Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	add_v	brotherly_a	godliness_n	1,776	5	9.4522	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62128	XXXVI sermons viz. XVI ad aulam, VI ad clerum, VI ad magistratum, VIII ad populum : with a large preface / by the right reverend father in God, Robert Sanderson, late lord bishop of Lincoln ; whereunto is now added the life of the reverend and learned author, written by Isaac Walton.	Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.; Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683.	1686 (1686)	Wing S638; ESTC R31805	1,064,866	813

on blindfold into hell And through inner post along unto utter darkness where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Frustrà sibi de ignorantia blandiuntur saith S. Bernard qui ut liberius peccent libenter ignorant S. Paul so speaketh of such men as if their case were desperate If any man be ignorant let him be ignorant as who say if he will need● be wilful at his peril be it But as many as desire to walk in the fear of God with upright and sincere hearts let them thirst after the knowledge of God and his will as the Hart after the rivers of waters let them cry after knowledge and lift up their voices for understanding let them seek it as silver and dig for it as for hid treasures let their feet tread often in Gods Courts and even wear the thresholds of his house let them delight in his holy Ordinances and rejoyce in the light of his Word depending upon the ministry thereof with unsatisfied ears and unwearied attention and feeding thereon with uncloyed appetites that so they may see and hear and learn and understand and believe and obey and increase in wisdom and in grace and in favour with God and all good men But then in the third place consider that if all ignorance will not excuse an offender though some do how canst thou hope to find any colour of excuse or extenuation that sinnest wilfully with knowledge and against the light of thine own Conscience The least sin thus committed is in some degree a Presumptuous sin and carrieth with it a contempt of God and in that regard is greater than any sin of Ignorance To him that knoweth to do good and doth it not to him it is a sin saith S. Iames Sin beyond all plea of excuse S. Paul though he were a Persecutor of the truth a Blasphemer of the Lord and injurious to the Brethren yet he obtained Mercy because he did all that ignorantly His bare ignorance was not enough to justifie him but he stood in need of Gods mercy or else he had perished in those sins for all his ignorance but yet who can tell whether ever he should have found that mercy if he had done the same things and not in ignorance Ignorance then though it do not deserve pardon yet it often findeth it because it is not joyned with open contempt of him that is able to pardon But he that sinneth against knowledge doth Ponere obicem if you will allow the Phrase and it may be allowed in this since he doth not only provoke the Iustice of God by his sin as every other sinner doth but he doth also damm up the Mercy of God by his contempt and doth his part to shut himself out for ever from all possibility of pardon unless the boundless overflowing mercy of God come in upon him with a strong tide and with an unresisted current break it self a passage through Do this then my beloved Brethren Labour to get knowledge labour to increase your knowledge labour to abound in knowledge but beware you rest not in your knowledge Rather give all diligence to add to your knowledge Temperance and Patience and Godliness and Brotherly kindness and Charity and other good graces Without these your knowledge is unprofitable nay damnable Qui apponit soientiam apponit dolorem is true in this sence also He that increaseth knowledge unless his care of obedience rise in some good proportion with it doth but lay more rods in steep for his own back and increase the number of his stripes and add to the weight and measure of his own most just condemnation Know this that although Integrity of heart may stand with some ignorances as Abimelech here pleadeth it and God alloweth it yet that mans heart is devoid of all singleness and sincerity who alloweth himself in any course he knoweth to be sinful or taketh this liberty to himself to continue and persist in any known ungodliness And thus much for our second Observation I add but a Third and that taken from the very thing which Abimelech here pleadeth viz. the integrity of his heart considered together with his present personal estate and condition I dare not say he was a Cast-away for what knoweth any man how God might after this time and even from these beginnings deal with him in the riches of his mercy But at the time when the things storied in this Chapter were done Abimelech doubtless was an unbeliever a stranger to the Covenant of God made with Abraham and so in the state of a carnal and meer natural man And yet both he pleadeth and God approveth the innocency and integrity of his heart in this business Yea I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thine heart Note hence That in an unbeliever and natural man and therefore also in a wicked person and a cast-away for as to the present state the unregenerate and the Reprobate are equally incapable of good things there may be truth and singleness and integrity of heart in some particular actions We use to teach and