Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	brotherly_a	faith_n	temperance_n	3,034	5	11.4226	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44489	The best exercise for Christians in the worst times in order to their security against prophaness and apostacy : good and useful to be consider'd ... / proposed to consideration by J.H. ...	Horn, John, 1614-1676.	1671 (1671)	Wing H2793; ESTC R34470	179,378	328

as an holy Temple or building and therefore ought also to be clean and chast and holy in all things to him as he that hath appointed it for his habitation and dwells therein is holy 2. In that the Believers are the matter to be built upon that most holy Faith it is implyed too that they yet are imperfect and not compleat in themselves or in their conformity to Christ and attainments from Christ their faith is most holy no blemish or imperfection or defect in that but they that are in or upon it are not so they need to be builded up and perfected they may yea it s but meet and right that they should acknowledge their own shortness in holiness or goodness that so they may attend to grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ but they may not fault the faith once delivered to the Saints or accuse it of want or defect or bear that it be faulted added to or altered they are to let that alone as it is in that respect but attend that they themselves may be added to in their believing living righteously godlily and soberly in this present evil world though they be compleat in Christ their Head Root and Foundation Col. 2.10 yet in their attainments of the knowledge of Christ and conformity to him in holiness and happiness they have not yet attained neither are already perfect as the Apostle sayes of himself Philip. 3.14 15. They see but darkly and as in a glass not so as they are seen they know but in part and prophecy but in part that that is perfect in those respects is not yet come but to be waited for by them 1 Cor. 13.9 11. they may yet and ought to add in their faith vertue and in vertue knowledg and in knowledge temperance and in temperance patience and in patience godliness and in godliness brotherly kindness and in brotherly kindness charity 2 Peter 1.5.6 7. It will do us no hurt to acknowledge our own shortness and imperfection in our attainments so we also acknowledge the fulness and perfection of the most holy faith for perfecting us and bringing us to the inheritance yea as it is dangerous for Believers and leads to their destruction to admit an imperfection and defect in the faith for that will lay them open to impostures to corrupt them therefrom so not to acknowledge their own imperfection and defect to say they have no sin or have attained all fulness of knowledge and goodness or with the Church of Laodicea that They are rich and increased with goods and need nothing is very dangerous and destructive to them also laying them open to pride and puffings up in themselves as also to slothfulness covetousness and security and by that means to sail of the Grace of God and to be deluded and carried captive of Satan to their own destruction It implyes further 3. That their perfection in conformity to Christ and attainments by Christ is to be sought for in abiding in their most holy Faith and so by and from it as it signifies the object or foundation of it which is Christ and by and through the the faith as it signifies the Doctrine holding forth Christ They are not to seek further growth and perfection by going away from that to some other doctrine as better fitted for that purpose for then should not this be the most holy faith but that other doctrine should be more holy than this nor should they build up themselves thereon but besides this as quitting and forsaking this that they might be built up or build up themselves on some other thing but here they are to continue holding fast that which they have heard and received And to that purpose it is that the Apostle being about to leave the Elders of Ephesus and the Churches thereabout commits them to God and to the word of his Grace as able to build them up and to give them the inheritance Act. 20 32. and tells the Corinths that they should be saved in keeping in memory what they had received in the Gospel preached by him from the beginning or in the first things of it 1 Cor. 15.1 2 3. and 1.22 23. So the Apostle John too 1 John 2.24 25. for this doctrine is not like that of the Law or first Testament that made nothing perfect but perfection is herein and herethrough to be attained so far as we be capable of attaining it here yea to the inheritance it self also it is onely Christ as herein set forth that doth bring men The Doctrine then or faith once delivered to the Saints is not at any time to be waved or altered by us but suffered to abide and to be abid in by us and on that Believers are to build up themselves who are yet in themselves imperfect stand in need of building It s the foundation laid for them that upholds them and bears them up from sinking all their faith hope stay comfort springs therefrom and stands thereupon but it self stands upon none of them nor is added to or made more holy by them yea they themselves as to their Spirits and spiritual conditions stand upon it are what they are as a Building for God from and by it and in union with it and besides that there is no standing for them or any man nothing to support relieve or comfort them against the accusations of the Law and sin and Sathan nothing else to secure them and keep them from perishing in the wrath to come no other Sacrifice for sins to be found but what this presents nor otherwise than as this presents and therefore no forgiveness justification or salvation but upon and according to this faith and doctrine All the blessing and fulness of God is here dwelling and sure to be met with by those that there seek and wait for him and nothing but lies and emptiness can any finde to uphold them if this be turned from No work or worth no prayers or tears or acts of a man can help him that hath rejected and is besides this foundation all the Building therefore is to be on this but then it s to be inquired 5. How the believer is to be built thereupon and how to build up himself and what that implies to 〈◊〉 we may say 1. The building themselves upon this is the firming themselves in the belief and acknowledgment of this most holy faith a growing more into it and in union with it more to believe it and discern and see into the truth fulness and abundance in it more to love it and adhere to it as having all things of worth and excellencie in it and as thence seeking and expecting them and then 2. The deriving vertue from it strength courage fortitude patience and so the divine vertues in it to an increase and augmentation in all holiness and conformity to Christ and so an ascending up or mounting up more heaven-ward and God● ward in

