Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A75227
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A New-Years gift: or, Advice to a god-son. By P.A. Gent.
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P. A., Gent.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing A25A; ESTC R203728
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16,553
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78
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as the Prophet Zachariah speak Zach. 9.17 How great is his Goodness and how great is his Beauty And as the Author of the Book of Wisdom Chap. 11. Verse 23 24 26. sets forth the Goodness and Excellency of God But thou saith he hast Mercy upon all and winkest at the Sins of Men because they should amend for thou lovest all things that are and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made How could any thing have endured if it had not been thy Will or been preserved by thee But thou sparest all for they are thine O Lord thou lover of Souls Now if under the Law God appeared so good and Gracious that he was stiled the Lover of Souls how Resplendent and Illustrious must needs appear the divine Goodness to us under the Gospel when God spared not his own Son but hath given him up for us all Rom. 8.32 Yea so loved the World that he sent his only begotten Son into the World that whosoever believeth in him should not Perish but have eternal Life How should we Christians love God with the strongest and greatest Affections imaginable And in an ecstacy of Joy loudly proclaim him to be the Lover of Souls indeed and cry out with holy David O love the Lord ye his Saints c. Psal 31.23 In the next place as to our Neighbour our Religion teaches us to do unto all Men as we would they should do to us that is to say to honour and reverence our Parents to be Humble towards all our Superiours to be Loyal and Faithful to our Prince and Sovereign obedient to his Laws and Government to submit our selves to all our Governours Teachers spiritual Pastors and Masters To be Just and Honest in all our Dealings friendly and peaceable towards all our Neighbours to be Charitable and ready to do all the Good we are able both to the Bodies and Souls of those who stand in need of it To be Sober Temperate and Chast and to follow Peace with all Men and Holiness And in respect to the Duties both of the First and Second Table to follow the Apostles comprehensive Direction Philip. 4.8 Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good Report if there be any Vertue and if there be any Praise think on these things So that this most excellent Religion must needs make its Votaries the best the most lovely Persons in all the Earth even like unto their Lord and Master the ever blessed Jesus who himself was the express Image of his Father God blessed for ever For this is the great End of Religion as a late Author discourseth viz. The purifying and refining the Nature of Man correcting the wild Exorbitances of Passion and Lust by which he is so estranged from God and disabled to arrive at the Life of Vertue and Goodness it restores us to that primitive State of Happiness that we lost in Adam Thus in short you have the true Representation of the Christian Religion than which nothing can be more excellent as to its Laws and Rules of Life And altho' it is true it is a Yoke and Restraint yet as our Lord and Master testifies his Yoke is easy and his Burthen light His excellent Religion is not a sowre melancholy Thing as is falsly represented by ignorant and wicked Men It is not an Enemy to your Mirth Pleasure and Delight in this Life as one hath well observed you may Sing Rejoice and be Merry God denies you nothing but Sin which spoils your Joys and dasheth your Mirth and sooner or later must be sadly accounted for As the Pious Mr. George Herbert used to say Religion doth not banish Mirth but only moderates and sets Bounds to it it is the only way to render our Delights pure and real and satisfactory For do you imagine that any one can so heartily sing and rejoice as he that hath God his Friend who lives under the Smiles of Heaven Indeed it is the Voice of all Men who will shew us any Good Omnes tendunt ad gaudium sed unde magnum stabile consequantur ignorant saith the Heathen Seneca Every Man would arrive at Joy and Contentment but how to obtain that which is great stable and lasting they know not All Men seek Happiness and Satisfaction and Tranquility of Mind in this Life Now behold here it is only to be had in a vertuous and christian Life for if we search the whole Universe where else shall we find it For we see by daily Experience that when Men have run through all the Felicities this World can afford them Riches Honours Pleasures at last when they come to be Wise and Serious at their Deaths for Death being a serious thing indeed it makes them that have played the Fool all their Lives to become then serious wise Then they all if they have their Senses loudly proclaim with Solomon That all is Vanity and vexation of Spirit And as the wise Man discourseth Wisdom 5.7 8 9. They will say We alas wearied our selves in the Way of Wickedness and Destruction What hath Pride profited us Or what good hath Riches with our Vaunting brought us All these things are passed away like a Shadow and as a Post that hasteth by c. And they repenting and groaning for Anguish of Spirit shall say within themselves of the Righteous Man This is he whom we had sometimes in Derision and a Proverb of Reproach we Fools accounted his Life Madness and his End to be without Honour How is he numbred among the Children of God and his Lot is among the Saints 3 4 5. Verses of the same Chapter But certainly true Happiness and Satisfaction and Pleasure is to be had only in a good vertuous and christian Life which leads us to and fixeth us upon that summum bonum God A good Conscience being a continual Feast that only a good Man a good Christian always carries about him For as Solomon says truly God's Ways are Ways of Pleasantness and all his Paths are Peace Prov. 3.17 A good Christian is the only Man that can with an humble and chearful Confidence look up to God as his almighty Protector and Defender as his gracious Father under the Light of whose Countenance he doth every day Rejoice For as one well observes Vertue is the Tenure by which we hold of Heaven without this we are but as Out-laws who cannot claim Protection Thus as to the Provision for a Christian's Welfare in this World And as the Wicked at their latter End see altho' too late their Folly and then Lament and Bewail their Rebellions and Wickedness against God with great Horrour and Consternation of Heart and then not being able to fly from themselves lie down in Sorrow forewarning others of their Follies So on the other Hand these faithful Disciples of their blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ when they come to die if you should