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
A44697	A treatise of delighting in God from Psal. xxxvij. 4. Delight thy self also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. In two parts. By John Howe, M.A. sometime fellow of Magdalen College, Oxon.	Howe, John, 1630-1705.	1674 (1674)	Wing H3043; ESTC R215977	202,908	389

can be delightful to act against inclination or that a forced imitation of that good whereof you want the implanted vital principle can be any more pleasing to you than it is to God whom you cannot mock or impose upon by your most elaborate or specious disguises And therefore since that holy heart-rectitude must be had it must be sought earnestly and without rest Often ought Heaven to be visited with such sighs and longings sent up thither O that my ways were directed to keep thy righteous judgments Let my heart be sound in thy statutes that I be not ashamed And it should be sought with expectation of good-speed and without despair remembring we are told If we ask we shall receive if we seek we shall find if we knock it shall be opened unto us yea that our heavenly Father will much more readily give his Holy Spirit to them that ask than you would bread to your Child that calls for it rather than a stone 3. When once you find your spirit is become in any measure well-inclin'd and begins to savour that which is truly good know yet that it needs your continual inspection and care to cherish good principles and repress evil ones Your work is not done as soon as you begin to live as care about an Infant ceases not as soon as it is born Let it be therefore your constant business to tend your inward man otherwise all things will soon be out of course God hath coupled delight with the labour of a Christian not with the sloth and neglect of himself The heart must then be kept with all diligence or above all keeping in as much as out of it are the issues of life All vital principles are lodg'd there and only the genuine issues of such as are good and holy will yeild you pleasure The exercises of Religion will be pleasant when they are natural and flow easily from their own fountain but great care must be taken that the fountain be kept pure There are other springs besides which will be apt to intermingle therewith their bitter waters or a root of bitterness whose fruit is deadly even that evil thing and bitter forsaking the Lord. I wonder not if they taste little of the delights of Religion that take no heed to their spirits Such a curse is upon the nature of man as is upon the ground which was cursed for his sake till the blessing of Abraham through Jesus Christ do take place even the Promise of the Spirit that it brings forth naturally thorns and thistles and mingles sorrows with his bread But that promised blessing that will enable a man to eat with pleasure comes not all at once nor do the encreases of it come on or the pleasant fruits of righteousness spring up but in them that give all diligence to add to their faith vertue and to vertue knowledg and to knowledg temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly-kindness and to brotherly-kindness charity Which would make that we be not barren nor unfruitful in the knowledg of our Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise look in upon thy Soul when thou wilt and thou wilt have no other than the dismal prospect of miserable wastes and desolation Consider it seriously wretched man who tillest thy Field but not thy Soul and lovest to see thy Garden neat and flourishing but lettest thy Spirit lye as a neglected thing and as if it were not thine We are directed for the moderating of our care in our earthly concernments to consider the Lillies how they grow without their own toil and are beautifully array'd without their spinning But we are taught by no such instances to divert or remit our care of our inward man To these concernments let us then apply and bend our selves That is carefully to observe the first stirrings of our thoughts and desires to animadvert upon our inclinations assoon as they can come in view upon our designs in their very formation and enquire concerning each whence is it from a good Principle or a bad whither tends it to good or hurt will not this design if prosecuted prove an unjustifiable self-indulgence Does it not tend to an unlawful gratifying of the flesh and fulfilling some lusts thereof If so let it be lop't off our of hand and the axe be laid even to the root strike at it favour it not Think with thy self this if spared will breed me sorrow so much as I give to it I take away from the comfort of my life and spend of the stock of my spiritual delight in God Shall I let sin the tormentor of my Soul live and be mantain'd at so costly a rate If any good inclination discover it self cherish it confirm and strengthen it Look up and pray down a further quickening influence Say with thy self now that heavenly Spirit of Life and Grace begins to breath More of this pleasant vital breath thou blessed and holy Spirit Account this a Seed-time Now the light and gladness are a sowing in thy soul which are wont to be for the righteous and upright in heart and do promise ere long a joyful Harvest But if thou wilt not observe how things go with thy Soul despair that they will ever go well 4. Be frequent and impartial in the actual exercise of gracious Principles or in practising and doing as they direct Your actual delight arises from and accompanies your holy actions themselves and is to be perceived and tasted in them not in the meer inclination to them which is not strong enough to go forth into act And as these Principles are more frequently exercised they grow more lively and vigorous and will thence act more strongly and pleasantly so that your delight in doing good will grow with the Principles it proceeds from But then you must be impartial and even-handed herein as well as frequent and run the whole compass of that Duty which belongs to you as a Christian. Exercise your self as we find the direction is unto godliness and in such acts and parts of godliness chiefly and in the first place as may be the exercise of the mind and spirit in opposition to the bodily exercise whether severities imposed upon or performances that require the Ministery of that grosser part to which this nobler kind of exercise is justly prefer'd Turn the powers of your soul upon God Act seasonably the several graces of the Spirit that terminate directly upon him Let none grow out of use At some times Repentance at others Faith now your Love then your Fear none of these are placed in you or are sanctified in vain Retire much with God learn and habituate your selves unto secret converse with him contemplate his Nature Attributes and Works for your excitation to holy Adoration Reverence and Praise And be much exercised in the open Solemnities of his Worship there endeavouring that though your inward man bear not the only it may the principal part