leaves nothing upon the Believer to do in order to his preservation in his love and favour to which they alledge that in Phil. 2.12 13. That it is God that worketh in you to will and to doe of good pleasure Where the Apostle asserts that not as an evidence or argument to prove that there is nothing therefore left for the believer to doe in which he may possibly fail and to which he needs to be exhorted but as the reason and ground wherefore the believer should be careful to work out his own Salvation with fear and trembling for which there would be no room or ground if God wrought all things in the belieliever yea and his working out too irresistibly nor any need for to have exhorted them if they could not chuse but so work upon the account of God's working in them But the Apostle plainly implies that because its God that works in and through the Grace revealed to and received by the believer of good pleasure so as not bound or obliged so to work but only of his mercy and good will therefore it behooves believers to yield up themselves to and in his operations to will and do and so to work out what he is working in them and not to resist and quench his operations least so they should provoke him who is a free agent and works only of good will to be offended with them and withdraw his operations and good Spirit by which he is operating and working in them from them and then they can do nothing toward their salvation but be in danger to goe back to destruction As also the argument used ver 16. to inforce that instruction upon them seems clearly to imply in that he says That I may rejoyce in the day of Jesus Christ that I have not run in vain nor laboured in vain for to what purpose should he mention such a thing with respect to them if there had been no possibility of their failing of the Grace and happiness to which he laboured to bring them instrumentally or if there was nothing to be done by them that might conduce to their obtaining the end of his running and labouring amongst them at least that could possibly be neglected and left undone by them so as therethrough to indanger their failing thereof and so a disappointment of the Apostles desire and hope concerning them The whole Scripture as it were suspending the tenour of the continuance of believers in Gods love and favour upon their keeping his Commandments and exhorting therefore to diligence in observing and keeping them shews the vanity of such apprehensions and that there is something required on mans part to his being preserved in the Grace of God Forsake her not and she shall preserve thee love her and she shall keep thee Prov. 4.6 If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will pray the Father c. And be that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved that is continue to be loved of my Father and I will love him continue to loue him as John 15.10 and I will manifest mine own self to him John 14.21 23. Keep your selves in the love of God 3. Again it reproves and discovers the evil and naughtiness of those high and presumptuous thoughts which are the issue and fruit of the two former mentioned Deut. 29.18 19. wherein men having believed and being pronounced righteous and so being under the sentence of life as Ezek. 33.13 thereupon presume to commit iniquity and say in their hearts that though they do so and add drunkenness to their thirst satisfie their vain and sinful desires and lust never so greedily yet they are safe enough they cannot miscarry but shall have peace and favour with God still or if they may provoke God to some displeasure against them so as to chastise them yet that shall be the worst that shall or may befal them These thoughts also contrary to what is foreshewed and to many serious threats in the Scriptures as that the Lord will not spare such an one but then his wrath and his jealousie shall smoke against him and the Lord shall blot his name from under Heaven Deut. 29.20 and that he who when God hath said unto him as righteous thou shalt surely live shall thereupon trust to his own righteousness and commit iniquity shall surely die Ezek. 33.13 and therefore even believers are admonished not to be high minded but fear Rom. 11.20 21 22. 2. It also serves to exhort and provoke believers to watchfulness care and diligence in taking heed to the Grace of God and cleaving thereto and quitting themselves as men that they may continue and abide in that state of love and favor to which they are freely chosen of God in Christ making their calling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and election thereto firm and sure as 2 Pet. 1.10 to that purpose adding to or in their faith vertue or courage for God and his truth and against Sathan sin and all that stands cross to their well-doing and in vertue knowledge to direct and guide all their zeal and courage aright and in knowledge temperance sobriety in thoughts of themselves not aspiring to pry into things above their reach or that they have not seen in the testimony of God as also temperance in use of the mercies of God in the things of this life and of their liberties thereto to which their knowledge makes way least by undue use of their liberties offend other ● and in their temperance patience both to continue therein denying themselves and abstaining from fleshly lusts and also in induring whatsoever sufferings and adversities may befal them in their way and in patience Godliness an acknowledgement of God and his power and goodness and a depending on him and looking to him in all things and making him the Alpha and Omega of their lives and actions receiving all from him and living in all things to him by Jesus Christ and in godliness Brotherly kindness an hearty intire love of the Brethren being kind and courteous and of one minde with them loving as Brethren and Heirs together of the same Grace and inheritance and in Brotherly kindness charity a free and gracious affection and love to men not for any goodness in them rendring them worthy of love as in Brotherly kindness but because of Gods free and gracious love and affection both to us and them so loving others even all men as we are loved of God as men seeking to win by love those that are without and to doe them good even as he hath done to us though unworthy of love from him If we doe those things we shall never fall if we goe on thus adding Grace to Grace Growing in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ To such like purposes both our Lord himself and his Servants have given manifold exhortations and Counsels As to watch and pray