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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	contain_v	scripture_n	tradition_n	3,414	5	9.4390	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A73882	The Christian's theorico-practicon: or, His whole duty consisting of knowledge and practice. Expressed in two sermons or discourses at S. Maryes in Oxon. By Robert Dyer, Mr. of Arts, late of Lincolne Colledge and Hart-hall in Oxon, now lecturer at the Devizes in Wiltshire.	Dyer, Robert, b. 1602 or 3.	1633 (1633)	STC 7393.5; ESTC S125218	27,164	126

affliction and judgement I might bee over-copious but I hasten Our blessed Saviour himselfe affirmes that eternall life consists in this endowment of knowledge Ioh. 17.3 This is life eternall that they might know thee the only true GOD IESVS CHRIST whom thou hast sent and the Prophet Isaiah in that sublime testimony of God the Father concerning his Son makes it equivalent to of the same nature with true saving faith Isa 53.11 By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many See heere that happy worke of our Iustification attributed to knowledge which the Prophet Habakuk Chap. 2. v. 4 and the grand Apostle of the Gentiles in more then a full Iury of testimonies assignes onely unto saving faith Vid. Rom. 1.17 Cap. 3.28 Cap. 4.5.13 Cap 5.1 Gal. 3.11 5.6 You have the LORD himselfe often complaining of the defect of this Habit of knowledge in his people 2. Cor. 1.24 Ephes 2.8 Heb. 10.38 and many other places Isai 1.3 Israel saith he doth not know my people doth not consider and then followes that severe commination of the Almighty Ah sinfull Nation a people laden with iniquitie a seed of evill doers c. Intimating that all their impieties proceeded from the want of knowledge of their spirituall estate and consideration of their wayes And in the 5. of Isai verse 1. therefore my people are gone into captivity because they have no knowledge So likewise by the Prophet Ieremy Chapter 4. ver 22. My people is foolish they have not knowne mee they are foolish children they have no understanding c. and by the Prophet Hosea Chapter 4. vers 6. My people are destroyed for lacke of knowledge because thou hast rejected knowledge I will also reject thee c. as if all the afflictions and judgements of the Iewes their Captivity rejection and utter desolation had proceeded onely from this defect of spirituall knowledge But what need I light a Candle to the Sun The Scripture condescending to the Capacity of the meanest doth almost every where implicitly compare the understanding to the Eye the Will and affections to the feete that directing these walking that conferring the Insight of good these the prosecution Now how vaine it were for a blinde man to undertake a journey how many dangers he must needs sustaine by the way yet never attaine his journeys end none can bee ignorant Pray we therefore with David that the LORD would enlighten our eyes that wee may see the wonderfull things of his Law that hee would make us to understand the way of his precepts and then we may add we wil run the way of his commandements for if we runne without this light of knowledge we cannot but fall into the ditch of Errors if not into the pit of perdition Ignoti nulla cupido was the Thesis of the Poet and 't is true in Divinity No man can affect the good he knowes not nor feare the evill whereof he is ignorant Arist 3. Ethic. The Philosopher in the third of his Ethicks assures us that that can be no vertuous action which is not done Volenter scienter constanter so that if it be casually performed and not out of the ground of praeelection and knowledge the action perhaps may be good for the substance but the agent no more conscious to the goodnesse thereof then Baalams Asse of what shee spake to her Master or Pilate of the salvation of mankind by delivering our Saviour to bee crucified In a word Scientia conscientiam dirigit conscientia scientiam perficit Our knowledge must bee the directory of our conscience in it's practise and our practise the perfection of our knowledge We must know to doe before we can doe what wee know Blush then ye grand Imposters startle yee mercilesse seducers who are not ashamed to take away the Key of knowledge from your silly flocke to plucke out the eyes of your Proselytes and withdraw the light of the Gospell from them and then send them that long and difficult journey to heaven How can the choose but erre who are thus extruded into more then Aegyptian darknesse and like the Sodomites Gen. 19. who were stricken with such blindnesse that they could