Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	godliness_n	jesus_n	temperance_n	1,486	5	11.3009	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51159	Sermons preached upon several occasions (most of them) before the magistrates and judges in the Northeast-auditory of S. Giles's Church Edinburgh / by Al. Monro ...	Monro, Alexander, d. 1715?	1693 (1693)	Wing M2444; ESTC R32106	186,506	532

Malice or swell with Pride and Vanity as the Pharisees who blew their Trumpets to convene the Spectators rather than the Poor You find this humour sharply reprov'd by the Prophet Isaiah Stand by thy self come not near to me for I am holier than thou these are a smoak in my nose a fire that burneth all the day 4. THE Fat and the Kidneys of all Burnt-offerings were consum'd upon the Altar to the honour of God And this Ceremony was the direct Type of the Sacrifice in the Text that the strength and vigour the superiour faculties of the Soul should be sacrific'd unto God So we are told by our Saviour in the Gospel that upon this Commandment Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart hang all the Law and the Prophets MOREOVER when the Sacrifice was cut down the Skin was taken off off entirely We must offer our Sacrifices under the New Testament without disguise hypocrisie or covering Whether shall I stee from thy presence If I ascend up unto heaven thou art there If I make my bed in Hell behold thou art there If I take the Wings of the Morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Sea If I say surely the darkness shall cover me even the night shall be light about me yea the darkness hideth not from thee but the night shineth as the day the darkness and the light are both alike to thee We must not think to palliate our deformities by arts and subterfuges for all things are naked and open to his eyes Nothing must be offered unto him but what is pure and unmixt Therefore the Sacrifice was carefully inspected and narrowly examin'd And the Pagans borrowed this Ceremony from the Patriarchs When we appear before God we should come with purity and simplicity of Spirit that we may be bold to appeal to God himself in the language of the Psalmist Search me O God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting With what innocence and decency ought we to approach the Most High God! The High-Priest Licinius among the Romans thought that the Vestal Virgin that kept the Holy Fire carelesly ought to be publickly scourg'd Sulpitius was deprived of his Priesthood because the Crest of his Mitre through his carelessness fell to the ground in the time of sacrificing Cornelius Cethegus and Claudius were deprived of their Dignity because they brought the Entrails of the Sacrifices somewhat negligently to the Altars The Story of Alexander's Boy that suffered his hand to be burnt rather than disturb the Sacrifice is very well known I MIGHT also put you in mind that the Guts and the Feet were to be wash'd We are certainly to be divided from what is more feculent gross and putrid and Philo finds this Mysterie in it that we must not converse too much with the Earth nay that in a manner we must be wholly above it when we approach his Altars And this agrees harmonimoniously with the Christian Sacrifice If ye are risen with Christ seek the things that are above where Christ fitteth on the right hand of God Set your affection on things above and not on things on the Earth This heavenly temper fortifies against temptations and makes us resolute against Death cheerful under afflictions watchful against sin and ready when our Master calleth And since here we are but Pilgrims and Strangers Let our conversation be in heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ YOU know that the Morning and the Evening Sacrifices were offered in their season without delays or intermission To this Custom the Psalmist alludes My Soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the Morning I say more than they that watch for the Morning The Priests in the Temple by turns did watch for the first appearance of the Day that they might offer the Morning Sacrifice We are to remember our Creator in the days of our youth and not delay our Repentance Our evil habits grow strong our time is uncertain the exercise of our Reason depends upon a thousand Contingencies and all our opportunities are slippery God is provoked by our delays his Spirit is resisted and our Convictions are stifled How dangerous is it then to delay the Sacrifice one moment longer lest God should judicially harden us and confine us to perpetual slavery To day then if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts but speedily break off thy sins by Repentance for the next moment may put thee under the final state of Impenitence BY what I have said you may easily see that the Caution and care that the Jews were tied to in their Sacrifices did not so much concern the Levitical Oblations as typifie the great Sacrifice of the New Testament God is to be worshipped agreeably to his Nature Our most solemn attendance on his Worship is but an abomination if at any time it is divided from a chearful and ingenuous surrender of our Souls to his Will This is the Sacrifice that S. Paul exhorts to with so much Rapture and Concern Fourthly and lastly LET us consider the Epithets bestowed upon this Sacrifice in the Text and these are three 1. It must be Living 2. Holy 3. Acceptable 1. I SAY it must be a Living Sacrifice And this in allusion to that Command under the Levitical Law that forbad any thing to be offer'd in Sacrifice which died of it self they were not so much as to eat of it far less could they sacrifice it The Sacrifices of the living God must be offered with Life he is the original Fountain of Life and it is Life that converses with Life This Meditation may justly startle the inconsiderate World who serve God with so much coldness and indifferency as if he were not the living God Let us prove My Brethren that we are living Christians by Actions and Motions suitable to that Life which we have from above Giving all diligence add to your faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge Temperance and to Temperance Patience and to Patience Godliness and to Godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly-kindness Charity We must prove by a steady and uniform practice of Christian Vertue that we are not the Votaries of some dead Idol but the Disciples of the living Jesus that as he was raised from the dead by the Glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life 2. THE next Epithet is the Sacrifice must be holy I do not design to discourse here of Holiness in the general nor of that Holiness that must run through all our Actions as we are Christians but of that special Holiness that is related to Sacrifices And therefore we must observe that all Sacrifices were holy in a twofold regard 1. They were separate from common use And 2. They were an

