Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	charity_n	faith_n	theological_a	1,167	5	12.5725	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65779	Controversy-logicke, or, The methode to come to truth in debates of religion written by Thomas White, Gentleman.	White, Thomas, 1593-1676.	1659 (1659)	Wing W1816; ESTC R8954	77,289	240

word Father But as it is a substance ●ove it is not well expressed by either ●f these names but by the common ●ame of an Holy Spirit or Ghost made proper by want of a proper expression And this is that wee meane when we ●ay there are in God three Persons Fa●her Sonne and Holy Ghost This indivisible thing we call God ●nd professe that he made time and in or with the beginning of time all other ●hings Whether spirituall and indivisible or bodily and subject to division and corruption or mortality Among the rest and as the principall of these Creatures which we know by our sense and conversation he made Man that is one man and one woman Hee made them such that by the corruption they were subject unto they should not be extinguished like the other Creatures sett round about them but should remaine spirituall things capable seeing him and of eternall happinesse These two he created in such state that reason was in them more powerfull then sense And could with ease have kept them from all unreasonable actions and from the unhappy effects of them had not the Envy of an other Intellectuall creature whom we call the Divell seduced the woman and by her meanes made the man also eate of fruits which they were fore-warned would bring them death and misery By this meanes disorder being brought into the two first men both in body and soule all their progeny became vicious every child drawing from his parents disorderly inclinations which avert him from the love and care of true Blisse and which strengthned by custome and opinion were able to carry the whole masse of Mankinde to eternall infelicity the just and deserved punishment of this default and its evill consequents This slavery of Man kinde to sinne was so strong that God Almighty was forced to lett great raines destroy it all reserving by his mercy onely 8. persons to people the world a new making the world it selfe much lesse distractive or inveighing with the pleasures of it by making it fuller of miseries And after a while againe he was forced to pitch upon one man and his seede neglecting the rest to conserve in them though weakely by lawes and speciall government the seedes of vertue often strengthening them by extraordinary meanes and encreasing their knowledge Yet for all that vertue faded much in them This people he governed first in Republike afterwardes in Royalty and lastly by Priests untill notwithstanding all his care and their science the people was growne into an extremity of perversenesse Then he came to the last remedy and taking or as it were grafting into his owne substance the nature of Man became the teacher and example to Man-kinde of all vertuous actions and good life And because mans nature was grafted by its noblest part that is by his Meus or roote of understanding to which God as a substance knowledge hath proportion It is rightly delivered unto us that the sonne of God tooke flesh upon him to be our guide and rule and not the Father or Holy Ghost though they both of them are inseparably in him So God who by his Ministers had hitherto instructed mankinde by Allegories and similitudes proportionable to their carnall imbecillity Now in his owne person opened the way to heaven in as plaine termes as mans nature is capable of teaching to abstract our selves from the love of creatures and to adhere to him by love of future blisse of our soules Having compleated the course of his teaching by word and example and having shewed us how to beare not feare the miseries of this world even death it selfe he thought good to give us a scantling of our future blisse of body being raised to life the third day after his death and during 40. days shewing us a new Nature which our bodies are to obtaine in the last resurrection if so we deserve it During his abode upon earth he chose certain believers called Apostles and under them did sett a number of disciples gave them authority to preach and practised them in it even during his owne life but ordered them more especially towards his departure how they should behave themselves in the conversion of Jewes and Gentils and how they should governe the people they converted and brought to his beliefe After this he left them ascending in their sight above the cloudes And after 10. dayes according to his promise he so replenished them with faith and charity that he made them fitt Executors of his commands and instruments of building the Church he intended to spread over all nations He gave them fervour of heart knowledge of tongues and power of miracles together with discretion to use all to the end for which he designed them This Church being to consist of all man-kinde as one Body-Politike He thought fitt to sett universall rules of certaine externall actions and practises common to all by and in which they should communicate together and know one another And the maine scope of this instruction being to bring Men to the honour and service of God He made likewise for the principall of our eternall actiōs one to be a publike testimony and recognisance that God is the sole Author of good to us and absolute Master of Life and death of Being and of Not-Being Such a ceremony is called a Sacrifice This he did immediatly before his death taking bread and wine and after imposition of his handes or blessing them he assured us that the thing he then gave was that very body which was to be wounded and that very Bloud which was to be shed for us And so against all prejudice of sense wee believe that the substances of bread and wine were changed really into the substance of this body and bloud notwithstanding that the Natures that is all the operations and resemblances of bread and wine do remaine as before This he commanded his Apostles to doe and by mediation of this sacrifice or obtestation or highest Prayer to obtaine for the quicke and the dead what ever is fitt to be impetrated for them He commanded also that doing this we should remember or rather commemorate that is offer in a human phrase to Gods remembrance his death and passion For as it is a true sacrifice by the reall and locall parting of his body and blood so this being done under the shapes of bread and wine becometh a figure and allegory of the reall and blondy separation of them made upon the holy Crosse This sacrifice performed which convenient ceremonies we usually call the Masse This incorporation of all Christians into the body of Christ by participation of this sacrifice is the highest motive of love to Christ and to one another that can fall into mans heart and therefore hath ever been a symbol or token of peace among Christians and is esteemed the Mystery or sacrament of Charity But because Christian life consisteth of seven vertues three Theologicall and foure Cardinall Christ delivered other six

