Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	commit_v	sin_n	sin_v	2,906	5	9.7075	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26932	Gildas Salvianus, the reformed pastor shewing the nature of the pastoral work, especially in private instruction and catechizing : with an open confession of our too open sins : prepared for a day of humiliation kept at Worcester, Decemb. 4, 1655 by the ministers of that county, who subscribed the agreement for catechizing and personal instruction at their entrance upon that work / by their unworthy fellow-servant, Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1656 (1656)	Wing B1274; ESTC R209214	317,338	576

Angel of light to deceive He will get within you and trip up your heels before you are aware He will play the juglar with you undiscerned and cheat you of your faith or innocency and you shall not know that you have lost it nay he will make you believe it is multiplyed or increased when it is lost You shall see neither hook nor line much less the subtile Angler himself whole he is offering you his bait And his baits shall be so fitted to your temper and disposition that he will be sure to find advantages within you and make your own principles and inclinations to betray you and when ever he ruineth you he will make you the instruments of your own ruine O what a conquest will he think he hath got if he can make a Minister lazy and unfaithful if he can tempt a Minister into covetousness or scandal He will glory against the Church and say These are your holy Preachers you see what their preciseness is and whither it will bring them He will glory against Jesus Christ himself and say These are thy Champions I can make thy chiefest servants to abuse thee I can make the Stewards of thy house unfaithful If he did so insult against God upon a false surmise and tell him he could make Iob to curse him to his face Iob 1. 11. What would he do if he should indeed prevail against us And at last he will insult as much over you that ever he could draw you to be false to your great trust and to blemish your holy profession and to do him so much service that was your enemy O do not so far gratifie Satan do not make him so much sport suffer him not to use you as the Philistines did Sampson first to deprive you of your strength and then to put out your eyes and so to make you the matter of his triumph and derision SECT XIII 5. TAke heed to your selves also because there are many eyes upon you and therefore there will be many observers of your fals You cannot miscarry but the world will ring of it The Ecclipses of the Sun by day time are seldom without witnesses If you take your selves for the Lights of the Churches you may well expect that mens eyes should be upon you If other men may sin without observation so cannot you And you should thankfully consider how great a mercy this is That you have so many eyes to watch over you and so many ready to tell you of your faults and so have greater helps then others at least for the restraining of your sin Though they may do it with a malicious mind yet you have the advantage by it God forbid that we should prove so impudent as to do evil in the publike view of all and to sin wilfully while the world is gazing on us He that is drunk is drunk in the night and he that sleepeth doth sleep in the night 1 These 5. 7. What fornicator so impudent as to sin in the open streets while all look on Why consider that you are still in the open light Even the Light of your own Doctrine will disclose your evil doings While you are as Lights set upon a hill look not to lie hid Mat. 5. 14. Take heed therefore to your selves and do your works as those that remember that the world looks on them and that with the quick-sighted eye of malice ready to make the worst of all and to find the smallest fault where it is and aggravate it where they find it and divulge it and make it advantagious to their designs and to make faults where they cannot find them How cautelously then should we walk before so many ill-minded observers SECT XIV 6. TAke heed also to your selves for your sins have more hainous aggravations then other mens Its noted among King Alphonsus sayings that a great man cannot commit a small sin we may much more say that a learned man or a Teacher of others cannot commit a small sin or at least that the sin is great as committed by him which is smaller in another I. You are liker then others to sin against knowledge because you have more then they At least you sin against more light or means of knowledge What do you not know that Covetousness and Pride are sins do you not know what it is to be unfaithful to your trust and by negligence or self-seeking to betray mens souls You know your masters will and if you do it not shall be beaten with many stripes There must needs therefore be the more wilfulness by how much there is the more knowledge If you sin it is because you will sin 2. Your sins have more hypocrisie in them then other mens by how much the more you have spoke against them O what a hainous thing is it in us to study how to disgrace sin to the utmost and make it as odious to our people as we can and when we have done to live in it and secretly cherish that which we openly disgrace What vile hypocrisie is it to make it our daily work to cry it down and yet to keep it to call it publikely all to naught and privately to make it our bed-fellow and companion To bind heavy burdens for others and not to touch them our selves with a finger What can you say to this in judgement Did you think as ill of sin as you spoke or did you not If you did not why would you dissemblingly speak it If you did why would you keep it and commit it O bear not that badge of a miserable Pharisee They say but do not Mat. 23. 3. Many a minister of the Gospel will be confounded and not be able to look up by reason of this heavy charge of hypocrisie 3. Moreover your sins have more perfidiousness in them then other mens You have more engaged your selves against them Besides all your common engagements as Christians you have many more as Ministers How oft have you proclaimed the evil and danger of it and called sinners from it how oft have you declared the terrors of the Lord all these did imply that you renounced it your selves Every Sermon that you preacht against it every private Exhortation every Confession of it in the Congregation did lay an engagement upon you to forsake it Every child that you have baptized and entred into the Covenant with Christ and every administration of the Supper of the Lord wherein you called men to renew their Covenant did import your own renouncing of the flesh and the world and your engagement unto Christ How oft and how openly have you born witness of the odiousness and damnable nature of sin and yet will you entertain it against all these professions and testimonies of your own O what treachery is it to make such a stir in the Pulpit against it and after all to entertain it in the heart and give it the room that is due to God and even prefer it before