glorious things are divine wisdom love holiness to an enlightened mind which is therefore supposed to have a clearer discovery of them But it may be said Is there any thing apprehensible concerning these or any other matters which may not be expressed in some proposition or other And what proposition is there which a regenerate person can assent to but one who is not regenerate may assent to it also what definition so truly expressive of the natures of these things can be thought of unto which a carnal mind may not give its approbation what can be said or conceived so fully aud truly tending to describe and clear them up but an unrenewed understanding may have the representation of the fame truth so as to give entertainment to it 'T is answered there are many things to which somewhat may belong not capable of description and whereof we have yet a most certain perception As the different relishes of the things we taste There are no words that will express those many peculiarities And as to the present matter There is somewhat belonging to the things of God those for instance that were mentioned his wisdom holiness c. besides the Truth of the conceptions that may be formed about them which is more clearly apprehensible to a divinely enlightened understanding than to one that is not so As 1. The beauty of those Truths which it is most delightful to behold Their lively sparkling lustre by which they appear so amiable and lovely to a well-tempered spirit as to transport it with pleasure and ravish it from it self into union with them There was somewhat else apprehensible no doubt and apprehended by them the inward sentiments of whose souls those words so defectively served to express Who is like unto thee O Lord among the Gods who is like thee glorious in holiness c. besides the meer truth of any propositions that those words can be resolved into And so in those O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledg of God! c. And those God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that c. Or those This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation That Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners whereof I am chief Or the strains of that rapturous prayer That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his Spirit in the inner man That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height And to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledg that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God There is a certain acceptableness in some Truths necessary to their being received in the love thereof which is peculiarly so represented to some as that their apprehension is clear and vivid beyond that of other men who however they have the representation of the same things yet have not the same representation Though if they be things of necessary and common concernment it is as was said their own fault that they have it not And to have yet clearer apprehensions of this sort is what the renewed Soul doth most earnestly crave and would be proportionably delighted with 2. The tendency of such Truths is much more clearly conceivable to an holy Soul than another what their scope and aim or aspect is which way they look and what they drive at or lead to I mean not what other truth they are connected with and would aptly tend to infer But what design God hath upon us in revealing them and what impression they ought to make upon us To the ignorance or disregard of which tendency and design of Gods revelation it is to be attributed that many have long the same notions of things hovering in their minds without ever reflecting with any displeasure upon the so vastly unsutable temper of their spirits thereto They know it may be such things concerning God the tendency whereof is to draw their hearts into union with him to transform them into his likeness to inflame them with his love But they still remain notwithstanding at the greatest distance most unsutable averse coldly affected towards him yea utterly opposite and disaffected and fall not out with themselves upon this account have no quarrel nor dislike take not any distaste at themselves for it They take no notice of an incongruity and unfitness in the ill temper of their own spirits but seem as if they thought all were very well with them nothing amiss and apprehend not a repugnancy in their habitual dispositions towards God to their notions of him For a vicious prejudice blinds their eyes their corrupt inclinations and rotten hearts send up a malignant dark and clammy fog and vapour and cast so black a cloud upon these bright things that their tendency and design is not perceived That prejudice not being conceived so much against the abstract notions of the things themselves whence they are entertained with less reluctancy but only against the design and scope of them Against which poysonous cloud Gods own glorious revelation directs its beams dissolves its gross consistency scatters its darkness as to them to whom he by special grace affords it Whereupon observing any remainders of the same distemper in their spirits though it be in a considerable degree abated and lessened they are ashamed of themselves for it fill'd with confusion yea and indignation do loath and abhor and could even be ready if it were possible to run away from themselves And what is the reason of this so great difference Surely somewhat appears discernible to these in Gods revelation of himself which to the other doth not They have then before their eyes a more clear prospect of the aim and scope of it Which so far as they have it pleases them for they like the design well only they are displeased at themselves that they comport no more with it And as the end therefore aimed at is desirable to them and would be delightful as will be shewn in its proper place so is it to have that representation immediately offered to the view of their Souls which hath so apt and comely an aspect thereon not meerly for its own sake but for the sake of the end it self Wherefore there is somewhat to be apprehended by Gods representation of himself to the minds of this regenerate people at least more clearly than by other men Whence the work of regenerating or converting them it self is expressed by opening their eyes For the divine communication makes its own way and enters at the eye the Souls seeing faculty which it doth find as opening the eyes imports and not now create But finding it vitiated and as to any right seeing of God shut and closed up it heals opens and restores it as it enters It is expressed By turning