not finde out Lots dore so are these silly ones so blinde in Ignorance that they cannot finde the gate of the heavenly pallace or new Hierusalem Ignorance with them is the mother of devotion but Saint Augustine stickes not to call her pessimam matrem a very bad mother and that of two as bad daughters August Pessimae matris Ignorantiae pessimae itidem sunt duae filiae falsitas scilicet dubitatio falsehood and doubting are the best of-spring that she procreates Scripture the onely meanes of saving knowledge with them is Inky divinity obscure a Nose of wax Albert. Pighius lib. 1 Eccles Hierar a shipmans hose the cause of many schismes errors and heresies and therefore the knowledge or perusall thereof forbidden the people This perhaps it may be to them that perish but to us 't is the savour of life and power of GOD unto salvation But ô the blasphemy of these miscreants good GOD that any wretch should bee so audacious thus to revile that word of his Maker by which at the last day he shall bee judged to make his GOD a Lyer and that word of his the cause of schismes errors and heresies which as the Sunne in the midst of his glory dispells the mists of all errors And here I might observe a pretty but lamentable contradiction of theirs The Scripture say they containes not all things necessary to salvation unlesse they add traditions and yet an Implicit faith shall serve turne for the multitude without the knowledge of either what 's this but flatly to deny them the meanes of salvation and to be more mercilesse to their owne people then the Divell himselfe for he but allures they by a consequence compell them to their destruction Great cause have wee beloved to praise the mercies of our gracious GOD who hath freed us from their tyrannicall Injunctions Saint Peter would have us bee ready to render a reason of our faith 1. Pet. 3.15 and of the hope that is in us but maugre their prime supposed founder this is no more regarded by them then the perusall of the Scripture an Implicit or infolded faith will content them if they beleeve with the Church though they know neither what the Church nor themselves beleeve they imagine they are in the right way to Canaan when they are led blindfold to Aegypt I deny not but that there are in the Church many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Babes in CHRIST and Children in faith and knowledge I confesse that an implicit faith may be in some cases tolerated so it be not imposed by a peremptory determination of the Church but grounded on the generall truth of Scripture when we want either faculty or meanes for the attaining of that knowledge which affords us a distinct

or affections how little this will profit us 1. Cor. 13. ver 1 2. let the Apostle speake 1. Cor. 13. Though Ispeake with the tongues of men and angels and have not Charity I am become as sounding brasse c. And though I have the gift of prophecie and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountaines and have not charity I am nothing nothing in my selfe and worse then nothing in the eyes of the Almighty Be not deceived then GOD is not mocked with where hee hath bestowed a Talent of knowledge he requires it with advantage in our obedience where he hath conferred a large measure of understanding he expects the like measure of practise The servant that knoweth his masters will and doth it not shall bee beaten with many stripes saith our Saviour Luk. 12.47 Luk. 12.47 Pluribus gravioribus supplicijs puniotur quia gravius iniquius peccavit as Saint Chrysostome Hom. 27. in Mat. Chrysost Hom. 2● ●n Math. Seconded by Saint Austin Stella Calvin Marlorat and the whole Current of ancient and moderne Expositors Hee that sinnes against his owne knowledge sinnes with a witnesse For as the Apostle Scienti bonum facere non facienti illi peccatum est Iames 4. and the last Iam. 4. vlt. To him that knowes to doe good and doth it not to him it is sinne sinne and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sinne with an high hand Pray wee then with the Psalmist that the LORD would keepe us from presumptuous sinnes from premeditated malicious and knowne offences otherwise our knowledge will tend but to our greater confusion and make us so much the more inexcusable as wee have beene defective in the equivalence of our practise For better were it not to have knowne the way of righteousnesse 2. Pet. 2.21 then after wee have knowne it to turne from the Commandement delivered unto us 2. Peter 2.21 But I trust wee have not so learned CHRIST 't is a praecognitum with us that that Theologie which wee professe