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	theological_a	1,178	5	12.4996	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A09069	A booke of Christian exercise appertaining to resolution, that is, shewing how that we should resolve our selves to become Christians indeed: by R.P. Perused, and accompanied now with a treatise tending to pacification: by Edm. Bunny.; Booke of Christian exercise. Part 1.	Bunny, Edmund, 1540-1619.; Bunny, Edmund, 1540-1619. Treatise tending to pacification.; Parsons, Robert, 1546-1610. Christian directory.	1584 (1584)	STC 19355; ESTC S105868	310,605	572

the king being offended highly with you both should notwithstanding pardon thee and put the noble man to death and further also being no other way to save thy life shuld lay the pains of death du to thee upon his onlie son and heir for thy sake how much wouldest thou think that this king loved thee How greatly wouldest thou esteeme thy selfe beholding and bounden to that yong prince which should offer himselfe to his fathers justice to die for thee a poore worm and not for the noble man as he would not die for the Angels and to put his head in the halter for thine onlie offences Couldest thou ever have the hart to become enimie to this man after or willingly and wittingly to offend him And yet such is our case and much more bounden towards Christ and his father whom the most of us notwithstanding do daily offend dishonor and injurie by sin 12 But yet there follow on mo benefits of God unto us as our vocation and justification vocation wherby he hath called us from infidelitie to the state of Christians and therby made us partakers of this our redemption which infidels are not For albeit he paid the ransom for al in general yet he hath not imparted the benefit therof to al but to such only as best it pleased his divine goodnes to bestow it upon After which followed our justification wherby we were not only set free from al our sins committed before and from al pain and punishment du to the same but also our souls beutified and inriched with his holie grace accompanied with the vertues theological as faith hope and charitie and with the gifts of the holie Ghost and by this grace we are made just and righteous in the sight of God and intitled to the most blessed inheritance of the kingdome of heaven 13 After these do insu a great number of benefits togither as to us being now made the children and deer frinds of God and everie one of them of infinite price and valu As the gift of the holie sacraments left for our comfort and preservation being nothing else but conduits to convey Gods grace unto us especially these two which appertain to al to wit the sacrament of Baptism and of his blessed bodie and blood wherof the first is to purge our souls from sin the second to feed and comfort the same after she is purged The first is a bath made of Christ his own blood to wash and bath our wounds therin the second as a most comfortable and rich garment to cover our soul withal after she is washed In the first Christ hath substituted in his place his spouse the church to pronounce in his name remission of sins in the second he hath left himselfe and his own flesh and blood Sacramentally to be a precious food to cherish hir withal 14 Besides al these there is yet another gift named our preservation wherby God hath preserved us from so many dangers into which others have fallen and wherin we had fallen also if Gods holie hand had not staied us as from superstition heresie and infidelitie and many other greevous sins and especially from death and damnation which long ago by our wickednes we deserved to have beene executed upon us Also there are the benefits of godlie inspirations and admonitions wherby God hath often both knocked inwardly at the doore of our conscience and warned us outwardly by so many wais and meanes as are good books good sermons good exhortations good companie good example of others and a hundred means else which he at divers times hath and doth use therby to gain us our souls unto his eternal kingdome by stirring us to abandon vitious life and to betake our selves to his holie and sweet service 15 Al which rare and singular benefits being measured either according to the valu of themselves or according to the love of that hart from which they do proceed ought to move us most vehemently to gratitude towards the giver which gratitude should be to resolve our selves at length to serve him unfainedly and to prefer his favor before al worldly or mortal respects whatsoever Or if we can not obtain so much of our selves yet at leastwise not to offend him any more by our sins and wickednes 16 There is not so fearce or cruel a nature in the world as I noted before but is mollified allured and woon by benefits and stories do make report of strange examples in this kind even among brute beasts as of the gratitude of lions dogs and the like towards their maisters and benefactors Only an obstinate sinner is he among al the savage creatures that are whom neither benefits can move nor curtesies can mollifie nor promises can allure nor gifts can gain to the faithful service of God his Lord and maister 17 The greatest sinner that is in the world if he give his servant but twentie nobles a yeere or his tenant some litle farm to liue upon and if for this they serve him not at a bek he crieth out of their ingratitude and if they should further maliciously seek to offend him and to joine with his professed enimie against him how intollerable a matter would it seem in his sight And yet he himself dealing much more ingratefully and injuriously with God thinketh it a matter of no consideration but easily pardonable I say he dealeth more ingratefully with God for that he hath receaved a thousand for one in respect of al the benefits that a mortal man can give to another for he hath receaved al in al from God the bread which he eateth the ground which he treadeth the light which he beholdeth togither with his eies to see the sun and finally whatsoever is within or without his body as also the mind with the spiritual gifts therof wherof ech one is more woorth than a thousand bodies I say also that he dealeth more injuriously with God for that notwithstanding al these benefits he serveth Gods open enimie the devil and committeth daily sin and wickednes which God hateth more than any hart created can hate a mortal enimie being that in very deed which persecuted his Son our savior with such hostilitie as it tooke his most pretious life from him and nailed him fast to the wood of the crosse 18 Of this extreem ingratitude and injurie God himselfe is inforced to complain in divers places of the scripture as where we saith Retribuebant mihi mala pro bonis They returned me home evil for good And yet much more vehemently in another place he calleth the heavens to witnes of this iniquitie saieng Obstupescite coeli super haec O you heavens be you astonished at this As if he should say by a figurative kind of speech go out of your wits you heavens with marvel at this incredible iniquitie of man towards me For so he expoundeth the whole matter more at large

