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
A53569	Twenty sermons preached upon several occasions by William Owtram ...; Sermons. Selections	Owtram, William, 1626-1679.; Gardiner, James, 1637-1705.	1682 (1682)	Wing O604; ESTC R2857	194,637	508

twenty other dues all but one at the peoples charge and of the dues that were so charged one was the flesh of the expiatory Sacrifices and these Sacrifices were required for above fifty kinds of sins But that which I now insist upon is not the greatness of the expence which the Law charged upon the Jews but that all their Offices of Love and Charity were so circumstantiated by the Law that they who had the best inclinations to these duties in the general must of necessity be much encumbered by the circumstances which the Law required in the exact performance of them 5. Add hereunto the numerous Rites prescribed to the Jews in the very culture of their bodies and that in the very minutest things They could not so much as cut their hair or shave their beards but under the restraint and scruple of Law Levit. 19.27 They were not begotten they were not born without a ritual stain upon their parents every woman that had brought forth a child was to take a journey to Jerusalem to sacrifice for her purification and the child it self was to be redeemed with a certain price if it were a son and her first-born And now that I have mentioned Purification what shall I say of the numerous cases wherein the Jews were made unclean by the sentence and judgment of the Law What shall I say of the several Washings the several Sacrifices sometimes required to purge and make them clean again What shall I say of their confinement and separation from the Congregation during the time they were unclean The Jews observe that there were eleven general Fountains so they stile them of pollution and these generals were almost infinite in their particular parts and branches If a man had touched an unclean creature or any of the clean which died of themselves if he had touched a dead mans body or any thing else which that had touched if he had an issue of blood in himself or had touched another that had such an issue or any thing else which he had touched In these and innumerable other cases he was by the Law pronounced unclean and being unclean upon pain of death to purge himself sometimes by Sacrifice sometimes by the water of separation always by bathing himself in water Time would fail me if I should insist upon all the minute and scrupulous Rites which the Law of Moses enjoyned the Jews and indeed I have said enough already in order to my present purpose For as it appears from what I have said they could not legally worship God without abundance of nice observances wholly indifferent in themselves but hard and troublesom in performance They could not discharge their moral offices towards men without most scrupulous observations in point of circumstance of time and place and other minute considerations They could not manage the least affairs they could not do the commonest things without the scruple of Law and Conscience For they could not build or inhabit their houses they could not so much as cloath themselves they could not plow nor sow nor plant they could not reap or gather in their fruits they could not eat or prepare their meat they could scarce discharge any one action religious moral civil or natural but under the check of a positive Law And that which is further to be observed is that the most exact performance of the letter of all these positive Laws might leave them vicious and immoral full of hypocrisie pride and malice slaves to the world and their own lusts and that where it left them in this condition it did neither improve them in themselves nor recommend them to Gods acceptance much less procure eternal life Which plainly appears from the Scribes and Pharisees who although the most exact observers of all these ritual institutions were most impure and foul within and least acceptable unto God Yet after all it was not needless and therefore no unreasonable thing that a people amongst whom God himself in the first Ages of their Polity held the place of a Civil Magistrate a people prone unto Idolatry and living among idolatrous Nations should be thus bound up by positive Laws in every instance of life and action that so whatsoever they saw or did the commonest actions in the world might put them in mind of the true God and of his absolute Soveraignty over them Especially seeing that their bondage under this toilsom Dispensation might better dispose them to embrace the easier state of Christianity when God should please to call them to it S. Peter tells them that Moses his Law meaning its positive institutions was such a yoke as neither they nor their fathers were able to bear Act. 15.10 Christ tells us that his yoke is easie and his burden light Mat. 11.30 They were in bondage under the elements of the world Gal. 4.3 And as S. Paul himself stiles them under weak and beggarly elements v. 9. We are under a royal law Jam. 2.8 We are under the law of liberty Jam. 1.25 a Law recommended by better promises a Law attended with greater helps larger effusions of Gods Spirit a Law that requires little else but what is immutably good in itself a Law that where it proceeds further rests in few and easie instances in Baptism and the Lords Supper these are the Sacraments of the Gospel these are but two and both of them easie in practice easie in sense and signification and also greatly useful to us both to oblige us to our duties and to increase our strength and comforts Such is the liberty wherein the Gospel hath placed the professors of Christianity a liberty from those numerous rights those scrupulous precepts and injunctions which fettered and perplexed the Jews in every instance of life and action 2. Yet secondly there is a further liberty wherein the Gospel hath placed us Christians arising from the relaxation of the rigour of the penal Sanction which was added to the Law of Moses The Law indeed did not threaten death to every sin but in some cases allowed a sacrifice for expiation but wheresoever it threatned death in express words it did not allow repentance it self as a condition of remission Add hereunto that the same Law did threaten death to abundance of several kinds of sins which the time will not suffer me to enumerate whensoever committed against knowledge So that whosoever had so sinned in any of those numerous kinds had no dispensation from the Law no not upon repentance it self but was by the sentence of the Law to die by God or the Magistrates hand 'T is true indeed the Law-maker did sometimes that is in some extraordinary cases dispense with the rigour of his own Law An example whereof we have in David who although he was the supreme Magistrate and therefore not to account to men for his transgression of the Law was lyable to the hand of God a punishment threatned in the Law for his sins in the matter of Vriah yet was

