Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	law_n	sin_n	sinner_n	2,820	5	9.3094	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62054	A treatise of the incomparableness of God in his being, attributes, works and word opened and applyed / by Geo. Swinnocke ...	Swinnock, George, 1627-1673.	1672 (1672)	Wing S6282; ESTC R1063	124,931	323

But the knowledg of God purifieth the soul As the Sun conveyeth heat along with its light so grace is multiplied through the knowledge of God 2 Pet. 1.2 When Moses had convers'd with God in the Mount his feet shone that the Jews could not behold him When a Soul hath once acquainted himself with the blessed God his life will shine with holiness therefore David counselleth his Son Solomon to know the God of his Fathers and to serve him with a perfect heart and willing mind first to know him then to serve him 1 Chron. 28.9 This knowledge must needs be a sanctifying knowledge because it renders sin abominable the world contemptible God honourable and the soul the more humble The knowledge of God will render sin most abominable to the Soul it renders sin to be exceeding sinful The miseries that befall us in our estates names bodies souls nay all the curses of the Law and torments of the damned do not discover the ugly loathsome features and monstrous deformed nature of sin like the knowledge of this incomparable God Job confesseth his sin Job 42.2 I uttered things that I understood not nay he abhorreth himself for his sin v. 5. But whence came he who sometime justifyed himself too much now to abhor himself He gives us the reason or cause of it I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear I had some knowledge of thee before but now mine eyes see thee I now have a clearer and fuller knowledge of thee wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes The more we know the greatest good the more we shall hate the greatest evil The knowledge of God will render the world contemptible to a Christian None undervalue the Creature but those who have had a sight of the Creator neither can any trample on the riches honours and pleasures of this world but those who know him who is the riches and honours and pleasures of the other world They who never saw the Sun wonder at a Candle and they who never knew the blessed God wonder at and are fond of poor low things mean small pitiful things on earth But the whole world with all its Crowns and Scepters and Diadems and Delights is but a dunghill to him that hath seen the incomparable God Moses could refuse the honour of being the adopted Child of a Kings Heir reject the pleasures of Pharaoh's Court and prefer the reproaches of Christ before all the Treasures of Egypt when he had once got a sight of the Incomparable God Heb. 11.25 26 27. For he saw him that was invisible The knowledge of God will render God more honourable in our esteems The more we know of many things and persons the more we sleight and despise them The more we know sin the more we loath it the more we know our selves the more we abhor our selves but the more we know God the more we love him and the more we admire him The reason of all the contempt and affronts which we offer to God is our ignorance of him The whole world lyeth in wickedness as a beast in its dung or vermine in their slime 1 Joh. 5.19 but the reason is what Christ speaks Joh. 17.25 Father the world hath not known thee for the Apostle saith had they known they would never have Crucified the Lord of Glory 1 Cor. 2.8 They who know God cannot but see infinite reason why they should love and fear and honour and please him all their dayes Why do you think is God so much wondred at and worshipped in his Church more than in other parts of the world Why doth he inhabit their highest praises Psal 22.3 and greatest blessings and thanksgivings but because he is known more there than in other parts of the world In Judah is God known therefore his name is great his name alone is excellent in Israel Psal 76.1 The knowledge of God makes us humble We never are so low in our own eyes as when we see the most high God The more we know of men that are more vain and foolish and wicked than our selves the more we are exalted and puffed up but the more we know of God of the great God the incomparable God the most holy God to whom we are as nothing less than nothing worse than nothing the more we abase our selves When David is acquainted with the excellency of God O Lord my Lord how excellent is thy name in all the earth and thy glory is above the Heavens Psal 8.1 What low little diminutive thoughts hath he of himself and others v. 4. What is man or what is the Son of man What a poor pitiful contemptible thing is man What a vain empty insignificant nothing is the Son of man We are ashamed of our rush Candles or Glow-worms hide our heads in the presence of the Sun The holiest man abhors himself for his unholiness before the most Holy God So Job 25.2 Dominion and fear are with him v. 3. There is no number of his Armies v. 5. Behold even to the Moon and it shineth not and the Stars are not pure in his sight How much less man that is a worm and the Son of man that is a worm v. 6. A worm is the most despicable contemptible creature every beast trampleth on it such a creature is man in his own apprehensions when he once understandeth the incomparable God When Isaiah had seen the Lord of Hosts though he were an Holy man he cryeth out I am undone I am a man of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts Isa 6.3 4. He never saw so much of his own uncleanness as when he saw him in whose presence the Heavens are unclean Other knowledge like wind in a bladder puffeth up 1 Cor. 8.2 but the knowledge of God as fire nigh the bladder shrinks and shrivels it up to nothing 2. The knowledge of God is a satisfying knowledge A man may know much of Creatures and the more he knoweth the more unquiet and restless he is his knowledge as wind to the stomack may fill and pain and trouble him but cannot satisfie him for Creatures are not that savory meat which the heaven-born spiritual immortal Soul of man would have and must have if ever it be contented The greatest Students who have wearied and tired out their brains and bodies in the search of Natures secrets have found by experience that they spent their strength for what is not bread and their labour for what will not satisfie and they have known the truth of the Wise mans saying He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow Eccles 1.18 That knowledge which satisfieth must be of an object that is suitable in its spirituality to the nature of the Soul in its all-sufficiency to the manifold necessities of the Soul and in its immortality to the duration of the Soul if either of these be wanting in it the Soul cannot receive satisfaction by it because without all these the

