Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	pomp_n	renounce_v	vanity_n	3,174	5	10.1762	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56742	Discourses upon several practical subjects by the late Reverend William Payne ... ; with a preface giving some account of his life, writings, and death.	Payne, William, 1650-1696.; Powell, Joseph, d. 1698.	1698 (1698)	Wing P902; ESTC R21648	184,132	418

through and steal But lay up for your selves Treasures in Heaven where neither Moth nor Rust doth corrupt and where Thieves do not break through and steal THis most Excellent Sermon of our Blessed Saviour as in every thing it gives us the highest and the noblest precepts of Vertue that are above all the Morals of the wisest Heathen and far excell the best rules of the greatest Masters in Philosophy which might have convinced Greece and Athens it self that he must be if not the Son of God yet some great and extraordinary Person sent from above that without Travel abroad or Education at home unless in a poor Trade should outdo even Socrates or the more admired Moralists amongst 'em so he has all along adapted 'em to Humane Nature and our present State and Circumstances in this World which was a thing that they were deficient in for as they often were too short in their precepts and much below the things so at other times they were as much too high and gave precepts that were too big and not at all fitted to the size and scantling of our present State or the make of Humane Nature they were not only for wisely Moderating and Governing but quite rooting all Passions and Affections whatever out of their wise man which was to make him not a Man or such a Creature with such Faculties and Powers as God thought for wise reasons fit to do this was not to improve but destroy Human Nature and to set Vertue beyond its pitch and out of its reach which our Saviour who knew our Frame and our outmost Capacities has never done they went so far in their rants about the contempt of this World and despising riches as to commend him that foolishly threw them into the Sea that they might be no hindrance to his deeper Philosophizing Now this as it betrayed a great weakness in him that could not otherwise better use 'em so 't is Calculating Virtue not for this World but for some other Eutopian Meridian the making it not Useful and Comfortable but Destructive of our present State and Condition in this World and tho our Blessed Saviour both by his Life and his precepts showed as great contempt of the things of this World as ever any person did and has given the best Arguments that can be not to be sollicitous for outward things nor take any thought for the Morrow in the latter part of this Chapter by trusting in the Divine Providence and being especially carefull about better things the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness yet he has no where told us that these are inconsistent and that a Man must throw away his Estate and renounce all his worldly goods as well as the Pomps and Vanities of this World if he will become a Christian and go to Heaven this indeed is said to be the Heresie of Pelagius in which he was not likely to have very many Followers and tho several places of Scripture tell us how hardly they that have Riches shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Mark 10.23 and that it is easier for a Camel to go through the Eye of a Needle than for a Rich Man is enter into the Kingdom of Heaven v. 25. which is all meant of them that trust in Riches v. 24. that we cannot serve God and Mammon bids us not love the World nor the things that are in the World for if any Man love the World the love of the Father is not in him 1 John 2.15 yet they all import no more and so will be fairly understood by this excellent direction of our Saviour that I am now to discourse of Lay not up for your selves Trusures Neither is that purely a Negative an Universal forbidding us to lay up any Treasures upon Earth for if we do not that in some measure we are not guilty only of great Imprudence but even of Infidelity too If any provide not for his own and especially for those of his own House he hath denied the Faith and is worse than an Insidel 1 Tim. 5.8 not to make provision for ones own Off-spring and Children is to be more Unnatural than the Heathens nay than the very Fowls and the most Ravenous Beasts and not to supply an Aged Helpless Parent is to be guilty of that which the Heathens counted the most infamous Ingratitude nay if by an honest Industry and lawful Profession we do not some way or other make our selves serviceable to the publick and able to procure some good to the whole of which we are parts we are like dead and useless Members that serve neither for Life nor Motion nor the conveyance of Blood and Spirits and as in the Natural body so also in the civil 't is impossible to maintain either its Life or Strength unless some greater parts are Replenished with a larger abundance of Blood and Spirits and there be a general Circulation and lesser conveyance of 'em to every part Neither Government nor the World could subsist so long as God intends it if Men should lay aside all prudent care about the things of this World all would be put into a dead Hand and that would quickly make a dead Body if it were not Lawfull for some Men to Trade and grow Rich the present state of this World makes this to be necessary and is utterly inconsistent with general Vows of Poverty and as a Man may Lawfully work for his livelihood and according to the Apostles Rule He that will not work neither should he eat 2. Thes 3.10 without breaking our Saviour's command John 6.27 Labour not for the Meat that perisheth but for the Meat which endureth unto everlasting Life so he may by prudent and honest ways take care of his Worldly Concerns and add to his Estate and grow Rich without any Violation of our Saviour's Rule Ley not up for your selves Treasures on Earth for those Treasures on Earth are not of themselves Evil and may be matter of very great Vertues such as the rich Men are particularly charged with 1 I'im 6.17 18 19. Charge them that are rich in this World that they do good that they be Rich in good Works ready to Distribute willing to Communicate laying up in store for themselves a good Foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life which it seems they may be made the means of attaining so that by these Negatives is meant only a comparative command that we rather lay up to our selves Treasures in Heaven than in Earth that we be more carefull for the one than the other not that one is forbidden by the other but to be preferred before it as we have the like manner of expression most frequently in Scripture Prov. 8.10 Receive my Instruction and not Silver and Knowledge rather than Gold so Mat. 9.13 I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice i. e. rather than Sacrifice God did so much value inward and real Righteousness before outward Rites and

