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	sow_v	tare_n	2,063	5	12.8341	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62640	Six sermons I. Stedfastness in religion. II. Family-religion. III. IV. V. Education of children. VI. The advantages of an early piety : preached in the church of St. Lawrence Jury in London / by ... John Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.; Sermons. Selections	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1694 (1694)	Wing T1268A; ESTC R218939	82,517	218

by the severity of Parents do break forth strangely assoon as ever they get loose and from under their Discipline Secondly Another Miscarriage in this matter is when Reproof and Correction are accompanied and managed with Passion This is to betray one Fault and perhaps a greater in the punishment of another Besides that this makes Reproof and Correction to look like Revenge and Hatred which usually does not persuade and reform but provoke and exasperate And this probably may be one reason of the Apostle's admonition Parents provoke not your Children unto wrath because that is never likely to have any good effect Correction is a kind of Physick which ought never to be administred in Passion but upon counsel and good advice And that Passion is incident to Parents upon this occasion the Apostle tells us when he says that the Parents of our flesh chasten us for their pleasure Heb. 10. 12. that is they do it many times to gratify their Passion but God chastens us for our profit not in Anger but with a design to do us good And can we have a better Patern than our heavenly Father to imitate A Father is as it were a Prince and a Judge in his Family There he gives Laws and inflicts Censures and Punishments upon Offenders But how misbecoming a thing would it be to see a Judge pass Sentence upon a man in Choler It is the same thing to see a Father in the heat and fury of his Passion correct his Child If a Father could but see hims●lf in this Mood and how ill his Passion becomes him instead of being Angry with his Child he would be out of Patience with himself I proceed to the next thing I proposed namely IV. To make out the truth of the Proposition contained in the Text by shewing how the good Education of Children comes to be of so great advantage and to have so good and lasting an influence upon their whole Lives I confess there are some wild and savage Natures monstrous and prodigious Tempers hard as the Rocks and barren as the Sand upon the Sea-shore which discover strong and early propensions to vice and a violent antipathy to Goodness Such Tempers are next to desperate but yet they are not utterly intractable to the Grace of God and the Religious Care of Parents I hope such Tempers as these are very rare though God is pleased they should sometimes appear in the World as instances of the great corruption and degeneracy of Human Nature and of the great need of D●vine Grace But surely there is no Temper that is absolutely and irrecoverably prejudiced against that which is good This would be so terrible an Objection against the Providence of God as would be very hard to be answered God be thanked most Tempers are tractable to good Education and there is very great p●obability of the good succe●s of it if it be carefully and wisely managed And for the Confirmation of this Truth I shall instance in two very great Advantages of a Religious and vir●uous Education of Children 1 st It gives Religion and Virtue the advantage of the first Possession 2 dly The Advantage of Habit and Custom First Good Education gives Religion and Virtue the Advantage of the first Possession The Mind of Man is an active Principle and will be employed about something or other It cannot stand idle and will therefore take up with that which first offers it self So soon as Reason puts forth it self and the Understanding begins to be exercised the Mind of man discovers a natural thirst after knowledge and greedily drinks in that which comes first If it have not the Waters of Life and the pure streams of Goodness to allay that thirst it will seek to quench it in the filthy Puddles and impure Pleasures of this World Now since Children will be busying their Minds about something it is good that they should be entertained with the best things and with the best Notions and Principles of which their Understanding and Age are capable It is a happy thing to be Principled and as I may say Prejudiced the better way and that Religion should get the first possession of their Hearts For it is certainly a great Advantage to Religion to be planted in a tender and fresh Soil And if Parents be careless and neglect this advantage the Enemy will be sure to sow his Tares whilst the Husbandman is asleep Therefore we should prevent the Devil by giving God and Goodness an early possession of our Children and by letting Him into their Hearts betimes Possession is a great Point and it is of mighty consequence to have Nature planted with good Seeds before vicious inclinations spring up and grow into strength and Habit. I know that there is a spiteful Proverb currant in the World and the Devil hath taken care to spread it to the discouragement of an early Piety A young Saint and an old Devil but notwithstanding this a young Saint is most likely to prove an old one Sol●mon to be sure was of this mind and I make no doubt but he made as wise and true Proverbs as any body hath done since Him only excepted who was a much greater and wiser Man than Solomon Secondly Good Education gives likewise the Advantage of Habit and Custom and Custom is of mighty force It is as Pliny in one of his Epistles says of it efficacissimus omnium rerum Magister the most powerful and effectual Master in every kind It is an acquired and a sort of Second Nature and next to Nature it self a principle of greatest power Custom bears a huge sway in all Human actions Men love those things and do them with ease to which they have been long inured and accustomed And on the contrary men go against Custom with great regret and uneasiness And among all others that Custom is most strong which is begun in Childhood And we see in Experience the strange power of Education in forming persons to Religion and Virtue Now Education is nothing but certain Customs planted in Childhood and which have taken deep Root whilst Nature was tender We see likewise in common experience how dangerous an evil Habit and Custom is and how hard to be alter'd Therefore the Cretians when they would curse a man to purpose wish●d that the Gods would engage him in some bad Custom looking upon a man after that to be irrecoverably lost So on the other Side to be engaged in a good Custom is an unspeakable advantage especially for Children to be habituated to a holy and virtuous course before the Habits of Sin and Vice have taken root and are confirm'd in them We are too natu●ally inclined to that which is evil But yet this ought not to discourage us because it is certain in Experience that a contrary Cu●●om hath done much in many Cases even where Nature hath been strongly inclined the other way Demosthenes did by great Resolution and almost infinite Pains and after a long