Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	act_n	grace_n	habit_n	906	5	9.7429	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43652	A discourse to prove that the strongest temptations are conquerable by Christians, or, A sober defence of nature and grace against the cavils and excuses of loose inconsiderate men in a sermon preach'd before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of London, and court of aldermen, the 14th of January, 1676/7 / by George Hickes ...	Hickes, George, 1642-1715.	1677 (1677)	Wing H1846; ESTC R34459	17,275	42

much to be condemned by the Verdict of right Reason as he that gives an Affront And therefore since 't is plain by these Examples that bare Reason and Moral Gallantry of Spirit have sometimes enabled Heathens and Mahumet ans to resist those Pains and Pleasures and Interests which as all men grant are the strongest Temptations to Sin is it not shameful Nonsense and horrid Impiety for Christians whom God without a just provocation never fails to support and assist with his Grace to magnifie the weakness of Humane Nature and the strength of these and the like Temptations with a Malicious design nor only to justifie themselves and excuse others but to Debauch Mankind to the utmost of their power and render the Christian the most grievous intollerable Religion that ever was in the World From whence I proceed to prove by Reason that no Trial or Temptation can happen to Men but such as is suitable to Humane Nature aided with Grace and such as any Christian that is true to his own endeavours and faithfully uses the restraining and assisting helps of God my not easily conquer and subdue My first Reason shall be taken from the consideration of the nature of Virtue and Grace which are nothing but an habitual power and ability in the Rational Soul of Man to bear all sensible Pain and Loss and forbear all sensible Pleasure and Profit out of love to Reason and the Righteous Laws of God This excellent spiritual power and ability of the Soul as far as it is Natural or acquired by our own Acts and Endeavours is of Moral consideration but as it is supernaturally wrought in the Soul or infus'd into it by the Spirit of God so far it is of Theological consideration and belongs not to Moralists but Divines But because Grace as all Men grant is the perfection of Nature and acquired Virtue is consistent with infus'd I have put them both together in one Definition in which Divines and Philosophers both agree But were it impossible or so exceeding difficult as some Men make it to resist Temptations this definition of Grace or Virtue would be but an useless fictitious notion and Divines and Philosophers from the beginning of the World would have been either Knaves or Fools All the excellent Sermons the former have made with so much eloquence and authority concerning Mortification Self-denial and Perseverance and all the brave Discourses the latter have penn'd with such admirable Reason and Rhetorick concerning Fortitude Temperance and Patience are idle unprofitable Harangues and as insignificant to the impotent Race and Nature of Man as the practical Rules of Dancing to a Cripple or a Lecture in Geometry to a natural Fool. In particular St. Paul who Magnifies the Grace of God so much in his Epistles and protests he took pleasure in bearing Reproaches Persecutions and Distresses for Christs sake This great Doctor and Saint who declar'd upon his own experience that he was alwaies most strong when he was most weak and that he could do and suffer all things through the strength he receiv'd from Christ must pass for a Cheat or Enthusiast if Men by the promised supports and assistance of Gods Grace be not able to resist Temptations unto Sin There was never yet in the Church of God a more apt Example to confirm this Doctrin I now maintain than this Apostle was for when the Jews and Gnosticks persecuted his righteous Soul with so much rage and violence as to make him call them the Messengers of Satan and compare the sharpness of the Persecution which they rais'd against him to a thorn in the flesh like a true Souldier of Christ he still resisted and held out but yet suspecting his own perseverance and fearing lest his Faith and Patience might at last fail he Prayed God thrice to remove the sharp Trials from him But God who knew whereof he was made better than he himself still continu'd them assuring the suffering Apostle that his concurrent Grace was sufficient for him and that his strength was made perfect in his weakness This relation the Apostle makes of himself is either true or false If false then he was either an Impostor or a Mad-man If he was Mad as the Festuses of this Age represent him to be how came he to speak the words of Truth and Soberness Hw came he to write such learned and profound Epistles and make such admirable defences for himself and the Christian Religion before so many Procurators and the Emperour himself at Rome How came he to be so very Wise upon occasion as to plead the