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
A65548	Miserere cleri, a sermon, presenting the miseries of the clergy, and assigning their true causes in order to redress preached before the right honourable Sir John Vaughan Knight, Lord Chief Justice of His Majesties Court of common pleas, and Sir John Archer Knight, one of the justices of the same court : in the cathedral of Saint Peter, Exon, at the Assizes, on Sunday, July 26, 1688 / by Edw. Wetenhall ...	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1668 (1668)	Wing W1505; ESTC R3625	18,089	31

whole earth I have neither c. I wish it were not obvious to parallel amongst us Jeremie's case and that not in a particular person or two but in a publick body Who inherit his office inherit his misery and we of the Ministry of the Church of England who are faithful to her laws and interest may and surely many of us often have not unjustly taken up this lamentation Wo is me my mother my mother the English Church that thou hast born me a son of strife and contention to the whole earth We have neither practised extortion nor oppression I could wish it could as truly be said we had never suffered either and yet the people curse us Give me leave I beseech you to consider the inducements of this lamentation and you shall not find it groundless Give me leave to consider the lamentation it self and it shall not appear excessive or exorbitant Give me leave lastly to consider its intent or design and I hope the whole will not be found useless Who acts without a reason acts not like a man who without due reason not at all like a sober man That therefore none may suspect the justice or prudence of the Prophets complaint I beseech you attend unto its inducements shall I say or inforcements which were two His present misery and its grounds His misery in being a son of strife and contention to the whole earth and cursed by all the people The grounds hereof negatively exprest I have neither lent upon usury nor have men lent to me on usury and positively insinuated My mother hath born me a son of strife and contention As miseries seldome come single so is it more than one under which our Prophet groans His words speak him to have met with Contentious oppositions scornful sleights and malicious slanders First he complains himself to be a man of strife and contention to the whole earth that is to the Jewish world all that of earth to which he was yet known or had to do with Not that he was a man given to strifes but that in the innocent and conscientious discharge of his sacred function he met with them from the impieties of men Neither were the Courts opprest with his suits nor the streets with his raileries nor the fields with his quarrels or riots but while from God he told Judah of their transgressions and Israel of their sins and sad approaching recompence while he would have perswaded the world to grow better and save justice the labour and themselves the pains of punishment he is reputed by such who had no stomach to virtue a man as it were made up of strife And while he is zealously concerned about their happiness and will not be put off with a single or some few iterated repulses he is thought troublesome for this his charitable and unwearied importunity and branded by men who were resolved never to be guilty of changing to the better for a contentious person and his zeal and their incorrigibleness gave him the trouble of one sort of striving while he could not force himself to suffer them to perish quietly Something of such contentiousness is common to all who are sent on like errands with the Prophet Men commonly prove not easie Proselytes to holy Life nor is it a small contention of labour which those must undergo whose business it is to mend the world Custome and self-will are not the most flexile things especially where variety of pleasures and sensible glories perswade the stiffest adhaesion to them Indeed therefore every private Christian is in some measure a man of strife for he that hath enemies which he must engage and cannot easily vanquish must either yield or contend for victory But the Ministry besides the contests which they have with their own corruptions and other invisible foes common to them with the Christian multitude have many another strife proper to their function 1. They have a strife with the Infidelity of men Those whom in other matters we finde sufficiently credulous and easy in Religion often we can perswade but little Alas the practices of the age have rendred it not only the common mode but interest to question or reject the principles of Faith to the end the braver minds as they are thought may not be precided scope and advantage to defend their beloved Latitude of life And those very persons who will receive Novel curiosities upon conjectures and probable surmises of the very first Fundamentals of all Religion require demonstrations and tolerable would our contention be would they either acquiesce in them given or not account every thing overthrown which they have been pleased to droll upon Not less 2. are our contests with misbelief than with unbelief The Enemy who sowed tares seems to have set out but little after the good seeds-man and his evil seed both quickly sprung up and hath all along been fruitful Verily hath he not servants still at work whom while we strive to counter-work and suppress are we not reputed men of strife persons who by making a clamour of damnable doctrines stirre up the Magistrate to persecutions and severities and who obstruct the happy liberty and flourishing of the Kingdome That is in truth who at present and 't is but a little stand in some mens way that they cannot do the mischief they would or make the world as vitious giddy and unhappy as themselves A sad thing that such liberty should be denied men But 3. we are yet further men of strife for we have daily contests with the evil manners of the world and are studying and striving with all our might and main to bring Godliness and Honesty and Temperance and Charity into publick fashion and if it might be universal practice In prosecution of which design we many times meet with other contention besides that of labour For when men cannot slight Gods worship or cheat or revel or maintain malice but they must hear of it it is no wonder if they who quarrel with reformation of life entreat not well such who would reform them But that which makes this strife so irksome and as it were impregnates it with woe is its frequent unsuccessfulness and notwithstanding perpetual incumbency Men will not be perswaded to Faith to soundness to Virtue yet still must we strive on and call and conjure and every way struggle to reclaim their disobedient and gainsaying minds And speed or not speed cease we must not Our being quiet were to betray those who count us contentious for speaking and our very silence would cry for vengeance on our selves whatever it would bring on them who are so fond on it Is not then this our work and function as the case stands a real misery If we hold our peace albeit after rejection we are sound guilty A necessity is laid upon me and wo is me if I preach not the Gospel If we preach we generally stirre up the minds of such against us whose vices we have taxt