Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	create_v	image_n	renew_v	2,118	5	9.7693	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23661	A discourse of divine assistance, and the method thereof shewing what assistance men receive from God in performing the condition of the promise of pardon of sin and eternal life / by W.A.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1679 (1679)	Wing A1059; ESTC R17227	99,779	333

endeavour to reform amend and to become new men to strive against all known sin and to endeavour to do all known duty as well as they can but the victory is got but by degrees There is a great difference between a mans getting the victory over those oppositions of Flesh World and Devil which withstood him in his beginning when he was setting upon the work of amendment of life and his destroying those enemies of his soul so as that they shall no more annoy him or endanger his falling short of the happiness he seeks which to be sure they will notwithstanding his first victory unless he pursue that victory by seeking the utter ruine and destruction of them by keeping up a continual war against them The former victory I reckon is perfectly obtained when men are not prevailed upon by any opposition whatsoever but that they will and do seriously and sincerely and actually engage in a conscientious observation of the several duties of Christianity enjoined by our Saviour both in abstaining from evil and in doing good But the latter victory is obtained but by degrees as the new man grows stronger and stronger and the old man weaker and weaker like the house of Saul and David A man I conceive does commence sincere Christian and real Disciple of Christ when he has obtained the first victory but cannot approve himself to God and his own conscience to be and to continue such farther than he follows his enterprize and pursues that victory by endeavouring the destruction of the whole body of sin and by aspiring after a standing compleat in all the will of God When our Saviour said Luke 12.47 That servant which knew his Lords will and prepared not himself neither did according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes we see the least that will secure a man from this threatning of our Lord is a mans preparing himself to do according to his Lords will And if by preparing himself be meant a putting himself in the best posture he can to do it by using the best means and helps he can in order to it and then doing it as well as he can though not so well as he would then it seems very probable that for a man thus to prepare himself to do his Lords will will not onely secure him from being beaten as a disobedient servant but also render him acceptable to his Lord in such his preparation to please him And I think the Apostles rule will hold in reference to this though mentioned but upon a particular occasion that of Alms-giving 2 Cor. 8.12 If there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not So long as a mans doing his Lords will as well as his alms does but answer his ability and capacity and proceeds from a willing mind a mind inclined and bent to do better as he to give a better alms if he could this mans endeavour and service will be no more rejected because it is so mean than the poor widows two mites were but be accepted because it holds some proportion with his ability and proceeds from a mind and will that would have put the man upon doing more if he could have done it And this indeed is in a favourable sense a mans serving his Lord and Master with all his might with all that little strength which he hath And yet in this Almighty God does not I conceive weigh men in reference to their performance or endeavours to perform by grains and scruples For he knows whereof we are made and how we are but dust as the Psalmist speaks He considers the composition of our nature Flesh as well as Spirit and the constitution and complexion thereof and how the motions and activity of the Spirit are limited and straightned by the body to which it is united He considers all the disadvantages we are under from without us as of times and places where the providence of God hath cast us and of education company and acquaintance and the like he considers all a mans circumstances and then according to the goodness and benignity of his nature makes allowances in estimating a man according to his endeavours and performances He is not extream in marking what is done amiss He pities us as a Father pities his children and spares us as a man spares his own Son that serves him if the Bias of our will and constant endeavours do but stand right towards him and if our endeavours do but hold some good proportion to that assistance we receive from him An instance of all which we have in the character which the Scripture gives of David when it saith He turned not aside from any thing commanded by God all his dayes except in the matter of Vriah 1 Kings 15.5 These things I note by the way to the end we might be the better able to make some judgment not onely of what assistance men receive from God when he worketh in them both to will and to do but also what that willing and doing is which we may hope will through grace be accepted for a performance of that condition to which the promise of pardon and life is made And thus we have seen in some measure how Almighty God by the assistance of his grace brings about that change both in the mind and manners of men by which the condition of his promise of pardon and life is performed He awakens mens fears by making them sensible of their danger by reason of sin And these fears especially when they grow any thing strong prevail against those prejudices which make men unwilling to consider the concernments of their souls and things relating to another life And by considering men come through Gods further assistance to have new apprehensions of things to see and to judge of things as they are and then to chuse or refuse them according to that judgment God does not give men new faculties of understanding and will he only assists those faculties to throw off that burden which oppressed them to break those fetters by which they were bound and so to restore them by degrees to their native liberty of acting regularly Hence the Scripture calls this work of God upon the soul a being renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him Col. 3.10 that is to a right judgment of things wherein the soul of man resembled its Maker It is termed a being renewed in the Spirit of the mind Ephes 4.23 a being transformed by the renewing of the mind Rom. 12.2 and the renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3.5 That which is most connatural to the will in man is to chuse his happiness It is not in mans power to chuse to be miserable under that notion but whenever he does so it s under the notion of good And this is the corruption that cleaves to man in his degenerate state to chuse that which is evil under