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	good_a	temperance_n	1,131	5	11.1758	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61175	A sermon preached at the anniversary meeting the Sons of Clergy-men in the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow, Nov. vii, 1678 / by Thomas Sprat ...	Sprat, Thomas, 1635-1713.; Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy (London, England)	1678 (1678)	Wing S5055; ESTC R16678	19,762	52

mystical Houshold In a particular more eminent manner the Ministers of that Houshold the Dispensers of that Faith and so many of the best Interpreters understand my Text. Hence therefore we behold to whom all Christians are to do good to all Men especially to all Christians more especially to all the Ministers of Christ. And this being laid down as undeniable if you give me leave to make one short step farther we may then by an easy and necessary consequence reduce this general advice to our present particular purpose For if the Fathers and Husbands of those whose relief this your Meeting intends were unquestionably of the Houshold of Faith both as the Members and Ministers of it and if on that account all were especially to do good to them then certainly their Relicts and Children cannot be Strangers in this Houshold ought not to be Strangers to the Good that is done in it if they want it If to the Ministers of Christ whilest Living all are to do Good as to the chief Officers of the Houshold of Faith then certainly when they have ceased from their labours at least as much to their posterity to whom there is near the same obligation too frequently a far greater need and occasion of doing good And if all Christians are bound to do good in a peculiar manner to the Houshold of Faith so understood then no doubt those of the Houshold it self who are in some estate of Prosperity which God be prais'd is your case have much stronger ties to do good to the other members of the same Houshold who are in adversity You now see Reverend and Beloved in our Lord and Saviour the course of my Text has brought us to the great design of this our Assembly which is mercy to those distressed persons who have the same relation to this Houshold of Faith with our selves But before I come to them I beseech your patience whilst I speak something to our selves here present to whom from what has been said methinks a little seasonable Counsel some honest humble intreaties at least are due from me at this time as from all of us a relief is due to the others We have heard our Common our Proper Title to the Houshold of God laid open before us We find our selves inrolled in this heavenly Family as Servants as Sons as Sons to the chief and most Sacred part of this Family The best Philologers say that the Original word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is here translated of the Houshold does not only signifie Domestic as oppos'd to Foreign to those without doors but also private as oppos'd to common and those that are only just within doors On both these Senses our claim is founded We are not only of the Houshold out of which a great part of the World is excluded but we are more privately more intimately of the Houshold in which a great part of the Faithful are only as common Members Thus we have all a double relation to it some of us a threefold All of us as Christians all as Sons of the Ministers of Christ some not only so but as Ministers our selves And can our duty then be single Is there nothing expected from us more than from other Christians Does our greater privelege require nothing from us but what is Common Yes certainly very much Let me briefly put you in mind what it is First since we claim a proper interest above others in the preeminent rights of the Houshold of Faith then no doubt to make good that claim we are all proportionably oblig'd above others to conform to the proper manners and virtues that belong to and become this Houshold and distinguish it from all others then no doubt if in every one of such Virtues whether they respect God or Man we do not exceed others we scarce do our ordinary duty what great deficience is it if we come short of others what hainous shame if we notoriously offend in the opposite sins We have far greater obligations than all others to do good we have not so much as the false excuses that some others may think they have to do evil If we forsake the waies of Grace and Goodness we cannot allege any colour of Ignorance or want of Instruction we cannot say we have not learn'd them or we could not nay we cannot say we have forgot them They were familiar to us from our Cradles imprinted on our Childish Memories insinuated into our tenderest Age endear'd to us by the nearest Examples Virtue in us not only our Duty but should be our Portion our Inheritance Vice in us were not only wickedness but Apostasie degenerate wickedness Wherefore of those Graces which no Christian can be without we ought to exhibit a greater measure of those which adorn a Christian Life we should aspire to the most excellent degree Far should be from us not only all scandalous evil but all the least appearance of evil and as Caesar said of his House not only the Sin but the suspicion The spotless modesty of private and public life that sobriety of Conversation that mildness of behaviour that Innocence that Benignity of words and actions that Liberal that Generous Spirit which all other other Christians ought to labour after should look in us as if they were natural to us and born with us In those good things which all others are to study and imitate we are to give some of us Rules all of us Examples What all others should practice we should scarce to know how to practice otherwise I urge this the rather because we live in an Age when there is an universal complaint and God knows there is too much reason for it of an universal Corruption of good Manners The complaint indeed is far more general than the indeavours to redress it Abroad every Man would be a Reformer how very few at home But in truth if all would really intend an amendment and set about it in good earnest I cannot imagine any more likely means to effect it than to have it seriously begun and steddily carried on by men of our birth Great and powerful I am confident irresistible would be the influence which this very Assembly would have on the whole Kingdom If judgment begins at the house of God says St. Peter where shall the ungodly and wicked appear And why should we not expect that judgment will begin at the House of God if reformation begins not there But then let me add if reformation begins at the Houshold of God where shall ungodliness and wickedness appear Your Examples will meet it at every turn and put it out of countenance in every place even in private corners 't will soon lose that confidence which now it too much assumes in public Secondly This consideration that we are all united in one Houshold are all of the more inward part of the same Houshold may suggest to us all that we especially of all Men of all Christians ought

