Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	prayer_n	read_v	scripture_n	2,527	5	5.9548	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59621	Antapologia, or, A discourse of excuses setting forth the variety and vanity of them, the sin and misery brought in by them, as being the greatest bar in the way to heaven, and the ready high way to hell : being the common snare wherein most of the children of men are intangled and ruined / by Jo. Sheffield ...	Sheffeild, John, d. 1680.	1672 (1672)	Wing S3061; ESTC R11053	145,253	322

again Who is Paul and what is Apollos It is God alone who gives the 1 Cor. 3. increase 4. The Calling is the fourth excuse from 4. Our Calling Duty of which also somewhat was spoken before and is that which is alledged in the Parable which gave us the matter of this Discourse My Calling my honest Employments must be looked after I must go try my Oxen I must go take possession of my Land purchased Reasonable and just Excuses one would think no contempt nor defiance They stood not idle in the Market nor were in Tavern or Ale-house tipling I pray have me excused was the worst Language they gave yet rejected The third said I have married a Wife and must consummate the Marriage I cannot come None said I will not yet is their slighting recorded and all three rejected No Employment no change of Condition can priviledge from attending God's Service One thing is necessary stands alwayes indispensably true the other might be done this must not be left undone There was a Dispensation in the Deut. 24. 5. old Law That if a man had new married a wife he should not be pressed to war that year but no Dispensation for omitting the Service of God for one day The King by his Place and by reason of the weighty Affairs incumbent on his Office be thought fit to be priviledged above any others as being Superior to all and Inferior only to God yet must is for the King and shall from his Superior He was commanded by God that when he sate Deut. 17. 18 19. upon the Throne he shall write him a Copy of the Law and it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the dayes of his life c. Thus did holy David who made it his meditation continually and by his being Psal 119 97 99. so continually versed therein he became wiser then his Teachers And besides his many private Devotions the Psalms Hymns and Prayers of his own composing he was a constant Student in God's Word We read of that Renowned Successor of his Josiah that he took the 2 Kings 23. 2. Book of the Law and himself read it to all his People Luther tells of that pious and valiant Duke of Saxony that he had six of his Gentlemen who attended him read daily to him six hours out of the holy Scripture And never to be forgotten is the practise of one of the Kings of this Nation King Alfred who divided the four and twenty hours of the natural day into three parts allowing himself eight hours for his bodily refreshment by Sleep Food and Recreation a second eight hours he spent in Reading Praying and Writing and the third eight he spent in attending Affairs of State hearing Causes c. A rare example of a pious Prince and one that would give account of his time spending 5. But the great and general excuse is 5. Hereafter not yet Nondum venit hora I will hereafter but the time is not yet come This was not the Answer of one single Person but Vox Populi The People said The time is not yet come H●g 1. 2. the time to build the house of the Lord. So generally when we call upon men to repent and amend their lives they put us off and say It is a good work and must be thought upon and they will wait for a good hour to do it in Thus in another sense Christ may say My time is not yet come but your John 7. 6. time is alway ready your time to build your own Houses is come is present mine is future must stay But saith the Lord have I not met with you in your wayes Ye have sowen much and reaped little I have blown upon it what ye had was put into a Bag with holes and why because you ran so eagerly to build your own Houses and my House lies wast This is the common and most dangerous Excuse and too many instances we have in our daily experience Few go to Hell said a good Divine for Mr. Calamy saying they will not repent but many for saying they will but not yet This was the Sluggard's Plea Yet a little more sleep Prov. 6. 11. Acts 24. 25. a little more slumber This was delaying Felix his Plea I will take a more convenient season which he never had This the put-off of Two in one Chapter called by Christ the one desired respit till he had discharged his last office to his aged Father Lord suffer me first to bury my Father The Luke 9. 59 61. other Let me go bid my Friends farewel But for all we read they both bad Christ farewel and lost the fair season of Grace Alas how do many dally with Repentance and Salvation and sport themselves with their own Deceivings The young man is ready to make large Promises what he will do when he is old The single or unsetled man what he will do when he is setled The man in Health what he will do in Sickness And he in Sickness what he will do when restored to Health and all but words Sick-Bed Purposes are deceitful and Death-Bed Repentance as uncertain First Whether it shall be granted Secondly Whether it shall be accepted The present tense is the acceptable tense the future is the rejected tense Many shall seek to enter and shall not be able Luke 13. 24. Shall and will seek but have not heretofore or do not yet The Sponsalia de praesenti make the Marriage good De future signifie nothing In Christianity the more hast the better speed yet alas how sad is it to consider the most of men do delay delay adjourn and put off Repentance and Obedience De die in diem from day to day as young Austin then no Saint did with his Noli modo Not yet Lord spare me a little He was afraid as he said he should be heard too soon But at length it pleased God to awaken him throughly out of this Lethargy and then he gets him into a private place under such a Tree and there he leaves his modo modo and cries out with a flood of tears How long O Lord how long Oh let there be an end of my sinful course and a new Spirit given me now now Cur non modo Domine non cras cras Conf. l. 9. c. 12. sed hac hora c. Lord I do not say nor do thou say to morrow or next day But Lord why not now this very day yea this very hour The great Heroes of the World that are eternized in the Book of Fame as Caesar Alexander and our Christian Chieftain Scanderbeg carried all before them by their Celerity and Expedition Of Caesar it is said Omnia confecit celeritate He brought all his ends about by his continual speed Of Alexander whose Motto was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lose no time defer not That he was wont to make such long and speedy Marches

