John Tillotson

Apprehensive

Not at all apprehensive of evils as a distance.

Artificially

The spider's web, finely and artificially wrought.

Awaken

Their consciences are thoroughly awakened.

Beside

That man that does not know those things which are of necessity for him to know is but an ignorant man, whatever he may know besides.

Blame

We have none to blame but ourselves.

Blanch

Blanch over the blackest and most absurd things.

Blessedness

The assurance of a future blessedness.

Carnality

Because of the carnality of their hearts.

Commensurate

Those who are persuaded that they shall continue forever, can not choose but aspire after a happiness commensurate to their duration.

Comply

They did servilely comply with the people in worshiping God by sensible images.

Conclude

No man can conclude God's love or hatred to any person by anything that befalls him.

Condescension

It forbids pride . . . and commands humility, modesty, and condescension to others.

Conformity

By our conformity to God.

Considerable

Eternity is infinitely the most considerable duration.

Contrive

What more likely to contrive this admirable frame of the universe than infinite wisdom.

Cry

Men of dissolute lives cry down religion, because they would not be under the restraints of it.

Cultivate

The mind of man hath need to be prepared for piety and virtue; it must be cultivated to the end.

Deal

If he will deal clearly and impartially, . . . he will acknowledge all this to be true.

Declaration

Declarations of mercy and love . . . in the Gospel.

Defeat

He finds himself naturally to dread a superior Being that can defeat all his designs, and disappoint all his hopes.

Degeneracy

Willful degeneracy from goodness.

Degenerate

When wit transgresseth decency, it degenerates into insolence and impiety.

Demolish

I expected the fabric of my book would long since have been demolished, and laid even with the ground.

Demonstrate

We can not demonstrate these things so as to show that the contrary often involves a contradiction.

Design

Is he a prudent man . . . that lays designs only for a day, without any prospect to the remaining part of his life?

Deter

Potent enemies tempt and deter us from our duty.

Determinately

The principles of religion are already either determinately true or false, before you think of them.

Disband

Human society would in a short space disband.

Disbelief

Our belief or disbelief of a thing does not alter the nature of the thing.

Disobedience

He is undutiful to him other actions, and lives in open disobedience.

Distort

Wrath and malice, envy and revenge, do darken and distort the understandings of men.

Dread

The secret dread of divine displeasure.

Equity

Christianity secures both the private interests of men and the public peace, enforcing all justice and equity.

Err

The man may err in his judgment of circumstances.

Evermore

Which flow from the presence of God for evermore.

Face

This is the man that has the face to charge others with false citations.

Fatal

These thing are fatal and necessary.

Filth

To purify the soul from the dross and filth of sensual delights.

For

It is for the general good of human society, and consequently of particular persons, to be true and just; and it is for men's health to be temperate.

Furniture

The form and all the furniture of the earth.

Gird

Conscience . . . is freed from many fearful girds and twinges which the atheist feels.

Go

If we go over the laws of Christianity, we shall find that . . . they enjoin the same thing.

Habituate

Men are first corrupted . . . and next they habituate themselves to their vicious practices.

Hamper

They hamper and entangle our souls.

Head

The heads of the chief sects of philosophy.

Hence

Hence, perhaps, it is, that Solomon calls the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom.

Heresy

Deluded people! that do not consider that the greatest heresy in the world is a wicked life.

Hold

Fear . . . by which God and his laws take the surest hold of.

However

Our chief end is to be freed from all, if it may be, however from the greatest evils.

Hydropic

Every lust is a kind of hydropic distemper, and the more we drink the more we shall thirst.

Ignorant

He that doth not know those things which are of use for him to know, is but an ignorant man, whatever he may know besides.

In the first ages of Christianity, not only the learned and the wise, but the ignorant and illiterate, embraced torments and death.

Imaginable

Men sunk into the greatest darkness imaginable.

Impertinent

Things that are impertinent to us.

Improvement

I shall make some improvement of this doctrine.

Incompliance

Self-conceit produces peevishness and incompliance of humor in things lawful and indifferent.

Inconvenience

Man is liable to a great many inconveniences.

Indirect

Indirect dealing will be discovered one time or other.

Infallibility

Infallibility is the highest perfection of the knowing faculty.

Instead

This very consideration to a wise man is instead of a thousand arguments, to satisfy him, that in those times no such thing was believed.

Involve

The contrary necessarily involves a contradiction.

Juggle

A juggle of state to cozen the people.

Just

Men are commonly so just to virtue and goodness as to praise it in others, even when they do not practice it themselves.

Lap

Men expect that happiness should drop into their laps.

Light

There is no greater argument of a light and inconsiderate person than profanely to scoff at religion.

Main

Our main interest is to be happy as we can.

Many

He is liable to a great many inconveniences.

