Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	earth_n	heaven_n	militant_a	4,766	5	11.7120	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A12817	Honour and vertue, triumphing over the grave Exemplified in a faire devout life, and death, adorned with the surviving perfections of Edward Lord Stafford, lately deceased; the last baron of that illustrious family: which honour in him ended with as great lustre as the sunne sets within a serene skye. A treatise so written, that it is as well applicative to all of noble extraction, as to him, and wherein are handled all the requisites of honour, together with the greatest morall, and divine vertues, and commended to the practise of the noble prudent reader. By Anth. Stafford his most humble kinsman. This worke is much embelish'd by the addition of many most elegant elegies penned by the most accute wits of these times.	Stafford, Anthony.	1640 (1640)	STC 23125; ESTC S117763	67,272	160

Honour and Vertue Triumphing over the Grave Exemplified in a faire devout Life and Death adorned with the surviving perfections of EDWARD Lord STAFFORD lately deceased the last Baron of that Illustrious Family which Honour in him ended with as great Lustre as the Sunne sets within a serene Skye A Treatise so written that it is as well applicative to all of Noble Extraction as to him and wherein are handled all the Requisites of Honour together with the greatest Morall and Divine Vertues and commended to the practise of the Noble Prudent Reader By Anth. Stafford his most humble Kinsman This Worke is much embelish'd by the Addition of many most Elegant Elegies penned by the most accute Wits of these Times LONDON Printed by J. Okes for Henry Seile at the Tigres Head in Fleet-street over against St. Dunstans Church 1640. To my much honour'd Lord Thomas Lord Howard chief of the Howards Earle of Arundell and Surrey Earle Marshall of England Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter and one of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Councell c. My very good Lord THe Fame of your Lordships Heroick Vertues invites me to present to your gracious acceptance this Treatise of which Honour is the Theam Indeed to whom more fitly can shee make her addresse then to your Lordship through whose Veins she runs from whose Bosom shee flows in whose Actions shee shines and by whose Protection shee is secured from the insolent Affronts of the Vulgar Being distressed shee makes You her faire Sanctuarie being wounded she makes you her soveraigne Balme Nay which draweth neere to a wonder many put their Honour into Your hands esteeming it more safe there then in their owne This is the first cause of my Dedication The next is that the true Child of Honour the deplored Subject of this Book was a Debtor to Your Lordship for his Education whose Advancement in Vertue Honour and Estate You made the greatest part of Your Studie And to say the Truth where could such a Guardian be found for him as Your Lordship since between the renowned Ancestours of You both Vertue and Bloud hath long since engendred a strict Friendship and between whom there was a neare similitude of good and evill Destiny both having amply shared of Infortunity and Glory I may adde that there cannot be a more lovely Sight then to behold an ancient lofty Cedar sheltring with his Branches from the Rage of weather a Young one of the same Kinde aspiring to the same Height had not the Frost of Death immaturely nipt this Noble Plant it were an Heresie to doubt that he would have flourisht under the care of a Lord whose Vertue is too immense for one Region to containe and whose Perfections are so many and so transcendent that they are able not onely to adorn these more Polisht Parts of the World but to civilize also the more Barbarous and to make an Athens of Madagascar The Oblation of my Teares and Supplications to God not availing to keep him here J have sent my Vowes after him and have given him a Funerall Equipage consisting of the Testimonies of brave good and knowing Men which will eternize him on Earth as his Goodnesse will in Heaven I confesse freely I was unwilling to leave him to the Mercy of some grosly ignorant Chronologer of the Times in whose Rubbish Posteritie might unhappily have found him lying more ruin'd then his glorious Predecessours were by the Tyranny of Time or the Cruelty of Princes Now in the last place I must most humbly beseech Your Lordship to take notice that his whole Name have made an affectionate but an imprudent Choice of me to be their weak Oratour to render Your Lordship submissive and due thanks for the Good You did or intended him and withall to make You a Religious Promise of their Prayers to God and their Prayses to Men as in particular I doe of the vowed faithfull service of