Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	exercise_v	good_a	great_a	252	4	2.0921	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91918	A treatise of humilitie. Published by E.D. parson (sequestred.); Ejercicio de perfección y virtudes cristianas. Part 2. Treatise 3. English	Rodríguez, Alfonso, 1526-1616.; E. D.; W. B.	1654 (1654)	Wing R1772A; Thomason E1544_2; ESTC R208942	125,984	263

joy in the good of your Neighbour when the sermon or other imployment hath succeeded wel and when you are esteemed and praised for it why should you not be glad of your own good when you having done what was in you are yet undervalued for your pain for this is better and more safe for you If you be glad when you have a great talent wherewith to do great things for the good of others why are yonnot glad of your own good and for your being left in contempt because God gave you no such talent If you be glad when you have much health and strength wherewith to labour hard for the good of others why should you not be glad when God is pleased that you should be sick and weak and be fit for nothing but to be laid in a corner without use for this is your profit and this will help you more towards humility and in this shall you please God more then if you were a great Preacher or a Wise active States man since his Wil is so Hereby it may be seen how much deceived they are who have lodged their eyes upon honour and the estimation of the World under colour forsooth that is necessary for the doing good to others and under this pretence they desire high place and honourable imployments and all that which looks like greatnes and so they fly from all that which is mean and poor for they make themselves beleeve that they were to be disauthorised thereby But in this is another deceit and a very great one that by the very thing whereby a man pretends to gain authority he looseth it and by that whereby he thought to loose it he shal gain it But now laying this last reason vvhich is the chief aside and to consider the thing in question by the vvay of prudence and humane reason you cannot employ a more efficatious means to gain authority and opinion amongst your Neighbours and to do good to souls then to exercise your selves in these things which seem poor and base such as are to Catechnize Children in a low way of short questions and answers to teach or to see them taught the first principies of good Religion and manners daily to visit the sick the poor and ignorant and humbly and kindly to instruct comfort and quicken them as occasion is offered And to do these things so much the more by hovv much the more your parts are greater The reason of this is because the World doth so hugely esteem of honor and estimation and of things vvhich are high in order to that end as that the thing of the vvhole World vvhich it admires most is the man vvho despises that and to see that one vvho might be used in high and honourable imployments doth choose to passe his hours in things that are poor and mean and thus they grow to frame a great conceit and estimation of the sauctity of such Persons and accept of that Doctrine vvhich they teach as if it came immediately to them from Heaven This is that kind of Authority vvhereof men have need that so they may be able to do good to souls this is the estimation and opinion vvhich follows humble men and belongs to Saints and Evangelical Preachers and this in a word is that which we are to procure For as for those other Authorities and reputations and punctilios which carry a smack and savour of the World with them they do great hurt and they disedifie our Neighbours very much Upon those words of Saint John I seek not mine own glory there is one that seeketh and judgeth John 8.50 A Doctor saith thus very well Since our Heavenly Father procures and seeks our honor and our glory our selves have no need to take care thereof Take you care to humble your selves and to be such as you ought and as for any such estimation and authority whereof you think you may have need for the good of souls leave you that to God for even wherby you shall most humble and abase your selves thereby will God raise you most and indue you with another manner of estimation in the World then that which you would ever be able to obtain for your selves by these other humane diligences and devises CHAP. XXVI Of the third degree of Humility THe third degree of Humility is when a man possessing great vertues and gifts of God and being in great honor and estimation grows not as all proud thereby nor attributes any thing to himself but refers and ascribes it all to the true fountain thereof which is God from whom every good and perfect gift proceeds This third degree of Humility saith Bonaventure belongs to high and perfect men and by how much higher they are so much the more low do they humble themselves That a man who is imperfect and faulty should know and esteem himself for such is no great matter It is commendable and good but it is no wonderful thing any more then it is for the son of a Plough man not to desire to be held for the Kings son or a poor man for poor or a sick man for sick and that others may hold them for such as they know themselves to be but that a rich man should account himself poor and the great man make himself little and so conform himself to mean persons this indeed deserves to be accounted strange He saith that it is not to be wondred at that a man who is imperfect and faulty should hold himself for imperfect and faulty nay rather it were to be wondred at if being as he is he should hold himself to be perfect and good for it is as if being full of leaprousie he should take himself to be found But that he who is mightily advanced in vertue and possesses many gifts of God and is really very great in his divine presence should yet hold himself for little this indeed is great Humility and worth the wondring at Saint Bernard saith A great and rare vertue it is that a man should do great things and yet not hold himself for great that others should evidently see his sanctity and yet that it should lye bid from him that he should be admirable in the eyes of others and contemptible in his own I esteem this more siath he then all the other vertues which he can have This Humility was found after a most perfect manner in the most Blessed Virgin who knowing that she was chosen for the Mother of God did acknowledg her self with most profound humility to be his servant and slave Behold the handmaid of the Lord saith Saint Bernard God having chosen her to so great an honour and for so high a dignity as to be his Mother she cals her self his slave and being celebrated by the mouth of Saint Elizabeth for blessed amongst all Women she ascribed not to her self any glory for all these greatnesses which were in her but she gave them all back again to God exalting and