Selected quad for the lemma: evil_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
evil_n	evil_a	heart_n	thought_n	2,080	5	8.0009	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25447	Religio clerici	T. A.	1681 (1681)	Wing A32; ESTC R200747	38,573	248

a perfect Intelligence ranging at large in the infinite Abyss of immortal Light boundless Aboads of Angels There she will clearly discern the nature of her own Essence and Faculties by reflex Intuition on her self or else perhaps see the perfect Image of her self and of all things past present and to come to her infinite satisfaction in the glorious Mirrour of the Eternal Godhead Nor will she then owe her knowledge to the gross Communications of material objects through the weak conveyances of bodily sense I could in some fits of contemplative Melancholy fall asleep assoon in a Charnel-house as in my Bed-chamber and am often so weary of dull Life that my greatest delight is in such objects as speak most to its disadvantage The state and magnificence of a Tomb or Monument steals a secret wish from me to be Tenant to that quiet silent Pomp more than the sight of a sumptuous Palace to be Lord and Master there I know that I carry a Ghost always about me and that I my self am a walking Spirit This thought allays in me those vulgar fears of the haunts and visits of Spectres And as I am not at all afraid of my self unless when God le ts loose his terrours upon my Soul and my Conscience lashes me for my sins Job 18. 11. so I am very little apprehensive of Apparitions Nay more I could wish the Communications more frequent betwixt us and the Inhabitants of the upper world It would harden our Christian Courage familiarize to us the thoughts of Separation and create in us a passionate Love of that Country from the good report of these spiritual Spies making us say with courageous Caleb Let us go up and possess it Numb 13. 30. I could I thank God stare a reputed Witch full in the face with as little terrour as I look upon a sucking Infani and boldly retort the poysonous emissions of her malicious Eyes For in this I take Balaam at his word who without doubt had tried the Experiment that there is no Enchantment against Jacob neither is there any Divination against Israel Numb 23. 23. I pretend not by the Title of this small Treatise to any extraordinary Scheme or new draught of Religion for the Clergy much less would I be thought slily to suggest any neglect or deficiency of theirs in the practice of the Old I am very very well assured that Religio Clerici is a direct Tautologie and yet I detract no more from the Sanctimonious Worth of the Clergy by the conjunction of these two terms than I deny the Sun to be the Fountain of Light when I say Lumen Solis Only I could wish that we were all not only good and vertuous but eminently and in the last degree so too and that all the lesser Christian Luminaries might more and more derive Light from us I would have all the Wisdome and Vertue that ever appeared in the guise of true Reason in the world summ'd up and amassed in a Christian Priest especially in a daily sincere contempt of this world We should strive clearly to demonstrate the certain hope we have of Eternal Felicity after Death by being very careless if at all sensible of this Life And in this let us soar a pitch beyond the highest flights of the wisest Heathens and outdo in very fact their utmost Ideas and Hyperboles The excellent Speculations of some old Philosophers arose 't is true to a very great height and their refined Reason was exercised in most divine Contemplations But alas the better and purer their Notions were of Vertue and Sanctity they became so much the more impracticable to them and they fell short in the performance of their own Rules and Dictates The Cause of this natural inability and latent impotency of their Wills they were altogether strangers to and thô they knew in effect most Doctrines of Christian Morality yet having not the Faith of Jesus nor by consequence the assistance of God's particular Grace their knowledge was but of small import and significancy nor could it in the very best of them produce actions acceptable to God unless his secret infinite Mercy gave some gracious allowances for that natural corruption which they knew nothing of and which was cured but in a poor degree by universal Grace And this Notion I have framed to my self of the Heathens Morality enclines me to believe that our Wills derived from Adam's disobedience a depravity double to that of our Intellects for as we see by these Pagans their Understanding could excellently distinguish and were in the Serpent's words as Gods knowing good and evil yet were the Imaginations of the thoughts of their hearts always evil continually Gen. 6. 5. But we Christian Priests that have successively received all the gradual Communications of Divine Grace and Sanctifications of the blessed Spirit from the Font to the Ministry of the holy Altar are doubly obliged as we transcend the best of them in the sublime Mysteries of our Faith so to outstrip them in the most excellent practices of Evangelical Morality and not them only but all others also Non possumus perficere bonam actionem sine adjutorio Gratiae is rightly opposed to Pelagius nor is the proposition only notional for besides that our Saviour tells us without me ye can do nothing Joh. 15. 5. And St. Paul that 't is God which worketh in us both to will and do Philip. 2. 13. I have often observed in my own narrow oeconomy that the clearest Convictions of Reason and strongest Moral Resolutions have proved weak and of small force against the power of most sins especially against the violent assaults of a complexional Vice We may sin and resolve to the contrary and resolve and sin again in infinitum till with Jacob we wrastle with God Gen. 32. 26. as well as resist the Devil until by violent Prayer we take Heaven by force Matth. 11. 12. and draw down the assistance of Divine Grace all our other strongest and most vigorous Efforts will prove feeble and ineffectual The very Experience of this hath confuted Pelagianisme to me better than a thousand Syllogisms I have seldome gone to Bed in the days of loosest Vanity and before I was so happy as sincerely to espouse the Predicate much less had the honour to wear the subject of this Books title without Pythagoras his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Aur. Carm. My reason hath upon an impartial summing up that days Evidence made my own Conscience a severe Jury against me in pronouncing a perfect dislike and condemnation of such proceedings I have then made applications of as I thought strong resolves to observe its dictates for the future and this hath in some measure asswaged the smart of my minde then But alas my trial all this while being at the wrong Bar I could never obtain a true Pardon for old nor strength against new Lapses My Inclinations to sin have doubled upon me and when they felt the Curb of