Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
enemy_n	field_n	good_a	tare_n	1,044	5	12.5068	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44395	Golden remains of the ever memorable Mr Iohn Hales of Eton College &c.	Hales, John, 1584-1656.; Hollar, Wenceslaus, 1607-1677, engraver.; Pearson, John, 1613-1686.; Gunning, Peter, 1614-1684.; Balcanquhall, Walter, 1586?-1645.	1659 (1659)	Wing H269; ESTC R202306	285,104	329

and art to damn himself When Saul being sent against Amalek had spared Agag and the best and fattest of the prey at Samuels coming to visit him how doth he wipe his mouth as if all had been well and trimly composes himself to entertain him Blessed art thou of the Lord I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And when Samuell had shewed him his errour how quickly hath He his excuse at his fingers ends We have spared the best of the Sheep and of the Oxen to Sacrifice unto the Lord Et Deo adulatur sibi lenocinatur as Tertulian speakes he thinks to gull Almighty God with fair and flattering pretences and becomes a baud to his own vice nimium idem omnes fallimur it is the common errour of us all a●●nd in most of our Actions we do as Saul did endeavour to put tricks upon our selves Beloved were we not partiall but rigid censurers of our own thoughts this corrupt fruit would quickly rot and fall away Again their is a 2d fruit springing out of this favour and dotage on our own actions an errour as common though not so dangerous for we are content many times to acknowledg that something is amiss in our actions we will confess them to be sins but we accoun●●t of them as little sins sins of a lesser size not so fearfull easily pardonable There is a sinner who by committing some great and and heinous crime crimen devoratorium salutis as Tertulian calls it such a sin as with open mouth devours salvation doth as it were with one step leap into Hell and of this kind of sinners the number is fewer But abundance there are who avoiding great and heinous sins by committing lesser sins as they think can be content to go by degrees and as it were step by step into Hell Beloved let us a little put on the spectacle I but now spake of that we may see whither any sin be so small as we take it I know there is difference of sins Our Saviour tells us that there is a beam and there is a more but withall this I know that the best way to keep us from sin is minima pro maximis cavere to loath even the least as if it were the greatest if we look through this Glass it will make us think every more a beam Sins in themselves are unequall but in regard of us and of our endeavour to avoid them they are all equall Fly from evill saith the Psalmist he tells us not that there is one greater evill from which we must fly and another less from which t is enough if we do but go but he bids us fly and to make haste alike from all To think that a sin is less then it is may be dangerous for it makes us the less carefull to avoid it but to mistake on the other hand and think a sin greater then it is this is a very profitable errour Utinam sic semper erraremus would God we did alwaies thus erre for besides that there is no danger in it it makes us more fearfull to commit sin Our Saviour reprehends the Pharisees in the Gospell because they could strain at gnats but swallow Camells but yet it is true that men learne at length to swallow Camells by swallowing Gnats at first Nemo repente fuit turpissimus no sinner so hardy as to set upon the greatest sins at first The way by which men train up themselves to the committing gross and heinous sins is by not being at first conscientious of lesser sins Et sane nescio saith Paulinus in St. Hierom an possimus leve aliquod peccatum dicere quod in Dei contemptum admittitur who dares call any sin little that is committed against God small contempts against great Princes are accounted great oversights for what is wanting in the thing is made up in the worth of the Person How great a sin then is the smallest contempt that is done against God Prudentissimus ille est qui non tam considerat quid jussum sit quam illum qui jusserit nec quantitatem imperii sed imperantis cogitat dignitatem It is the best wisdome for us not so much to consider what is commanded as who it is that commandeth it to consider I say not the smallness of the Law but the greatness of the Lawgiver Sins comparatively may be counted greater or lesser but absolutely none can be counted small To conclude then this point Charity suspecteth no harm saith St. Paul true but we must note that some vertues in us concern our selves as Faith Hope Temperance and the like some vertues concern not our selves but others but such an one is Charity Charity that wills Christians to think well of all others can have little room upon our selves Let us then make use of this Charity towards our Neighbours hope the best of all their actions but let us take heed how we be overcharitably minded to our selves Caesar profest that he would rather dy then suspect his friends and he sped accordingly for he dyed by the treachery of those Friends whom he suspected not Let us take heed how we be overkind unto our own thoughts how we think it an errour to be two suspicious of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 peradventure those Sons of our own hearts whom we least suspect will in the end prove those who shall betray us But I come to a third Reason A third reason why I shall advise you to this jealousy over your own thoughts is the difficulty of discovering them betime and ing of what spirit they are For our heart is like that Field in the Gospell in which the Husbandman sowes good Corne and the enemy sowes tares God infuseth good thoughts and the Devill ill Now as weeds many times at their first budding are hardly known from good hearbs so at the first springing and budding of our thoughts a hard matter it is to know the weed from the good hearb the Corne from the tare As Judah in the Book of Genesis knew not Tamar till the fruit of his sin committed with her began to shew it self so till the fruits of our thoughts and purposes begin to appear except we search very narrowly we can scarcely discover of what rank they are Tunc ferrum quod latebat in fundo supernatabat aquae inter palmarum arbores myrrhae amaritudo reperta est Then the iron that lay in the bottom will swim at the top of the water and among the pleasant Palmtrees will be found the bitterness of mirrh We read in the 2d of Samuell that when the Arke was brought from Kirithjearim the Oxen that drew the cart shook it and Uzzah reaching out his hand to save it from falling for his good service was laid dead in the place Doubtless Uzzah his accompanying the Ark was a sign of his love unto it his love unto it begat in him a fear to see it in danger his fear to see it in danger bred in

