Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	add_v	grace_n	temperance_n	1,517	5	11.5641	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42885	Instruction concerning penance and holy communion the second part fo the instruction of youth, containing the means how we may return to God by penance, and remain in his grace by the good and frequent use of the sacraments. By Charles Gobinet, Doctor of Divinity, of the house and Society of Sorbon, principal of the college of Plessis-Sorbon.; Instruction de la jeunesse en la piété chrétienne. Part 2. English	Gobinet, Charles, 1614-1690.; Gobinet, Charles, 1614-1690. Instruction sur la pénitence et sur la sainte communion. English.	1689 (1689)	Wing G904C; ESTC R223681	215,475	423

Sin. Saint Paul the first of all 1. Cor. 11.30 attributes as the effects of unworthy Communions the great number of distempers Sicknesses and Deaths with which the Corinthians were afflicted Saint Cyprian delapsis affirms that in his time there were many whose bodies were delivered over to be possess'd by the Devil for that they had Communicated unworthily and also that many had lost their judgment and become distracted and mad upon the same account And Saint Chrisostome also assures us that the same thing happen'd in his time The same St. Cyprian reports that a Christian woman having partaken in private of the Sacrifices of the Idols and coming not long after to Communicate with the Christians she had no sooner received the Son of God but she found her self tormented as if she had taken poyson and dyed in the presence of all there He speaks of another who being willing to receive the precious body of the Son of God her self being in an evil state as she open'd the vessel in which it was enclosed there issued out a flame of fire which hindred her so that she was not able to receive it And another Christian going about to do the same instead of the Consecrated host which he expected to have found in the place where he had reserved it he found nothing else but ashes He himself also recounts this Passage how that a little Child to whom his Pagan nurse had caus'd a little wine consecrated to the Idols to be given being afterwards carried by his mother unto the Church at the time of the holy Sacrifice of the Mass was not able to swallow one drop of the consecrated wine which the Deacon had put into his mouth The Sacred Eucharist saith this holy Father ibid. could not endure to stay in a body and mouth defiled and profaned by the only touch of a forbidden drink But if it could not stay in this body whose Soul was altogether innocent what may we say of those whose Souls are altogether guilty and polluted I could relate a vast number of other examples but it would be too long tedious these are sufficient to make every one reflect as the same St. Cyprian considers that if he have not as yet received the same punishment for his unworthy Communion if he have been guilty of it he hath nevertheless deserv'd it as much as they Let every one consider saith this Holy Father not so much the punishment which another hath received as what he himself hath deserved and that he do not believe he hath avoided the chastisement because as yet it is something delayed since he ought rather to be much more afraid to whom God in his just judgment hath deferred the punishment of his Sins to a longer time ARTICLE VI. Of the end we ought to propose to our selves in the Holy Communion BEsides the purity of Conscience it is necessary that we have that of rectitude of Intention to Communicate well for it is most certain that an action how good soever it may be in it self looseth its worth and value by the default of a good Intention and it becomes evil and vitious if the Intention be such and if it be done for an evil end This being true in all good actions whatsoever it is still much more in this of Communion forasmuch as it is certain that nothing but what is pure and holy ought to draw near and receive purity and holyness it self and that it is a contempt of the greatness and sanctity of God to approach unto him upon any other motive then that of pleasing him and meriting his grace and favour For this reason in the Old Testament it was his will that none should serve himself upon his Altar of any other then Holy Fire which he had ordained for the use of the Sacrifices And he punished with sudden death the two Sons of Aaron who were so rash as there to make use of Prophane Fire by this figure we learn that for one to approach unto him it is not sufficient to be holy but it is also necessary that one bring with him an Intention altogether pure and holy and that an evil and Prophane Intention doth grievously offend him upon this occasion We must then approach unto the Holy Communion with an Intention totally pure and propose to our selves an end altogether holy in this so great and so august an action Now that we may perform this duty two things are necessary The first is that one propose to himself no evil thing as the motive and cause of his Communion as Hypocrisy to dissemble and conceal some fault with an appearance of Piety Vanity to be esteemed virtuous Humane respect lest he should displease any one or to please men rather then God. These three motives are but too frequent amongst those who are not sufficiently instructed concerning the Intention which we ought to have in our Communion and particularly among young People Wherefore they