Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	father_n	person_n	trinity_n	2,522	5	9.8786	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26623	The paradise of the soul: or, A little treatise of vertues. Made by Albert the Great, Bishop of Ratisbon, who died in the year 1280. Translated out of Latin into English, by N.N.; Paradisus animae. English.	Albertus, Magnus, Saint, 1193?-1280.; N. N.	1682 (1682)	Wing A875H; ESTC R6662	67,532	252

old to wit that of Arrius who denied the Son to be coeternal and consubstantial with the Father And that of Sabellius who confounded the Persons in the Trinity putting only a nominal difference whereas they truly differ in their Properties For the Father properly has Innascibility the Son properly Nascibility the Holy Ghost Procession CHAP. XXXIV Of Discretion TRUE Discretion is prudently to judge betwixt the Creator and the Creature what the Creator is and what the Creature Also to discern what is good what better and what the best of all what is bad what worse what the worst of all How much God is to be desired and how much Evil to be detested Also what Reverence one ought to have to his Superior what Clemency and Compassion to his Inferior and what Society to his Equal how he ought to behave himself to the Dead how to the Living how to his Predecessors and how to those that are to succeed him How to his Friends that they be loved in God and how to his Enemies that they be loved for God How secretly before God and how openly before men What refection is to be given to the Flesh and what to the Spirit What Cloths he is to wear When he is to eat when to drink when to abstain and how much and from what meats when to Watch and when to sleep and how much and how long When to pray when to weep and when to do any work How to behave himself to praise and how to reprove When to speak and when to be silent how much for what causes with whom in what place and at what time When to receive when to retain and when to give and how much and to whom and and at what time To order and prudently to discern Concerning all these things is the work of true Discretion This Vertue is the mistress of all Virtues appointing unto them all their Measure and Order But where discretion is not there charity does not observe Order What is to be loved in the first place and what in the last nor measure what is to be loved less and what more S. Augustin testifies where Humility is too much observed the Autority of him that rules is broken There obedience is blind and foolish where one believes he is to obey even in ill things There Liberality is too profuse when one gives without Necessity to Stage-players Where Discretion is not there Fear is dejected into Despair and Hope is turned into Presumtion There Justice shews too great Severity There Patience Mercy Meekness Benignity Goodness dissemble unjust things There Religion is dissolved into Licentiousnes Truth falsified Chastity violated Maturity made light Constancy quite changed This Virtue encreases by the failing of other Virtues For when a man often falls from Humility into Pride or Vain-glory from Charity into Envy from Patience into Anger from Meekness into Rancor from Fervor into Tepidity from Chastity into carnal Concupiscence from love of Poverty into Covetousness from Peace into Disquiet from Union into Discord from Obedience into Rebellion from matutiry into Levity from Religion into Dissolution from Silence into Talkativeness or Detraction from spiritual Love into Carnal from Hope into Presumption from a just Fear into Humane and Servile from Justice into Severity from Mercy into Softness from Constancy into Mutableness from Truth into Falseness then indeed one is made more cautious and more sollicitous and discreet in all things Helps to true Discretion are diligent reading and meditation in the Holy Scriptures continual search into the Examples of Saints frequent Counsel from discreet Persons according to that Tob. 4. Alwayes ask counsel of the wise Whence our Lord to Paul Acts 9. Arise and enter into the City and it shall be told thee what thou art to do In like manner he sent the Lepers Luke 17. Go shew your selves to the Priests Not to one only but to more that if one be less discreet another more discreet may be sought He has an Argument of true Discretion who does all his works with the counsel of the Discreet whom if he cannot always have he discusses all his Works and Affairs in his own Conscience before God with true Discretion and mature Deliberation according to that Eccles 32. Son do nothing without counsel and thou shalt not repent thee afterwards Yet let him not in this neither always believe his own Conscience unless he have the manifest testimony of the Scripture Neither let him by any means wrest the Scripture to his own sense but conform his sense to the Scripture He has an Argument of Indiscretion who above his strength labours in Watchings Fastings Prayers Disciplines and Tears destroying himself in a short time he is made unprofitable in the Service of God for many years But alas there are few in our days guilty of this Excess He has an Argument of false Discretion who being careful not to destroy his Body neglects nothing which makes for its commodity saying to the Lord My Strength I will keep for thee Psal 58. And in the mean time the Spirit faints and pines away for want of spiritual Food which by no means can be had without Labour whence St. Augustin Whilst we fear the weakness of our Flesh we neglect the health of our Soul Because the Flesh if it be daintily fed kills the Spirit As the Moth eats up the Wool and the Fire consumes Wood Hey and Straw so the rebellious and dainty Flesh burns up and consumes the Soul Such an one does not consider that at length his Flesh shall be destroyed although it should enjoy all sorts of Commodities As Secular People giving all pleasure to their Bodies do not serve God the more but are more frequently sick However it is better that the Spirit should live replenished with Grace in a languid Body than that it should be languid or dead in a sound Body CHAP. XXXV Of Congratulation TRUE Congratulation which regards God is to rejoyce with God for all his Beatitude and eternal innate Perfection to wit for his Omnipotency Wisdom Goodness c. and that he wants nothing but is sufficient for himself and all Creatures Also to rejoyce with God for the orderly Disposition of Heaven and Earth and of all things that are in them and for all his Works from the beginning of the World to the end thereof especially for the works of his Incarnation Circumcision Passion Resurrection Ascension and Mission of the Holy Ghost and for all his Judgments manifest and secret about Devils about Souls in Hell Lymbus and Purgatory and about wicked men in the World Also to rejoyce with God for whatsoever Praise and Honour he has from Angels and Saints in Heaven and from Men on Earth True Congratulation to our Neighbours is to rejoyce with all the Angels and Saints for their glory in Heaven to rejoyce with the B. Virgin Mary with the Patriarchs and Prophets with the Apostles and all the Elect with all holy men

