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
A59548	The duty and happiness of doing good two sermons : the former, preached at the Yorkshire feast, in Bow-Church, Feb. 17, 1679 : the other, before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, at the Spittle, Apr. 14, 1680 / by John Sharpe ...	Sharp, John, 1645-1714.	1680 (1680)	Wing S2976; ESTC R6463	37,896	84

all But now having said this by way of caution to prevent all occasion that any may take from our so earnestly pressing Charity to undervalue and neglect other duties It cannot be denyed on the other side that very great effects are by our Saviour and his Apostles ascribed to this virtue with respect to mens Salvation in the other world In the 6 th of S. Luke our Lord thus adviseth Love saith he your enemies give to him that asketh do good and lend hoping for nothing again so shall your reward be great and ye shall be the children of the most highest Now sure to be entitled to great rewards and to be the children of the most high doth look farther than this present world Our Saviour without doubt means the same thing here that he expresses upon the same occasion in another place viz. They those that you do good to cannot recompence you but you shall be recompenced at the Resurrection of the just Again the Parable of the unjust Steward that provided so well for himself against a bad time out of his Masters goods is wholly designed to this purpose and that the Application of it sufficiently shews for our Saviour having said that the Lord of this Steward commended him for his providence and care of himself he thus applies it to all his Disciples Wherefore I say unto you make you friends to your selves of the Mammon of unrighteousness i. e. of these false deceitful riches that when you fail you may be received into everlasting habitations plainly declaring that the best provision that rich men can make for themselves against the time of their death in order to their reception into the other world must be the charitable actions they do with their wealth while they live here Lastly In another place our Saviour saith the very same thing in effect that is said in the Text for this is his counsel to all that mean to be happy in the next life viz. that they sell that they have that is when the times are such that it is reasonable so to do that they give alms for thereby they provide to themselves bags which wax not old a Treasure in the Heavens where no thief approacheth nor moth corrupteth To these three Texts of our Saviour I shall add three others of three of his Apostles which speak just to the same effect and with them I shall conclude The first is that of S. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews where having spoken most severe things and denounced no less than Hell fire against the false brethren among them yet thus he comforts the Church to whom he writes But beloved saith he we are perswaded better things of you and things that do accompany salvation though we thus speak And what I pray is the reason he is thus perswaded Verily this For God saith he is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which you have shewed to his name in that ye have ministred to the Saints and yet do minister It was purely their Charity to the brethren that made him have these good hopes of them that they were in a state of Salvation Though that Church as to other things was in a very degenerate condition yet considering they had been laborious and diligent in the exercise of Charity and still continued so to be God would not forget them nay he was not so unrighteous as to forget them And then that which follows in the next verse is very observable And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to wit in the practice of charity to the full assurance of hope unto the end If they would have their hopes of a future life assured to them the way to do it was to persevere in their diligent attendance to works of mercy and kindness and charity The second passage is that of S. Iohn Hereby faith he perceive we the love of God towards us because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren But whoso hath this worlds good and seeth his brother hath need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him My little children