Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	apostle_n	end_n	successor_n	1,912	5	9.1854	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42830	Seasonable reflections and discourses in order to the conviction & cure of the scoffing, & infidelity of a degenerate age by Jos. Glanvill ...	Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680.	1676 (1676)	Wing G830; ESTC R23378	24,921	115

and punishments with the same design of persuading men in order to the glory of God and the Salvation of their Souls as the Apostles and Primitive Preachers did C. All these were necessary to be Preach'd to men while they continued in Judaism or Heathenism but what need of them now when they are believ'd and entertained in the world A. There is still need and will be so to the worlds end There are young that must be initiated and adult that are to be confirmed there are weak to be strengthened and doubting to be resolved and setled there are Pious to be directed and Wicked to be reproved There are Hereticks and other Erroneous and many who at the bottom are Infidels that must be confuted and withstood These needs are and will be still and Preaching is the ordinary means that God hath appointed in his Church to minister to such occasions so that this was not a temporary ordinance to serve the first times only but is of perpetual necessity and use And therefore when our Saviour delivered the Commission to the Apostles to teach all Nations he gave it to them and their successors and annext a promise of his perpetual help which continues still and will always viz. that he would be with them to the end of the world C. Well well I think I know as much as the Preacher can tell me and therefore shall not trouble my self much with hearing Sermons A. No wise man will think you the more knowing for that opinion You have read what one that knew a great deal said Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit there is more hope of a fool than of him Prov. 26. 12. And another He that thinks he knows any thing knows nothing yet as he ought to know 1 Cor. 8. 2. For even Apostles and the greatest confest that they knew but in part and saw through a glass darkly 1 Cor. 13. 9. And Solomon you know hath pronounc'd roundly against opiniators saying That 't is the fool that rageth and is confident Prov. 14. 16. But if you did know so much that you were not to be taught yet since others do not and Preaching is necessary for their wants you ought to encourage their attendance by your example though you had no other reason to hear Sermons Yea you would have need however to hear on your own score For the design of Preaching is not to teach men new things not always to inform the understanding in matters before unknown but sometimes it gives order and method to our thoughts which perhaps were perplext and so sets things in their right place helping us to clearness of conception which is a great advantage It is design'd to bring known things to our minds to render them present to our thoughts to awaken confideration and by that to excite the affections and ingage the practice It is not so much our want that we do not know our duty as that we are dead and cold and averse to practise what we are acquainted with so that it is the business of Preaching to set before us the proper motives and considerations to move us to sutable action The grand cause of mens sins and neglects is inconsideration and Preaching is a means to cure that And let me ask you whether you do not sometimes find your self much moved by what is said and prest by another when you had had the same things in your mind before without effect C. I cannot deny that but I see but little good that Preaching doth in the world Men remain the same after all their hearing A. More good many times is done than appears and I doubt not but it is so in the present case There are seeds of Picty and Vertue sown in the Soul that shew themselves not a long while after till time further consideration and occasion bring them forth many convictions lodged in the consciences of wicked men that lie there like fire in a flint till they are excited and then they become means and instruments of repentance many hints of truths taken without present emotion that afterwards much influence the understanding and practice some habitual fear of God and love and esteem of religion planted insensibly in the mind that in their season work great effects and I doubt not but by these men that are very bad are in divers instances restrain'd and rendered less wicked than otherwise they would be And though I have as deep a sence of the vileness of the world as most men have yet I question not but that it would be very much worse were it not for Preaching many there are who publickly own and shew the benefit they receive from it and 't is fit the River should run on though but few men or beasts are refresh'd by it C. We have indeed read of great effects of Preaching heretofore as of Jonas on the Ninevites and St. Peter's on the three thousand converted at one Sermon and Orpheus and others among the Heathens have done strange things by the force of their Poetry and Eloquence but now we see no such things which is a plain indication that our Preaching is little worth A. 'T is an ill measure to judge of the worth of things by their success The instances you give are great but as considerable Preachers as those have not succeeded as they did You know how it was with Noah in reference to the old world to whom he preach'd many years without success on any besides some of his own family Lot no doubt exhorted and reproved the Sodomites but to how little purpose The Prophets were earnest and powerful in their Preaching and yet few believed their report but the people continued still a stubborn and perverse generation Our Saviour preacht to many that would neither receive him nor his doctrine notwithstanding the divinity of his person and the power of his miracles And St. Paul one of the most powerful of Preachers after great pains with the Thessalonians seems to fear that he had labour'd in vain with them 1 Thes 3. 5. and after much instruction bestowed on the Hebrews he complains that though for the time they ought to have been teachers they had still need to be taught again which were the Principles of the Oracles of God Hebrews 5. 12. So that the want of success is not always justly chargeable on the Preaching And ours certainly hath as great a subject as great ends as great motives and as great helps as ever any bating the immediate and extraordinary had C. Therefore doubtless the defect is in the Preaching and our Preachers have not the way or ability to use those advantages A. Our Preachers are men and have imperfections and I confess there are divers sorts of Preaching that have no persuasive force in them But yet many that have moved much have been in their persons knowledge and other natural talents as indifferent as generally our Divines are and some of our Preaching is as