Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	faith_n	patience_n	temperance_n	4,962	5	11.6128	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44521	The first fruits of reason, or, A discourse shewing the necessity of applying our selves betimes to the serious practice of religion by Anthony Horneck ...	Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.	1686 (1686)	Wing H2830; ESTC R4566	37,544	144

enough of it three years hence By little conquests way must be made for greater and he that overcomes his little peevishnesses for some time prepares for overcoming bigger affronts and injuries We read of no Ex tempore Saints and those who have arrived to qualifications which have made them fit for the bliss of another world have spent many years to bring themselves to a spiritual relish of the power of godliness Heaven is not to be gained by a single vertue but there must be adding unto our faith vertue unto vertue knowledge unto knowledge temperance unto temperance godliness unto godliness patience unto patience brotherly kindness and unto brotherly kindness charity 2 Pet. 1.4 5. He is no Christian that knows not what it is to grow in grace and when we are to labour after perfection it 's evident that we must begin betimes So that if a man doth not begin this practical remembrance of his Creator in the days of his youth he hath not time enough to become master of this art or to commence Graduate in this piece of Philosophy 3. This early remembrance of the Great Creator invites the early manifestations of Gods love and is the Key to the choisest comforts and consolations Of all the Apostles St. John alone is called the Disciple whom Jesus loved He loved them all but this with greater tenderness than ordinary because as most Divines observe he was the youngest and in the days of his youth remembred his Masters will and his own duty When Israel was a child i. e. when in his tender age he followed me with all his heart studied my Laws and walked with God I loved him that is with a higher love of complacency than others faith God Hos 11.1 The youthful David when in the wilderness he liv'd retired from the world contemplated things celestial and sublime made the Creator of all things the darling of his Soul and found no such delight any where as in meditating of Gods testimonies felt what the kinder influences of Gods Spirit were and what was the exceeding greatness of his power whereof that extraordinary assistance he speaks of to King Saul was a signal testimony Thy servant kept his fathers sheep and there came a Lion and a Bear and took a Lamb out of the flock and I went out after him and delivered it out of his mouth and when he arose against me I caught him by his beard and smote him and slew him 1 Sam. 17.34 35. When Joseph's innocence and tender years led him to the fear of God and made him have that aversion from sin in himself and others that he told his Father of his brethrens faults God favour'd him with more than ordinary tokens of his love which appear'd afterward more visibly by his making him Vice-Roy of Egypt Early Fruit is ever most acceptable and an early remembrance of our Creator comes before him as Incense smells sweets as the morning Sacrifice and vies with the morning Rose for fragrancy Practical Inferences First Though we allow not of the Platonick notion that all our knowledge is nothing but reminiscence yet Religion may justly be called a Remembrance of things we knew and heard of before The lines of good and evil are engraven upon our hearts The Finger of God hath written them upon our Souls and education together with the various Sermons we hear make these Characters much brighter So that if at any time we are to abhor that which is evil or to cleave to that which is good if we are tempted to actions doubtful and uncertain whether they be agreeable or disagreeable to the will of God it 's but remembering what an Almighty hand hath imprinted on our hearts or what formerly we have treasured up there and thus we may by the Grace of God resist and overcome the temptation Nay if we remember how at such time our Consciences checkt us for such actions and what reluctancies we felt when prompted to the commission If we remember how at another time our pious Neighbour reproved us for such a fault told us it was as affront offered to God and a snare to ruine our immortal Souls If we remember how vehemently the Minister of the Ordinances of God declaimed against such a sin what Arguments he alleadg'd against it what disswasives he produced what obtestations and entreaties he used to discourage us from the Offence all this will signally help to restraine us from yielding to the evil motion For this we need no extraordinary memories we make use of in our civil affairs when we remember what we did or what hapned such a year will serve to put us in mind of our duty It 's love to a thing that makes us remember what may contribute to the promoting of it And if our love to Religion were but as strong as it is to our Riches we should very easily remember the arguments that God and his Ministers have given us to disswade us from the sins we are inclined to Were we truly concerned for our Souls we should soon remember what we have heard out of the Word of God and which makes for the practice of the vertues necessary to salvation When we are tempted to Pride or Anger if we did but remember how we have hated these sins in others and how odious they have appeared to us when we have seen our Neighbours fall into them it would be a sufficient discouragement from the commission That we have no memories in this case is not so much a defect of nature as our will We are wilfully forgetful of our duty and that makes us excuse the neglect of it we will not remember our sins and that tempts us to impenitence Thus we cheat our Souls and that 's but an ill preparative for the tremendous audit at the Bar of Gods Justice The day will come when we shall remember our offences and neglects whether we will or no. There is not a sinner now who willingly forgets what he hath been going against God and his own Soul but will be forced to remember it to his cost and sorrow when an angry God shall look him in the face And is it not our greatest interest then to remember now in this our day the things which belong unto our peace to remember our Errours that we may turn from them to remember our duties to God and man that we may conscienciously discharge them to remember what our Creator our Father our greatest Benefactors requires of us to remember the Exhortations the Entreaties the Expostulations the Adjurations of a merciful God that the Great Jehovah may remember us in that day when he makes up his Jewels and spare us as a man would spare his Son that serves him Secondly There is hardly any place of Scripture that is more vulgarly known than this I have discoursed of our very Children learn it almost as soon as they can speak and imbibe it with the ordinary questions Who made you Who redeem'd