least conduce to thy comfort or happiness Now possibly thou canst be merry enough without God thou hadst rather have his room than his company preferrest a life without him before a life with him and sayest unto him Depart from me I desire not the knowledge of thy wayes Job 21.14 And the reason of this Atheism and Prophaneness is thine ignorance thou knowest not what a fountain of life what bowels of love what an hive of sweetness what an ocean of happiness the blessed incomparable God is neither believest what Scripture speaks hereof but when once thou enterest into the other world and hast lost this God irrecoverably thou shalt know what thou hast lost but then if ever that saying of the wise man will be verified He that encreaseth knowledge encreaseth sorrow Eccles 1.18 And then thou shalt believe the truth of the glass of Scripture in its representations of the beautiful face of God though thy faith will be the faith of a Devil to thy terror and torment Ah Sinner when thou shalt know and believe what a vast treasure what a River of pleasure what a perfect good what fulness of joy what solid comfort what real satisfaction what a weight of glory thou hast lost for ever without the least hopes and possibility of regaining and lost for base vile sordid lusts for a little foolish brutish momentany pleasure what thoughts thinkest thou will then seize thee what anguish and remorse surprize thee Ah how wilt thou loath and hate and curse thy self for thy folly and madness thou wilt gnash thy teeth for envy at them that sit at Heavens Table feasting with the fruit of the tree of life and drinking of the pure Rivers of water which flow from the throne of God and the Lamb and thou wilt weep and wail for thy own distraction that thou shouldst refuse the offers of all those dainties and delicates and delights when they were made to thee in the day of thy life that thou shouldst shut thy own mouth and wilfully refuse all those rich and costly Cordials and shut the door of heaven and happiness against thee with thine own hands Ah Sinner little little dost thou know at the present what it is to lose this God Other losses may be corrective but this is destructive God whips in others but he Executes in this Other losses may be the part of his Children but this is the Portion of Devils All joy all comfort is stab'd to the heart pierced through the heart blood of it is let out with this one word sharper than any two-edged Sword Depart Write this man comfortless as it was said of one Jer. 22. ult a man that shall not prosper all his dayes Write this poor Soul comfortless a Soul that shall not have a bit of bread a drop of water a glimpse of light a moments ease or crum of comfort all the long day of eternity Ah Friend think of it betimes Woe be to thee if God depart from thee Hos 9.12 2. Their misery consisteth in this also that they shall have this incomparable God for their enemy As there is no friend like God and therefore their privative misery must be great exceeding great unconceivably great so there is no enemy like God and therefore the positive misery of Sinners must be matchless and beyond all comparisons The greater any ones power and anger are the greater their misery is who fall under the stroak of that power and the force of that anger God is incomparable in power he worketh arbitrarily irresistably omnipotently he hath a mighty and an almighty arm God is incomparable in anger his anger roots up pulls down kills makes horrid slaughters removeth the mountains shaketh the foundations of the earth is a consuming fire burning and wasting all that comes near it Thou even thou art to be feared Psal 90. for none may stand when thou art angry Woe therefore to them that have this God for their Enemy it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 12.23 David chose rather to fall into the hands of God than men 2 Sam. 24.14 because he was a child of God though afflicted sharply by him for love can consist with anger though not with hatred and therefore desired since he must be scourged to be whipt by a loving Father who would consider his strength what he could bear as well as his fault and offence and accordingly use his rod rather than by a cruel enemy who hated him and had not the least mercy or pity for him Beside this world is the Stage whereon the mercy of God acteth its part Justice must have its course and solemn triumph in the other world He is here good to all his Sun shineth and Rain falleth upon the just and unjust Ps 145.9 Math. 5.45 Therefore it 's better for any man upon earth to fall into the hands of God than the best Friend or nearest Relation in the world But the Sinner is the object only of Gods wrath of his hatred of his abhorrency after death God then puts off all pity all tenderness all bowels towards him and the other world is the place wherein his Justice that is now clouded and eclipsed shall shine forth in its full force and strength and appear in all its beauty and brightness And therefore it must of necessity be a fearful thing for a poor creature to fall into the hands of the living God to have nothing but his naked flesh his own weak Soul to bear the stroak of infinite power set on and urged to strike home by infinite anger and that for ever All the wrackings and torturings the extream pains and aches the violent Convulsions and consternations the dreadful horror and anguish the everlasting chains of darkness the never dying worm and the fire that never goeth out of the Devils and damned are but the expressions and fruits of the matchless power and anger of this incomparable God Therefore they are called Wrath Rom. 2.4 the wrath of God John 3. ult and wrath to come 1 Thess 1. ult Reader think of it if the wrath of a King a man like thy self though cloathed with more civil power and strength be as the roaring of a Lyon which makes all the Beasts of the Forrest to quake and tremble Amos 3.6 Prov. 10.12 what then is the wrath of an Almighty infinite God If he wound his friends the objects of his eternal choice the travail of his Beloved Sons Soul those on whom he intendeth to glorifie the riches of his love and grace for ever in the day of his anger for their disobedience with the wound of an enemy yea with the wounds of a cruel one Jer. 30.14 if he break their bones and cause the Arrow of his Quiver to enter into their Reins if he fill their Souls with bitterness and make them drunk with wormwood if he makes them water their Couches with Tears and go mourning all the day