A64811:341
Christ's school consisting of four classes of Christians
Christ's school consisting of four classes of Christians : I. Babes, II. Little children, III. Young men, IV. Fathers : with their several characteristical differences and attainments : also the doctrines proper to be taught to each of them : being the substance of many sermons preached many years ago in Southwark / by Ralph Venning.Christ's school consisting of four classes of Christians : I. Babes, II. Little children, III. Young men, IV. Fathers : with their several characteristical differences and attainments : also the doctrines proper to be taught to each of them : being the substance of many sermons preach'd many years ago in Southwark / by Ralph Venning.
London: printed for John Hancock, 1675
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
6. Let this help to break thine heart and make it humble, that thy being as carnal doth open the mouth of the wicked and carnal to cry out of and to blaspheme Religion for thy sake: though it be their sin to do so, yet 'tis thy sin (and should be thy shame that 'tis thy sin) that gives them occasion so to do. On say the wicked, beside profession we see no difference between professors and our selves, they are as peevish, as humorous, as proud, as carnal as others. Alas! I beseech thee be humbled, that thou shouldst open their mouth to speak evil not of thee only but of the way of truth, and lay thy sins to the charge of Religion; Tertullian tells us that Christians had wont to be known by the amendment of their lives and being better than other m•n: I, this indeed adorns the doctrine of God our Saviour, and otherwise men bring disgrace and reproach upon it. If we would not do Religion (and our selves) the right to practise it, we should not do it the wrong to profess it; yea, and stand in the way of their coming in, who are ready to enter, were they not put back by them that are as carnal. Saith Paul, Dare any of you go to Law before unbelievers? what will they say to these things? will they not laugh at and scorn you and your Religion too? Think what became of them that brought up an ill report on the good Land.
7. And lastly, remember and forget not this, that though thou go to Heaven 'twill c•st thee dear before thou come there, that thou hast been as and so carnal: 'twill bring down thy ⟨p. 238⟩grey hairs with sorrow to the Grave. Thou mayest be saved, yet so as by fire, as Paul tells his Babes, 1 Ger. 3.13.—15. This fl•sh and blood of thine cannot enter into the Kingdom of God, thou must through a Purgatory of water […] fire, of Repentance and Zeal, before thou […] thine inheritance among them which are sanctified by Faith in Jesus. Be thou therefore humbled betimes, and […] not the sense and weight of all this to come upon thee when thou art on a death-bed, lest they latter and know more sorrow than thy beginning, and a worse thing befall thee then, than there did all thy life before. Be humbled for being as carnal. And,