Priviledge of a Roman Citizen and divide the Sadducees against the Pharisees when they had both conspir'd to take away his Life How came he to baffle the Jews out of their own Traditions and Prophecies to convert the greatest Cities of the World to the Christian Religion and acquire such a particular Veneration and Authority not only among the common People but among the Philosophers both of Greece and Rome To conclude how came the Church Universal to Canonize his Writings and how came they particularly to be ador'd by such gallant Men as Justin Origen Tertullian and Clemens of Alexandria who were all as great Wits and Philosophers as ever the World could shew An Impostor likewise he could not be for then he must have acted for Glory or Gain For Glory he did not because he hath so often acknowledg'd his own Sinfulness Unworthiness and Insufficiency representing himself as the least of the Apostles and freely confessing that he was what he was by the Grace and designation of God And for Gain or secular Interest he could not act for in this Life he was of all Men most miserable his Apostolical Office rendring his whole Life but a continual Tragedy or Catalogue of Miseries as you may read 2 Cor. 11. from the 23. to the end of the Chapter This Story then I cited out of his Writings must be infallibly true and if it be then Virtue and Grace are real notions and by consequence no Tempation can happen to any Man but what Humane Nature is able to bear And lest you should think that God had a more particular care for this Apostle than other Christians and supply'd him with more particular aids than the rest of the Church you may find him exhorting the whole Church of Ephesus to be strong in the Lord and the power of his might you may find him charging Timothy to be strong in the grace that is in Christ and exhorting the whole City of the Philippians to work out their Salvation with care and sollicitude because God by his preventing and assisting Grace was working in their hearts both to Will and to Do. Perseverance or the working out of Salvation consists in nothing but in constantly resisting Temptations to Sin and there can be no sense in that nor any other such like Exhortations unless God as the Psalmist speaks be a present help in time of trouble and his

Damn'd Souls in Hell of this opinion that it were impossible or next to impossible for Men to resist Temptations were they conscious to themselves that they were overcome by all Temptations to which they yielded because they wanted power sufficient to conquer them what outward Tortures soever they may endure they must needs be free from inward Pangs and Torments from that intolerable horror and remorse of Conscience which our Saviour calls the Worm because like a Moth or Worm it constantly frets and gnaws upon the tenderest part of the Soul that breeds it and increases the Torments of Hell more than all the Rivers of Fire and Brimstone that constantly flow therein And thus I hope I have said enough to confirm and illustrate this great Truth having prov'd it both by Authority and Reason and charg'd the contrary error or Blaspemy shall I say with such absur'd and damnable Consequences as may justly make any Man that is not desperate both asham'd and afraid to assert it in the presence of God and reasonable Men. But we live God knows in a Nation and Age wherein Sin and Nonsense are Presumptuous and wherein 't is long since become fashionable and gentile to question Principles and deny all those fundamental Truths of natural and revealed Divinity which neither Heathens nor Christians ever Questioned before This is the reason why Divines whom God hath set for the service and defence of the Gospel have of late been fain to lay the Foundations again and Preach up such Doctrins as sober Men not acquainted enough with the iniquity of the Time have judged at first hearing to need no proof Such as the being and providence of God the immortality of the Soul and the necessity of good works to which I may add the Subject of this Discourse which hath been to prove that no Temptations which God suffers to fall upon Christians are irresistible or that no thinking circumspect vigilant Man that 's true to his own Reason and careful to make use of the promised assistance of God can be over-matched by any Trial though never so sharp nor meet with any Temptation too strong to be withstood how delightful or charming soever it be And this Doctrin being proved by so many undeniable experiments and reasons I hope may be sufficient to demonstrate the Folly and chastise the Insolence and Impiety of those Prophane Men who because they have enslaved themselves to their own Passions affect to make Man like a Beast that is like themselves all Sense and Appetite and represent him as determin'd in all his actions by outward objects and unable to moderate his Lusts and Fears But had these Men but common Reverence for God or man they would not so Libel the Nature of the latter which is the workmanship of the former