Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	country_n	great_a	time_n	3,204	5	3.1404	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26903	Compassionate counsel to all young men especially I. London apprentices, II. students of divinity, physick, and law, III. the sons of magistrates and rich men / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing B1229; ESTC R170462	84,953	211

the Son may be as foolish as Rehoboam O what a great work it is to make a man truly wise and good How many years study doth it usually require What wisdom and diligence in Teachers What teachableness and diligence in Learners and especially the Grace of God! And when all is done the man quickly dieth and obtaineth his ends in another world But his Children are born as ignorant and perhaps as bad as he was born He can neither leave them his Knowledge nor his Grace They must have all the same teaching and labour and blessing as he had to bring them to the same attainments The Mercy and Covenant of God taketh them into his Church where they have great advantages and helps and promiseth them more mercy for their relation to a faithful Parent if he or they do make no forfeiture of it But as their Nature is the same with others so their actual Wisdom must come by Gods blessing on the use of the same means which are necessary to the Children of the worst men A Christian's Child is born with no more Knowledge than a Heathen's and must have as much labour and study to make him wise § 2. It is certain then that the welfare of this world lyeth on a good succession of the several Generations And that all the endeavours of one Generation with God's greatest blessing on them will not serve for the Ages following All must begin anew and be done over again or all will be as undone to the next Age And it is not the least blessing on the faithful that their faith and godliness disposeth them to have a care of posterity and to devote their Children wholly to God as well as themselves and to educate them in his fear If Nature had not taught Birds and Beasts to feed their Young as well as to generate them their kind would be soon extinct O what a blessed World were it if the blessings of men famous for wisdom and godliness were entailed on all that should spring from them and if this were the common case § 3. But the doleful miseries of the World have come from the degenerating of good mens posterity Adam hath his Cain and Noah his Cham and David his Absalom Solomon Hezekiah Iosiah left not their like behind them The present State of the Eastern Churches is a dreadful instance What places on Earth were more honourable for Faith and Piety than Alexandria Antioch Ierusalem Constantinople Ephesus Philadelphia and the rest of those great and noble Countries and these also strengthened with the powerfullest Christian Empire that ever was on Earth And now they are places of Barbarism Tyranny and foolish Mahometanism where the Name of Christ is made a scorn and the few Christians that keep up that sacred Profession by Tyranny kept in so great Ignorance that alas the vices of most of them dishonour their Profession as much as their Enemies Persecutions do O what a doleful difference is there between that great part of the World now and what it was 1400 or 1000 years ago And alas were it not for the name of a pompous Christian-Church how plain an instance would Rome be of the same Degeneracy And some Countries that received the blessing of Reformation have revolted into the darkness of Popery What a change was in England by Queen Mary's Reign And how many particular Cities Towns are grown ignorant and malignant which in former times were famous for Religion The Lord grant it may never be the case of London Yea how many persons of Honourable and great Families have so far degenerated from the famous Wisdom and Piety of their Grandfathers yea and Fathers as to hate that which their Parents loved and persecute those whom their Ancestors honoured The names of many Great men stand honoured in History for their Holiness to God and their Service to their Countries whose posterity are the men that we are most in danger of Alas in how few such houses hath Piety kept any long succession yea some take their Fathers virtues to be so much their dishonour that they turn malignant Persecutors to free themselves from the supposed reproach of their Relations Yea some Preachers of the Gospel devoted to God by pious Parents become Revilers of their own Parents and despisers of their Piety as the effect of factious Ignorance § 4. And on the other side when Piety hath successively as a River kept its course what a blessing hath it proved But how rare is that And when Children have proved better than their Parents it hath been the beginning of welfare to the places where they lived How marvellously did the Reformation prevail in Germany in Luther's time when God brought out of Popish Monasteries many excellent Instruments of his Service And Princes became wise and pious whose Parents had been blind or impious Godliness or wickedness welfare or calamity follow the changes and quality of posterity And men live so short a time that the work of Educating Youth aright is one half the great business of man's Life He that hath a Plantation of Oaks may work for twenty Generations But he that planteth Gardens and Orchards with Plants that live but a little time must be still planting watering and defending them § 5. Among the Antient Sages of the World the Greeks and Romans and much more among the Israelites the care of posterity and publick welfare was the great thing which differenced the virtuous and laudable from those of a base selfish sensual disposition He was the bravest Citizen of Rome that did most love and best serve his Country And he was the Saint among the Jews who most loved Sion and the Security and Succession of its holy and peaceable posterity And the Christian Faith and Hope and Interest doth lead us herein to a much higher pitch and to a greater zeal for publick good in following him that whipt out prophaners from the Temple even a zeal of God's House which eateth us up It teacheth us by the Cross most effectually to deny our selves and to think nothing too dear to part with to edifie the Church of God nor any labour or suffering too great for common good It teacheth us to pray for the Hallowing of God's Name the Coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven before our daily Bread and any other personal Interest of our own Therefore the Families of Christians should be as so many Schools or Churches to train up a succession of persons meet for the great communicative works which God calleth all Believers to in their several measures It is eminently Teachers but it is also all others in their several ranks who must be the Salt of the Earth and the Lights of the World And indeed the Spirit of Holiness is so eminently the Spirit of Love to God and Man that it inclineth every sanctified person to a Communicative Zeal to make others wise and good and