time of War when he might lawfully have done it in the fury of the battel Abner would not shed blood but by constraint Xenophon would make us believe that the Souldiers in Cyrus his army were so well disciplin'd that one of them in time of the battel having lift up his arm to strike his enemy hearing the Trumpet begin to sound the retreat let fall his arm and willingly lost his blow because he thought the time of striking was now past So far were these men from thinking it lawful to shed the blood of a Subject in the time of peace that they would not shed the blood of an enemy in time of war except it were in the field J. Cesar was one of the greatest stoutest Captains that ever was in the World he stood the shock of fifty set battels besides all sieges and outroads he took a thousand Cities and walled Towns he overrun three hundred severall countreyes and in his wars were slain well near twelve hundred thousand men besides all those that died in the civil wars which were great numbers yet this man protested of himself and that most truly that he never drew blood but in the field nunquam nisi in acie stantem never slew any man but in a set battel I have been a little the bolder in bringing these instances of heathen men First because the Doctrine of Christ through error is counted an enemy to policie of War and Martial Discipline Secondly because we have found out many distinctions and evasions to elude the precepts of our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles For as it hath been observed of the God-makers I mean the Painters and Statuaries among the heathen they were wont many times to paint their Goddesses like their mistresses and then think them most fair when they were most like what they best loved so is it with many professors of Christian Religion they can temper the precepts of it to their liking and lay upon them glosses and interpretations as it were colours and make it look like what they love Thirdly because it is likely that the examples of these men will most prevail with those to whom I speak as being such to whom above all they affect to be most like Except therefore it be their purpose to hear no other Judgement but only their own unruly and misorderly affections it cannot but move them to see the examples of men guided only by the light of reason of men I say the most famous in all the world for valour and resolution to run so mainly against them To come then unto the question of Duels both by the light of reason and by the practice of men it doth appear that there is no case wherein subjects may privatly seek each others lives There are extant the Laws of the Jews framed by God himself The Laws of the Roman Empire made partly by the Ethnick partly by Christian Princes A great part of the Laws of Sparta and Athens two warlike Common-Wealths especially the former lie dispersed in our books yet amongst them all is there not a Law or Custome that permits this liberty to Subjects The reason of it I conceive is very plain The principal thing next under God by which a Common-Wealth doth stand is the Authority of the Magistrate whose proper end is to compose and end quarrels between man and man upon what occasion soever they grow For were men peaceable were men not injurious one to another there were no use of Government Wherefore to permit men in private to try their own rights or to avenge their own wrongs and so to decline the sentence of the Magistrate is quite to cut off all use of Authority Indeed it hath been sometimes seen that the event of a battel by consent of both armies hath been put upon single combat to avoid further effusion of blood but combats betwixt Subjects for private causes till these later ages of the world was never allowed Yet I must confess the practice of it is very Ancient For Cain the second man in the world was the first Duelist the first that ever challenged the field in the fourth of Genesis the Text saith That Cain spake unto his Brother and when they were in the field he arose and slew him The Septuagint to make the sense more plain do adde another clause and tell us what it was he said unto his Brother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us go out into the field and when they were in the field he arose and slew him Let us go out into the field it is the very form and proper language of a challenge Many times indeed our Gallants can formalize in other words but evermore the substance and usually the very words are no other but these of Cains Let us go out into the field Abel I perswade my self understood them not as a challenge for had he so done he would have made so much use of his discretion as to have refused it yet can we not chuse but acknowledge a secret Judgement of God in this that the words of Cain should still be so Religiously kept till this day as a Proem and Introduction to that action which doubtless is no other then what Cains was When therefore our Gallants are so ready to challenge the field and to go into the field Let them but remember whose words they use and so accordingly think of their action Again notwithstanding Duels are of so ancient and worshipful a Parentage yet could they never gain so good acceptance as to be permitted much less to be counted lawful in the civil part of the world till barbarisme had overran it About five or six hundred years after Christ at the fall of the Roman Empire aboundance of rude and barbarous people brake in and possest the civiler part of the world who abolishing the ancient Laws of the Empire set up many strange customs in their rooms Amongst the rest for the determining of quarrels that might arise in case of doubtful title or of false accusation or the like they put themselves upon many unusual forms of Tryal as to handle red hot Iron to walk bare foot on burning coals to put their hands and feet in scalding water and many other of the like nature which are reckoned up by Hottoman a French Lawyer For they presumed so far on Gods providence that if the party accused were innocent he might do any of these without any smart or harm In the same cases when by reason of unsufficient and doubtful evidence the Judges could not proceed to sentence as somtimes it falls out and the parties contending would admit of no reasonable composition Their manner was to permit them to trie it out by their swords That so the Conqueror might be thought to be in the right They permitted Isay thus to do For at the best 't was but a permission to prevent farther mischief For to this end sometimes some known abuses are tolerated So God permitted the Jews

