Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	affection_n	good_a	spirit_n	2,849	5	4.8243	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62640	Six sermons I. Stedfastness in religion. II. Family-religion. III. IV. V. Education of children. VI. The advantages of an early piety : preached in the church of St. Lawrence Jury in London / by ... John Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.; Sermons. Selections	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1694 (1694)	Wing T1268A; ESTC R218939	82,517	218

For Sin will soon take possession of that person whom Shame hath left He that is once become shameless hath prostituted himself Therefore preserve this Disposition in Children as much as is possible as one of the best means to preserve their innocency and to bring them to goodness 3 dly To diligence sine quâ vir magnus nunquam extitit● without which says one there never was any great and excellent person When the Roman Historians describe an extraordinary man this always enters into his Character as an essential part of it that he was incredibili industriâ diligentiâ singulari of incredible industry of singular diligence or something to that purpose And indeed a Person can neither be excellently good nor extremely bad without this quality The Devil himself could not be so bad and mischievous as he is if he were not so stirring and restless a Spirit and did not compass the Earth and go to and fro seeking whom he might devour This is part of the Character of Sylla and Marius and Cataline those great Disturbers of the Roman State as well as of Cesar and Pompey who were much greater and better men but yet gave trouble enough to their Countrey and at last dissolved the Roman Common-wealth by their Ambition and Contention for Superiority This I say enters into all their Characters that they were of a vigorous and indefatigable spirit So that Diligence in it self is neither a Virtue nor a Vice but may be applied either way to good or bad purposes and yet where all other requisites do concur it is a very proper Instrument and Disposition for Virtue Therefore train up Children to diligence if ever you desire they should excel in any kind The diligent hand saith Solomon maketh rich Prov. 10. 4. Rich in estate Rich in knowledge Seest thou a man diligent in his business as the same Wise-man observes Prov. 22. 29. he shall stand before Princes he shall not stand before mean or obscure men And again Prov. 12. 24. The hand of the diligent shall bear rule but the slothful shall be under Tribute Diligence puts almost every thing into our power and will in time make Children capable of the best and greatest things Whereas Idleness is the bane and ruin of Children it is the unbending of their Spirits the Rust of their Faculties and as it were the laying of their Minds fallow not as Husbandmen do their Lands that they may get new heart and strength but to impair and lose that which they have Children that are bred up in laziness are almost necessarily bad because they cannot take the pains to be good and they cannot take pains because they have never been inured and accustomed to it which makes their Spirits restive and when you have occasion to quicken them and spur them up to business they will stand stock still Therefore never let your Children be without a Calling or without some useful or at least innocent employment that will take them up that they may not be put upon a kind of necessity of being vicious for want of something better to do The Devil tempts the active and vigorous into his service knowing what ●it and proper instruments they are to do his drudgery But the slothful and idle no body having hired them and set them on work lie in his way and he stumbles upon them as he goes about and they do as it were offer themselves to his service and having nothing to do they even tempt the Devil himself to tempt them and to take them in his way 4 thly To sincerity which is not so properly a single Virtue as the life and soul of all other Graces and Virtues and without which what shew of goodness soever a man may make he is un●ound and rotten at the heart Cherish therefore this disposition in Children as that which when they come to be men will be the great security and ornament of their lives and will render them acceptable both to God and Men. 5 thly To tenderness and pity Which when they come to engage in business and to have dealings in the World will be a good bar against Injustice and Oppression and will be continually prompting us to Charity and will fetch powerful Arguments for it from our own bowels To preserve this goodness and tenderness of nature this so very human and useful affection keep Children as much as is possible out of the way of bloody Sights and Spectacles of cruelty and discountenance in them all cruel and barbarous usage of Creatures under their power do not allow them to torture and kill them for their sport and pleasure because this will insensibly and by degrees hard●n their hearts and make them less apt to compassionate the wants of the poor and the sufferings and afflictions of the miserable Secondly As the main Foundations of Religion and Vertue Children must be carefully train'd up to the Government of their Passions and of their Tongues and particularly to speak truth and to hate lying as a base and vile quality 1 st To the good Government of their Passions It is the disorder of these more especially of Desire and Fear and Anger which betrays us to many evils● Anger prompts men to contention and murther Inordinate Desire to covetousness and fraud and oppression And Fear many times awes men into Sin and deters them from their Duty Now if these Passions be cherish'd or even but let alone in Children they will in a short time grow headstrong and unruly and when they come to be men will corrupt the judgment and turn good nature into humour and the understanding into prejudice and wilfulness But if they be carefully observed and prudently restrained they may by degrees be managed and brought under government and the inordinacy of them being prun'd away they may prove excellent Instruments● of Virtue Therefore be careful to discountenance in Children any thing that looks like Rage and furious Anger and to shew them the unreasonableness and deformity of it Check their longing Desires after things pleasant and use them to frequent disappointments in that kind that when you think fit to gratify them they may take it for a favour and not challenge every thing they have a mind to as their due and by degrees may learn to submit to the more prudent choice of their Parents as being much better able to judge what is good and fit for them And when you see them at any time apt out of Fear to neglect their Duty or to fall into any Sin or to be tempted by telling a Lye to commit one fault to hide and excuse another which Children are very apt to do The best Remedy of this Evil will be to plant a greater Fear against a less and to tell them what and whom they should chiefly fear not him who can hurt and kill the Body but Him who after He hath kill'd can destroy both Body and Soul in Hell The neglect of Children in this matter