only much more then they have taken for that think it consisteth in making of new Laws or Canons to bind the Church As if God had not made us Laws sufficient and as if he had committed the proper Legislative power over his Church to Ministers or Bishops whose office is but to expound and apply and execute in their places the Laws of Christ Obj. But will you deny to Bishops the power of making Canons What are all those Articles that you have here agreed on among your selves about Catechizing and Discipline but such things Answ 1. I know Pastors may teach and expound Scripture and deliver that in writing to the people and apply the Scripture Generals to their own and the peoples particular cases if you wil cal this making Canons 2. And they may and ought to Agree among themselves for an unanimous performance of their duties when they have discovered it that so they may excite one another and be more strong and successful in their work 3. And they must determine of the Circumstances of worship in special which God hath only determined in General as what time and place they shall meet in what Chapter read what Text preacht on what shape the Table Cups c. shall be where the Pulpit when each person shall come to be catechized or instructed and whither c. But these are actions that are fitter to be ordered by them that are in the place then by distant Canon-makers And to Agree for unity in a necessary duty as we have done is not to make Laws or arrogate Authority over our Brethren Of this I refer you to Luther de Conciliis at large and to Grotius de Imper. sum pot That Canons are not properly Laws CHAP. III. SECT I. HAving spoken of the matter of our work we are next to speak a little of the manner not of each part distinctly least we be too tedious but of the whole in general But specially refering to the principal part 1. The Ministerial work must be managed Purely for God and the salvation of the people and not for any private ends of our own This is our sincerity in it A wrong end makes all the work bad as from us how good soever in it self It s not a serving God but our selves if we do it not for God but for our selves They that set upon this as a common work to make a trade of it for their worldly livelyhood will find that they have chosen a bad trade though a good imployment Self-denyal is of Absolute necessity in every Christian but of a double necessity in a Minister as he hath a double Sanctification or Dedication to God And without self-denyal he cannot do God an hours faithful service Hard studies much knowledge and excellent preaching is but a more glorious hypocritical sinning if the ends be not right The saying of Bernard Serm. in Cant. 26. is commonly known Sunt qui scire volunt co sine tantum ut sciant turpis curiositas est sunt qui scire volunt ut scientiam suam vendant turpis quaest us est sunt qui scire volunt ut sciantur ipsi turpis vanitas est Sed sunt quoque qui scire volunt ut adificent Charitas est sunt qui scire volunt ut aedificentur prudentia est 2. This work must be managed Laboriously and Diligently as being of such unspeakable consequence to others and our selves We are seeking to uphold the world to save it from the curse of God to perfect the Creation to attain the ends of Christs Redemption to save our selves and others from Damnation to overcome the Devil and demolish his Kingdom and to set up the Kingdom of Christ and attain and help others to the Kingdom of Glory And are these works to be done with a careless mind or a lazy hand O see then that this work be done with all your might Study hard for the well is deep and our brains are shallow and as Cassiod Decorum hic est terminum non habere hic honesta probatur ambitio Omne fi quidem scientificum quanto profundius quaeritur tanto gloriosius invenitur But especially be laborious in Practice and exercise of your knowledge Let Pauls words ring in your ears continually Necessity is laid upon me and woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel Still think with your selves what lyeth upon your hands If I do not bestir me Satan may prevail and the people everlastingly perish and their blood be required at my hand And by avoiding Labour and Suffering I shall draw on me a thousand times more then I avoid for as Bernard saith Qui in labore hominum non sunt in labore profecto Daemonum erunt Whereas by present Diligence you prepare for future blessedness For as Gregor in Mor. saith Quot labores veritati nunc exhibes tot etiam remunerationis pignora intra spei tuae cubiculum clausum tenes No man was ever a loser by God 3. This work must be carried on Prudent'y Orderly and by Degrees Milk must go before strong meat The foundation must be first laid before we build upon it Children must not be dealt with as men at age Men must be brought into a state of Grace before we can expect from them the works of Grace The work of Conversion and Repentance from dead works and faith in Christ must be first and frequently and throughly taught The Stewards of Gods houshold must give to each their portion in due season We must not go beyond the capacities of our people ordinarily nor teach them the perfection that have not learned the principles As August saith li. 12. de Civit. Si pro viribus suis alatur infans fiet ut crescendo plus capiat si modum suae capacitatis excedat desicit antequam crescat And as Gregor Nysen saith Orat de Pauper amand As we teach not insants the deep precepts of science but first letters and then syllables c. So also the Guides of the Church do first propound to their hearers certain documents which are as the elements and so by degrees do open to them the more perfect and mysterious matters Therefore did the Church take so much pains with their Catechumeni before they baptized them and would not lay unpolished stones into the building as Chrysost saith Hom. 40. Imperfect operis or who ever else it be p. mihi 318. Aedificatores sunt Sacerdotes qui domum Dei compon unt sicut enim adificatores nodosos lapides habentes torturas ferro dolant postea vero ponunt eos in aedificio alioqui non dolati lapides lapidibus non cohaerent Sic Ecclesiae doctores vitia hominum quasi nodos acutis increpationibus primum circumcidere debent sic in Ecclesiae aedificatione collocare alioquin vitiis manentibus Christiani Christianis concordare non possunt 4. Through the whole course of our Ministery we must insist most upon the Greatest