and that knowledge wee have out of the Word of GOD is rank't among practicall disciplines Aquin. Part. 1. Quaest 1. Art 4. whatsoever the Angelicall Doctor object against it in his first Quaest and 4. Artic. But well may his Theologie bee more theoricall then practick being stuff't with so many no lesse elaborate and Metaphysicall then sublimated and superfluous speculations Yet doe his more moderate successors partly joyne issue with us and acknowledge it a Sapience Sapientia verò dicit Intellectum cum operatione as Gerson Iacobus de Valent. and others of the Schooles If M. Calvin may be heard among them his judgement is and ● suppose it little inferiour to theirs that this Science is not Linguae doctrina sed vitae Calvin Instit lib. 3. Cap. 6. vid. etiam D. Pareum Com. in Iac. 1.22 nec intellectu memoriaque duntaxat apprehenditur ut reliquae disciplinae sed tum demum recipitur vbi animam totam possidet fidemque receptaculum invenit in intimo cordis affectu Instit lib. 3. cap. 6. This knowledge is seated in the Will and Affections filling the Heart and Minde with a desire not so much of Contemplation as Action Yea this knowledge it selfe in the HOLY GHOST'S phrase is Action For as CHRIST is said 2. Cor. 5.21 by the Apostle to know no sinne because hee did it not Aug. in Psal sic justitiam ille verè dicendus est nosse qui facit so is hee also said by the Psalmist to know the way of the LORD Psal 1●9 who walkes constantly in it by a conscionable keeping of his Commandements It is observed Ezek. 3. Apoc. 10. that when GOD had delivered those mysticall bookes to the Prophet Ezechiel and Saint Iohn wherein his Word was contained it was commanded them not that they should reade or learne them onely but that they should eate and devoure them intimating that this Word is so to bee taken and digested of us in our practise that as our daily bread it may strengthen our hearts and as our ordinary foode maintaine our life of grace and preserve us for that of glory If this bee not the end of our knowledge what a miserable contradiction must there needs bee in our conversation Wee should seeme herein to resemble C. Gracchus in the Orator Cic. 3. Tuscul qui cum largitiones maximas fecisset effudisset aerarium verbis defendebat aerarium when hee had rub'd and exhausted the treasury made an Oration in it's defence Lamentable hypocrisie so much condemned in a Heathen how odious and detestable in a Christian As if a profest Grammarian should speake nothing but Barbarismes or a noted Logician bee altogether unable to dispute or compose an argument Let mee expostulate with the same Orator Quid verba audiam cum facta non videam If I heare onely words and see no deedes if thy hot profession bee seconded but with cold actions thou art at most but a verbalist and superficiall counterfeit Simil. Thou hast a Sword the Sword of the Spirit but so rusted for want of Vse and kept so close in the cankred scabberd of thy polluted heart that thou canst neither draw nor use it for thy owne safeguard or profligating of Sathan thy no lesse dangerous then malicious enemie Thou hast a Perfume but so close kept in the pocket of thy Corruption that neither thy selfe nor any other is benefitted by the fragrance Instrumenti tota vis in usu consistit as Logicians Thy Faith and Knowledge are usefull Instruments of thy Christian profession frame with them the works of Charitie Repentance and Mortification or I shall think thy faith as dead in thee as thou in thy sinnes and trespasses In a word Pietatis laus omnis in actione consistit Doing is questionlesse the Badge of a true professor the Practise of Piety is his proper cognisance as knowing that hee shall not bee judged at the last day so much by his knowledge as actions when it shall not bee demanded of him quantum sciverit but qualiter fecerit not how learned hee hath beene but how good This egges him on in a constant resolution of keeping his LORDS Commandements and if hee desire knowledge it is that hee may referre it only to this end or terminus that hee may reduce it to practise For which end he often prayes with that religious Father Aug. Enar. in Psal 119. Praebe mihi Domine lucem intelligentiam ut intelligere valeam mandata tua intelligendo servare servando in aeternum vivere Hee 's not so curious in his Theory as carefull in his practise which hee knowes to bee the better part of his profession Yet doth hee not any whit neglect his proficience in knowledge as well as practise as knowing that this without that is either blinde or franticke devotion and that without this bare and