in relation to our selves as well as to the World that is the prime and general cause of Mens being deceived into sin and the first part of its deceitfulness is by the immoderate and salse Opinion of those little Goods or present Enjoyments we may obtain by them Thus when our Fancies and vain Imaginations represent Riches and a great Estate as the greatest Good as the greatest Security Credit and Comfort and what will afford and bring in all other good things of this World this makes a Man make Riches his God and put his trust in 'em and Sacrifice every thing to Mammon and use any means to attain 'em because he thinks nothing so evil as to be without them and nothing else so good as having abundance of them So another fancies no happiness like that of being Great and above others of having the knee and the head and the outward marks and acknowledgments of superiority given him or to appear in State and Grandeur with a rich Train and splendid Equipage always attending him and he despises poor and contemptible Vertue in respect of all this and thinks as meanly of the greatest Wisdom without those as that does of him and therefore rather than part with those he will part with his Conscience and change his Religion rather than his place and will stick at nothing either to keep or gain his ambitious Ends and Designs Another who is a Voluptuary and thinks Pleasure the summum bonum the chiefest good he can taste or feel he hunts after it thro' all the Scents and Paths of Sensuality Luxury Lewdness and Debauchery and either Bacchus or Venus is the Deity he worships and the greatest Good and Enjoyment he fancies and imagines and has an Idea of is the Wine sparkling in the Glass or the Charms of Beauty or the other objects of sensual Pleasure and by heating his thoughts and inflaming his fancy his desires of those things grow impatient excessive and ungovernable Now if a man had used himself to consider seriously how little there is in all those things how very little in respect of the greater pleasures of a wise and easie Mind a good Conscience and the hopes of Religion and that all the true Pleasures of Life that are desirable to a Wise Man may be otherwise enjoyed within the bounds of Vertue and that the going beyond those is an unavoidable mischief to himself and to the World and that all those little sensual and temporary goods he is so fond of are at best but short and transitory empty and unsatisfying things but poor trisling satisfactions and mere gilded decaying Vanities that will all quickly perish and pass away so that our proper happiness cannot lie in them This would give us such true Opinions and right Apprehensions of all carnal and Worldly things in which the whole strength and temptations of sin are placed as would disarm and weaken it of all its power strip it of all its fine dress and false attire wash off all its paint spoil all its beauty and shining lustre whereby it imposes upon our vain fancies and weak imaginations and deceives us with a false Opinion of those small Goods Profits or Pleasures it can afford us 2. We do not at the same time compare with those the great evil that is in them and so do not judge rightly and impartially on both sides but determine hastily on one and so are deceived whereas to make a true Judgment and Estimate we should set the evil against the good and so weigh the matter and set the balance right between them but Alass Men are in too much haste to do this when they are so hotly and eagerly pursuing their Lusts when having the fancied good Pleasure and Enjoyment of their sins only in their Eye they never think or consider or take into their accounts the much greater and more numerous and more certain evils that belong to them and are inseparably annext to the commission of them if they did no Man would swallow the thin bait when he saw the satal hook under it None would eat the forbidden fruit tho' never so fair and pleasant to the Eye if he knew and certainly believed that Death was its bittter sauce and in the day he eat thereof he should die No Man would drink the sweetest draught or take down the most delicious morsel if he thought it would kill him Nature without any great deliberation refuses immediately and abhors what it apprehends to be evil as it is extreamly fond and desirous of what appears good and agreeable to it and the fear of the one is perhaps more strong and affecting than the love of the other as the sense of pain is greater and quicker than that of pleasure and therefore did it spy the Snake in the Grass the Serpent hid under the Bed of Roses and Violets it would not be invited by all their beauty and sweetness to lie down upon them and it would be quickly frighted and run from the tempter tho' he appear'd as an Angel of light if it saw his Cloven Foot Vice therefore always uses art to conceal its worst side hides its deformity and rottenness under a false paint and counterfeit colour and varnishes over its real evil with the fucus of some seeming good so the unwary sinner is drawn into its deadly embraces with its meritricious Looks and false Charms The venomous sting lies covered under the sweet hony and the sinner perceives not the Dagger of the Treacherous Assassin till he is stabb'd with it to the heart But a little Wisdom and Observation and looking about us would plainly discern the innumerable evils that sin carries in its bowels and is big and productive of which grow out of it as fruit from its proper root and are inseparably annexed to it as effects to their causes that can no more be divorced or rescinded from it than light clipt from the Sun and are unalterably setled upon it by the nature and constitution of things and the will and appointment of the first cause and Author of them How do many not only shipwrack their Consciences but their Fortunes too by their Vices in this world where we see abundance of those broken Vessels who have split themselves upon Laziness or Luxury Lewdness or Prodigality or some other wickedness by which they have ruined themselves here as well as hereafter How have others wasted their Bodies by the same courses as they have done their Estates And have sinn'd particularly against those as the Scripture speaks as well as against their Souls and been a kind of Martyrs in the service of the Devil and their own Lusts and endured more pains in their bodies to go to Hell than other Martyrs have done to go to Heaven How do they whose hopes and designs are only in this Life and who fear nothing so much as Death and think nothing so happy as to live long yet shorten their lives by their Vices and by