their minds may be altered and they yeeld themselues unto the humble and sweet service of their Lord and Saviour and that the Angels in heaven may rejoice and triumph of their regaining as of sheepe most dangerously lost before CHAP. II. How necessarie it is to enter into earnest consideration and meditation of our estate THE prophet Ieremie after a long complaint of the miseries of his time fallen upon the Iewes by reason of their sins vttereth the cause thereof in these words Al the earth is fallen into utter desolation for that there is no man which considereth deeply in his hart Signifieng hereby that if the Iewes would haue entered into deepe and earnest consideration of their liues and estate before that great desolation fel vpon them they might haue escaped the same as the Niniuites did by the fore-warning of Ionas albeit the sword was now drawen and the hand of God stretched out within fortie daies to destroy them So important a thing is this consideration In figure wherof al beasts in old time which did not ruminate or chew their cud were accounted vnclean by the law of Moises as no dowt but that soule in the sight of God must needs be which resolveth not in hart nor cheweth in often meditation of minde the things required at hir hands in this life 2 For of want of this consideration and du meditation all the foul errors of the world are committed and many thousand Christians do find themselves within the verie gates of hel before they mistrust any such matter towards them being caried thorough the vale of this life blindfolded with the veile of negligence and inconsideration as beasts to the slawghter how 's and never suffered to see their own danger vntil it be too late to remedie the same 3 For this cause the holy scripture doth recommend vnto us most carefully this exercise of meditation and diligent consideration of our duties to deliver us thereby from the peril which inconsideration leadeth us unto 4 Moises hauing delivered to the people his embassage from God touching al particulars of the law addeth this clause also from God as most necessarie These words must remain in thy hart thou shalt meditate vpon them both at home and abroad when thou goest to bed and when thou risest again in the morning And again in another place Teach your children these things that they may meditate in their harts upon them The like commandement was given by God himselfe to Iosua at his first election to govern the people to wit that he should meditate vpon the law of Moises both day night to the end he might keepe and perform the things written therein And God addeth presently the commoditie he should reap thereof For then saith he shalt thou direct thy way aright and shalt vnderstand the same Signifieng that without this meditation a man goeth both amisse and also blindly not knowing himselfe whither 5 Saint Paul having described vnto his scholler Timothie the perfect dutie of a Prelate addeth this advertisement in the end Haec meditare Meditate ponder and consider vpon this And finally whensoever the holy scripture describeth a wise happie or iust man for all these are one in scripture for that justice is only tru wisdome and felicitie one cheefe point is this He wil meditate upon the law of God both day and night And for examples in the scripture how good men did use to meditate in times past I might here reckon vp great store as that of Isaac who went foorth into the feelds towards night to meditate also that of Ezechias the king who as the scripture saith did meditate like a dove that is in silence with his hart only without noise of words But above al other the example of holie David is singular herein who every where almost maketh mention of his continual exercise in meditation saieng to God I did meditate upon thy cōmandements which I loved And again I wil meditate vpon thee in the mornings And again O Lord how have I loved thy law It is my meditation al the day long And with what fervour and vehemencie he used to make these his meditations he sheweth when he saith of himselfe My hart did wax hot within me and fire did kindle in my meditations 6 This is recorded by the holy Ghost of these ancient good men to confound vs which are Christians who being far more bound to fervour than they by reason of the greater benefits we have received yet do we live so lazily for the most part of us as we never almost enter into the meditation and earnest consideration of Gods laws and commandements of the mysteries of our faith of the life and death of our Saviour or of our dutie towards him and much lesse do we make it our daily studie and cogitation as those holie kings did notwithstanding al their great busines in the cōmonwealth 7 Who is there of vs now adaies which maketh the laws and commandements or justifications of God as the scripture termeth them his daily meditations as king David did Neither only in the day time did he this but also by night in his hart as in another place he testifieth of himselfe How many of vs do passe over whole dais and months without ever entring into these meditations Nay God grant there be not many Christians in the world which know not what these meditations do mean We beleeve in grosse the mysteries of our Christian faith as that there is an hel an heaven a reward for vertu a punishment for vice a judgement to come an accompt to be made and the like but for that we chew them not wel by deepe consideration and do not digest them wel in our harts by the heat of meditation they helpe vs little to good life no more than a preservative put in a mans pocket can helpe his health 8 What man in the world would adventure so easily vpon sin as commonly men do which drink it up as easily as beasts drink water if he did consider in particular the great danger and losse of grace the losse of Gods favour and purchasing his eternal wrath also the death of Gods own son sustained for sin the inaestimable torments of hel for the everlasting punishment of the same Which albeit everie Christian in summe doth beleeve yet bicause the most part do never consider them with du circumstances in their harts therefore they are not moved with the same but do beare the knowledge thereof locked vp in their breasts without any sense or feeling even as a man carieth fire about him in a flint stone without heat or perfumes in a pommander without smel except the one be beaten and the other be chafed 9 And now to come nere our matter which we mean to handle in this booke what man living would not resolve himselfe thorowly to serve God in deed