ought to have special care to avoid them The first is the greatest fault and ordinarily speaking renders the Communion Sacrilegious the other two deprives one of the best part of the fruit it otherwise would produce Secondly This intention must be directed to the Service of God and our Salvation to God to please him the more and to unite our selves thereby more strictly to him to our Salvation to promote it by obtaining by means of the Holy Communion the Graces which we stand most in need of as to amend our faults to resist temptations to fix and confirm us more in the practice of Virtues The two ends we find in our Lords prayer where the three first Petitions contain what we can wish for the greater honour and glory of God and the other four comprehend what is necessary for our Salvation And it is a very profitable exercise to propose to our selves for the end of our Communion the obtaining of the grace of God for the accomplishment of the Seven demands which make up compose it or of which this divine Prayer consists It is also good to add to this general intention some particular end according to our present necessities as to obtain some particular grace we stand in need of to correct in our selves some fault and to advance in some particular Virtue Lastly The right and Religious intention which we ought to have in Communion is the very same which Christ proposed to himself when he first instituted this divine Sacrament Now his intention was as he himself declared that he might remain in us and we in him He dwells in us by his Grace and the assistance of his holy Inspirations and we remain in him by love and the obedience we render to him propose to your self this end and you shall Communicate according to the Intention and Will of Jesus Christ PART II. Of the Practice of Communion Or What we must do to Communicate well and as we ought NExt to the purity of Conscience and the

count not many from the time they return'd unto his favour before they return to the offences by which they lost it Thus they pass all their Life Confessing from time to time and continually returning to Mortal Sin after Confession So that their whole life seems to be but one as it were continued Series or Succession of Confession and Relapses into Mortal Sin Now and then to Confess to give their Conscience a little ease and free it from some heinous Crime by this way of proceeding seems to be only a disposition to enslave it in some other yet more enormous Sin As if the Sacrament were instituted only for the remission of past Sins and not at all to give us strength to avoid them for the future Good God Theotime Is it possible that Christians believing Christians should be guilty of this disorder That men endued with the light of Faith should treat God after this unreasonable and unworthy manner Is this to understand the nature of the Sacrament of Penance what it is Is this to believe that it is a Sacrament of reconciliation with God not only by way of truce or for a time but after the manner of a perpetual or eternal peace is this to form a right judgment of his unlimited power not to value his favour and Friendship or do they as indeed their repeated and customary offences speak it believe him only infinite in his attribute of Mercy but not of Justice so easily to withdraw themselves from that Grace to which by his only Mercy they have been admitted Did God only seldom and with much difficulty receive us again into his favour after we had offended him every one would stand upon his guard one would be afraid to fall again into his dis-favour and to hazzard his Eternal Salvation by an unfortunate relapse But being we think we shall be re-admitted into his favour when we please and that there is no more to be done than to present our selves to him in the Sacrament of Penance to receive remission of our Sins we take the freedom to offend him on all occasions Thus we treat our God and thus we take a motive from his goodness to continue to offend him and to neglect that Sacred tye of his Friendship to that degree as every moment to break its bonds An affront one would not offer to the most contemptible Person living See then Theotime and consider well of what great consequence this Subject is and how it deserves to be solidly treated and requires also your serious reflection CHAP. II. How the relapse into Sin is a very great evil ALL what I have said doth sufficiently evince the greatness and enormity of this evil yet that you may be the more fully persuaded of it it is necessary that you learn it from the Holy Ghost himself and by those lights he hath vouchsafed to shew us in Holy Writ First the Wise Man in the 26th Chapter verse 25 of Ecclesiasticus considering the greatness of this evil declares that he cannot behold it without a just indignation He saith then that there are two things which when they happen grieve him very much the one to see a great Warriour after he hath served a long time in the Campagne reduc't to Poverty the other to see a Wise Man despised instead of being esteemed according to his merit But he adds that the third he is not able to endure and that it causes in him a transport of the highest wrath that is to see a man who falls from the State of Justice and Sanctity to that of Sin and who abandons Virtue to follow Vice and he assures us that God will make that Person feel one day the effects of his Justice In another place he exclaims against those who forsake the path of Virtue and give themselves over to Vice. Eccle. 