them let them Play and do as Children And have they not Death and Hell before them too Train up a Child saith the Prov. 22. 6. Lord in the way of his Youth and he will keep it when he is old And again who so fit to be taught as these Esay 28. 9. Whom shall he teach Knowledge and whom shall he make to understand Doctrine them that are weaned from the Milk and drawn from the Breast Gracious Timothy was grounded 2 Tim. 1. 5. 3. 15. in the Scripture when a Child by his religious Mother and Grand-mother And Solomon tells us what Lessons he had given him by his Father and Mother Prov. 4. 3 4. Our Saviour bids us to bring our little Children to him for of such so brought up Mark 10. 14. is the Kingdom of Heaven We read of Children believing in Christ Matth. 18. 6. Of little Children knowing the Father 1 John 2. 13. Therefore doth that aged Disciple direct his Epistle to his little Children as well as to the young Men and aged Fathers Our greatest care should be of our young Children they are Spes Gregis the hope of the next Generation We break the Colt when young bend the Twig and twist it while green We swath and swaddle the Bodies of our Children when small and tender to keep them strait and then if ever is the time to frame and form their Spirits to prevent ill habits The lameness or crookedness in the Cradle as in Mephibosheth is hardly if ever cured much less are ill Principles to be rooted out that were suckt in when Children He who had been so from a Child was past Disciples Cure Mark 9. 21. The young Disciple usually wears the Garland and proves the most useful and eminent aged Father My Soul desireth the first Ripe Mic. 7. 1. Fruit saith the Prophet The most eminent Saints and choicest Instruments in God's Church have been usually such as have been trained up in Pious Education called and sanctified in their Infancy or Childhood as young Samuel Solomon Josiah Jeremy John Baptist Timothy c. of old And some such Instances we have of late That incomparable Vsher for one of whom it may be said Multa tulit fecitque puer sudavit alsit He could speak of his being in Christ from ten years of age then was he converted and what a blessed Instrument of much good was he not to many particular Persons and Congregations where he came and preached but as a Star of the first magnitude his light did shine not only all over the Horizon of these two great Islands of Great Britain and Ireland his Native Country to which he was so great a glory but his Name and Memory is pretious to all the Churches in the Europaean World But above all that example above all examples of our blessed Saviour when but a Child of Twelve years who was so increased in Knowledge and Wisdom that he was among the Doctors in the Temple hearing and puting forth his Questions to their astonishment and admiration And that saying of his in answer to his Mother worthy to be printed in the Breasts of all hopeful Children and be inscribed in the Frontispiece of all their Books I must now be about my Fathers business And he was Luke 2. 49. not yet come into the Teens was but Twelve years of age then A second makes the like excuse when his 2. Unlearned duty is laid before him and saith Non sum Doctus as he to whom the Book was given and bidden to read answered I cannot Esay 29. 12. for I am not learned I am a Lay-man a poor Mechanick Illiterate what would you have of me should I meddle with Scripture matters Duties of Religion Would you have me instruct my Family pray give thanks at Meat It is for Ministers Schollars and the learned to deal in such matters saith the ignorant Papist and the lazy Protestant But our Saviour biddeth the Laity as well as the learned Priests Search the Scriptures And St. Paul Joh. 5. 39. exhorteth all Christians that the Word of Col. 3. 16. God should dwell in them richly in all Wisdom teaching and admonishing one another c. The most eminent Saints in God's Acts 4. 13. Calendar were sometimes illiterate men Fishermen Publicans Plebeians c. But after they had been conversant with Jesus they were taught and inabled of God and made fit for every good work They who are not Book-learned may be Christ-learned Austin said in his time Surgunt Cons l. 8. c. 8. indocti rapiunt Regnum coelorum The unlearned rise up and get the start of us the learned of the World and break into Heaven with a holy Violence while we with our learning and disputes lie weltring in the mire Think not therefore want of Book-learning may excuse thee from all common Duties of Christianity There is not one Heaven for Schollars and another or none at all for the unlearned In an Army you see all are not Commanders and Commission-Officers but the greater number common Souldiers upon whose hands the great shock and brunt of the Battell lies So in God's Host the Church-militant all are not Divines and Pastors but the greatest part of Christ's Flock consists of ordinary and many of them unlearned Christians In the Catalogue of Martyrs in Queen Maries dayes the total is summed Heywoods Elizabeth up to amount to 260 whereof five were Bishops one and twenty Doctors eight Gentlemen but the greatest part by far was of the meaner rank eighty four Artificers an hundred Husbandmen Servants and Labourers fifty five Women Maids Wives and Widows A third little differing from the former 3. Want of Parts is I want Parts and sufficient Abilities This was Moses his excuse O Lord I pray thee have me excused I am not Vir verborum Exod. 4. 10. I am not eloquent I pray let it be done by some better hand So plead some Masters of Families had I the Gift and Ability of some others I would pray and set up Religious Exercises in my Family but I want expression and that discourageth me So it may be some Ministers I should Preach more frequently and more chearfully had I the gifts and utterance of some Paul or Apollos God's work would not be done negligently they say True but if it be done faithfully seriously and sincerely it is accepted according to what a man hath and not according to what a man hath not We find by experience God doth often bless the Endeavors of conscientious Masters of Families to a great measure of promoting and spreading Religion all over the Family and as oft the Labours of some his faithful though less eminent Ministers to the conversion and building up of more then some of the chief Master-Builders As if the Lord would say Not by Might nor by Power Zach. 4. 6. but by my Spirit And as if he would have us say