they would be more modest and civil than to define Humane Nature by their own Corruptions or pretend to judge of the Thoughts Actions and Inclinations of all other Men by their own they would be more considerate and reserv'd and not take a Pride to maintain and propagate an Opinion which is chargeable with such foul and absurd conclusions and which shews them to be an inconsiderate sort of Men that Think little and Talk much and makes them obnoxious to that dreadful curse pronounced by the Prophet against those that call good evil and evil good that put light for darkness and darkness for light that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter 'T would be very seasonable for these Licentious Times that such Blasphemers Tongues were restrained by severe Laws that they might only discourse these and their other pernicious Doctrins in their own Cabals and not dare to divulge them and corrupt and trouble the company of civil and sober Men wich such damnable confident talk But since these Mens Tongues are their own and in this great defect of Civil and Ecclesiastical Censures they take the liberty to speak of God and Man as they please 't is more necessary that they should be rebuk'd and their horrid Opinions expos'd and confuted in the Pulpit lest their Devilish Doctrin should spread and corrupt the World like a Canker while the Ministers of the Gospel hold their Peace As for this Opinion it devests Man as you have heard of his better part viz. his free and rational Nature wherein the Image of God consists it proves all Laws and Orders of Societies to be useless insignificant and unnatural Institutions and so makes the Legislative Power whether invested in God or the King to be Tyranny and Violence and Men that live under Government to be worse Slaves than the Children of Israel in AEgypt where they were commanded to make Brick when they had no Straw It contradicts the Doctrinal and Historical parts of Scripture and with unparallel'd Impudence gives the Lye to the Martyrologies both of the Jewish and Christian Church It contradicts the Definition of Virtue and Grace in particular it makes Fortitude Temperance Self-denial Patience Sobriety Chastity and all other infus'd and acquir'd Habits of resisting Sin to be idle Fictitious notions and so makes all the Divines and Philosophers that have ever been to have been Impostors or Fools Furthermore it is inconsistent with the Doctrin of Repentance and destroys the Goodness and Wisdom of God who upon the supposition that the Scriptures are true hath exhorted his People to the practice of such Duties which he knew before they could not do To conclude it overthrows the Catholick Hypothesis of assisting Grace dissolves the Obligation of our Sacramental Vows disarms Hell of the most exquisit part of its Torments and confounds the notion of Good and Evil by making it Lawful in supposing it sometimes necessary for Men to commit the most heinous Sins All which absurd and detestable Consequences I hope you now hear with Christian Indignation and will remember hereafter with horrour and disdain when ever you shall hear these sensual Men like those that were sent to spy out the Holy Land represent themselves and their Brethren as Grashoppers but their Spiritual Adversaries the Temptors and Temptations with which they ought to conflict as insuperable Anakims as enemies of a prodigious stature greater and taller and stronger than themselves But these are usually Men that have turn'd the grace of God into lasciviousness whose glory is their shame whose God is their belly who mind earthly things And because they have debauch'd themselves into Brute Beasts or at least have a mind to do so therefore as St. Jude Speaks they foam out their shame and infidelity in slandering the rational nature of Man exploding the Doctrin of assisting Grace Drolling upon Godly Men and discrediting as much as they can the Authority of the Gospel because it thwarts their Lusts and disturbs their sensual repose by Teaching that Men by the grace of God have power to overcome the World resist the Devil and deny all ungodliness and wordly Lusts and because it exhorts Men in Gods name to be patient vigilant and stedfast to be sober temperate and chast to fight the good fight to finish the course and persevere unto the end Lastly because it assures us that God assists us in all our Spiritual Combats supports us in all our Trials and will make us more than Conquerours through Christ that loveth us nay that Christ himself who hath suffered and been tempted is able to succour them that are tempted and that no Temptation hath taken us but such as is moderate and common to Man because God is faithful to his Promises and will not suffer us to be Tempted above our strength but will with the Temptation make a gracious way to escape that we may be able to bear it A Letter to a Deist in Answer to several Objections against the Truth and Authority of the Scriptures Sold by Moses Pitt at the Angel in St. Paul's Church-Yard FINIS