2.16 Woe be to you who have forsaken the right and have declined into perverse ways what will you do when God shall examine your ways and all the actions of your Life The Apostle St Peter 2. Ep. 2.20 inveighs with much zeal against those who return to sin after they have renounc't it by the Profession of Christianity and declares that they fall back into a far worse State or Condition than the former from whence they were deliver'd by their Conversion which was a State of darkness and Sin. That it had been better for them they had never known the Truth than to have forsaken it after they had known it That their relapse into Sin makes them resemble the Dog which returns to his vomit and the Hog which after he hath been wash'd wallows in the mire What could be more emphatically said against the relapse into Sin yet it is the Holy Ghost himself who speaks it Add also that which he hath spoken upon this Subject by the Council of Trent in those excellent words which we cited above in the Fourth Part the third Chapter in which he describes with much energy the enormity of their fault who relapse into Sin after Baptism He remarks four notorious circumstances which aggravate their first relapse The first is that they sin after that they have been once delivered from the Slavery of Sin and the Devil Mark this word Once 2. That they sin after they have received the Grace of the Holy Ghost 3. That they sin with knowledge or knowingly 4. That in sinning they violate the Temple of God and contristate his Holy Spirit CHAP. III. Of three great indignities which are found in the Sin of relapse The Ingratitude The Perfidiousness and the Contempt of God. THis is to shew you yet more clearly the grievousness of the Sin of relapse from three circumstances which it includes and which render it most enormous The first is a prodigious Ingratitude which it discovers towards God in offending him over and over after innumerable benefits received from his hand and above the rest after he hath been by God's pure Mercy deliver'd not only once or twice but many times from Sin and eternal death Ponder well upon this ingratitude Theotime judge what it is for a Slave to be ungratefull to his Lord his Redeemer to him to whom he owes all he hath in fine to God himself If the Councill of Trent exaggerate with such vigour the first sin which one commits after Baptism upon this only account that it offends God after one hath been once deliver'd from the captivity of Sin and the Devil Semel a peccati Daemonis Servitute liberate What would they say of those who fall back into sin after they have been delivered from it not once but many times only by the Sacrament of Penance Was there ever an ingratitude parallel to this Deut. 32.6 Haeccine reddis Domino Popule stulte insipiens O Christian Souls is it thus that you treat your God Must you not have lost all your judgment and understanding to be thus forgetfull of the infinite favours of your Creator and

Confession and by consequence it is very hard for them not to make frequently invalid and null Confessions whereby they receive no Absolution of their Sins For first it is certain that those who live in this manner do not ordinarily confess but by course and custom upon occasion of some great Solemnity or for some other reason of decency and apparent piety They seldom or never do it with a true Spirit of repentance and a real desire to amend and break themselves of their vicious habit And by this means how many invalid Confessions do they make Secondly how can it be thought that those who relapse ordinarily into the same Sins after their Confessions should have true Contrition when they make their Confessions For true Contrition requires a great and that sorrowfull sense of what is past with a firm and constant resolution for the time to come Now who can believe that they detest those Sins from the bottom of their hearts which they resume again so easily and so soon how can it be thought that they have a firm resolution to do what they wellnigh never go about to do that is to amend their Lives How can it be that in all their Confessions they have a firm resolution to leave the Sin which yet they never forsake or never leaving it at all can it be believ'd that they have always a true resolution to forsake it This is what cannot be conceiv'd and which never happens in Temporal concerns where a firm resolution never scarcely but takes effect and is follow'd with performance Certainly there is not any more infallible sign of false Repentance For as St. Augustin saith se poenitens es poeniteat te si poenitet te noli facere se adhuc facis poenitens non es If you are Penitent you ought to repent your self of your Sin if you be sorry for it do not commit it if yet you commit it you are not penitent at all And St. Ambrose saith excellently well that he who is asham'd of the evil he hath done will take great care to avoid what may make him blush anew Some are wont to answer that this relapse into Sin doth not proceed from any want of resolution and repentance but from humane frailty which inclines to evil This excuse is as false and ill grounded as it is common amongst men who flatter themselves in their Sins which they will not leave For first can it be said that this is an effect of Frailty when one willfully returns to Sin knowing full well the evil he doth and