let us not love in word neither in tongue but in deed and in truth and hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him I pray mind that By our charitable disposition and doing good to our brethren by this we know we are true disciples of Jesus Christ and this is that that will assure our hearts will give us confidence to appear before God at the last day when he comes to judge the world And this is a point that the Apostle thinks so considerable that he goes over with it again in the next verse Beloved if our hearts condemn us not i. e. condemn us not as to this point of love and charity then have we confidence towards God and whatsoever we ask we shall receive of him because we do those things that are pleasing in his sight The last Text to this purpose that I desire may be taken notice of is that of S. Peter Above all things my brethren have fervent charity among your selves for charity shall cover the multitude of sins O how comfortable are these words there is none of us even the best but hath a multitude of sins to answer for by what means now must we obtain that these sins shall be covered that is shall be forgiven for covering of sins is the forgiveness of them in the Scripture-language Why the Apostle hath directed us to the method above all things put on charity for it is charity that shall cover the multitude of sins Charity is of that power with God that it alone is able to overcome the malignity of many of our sins and frailties that would otherwise do us mischief If any thing can make atonement for the carelesness and the many failings of our lives and prevent the punishment that is due to them it is to be very charitable and to do much good Charity covers a multitude of sins in this life A great many temporal judgments that would otherwise have fallen upon us for our sins are hereby prevented and that not only private ones but publick too And I think it no Popery to affirm that Charity will cover a multitude of sins in the other life also That is whoever is of a truly charitable disposition and doth a great deal of good in his generation though he may have a great many infirmities and miscarriages to answer for yet if he be sincerely virtuous in the main and so capable of the rewards of the other world his other failings will be overlooked they will be buried in his good deeds and the man shall be rewarded not withstanding Or if he be a vitious person and so must of necessity fall short of the glory that shall be revealed yet still in proportion the good he hath done in his life will cover the multitude of sins Though it will not be available for the making him happy because he is not capable of being so yet it will be for the lessening his punishment He shall be in a much more supportable condition among the miserable than those that have been unmerciful or cruel or uncharitable in their lives O therefore what remains but that considering all these things we should be stedfast unmoveable always abounding in these works of the Lord for as much as we know that our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Giving all diligence to add to Faith Virtue and to virtue Knowledge and to knowledge Temperance and to temperance Patience and to patience Godliness and to godliness Brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness Charity By our good works making our calling and election sure so some Copies have the 10 th ver of 1 Pet. 1. that doing these things we may never fall but an entrance may be ministred to us abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Iesus Christ. THE END Eccles. 1.13 ver 18. Cap. 2. ver 1 3. ver 2. ver 4. ver 8. ver 11. 1 Iob. 4.8 Mat. 5. 44 45. Iob. 13.34 35. 1 Iob. 3.16 Prov. 10.7 Psal. 37. ver 3. Ibid. v. 2● 1 Cor. 10.24 3. Tim. 6.18 1 Pet. 4.8 1 Cor. 13.2.13 Mat. 5.16 1. Thess. 5.16 Phil. 4.4 2. Cor. 1.12 2 Cor. 4.17 See Deut. 16. Exod. 23.15 〈…〉 Luke 12.16 c. Iames 2.14 c. 1 Iohn 3.17 cap. 4.20 Iames 2.26 Gal. 5.6 1 Cor. 13.2 ver 3. Luke 3.10 11. Dan. 4.27 Eccles. 4.10 1 Tim. 6.10 Eph. 5.5 Ps. 10.3 Iam. 2.13 Luke 6.24 Luke 16.25 Matth. 25.31 c. 2 Tim. 2.19 Vid. Dr. Hammond in loc Iam. 2.10 Luk. 6.30 35. Luke 14.14 Luke 16. ver 9. Luk 12.33 Heb. 6.9 ver 10. ver 11. 1 Iohn 3.16 c. 1 Pet. 4.8 Ps. 33.1 1 Cor. 15.58 2 Pet. 1.5 c. ver 10.

