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	hope_n	love_n	2,864	5	5.6124	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54031	The consideration of a position concerning the Book of common-prayer as also of some particulars held forth for truths by one Edmund Elis, stiled a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ : with a warning of tender bowels to the rulers, teachers and people of this nation concerning their church and ministry : likewise a few words concerning the kingdom, laws and government of Christ in the heart and conscience, its inoffensiveness to all just laws and governments of the kingdoms of men / by Isaac Penington the younger.	Penington, Isaac, 1616-1679.; Elys, Edmund, ca. 1634-ca. 1707.	1660 (1660)	Wing P1161; ESTC R28789	24,645	40

of Faith and several degrees of Life and Glory Some are under the Clouds some in the Sea some in Egypt some in the Wilderness some waiting for his appearance some in the enjoyment of him already appeared In some the work of Regeneration of Sanctification of newness of Spirit and Life is but begun in others it is interrupted and they come to a losse in some it is much carried on even towards consummation and some are already compleat in him finding fulness of satisfaction in him in whom the everlasting Springs are opened to the full content of their hearts and bring forth fruit to him to the full content and satisfaction of his heart In the Apostles dayes there were those that waited for his coming and there were those also that knew him come and had received the good understanding from him and were in the Eternal life John 5.20 Yet this doth not exclude growth for the fulness is infinite and though a perfect state may be attained in the perfect gift yet there is a growth in the perfection for Christ who was perfect and in whom was no guile grew in Wisdom and Knowledge and in favour with God and men And as God is infinite so that which is transplanted into him there is no growth in him but the Tree which stands in God's holy Earth by his pure River of waters shall grow for ever into his endless life and fulness To his sixth That no man can so know God as to love him with all his heart and with all his Soul but through the knowledge of Jesus Christ and him Crucified Who by those grievous sufferings which he endur'd when he was upon Earth made satisfaction to the justice of God for the sins of all those that believe in his Name so that it is as consistent with the justice as with the mercy of God to forgive them their sins and make them heirs of eternal life God is just and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus Answ The knowledge of Christ is life Eternal and in his Cross is the spiritual vertue which cuts off the uncircumcision of the heart whereby it is enabled to love the Lord. Now Christ is the Lord from Heaven the quickning Spirit who soweth the Seed of the Kingdom in the heart and causeth it to spring up out of which Seed the Faith the Love the Hope the Meekness the Patience and every spiritual fruit springs and grows And he that is thus born of this Seed and receives the knowledge of life which springs from this Seed he cannot but love him which begat him and he reapeth the fruit of all that Christ did and suffered in that prepared body and God is both just and the Justifier of him who is thus united to Jesus But that man who knoweth not this Faith nor is acquainted with the love which springeth from this Root and which is of this Divine nature but thinketh to be justified by applying to himself what is related in the Histories concerning Christ this man deceives his Soul and misseth of the true Justification for God is just who hath made the Promise sure to the Seed and hath shut out man further than he is born of the Seed and found in the Seed But he who abideth in the Seed and in whom the Seed findeth pleasure and abideth he cannot miss of the Promise of the everlasting Righteousness the Reconciliation the Peace the Joy and whatever else God giveth to the Seed To his seventh and last That the ready way to receive Christ the onely Light by which we may see the way to Heaven or so to believe in him that we may be saved by him is to forsake all that we have that we may be his Disciples that is to say to take off our affections from things on the Earth and to set them on things above where Jesus sitteth on the right hand of God putting our trust and confidence in the free and in the infinite mercy of God through Christ to be guided by him in all our wayes to be led by his good Spirit in all those wayes of grace and holiness through which we must pass before we can attain to glory Answ To know Christ as the Light eternal as he was yesterday is to day and will be for ever to trust this Light in its convictions calls and free openings of love to feel its living virtue and in that virtue to give up all that 's of the earthly nature and spirit to sell it for the everlasting inheritance this is indeed the way to life But it is not the doing of things which is of value for man may imitate and strive to do much and may go a great way in forsaking all and in taking off his affections from things inasmuch as he may give all his goods to the poor and his body to be burned and yet it profit him nothing but it is the doing of things in the virtue in the life in the power which comes from Christ which is of acceptance with God and of advantage to the soul Every motion and operation of true life springs from the root of life and hath the virtue of the root in it and that which differenceth it from all mens imitations and from all the likenesses which the earthly spirit can frame is the nature and virtue of the root being found in it Therefore he that will be a true Christian must eye Christ the spring of his life and keep in the feeling of his living virtue and in that offer up all his Sacrifices of faith love and obedience to God and he that will be a true Minister must wait upon the power himself to be an Instrument in the hand of the power to direct men to this and to preserve and build them up therein But alas this is the Stone which the wise Builders have all along refused The Builders before the coming of Christ they got a knowledge concerning the Messiah to come but being unacquainted with the thing it self rejected both it at its coming and also the Vessel wherein it appeared And the Builders all along the Apostacy gat a knowledge of Christ come and preached Believing in him crucified as the way to life but the living Stone the living thing it self which is both the foundation the corner-Stone and the top Stone of the Building they have been ignorant of and ready to persecute every appearance of it Christ can no more now appear in Spirit than formerly he could in that prepared body of flesh but the wise Builders now are as ready to cry out against him for a Blasphemer a prophaner of Gods Ordinances a deceiver of the people yea a Witch or one that hath a Devil as the wise Builders then were But Wisdom in all ages is justified by her Children and of none else He that is born of the Wisdom he can discern the womb and own the fruit and branchings forth thereof under the mean dark vail whereby it

