Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	david_n	jonathan_n	saul_n	1,059	5	10.1589	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59652	Moral vertues baptized Christian, or, The necessity of morality among Christians by William Shelton, M.A., late fellow of Jesus Colledge in Cambridge, and now vicar of Bursted Magna in Essex.	Shelton, William, d. 1699.	1667 (1667)	Wing S3099; ESTC R37384	107,365	208

they lived have had much of their will and fancy and corrupt Affections but little 1 Sam 18. 20. ch of their Reason and so when the Evil Spirit is upon Saul it is no wonder if he cast a javelin at David and afterwards at Jonathan his best Friends but when his Reason returns to him he acknowledges his errour and says that David was more righteous then he In like manner 1 Sam. 24. many Men hate those Vertues which are according to Gods own heart as David was but this is during the prevalency of the Evil Spirit when they come to die as the Soul is loosning from the Body so by degrees they are wrought off from the deceits of sense and the temptations of the World when they are at Deaths door and see it opened for them then they have another representation of themselves Sculls and dead Mens Bones and the Worms that are to feed upon them and besides a dismal pre-occupation of their thoughts concerning the dreadful day of Judgement these things alter the case Then the Men who would sometimes fill themselves with costly Wine and Ointments and crown themselves with Rose-buds Wisd 20. to be partakers of their wantonness c. yet shall be afraid and remember their sins and Wisd 4. their own wickedness shall come before them to convince them Yea they shall change their minds and sigh for grief of mind and say within themselves This is he whom we sometimes had in Wisd 5. derision and in a Parable of reproach We fools counted his life madness and his end without Honour How is he counted among the Children of God and his portion is among the Saints If this be Apocryphal yet it is good sense and the more likely to be true because Canonical Scripture gives us a like instance wicked Balaam did even before his death desire to dye the death of the Righteous and that his last end Numb 23. should be like his Herein are many wicked men like Balaam of whom we read this passage Balaam the Son of Beor hath said and Numb 24. the man whose eyes are open hath said Dixit vir occlusus oculo says Montanus according to the letter of the Hebrew The Margin of our Translation hath this Exposition of it The Man who had his eyes shut but now open There is a beauty and lustre in Vertue against which Vitious Men shut their eyes and will not see but Isa 26. they shall see and be ashamed When death is closing their bodily eyes till the Resurrection then the understanding opens and discerns the folly of the fore-past life when it is growing too late to amend then Men begin to Repent and proceed thus far at least to acknowledge they have done ill and to owne a goodness in Vertue and an agreeableness to their natures and right reason Sect. 2 This observation is common and of easie notice taking that many prophane Men are thus affected when they dye But it is true withal that this General Rule among others hath its Exceptions The Consciences of some Men are past feeling while they live and are not awakened when they dye As Pope Boniface the 8th lived like a Lyon and dyed like a Dog So is many a wicked Man in this sense Primus ad extremum similis sibi From first to last one and the same He lives in sin dyes without shame They live like Beasts and so they dye they sin like Lions boldly and undauntedly and fiercely they dye like Dogs wretchedly and churlishly and basely without the understanding of a Man to consider whither they are going without Faith in God or love to Heaven or Fear of Hell Yet notwithstanding all this as we say of Brute Beasts that they have some semblances of Reason in many of their Actions of which Plutarch give many instances in his Book De solertiâ Ammalium so these Brutish Men while they live have some Candle-light of their understandings The Spirit Prov. 10. of a man is the Candle of the Lord not extinct though it be shut up in a dark Lanthorn and do not discover it self to others unless it be at unawares Sect. 3 For 2. There are some certain times and seasons wherein the most vitious persons that are acknowledge the Vertues contrary to their practice to be agreeable to right Reason for which there are these Evidences Many Men who will not leave sin yet will dissemble it It is not much more common for a Malefactor at the Bar to plead not Guilty then for a Drunkard when he is sober to deny that he was drunk And so they that will swear will lye and deny that they did swear and he that would revenge himself upon his Neighbour will not owne it to be Revenge he that would cheat his Neighbour would be thought an honest Man c. wherefore now is all this were not these vices contrary to right Reason and the Vertues they oppose agreeable thereto Why should any Man be ashamed of that which he doth not believe to be unlawful If it be a Vertue to be Drunk or Kn●vish why do not Men avow and profess it and make as much conscience of being Drunk as others do to be Sober Herein did Gehazi Ananias and Sapphira and others betray themselves when a Man denies a fact which he knows himself to have committed he is therein a self-condemned Man He denies it because he is loth to owne it and therefore Men do not owne their sins because they know them to be sins and the Vertues that are contrary to them to be good and reasonable Actions Sect. 4 If it happen that wicked Men do for some time forbear their excess of wickedness and do some good action If a riotous debauched person continues sober whether for want of opportunity or ability to sin or if because others are he be charitable to the Poor or forgive an Injury or the like how quickly doth he proclaim his Righteousness and take occasion to commend himself As Jehu would 2 Kings 10. have his zeal for the Lord taken notice of when yet he was but a Hypocrite And the Pharisees likewise Hypocrites would sound a Mat. 6. Trumpet when they gave their Alms Such Hypocrites still there are who in a sense but little commendable would make a Vertue of necessity because they could not sin they would be thought Vertuous because they did not A Knave that is made to be Vertuous against his will how ready is he to alledge that as an Argument for himself and to boast that he did no wrong This supposeth Vertue to be praise-worthy else why should they praise themselves for it when yet they are not Vertuous out of love to it but only because they cannot safely commit vice Sect. 5 Yea once more It is evident that wicked Men believe Vertue to be reasonable and good by the apprehensions they have of it in others especially when it makes for their