Sanctifications or Initiations to enter us in the other six vertues Baptisme for faith Confirmation for hope Penance to redresse the wrongs we do to God and to our neigh-bour Matrimony and Extreme-Unction to injure us to temperance and to fortify us against the terrours of death Prudence because it eminently belongeth to commanders received its proper initiation in the installing of Spirituall Gouvernours which are Priests and Bishops Who being more eminent in Science and Charity have power to governe the flocke o● Christ And to the end that emulation might not breake unity among them Christ by his owne practise and mouth gave the Primacy to Saint Peter to whose see and successour inferiour Bishops were to have recourse in all publike necessities or dissentions of the Church And who att this day is commonly called the Pope It is incredible how great encrease of devotion and Charity accrueth to Christian people by the reverent administration and faithfull reception of these sacraments What respect and awe towardes to what adhesion their teachers their doctrine what obedience to their directions in fine how great a life to the Church and eminency above such synagogues as are destitute of these holy institutions The Apostles therefore armed with these and the aforesaid powers dispersed themselves into all the quarters of the earth planting this common doctrine and practise through the universe and dying left the inheritance of the same to their successors Who in debates about doctrines and in other dissentions meeting together and finding what the Apostles had left to the Churches they had planted did cast out such as would not conforme themselves to the received Tradition And so Christians were divided The parties cast out being denominated from their Masters or particular doctrines The part adhering to the Apostles Tradition retaining the name of the Apostolike Church Which because it was as it were the whole of Christians was therefore termed Catholike or Universall These Apostles and Disciples left certaine writinges But neither by command nor with designe to deliver in any or all of them a summary of our faith but occasionally teaching what they thought requisite for some certaine place or company which the Holy Ghost intended for the comfort of the Church In which as we professe there is nothing false or uncertaine so we know the unwritten Preaching ought to be the rule of their interpretation att least negatively Neither can we vindicate those bookes from the corruption of transscribers and much lesse of Interpretours whose labours can not pretend to the authority of scripture otherwise then by a knowne conformity to the Originals Tradition therefore became the rule of faith and Councells and Apostolicall Sees became the infallible depositaries of Tradition The other Sees fayling either by the destruction of Christian Religion in those quarters or by a voluntary discession from the rule of faith the Roman See first instructed by the two chiefe Apostles and afterwardes by perpetuall correspondence with all Christian countries and their recourse to it in matters of faith and discipline remained the onely single Church which was able in vertue of perpetuall succession to testify what was the Apostles doctrine Afterwardes Heretikes confounding equivocally the names of Apostolike and Cathlick by an impudence of saying what they list without shew of reason the Catholike party hath been forced for distinction sake to adde to their Church the sirname of Roman Declaring there by that the Roman particular Church is the Head and Mistresse and cause of Vnity to all those Churches that have share in the Catholike By this linke of truth namely of receiving doctrine by succession and by the linke of Vnity in the Roman head of the Church as the Church hath hitherto stood in Persecutions Heresies and Schismes so we are assured it will never faile untill the second coming of Christ but do hope it will encrease into an universall kingdome of his to dure an unknowne extent of Ages designed in the Apocolypse by the number of a thousand yeares in great prosperity and in freedome both from Pagans without and from Heretikes with in and in great aboundance of Charity and good life This being evidently the effect of Christs coming we see that the generall good life of Mankinde which proceedeth from the knowledge of the End to which we are created and from other motives and meanes delivered by Christs doctrine was the great and onely designe for which he tooke flesh that is to be the cause to us of a happy life both in this world and in the next The which having been the main advantage of the State of Paradise or of our nature before corruption It is cleare that Christ hath repaired the fault of Adam by making whole Mankind capable of attaining everlasting blisse unto which before his coming one only family had means to arrive The settling of Mankind in this repaire restored it to such a condition in respect of God that from thenceforth he resolved to bestow his greatest benefits upon it that is eternall felicity Whereas before as long as it was in the state of sinne his decrees were for its Vniversall Damnation By which it is cleare that Christ appeased his Fathers wrath and made him a friend of a foe he had formerly been unto us So that because eternall blisse followeth out of a good life and out of a constant habit or inclination to it as likewise damnation out of the state of a sinnefull inclination formal justification and sanctity do consist in the habit of good life and the state of damnation consisteth in an habituall inclination to sinne Neither the one nor the other in an extrinsecall acceptation or refusall of the Divine Will or its arbitrary Election or dislike which are only the efficient causes from whence proportionably to their natures they depend Further because Man-kinde was not able of it selfe to gett out of the State of sinne and by consequence lay in subjection and slavery to it And seeing that Christ by the explicated meanes and actions did sett it free and gave it power to come out of that subjection and misery he did clearely Redeeme Man-kinde from this servitude of sinne and of sinnes Master the Divell and gave it the liberty wherein it was created att the first And because Christ did this by his death and by the penall actions of his life he is rightly said to have by them payed a ransome for mankind Notwithstanding this generall preparation by which Man-kinde was enabled to well-doing no particular man arriveth to any action of vertue without the speciall providence and benevolence of Almighty God By which by convenient circumstances both externall and internall he prepareth the heart of that man unto whom he is gratious and favourable to receive these common impressions and maketh it good earth fitt for the seede of his eternall cultiuatour who without any respect to former merits planteth faith and charity and all that is good in him meerely of his