Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	know_v	natural_a	supernatural_a	1,582	5	10.4540	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B21645	Second sermon preach'd before the King and Queen and Queen Dowager in Their Majesties chappel at St. James's upon All-Saints Day, November 1, 1685 by ... Ph. Ellis, monk of the holy order of S. Benedict and of the English Congr.	Ellis, Philip, 1652-1726.	1686 (1686)	Wing E597	12,230	36

unblemished innocent made higher then the Heavens which is only the Place of their Beatitude the Beatitude it self consisting in this Blessed are the clean of heart because they shall see God I reserved this to the last it being the very top of the mystical Ladder where our Lord appears leaning for upon such his Spirit rests and by such Purity they rest eternally in him And now before I was aware I have clear'd the last Point that I design'd to Discourse to you the essential Glory of the Saints Clear'd it did I say 't was an improper word Had I the Tongue of Men and Angels I cou'd never express what the heart of man cannot conceive 1 Cor. 2.9 and you know the Heart can conceive infinitely beyond what the Tongue can express The great Apostle in his Rapture to the Third Heaven I am apt to think among those arcana verba 2 Cor. 12.4 those unspeakable words he heard had some account of this blessed State but he gives us no other Prospect then thro' a Glass and in a Riddle 1 Cor. 13.12 that we know now only in part the rest is wrapt up in the obscurity of Faith is left to the expectations of Hope and an impossibility of Expression Non licet homini loqui But while my Gospel acquaints you that you shall see God what need you more to raise your Imaginations to inflame your Hearts to quicken and inspirit your Desires or if the word seeing cannot put into you a lively Idea of that Glory add to it the Explication in another Text John 17.3 This is eternal life to KNOW thee the true God and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ To have our Understandings fill'd with a clear knowledge of the most perfect Being of the sovereign Truth of the original Cause of things and in that of all other Causes Effects and Productions as well natural as supernatural makes the Man of Reason the Lover of Truth to sally out of himself to strive to break his Chains and languish to be with Christ and wish with the Royal Prophet Psal 55.6 that He had the wings of a Dove that he might flie and be at rest in Contemplation of that self-evident Truth supream Reason VERITY as I say the chief Attribute of God But you are not to imagine that the Beatitude of the Saints is plac'd in a perpetual gazing upon the Divine Beauties or in a sterial Speculation of Truth from the Mind it flows into the Heart from the Understanding into the Will penetrating all the interior of the Soul transforming her in a certain manner into God begetting Ecstasies without emotion Languishings without defect Enjoyments without satiety Love without measure and Fruition without end O you Joys of Heaven how do you swallow up our thoughts and fill us at once with Pleasure and Amazement and yet we must cry out as the Queen of Sheba did when she beheld a faint Representation of you in the Court of King Solomon that Half your Delights have not been told us Blessed are they that stand in thy Courts and minister to thy King Day and Night Day without Night I shou'd have said where every Moment is an Age Psal 89.4 Et mille Anni tanquam Dies and a thousand Years cannot fill up a Day Love is the measure of this Duration and the Eternity of God the measure of Love Blessed God! thy Nature is Goodness and therefore thy Work must be Mercy that thou art so free of thy Creatures I do not wonder thou bestowest them on Man thy better Creation but why art thou so liberal of thy Self Why hast thou prepar'd such a Happiness in Heaven for those that are seeking a Paradice upon Earth that are contented to barter their Eternal weight of Glory for a gaudy Trifle for a shining piece of Earth for the gratifying a Lust or an Ambition for a mean or a sordid or at the best but a momentary Pleasure Cur posuisti pretium in manu stulti Why hast thou laid such an inestimable Treasure in the hands of ungrateful and insensible Men that neither know the value nor value the use No Christians we have no reason to expostulate with our God for tho' by condescending to our infirmity he has underset the Joys of his Kingdom yet there are Conditions propos'd and without the performance of which there is no Heaven for us Apoc. 21.7 Qui vicerit possidebit haec He that overcomes says he shall possess these things And do we fondly promise our selves the Triumph before the Victory or a Victory before we have struck a Stroke Indeed Christ bids us be confident John 16.33 for he has overcome the world but do's not he give us warning that whosoever observes not the same Discipline takes not up his cross Matth. 