Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	grace_n	grow_v	growth_n	2,515	5	11.8893	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59749	Ta proz eirenen, the things that belong unto peace, or, A seasonable discourse for these factious times delivered lately in a sermon before the judges at St. Maries in Nottingham at the assizes there, and now printed at the command of some persons of honour ; to which is annexed A short and modest apology for the author and book of the several weighty considerations, humbly recommended to the serious perusal of all, but more especially to the Roman Catholicks of England, by Thomas Sheppey ...	Sheppey, Thomas.	1682 (1682)	Wing S3221; ESTC R33738	21,949	42

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The things that belong unto Peace OR A Seasonable Discourse FOR THESE Factious Times Delivered lately in a SERMON BEFORE THE JUDGES At St. Maries in Nottingham at the Assizes there And now Printed at the Command of some Persons of Honour To which is annexed A Short and Modest Apology for the Author and Book of the Several Weighty Considerations humbly recommended to the Serious Perusal of all but more especially to the Roman Catholicks of England By Thomas Sheppey formerly of Pembrook-Hall in Cambridge now Chaplain to the Right Honourable William Lord Byron Baron of Rachdale c. And when he was come near he beheld the City and wept over it saying If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the Things which belong unto thy Peace Luke 10.41 42. LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the White Hart in Westminster-Hall 1682. To the Right HONOURABLE Truly Noble and Loyal William Lord Byron Baron of Rachdale c. My Lord INtending to present You and your Noble Consort with something that may bear a more suitable Correspondence with your Greatness and my Obligations than this Trifle can pretend to I humbly request your good Lordship while That is preparing to accept of This as an Earnest of What if God grant Life and Health shall in due time follow Your Lordship was pleased to honour this Discourse with your Presence and as divers other competent Judges did with your Approbation I hope its Defects will now meet with the same Candour and Pardon which divers other failings of the Author have frequently experienced I have subjoyned a Just Vindication of my Self and of a Treatise I writ about three years and a half since from the silly Cavils of some Bigotted Papists and some indifferent Protestants The Latter of which as little Care for their Religion as the former Understand Theirs The Sermon was not easily Perswaded to the Press but I assure you the Apology was altogether extorted from me For I am so great a Lover of Peace that I can hardly prevail with my self to take up even Defensive Weapons And even now like him in the Poet Clypeum post Vulnera sumo For your Lordship and many Others can bear me witness how rudely I have been treated by my Implacable and Restless Adversaries and that when I have expressed the most Obliging Civilities to their Persons and treated them with far more Respect than ever I animadverted upon their Tenents with severity My design in Publishing these Papers next to Gods Glory is to evidence my self a sincere and Loyal Protestant against all Exceptions and to Demonstrate that your Lordship could not give a more convincing Argument of your Zeal for the Church of England than by receiving into your Protection one that shall consecrate his Life and Studies to the service of his Holy Mother and his Noble Patron in the Quality of My Lord Your Lordships most humble most obedient and obliged Servant THOMAS SHEPPEY 1 THESS IV. part of the x. and xi Verses But we beseech you Brethren that you increase more and more And that you Study to be Quiet and to Do your Own Business AMong those many Glorious Titles wherewith the Evangelical Prophet Isaias endeavours to honour our Blessed Saviour he particularly applies those of a Counsellour and Prince of Peace c. 9.6 To us a Child is born to us a Son is given and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellour the Prince of Peace And that without question upon this very Account because the Messias at his coming and divulging his Gospel by Himself and his Apostles was to give the best Advice and most Heavenly Counsel that ever was offer'd to the sons of Men. Now among all those wonderful Lessons and Instructions which are left us by him in the Writings of his holy Apostles and Evangelists I know none more Excellent nor at present so seasonable as this he hath bequeathed to us by the Pen of St. Paul in the words recited to you Counsel so good and effectual that whosoever will faithfully embrace it shall easily be master both of this World and the World to come and be able to vie Felicity with the Greatest Monarchs Counsel that will at once disingage us from all our Fears and Jealousies and put us out of danger of any thing but of being too happy that is of Resembling God himself who transacts a life in the greatest Peace Tranquillity and Quiet imaginable So that not only the love of God but self interest it self invites us to this Divine Philosophy Nature as well as Grace prompts us earnestly to prosecute our own advantage and Time as well as Eternity ingages us to comply with this Heavenly Counsel of Increasing more and more Of studying to be quiet and of minding our own Business The words are very plain God make them as visible in the Practice of our Lives as they are intelligible in themselves They are indeed usher'd in with a word of Induction But I beseech you c. But the Connexion making little or nothing to the clearing of any Difficulty in them I shall consider them absolutely without any coherence but what they have with themselves and so make those Remarks upon them whereon with Gods help and your patience I shall ground this present discourse Yet I cannot but take notice of that mutual Aspect and Combination these duties here recommended have among themselves For by making a daily advance in our Christian Progress we shall arrive at such a serenity of mind that we shall be very fit to serve God and our Generation in that Employment and Station wherein his allwise Providence hath placed us Or vice versâ By a conscientious diligence in our own lawful Vocation we may be confident of attaining real Peace and making considerable progress in Grace and Christian Vertues Or thus By studying and following the things that belong to Peace we shall be enabled to make a sufficient growth in Grace and advance in our own both Temporal and Eternal concerns So you see I can hardly mistake whereever I begin to make those Remarks I just now mentioned For at last it will all amount to this to make us Good Christians by increasing more and more Good Subjects by studying to be quiet and Good Neighbours by doing our own business 1. And in the first place we may hence inform our selves that our Holy Religion is no idle sluggish habit but as our Great Chancellour in a Royal Assembly fitly termed it A Principle of life and Vigour within us A Principle which though at first but as a Grain of Mustard seed yet by increasing more and more it becomes a great Tree For by Increasing more and more our Apostle here means nothing else but what St. Peter presses so vehemently in his 2 Epistle c. 3.18 to wit Growing in Grace and in the Knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ We must be

