Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	abound_v	godliness_n	temperance_n	1,398	5	11.2550	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49242	The dejected soules cure tending to support poor drooping sinners. With rules, comforts, and cautions in severall cases. In divers sermons, by Mr. Christopher Love, late minister of Laurence Jury. To which is added, I. The ministry of the angels to the heirs of salvation. II. Gods omnipresence. III. The sinners legacy to their posterity.	Love, Christopher, 1618-1651.	1657 (1657)	Wing L3151; ESTC R215529	168,974	219

glutted with the creature to have your hearts filled with the world if you be thus you wil never enjoy a comfortable certainty of Gods love A man that is a worldly-minded man he can never be strong in assurance if you keep your eye at a due distance from the earth you can see far but if you put your eye to the ground you can see but little Beloved keep your hearts at a due distance from the world you may see far into the sense of Gods favour but let your eye I mean the soul be too neer the world you see nothing you will not perceive the sense of Gods love if you have worldly mindednesse predominant in you Put a candle above the ground and it will burn clear and bright but put the same candle under the ground and it burns but dim the damp of the ground hinders the light thereof Beloved keep you hearts above the ground and here your candle may burn bright but if you are buried in the world I mean your hearts your candle will burn dim you will not have so clear a light and sense of Gods love Philosophers say the reason the Sun is eclipsed is by the interposition or putting between of the Moon I may aptly apply it the Scripture makes the Moon to be an Emblem of the world Rev. 12. 1. And there appeared a great wonder in Heaven a woman clothed with the Sun and the Moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve Stars This Moon it doth eclipse the Sun Beloved if the world be at full between you and spiritual things that they are neerer to your hearts then Christ is then grace is then heaven is this Moon of the world will eclipse the shining beams of the Sun of Righteousnesse These are the eight particulars that must be removed in case you do expect to regain a comfortable certainty and assurance of the love of God The next thing is something to be done 2. There are eight or nine Rules What must be done by a Christian in case he would not be cast down under a continued suspension of Gods love 1. The first is this If so be you would regain a comfortable assurance of Gods love take this rule Keep a holy and a consciencious care to act grace throughout the course of your lives let it be the chiefest of your care to act grace and my soul for yours it will not be long before that you have comfort 2 Pet. 1. 5 c. And besides this giving all diligence add to your faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness to brotherly kindness and charity for if these things be in you and abound they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ but he that lacketh these things is behind and cannot see afar off and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins wherefore the rather Brethren give all diligence to make your calling and election sure for if you do these things you shall never fall All the verses tell you how to get assurance of election add grace to grace and that is the way to come to your assurance of caling and election let it be your care to act grace and it shall be Gods work to give you comfort God will multiply thy peace if thou dost increase thy grace you have Gods promise for it Isa 32. 17. And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousnesse quietnesse and assurance for ever Here is the way to gain comfort do thou the work of righteousnesse and comfort shall follow after Psal 119. 165. Great peace have they that love thy Law and nothing shall offend them or they shall have no stumbling block A notable clause which is worthy your notice Job 13. 18. Behold now I have ordered my cause I know that I shall be justified I have ordered my cause that is I have taken care to my life I have made conscience of my wayes I have laboured to act grace in all my whole cause what follows Now I know I shall be justified I have now an evidence and a sense of justification O beloved the actings of grace are the in-lets to inward peace many men say that we know we shall be justified but never make conscience of their wayes never order their cause some are as confident as confidence it self yet as ignorant as ignorance it self as prosane as profannesle it self as proud as pride it self O beloved if you will have a due sense of the knowledge of Justification order your cause well order your lives well To him that orders his Conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God Psal 50. 23. Beloved if God doth but incline your hearts to order your cause aright and your course aright then you may and you shall be justified It is a great fault of Christians that when they want assurance they spend more time in complaining they want comfort then they spend time in acting of grace 2. Keep conscience pure and clear and that is the way to keep conscience pacified guilt on the conscience conceal'd and indulged it contracts a horror and doth cause a hell to arise here this rule the Scripture gives if you would labour to have assurance Job 11. 15. If iniquity be in thy hand put it far away and let not wickednesse dwell in thy Tahernacle for then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot then you shall be stedfast and not fear That is if sin be on thy conscience put it far away what follows Thou shalt not then be under fear and under suspension of Gods love but shalt lift up thy face and be stedfast therefore if ever thou wouldst regain a comfortable certainty of Gods love keep thy conscience pure and clean that thou dost not indulge the guilt of any allowed sin within thee 3. Call to mind the former experiences in the days of old that thou hast had of Gods love the remembrance of past goodnesse is very helpful for present encouragement this rule David took Psal 42. 6. O my God my soul is cast down within me wherefore will I remember thee from the Land of Jordan c. It is remarkable what course the Psalmist took to regain comfort he would remember three experiments of his goodness the Land of Jordan the Land of the Hermonites and the Hill Missar First I will remember the Land Jordan that is I wil remember the great goodnesse of God in drying up the River Jordan that so the Tribes of Israel might pass over to the promised Land why God that hath been good will be good Then I will remember the Land of the Hermonites in that Land was Sihon King of the Amorites and Og King of Bashan defeated that you read of in Joshua 12. 1 2. Now

