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 faith_n godliness_n 1,901 5 9.1031 5 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A70263 Several sermons upon the fifth of St. Matthew .... [vol. 1] being part of Christ's Sermon on the mount / by Anthony Horneck ... ; to which is added, the life of the author, by Richard Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells. Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697. 1698 (1698) Wing H2851; ESTC R40468 201,926 515

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

imports 1. A great sense that there is no true satisfaction either in sin or in a worldly carnal life This we must necessarily suppose for how should a man hunger or thirst after Righteousness except he be sensible that here is not his rest neither in sin nor in the contentments of this present world these being the grand impediments of that Righteousness That 's the reason why men who place their chiefest happiness in sublunary enjoyments have nothing of this hunger and thirst after Righteousness till they become sensible of the vanity of this world and the danger of a sinfull life their appetite after Righteousness is insignificant nor can their feeble wishes be call'd so but when they have a thorough view of the rottenness of the bottoms they have sailed in then they affect and desire this plank to swim out of the gulph of perdition 2. It imports a high esteem of this Righteousness and Goodness and without it it 's impossible to hunger and thirst after it for men do not use to long after things they do not value nor are their desires very strong after objects they see no satisfaction in A man hungry and thirsty prizes the meat and drink that is before him so must he the righteousness we speak of that doth truly hunger and thirst after it If he doth not prize it above Gold and Silver and Pearls and precious Stones his hunger and thirst after it cannot be considerable but when he comes to count all things dross and dung in comparison of it then he is most likely to hunger and thirst after it 3. It imports a very earnest desire to be righteous and good in all points Such a desire as men very hungry and thirsty have after meat and drink and that we know is not very faint The Scripture therefore expresses by a very emphatical similitude Psal. XLII 1. As the Hart pants after the water brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God The Hart or Stag is a creature naturally hot but being chas'd and hunted his desire after the cooling streams becomes more earnest and vehement and such must be this desire after righteousness even as it is Psal. LXIII 1. My soul thirsteth my flesh longs for thee in a dry Land i. e. as a man or traveller spent with the labour or the trouble of his journey in a dry land where no water is These expressions import a very strong desire a desire which hath no reserves no sinister ends and designs but is sincere and lively and vigorous and importunate which will not be denied and prevails by its fervour and importunity 4. It imports actual and earnest endeavours to be truly good and righteous by a diligent and conscientious use of the proper means We do not look upon a man that talks of having a thing or pretends his heart set upon it as being in good earnest if his endeavours be not suitable to his desires The Merchant or Trades-man that desires to be rich we know what pains they take nay the Day-Labourer that desires a livelihood So he that hungers and thirsts after Righteousness indeed will enquire and hear and read the word of God and ponder it in his mind and pray hard and deny himself and break off from loose Company and meditate and think and shun occasions of evil and follow God as the man in the Gospel did his Neighbour at Midnight for three Loaves and will leave no stone unturn'd to compass this Goodness and Righteousness as a man who is very hungry or thirsty doth not sit still but bestirs himself to get Food and Drink which he stands in need of 5. It imports a Progress in this hunger and thirst and when we are arrived to such a degree of Righteousness then to hunger and thirst and endeavour after higher degrees of it To this purpose are those frequent exhortations Grow in Grace and see that ye abound more and more in faith in love and charity And give all diligence to add to your faith vertue unto vertue knowledge unto knowledge temperance unto temperance godliness unto godliness patience unto patience brotherly kindness and unto brotherly kindness charity 1 Thess. III. 12. IV. 1. 2. Pet. I. 5 6 7. II. 18. A Christians labour like the Husbandmans is never at an end when one lust is mortified he must begin to subdue and mortifie another and when he hath made one vertue his domestick he must take another into his Family The hunger and thirst here spoken of is not a momentary appetite which is to last for a day or so but an appetite perpetual which is to run through the whole course of our lives and which is still encreas'd by being filled insomuch that if a good Christian were to live here a thousand years he would still find degrees and acts of Righteousness to hunger and thirst after 6. It imports such a spiritual hunger and thirst or such a desire after Righteousness as is content to undergo and endure bodily hunger and thirst and other temporal inconveniencies both for the attainment and preservation of it He that is loath to be at any trouble for it or unwilling to abridge himself in any thing that 's pleasing to the flesh either for the gaining of it or the maintaining of it hath but a weak appetite after it to be sure no such appetite as the man of honour hath after worldly Glory who can dispence with scratch'd faces with scars and wounds and hard lodging and puddle-water and a homely dyet and all to attain to an empty name of a valiant man Surely righteousness deserves as generous a desire we see what men will do in a Famine even venture reproach and contempt and being abused and reviled to get food convenient such must be this hunger and thirst after Righteousness for to be truly righteous a Christian must reckon upon afflictions persecutions and calumnies and nick-names and being laught at and he that longs for the fragrant Rose must not stand upon its being encompass'd with pricks but resolve out of love to the one to dispense with the other And that which enforces the duty is the II. Proposition That without this hunger and thirst after Righteousness a man cannot be blessed or happy As the former Proposition made this hunger and thirst commendable so this makes it absolutely necessary for if he is blessed who hungers and thirsts certainly he is not so that wants this appetite And that there is no true blessedness without it will appear from the following considerations 1. Without this hunger and thirst the Soul is sick as much as we conclude a man is not well when his appetite is gone nay if he have no appetite at all we conclude him dead A Carkass hath not appetite and most certainly he that hath no hunger and thirst after Righteousness at all is dead in God's account dead in Law dead in the Law of the Gospel a sad condition and which deserves to have