Mastery

He could attain to a mastery in all languages.

Minded

If men were minded to live virtuously.

Mistake

Infallibility is an absolute security of the understanding from all possibility of mistake.

Mortification

The mortification of our lusts has something in it that is troublesome, yet nothing that is unreasonable.

Necessary

A certain kind of temper is necessary to the pleasure and quiet of our minds.

Nibble

Instead of returning a full answer to my book, he manifestly falls a-nibbling at one single passage.

Oblige

Religion obliges men to the practice of those virtues which conduce to the preservation of our health.

Openly

How grossly and openly do many of us contradict the precepts of the gospel by our ungodliness!

Order

The best knowledge is that which is of greatest use in order to our eternal happiness.

Pitch

Pitch upon the best course of life, and custom will render it the more easy.

Plunge

To plunge into guilt of a murther.

Principle

The soul of man is an active principle.

Prohibition

The law of God, in the ten commandments, consists mostly of prohibitions.

Prospect

Is he a prudent man as to his temporal estate, that lays designs only for a day, without any prospect to, or provision for, the remaining part of life ?

Rally

Innumerable parts of matter chanced just then to rally together, and to form themselves into this new world.

Reason

Virtue and vice are not arbitrary things; but there is a natural and eternal reason for that goodness and virtue, and against vice and wickedness.

When anything is proved by as good arguments as a thing of that kind is capable of, we ought not, in reason, to doubt of its existence.

Reduce

Nothing so excellent but a man may fasten upon something belonging to it, to reduce it.

Reserve

The virgins, besides the oil in their lamps, carried likewise a reserve in some other vessel for a continual supply.

Respect

They believed but one Supreme Deity, which, with respect to the various benefits men received from him, had several titles.

Everything which is imperfect, as the world must be acknowledged in many respects.

Rest

Religion gives part of its reward in hand, the present comfort of having done our duty, and, for the rest, it offers us the best security that Heaven can give.

Result

Pleasure and peace do naturally result from a holy and good life.

Rule

We profess to have embraced a religion which contains the most exact rules for the government of our lives.

Season

The proper use of wit is to season conversation.

See

Many sagacious persons will find us out, . . . and see through all our fine pretensions.

Service

God requires no man's service upon hard and unreasonable terms.

Set

Setting aside all other considerations, I will endeavor to know the truth, and yield to that.

Singular

To be singular in anything that is wise and worthy, is not a disparagement, but a praise.

Slander

Whether we speak evil of a man to his face or behind his back; the former way, indeed, seems to be the most generous, but yet is a great fault, and that which we call “reviling;” the latter is more mean and base, and that which we properly call “slander”, or “Backbiting.”

So

It concerns every man, with the greatest seriousness, to inquire into those matters, whether they be so or not.

Sore

Malice and hatred are very fretting and vexatious, and apt to make our minds sore and uneasy.

Space

God may defer his judgments for a time, and give a people a longer space of repentance.

Strain

Intemperance and lust breed diseases, which, propogated, spoil the strain of nation.

The genius and strain of the book of Proverbs.

Studier

Lipsius was a great studier of the stoical philosophy.

Substantially

The laws of this religion would make men, if they would truly observe them, substantially religious toward God, chastle, and temperate.

Sullen

Things are as sullen as we are.

Suppose

When we have as great assurance that a thing is, as we could possibly, supposing it were, we ought not to make any doubt of its existence.

Supposition

This is only an infallibility upon supposition that if a thing be true, it is imposible to be false.

Sustain

No comfortable expectations of another life to sustain him under the evils in this world.

Sway

Let not temporal and little advantages sway you against a more durable interest.

Synonymous

These words consist of two propositions, which are not distinct in sense, but one and the same thing variously expressed; for wisdom and understanding are synonymous words here.

Take

The firm belief of a future judgment is the most forcible motive to a good life, because taken from this consideration of the most lasting happiness and misery.

Tend

The laws of our religion tend to the universal happiness of mankind.

Tender

The civil authority should be tender of the honor of God and religion.

Thing

Wicked men who understand any thing of wisdom.

Toss

To toss and fling, and to be restless, only frets and enrages our pain.

Train

The first Christians were, by great hardships, trained up for glory.

Turn

God will make these evils the occasion of a greater good, by turning them to advantage in this world.

Twit

This these scoffers twitted the Christians with.

Uncertain

Man, without the protection of a superior Being, . . . is uncertain of everything that he hopes for.

Wed

Men are wedded to their lusts.

Wink

They are not blind, but they wink.

Within

Till this be cured by religion, it is as impossible for a man to be happy -- that is, pleased and contented within himself -- as it is for a sick man to be at ease.

Worship

The worship of God is an eminent part of religion, and prayer is a chief part of religious worship.