sense of sin I would not so treat on this doctrine as many Libertines doe to lay aside all manner of humiliation for sin because some men are cast down too much they will not be cast-down at all for sin Use 1 Not to prosecute such a principle it is the way for to run into all manner of Licencious libertie and to be all upon the extremes Secondly labour to order the affections and passions of thy mind so that when soever you are humbled and in sorrow for sin you take heed that you doe not cast off sorrow for sin be sure that you have such a degree of humiliation for sin that it may make thee to lie at Christs feet and no lower Christ would have you to be so humble as to lie at his feet in the sight and sense of sin but the Divel would have you to be so low in your humiliations for sin as to lie in hell Jesus Christ would have thee to be sorrowful for sin that thou mightest recover out of sin but the Divel would have thee to lie so low in thy humiliations for sin that thou mightest never recover O take heed of such a sinful sorrow for sin doe not be humbled so much as the Divel and thy own evil heart would have thee and thus much for the third Question SERMON III. Psal 42. 11. Why art thou cast down O my soul and why art thou disquieted within me hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him The health of my Countenance and my God Question 4 THe fourth Question in order to be considered is this That seeing that Gods people may be cast down too much for sin and too much humbled under the sight and sense of corruptions Then what may be the reason that wicked and ungodly men are not cast down at all for sin and seeing that Godly men may be cast down for sin here too much and not cast off for sin hereafter and wicked men that shall be cast into hell for sin when they dye yet are not all cast down for sin while they live What reasons may be given for this Answer 1 Now for the resolution of this Question I shall lay down these Six particulars by way of answer The first Reason why wicked men though they shall be cast off yet they are not at all cast down for sin It ariseth from their ignorance of the dangerous and damnable Nature of sin they have a blind mind and a dumb conscience they see not such evil in sin as godly men doe Althouch wicked men know what sin is in general yet it is but a general notion of sin in the head and they have no particular and experimental and distinct notion of the evil and dangerous nature of sin upon their hearts and consciences and therefore it comes to passe that they are not cast down for sin But this general notion of sin casts them off and doth not cast them down and this is the reason that they doe not see sin to become exceeding sinful and they doe not take notice of the evil of sin the damning nature of sin according to that expression in Jer. 2. 23. How canst thou say I am not polluted I have not gone after Baalim see thy way in the valley know what thou hast done thou art a swift dromedary traversing her waies Here the Jews they were great in sin and did abound in wickednesse yet they were ready to say that they were not sinful at least they did not know that they were so it is for want of the knowledge of their waies the sinfulnesse of their doings that they are not cast down for sin Should a man meet a Lyon in the Wildernesse he would be afraid of that and the reason is because he knows that the Lyon is hurtful but if a man sees a Lyon painted on the wall he is not afraid of that because he knows that cannot hurt him So when men shall look upon sin but not look upon it as a Lyon in the wildernesse that will certainly destroy him if he avoid it not but to look upon sin as a Lyon painted on the wall that hath no power to doe them hurt they see sin but it is generally and notionally and not particularly and experimentally The second Reason is this it ariseth from a principle of presumption of pardoning grace and mercy when wicked men hear the thunderings and curses of the Law denounced against sin and sinners delivered by the Ministers of the Gospel to awaken them from the sleep of sin and security when they hear of the severity of Gods justice and that he is a sin-revenging God and that he will by no means clear the guilty but will render to every one according to his waies and works Now what doth a wicked man doe in this case doth this awaken his conscience to see the evil of sin no but he doth the quite contrary he then from a principle of presumption of pardoning grace and mercy in God blesseth himself in his own waies and he saith I shall have peace though I walk after the imaginations of my own evil heart as if they should say Let sin trouble them that will let it cast down them that will be cast down it shall never cast down me it shall never trouble me What shall sin trouble my conscience ' or disquiet my peace for or why shall I mourn and trouble my self about that which I need not that which others seem to break their hearts for it shall never break my sleep for I hope that it shall never damn my soul btt I hope though I do commit sin yet I hope God will pardon sin and though I am sinful yet I know God is merciful and thus they doe from a principle of presumption goe on in a way of sin without any trouble for it or casting down under the sight and sense of sin at all But then Thirdly The third Reason why wicked men are not cast down for sin at all it ariseth from that obdurateness from that hardnesse that is in their hearts and from that searedness in their consciences there are a generation of men that it may be said of them as concerning sin they are past feeling according to that expression of the Apostle Eph. 4. 19. Who being past feeling having given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness And as St. Paul said 1 Timothy 4 2. They have their consciences seared with a hot Iron When men have so accustomed themselves to sin that sin shall harden the heart and seare the conscience and then no marvel if they are not at all cast down for sin Then Fourthly Wicked men they are not cast down for sin at all it ariseth from this because that they do stifle the rebukes of conscience when it doth rebuke them and check their sin and cast them down for sin when men shall resolve that though