when he hath all the means necessary to preserve himself from it Is not this what we call the Sin of Malice and not of Frailty as we have shewn above in the Third Part Chap. 14. And yet this is the case of the greatest part of all those who relapse ordinarily into Sin after Confession Secondly Can it be call'd an effect of Frailty when one returns to Sin because he will not take pains or do any thing which may withdraw him from it he will not avoid the occasions nor remove the causes of it nor take counsel nor use any means to that effect Is not this clearly to deceive ones self to treat in this manner and yet to attribute his frequent relapse to Humane Frailty Thirdly However were not this frailty assisted by divine grace the excuse might pass But being strengthened as it is abundantly by the helps which God bestows upon us in our necessities we cannot lay the fault of our relapses into Sin upon our own frailty but we shall accuse our selves either of not demanding the grace of God in our prayert or of not being faithfull in cooperating with his grace Wherefore to speak the truth we ought not here to accuse humane frailty but the weakness of our repentance contrition the faint regret or sorrow for Sins past and the weak and very imperfect resolution we have to avoid them for the time to come I do not say that the relapse into Sin is always an effect of a false repentance for that is not true and it is certain it may happen and happens dayly that one falls back into those Sins of which he was truly penitent But I speak of a frequent and ordinary relapse and I affirm that morally speaking it is impossible that those who live in this manner do not make very frequently invalid and null Confessions for want of contrition and that they often believe themselves to be when they are not truly Penetent for the reasons above-mention'd which evinces the truth of that excellent saying of St. Clement of Alexandria to demand frequently pardon for faults which one frequently commits this is not to be a Penitent but only to have a shadow and appearance of Penance Ponder well these words CHAP. VI. An excellent Advertisement of St. Gregory upon the false repentance of those who return to their Sins I Cannot omit in this place an advertisement of main concern which St. Gregory the great in his Pastoral 3. p. c. 3. gives to those who after they have performed their Penances do not amend their lives which is that they ought to take heed lest their repentance be not very often false and only in outward shew Of which he gives a considerable reason in these words We must admonish those who do Penance for their past Sins and who nevertheless relapse into them that they carefully consider one thing which is that many times it happens to Sinners that they find within themselves motions which carry them on to Virtue but unprofitably and without fruit as it happens many times to the Just to be tempted and sollicited to Sin but without effect He adds that as the Temptations to which the Just do not at all consent serve to confirm them more in Virtue so these imperfect motions towards Virtue serve to detain the Sinners in their Sins and to give them a presumptuous considence of their Salvation in the midst of their Sins which they commit so freely without remorse And he observes that this presumption is a punishment of their reitersted and repeated Sins He produces consequent to this discourse two opposit examples of Balaam and St. Paul. Balaam saith St. Gregory seeing from the top of a Mountain the people of God encamp'd in the Desart conceived some pious and strong desires of his conversion languishing away in wishes to dye the death of the Just and to resemble that holy People in his death But immediately after he gave pernicious Counsel to destroy those very People whom he had so much wished to resemble in his death St. Paul on the contrary feels within himself the motions which sollicite him to Sin and these Tomptations confirm him more in Virtue Whence comes this St. Gregory asks the question Balaam is touched with motions of repentance and is not justified St. Paul is incited to Sin and the temptation doth not defile his Soul But to convince us that good works begun

esteem themselves happy in his company and above all they take it for a peculiar honour that they are admitted to eat at his Table What shame is it then for Christians so to neglect so great a treasure and so nigh at hand to be just at the Spring-head of Divine Graces and not esteem them to remain in the death of Sin when the Fountain of Life is at their disposal Ezech. 33.11 quare moriemini domus Israel and why do you deliver your selves to death O house of Israel O Christians amongst whom God hath chose his habitation upon earth why do you suffer your selves thus to dye having the author of Life so near you who invites you to come and threatens you if you do not accept his invitation Crying out to you in a loud voice John 6.54 unless ye eat my Body and drink my Blood you shall have no life in you Adding that he who eateth me shall live for my sake After such threats if we do not come and so great assurance if we do what can we alledge before the divine Tribunall at the day of judgment if still we are at a distance from him from God the Fountain of life and continue still companions to the enemy of mankind in the state of death and Sin and this because we are unwilling so to live that frequently we