that truly according to the plain evidence of Scripture and the judgment of the ancient Fathers against the contrary tenet of the latter Church of Rome that all the works of unbelievers and natural men are not only stained with sin for so are the best works of the faithful too but also are really and truly sins both in their own nature because they spring from a corrupt fountain for That which is born of the flesh is flesh and it is impossible that a corrupt tree should bring forth good fruit and also in Gods estimation because he beholdeth them as out of Christ in and through whom alone he is well pleased St. Augustin's judgment concerning such mens works is well known who pronounceth of the best of them that they are but splendida peccata glorious sins and the best of them are indeed no better We may not say therefore that there was in Abimelech's heart as nor in the heart of any man a legal integrity as if his person or any of his actions were innocent and free from sin in that perfection which the Law requireth Neither yet can we say there was in his heart as nor in the heart of any unbeliever an Evangelical integrity as if his p●rson were accepted and for the persons sake all or any of his actions approved with God accepting them as perfect through the supply of the abundant perfections of Christ then to come That first and legal integrity supposeth the righteousness of works which no man hath this latter and Evangelical integrity the righteousness of Faith which no unbeliever hath no mans heart being either legally perfect that is in Adam or Evangelically perfect that is out of Christ. But there is a third kind of integrity of heart inferiour to both these which God here acknowledgeth in Abimelech and of

but is often used by our Apostle in his Epistles with application ever to the Church of God and the spiritual Building thereof The Church is the House of the living God All Christians Members of this Church are so many Stones of the Building whereof the House is made up The bringing in of Unbelievers into the Church by converting them to the Christian Faith is as the fetching of more Stones from the Quarries to be laid in the Building The Building it self and that is Edification is the well and orderly joyning together of Christian men as living Stones in truth and love that they may grow together as it were into one entire frame of Building to make up the House strong and comely for the Master's Use and Honour 25. I know not how it is come to pass in these later times that in the popular and common Notion of this Word in the Mouths and Apprehensions of most men generally Edification is in a manner confined wholly to the Understanding Which is an Error perhaps not of much consequence yet an Error though and such as hath done some hurt too For thereon is grounded that Objection which some have stood much upon though there be little cause why against instrumental Musick in the Service of God and some other things used in the Church that they tend not to edification but rather hinder it because there cometh no instruction nor other fruit to the understanding thereby And therefore ought such things say they to be cast out of the Church as things unlawful A Conclusion by the way which will by no means follow though all the Premises should be granted for it is clear both from the Words and Drift of the Text that Edification is put as a meer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed of Expediency but not so of Lawfulness And therefore from the Unserviceableness of any thing to Edification we cannot reasonably infer the Unlawfulness thereof but the Inexpediency only But to let go the inconsequence that which is supposed in the Premises and laid as the ground of the Objection viz. that where the Understanding is not benefited there is no Edification is not true The Objectors should consider that whatsover thing any way advanceth the Service of God or furthereth the growth of his Church or conduceth to the increasing of any Spiritual Grace or enlivening of any holy Affection in us or serveth to the outward Exercise or but Expression of any such Grace or Affection as Ioy Fear Thankfulness Chearfulness Reverence or any other doubtless every such thing so far forth serveth more or less unto Edification 26. The building up of the People in the right knowledge of God and of his most holy Truth is I confess a necessary part of the Work and no man that wisheth well to the Work will either despise it in his heart or speak contemptibly of it with his mouth yet it is not the whole Work though no nor yet the chiefest part thereof Our Apostle expresly giveth Charity the preheminence before it Knowledge puffeth up but Charity edifieth And for once he speaketh of Edification in his Epistles with reference to Knowledge I dare say he speaketh of it thrice with reference to Peace and brotherly Charity or Condescension The Truth is that Edification he so much urgeth is the promoting and furthering of our selves and others in Truth Godliness and Peace or any Grace accompanying Salvation for the common good of the whole Body St. Iude speaketh of building up our selves and St. Paul of edifying one another And this should be our dayly and mutual study to build up our selves and others in the knowledge of the Truth and in the practice of Godliness but especially to the utmost of our powers within our several Spheres and