that they were wrought by the power of Magick we need no other answer than that of our Saviour himself who told them that the Devil was not such a fool as to employ his power against himself since it was undeniably manifest that no discipline did so visibly and irreconcileably oppose all Magical Arts and Charms as did the Religion of Jesus So a great number of them that had followed those curious Arts brought their costly Books to the Apostles and burnt them And when they endeavour'd to alledge that equal Miracles have been done by others amongst the Pagans 'T is so idle a story that they are far form believing it who first invented it The story of Vespasian's restoring a blind man to his sight did proceed from the artifice of Egyptian flattery and is reported by his own Historians with so much diffidence and reserve that it is scarce worth the naming As for the prodigious seats of Apollonius Tianeus we can look upon them as no other than fictitious and Romantick Fooleries vouched by no competent Authority Whereas the Miracles done by our Saviour and his Apostles were not only of a different Nature from those little Tricks of Magick but were wrought amongst great crowds of People to the view of the World and acknowledg'd by the most bitter and implacable of his Enemies And this Power he had not only in himself but bestowed it on his Apostles Besides the full discovery of those Objections depends on so much History that they cannot be contracted within such narrow bounds as I am confind'd to THE Result of all is this Such as despise the Gospel do it upon the most unreasonable grounds For whereas they alledge that our Ministry was not attended with Wisdom and Proofs borrowed from Philosophy they betray their Ignorance For the Doctrine that we propagate and assert being of its own Nature wholly Divine and beyond the reach of all human enquiries it must needs have its Proofs and Demonstrations from Heaven Without this it could not prevail and when it is attended with this it is impossible that it can miss of its effect So we come not with the enticing words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power Now we find that those Miracles were necessary at the first establishment of Christianity to point out the Person of the Messias to baffle the Devil and to satisfie the expectations of all Men and that thus rationally we can give an account of the speedy and universal propagation of the Christian Religion Thirdly WE consider the design and scope of this Oeconomy That their Faith might be built on the surest Foundations i. e. on the Power of God And here I might reckon up the motives of Credibility that obliged us to assent to the Christian Religion if they can be numbered But I chuse to improve what is said in one Word of Application Blessed be God who hath so fully provided for our Illumination and Confirmation that we might rest in his Word and Testimony with full assurance of mind For the Apostles did not follow cunningly devised fables when they made known unto us the Power and Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ Let us give up our selves to it without wavering and hesitation of Spirit resolutely maintaining it even unto Death And above all endeavouring to adorn it by a Holy Conversation adding to our faith vertue to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance c. Let us esteem and love it for its genuine Grandure and Majesty even when it is not attended with the Ornaments of human Art For how shall we escape if we neglect so great a Salvation that was first confirm'd by Miracles and Wonders LET us not desire that supernatural Truths be recommended to us chiefly and only by human Art So weak are we that we relish not Heavenly things unless they smell of the Earth When we hear the Word of God the corruption of our Nature leads us to notice more the air accent and gesture of the Preacher than the great Truths that he recommends and all these be they never so plain innocent and unexceptionable they have their fate and censure not from our unbyassed reason but from that part of us that is carnal I am not of the opinion that the Mysteries of the Gospel are to be handled confusedly and negligently in a slovenly dress such garments become not the Majesty of that Religion whose Ministers we are The Oracles of God deserve that we should Meditate in them night and day But we are so to study them that we preach not our selves but Christ Jesus the Lord and our selves your Servants for Christs sake that we may not think that the success of our Labours depends on the skill and contrivance of our Composures but on God that giveth the Increase To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be Glory and Dominion for ever Amen A SERMON Preached at the ABBEY of Holy-Rood-House MAY 1686. ON MATT. V. V. 20. For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven MY design from these words of our Saviour is to hint shortly at the Scope and Drift of Christian Religion and then to state the comparison between it and the Pharisaical Religion And in the next place to direct you in the Practice of true and sincere Godliness WHEN our Saviour appeared the Church was sadly over-run with the grossest Immoralities and the most absurd Superstitions and Delusions The Law of God which was in it self pure and just and holy was perverted by their Commentaries and made to truckle under such designs as were hateful to God and subversive of all true Morality Their plausible glosses and corrupt maxims destroy'd the natural force of Religion and withal they deceiv'd the poor People into an Opinion that they themselves were the peculiar favourites of God even then when our Saviour told them that the publicans and the sinners should enter into the kingdom of heaven before them WHEN we read the Sermon on the Mount we find that it was our Saviour's great design to plant and establish amongst his Disciples a manly rational and heroick temper of mind a higher kind of Philosophy than the Pharisees understood or the Pagans pretended to The rule of Life that he gave us was so accurate and so suitable to our Nature in its first and original constitution that nothing can equal it for purity and holiness The wisest sayings and the best thoughts of Jews and Pagans scattered here and there in all their books are very far outdone in one Page of the New Testament He removes our errors prejudices and mistakes concerning God our selves and the rewards of another Life He opens our eyes to see thorow the little tricks hypocritical designs and superstitious follies of the Pharisees And by the most cogent proofs he forces us to acknowledge that there is no