may partake of this living and life-giving bread Call to mind the feast in the parable Luc. 14. where the Master of the house shewed so much anger and indignation against those who refused to come after they had been so solemnly invited They excused themselves the best they could some with their affairs others with their pleasures one said he was obliged to go to his country house another that he went to try the Oxen he had bought and the third that he was taken up and employed about his marriage but not any of these excuses were admitted they were all rejected as frivolous pleas and therefore themselves for framing them were all judged worthy to be not only then but ever after excluded from that Banquet And this is the method which God shall use towards Christians who refrain from the Sacraments upon the vain pretences which usually they form to themselves for all their excuses shall be rejected and themselves punished as in in the Parable we have seen To those who shall excuse themselves with the affairs and employments of the world it shall be answer'd that there is no concern of such importance as that of their Salvation which therefore they ought to prefer before all other things And they shall be reproached with this that they have prefer'd their temporal concerns before their eternal happiness and made more account of the possessions of this world then of the grace of God. To those who shall excuse themselves with the indispositions of their Soul saying that they have not that virtue which is required for frequent Communion One may reply that their excuse is but too true yet it is a very bad one for that it is their duty so to live that they may Communicate dayly and to use all imaginable industry to render themselves capable thereof Lastly we shall find that there is no other cause why people communicate but seldom besides their sloath their indevotion and fear lest if they should frequent the Sacraments thereby they shou'd be obliged to live holily and in a word a will or a tacit resolution not to amend their lives but to remain in their Sins their Pleasures their Covetuousness Ambition and in all their irregular affections O Theotime avoid this great misfortune this fault so generall and yet so common amongst Christians who slight in this manner their Salvation and the great advantages which by the goodness Mercy of God are presented to them Learn in time to set a great value on them to advantage your self from thence approaching frequently to these divine mysteries instituted by God the means for your Salvation Begin this exercise from your youth and continue it thence-forward all your life that you may perform it dayly better and better and oftener approach to the Holy Table of Communion and receive our Lord. ARTICLE XI When and how often we ought to Communicate THe time which you ought most commonly to observe in your communion is that of every month so that you should not exceed that time without giving your Soul the opportunity to partake of this divine nourishment of the holy Eucharist It is very hard for you to stay so long without having a considerable want of help to resist the temptations of your Ghostly enemy or repress the passions which spring from your age and the heat of blood You have need of strength whereby you may be able to withstand the Devil as also of a good preservative against your self The one and the other you shall find in the holy communion wherefore it is fit you have recourse unto it according to the proportion of the necessity you find that you have thereof Beside it is necessary that you grow up and encrease in the fear of God and in all Christian virtues Faith Hope Charity Humility Temperance Modesty and the rest Which you can never do if you Communicate but seldom Take this then for a general rule that regularly speaking you Communicate once a month and oftener upon either of these occasions 1st When there happens any Solemn feast as of our Lord or of the Blessed Virgin which you should never let pass without receiving the Blessed Sacrament both because you should honour the Feast by this Sacred action as also make your self worthy to partake of the graces which God more liberally distributes in respect of the united prayers of the faithfull on those days The 2d is when you perceive in your self any considerable want thereof as when you are assaulted with more violent or more frequent temptations for then you must have recourse to this remedy to strengthen you least you fall into mortall Sin. And if by misfortune it have so happen'd that you are already faln therein for want of due foresight of the fall which easily happens not only to young people but to many others by reason they are not sensible of the evil before it be faln upon them in this case Theotime take care to confess your self forthwith And as for Communion take the advice of your Ghostly father whether it be to receive that day if he find you suffiently disposed or to defer it some days longer during which time you may prepare your self for it by doing penance for your Sins and deploring in the presence of God the misery which hath befaln you Behold what you are to observe concerning the time of Communion whilst yet you are young When you shall be more advanc'd in age in judgment and in the love of God you may Communicate more frequently still according to the counsell you shall receive in that point supposing you have a good guide