most to promote Unity amongst our selves and others I beseech you mistake me not I do not only mean our Unity in matters of Religion That amongst us I suppose I cannot reasonnably suspect that any of us should be dissatisfied with or disobedient to the Church of England I cannot fancy that those little scruples and groundless prejudices and weaknesses of Conscience instead of tenderness which mislead too many others too many otherwise good men should find place in any of our minds against so Pure so Pious so Regular so Moderate a Church at whose Breasts we were more than ordinarily nourish'd a Church which deserves to be to all a common Mother and is to us so much more than a common Mother Wherefore I will not I need not undertake to exhort you to an Ecclesiastical Union within your selves I am rather ready to congratulate that to you But there is another Unity which next that in Spiritual things would be of all others most delightful to God himself most advantageous to our Country and that is your endeavour after a Civil a Political Union in the whole Nation a fair and candid Correspondence between all ways of life a strict and friendly Communion of good and kind Offices between Men of all Ranks and Professions among us This is that to which I would most earnestly and I believe I should most seasonably advise you all You know who has said That every Kingdom divided against it self is brought to desolation and every City or House divided against it self shall not stand And most certainly nothing more shakes the Superstructure nothing more strikes at the Foundation of any Society of Men nothing more disables a House a City a Kingdom from doing good and great things than mean divisions between the several Orders and Conditions of its Members their narrow-hearted repining at each others gain their ill construction of each others advantages their envying the fruits of each others labours when one Trade or Art even those that should be the most Liberal shall make it their business to Disdain and Calumniate another shall impute the faults of any particular men to the discredit of any whole Calling when any distinct way of life shall think that all others injoy too much Profit or Power or Honour they alone too little What can be more destructive to public Quiet and Concord What to a private easy and honestly-pleasant life than in full peace to have as it were an open War between all professions for any of the Clergy to murmur against the Priveleges of the Laity for any of the Laity invidiously to aggravate the Rights and Immunities of the Clergy For Church-men to look with a greedy or malicious eye on the Incomes or Preferments of Lawyers or Physicians or Merchants or the Gentry without weighing their hazards and expenses For any of these without regarding the pains and burdens of Church-men to grudge or upbraid to them those small remains of Ancient Piety which the Rapacity of some Ages has left scarce left to the Church Whether this be not on all sides a most ill-natured most pernicious temper whether it has not too much sower'd and infected the humor of too many of our Countrymen I leave to you to judge yet not only to judge but to you of all men living the cure of this Distemper is to be recommended You are not only the most proper but I believe the only instruments capable of effecting this happy work Unspeakable is the opportunity to this end which is in your power that no other generation of men can equally pretend to 'T is an evident observation than no other one Race not the Sons of any one other Profession not perhaps all together are so much scatter'd amongst all Professions all ways of life as the Sons of Clergy-men alone Of most others the Children are commonly bred up in their Fathers way or so plentifully provided for that they are left at large some few permitted to venture on the Church But with Churchmen 't is far otherwise Their Children we see flow abroad are confin'd to none overspread all our ways of breeding and life our Shops our Schools our Universities our Inns of Court our College of Physicians our Towns our Country our Court our Cities this Court this City especially And if the dispersion of the Church from Ierusalem by the reason of persecution first into all Iudea then into all the World became by Gods wonderful providence the chief cause of enlarging the Gospel why may not we hope that the Sons of the Church being so much dispers'd though God be thanked without being driven into all quarters of the Land there was some extraordinary design of Divine Wisdom in it Certainly yes certainly 't was intended that we should carry along with us into all other places and Professions wherever our stations are allotted some of those good and virtuous qualities which we were strangely careless if we did not bring from home with us something of that meek condescending calm affable reconciling composed composing Spirit which if Churchmen and their Progeny have not they cannot pretend to any other Virtues We were all born and grew up in the very native soil of Modesty Humility Peace and Unity And if we shall neglect to propagate these blessed dispositions in all the other soils where so many of us are transplanted what others can we expect shall do it What others can undertake it without some blemish to us some reflexion on our negligence But if we shall endeavour it with Diligence and Constancy we need not doubt but by the ordinary blessing of God our labors in this kind will prove the fortunate means to make these Virtues thrive elsewhere spread every where For proof of all I have said concerning the probability the certainty of reforming and uniting the whole Nation by our Example I crave leave only to set before you an image of what would surely be done to this purpose in this one City which may well be reckon'd not only the seat of Trade and Commerce not only the Fountain of Habits and Fashions and good Breeding but of morally-good or bad manners to all England Throughout the whole extent of this vast City I know there is no one Ward no Parish I believe no Street not many Lanes where there does not live one or more that have our Relation to the Church and live generally in so good a rank as will rather invite than discourage others to follow what they shall practise Now then if amongst you of our number who are Citizens there were at once begun by common consent an universal amendment of Life and other Conversation If we shall make it our unanimous business to oppose the particular Vices of the time by their contrary Virtues Schism by Unity Hypocrisie by sober Piety Debauchery by Temperance mistaken Zeal by true Zeal and the like if so then the change will soon appear remarkable the Example will be