Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
enemy_n	good_a	seed_n	tare_n	1,657	5	12.7414	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63912	The middle way betwixt. The second part being an apologetical vindication of the former / by John Turner.	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.	1684 (1684)	Wing T3312A; ESTC R203722	206,707	592

so wholly of another mind that he thinks of this man with nothing but contempt and hath no relish of any thing but real and useful knowledge and a thousand more such differences might be produced the reasons of which are placed in the particular Genius of the persons to whom they belong that is in their particular constitutions in which the seeds or causes of all these either excellencies or defects are contained And according to the different proportions of care industry and study the different happinesses or infelicities of Fortune or Education so may these defects be amended or encreased these aptitudes improved or utterly destroyed for men are not only as to these matters very different from one another but by Company or Diet or different Education they may be altered from themselves a man is scarce the same thing when he is full and when he is fasting when he is fresh in the morning and weary after the toyl and labour of the day he hath not the same apprehension and doth not make the same judgment of things when he is in drink and when he is sober When he is sick and oppressed with a too heavy load of Melancholly and oppressive matter when his blood does not circulate freely or his stomach doth not perform its office or the due and usual separations are not made by sweat or siege or urine he cannot discern things so clearly as at other times he suspects persons without reason and fears those things of which he is in no danger and he needs only to purge or bleed or enter into a Diet as a Physician shall prescribe to bring him to a sound sense and a right understanding both of himself and of the things about him and so to conclude this matter this is the account that is to be given why he that was a brisk and an active man in his youth shall perhaps be a stupid Fellow and a dotard in his old age others very dull and phlegmatick in their youth do as they grow in years improve in briskness and in gayety too why one that had a good understanding shall lose it by an accidental fall upon his head and he that was dull and slow of apprehension being soundly purged by a sickness of the Small Pox shall grow more nimble and sagacious then before Wherefore this is the great duty incumbent upon men they are very carefully to watch as over all their evil inclinations and unreasonable desires so particularly over that which they find to be most reigning and constitutional in them because in this there is the greatest danger from this there is a strong and a perpetual sollicitation upon this all opportunities and temptations from without have a manifest advantage to this they find the most easie and favourable access and against this it is whatever it be that the Devil himself who uses his utmost diligence in watering the tares and cockle of our minds that he may choak the wheat and stifle the good seed employes his most assiduous stratagems and devices and with the most assured hopes of success It concerns us therefore highly in opposition to so many and so great Enemies from within and from without to stand perpetually upon our guard and as we are to lay aside every weight and to subdue as much as in us lies every thought and affection to an obedience to reason and religion so because there is always the greatest danger and we are always the most strongly sollicited and assaulted on that side we are therefore to have a more particular regard to the sin that doth so easily beset us that is to that particular sin or folly whatsoever it be which is most constitutional and complexional in us Secondly as there are constitutional infirmities or vices so there are also of the same kind certain natural perfections or useful inclinations which it ought to be every mans business for his own particular carefully to observe and having observed to cultivate and improve because in the improvement of this talent which is so natural to him he will find himself most happy he will be able to make the most considerable progress and will be most serviceable to himself and to Mankind And though he be certainly the most happy man and the most highly favoured of God and nature whose constitutional talent shall consist in that which is of greatest use and advantage to the World as if a man have a natural gravity and wisdom in his looks joyned to a natural sobriety and a strong power of perswasion which if employed in exhorting the world to virtue and calling it to repentance and in spurring men on to a vigorous pursuit after things that are useful praise-worthy and of good example will briug great authority and reputation to himself and be of the most signal benefit and advantage to others Yet there are other Talents likewise which though they are not altogether of such absolute necessity or such universal use yet ought they wherever they are found to be with no less care and industry improved then the other as if a mans parts lye for the improvement of Husbandry Trade Navigation Mechanick arts or any thing whereby life may be rendered more happy society more ornamental Cities more wealthy correspondence more diffusive and the world by every mans having wherewithall to subsist more safe these are dispositions wherever they are found which are to be looked upon as the stock of nature with which we are to set up as Citizens of the World and for the improvement of which we must be accountable to God from whom every good and perfect gift proceeds To which Considerations for I went no farther upon that occasion it is to be added in the third place that the reflecting upon this that our very virtues and excellencies themselves are in so great a measure constitutional things ought to be a natural remedy against all manner of insolence and pride for though it be a great shame to abuse and adulterate an happy constitution and the greatest commendation that can be to improve it yet to be proud or insolent because our Bodies are better made either for the practice of virtue or for the attainment of wisdom then our neighbours is to be proud of that which we could not avoid and which it was not in our power to order otherwise then it is and by consequence is a very foolish and very non-sensical pride And then fourthly and lastly the reflecting upon the constitutional frailties and imperfections to which the nature of man is differently exposed which it is so hard and perhaps utterly impossible perfectly to conquer and which are a degree of necessity superinduced upon us from without by the unmanageable temperament of our bodily part ought to affect us all with a sence of charity and pity for each other and to stir us up to a mutual forbearance of the several infirmities to which our natures are subject that is to say we must

