Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	object_n	reason_n	use_v	10,092	5	11.0614	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45744	A treatise of moral and intellectual virtues wherein their nature is fully explained and their usefulness proved, as being the best rules of life ... : with a preface shewing the vanity and deceitfulness of vice / by John Hartcliffe ...	Hartcliffe, John, 1651-1712.	1691 (1691)	Wing H971; ESTC R475	208,685	468

best and most desirable Doctrine in the World with the vainest Enthusiasm now by the Principles of Reason we are not to understand the Grounds of any Man's Philosophy nor the critical Rules of Syllogism but those fundamental Notices that God hath planted in our Souls whereby we know that every thing is made for an End and every thing is directed to its End by certain Rules these Rules in Creatures of Understanding and Choice are Laws and in Transgressing these is Vice and Sin AS for Arguments from Scripture against the Use of Reason 't is alledged that God will destroy the wisdom of the wise and that the world by wisdom knew not God But by this wisdom is not meant the Reason of Mankind but the Traditions of the Jews the Philosophy of the Disputing Greeks and the Policy of the Romans all which the Apostle sets at naught because they were very contrary to the Simplicity and Holiness to the Self-denyal and Meekness of the Gospel Secondly IT is said that the natural Man receiveth not the Things of the Spirit of God for they are Foolishness to him neither can he know them because they are Spiritually discerned by which Words nothing more is intended than that a Man who is guided purely by natural Reason and is not enlightned by Divine Revelation cannot understand matters of pure Revelation but he thinks them absurd and foolish till they are made known to him by the Revelation of the Spirit of God and when they are so nothing appears in the Mysteries of Religion but what is agreeable to the soundest Reason and Wisdom Thirdly IT is urged that our Reason is very liable to be misled by our Senses and Affections by our Interests and Imaginations so that many times we mingle Errours and false Conceits with the genuine Dictates of our Minds and appeal to them as the Principles of Truth when they are the false Conclusions of Ignorance and Mistake All that can be infer'd from hence is that we ought not to be too bold in defining Speculative and difficult Matters nor set our Reasonings against the Doctrines of Faith But this doth not tend to the Disreputation of Reason in the Object that is those Principles of Truth which are Written upon our Souls for if we may not use our Understandings Scripture it self will signifie either nothing at all or very little to us THEREFORE to decry the Use of Reason is to introduce Atheism The mischiefs of decrying the use of Reason for what greater advantage can the Atheist have against Virtue than that Reason is against the Precepts of it This will make our Religion depend upon a warm Fancy and an ungrounded Belief so that it can stand only till a new Conceit alter the Scene of Imagination Secondly TO decry the Use of Reason is to lay our selves open to infinite Follies and Impostures when every thing that is reasonable is called vain Philosopy and every thing that is sober carnal Reasoning This is the way to make up a Religion without Sense and without Moral Virtue This is to put out our Eyes that we may see and to hoodwink our selves that we may avoid the precipices of Vice Thus have all extravagancies been brought into Religion beyond the imaginations of a Feaver and the conceits of Midnight THE last and greatest obstacle to the Progress of moral Virtue is some Men's making Morality and Grace opposite to one another Grace and Morality are not opposites To divorce Grace from Virtue and to distinguish the spiritual Christian from the Moral Man is a modern invention for not one ancient Author that hath treated of our Religion did ever make any difference between the Nature of Moral Virtue and Evangelical Grace Evangelical Grace being nothing else in their account but Moral Virtue heightned by the Motives of the Gospel and the assistances of the Spirit both which are external Considerations to the Essence of the thing it self so that the Christian Institution does not introduce any new Duties distinct from the Eternal Rules of Morality but strengthens them by new Obligations and improves them by new Principles For THE Power to perform these Duties comes from the internal Operations of the holy Spirit which applies the Motives of Religion to our Minds and by them perswades us to every good Action that we are enlightned with the knowledg of Christ cometh of his Gift who disposeth us to learn the Truth that we attend to the Word of God and are wrought into a serious Temper that we are excited to good Resolutions and confirmed in them cometh of his Grace who putteth good thoughts into our minds thereby moveth our Wills and Affections most powerfully to every good Work or to every Moral Vertue which consists not only in the decency of outward behaviour but is a prevailing inclination of the mind to those Manners or that way of Life which is best for a reasonable Creature or it is an universal goodness of Manners in Mind and in Practice NOW it is named Virtue because the strength and vigour of a reasonable creature consisteth in a temper of Mind and course of Life agreeable to right Reason it is called Moral because it is conversant about the customary dispositions and actions of reasonable Creatures so those Laws that are given with rational inducements to Obedience are said to be Moral Laws as being proper and suitable to the nature of rational Beings to whom they are prescribed and this in opposition to the Laws of Motion and Matter by which God governs the rest of his Works for that Agent which hath no power over it self but acts because it must whatsoever laudable effects it may produce it is as uncapable of Morality as those senseless Machines are that move by the Laws of Matter and Motion NOW the duties required of us in the Covenant of Grace are Moral in the strictest Sense so that Holiness and Moral Vertue are in truth the same things diversly expressed for to do that which is good and to do it well is the sum of both and it is plain that those perfections in God which our Holiness is an imitation of are Justice Faithfulness and Truth his Patience Mercy and Charity his hatred of Sin and his love of Righteousness all which are Moral Perfections and therefore when in these things we are followers of God our imitation of him does necessarily become Moral Vertue and those Duties which work in us the nearest likeness to Christ Jesus are Meekness Humility Patience Self-denial contempt of the World readiness to pass by Wrongs to forgive Enemies to love and do good to all are all in the most proper sense Moral Vertues indeed to glorifie God in Jesus Christ is an end of Obedience which Nature teacheth not but being made known by Grace we are obliged to regard this end by the Rules of Morality which are derived from Christ and caused by the Spirit so that we have no reason to boast of their