Your Lordships most humble loyall Servant Anthony Stafford To the Vertuous and excellent Lady the Countesse of Arundell MADAM THE causes why I make this Dedication apart to Your Ladyship are divers The first is that sweete Lord the lamented Subject of this Booke in whose praise my Muse ending will expire like a Phoenix in a Perfume Hee was extreamly oblig'd to Your Ladyship in particular and therefore You deserve particular and infinite thankes from all of his Blood and Name of which I am one who have ever had your Vertues in admiration The second is that You Madam are none of those Romance Ladyes who make Fiction and Folly their Study and Discourse and appeare wise onely to Fooles and Fooles to the wise By reading nothing else but Vanity they become nothing else themselves They make a more diligent enquiry after the deedes of Knights and Ladies errant than after the Acts of Christ and his Apostles The losse of their time is their just punishment in that they spend a whole Life in reading much and yet is that much nothing But you Madam are capable of the most profound grave Misteries of Religion and daily peruse and meditate Bookes of Devotion You despise the bold Adventures of those Female Follies and piously surveigh the lives of the Female Saints You have render'd yourselfe a most accomplish'd Lady on Earth by imitating our blessed Lady which is in Heaven who as she was here the first Saint of the Militant Church so is she there the first of the Church Triumphant having learn't that she spent al her houres in works of Charity you trace her steps knowing that Shee and Vertue trod but one path Hence it comes that you are at no time so angry as with the losse of an oportunity to succour the distressed and that you are as indefatigable in doing good as heaven in motion Hence it is that the impetuous force of a Torrent may bee as well stopped as the constant flood of your goodnesse which never stayes till it have water'd and relieved all within its Ken commendable either for Knowledge or Vertue My third and last scope in placing your Character in the Front of this Treatise is that like a Starre it may strike a lustre throughout this Booke and by its light chase away the darknesse Oblivion would else cast upon it Questionlesse it will breede a holy emulation in any of your Sexe who shall here learne that there is a Lady whose vertues are come to the Age of Consistence and can grow no further and from whom not only her posterity but her Ancestors also receive honour They in this resembling the Morne who though she precedes the Sun receives her splendour from him Thus sweet thus excellent Madam I have received you from those who have beene truly happy in being daily witnesses of all your Words and Actions I conclude with this protestation made in me by Truth her selfe that I am so constant an honourer I had almost said an Adorer of Vertue whereever I finde it especially when

acted against himselfe he could freely pardon but those which were directed against the Majesty and dignity of his Maker he could not endure In such a case a holy Fury becomes the Child of God It favour'd in his opinion of more piety and wisedome to overcome a slight injury that reached not to his Parentage or Religion with silence than with a tart replye having found in Story that small words have overthrowne great Cities No wrong being equall to that which is done with reproach and contumely in that to an Heroicke Spirit the losse of blood is not so grievous as that of Reputation We will now descend from the Divine to the Morall Vertues amongst which Valour according to the generall vulgar beliefe is the first required in a Lord or Cavallier Therefore the Poets feigne the god of Warre himselfe to bee borne in Thrace because the people of that Country are hardy and couragious This was to denote that Fortitude usuall resides amongst men of a generous and lofty straine whose Education leads them to knowledge in good Letters which at once informes them of the Renown of their Ancestors and that the image of Fame was ever placed before the Temple of Mars to intimate that the great exploits of daring and undaunted men are by her carried into every corner of the earth It will not bee amisse here to insert the judgements of the Fathers of the Church passed on this vertue St. Austin shall be the Chorus Qui vera virtuta fortis est nec temerè audet nec in inconsultè timet He who is truely valorous neither dares rashly nor feares unadvisedly That of St. Hierome deserves our observation Fortitudo via Regia est aqua declinat ad dextram qui temerarius est pertinax ad sinistram qui formodolosus est pavidus Fortitude is the Kings high way from which he swarves on the right hand who is foole hardy and obstinate He on the left hand who is cowardly and fearefull