the most acceptable Time of all other because it is the first of our Age. Under the Law the first fruits and the first-born were God's In like manner we should devote the first of our Age and Time to Him God is the first and most excellent of Beings and therefore it is fit that the prime of our Age and the excellency of our strength should be dedicated to Him and his Service An early Piety must needs be very acceptable and pleasing to God Our Blessed Lord took great pleasure to see little Children come unto Him an Emblem of the pleasure he takes that men should list themselves betimes in his service St. John was the youngest of all the Disciples and our Saviour had a very particular kindness and affection for him for he is said to be the Disciple whom Jesus loved It is a good sign that we value God as we ought and have a true esteem for his service when we can find in our hearts to give him our good Days and the years which we our selves have pleasure in And that we have a grateful sense of his benefits and of our mighty obligation to him when we make the quickest and best returns we can and think nothing too good to render to Him from whom we have received all It is likewise an argument of great Sincerity which is the Soul of all R●ligion and Virtue when a man devotes himself to God betimes because it is a good evidence that he is not drawn by those forcible constraints nor driven to God by that pressing necessity which lies upon men in time of Sickness and old Age. And on the contrary it cannot but be very displeasing to God to be neglected by us when we are in the flower and vigor of our Age When our Blood is warm and our Spirits quick and our Parts are at the best then to think our selves too good to serve God what an affront is this to Him who hath deserved so infinitely well of us and beyond the best and u●most that we can possibly do Besides that there is a peculiar kind of grace and loveliness in the worthy and excellent actions of Young Persons great thing● being hardly expected from them at that Age. Early Habits of Virtue like new Cloathes upon a young and comely Body sit very gracefully upon a straight and well-shap'd Mind and do might●ly become it As there is Joy in Heaven at the conversion of a great and old Sinner so it cannot but be a very delightful Spectacle to God and Angels and to the Spirits of just Men made perfect to see a Young Person besieged by powerful Temptations on every side to acquit himself gloriously and resolutely to hold out against the most violent Assaults To behold one in the pride and flower of his Age that is courted by Pleasures and Honours by the Devil and all the bewitching Vanities of this World to reject all these and to cleave stedfastly to God Nay to frown upon all these Temptations and to look down upon them with indignation and ●corn and to say Let those dote upon ●hese things who know no better Let them adore sensual Pleasures and lying Vanities who are ignorant of the sincere and solid Pleasures of Religion and Virtue Let them run into the arms of Temptation who can forget God their Creator their Preserver and the Guide of their Youth As for me I will serve the Lord and will employ my whole time either innocently or usefully in serving God and in doing good to Men who are made after the Image of God This work shall take up my whole Life there shall be no void or empty Space in it I will endeavour as much as possibly I can that there may be no gap or breach in it for the Devil and his Temptations to enter in Lord I will be thine I have chosen thee for my happiness and my portion for ever Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth that I desire besides thee Lo they that are far from thee shall perish But it is good for me to draw near to God to begin and end my Days in his fear and to his glory Fifthly and Lastly This Age of our Life may for any thing we know be the only Time we may have for this purpose and if we cast off the thoughts of God and defer the business of Religion to old Age intending as we pretend to set about it at that Time we may be cut off before that Time comes and turned into Hell with the People that forget God The Work of Religion is the most necessary of all other and must be done one time or other or we are certainly undone for ever We cannot begin it too soon but we easily delay it too long and then we are miserable past all recovery He that would not venture his immortal Soul and put his everlasting Happiness upon the greatest hazard and uncertainty must make Religion his first business and care must think of God betimes and remember his Creator in the days of his Youth I have now done with the three things which I proposed to consider f●om these Words The Inferences from this whole Discourse shall be these two Fi●st To persuade those that are young to remember God their Creator and to engage in the ways of Religion and Virtue betimes Secondly To urge those who have neglected this first and best Opportunity of their Lives to repent quickly and return to a b●tter mind lest the Opportunity be lost for ever and their case become desperate and past remedy First To persuade those that are young to remember God their Creator be●times and to engage early in the ways of Religion and Virtue Do not suffer your selves to be cheated and bewitched by sensual satisfactions and to be destroyed by ease and prosperity Let not a perpetual tenor of Health and Pleasure soften and dissolve your Spirits and banish all wise and serious thoughts out of your Minds Be not so foolish and unworthy as to think that you have a privilege to forget God when he is most mindful of you when the Candle of the Lord shines about your Tabernacle and you are enjoying the health and strength and sweetness of Life No man knows what he does and what an invaluable Treasure he prodigally wastes when he lets slip this golden Season and Opportunity of his Life whilst he is yet innocent and untainted with Sin and Vice and his Mi●d is clear of all bad impressions and capable of the best not enslaved to evil and at liberty to do well Consider that the ways of Religion and Virtue are nothing so difficult and unpleasant now as they will be hereafter And that the longer you forget God and the more you are estranged from Him the more unwilling you will be to think of him and to return to him That your Lusts will every day gain more strength and your hearts by degrees will contract such