10.38 and follows him is not worthy of him But is not Jesus Christ the author of eternal salvation Hebr. 4.9 Yes replies the Apostle to them that obey him Rom. 1.17 Gal. 5.6 But do's not the just man live by Faith Yes if it work by Charity For he that trusts to the strength of his Faith without the support of a good Life is as blameable as the Apostles when they rejoyced at their power of ejecting Devils Tho' our Faith be of such prevalency as to remove mountains still by Good-works we are to make our calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 still we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 and only rejoyce that our reward is great in Heaven a Reward not bestow'd on those who stand all day idle in the market-place but to those that labour in the vineyard a Reward that shall be distributed in number weight and measure in proportion and beyond all proportion to our smallest Performances but shall be more plentifully bestow'd on those who like your Sacred Majesties bear the burthen of the heat and of the day which we wish for the good of your People you may long support and hear not till after a long and prosperous Reign that comfortable Invitation of your Original Luc. 22.28 Ye are they which have continu'd with me in my temptations and I appoint unto you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom and sit on Thrones judging the Tribes of your own Israel In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for Henry Hills Printer to the King 's most Excellent Majesty for his Houshold and Chappel 1686. REflections upon the Answer to the Papist Mis-represented c. Directed to the Answerer Quarto Kalendarium Catholicum for the Year 1686. Octavo Papists Protesting against Protestant-Popery In Answer to a Discourse Entituled A Papist not Mis-represented by Protestants Being a Vindication of the Papist Mis-represented and Represented and the Reflections upon the Answer Quart Copies of Two Papers Written by the late King Charles II. Together with a Paper Written by the late Dutchess of York Published by his Majesty's Command Folio The Spirit of Christianity Published by his Majesty's Command Twelves The first Sermon Preach'd before their Majesties in English at Windsor on the first Sunday of October 1685. Published by his Majesty's Command Quarto

circle They make forward in vain they only change their Place by shifting their Pleasures but they approach not a Hairs-breadth nearer the Centre Beatitude You desire to be happy so far you are in the right 't is what you were created to Bonum quaeris St. Aug. sed non benè What you seek is good but 't is not where you look after it Job 28.13 It is not found in the land of those that live deliciously said holy Job You search after Life in the Region of Death and in despite of our Saviour's Admonition you are still looking for Grapes upon Thorns and Figs upon Thistles for Joy in the Vale of Tears non invenitur You place your End among things inferiour to your selves Luc. 17.27 you enquire after Happiness among things without while the Kingdom of God is within you It is my Second Point That nothing but Christian Religion and the observance of its Doctrines and Precepts can make Man happy II. It is the peculiar advantage the excellence and as I may say the incommunicable Attribute of Christ's Doctrine that it discovers a Man to himself that it opens and searches and heals those Wounds which all other Religions either imperfectly cure as the Old Law or labour to conceal as the Moral of Philosophy or widen and inflame as the Pagan and Mahometan Worship None but Christianity proposes an End worthy an intellectual Being and prescribes Means to obtain it proportion'd to a reasonable Agent For the Jewish Law Rom. 7.12 as the Apostle says indeed was just and holy yet brought nothing to perfection Hebr. 7.19 its Promises for the most part mean and carnal a Land flowing with milk and hony a numerous issue and length of life The Means servile and coactive terrible in the Promulgation amidst Thunder and Lightning Severe in the Exaction with Menaces of Death repeated at every turn And in fine difficult and heavy in the Execution a yoke Acts 15.10 which neither our fathers says St. Peter nor we were able to bear The Religion of the Pagans or Gentiles stands condemn'd for no less then gross and palpable