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	patience_n	temperance_n	6,856	5	12.1407	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70263	Several sermons upon the fifth of St. Matthew .... [vol. 1] being part of Christ's Sermon on the mount / by Anthony Horneck ... ; to which is added, the life of the author, by Richard Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells.	Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.	1698 (1698)	Wing H2851; ESTC R40468	201,926	515

imports 1. A great sense that there is no true satisfaction either in sin or in a worldly carnal life This we must necessarily suppose for how should a man hunger or thirst after Righteousness except he be sensible that here is not his rest neither in sin nor in the contentments of this present world these being the grand impediments of that Righteousness That 's the reason why men who place their chiefest happiness in sublunary enjoyments have nothing of this hunger and thirst after Righteousness till they become sensible of the vanity of this world and the danger of a sinfull life their appetite after Righteousness is insignificant nor can their feeble wishes be call'd so but when they have a thorough view of the rottenness of the bottoms they have sailed in then they affect and desire this plank to swim out of the gulph of perdition 2. It imports a high esteem of this Righteousness and Goodness and without it it 's impossible to hunger and thirst after it for men do not use to long after things they do not value nor are their desires very strong after objects they see no satisfaction in A man hungry and thirsty prizes the meat and drink that is before him so must he the righteousness we speak of that doth truly hunger and thirst after it If he doth not prize it above Gold and Silver and Pearls and precious Stones his hunger and thirst after it cannot be considerable but when he comes to count all things dross and dung in comparison of it then he is most likely to hunger and thirst after it 3. It imports a very earnest desire to be righteous and good in all points Such a desire as men very hungry and thirsty have after meat and drink and that we know is not very faint The Scripture therefore expresses by a very emphatical similitude Psal. XLII 1. As the Hart pants after the water brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God The Hart or Stag is a creature naturally hot but being chas'd and hunted his desire after the cooling streams becomes more earnest and vehement and such must be this desire after righteousness even as it is Psal. LXIII 1. My soul thirsteth my flesh longs for thee in a dry Land i. e. as a man or traveller spent with the labour or the trouble of his journey in a dry land where no water is These expressions import a very strong desire a desire which hath no reserves no sinister ends and designs but is sincere and lively and vigorous and importunate which will not be denied and prevails by its fervour and importunity 4. It imports actual and earnest endeavours to be truly good and righteous by a diligent and conscientious use of the proper means We do not look upon a man that talks of having a thing or pretends his heart set upon it as being in good earnest if his endeavours be not suitable to his desires The Merchant or Trades-man that desires to be rich we know what pains they take nay the Day-Labourer that desires a livelihood So he that hungers and thirsts after Righteousness indeed will enquire and hear and read the word of God and ponder it in his mind and pray hard and deny himself and break off from loose Company and meditate and think and shun occasions of evil and follow God as the man in the Gospel did his Neighbour at Midnight for three Loaves and will leave no stone unturn'd to compass this Goodness and Righteousness as a man who is very hungry or thirsty doth not sit still but bestirs himself to get Food and Drink which he stands in need of 5. It imports a Progress in this hunger and thirst and when we are arrived to such a degree of Righteousness then to hunger and thirst and endeavour after higher degrees of it To this purpose are those frequent exhortations Grow in Grace and see that ye abound more and more in faith in love and charity And give all diligence to add to your faith vertue unto vertue knowledge unto knowledge temperance unto temperance godliness unto godliness patience unto patience brotherly kindness and unto brotherly kindness charity 1 Thess. III. 12. IV. 1. 2. Pet. I. 5 6 7. II. 18. A Christians labour like the Husbandmans is never at an end when one lust is mortified he must begin to subdue and mortifie another and when he hath made one vertue his domestick he must take another into his Family The hunger and thirst here spoken of is not a momentary appetite which is to last for a day or so but an appetite perpetual which is to run through the whole course of our lives and which is still encreas'd by being filled insomuch that if a good Christian were to live here a thousand years he would still find degrees and acts of Righteousness to hunger and thirst after 6. It imports such a spiritual hunger and thirst or such a desire after Righteousness as is content to undergo and endure bodily hunger and thirst and other temporal inconveniencies both for the attainment and preservation of it He that is loath to be at any trouble for it or unwilling to abridge himself in any thing that 's pleasing to the flesh either for the gaining of it or the maintaining of it hath but a weak appetite after it to be sure no such appetite as the man of honour hath after worldly Glory who can dispence with scratch'd faces with scars and wounds and hard lodging and puddle-water and a homely dyet and all to attain to an empty name of a valiant man Surely righteousness deserves as generous a desire we see what men will do in a Famine even venture reproach and contempt and being abused and reviled to get food convenient such must be this hunger and thirst after Righteousness for to be truly righteous a Christian must reckon upon afflictions persecutions and calumnies and nick-names and being laught at and he that longs for the fragrant Rose must not stand upon its being encompass'd with pricks but resolve out of love to the one to dispense with the other And that which enforces the duty is the II. Proposition That without this hunger and thirst after Righteousness a man cannot be blessed or happy As the former Proposition made this hunger and thirst commendable so this makes it absolutely necessary for if he is blessed who hungers and thirsts certainly he is not so that wants this appetite And that there is no true blessedness without it will appear from the following considerations 1. Without this hunger and thirst the Soul is sick as much as we conclude a man is not well when his appetite is gone nay if he have no appetite at all we conclude him dead A Carkass hath not appetite and most certainly he that hath no hunger and thirst after Righteousness at all is dead in God's account dead in Law dead in the Law of the Gospel a sad condition and which deserves to have