and in this is the Discovery of him and the Redemption from him And happy is he vvho is not defiled with Women but abideth in the true Virginity expecting and preparing for the appearance of the Bridegroom The CONSIDERATION of a POSITION concerning the Book of COMMON-PRAYER As also of some Particulars held forth for Truths c. THere is a Position laid down in some Printed Letters concerning the use of the Common-Prayer-Book tendred by one Edm. Elis who professeth himself to be a Minister of Jesus Christ to Mr. Hughes and Mr. Ford as he stileth them against which Position he entreateth me if I find upon my Spirit any thing to be objected against it to discover it in exact and punctual expressions This desire of his is set down in Print after the Letters His Position or Assertion is this That a man may Worship God in Spirit and in Truth in the use of that form of Prayer for Morning and Evening which we call the Common-Prayer Now whoever would weigh this Assertion aright must have the Ballance of the Sanctuary and must put it into the Scale with an equal hand and then looking with that eye which is given to see the Misteries of the Kingdom of God to him who is born of God the Truth or Error of it is easily discerned True Prayer is the breathing of the Child to the Father which begat it from the sence of its wants for the supply of those wants The Winde bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth So is every one that is born of the Spirit John 3.8 God by the Breath of his Spirit begets a man out of the Spirit and likeness of this World into his own image and likenesse He that is thus begotten wants Nourishment wants the Divine Warmth the Breasts of Consolation the Cloathing of the Spirit the Garment of Salvation wants the Bread of Life to feed on wants the Water of Life to drink wants strength against the enemies Assaults wisdom against his Snares and Temptations wants the arm of the Deliverer to preserve and carry on the work of Redemption daily wants Faith to deny the fleshly Wisdom that so he may Trust and Feel the Vertue of the Arm of the Deliverer wants Hope Patience Meeknesse a clear Guidance an upright Heart to follow after the Lord yea very many are the daily wants of that which is begotten by the Breath of God in its state of weaknesse until it be drawn up into the Unity of the Body where the full Communion with the Life is felt the Heart satisfied and the wants drowned Now the breathing of this Child to the Father from the sence of these wants for his Supply that 's Prayer nay though it be but a Groan or Sigh which cannot be uttered or expressed yet that 's Prayer true Prayer which hath an acceptance with the Lord and receiveth a Gracious Answer from him And he that begetteth the Child teacheth him to Pray even by the same Spirit which begat him In watching daily to the Spirit the Child is kept sensible of the Will of the Father and in his Light he sees the Way wherein he is to walk he sees also the Enemie when he is coming yea and the Snares he is privily laying and he feels his own weaknesse to withstand or escape And in this sence his Heart cries to the Father of Spirits for Preservation for him to stand by him for him to step in in the needful time even in the Season of Distress And thus watching to the Spirit the Life of a Christian is a continual course of Prayer He prayes continually This is the Living Prayer of the Living Child which consists not in a Form of Words either read out of a Book or conceived in the Mind but in feeling the Breath of its Nature issuing out from the Principle of Life in it to the Living Spring which is the Father of it who by causing his vertues to spring up in it nourisheth it to Everlasting Life But now man who is not born of the Spirit but by conceiving some of the Truths of God in the Wisdom from below hath attained to some change of Opinion and Conversation he pretends to be this Birth from above though indeed he is born but of Bloods or of the Will of the flesh or of the Will of Man John 1.13 and what God begets in and gives to his True Child he will be imitating though he be out of the Nature and Spirit where the True Child is begotten and where the True gift of the Father is received by him He will be believing though he hath not received any Proportion of the Living Faith from the Hand of the Father he will be forming Repentance and Sorrow for sin though his Heart be not turned from it he will be hoping in Gods Mercy although he be both from off the Foundation and from under the shadow of the Mercy-seat and he will be praying though he hath neither received the Spirit nor be taught by the Spirit to pray And so being from that which should guide him and teach him the truth and way of Worship as it is in Jesus he runs out into the inventions and imaginations and sets up a way of his own chusing which he having much considered of and beat out by reasonings and fenced about with Arguments he grows wise in his own eyes and now verily believes it to be the way of God and that he is able to maintain it against all opposers Thus one man he is for a Form another man he is against a Form and for conceived prayers and each think themselves able to maintain their own and to overthrow each other But Oh that that ear were open which can hear the truth that where there is any true honest upright desire after God from the simplicity of the heart it might not be thus betrayed through the subtilty of the fleshly wisdom which lies lurking in the wise reasoning knowing part to betray the poor weak Babe The natural man the reasoning man the understanding man the wise man according to the natural wisdom cannot understand the things of God Here 's no learning to pray aright to believe aright to hope aright to mourn aright to rejoyce aright c. But this wisdom must be brought to nothing 1 Cor. 1.19 and a man must become as a child to all knowledge as let in this way And he that so becomes a child is taught to pray to believe to wait to hope and all that is necessary to eternal life Now as the Father teacheth to pray so he giveth desires or words if he please according to the present need Sometimes he gives but ability to sigh or groan if he give no more he accepts that Sometimes he gives strong breathings and plenty of words to pour out the soul in before the Lord. But if a man should catch those words and lay