Contradictions to the in-born Principles of Reason For a fundamental Error in the Object of Divine Worship by constituting a plurality of Gods by paying Divine Honors to Creatures For the manner too of their Worship humane and ungrounded Inventions and these either unnaturally cruel as the sacrificing of Men or superstitiously foolish as adoring Idols or shamefully unclean such as Cato or any grave Person wou'd blush to assist at For the End either meerly Negative by teaching the mortality and perishing of the Soul or by assigning it an idle and empty Happiness in the Elysian Walks which rises no higher then to a meer privation of Pain Every one knows the Doctrine of Mahomet to be stuff'd with so many Absurdities the Means of its propagation so violent and bloody and the End a carnal Paradice so beneath the Inclinations of an honest Mind that one may wonder how it can be favour'd by any except that barbarous People whose Brutality it indulged and with whose Arms it travell'd and conquer'd Believe me Christians a just Punishment of God upon those Nations a Punishment which I pray may never come home to our own Doors for the abuse and contempt of a more holy Religion And these Religions consider'd in their sounder Parts principally regard the exterior and Ceremonies of Worship more then the Substance they draw not Man into himself and therefore merit not the Denomination they bear they are levell'd to the gross Conceptions of the Vulgar but are not Religions for Men of good Sence and Learning A Religion purely spiritual wou'd indeed be more adapted to the Understanding of sharp and Learned Men but what wou'd become then of the far major part of Mankind that is led by sensible to spiritual things Now only Christian Religion can pretend to this double perfection being a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians both to the wise and to the unwise to the Unlearned as well as to the Learned shewing in her exterior a grave decency of Rites and Ceremonies and offering to the interior a Doctrine so chast so pure so perfect that a gentile and docil Soul wou'd be sorry it shou'd not be true and which a Man of Reason must acknowledge to be the only true one For that Religion can only be so which proposes to Man the knowledge of himself as I before alledged for without the discovery of himself and of his Nature he can never know what is his End or what are the Means directing to it and by evident Consequence can have no true Idea either of God or Vertue Now to the knowledge of his own Nature 't is requisite he discern the Dignity and Misery of it the Perfection of which it is capable and the Corruption in which it is immersed If we do not conceive our selves to be most excellent and noble Creatures says an eminent Writer we are intolerably stupid and if we do not perceive at the same time that we are wretched full of pride passion and weakness we are strangely blind Yet not any Teacher besides Jesus Christ ever pretended to clear and lay open those two important Verities That by the excellency of our Nature we are capable of enjoying the sovereign Good and of reigning with God in Heaven but by the Corruption of our Nature we are unworthy of him 'T is absolutely and equally necessary in order to Man's Happiness that he be convinc'd of these Truths for it is equally dangerous to know our design'd End without knowing our deserv'd Misery and to know our Misery without knowing the Means how to repair our Ruines to retrieve our Innocence to ward the Punishment and to re-entitle us to the Reward in Heaven But this is above the flight of Reason without the assistance of Revelation that is Religion Philosophy leaves us quite in the dark the Stoa and the Academy talk wildly upon the Point and prescribe Methods that can never be reduc'd to Practice and would not do the work if they could be And tho' divine Plato discover'd the Happiness of the Creature to consist in becoming like the Creator yet his Morals are as defective as those of his Neighbours and he must yield up his mighty Title to Jesus Christ the Teacher of Justice who in the Gospel of this Day which is the beginning of that truly divine Sermon recorded by the Evangelist in this and the two following Chapters establishes all the natural Principles of Truth and Goodness fills up the Imperfections of the Judaical dashes out the unlawful Permissions of the Heathen Moral delivers a perfect Idea of the Science of Saints Sap. 10.10 Scientiae Sanctorum and in a word draws an exact Map of all the Ways that lead to our eternal Beatitude To shew this is my last Point III. God often tells us in his holy Word that he has