he reveal his secret to his Servants But he revealed all his Will and all Perfection to his Apostles by his only begotten Son as he says Jo. 15. All things whatsoever which I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you To the end that they might reveal the same to Posterity which also they have faithfully done For their sound went out into all the Earth and their Words unto the ends of the World Psal 18. But amongst the Apostles he revealed and declared his greatest Secrets to S. John the Evangelist and to S. Paul Amongst other things he revealed to them the eight Beatitudes saying Mat. 5. Blessed are the poor in Spirit c. Blessed are the Meek c. which Beatitudes contain in them great Perfection and declare the perfect Will of God There is a difference betwixt Contemplation Meditation and Cogitation for in Cogitation the Mind wanders in Meditation it finds out something in Contemplation it admires Cogitation is without Labour and without Fruit Meditation is with Labour and with Fruit Contemplation is without Labour and with Fruit. We are brought to the Contemplation of God by three Degrees concerning which St. Gregory The first is That the Soul recollect it self to it self The Second is that it see it self what it is thus recollected The Third is That it arise above it self and submit it self attending to the Contemplation of it's invisible Maker But it can by no means recollect it self to it self unless it have first learnt to restrain the Phantasms of terrestrial and celestial Images from the Eye of the Mind unless it have learnt to reject and trample upon whatsoever shall occur to it's Thought from the corporeal Sight Hearing Smelling Tasting or Touching that it may seek it self such within as it is without those for whilst it thinks upon those things it turns over within it self as it were certain shadows of Bodies Therefore all those things are to be driven away from the Eyes of the Mind by the hand of Discretion that the Soul may consider it self such as it is created under God above the Body that being vivificated by the Superior it may vivificated the Inferior which it administers We often will consider the invisible nature of Almighty God but we are not able and the Soul wearied with those difficulties returns to it self and makes to it self of it self degrees of Ascensions that first of all if it be able it may consider it self and then find out that Nature which is above it as far as it is able But if our Mind shall be dispersed in carnal Images it is by no means sufficient to consider it self or the Nature of the Soul because by as many Thoughts as it is lead it is as it were blinded by so many Obstacles The first Degree therefore is that the Soul c. The Motives to Contemplation are the ineffable Sweetness which is there perceived the admirable Perfection which is there learn'd the principal of all Beatitude which is there found for the Fountain of all Beatitude the most High God is there known and what is known that is loved and what is truly loved is desired and laboured for that it may be obtained and what is industriously laboured for that is at length acquired and when at length it shall be acquired it is possessed with endless Delight Of this St. Bernard A Soul which has once learnt of our Lord and has received of him to enter into her self and in her most inward recesses to pant after the presence of God and to seek his Face alwayes for God is a Spirit and they who seek him must walk in the Spirit and not in the Flesh that they may live according to the Flesh Such a Soul I say I know not whether she would count it more horrible and painful to experiment Hell it self for a time than after having tasted the Sweetness of this spiritual Study to go out again to the Allurements or rather to the Troubles of the Flesh and to return to the insatiable Curiosity of the Senses Ecclesiastes saying chap. 2. The Eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the Ear with hearing For hear an experienced man what he says Thou art good says he O Lord to those who hope in thee to the Soul which seeks thee From this Good if any one should have endeavoured to have averted that holy Soul I believe he would hardly have taken it otherwise than if he should have seen himself to have been cast out of Paradise and from the very Entrance of Glory Hear yet another like unto this My Heart says he has said to thee my Face has sought thee thy Face O Lord will I seek Whence he said But it is good for me to adhere to God And also speaking to his Soul he says Be converted O my Soul into thy Rest because the Lord has done well unto thee I say therefore unto you that there is nothing which one who has received this Favour does so much fear as lest being left by the Divine Grace it should be necessary for him to go out again to the Consolations yea the Desolations of the Flesh and again to suffer the Tumults of his carnal Senses In this Contemplation was St. Augustin when he said But it displeased me that I lived in the World and it was a great burden to me my sensual Desires not now inflaming me as they were wont with the hope of Honour and Money to endure that so grievous Servitude For now those things did not delight me by reason of thy sweetness and of the beauty of thy House which I loved He has an Argument of true Contemplation who is weary of living in this miserable World saying with B. Tobias chap. 3. It is better for me to dye than to live And with H. Job chap. 10. My Soul is weary of my Life And with St. Paul Rom. 7. Vnhappy Man that I am who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death And he who thirsts after the Fountain of Life saying with the Psalmist As the Hart thirsts after Fountains of Water so thirsts my Soul after thee O God Psal 41. Whence St. Gregory A contemplative Life is to retain indeed in the heart the Love of God and our Neighbour but to rest from exterior Action and to inhere only in the desire of the Creator so that nothing is now to be done but all Cares being trampled under Foot the Soul burns with desire to see the Face of it's Creator so that now it knows how to bear with Grief the weight of the corruptible Flesh and with all it's Forces to desire to be present amidst the sweet-singing Quires of Angels and to be mixed with the caelestial Citizens to rejoyce before God for eternal Incorruption He has an Argument of false Contemplation who holds something concerning God or some Perfection of God contrary to the Holy Scriptures which notwithstanding he temerariously defends by Reasons And hence came Heresies of