whether this or Faith precede In short that can feel more than they can speak and that have learn'd to express more in their lives than in their words And some too there are that know too much I mean that have got more notions into their head than they can rule and for want of wisdome and humility grow giddy and conceited that they rather come to the Ordinance to judge their Minister than to be judged by the Word of God and that think they could discharge that Function better than he and these are to be rankt among the most intollerable sort of that Calling of whom it were to be wisht that either they knew less that would make them less elevated or that they knew more that would make them more humble But I hope the number of these are but few Experience of their own infirmities together with further knowledge will cure them of this swelling these Rickets in the head and by degrees they will find that the most they know is the least part of what they are ignorant of No the Epidemical disease of Husbandmen is ignorance affected ignorance Many of them want time to read or think of spiritual matters their Children cry their Business cryes their Creditour cryes and hard it is to read a leaf without many avocations and distractions nay worse many of them cannot read a word they can see no more in a Bible than in a stone nor read one verse therein though the reading and ruminating of it might be as much worth as Heaven to them Ah! that ever Heaven the gate of heaven should be in a Bible and a reasonable creature a Christian should not read it and those that can yet will not labour to find it there Nay worse yet for many of this Extraction and Education are wonderful dull of capacity and apprehend matters spiritual especially with much difficulty and confusion and then such broken m●…mories that they can hold nothing without very much a doe so that the Prophet J●…remy m●…ght very well conclude of them Jer. 5. 4. Therefore I said Surely these are poor they a●…e foolish for they know not the way of the Lord nor the judgement of their God I will get me to the great men Alas it is too manifest that ignorance prevails among that sort in all places insomuch that an Ignorant Peasant is the common Epithet Their ambition being only to know their ground their cattel their market and their seat in the Church Who could have believed the sad story that Mr. Pemble tells us in his Sermon about Ignorance if it had not an Author of credit Of an old man on his death bed that had heard in all likelihood two or three thousand Sermons in his life that being then examin'd of his knowledge concerning God should answer he thought him an old man sitting in a chair and about Christ thought him a towardly young Youth And concerning his Soul thought it was some great bone in his body c. O woful story That rational creatures who are able to give account of civil affairs with sufficient discretion and capable of the highest knowledge That professed Christians that have been brought up and taught that sacred Religion should know so little in the faith they must be saved by To expect to be saved by the Son of God and yet think him to be the Sun in the firmament as others have exprest That hope to go to Heaven and yet know neither faith nor repentance the undoubted way thither nor what it is to be justified or born again And more sad that the Husbandman should plead for this his Ignorance that any should imagine his sin should excuse him and bring him off before God That when God saith My people perish for want of Knowledge he should conclude because I want knowledge therefore I shall not perish yea and imagine that he shall speed better than the most knowing and conscionable of his Neighbours what besotted blindness is this Who can have patience to hear this confident folly but who is more bold than blind Bayard Alas it is ignorance that feeds his presumption If he did but see himself in a true glass he would abhor himself in dust and ashes And therefore its time to seek some Cure of this temptation And that is 1. Be perswaded of the absolute necessity of saving Knowledge That no man is excused by his birth poverty or dulness from getting so much knowledge in the fundamentals of Religion as will let Christ into the soul and stear it to Heaven This is certain that as no world was made without Light in the first place so no new world in the soul without the light of Knowledge Gods Method is Acts 26. 18. To turn men from darkness to light and so from the power of Satan unto God This is the way to Eternal Life John 17. 3. To know the onely true God and Jesus Christ. This is the first branch in the New Covenant A heart to know God Jer. 24. 7. not his Name but his Nature to know God in Chri●… to know his will Can you think any man goes to Heaven in the dark to Heaven blind Gods children are never born blind