Wisely and pertinently Cassiodorus Vir vocatus a viribus qui nescit in adversis tolerādo deficere aut in prosperis aliqua elatione se jactare sed animo stabili defixus et Coelestium rerum contemplatione firmatur manet semper in pavibus Man is so called from his strong and manly mind which knowes not how to faint in suffering adversity nor to boast insult in prosperity but fixed in a stable resolution and confirmed by the contemplation of heavenly things remayns evermore fearelesse The Heathens themselves differd not in opinion from these holy men as Cicero testifies in his Rhetoricks Sicut scientia remota justitia caliditas potius quàm sapientia appellanda est sic animus ad periculum paratus si sua cupiditate non aliena utilitate impellitur Temeritatis potius nomen habet quam Fortitudinis As Knowledge not accompanied with Justice is rather to be called Craft then Wisdome so a minde readie to encounter danger if it be driven thereunto by its owne desire and pleasure not the publick profit meriteth rather the name of Temerity then Valour In the same place hee thus defines Fortitude Fortitudo est immobilis inter adversa gloriosa animi claritudo res arduas pulchrè administrans quae nec adversis infestando frangitur nec prosperis blandiendo elevatur Fortitude is an unmoved glorious serenity of the mind fairly administring things difficult which is neither broken nor dejected with the frowns of Fortune nor puffed up with her smiles This Vertue is justly admir'd of all truly understood and practised but by a few Some think it valour to kill themselves some to injure and provoke others and almost all believe that a valiant man ought to feare nothing For the first that a man ought not to lay violent hands on himselfe all good Christians conclude Aristotle thus cryes this self-murther done Mollitudinis est laboriosa fugere It argues a man of Effeminacie to seek by Death to flie from the troubles and labours of this life This Philosopher and the Pythagoreans held that as a souldier ought not to leave his station without the command of his Generall So no man should dare to goe out of this life without the leave of God and Nature that gave it him Wee will therefore spare the proofe of a thing so universally granted by all Christians and many Philosophers But withall the strength of Divinity and Philosophy I shall never bee able to convince the greater part of Mankind of another errour almost as damnable as this and that is a foolish and pernicious Tenent that they may lawfully send Challenges and accept of them though the occasion of the quarrell be Wine Dice or prostituted Women Nay many a man is the Martyr of Temperancie and is kill'd because hee will not excessively drinke I knew two Gentlemen of great qualitie and little wit fall out in a Taverne upon a protestation of the greatnesse of their mutuall love each to other In this ardencie each strove for prioritie in affection One said Thou art dearer to me then I to thee whereupon the other replied with the Lie and was run thorough in the place where he stood Monsieur de la Noue a g●●lant and learned French Captaine demonstrates the misery of these Duels upon slight occasions by an infortunitie that befell himselfe in the like case Hee being importun'd by a Gentleman of his Nation not Acquaintance to be his Second willingly and thankfully condiscended to his Request for indeed the French think themselves never so much honour'd as when their friends value them at so high a rate as to put their Honours and Lives into their custodie Well this brave Second associated his Principall into the Field where they were to fight two to two He no sooner arrived there but with grief and horrour hee beheld his neerest Kinsman and dearest friend hee had in the World ready to encounter him as being the opposite Second You may easily conceive what a combat there was in his noble brest betweene Honour and Affection but the former being a Tyrant quickly overcame and suppress'd the later and violently hal'd this great Commander to combate his Friend who there fell under his sword I will omit all other examples for all come short of this Non mediocris animi est fortitudo saith Saint Ambrose quae sola defendit ornamenta virtutum omnium Fortitude beares no meane dejected minde which alone defends the Graces and Ornaments of all the other Vertues Sure I am the most part of our Gentry put it to a cleane contrary use and exercise it onely in the defence of Vice and her deformed Litter These silly brothers of the Sword either by the force of Drinke Fury or Ignorance are rendred as stupid as the Natives of Barbary are with the excessive eating of Opium which hurries them into Quarrels that Grace and Nature both tremble at The Spartans ever before a battaile tempered and allaid the choler of