Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	faith_n	godliness_n	temperance_n	4,219	5	11.6041	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51292	Discourses on several texts of Scripture by Henry More.	More, Henry, 1614-1687.; Worthington, John, 1618-1671.	1692 (1692)	Wing M2649; ESTC R27512	212,373	520

The treachery and stratagems of the Lusts against the Soul are usually these First A pretence of enlarging our Knowledge and Experience in things that it is fit to know the World and by real Proof to judge of the estimate of things and not to be cooped up within such narrow bounds and thereby remain simple and ignorant This was a Stratagem of the Old Serpent whereby he deceived Eve Ye shall not surely dye but God knows that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as Gods and know good and evil Gen. 3. But the Soul must take heed of such false and mischievous insinuations as these and remember that experimentally to know evil is to become evil and miserable and that the adequate object of our Wills or Desires is that which is Good and that therefore Knowledge it self is not desireable but upon this account so far forth as it makes us good and happy Who would have the experimental knowledge of the Rack or of the Stone and Gout or of a draught of Poyson though he may have his Antidote None but condemned Persons and the Slaves of Mountebanks nor they neither but that they are forced to it To undergo therefore such base Experiments in which there is so much loathsomness and danger is to submit our selves to be Slaves and is unworthy the Nobleness of an Humane Soul But if we will be experimenting let us not experiment downwards by plunging our selves into several sorts and degrees of Lusts of the Fleshly or Animal Life but rather try how much we can emerge upwards into the various pleasures and perfections of the Divine Let us taste and see how good the Lord is and what variety of joys and delights there is in him All things come to an end but thy Commandments are exceeding large saith the Prophet David Here 's a field therefore wide enough to exercise our selves in and to try variety of experiments in the progress of Holiness adding to our faith vertue to our vertue knowledge to our knowledge temperance to our temperance patience to our patience godliness to our godliness brotherly kindness and to our brotherly kindness charity Whereby we become of one Spirit with the very Godhead it self in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore and so great that we cannot desire to experiment any thing greater Secondly Well but if this Stratagem will not take the next is a fair insinuation of kindred and friendship betwixt the Fleshly Lusts and the Soul of man Homo es humani nihil à te alienum puta or that Proverbial Phrase amongst the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the Soul here is to remember that the True man is the Intellectual man made in the Image of God according to Righteousness and true Holiness not the Sensual part common to us with the Brutes and that though she may admit of natural ordinate desires yet Fleshly Lusts have no pretence to lay any claim to her they belonging either to the worst of Brutes or not being to be owned at all as any part of the Creation Wherefore it is a pittiful Sophisme men put upon themselves while they plead an indulgence to their sinful Lusts upon the priviledge of their Nature as if they were Beasts and not Men or as if it were a priviledge to be a Beast or Man were not to rule the Beast in this case and admit of no desires but such as are ordinate and allowable Thirdly and lastly These Fleshly Lusts will plead for themselves from custom and the guize of the World and tell the Soul it is but a piece of Humanity and Discretion and due Civility to the rest of Mankind to do as they do that it is more creditable and plausible and how a Man had better be out of the World than out of the Fashion But to stop this vain plea of the Flesh the Soul may oppose that of the Blessed Apostle S. Peter Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Iesus Christ as obedient children not fashioning your selves according to the former lusts in your ignorance but as he which hath called you is holy so be ye holy in all manner of conversation because it is written Be ye holy for I am holy And to be holy is not to be mingled with the World or conformable thereto but separate and distinct from it What therefore have we to do to conform our selves to the rest of the World that lies in wickedness as S. Iohn saith when as we are a chosen generation a royal priesthood an holy nation a peculiar people who are to shew forth the praises of him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light 1 Pet. 2. 9. Why then should we fashion our selves according to the sinful guize of the World when as Christ hath redeemed us from the earth and from all our vain conversation And therefore we being the peculiar people of God we are Strangers and Pilgrims as to the World and the guizes thereof and it would be as ill beseeming for us to conform our selves to the fashions of the World as it would be for a Civil European to put on the Shells and Feathers of a Barbarous American 2. But the Lusts of the Flesh being thus worsted and defeated in Parley they will attempt to do that by violence which they could not do by treachery and circumvention By the force and vigour of their impress they will endeavour to carry us away captive But against this the Soul is to listen to that Advice of our Saviour Watch and pray that ye be not led into temptation and that of the Apostle S. Peter Be sober be vigilant because your adversary the devil as a roaring lyon walketh about seeking whom he may devour And he entred into Iudas you know upon the eating of the Sop which seems to intimate that Fasting and Temperance is a good safeguard against him We must with S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep the Body under lest this domestick Thief as Trismegist calls it be so strong and stubborn that he fly in our faces and over-master us We must put on the whole Armour of God as the Apostle exhorts the Ephesians that we may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand to keep the field against our fiercest and stoutest Enemies We must have our loins girt with Truth that is with saving Truth with the knowledge of the best and most useful things For this Truth lies in a little room and therefore will keep in and gird up our Affections more close and not suffer any diffluency of our minds into folly and vanity And we must put on the Breast-plate of Righteousness that is of resolved Uprightness and Sincerity of Heart Above all we must take the