continually going forward and growing upward from Grace to Grace from Vertue to Vertue till we be of full growth in Christ Jesus A Christian must neither be like Hezekiah's Sun that went backward nor like Joshuah's Sun that stood still but like Davids Sun Psalm 19.5 Which is as a Bridegroom coming out of his Chamber and rejoyces as a strong Man to run his Race There is always in Christianity a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something remaining And though some of our Neighbours brag much of their State of Perfection of their Ne plus ultrà in their spiritual Journey of Immediate Vnions with the Divine Essence in the pure fund of the Spirit Yet we poor Protestants God help us must according to the command of our meek and humble Jesus when we have done all we can look upon our selves but as unprofitable Servants and follow the example of our Blessed Apostle Phil. 3.13 Not as though I had already attained or were already Perfect but this one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth to those things which are before I press toward the Mark for the Price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus 2. The second Obligation here seriously recommended to our consideration and practice is the study of Peace and Quietness A most Important and Seasonable Duty and which cannot be too much press'd at this time Now as Plato said of Vertue so I may say of Peace Could she but assume a visible shape we should all presently become inamour'd of her Wherefore I know no more effectual Medium to urge the practice of the Duty in my Text than by presenting to you the Blessed fruits and effects which will undoubtedly accrue to us by it I mean by maintaining that Peace and Quiet we at present enjoy and which nothing but our own boisterous and unruly passions can rob us of Let us then I say but take a full view of what the Apostle here so pathetically presses upon us and recommends as an object worthy of our utmost Care and Study It is nothing else but what is our Happiness more than our Duty Peace that Soul of the Universe that Chain of the World and Cement of Nature the Bond of Governments the Desire of Men the Joy of Angels the delight of God himself Peace the design of Nature the Perfection of Grace and Consummation of Glory Peace the Reconciliation of Sinners the Consolation of the Saints the Crown of the Blessed Peace at which the Scriptures aime which Faith intends Hope aspires to Love mounts towards it and it is compleat Beatitude to attain it To procure this Peace the Son of God came into the World he toyl'd and laboured to treat about it He died to confirm it and arose again to proclaim it and sent his Holy Spirit to bestow it on us His Labours acquired it his Bloud bought it his Death merited it and his Love bequeathed it At his Birth the Angels chanted it forth Glory be to God on High and on Earth Peace And at his Resurrection He himself published it Peace be with you Thus was Peace the Beginning of his carrieer and the end of his Course Peace was the design of his Combate and Peace was the Crown of his Victory Indeed if we look a little more particularly into the matter we shall find that this Quietness which we are here commanded to study is the perfection both of the Greater and of the Lesser World I mean Man himself The greater World is composed of two parts the Celestial and Elementary World To what tends that constant and regular motion of the Heavenly Bodies that most exact Dance of the Rouling Spheres but to make up the Harmony of a most ravishing Concord And that mutual Marriage and Conjunction of the Elements what doth it breathe forth but the sweets of a most Amiable Peace in the Sublunary World The motions of the Heavens being so different and the Qualities of the Elements so contrary who would not presently conclude an inevitable War must follow both in the Heavens by their diverse Revolutions and in the Elements by their manifold Antipathies And yet both the Heavens compose their discord and the Elements do as I may say lay aside their Quarrel to produce and preserve that Peace which is the life of Nature and the Conservation of the World From whence proceeds the Beauty of the Universe but from Order and what maintains this Order but that Peace which is amongst its members Every one keeps its Rank and Station without intrenching upon the others Offices and so they keep an inviolable Peace which preserves their Being and buoyes up their Dignity Whereas if Debate and Dissension should once intrude among the parts of this great Body immediately upon Debate would follow Disorder and upon Disorder a Dissolution of the whole Fabrick and that which Quietness makes appear so Goodly and Beautiful that it derives its very names of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Mundus from its comely features would in a moment by Discord be turned into a Chaos of Confusion Let us descend a little to Particulars and see how Peace is the Perfection of the Parts as well as of the Whole All that is in this Great Family of the World may be distributed into two Classes or Orders of things Some whereof have nothing but a simple Being as Stones Minerals and other inanimate Bodies Others besides a Being have Life either Vegetative as Plants or sensitive as Animals I speak not as yet of Man who besides his sensitive hath a Reasonable and Intellectual Life And First as to Things that have nothing but Being that very Being is their Perfection Now what is it that preserves the being of Stones and Minerals but the Peace and agreement of the four first Qualities as they call them Dry and Moist Cold and Hot Their Being hath no other foundation but the marriage and Union of these contraries that compose them As soon as one Contrary begins to get the upper hand over his Fellows and the Peace is broken presently a dreadful Civil War commenceth they mutually destroy one another and this is infallibly attended with the ruine of the whole Compositum And hence it comes to pass that all Bodies under Heaven even the most solid Stones and Metals are corruptible because they are all composed of contrary Ingredients and Peace cannot be very permanent in the midst of so much contrariety Thus Concord preserves them and War ruins them Quietness is their Perfection and Debate the Original of their Destruction The very same thing happens in Plants and Animals and therefore from them I proceed to Man himself and shall endeavour to shew how this study of Quietness is the Perfection of Man in what ever state we consider him either in the state of Nature as a Man or in the state of Grace as a Christian and God's Friend or in the state of Glory as one of the Blessed Inhabitants of the