verse 1 And seeing the Multitudes he went up into a Mountain and when he was set his Disciples came unto him page 1 SERMON II. Verse 2 And he opened his Mouth and taught them saying p. 26 SERMON III. Verse 3 Blessed are the Poor in Spirit for theirs in the Kingdom of Heaven p. 48 SERMON IV. Verse 4 Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted p. 93 SERMON V. Verse 5 Blessed are the Meek for they shall inherit the Earth p. 121 SERMON VI. Verse 6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after Righteousness for they shall be filled p. 147 SERMON VII Verse 7 Blessed are the Mercifull for they shall obtain Mercy p. 174 SERMON VIII Verse 8 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God p. 203 SERMON IX Verse 9 Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God p. 242 SERMON X. Verse 10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for Righteousness sake for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven p. 290 SERMON XI Verse 11 Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake p. 329 SERMON XII Verse 12 Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets that were before you p. 354 SERMON XIII Verse 13 Ye are the Salt of the Earth but if the Salt have lost its Savour wherewith shall it be salted c. p. 378 SERMON XIV Verse 14 Ye are the Light of the World p. 402 SERMON XV. Verse 14 A City set upon a Hill cannot be hid p. 426 SERMONS ON THE Fifth of St. Matthew St. Matth. Ch. V. Ver. 1. And seeing the Multitudes he went up into a Mountain and when he was set his Disciples came unto him I intend with God's Assistance to explain to you Christ's famous Sermon on the Mount contain'd in the Fifth Sixth and Seventh Chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel A great Work and which will take up much time some years may be to dispatch it in and whether I shall live to finish it he alone knows in whose hand our time is but a Work I am sure exceeding profitable and usefull for all that name the Name of Christ and are desirous to know whether they belong to that Master whose Name they bear and whose Patronage they crave And I chuse to begin the Exposition of this celebrated Discourse of our Saviour at this time because of the common Account which saith this Sermon was deliver'd the second Year of Christ's Ministry about this time of the Year the middle of May. This Sermon may justly be call'd the Pandects of Christianity the most complete Body of practical Divinity and the most perfect System of the Duties we owe to God and Man It contains not only all that 's good and sound in Moral Philosophy but a great deal more and gives the best Directions for perfecting of humane Nature and how a Man may come up to emulate the Life of Angels And yet this doth not make the particular Lessons here laid down unpracticable or impossible to be perform'd so far from it that the Kingdom of Heaven and the everlasting Enjoyment of God is denied to those who refuse to live up to these Canons Matth. V. 20. and VII 24 25 26. which shews the Life prescribed here is attainable the Duties practicable the Neglect inexcusable and the Performance possible it being contrary to the infinite Goodness and Righteousness of God to require things for which he gives no Power or Capacity So that he who aims at a Happiness greater and higher than the present World affords sees here the Steps he is to make and the Way he is to walk in By this Sermon the Christian World will be judg'd in the last Day and by the Particulars of it we all must either stand or fall All that 's necessary to Salvation is plainly deliver'd here and lies within the narrow Compass of three Chapters so that no Man if his Reason be sound can pretend either want of time to read them or want of Memory to remember them for in less than half an Hour's time the whole Duty of a Christian may be survey'd and there is no Man scarce of so weak a Memory but doth and may remember a great deal more than is contain'd in this Sermon in the handling of which we shall meet with great Variety of Subjects and though heretofore I have occasionally treated of some of them picking here and there a Flower yet I shall not upon that Account forbear to consider those Passages over again not only because I judge it profitable for my Auditory to do so but because the Method and Manner of handling them will be different from the former and besides several material things which God's Spirit and Study and Time and a riper Judgment may suggest will be added to the former Observations I begin with the Preliminaries of this admirable Sermon a Sermon preach'd by the Great Saviour of the World deliver'd by the Son of God and publish'd by him in whom are all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge even by him who could not be mistaken in the Law he gave or in the Sanction of it who knew very well what with the Assistance of his Grace we are able to do what the neglect of so solemn a Message doth deserve and how great the Encouragements are that are here given to those who have the boldness to force their way through the impediments of this present World into Eternal Glory The Words I have read to you are purely historical and shew what was the occasion of the ensuing Sermon for seeing the Multitudes he went up into a Mountain and when he was set his Disciples came unto him This is the Introduction or Preface to the following Discourse And because I am loath to leave any thing untouch'd that is material in these three Chapters I shall I. Endeavour to reconcile the different relations of the Evangelists concerning this Sermon of our Saviour II. Enquire what the Multitudes were that appeared here III. Why Christ ascended into a Mountain to teach the People IV. What his sitting down doth import V. What and who the Disciples were that came unto him I. To reconcile the different relations of the Evangelists concerning this Sermon for St. Luke ch VI. 12. seems to contradict St. Matthew you must know 1. That the Evangelists St. John excepted who seems to be more accurate do not always concern themselves in declaring the exact Order of time when every thing was spoke or done but content themselves with amassing or collecting the Matters of Fact the substantial Parts of Christ's Discourses his Miracles and his Actions without being very curious about every Minute circumstance or order or method for their business was not to make men Chronologers but Christians This is the reason why one brings in a Discourse of Christ after such a remarkable