in those Stations wherein God hath set us to advance the Common Good by preserving Peace and Love and Unity in the Church 27. The Instructions Corrections or Admonitions we bestow upon our private Brethren the good Examples we set before them our bearing with their Infirmities our yielding and condescending from our own power and liberty to the desires even of private and particular men is as the chipping and hewing and squaring of the several Stones to make them fitter for the Building But when we do withal promote the publick Good of the Church and do something towards the procuring and conserving the Peace and Unity thereof according to our measure that is as the laying of the Stones together by making them couch close one together and binding them with Fillings and Cement to make them hold Now whatsoever we shall find according to the present state of the Times Places and Persons with whom we have to do to conduce to the Good either of the whole Church or of any greater or lesser portion thereof or but of any single Member belonging thereunto so as no prejudice or wrong be thereby done to any other that we may be sure is expedient for that time 28. To enter into Particulars when and how far forth we are bound to forbear the exercise of our lawful Liberty in indifferent things for our Brother's sake would be endless When all is said and written in this Argument that can be thought of yet still as was said much must be left to mens Discretion and Charity Discretion first will tell us in the general that as the Circumstances alter so the Expediency and Inexpediency of things may alter accordingly Quaedam quae licent tempore loco mutato non licent saith Seneca There is a time for every thing saith Solomon and a season for every purpose under Heaven Hit that time right and whatever we do is beautiful but there is no Beauty in any thing we do if it be unseasonable As Hushai said of Ahitophel's Advice The Counsel of Ahitophel is not good at this time And as he said to his Friend that cited some Verses out of Homer not altogether to his liking and commended them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wholesome counsel but not for all men nor at all times If any man should now in these times endeavour to bring back into the Church postliminio and after so many years cessation thereof either the severity of the ancient Canons for publick Penances or the enjoyning of private Confessions before Easter or some other things now long disused he should attempt a thing of great Inexpediency Not in regard of the things themselves which severed from those Abuses which in tract of time had through mens corruption grown thereunto are certainly lawful and might be as in some former times so now also profitable if the times would bear them But in regard of the condition of the times and the general aversness of mens minds therefrom who having been so long accustomed to so much indulgence and liberty in that kind could not now brook those severer impositions but would cry

for the clearing of God holiness in these his proceedings If sometimes he temporally reward Hypocrites is it not either for their own or for their works sake as if he either accepted their Persons or approved their Obedience No it is but Lex talionis he dealeth with them as they deal with him They do him but eye service and he giveth them but eye wages Indeed God can neither be deceived nor deceive yet as they would deceive God in their service with such obedience as falleth short of true obedience so they are deceived in their pay from him with such blessings as fall short of true blessings And all this may well stand with Gods both Iustice and Holiness Secondly it appeareth from the premises that Gods thus dealing with wicked and unsanctified men in thus rewarding their outward good things giveth no warrant nor strength at all either to that Popish corrupt doctrine of Meritum congrui in deserving the first grace by the right use of Naturals or to that rotten principle and foundation of the whole frame of Pelagianism Facienti quod in se est Deus non potest non debet deuegare gratiam We know God rewards his own true and spiritual graces in us which increase of those graces here and with glory hereafter we see God rewardeth even false and outward and seeming graces natural and moral good things with outward and temporal favours And all this is most agreeable to his infinite both Iustice and Mercy and may stand with the infinite Purity and Holiness of his nature But this were rather to make God an unjust and unholy God to bind him to reward the outward and sinful works of Hypocrites for the best natural or moral works without grace are but such with true saving Grace and inward sanctification Other Inferences and uses more might be added as viz. Thirdly for our Imitation by God example to take knowledge of and to commend and to cherish even in wicked men those natural or moral parts that are eminent in them and whatsoever good things they do in outward actual conformity to the revealed will andlaw of God And Fourthly for Exhortation to such as do not yet find any comfortable assurance that their obedience and good works are true sincere and yet to go on and not to grow weary of well-doing knowing that their labour is not altogether in vain in as much as their works though perhaps done in Hypocrisie shall procure them temporal blessings here and