uncircumcision but a new creature that is the renovation of our minds by a sincere faith and love And as many as walk according to this Rule peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel of God The Sixteenth Sermon Psalm 119.59 60. I thought on my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies I made haste and delayed not to keep thy Commandments THE ways of a man being in the language of holy Scripture all those actions and omissions those words and thoughts and inclinations which ought to be governed by Gods Laws here styled his testimonies and commandments there is no doubt but that these are the things which David here styles his ways Nor need we question what kind of thoughts he employed upon them for the event it self declares that they were serious considerations how far they accorded or disagreed with Gods Commands together with quick and strong resolutions to amend what he found amiss in them wherein he discharged a great Duty but such as is very much neglected yea such as even he himself as these very words themselves suggest had for some time at least omitted Some men are afraid to make a review of their own lives as being sensible in the general that they cannot account even to themselves for their irregularities and neglects This is the reason why they dare not reflect upon themselves but decline the test of their own Consciences like men unwilling to come to Tryal in that Court where Sentence is like to pass against them Others involve and intangle themselves in such a continual throng of business and are so perplexed and overwhelmed with the cares and concernments of this life that they allow themselves no time for recollection of themselves and examination of their lives And some there are who spend their days in nothing but pleasures and diversions in constant entertainments of fancy which so possess their imaginations that they leave no room for serious thoughts of the very concernments of this life much less of that which is to come Thus it comes to pass that few ●eform their evil habits namely for want of recollection But did we call our selves to account and make inquisition into our ways did we impartially reflect upon them and allow our Consciences to examine them and judge by calm and sober reason excluding the briberies of our lusts and the fallacies which they put upon us these thoughts by the Grace of God assisting might have the same success on us that those of David had on him And what that was we understand from these words I thought on my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies I made haste and delayed not to keep thy commandments In which words he represents these two things I. The effect which the thoughts of his ways had upon him which was the reformation of them I thought on my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies II. The shortness of the time wherein they wrought this effect as it is expressed in the following Verse I made haste and delayed not to keep thy commandments For the better improvement of which example in order to our own advantage I shall follow the method of the words and shew what it is that the thoughts of our ways may suggest to us as apt and proper 1. To work the reformation of them and 2. To work it without delay 1. And to the former of these Generals I refer the serious consideration of the vast number of our sins with the many and great aggravations of them the sad effects which these sins have had or yet may have upon us the vanity and emptiness of all those pleasures or advantages which we have yet found in them or can reasonably hope to find hereafter to weigh against those evil effects and the solid happiness of that state whereupon we enter when we cast off and forsake our sins and turn our feet to Gods testimonies These are the things which the thoughts of our ways may suggest to us in order to the reformation of them First The first whereof that I may speak distinctly on them is the vast number of our sins with the many and great aggravations of them which we can never understand much less reform without impartial examination Sometimes we forget those very sins which we have committed against knowledge Tract of time decay of memory multitude of business or diversion wear out the thoughts of those very sins which we our selves took notice of in former times though now they be vanished from our remembrance Sometimes we take no notice at all of our sins and follies while we actually engage in them We think vainly desire inordinately speak rashly censure unjustly act indecently in the eyes of men and sinfully in the eyes of God not considering what we do while we thus entertain and employ our selves And this no doubt was David's reason why herepresents the sins of men as passing the reach of their understandings Who can understand his errours Cleanse thou me from secret faults Psal 19.12 And if we be often so far surprized as not to observe the motions of our own minds which we may feel within our selves nor what we speak what we act before the ears and eyes of others we may easily judge we are much more faulty in our omissions and neglects which are less sensible and observed both by our selves and other persons For sinful actions cry aloud in the scandals they bring upon Religion and sensible injuries to our Neighbour while mere omissions are dumb and silent and make no noise or stir in the World And yet there are some other things which we observe as little as our omissions namely the circumstances and aggravations of our sins which are sometimes wilful and deliberate sometimes against our former vows and resolutions of reformation sometimes against severe corrections or kind and fatherly castigations sometimes pernicious to other persons as well as hurtful to our selves often habitual and long continued and always against the mercies of God in whom we live and move and have our beings even while we continue to sin against him Which aggravations of our sins make little impression upon our minds much less urge us to reformation till we seriously recollect our selves and impartially reflect upon our ways But did we so reflect upon them did we consider how oft we have wilfully done amiss and that both against God and men and how much oftner done the like through ignorance errour and infirmity did we consider our many neglects in the Duties immediately respecting God while we have omitted or ill performed them adding hereto our great omissions towards our Neighbour while we have neglected to feed the hungry to clothe the naked to support the weak to assist the injured and oppressed might not these thoughts by the Grace of God so represent our sins to us as that we should judge it most unreasonable still to persist and proceed in them Could we think it tolerable