spake by their own confession as never Man spake and did those Wonders which it was impossible for a meer Man to do and what he did himself that he recommended also in his Instructions to the practice of the Disciples when he sent them abroad Matth. 10. 5 6. Go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any City of the Samaritans enter ye not but go rather to the lost Sheep of the House of Israel He did not forbid them wholly to preach to the Gentiles but they were to begin with the Jews Go rather to the lost Sheep of the House of Israel which Instructions were afterwards exactly observed by the Apostles who did not exercise their Apostleship among the Gentiles 'till such time as they had first been rejected of the Jews Acts 13. 45 46 47. But when the Jews filled with envy spake against those things which were spoken by Paul contradicting and blaspheming then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you but seeing ye put it from you and judge your selves unworthy of everlasting life Lo we turn to the Gentiles for so hath the Lord commanded us saying I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles that thou shouldest be for Salvation unto the ends of the Earth Esa 49. 6. So true is it that sufficient means had been used to render the Jews inexcusable before they were rejected They did not stumble that they might fall but they first fell of themselves and then they were blinded and hardened by God Have they stumbled that they should fall says the Apostle God forbid but rather through their fall Salvation is come unto the Gentiles for to provoke them to Jealousie that is to awaken them out of this benummed Estate and be a happy means of their rising again The Jews for many ages before were in expectation of Messias to come and it appears by several passages up and down in the Gospels that he was expected at that very time when our Saviour appeared upon Earth But there were three or four several things which hindered them from believing him to be the person As First That they expected a temporal Prince that should deliver them from the Roman Yoke and should establish them in a lasting Soveraignty and dominion over the Nations round about them which appears among other things from Herod's cruel Edict for the slaying the Male-Children in Bethlehem and in all the Coasts thereof from two years old and under with a design among them to have slain the King of the Jews Matth. 2. 16. that is the Messias that was to come which proves plainly what notion the Jews had at that time of the Messias besides that it would have been a ridiculous piece of Cruelty for Herod to have done what he did upon any other supposition than that the Kingdom of the Messias was a Kingdom of this world that so by slaying of him he might secure the Soveraignty to himself and his Posterity for ever which was no question his design When therefore the Jews found themselves so much disappointed in a mean mechanick and obscure person the Son of Joseph the Carpenter laying claim to so August a Title as that of the Messias and yet notwithstanding making no pretences to a temporal Kingdom but on the contrary mightily disowning and disclaiming it and instead thereof preaching obedience to Caesar and those that were commissioned and employed by him this was a mighty prejudice against him that he could not be the person designed when the notion which they had conceived of the Messias was so contrary in all respects to what he expresly declared of himself and so inconsistent with that contumelious usage which he not only suffered himself but told all his followers they must expect no better The second Prejudice was taken from his Parentage they expected a Messias of the house of David but Joseph the Carpenter whose reputed Son our Saviour was though he were of the Tribe of Judah yet he was either not known to be of the Lineage of David or it was not thought likely that so mean a Sprout of the Davidical Stock should bestow the so much talked of and the so long expected Messias upon their Nation and therefore let him preach never so much to their Astonishment and Admiration let him do never so many Miracles and work never so great wonders yet still they would be saying Matth. 13. 55 Is not this the Carpenters Son And Mark 6. 3 Is not this the Carpenter the Son of Mary As if it were impossible he should be the Messias the Christ the great King and Prophet that was to come among them who was so poorly descended and was himself so very mean a person The third Prejudice was that they thought him to have been born not in Bethlehem of Judea but in Nazareth of Galilee Whereas it was believed to a Proverb among them that out of Galilee no good could come and that out of Nazareth no Prophet could arise For so great was the hatred betwixt the Jews and the Babylonish Planters of Samaria and Galilee that they could never believe God Almighty would send them a Messias from thence or that the most mortal and avowed Enemies of the Jewish Nation should ever have that honour vouchsafed to them from above as that the greatest King the most infallible Prophet and every way the most illustrious and accomplisht Person that the Jews had ever seen or were ever to expect should be born among Hereticks Idolaters and such as were worse than Pagans which was the best language a Jew would be brought to allow to any Samaritan or Galilean and though it is true there were Multitudes of Jews interspersed about in Samaria and Galilee yet as if they had all been blasted from the Cradle by a sort of Heretical Contagion from the soyl of so accursed a place they would not allow that the Spirit of God or of Prophecy could rest upon them The fourth and last great Prejudice which I shall mention was taken from his laying so little stress upon the Ceremonial part of the Mosaical Institution and his so frequent and so bitter invectives against the Traditions of the Jewish matters whose Authority among the Scribes and Pharisees of those times and consequently among the much greatest part of the people was accounted so Sacred that it was held equal if not Superior to the written Law These were the main Prejudices which the Jews in our Saviour's time laboured under these were the Reasons why they did not receive him as the Prophet that was to come the Messias and the King of the Jews and as these Prejudices were all of them very great in themselves very powerful obstructions against the due reception of his Person or his Gospel so they were still further enflamed by the perpetual inculcation of his mortal Enemies the Scribes and Pharisees and Lawyers of those times