some abatement withal I add that by the way of stripes and everlasting punishment hereafter But I pass by all these and the like Uses and commend but one more unto you and that is it which I named before as one Reason of the point observed viz. the Comfort of Gods dear Children and Servants and that sundry ways First here is comfort for them against a Temptation which often assaulteth them and that with much violence and danger arising from the sense and observation of the prosperity and flourishing estate of the wicked in this world We may see in the Psalms and elsewhere how frequently and strongly David z Iob and Ieremy and other Godly ones were assailed with this temptation For thy instruction then and to arm thee against this so common and universal a temptation if thou shalt see fools on horseback ungodly ones laden with wealth with honour with ease Hypocrites blessed with the fat of the earth and the dew of heaven and abundance of all the comforts of this life yet be not thou discomforted at it or disquieted with it Do not fret thy self because of the ungodly neither be thou envious at evil doers Thou expectest for thine inward obedience an unproportionable reward in the life to come do not therefore grudge their outward obedience a proportionable reward in this life Some good things or other thou mayest think there are in them for which God bestoweth those outward blessings upon them But consider withal that as they have their reward here so they have all their reward here and whatsoever their present prosperity be yet the time will come and that ere long be when The hope of the hypocrite shall wither The end of the Wicked shall be cut off Again here is a second Comfort for the godly against temporal afflictions and it ariseth thus As Gods love and favour goeth not always with those temporal benefits he bestoweth so on the other side Gods wrath and displeasure goeth not always with those temporal afflictions he inflicteth For as he rewardeth those few good things that are in evil men with these temporal benefits for whom yet in his Iustice he reserveth eternal damnation as the due wages by that Iustice of their graceless impenitency so he punisheth those remnants of sin that are in Godly men with these temporal afflictions for whom yet in his mercy he reserveth Eternal salvation as the due wages yet by that mercy only of their Faith and Repentance and holy Obedience As Abraham said to the rich glutton in the Parable Luke 19. e Son remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented As if he had said If thou hadst any thing good in thee remember thou hast had thy reward in earth already and now there remaineth for thee nothing but the full punishment of thine ungodliness there in Hell But as for Lazarus he hath had the chastisement of his infirmities on earth already and now remaineth for him nothing but the full reward of his godliness here in Heaven Thus the meditation of this Doctrine yieldeth good Comfort against temporal afflictions Here is yet a third Comfort and that of the three the greatest unto the godly in the firm assurance of their Eternal reward It is one of the Reasons why God temporally rewardeth the unsound obedience of natural carnal and unregenerate men even to give his faithful servants undoubted assurance that he will in no wise forget their true and sound and sincere obedience Doth God reward Ahab's temporary Humiliation and will he not much more reward thy hearty and unfeigned repentance Have the Hypocrites their reward and canst thou doubt of thine This was the very ground of all that comfort wherewith the Prodigal son sustained his heart and hope when he thus discoursed to his own soul If all the hired servants which are in my Fathers house have bread enough and to spare surely my Father will never be so unmindful of me who am his Son though too too unworthy of that name as to let me perish for hunger Every temporal blessing bestowed upon the wicked ought to be of the child of God entertained as a fresh assurance given him of his everlasting reward hereafter Abraham gave gifts to the Sons of his Concubines and sent them away but his only son

an universal concurrence of judgment as there is in the main fundamental points of the Christian Faith And if we were so wise as we might and should be to make the right use of it it would not stumble us a whit in the belief of our Religion that Christians differ so much as they do in many things but rather mightily confirm us in the assurances thereof that they agree so well as they do almost in any thing And it may be a great comfort to every well meaning soul that the simple belief of those certain truths whereon all parties are in a manner agreed may be and ordinarily is sufficient for the salvation of all them who are sincerely careful according to that measure of light and means that God hath vouchsafed them to actuate their Faith with Piety Charity and good Works so making this great Mystery to become unto them as it is in its self Mysterium Pietatis a Mystery of Godliness Which is the last point proposed the Quale to which I now pass 22. As the corrupt Doctrine of Antichrist is not only a Doctrine of Error but of Impiety too called therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The mystery of iniquity 2 Thes. 2. So the wholsom doctrine of Christ is not only a doctrine of Truth but of Piety too and is therefore