Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	command_v	forbid_v	vice_n	1,917	5	9.6001	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78191	A sermon preach'd to the Society for Reformation of Manners in Nottingham Novemb. 24. 1698. By John Barret Minister of the Gospel. Published at the desire of the said Society.	Barret, John, 1631-1713.	1699 (1699)	Wing B910C; ESTC R229513	26,880	64

A SERMON Preach'd to the SOCIETY FOR Reformation of Manners IN Nottingham Novemb. 24. 1698. By JOHN BARRET Minister of the GOSPEL Published at the desire of the said Society LONDON Printed by Tho. Snowden and sold by Iohn Richards Bookseller in Nottingham 1699. A SERMON FOR THE Reformation of Manners AMOS v. xv Hate the Evil and love the Good and Establish Judgment in the Gate It may be that the Lord God of Hosts will be Gracious unto the Remnant of Joseph THough the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was very bitter and set Mans Teeth on Edge yet the right Knowledge of Good and Evil is good and necessary without which we cannot hate the Evil and love the Good The Nature and Difference of Moral Good and Evil is invariable For any to conceit Virtue and Vice of an indifferent Nature in themselves that the former is only good because commanded and the latter only evil as forbidden is certainly a most wild and very false conceit Or to imagine that the Holy God of His absolute Soveraignty might have commanded us to despise His infinitely Glorious Majesty to blaspheme His most Sacred and Reverend Name and to be unjust intemperate to run into all excess of Riot to make Beasts of our selves to be Lewd and Debauch'd to work all uncleanness with greediness Or to imagine that he might have prohibited our living Soberly Righteously and Godly in the World surely such thoughts would be horribly injurious to the Holy one of Israel most impious and blasphemous thoughts They that could entertain such thoughts of God would shew themselves no Christians while thus they would subvert all Religion Such would not shew themselves Men but rather to have put off all Reason and Humanity Such would shew themselves Enemies to Mankind who cared not to turn the World upside down cared not to turn Human Societies into Herds of brute Beasts Yea such would interpretatively and by consequence deny that there is a God that Ruleth and Judgeth in the Earth As such Laws would be most contradictory to the Infinite Goodness and Holiness of God And if He were not infinitely Good and Holy he should not be God Deny His perfect Holiness and you deny Him to be God Yet note by the way that besides those things which are intrinsically good or evil there are other things indifferent in themselves which passing under the stamp of Divine Authority the Lord requiring them they thus become unquestionable Duties or forbidding other of them they are Sins till such injunction or prohibition be taken off And it must needs be thus upon that Fundamental undeniable Principle That God our Maker Owner and Supreme Ruler and Governour hath a Sovereign Right of commanding and that Man is under an indisputable Obligation to obey Him in all his Commands That 't is unquestionably good to yield obedience even to such positive Commands But evil to transgress and violate them As God made Man a Reasonable Creature and Upright after his own Image while Man kept his integrity there was a right understanding and good accord betwixt God and Man Mans will being fully conform to the will of his Maker Thus at first Mans Nature was fram'd to love the good and to hate evil And nothing more congruous to right Reason than that it should be so And therefore wicked Men in Scripture are commonly called Fools a proper Name for them as wanting the right use of Reason As loving that which in all reason they should hate and abominate and hating that which they ought to love Which shews the horrible depravation of Mans Nature by and since the Fall Oh the monstrous deformity of sinful Souls what lamentable horrible disorders are here As Sinners love simplicity and hate knowledge Prov. 1.22 Love Darkness and hate the Light as chap. 3. of the Evangelist St. John ver 19 20. Love their base Lusts and hate Holiness Unto such a foolish cross-grain'd froward and perverse People was the Prophet Amos here sent The Children of Israel the House of Joseph for whom together with their Brethren the Children of Judah the Lord had done more than for all the Families of the Earth besides When yet they requited Him evil for good they went on provoking Him with their manifold Transgressions and their mighty Sins as here ver 12. For which they are severely threatned Yet here behold and wonder Oh should we not wonder at the goodness and mercy of God shewn towards such provoking Creatures as Sinners are The Lord with His sharpest reproofs and severest threatnings is pleas'd to intermix most gracious Calls and Counsels to repent and turn that so he might repent of the evil threatned and turn from His fierce Anger yea that he might be gracious unto the Remnant of Joseph According to that Ezek. 33.11 As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the Death of the wicked but c What various methods doth he take to bring sinners to a better pass that iniquity may not be their ruine His patience and goodness is to lead them to Repentance His inflicting lesser judgments as warning-pieces is that if they take warning and turn unto the Lord that smiteth them greater evils may be prevented severer strokes may be kept off more wasting Calamities Land-desolating Judgments may be turned away And still he follows them with gracious earnest Calls and and with sweet encouraging Promises if any means might work on them As here v. 4 5 6. Seek ye me and ye shall live But seek not Bethel Seek the Lord and ye shall live And v. 14 15. Seek good and not evil that ye may live and so the Lord the God of Hosts shall be with you Hate the evil and love the good and establish judgment in the Gate c. Here is a Sovereign Remedy prescrib'd to and for a People in a most dangerous Case When judgment was towards them the Decree ready to bring forth Sentence ready to be executed And 't is the Lords own prescription who is called their Physitian Exod. 15.26 Here 's a threefold Duty requir'd 1. Hate the Evil. 2. Love the good 3. Establish Judgment in the Gate And Gods mercy held forth or promis'd thereupon It may be that the Lord God of Hosts will be gracious unto the Remnant of Joseph Which tho spoken of with a may be yet all the doubt was whether they would Repent and Reform not whether God would be gracious to them if they did so See Jer. 18.7 8. What needeth explanation I may take notice of as I go on These four Axioms or Propositions I take to lie plain in the Text that he that runneth may observe and take notice of I. 'T is Gods express Charge Will and Command that Men hate Evil. II. So likewise That they love that which is good III. And that according to their power and capacity they establish Judgment in the Gate IV. And this way a People may hope to