flight and contemn our enemy to erre on the contrary side and think him to be weaker then he is this hath caused many an overthrow It is a rule which Vigetius gives us Difficilimè vincitur qui verè potest de suis de adversarii copiis judicare It is an hard matter to overcome him that truly knoweth his own strength and the strength of his adversary And here beloved is the error of most Christians we do not know of what strength we are We look upon this body of ours and suppose that in so weak and faint a subject there cannot subsist so great strength as we speak of as if a man should prize the liquor by the baseness of the vessel in which it is As divers Landlords have treasures hidden in their fields which they know not of so many of us have this treasure of omnipotency in us but we care not to discover it to know it did we but perfectly know our own strength and would we but compare it with the strength of our enemies we should plainly discover that we have such infinite advantage above them that our conquest may seem not to be so great as is pretended For the greater the advantages are the glory of the victory is the less and that which makes a conquest great is not so much the greatness of him that Conquers as the strength and greatness of him that is overthrown Now what proportion is there betwixt the strength of God himself dwelling in us and all the strength of Heaven Earth and Hell besides how then can we count this spiritual war so fearful which is waged upon so unequal termes In quo si modo congressus cum hoste sis viceris in which if we but give the onset we are sure to gain the victory restitisse vicisse est To resist is to conquer for so saith the Apostle Resist the Devil and he shall flie from you There was never yet any Christian conquer'd that could not and in this war not to yield the victory is to get it As therefore one spake of Alexanders expedition into India Benè ausus est vana contemnere the matter was not much which he did the greatest thing in it was that he durst do it so considering our strength and the weakness of our adversaries we may without prejudice speak even of the worthiest Souldiers that ever fought these Spiritual Battels Benè aust sunt vana contemnere The greatest thing that we can admire in them is that they durst do it Would we but a little examine the forces of our adversaries we should quickly finde it to be as I have said When Alcibiades a young Gentleman of Athens was afraid to speak before the multitude Socrates to put him in heart asks him Fear you saith he such a one and names one of the multitude to him No saith Alcibiades he is but a Tradesman Fear you such a one saith he and names a second No for he is but a Pesant or such a one and names a third No for he is but an ordinary Gentleman Now saith he of such as these doth the whole multitude consist and by this device he encouraged Alcibiades to speak He that shall fear to encounter the multitude and army of Spiritual adversaries which are ready to set themselves against him Let him do by himself as Socrates did by Alcibiades Let him sitdown and consider with himself his enemies one by one and he shall quickly discover their weakness Primi in praeliis vincantur oculi It s a saying that the first thing that is overcome in a Souldier is his eye while he judges of his enemy by his multitude and provision rather then by his strength Beloved if we judge not of our adversary in gross and as it were by the eye we shall easily see that we shall not need to do as the King in the Gospel doth send to his enemy with conditions of peace For there is no treaty of Peace to be had with these Had Zimri peace that slew his Master saith the Scripture And there is no peace unto the wicked saith my God Not only Zimri and the wicked but no Christian hath or can have peace he must be always as fighting and alwayes conquering Let us single out some one of this army and let us examine his strength Is it sin doth so much affright us I make choice of it because it is the dreadfullest enemy that a Christian hath Let us a little consider its strength and we shall quickly see there is no such need to fear it Sins are of two sorts either great and capital or small and ordinary sins I know it were a paradox in nature to tell you that the greatest and the mightiest things are of least force Yet this is true in the case we speak of the greatest things are the weakest Your own experience tells you that rapes and murthers parricide poysoning treason and the rest of that rabble of arch sins are the sins of the fewest and that they have no strength at all but upon the weakest men For doubtless if they were the strongest they would reign with greatest latitude they would be the commonest they would be the sins of the most But wandring thoughts idle words petty lusts inconsiderate wrath immoderate love to the things of the world and the rest of that swarm of ordinary sins these are they that have largest extent and Dominion and some of these or all of these more or less prevail with every man As the Magicians in Exodus when they saw not the power of God in the Serpents in the blood in the frogs at the coming of the plague of the Lice presently cryed Digitus Dei his est this is the finger of God so I know not how it comes to pass though we see and confess that in those great and hainous crimes the Devil hath least power yet at the comming of Lice of the rout of smaller and ordinary sins we presently yield our selves captives and cry out Digitus Diaboli the strength of the Devil is in these as if we were like unto that fabulous rack in Plinie which if a man thrust at with his whole body he could not move it yet a man might shake it with one of his fingers Now what an error is it in us Christians when we see the principal and captain sins so easily vanquisht to think the common Souldier or lesser sort invincible For certainly if the greatest sins be the weakest the lesser cannot be very strong Secondly is it Original corruption that doth so much affright us Let us consider this a little and see what great cause we have to fear it And first beloved let us take heed that we seem not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fight with our own fansie and not so much to finde as to fain an enemy Mistake me not I beseech you I speak not this as doubting that we drew any natural infection from the loins of our