in so many shapes that we may as well define the figure of the Air as tell what is is Leaving then this to your Imagination I shall shew that the practice of Vrbanity or Facetiousness Facetiousness breeds good Nature in Mankind First IS Lawful if it doth not touch upon Piety if it doth not disturb the peace if Justice and Charity are not entrench'd upon For Christianity doth allow of those Pleasures that serve for the innocent ease and refreshment of human Life And Vrbanitas reficit animos saith Quintilian conduces much to the breeding good Nature among us whereby our Conversation will be rendred profitable and dear to one another our cares will be allayed and our drooping Spirits raised But if we should be tied always to look dumpishly and never to shew an ingenuous Chearfulness our value for the Precepts of Christ would exceedingly languish Secondly IT is allowable when those things that are in themselves base and ridiculous are exposed to Contempt For where plain and blunt Arguments will not penetrate there Wit may which hath a keener edg so may reprove and instruct with such sharpness as may correct the Stupid and rouze the Negligent Thirdly It instructs or reproves better than Satyre IT may be a proper Remedy for some Maladies of men's minds as Salt is for cleansing some Sores For diverse Persons have such a peculiar Genius as that they will not abide a tart Admonition but will admit of a free Way of telling them their Faults and will amend upon it they love a jolly and gay Humour in their own Fashion they may be taught to love sober Thoughts they hate the formal Methods of Instruction and call it Pedantry but Reason under the disguise of Wit shall bring 'em to a better mind when in its Native plainness its Advices would have been despised Fourthly RAILERY is the best course we can take to confute many Errours For what shall we do else with those that deny the clear Principles of Reason to deal in earnest with them will but raise more the Conceit they have of themselves But there is a Way of Jesting that will subdue the obstinacy of the most perverse dash the impudence of the most petulant baffle the most captious Sophister and confound the most wanton Sceptick Fifthly The cause of Virtue may be maintained by it IT is the surest Defence against unjust Reproaches And if the Patrons of Vice and Errour have made way for their corrupt Notions by witty Conceits and Elegant Expressions Why may we not undertake the Cause of Virtue with the same Weapons especially when downright Reason is thought a heavy thing and men are so disposed to Mirth who by this means may be made to know that virtuous Men can speak pleasantly as well as judiciously And if Rhetorical Schemes Poetical Strains Allegories Fables and Parable may teach all the merry Fancies of the Facetious and Witty may adorn the Truth by instilling good Doctrines into the Head and moving good Passions in the Heart THUS we may render Facetiousness a Virtue but as it is commonly used it is far from being so Sundry Authors as Tully Quintilian and others of a later Stamp have framed us an Art of Jesting which if any one thinks fit to study He may learn the Times Places and Persons where and with whom jesting is comely If then a Person will keep himself from buffoonery absurd or scurrilous Jesting on one hand and on the other from clownish and unhandsom Discourse they praise him for a Wit and a pleasant Companion one that knows fairly and without offence to entertain And it is Aristotle's greatest Reason to prove Facetiousness to be a Virtue because it hath two Extremes the scurrilous and the rustical Humour Whereas both these and the medium too may be all vitious Physicians discoursing of Feavers which are called Synochi continued Feavers distinguish them into three kinds the first they call Monotoni when the Disease keeps all in one Tenour the second they call Anabatici when they grow unruly and encrease in harshness the third they call Paracmastici that is decreasing abating and coming to some mediocrity Notwithstanding this distinction more or less they are all Feavers still So it is in the case of Vrbanity Scurrility and Rusticity they may be all Vices in common Life And the Gravity of a well-tempered Man The usual way of Jesting do not become a Christian much more of a Christian will own no such Virtue as facetiousness as it is used in daily Conversation the Jester is only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fit to make others laugh Now Epictetus hath told us this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a place slippery and easily leading us into Idiotism and Folly as it doth when men think it a mark of a high Spirit to be an Atheist Gentility and Wit to droll upon Religion Whereas I appeal to all the Wise and sober World whether they that would make Sacred Persons and Things ridiculous are not infinitely so themselves It is true the World is much taken with this sort of Ribaldry and commends the man who is skill'd in it as a good Companion but in strictness of Life and Virtue we may not so account of it nobis alii rarò nos aliis nunquam risum pariamus is the good Council of Picus Mirandula and it is given in charge precisely by the last Canon of the third Council of Carthage si quis Clericus aut monachus verba scurrilia joculatoria risumque moventia loquetur acerrimè corripiatur WE can afford then no other place to Vrbanity in common Life than what is allowed to officious Lying in the foregoing Chapter it may be permitted sometimes for human Infirmity sake Religion a chearful thing And although some mistaken men are pleased to paint out Religion in sad and melancholy Shapes with sour and anxious Looks as an Enemy to all mirth and chearfulness yet there is nothing more noble and generous more courteous and affable more sober and rational than the Spirit of true Religion is therefore they are unpardonably base and disingenuous who would blast its Credit with the follies and deformities of Superstition as if it delighted in nothing but Sighs and Groans and discoloured Faces as if the Principles of true Goodness were unworthy the entertainment of a generous Mind when all this while they have in them all that is amiable and lovely all that is chearful and ingenuous all that is useful and profitable and whatever can advance our Content our Interest our Reputation or our Pleasure Wherefore that Religion and Reason may well agree in the case of facetiousness that it may not transgress the limits of Sobriety and be consistent with the tenour of a Christian's Duty that it may not fall under St. Paul's Censure of foolish talking and jesting which are not convenient We may conclude that such facetiousness is not unlawful as affords harmless Delight to Conversation