than any Foreign Enemy could be For our manifold Sins and Provocations without a more General Reformation than is yet to be seen amongst us the Lord the Lord God of Hosts may be provok'd to become our Enemy And where are we then What will become of us if we have him our Enemy As it follows Amos 9.5 The Lord God of Hosts is he that toucheth the Land and it shall melt and all that dwell therein shall mourn c. See Nehem. 1.5 6. I must tell you if you do not hate Sin if you are not Enemies to Sin you can be no true Friends to England But I may dwell no longer on this and must hast over the second Proposition which follows II. We are as expresly charg'd and commanded to love that which is good As 't is not enough to leave off and shun evil practices but we must hate the Evil So 't is not enough to do good actions but we must love the Good Quest 1. What are we to understand by Good here Answ Not any false or Phantastick Good Not what is only good in shew and appearance or in a Sinners deluded fancy Not the Covetous Worldlings good Not the Sensualists good No need of a Command to love Earthly Riches or Carnal Pleasures which Carnal Hearts are too much in love with But need enough of a Caution or Prohibition against setting our Hearts on these Which indeed we meet with again and again in Gods Holy Word But the Good we are required to love stands in opposition to the Evil we must hate Therefore look as whatsoever the Law forbids we are to hate as Evil So whatsoever He requires we are to love as Good Whatsoever is right and good in Gods Eyes should be so in ours He that is Wisdom it self and Goodness it self cannot deceive or misinform us concerning what is Good Indeed he is the prime good to be first and principally loved For that he is Summe Bonus summum Bonum superlatively most transcendently good the chiefest good He is Essentially Originally Infinitely Immutably Good He is Goodness it self And here is the Root of the Matter To lay a right Foundation we must see that we begin at the love of God begin at the love of God in Christ in whom he hath discover'd and made himself known as infinitely amiable And then we must love other things according as they are conform to his perfect Holy Nature and so far as is agreeable to his Good and Righteous will Quest 2. What is it to love the Good Answ In short loving the Good is the complacency of the Soul in that which is good whereby the Soul embraceth and cleaves to that which is good is knit to it as one with it and would by no means be parted from it but still follows that which is good and has a care to hold it fast Here you have a brief Account of the Affection together with its proper Effects Now what could be more reasonable and equitable than this Precept Love the good 1. Great reason for it from the very Nature of the thing Indeed these Precepts in the Text are such common Principles as all who would not out-face the very light of Nature must necessarily yield their Assent unto All that would shew themselves Men must grant that there is no place at all for Hatred if it should not be turn'd against that which is evil so no place to be found for love if not to be set on that which is good As indeed contrariorum contraria est ratio There is as good reason for our loving the one as for our hating the other Nothing more congruous to Reason than to love that which is good Omnis Appetitus fertur in Bonum And tho' the Sensitive Appetite looks at a lower kind of good yet surely the Will the Rational Appetite should look higher Does not every Man's reason tell him that of two sorts of good the better should be prefer'd the greater good should be chosen And certainly where the sensitive Appetite that should be under the Conduct and Regimen of Reason beareth sway will not be rul'd it shews such Men so far brutified and without the right use of Reason And if that which is truly really good should attract our Wills and Affections before a meer seeming good then should not naked Vertue be preferr'd and chosen before Vice in its richest Robes Tho' Vertue had no dowry here yet were she not to be embraced rather than any vicious course notwithstanding it promised one Kingdoms upon Earth with the glory of them Surely Goodness is the proper Object of Love the formal Reason of it the Loadstone of it And they that love not Goodness shew themselves monstrously deprav'd 2. Without loving that which is good 't is certain we cannot be good We may do things good in themselves but if not from a love to Goodness but only for some by ends out of Sinister Respects our Hearts may be stark nought They that are truly good have a sincere love to Goodness They love it propter se for its goodness sake That which is good is very grateful pleasing and suitable to a good Heart 3. There is no good we do that 's pleasing unto God if it be not from a love to that which is good Without this we act not from a right Principle nor to a right end Which things the Lord looks chiefly at more than at the bare outward Action 4. Without a love to that which is good we cannot follow that which is good as we ought to do 3 Epistle of the Apostle John v. 11. neither are we like to cleave to that which is good a Duty requir'd Rom. 12.9 nor shall we hold fast that which is good 1 Thes 5.21 without cleaving to it in Affection we are not like to keep close to it in our Practice Satan that grand Adversary with wicked Men his Agents will do all they can to discourage and draw us off from that which is good and to allure and draw us on to that which is evil 'T is the property of wicked Men that they would have all as had as themselves and the property of Satan that he would have all as miserable as himself and being void of all Goodness but as full of Wickedness as he can hold hence he envies us having not any spark of goodness or any inclination towards it 5. It is unquestionably our Duty to hate evil as we heard before And it is by the Love of Goodness that we come to hate evil When we hate evil we hate it as being opposite and contrary to the good which the Lord hath requir'd taught us to love hath inclin'd our Hearts to Love Now what Use are we to make of this Tho' I must be very brief Use I. Hence we may infer That there is a special Love due to those that are good A special love due to them even for the good that is in them and the