Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	work_v	world_n	write_v	64	3	4.6951	4	false

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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

than the open Cruelty of Decius or Dioclesian Hospitals another work of Magnificence Secondly HE will erect Hospitals for the Poor and Maimed Now this sort of Magnificence doth very much serve the Publick Interest for those who do these things for the sake of their own private Fancies and not for the common Good are Magnificent as some of the Church of Rome are Charitable when they erect Sanctuaries for wilful and Capital Malefactors to fly to when they found such Monasteries as are the Nurseries of a blind Devotion But to be vertuously Magnificent is with daily Provisions to feed the Hungry not the superstitious to entertain those that are unfit for Labour not loitering Wanderers or Pilgrims Thirdly THE Man who deserves praise for his Magnificence takes care to provide those Houses in which the most notorious Offenders may either be corrected or secured that those who are not so far gone in Wickedness as to be past Remedy may be called back again and amended by just and necessary Chastisement that those who have broken through all the Fences of Law may be taken out of Human Society which they would otherwise destroy and bring into Confusion HAPPY the miserable The go … of Mankind promoted by this Virtue who partake of these Works of Magnificence more happy they who lay out their Money and Revenues for the publick benefit of Mankind to instruct the ignorant in Schools to heal the diseased in Hospitals to lash the back of the Sinner in Bridewells and to cure the unsound mind in Bethlem's NOW the Works of Magnificence whether they be publick or whether they be private they are to be performed with all Pomp and State They are especially seen in Feasts and Entertainments either of our Friends or of Men of the highest Quality or else in building stately Houses Castles Churches and Theatres That Man who knows how in the most seemly fashion to manage these Undertakings is truly Magnificent The Errours of such as are Magnificent BUT here the Magnificent Person is very prone to run into a very ill Extreme Having great things much in his thoughts his mind is apt to fly too high out of the reach of Prudence then He falls to the building of Oblelikes Colossus's and Pyramids This Distemper swell'd the Heads of many in old time who spent great Sums upon magnificent Piles vast and sumptuous Statues great and mighty Vanities For Solomon the best Judg of these things hath passed this Sentence upon them that they are all so The Judgment of Solomon upon these … ngs For Eccl. 2. After He had made great Works planted Vineyards and had built stately Houses made Pools of Water for the Trees that bring forth Fruit got large and numerous herds of great and small Cattle had gathered mighty heaps of Silver and Gold and filled his Treasury therewith upon a review of all the works his Hands had wrought and upon all the pains He had taken He concludes with the truest judgment that ever was pronounced upon the World that all was Vanity Whereupon it may be supposed my Lord Bacon made this wise Observation that Truth is a a naked and open Day-light which doth not shew the Masks and Triumphs of the World half so stately as Candle-lights do and no man doubts that if there were taken out of men's minds vain Opinions flattering Hopes false valuations of Things and the imaginations of Grandeur but it would leave the minds of many who make a great Figure poor shrivel'd things full of melancholy and indisposition and unpleasing to themselves BUT there is a way to lay up our Treasure in Heaven The deeds of Charity entitle us to Heaven to be magnificent on Earth and great in Heaven then this Blessedness must be gotten by doing such remarkable deeds of Charity as I have mentioned and if we do so our Names shall endure for ever when Mausoleum's are buried and Pyramids are mouldred into dust It is Aristotle's Notion in his Epistle to Philip that the acts of Beneficence have something in them equal to God and the whole life of mankind was comprised in conferring and returning Benefits 'T is true there have been some morose Spirits such as Chrysippus and Seneca who have made plausible Harangues against Glory but in the very doing this they have appeared to aim at it Whereas it is the spur to good Works if it be made use of by one who hath passed through the Temple of Virtue to that of Honour And a man may with as much reason argue against Eating and Drinking as endeavour to banish the love of Glory that arises from the Works of Magnificence unless this did rouze the Souls of men perhaps a barbarous Sloth or a brutish stupidity would soon overspread the World no care would be taken to promote or sustain the Seats of ingenuous Arts or the Tribunals of State This carries Men upon the noblest and most Heroick Attempts and Human Nature without it would be a sluggish and unactive thing IT was the Thirst after Glory together with some private Ambition that incited the Egyptian Kings to be at so vast charge in the building the Pyramids and the Egyptians of lower Quality spared for no cost to cut out Caves or Dormitories in the Lybian Deserts which by the Christians are now adays called the Mummies and all this was undertaken for the sake of an Opinion amongst them that so long as the Body endured so long the Soul continued with it not as animating it but as unwilling to leave her former Habitation Why should not the same Thirst for the Glory of the Christian Religion move us to do such Works as may shine before Men and glorifie our Father which is in Heaven IT is not empty Fame that we must seek for it is not with Wind that we must fill our selves We want a more solid Substance to repair us A man pinched with Hunger would be very unwise to seek rather to provide himself of a gay Dress than a good Meal We are to look after that whereof we have most need and that is Virtue When this is acquired then the outward Ornaments of Magnificence may be made use of Epicurus his opinion of Magnificence Which were so despised by Epicurus that He made this one of the Precepts of his Sect Conceal thy Life He would not have his Disciples in any sort to govern their Actions by the common Reputation or vulgar Applause But Horace was of another Opinion who says Paulùm Sepultae distat inertiae Calata virtus Concealed Virtue differs not much from dead Sloth which if it were absolutely true then a man would be no further concerned to keep his Mind in order which is the true Seat of Virtue than as the actions of it are to be seen by others whereas Glory is but the shadow of true Virtue For Repulsae nescia sordidae Intaminatis fulget honoribus Nec sumit aut ponit secures Arbitrio popularis

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