Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	wonder_n	word_n	world_n	131	3	4.1962	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62324	A sermon preached before the King at New-Market, April 2, 1676 by Samuel Scattergood ...	Scattergood, Samuel, 1646-1696.	1676 (1676)	Wing S843; ESTC R14320	12,816	31

A SERMON Preached before the KING AT NEW-MARKET April 2. 1676. BY SAMUEL SCATTERGOOD M. A. Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge Published by his MAJESTIES special Command CAMBRIDGE Printed by John Hayes Printer to the Vniversity 1676. Job 28.28 And unto Man he said Behold the fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from evil is Vnderstanding THere is nothing that Man doth more earnestly pursue and hunt after then Wisdom and Understanding and there is nothing that God is more desirous that he should obtain And yet such is the obstinacy of our will and the perverseness of our Nature that when God shews us the true wisdom and the way to it we will not follow his directions but seek for it according to our own fansie where it is never to be had And then no wonder if in the end we prove such fools as to reap no other fruit of our labour but shame and repentance no wonder if we meet with death where we expected life and find destruction in those things wherein we sought for happiness For it hath ever been the devils policy even from the very beginning of the world so cunningly to counterfeit this inestimable Jewel that if we have not constant recourse to Gods Word to trie every thing we take for wisdom by that unerring touchstone and weigh it carefully in the ballance of the Sanctuary we may easily be deceived with a worthless trifle instead of this pearl of great price we may embrace a shadow for a substance and court ignorance and folly instead of Wisdom and Understanding Thus he overthrew our first Parents by perswading them to aspire to a greater measure of Knowledge then God had thought fit to bestow upon them and he hath all along made use of the same temptation to the ruine of their Posterity He found it successfull then and it hath been so ever since and among all his wiles and stratagems he hath none by which he can so easily inveigle us as this no bait so fair so taking and so universally prevalent among the Sons of men as this of Wisdom and Knowledge Nay I may in some sense say that he hath no temptation at all by which he can move us but this alone For did he not perswade men into a good opinion of themselves and that their wicked actions were wise and prudent he could never induce them to embrace his temptations and therefore he sutes them to every particular mans humour and disposition He offers not the ladder of Honour to the Sluggard upon which he knows the ambitious man will venture his life and fortunes but he brings a pillow to the one and a scepter to the other he propounds ease and idleness and sleep to the former and perswades him that wisdom shall court him in a dream and he shewes the latter all the kingdoms of the World and the glory of them and tells him that Wisdom is to be found no where but in the highest honour and most splendid preferments He tells the Miser that it consists in riches and that he must hoard it up in his coffers he tells the Glutton that he shall find it in a dainty dish and he bids the Revenger drink it up in the blood of his enemies But above all other persons those who one would think should be the best able to resist his temptations I mean the Learned are often times most easily foiled by him Their great learning and parts most excellent endowments which might be very serviceable to Gods glory and the good of his Church he perswades them to abuse in the maintaining of wrangling Disputations and unnecessary and sometimes dangerous Controversies By which means he rents the seamless coat of Christ divides the Church into Schisms and Factions and shakes all into disorder and Confusion He tells them that to know Christ and him crucified is but a mean piece of knowledge fit onely for men of weaker capacities to rest content with But as for them he would have them fore aloft and employ their time and study about deeper contemplations examine what God was doing before he created the World scan all the intrigues of his Providence sound the fathomless abyss of his unsearchable Decrees rifle if it were possible his most secret closet and curiously prie into those things which are concealed from Angels This saith he is Wisdom and this is Understanding worthy to be acquired by men of Parts and Learning And this vain and wicked Curiosity this unlawfull thirst after that Knowledge which is hidden from us was the occasion of these words of my Text and indeed of this whole Chapter For Jobs three Friends were very bold and foolishly positive in their assertions concerning Gods Decrees They thought it was altogether inconsistent with his infinite Goodness to suffer either the Righteous to be in adversity or the Wicked to prosper in this world And therefore when they considered that their friend Job who but a while before had been a mighty Prince was all of a sudden reduced to most extream poverty and as it were in a moment by unparalleled disasters deprived of his whole Estate his Children his health and brought down from a Throne to a Dunghill they stood all amazed and astonished at his unexpected calamity and instead of performing the duty of Friends and comforting him in his affliction they most unfriendly and uncharitably censure him And as if they had been of Gods privy Counsell had stood by him and throughly understood the whole design of his Providence in afflicting so severely his servant Job they presently conclude him to be a most grievous sinner and that whatsoever specious and fair shews he had made of Righteousness and Integrity yet they were all false and counterfeit and that God had now unmasked him and by his heavy judgements plainly discovered to all the world that he was a most notorious Hypocrite and that he had marked him and set him up as a Butt against which he would shoot all the Arrows of his fury and indignation All this Job hears and endures with patience He was sensible enough that God had afflicted him and he knew too that it was not for his Hypocrisie but for some secret end best known to his infinite Wisdom and therefore he enquires not after it but labours to perform his own Duty and to receive evil from the Hand of God if he sends it to him as well as good and patiently to bear whatsoever burden he laies upon him as one that was well assured that though in a little wrath he hid his face from him for a moment yet with everlasting kindness he would have mercy on him This is all the wisdom he aspires to he meddles not with Gods secret counsell nor searches after the Knowledge which he knew was too wonderfull for him And what he himself practises he advises his Friends here to practise too and blames them for pretending so fondly to give an account of the