spending them Let this be the compass to steer and direct us in our pursuit after knowledge in our learning Arts and Sciences in the managery of our Trades and employments in a word in the choice and in the prosecution of every design that is proposed to us In all these things the great enquiry is to be what good will they tend to How shall we be rendred more useful to the world if our designs and endeavours as to these matters do take effect Let this be the great rule by which we proceed in the Education of our Children and Relations and the provisions we make for them in the world Let it be our first care to possess them with a deep sense of the duty they owe to the Publick and to furnish them with such qualities as will render them profitable members of it and to put them into such professions and employments as may afford them fair scope for the exercise of those qualities If we thus provide for them though we otherwise leave them never so small an Estate yet with the Blessing of God they have a good Portion Lastly let this design of doing good influence our very Offices of Religion When we make our applications to the Throne of Grace let us be sure to have the Publick always in mind and even when we pray for our selves let it be with this design and resolution that as God in mercy bestows upon us the Blessings and the Grace we pray for we will employ them for the good of others O that we would thus seriously concern our selves in doing good O that we would once lay aside all our little selfish designs and that narrowness and penuriousness of Spirit with which most of us are bound up and with ardent Love and Charity set our selves not to seek his own but every man anothers good as the Apostle exhorteth Secondly if the doing good be so necessary a duty as hath been represented what must we say of those men that frame to themselves Models of Christianity without putting this duty into its notion There is a sort of Christianity which hath obtained in the world that is made up of Faith and knowledge of the Gospel Mysteries without any respect to Charity and good works Nay have we not heard of a sort of Christianity the very perfection of which seems to consist in the disparaging this duty of doing good as much as is possible crying it down as a heathen virtue a poor blind piece of Morality a thing that will no way further our salvation nay so far from that that it often proves a hindrance to it by taking us off from that full relyance and recumbency that we ought to have on the Righteousness of Jesus Christ only in order to our Salvation But O how contrary are these Doctrines to the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles How widely different a thing do they make Christianity to be from what it will appear if we take our notions of it from their Sermons and Practices Is it possible that he that went about doing good himself made it his meat and drink the business and employment of his life should set so light by it in us that are his followers Is it possible that they that so often call upon us to do good to be rich in good works above all things to have fervent charity among our selves telling us that all faith is nothing all knowledge of Mysteries is nothing all gifts of Prophecy and Miracles are nothing but that Charity is all in all I say is it possible that they should think doing good so insignificant so unprofitable nay so dangerous a thing as these I spoke of do represent it But I need not further reprove these Opinions because I hope they find but few Patrons but this seriously ought to be reproved among us viz. that we do not generally lay that stress upon this duty we are speaking of that we ought to do Many are ready enough to acknowledge their Obligations to do good and count it a very commendable thing and a work that God will bless them the better for yet they are loth to make it an essential ingredient of their Religion they think they may be Religious and serve God without it If they be but sober in their lives and just in their dealings and come to Church at the usual times they have Religion enough to carry them to Heaven though in the mean time they continue covetous and hard and uncharitable without bowels of pity and compassion and make no use of their wealth or their power and interest or their Parts and industry or their other Talents committed to them for the doing good in the world Far be it from any man to pretend to determine what vertues or degrees of them are precisely necessary to Salvation and what Vertues or degrees of them a man may safely be without But this is certain that charity and doing good are none of those that can be spared The Scripture hath every where declared these qualities to be as necessary in order to our Salvation as any condition of the Gospel Nay if we will consult St. Matth. 25. where the Process of the General Judgment is described we shall find these to be the great points that at the last day men shall be examined upon and upon which the whole case of their eternal state will turn So that if we take the Scripture for our Guide these men at last will be found to be much mistaken and to have made a very false judgment both of Religion and of their own condition Thirdly From what hath been said about doing good we may gather wherein that Perfection of Christianity which we are to aspire after doth consist It has been much disputed which is the most Perfect life to live in the world as other men do and to serve God in following our employments and taking care of our families and doing good offices to our neighbors and discharging all other duties that our relation to the publick requires of us or to retire from the world and to quit all our secular concernments and wholly to give up our selves to Prayer and Meditation and those other exercises of Religion properly so called This latter kind of life is so magnified by the Romanists in comparison of the other that it hath engrossed to it self the name of Religious None among them are thought worthy to be styled Religious persons but those that Cloyster up themselves in a Monastery But whatever excellence may be pretended in this course of life it certainly falls much short of that which is led in a publick way He serves God best that is most serviceable to his Generation And no Prayers or Fasts or Mortifications are near so acceptable a Sacrifice to our Heavenly Father as to do good in our lives It is true to keep within doors and to attend our devotions though those that are in appearance most abstracted