termed here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Mystery of Godliness Which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Godliness since there appeareth not any great necessity in the Context to restrain it to that more peculiar sence wherein both the Greek and English word are sometimes used namely to signifie the right manner of Gods Worship according to his word in opposition to all idolatrous superstitious or false Worships practised among the Heathens I am the rather enclined to understand it here as many Interpreters have done in the fuller Latitude as it comprehenderh the whole duty of a Christian man which he standeth bound by the command of God in his Law or of Christ in his Gospel to perform 23. Verum and Bonum we know are near of kin the one to the other And the spirit of God who is both the Author and the Revealer of this Mystery as he is the spirit of truth Joh. 14. so is he also the spirit of holiness Rom. 1. And it is part of his work to sanctific the heart with grace as well as to enlighten the mind with knowledge Our Apostle therefore sometimes mentioneth Truth and Godliness together teaching us thereby that we should take them both into our care together If any man consent not to the words of our Lord Iesus Christ and to the doctrine which is after Godliness 1 Tim. 6. And Tit. 1. according to the Faith of Gods Elect and acknowledging of the Truth which is after Godliness And here in express terms The Mystery of Godliness And that most rightly whether we consider it in the Scope Parts or Conservation of it 24. First the general Scope and aim of Christianity is by the mercy of God founded on the merits of Christ to bring men on through Faith and Godliness to Salvation It was not in the purpose of God in publishing the Gospel and thereby freeing us from the personal obligation rigour and curse of the Law so to turn us loose and lawless to do whatsoever should seem good in our own eyes follow our own crooked wills or gratifie any corrupt lust but to oblige us rather the faster by these new benefits and to incite us the more effectually by Evangelical promises to the earnest study and pursuit of Godliness The Gospel though upon quite different grounds bindeth us yet to our good behaviour in every respect as deep as ever the Law did if not in some respects deeper allowing no liberty to the flesh for the fulfilling of the lusts thereof in any thing but exacting entire sanctity and purity both of inward affection and outward conversation in all those that embrace it The grace of God appearing in the revelation of this mystery as it bringeth along with it an offer of salvation to all men so it teacheth all men that have any real purpose to lay hold on so gracious an offer to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live righteously and soberly and godly in this present world 25. It is not to be wondered at if all false Religions give allowance to some ungodliness or other when the very Gods whom they worship give such encouragements thereunto by their lewd examples The Gods of the Pagans were renowned for nothing so much most of them as for their vices Mars a bloody God Bacchus a drunken God Mercury a cheating God and so proportionably in their several kinds all the rest Their great Capital God Iupiter guilty of almost all the Capital vices And where the Gods are naught who can imagine the Religion should be good Their very mysteria sacra as they called them were so full of all wickedness and filthy abominations as was already in part touched but is fully discovered by Clemens Alexandrinus Lactantius Arnobius Tertullian and other of the Ancients of our Religion that it was the wisest point in all their Religion to take such strict order as they did for the keeping of them secret 26. But it is the honour and prerogative of the Christian Religion that it alone alloweth of no wickedness But as God himself is holy so he requireth an holy Worship and holy Worshippers He exacteth the mortification of all evil lusts and the sanctification of the whole man body soul and spirit and that in each of these throughout Every one that nameth himself from the name of Christ doth ipso facto by the very taking of that blessed name upon him and daring to stile himself Christian virtually bind himself to depart from all iniquity nor so only but to endeavour also after the example of him whose name otherwise he unworthily usurpeth to be just merciful temperate humble meek patient charitable to get the habits and to exercise the acts of these and all other holy graces and vertues Nay more the Gospel imposeth upon us some moral strictnesses which the Stoicks themselves or whoever else were the most rigid Masters of Morality never so much as thought of Nay yet more it exalteth the Moral Law of God himself given by Moses to the People of Israel to a higher pitch than they at least as they commonly understood the Law took themselves thereby obliged unto That a man should forsake all his dearest friends yea and deny his own dearest self too for Christs sake and yet for Christs sake at the same time love his deadliest enemies That he should take up his Cross and if need were lay down his life not only for his great Master but even for the meanest of his fellow-servants too That he should exult with joy and abound in hope in the midst of tribulations of persecutions of death it self Surely the