Phancies suggest or our vacillant Reason blind or drunk with the foul steams of an impure and unsanctify'd Heart would pretend to coin for us Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee in whose heart are thy wayes The next is Faith By which I do not so much understand Faith in general as that which has for its proper Object the Power of God for the destroying of Sin and the erecting his Kingdom in us For out of this ariseth our Strength in God and our Victory over the World This is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith as S. Iohn speaks Which Requisite is also hinted in this Psalm the last verse O Lord of Hosts blessed is the man that trusteth in thee And indeed sith our Faith and Trust and Confidence is in the Lord of Hosts how can we despair of the victory over any Sin whatsoever Cannot he that created Heaven and Earth by his Word create in us a pure Heart and renew a right Spirit within us I can do all things saith S. Paul through Christ that strengthens me Certainly it is a Contradiction that Omnipotency should not be able so effectually to assist a willing Soul as to bring all her enemies under her feet Can he that is the Lord of Hosts and has the power over all Nature be baffled in his assaults upon the corrupt Nature of any poor Creature so that he cannot reduce it if he will And can we possibly imagine God not to be willing to subdue Sin in the World who has given us such express Laws against it both within and without who expresses his Wrath and Vengeance against it so frequently in Scripture who is so irreconcileable an enemy unto it that nothing less than the Death of his only begotten Son could make an Atonement for it And lastly the Holiness of whose Nature is so contrary and diametrically opposite to the pollutedness of it Wherefore the fault most assuredly lyes at our own doors viz. because we are not sincerely willing to have our Sins vanquished and overcome by the Power of God Which therefore is the third and last Requisite which the Travellers in the Valley of Baca are said to be provided with namely Sincerity which comprehends not only a belief that all our Sins ought to be subdued and that they are all vanquishable through the assistance of Gods Spirit but also an unfeigned willingness to have them subdued and an hearty endeavour to the utmost of that power we have received to conquer them and subdue them He that is provided of all these three is fitly furnished for a prosperous Journey toward the House of God and the Almighty will be his safeguard in his travel 3. Which is the Third Particular we named What Convoy to guard them safe in their Iourney which is intimated in the Psalm also For the Lord is a sun and a shield the Lord will give grace and glory and no good thing will he with-hold from them that walk uprightly that is to say that walk sincerely In which Sincerity if they keep themselves he will also be faithful unto them and not suffer them to be tempted above what they are able and will deliver them from all straits and assaults of their enemies both inward and outward The Lord will be their fortress and tower their defence and shield a present help in the day of trouble The Angels of the Lord will encamp round about them and deliver them For such as these as it is said of those few names in Sardis Christ will confess their names before his Father and his holy Angels namely profess how dear they are to him and so commit them to their safe protection 4. And surely the Influences of Heaven which is the Fourth Particular cannot but be very benign to those that are thus dear to the God of Heaven And therefore for light and warmth and kindly dews and showres they shall not be destitute of these in this Journey of theirs to the Temple of God And therefore God is said as well to be a Sun to them as a Shield in the forecited Verse of this Psalm And in Ver. 6. They that pass through the valley of Baca are said to make it a well and that the rain filleth the pools Like that in Psalm 68. O God when thou wentest forth before thy people when thou didst march through the wilderness the clouds dropped at thy presence thou sentest a gracious rain upon thy inheritance and refreshedst it when it was weary But in this present Psalm the Rain is said to be received into some hollows of the Earth dug out the Latin renders it cisternas I suppose any fossae or hollows of what form soever will serve the turn made by the diging away the Earth that this Heavenly Liquor may supply the vacuity For that is a great mistake in the Carnal-minded that they think that when we empty our selves of the Old Adam and the comforts of that Life that we thus stand empty for ever and that Religion is a forlorn disconsolate condition No dig away thy Earth and God will fill the vacuity with a substance from Heaven Or starve away the fulsomness of thy Flesh by assiduous mortification and purification and thou shalt make this arid Soil this Valley of Baca a springing Well as it is suggested in the beginning of the Verse When our Terrestrial substance becomes a dry barren Soil as to the fruits of the Flesh then will those Well-springs of living Water bubble up in us as our Saviour has promised unto Eternal Life by which is understood the irrigation of the Spirit Non datur vacuum is a Maxime as true in Divinity as in Philosophy Empty thy self therefore of thy Earth and thou shalt most certainly be replenished with Heaven 5. Now for the Fifth Particular which occurs in my Text properly so called for I have made the whole Psalm in a manner my Text hitherto it is of the greatest importance of all throughly to consider it namely our gradual advance in this journey through the Valley of Baca. They go from strength to strength è virtute in virtutem the Latin has it from vertue to vertue And indeed this progress from strength to strength is nothing else but a proficiency in Vertue either from one vertue to another Add to your Faith Fortitude to your Fortitude Patience c. or from one Degree of vertue to another And this vertue is very significantly termed strength there being no true Vertue which is not such It is but the imagination of vertue if it be not accompanied with Life and Power And forasmuch as Vertue and Grace are all one let every one take notice that he that has no Vertue has no Grace as well as he that has no Power has no Vertue Which is a plain Note to examine a mans self by that he may not lye lusking in his softnesses and infirmities and in the mean time flatter himself that