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
A48847	A sermon preached before the King at White-Hall, March 6, 1673/4 by William Lloyd ...	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1674 (1674)	Wing L2708; ESTC R20362	14,668	37

according to mens several circumstances Of them that have much time much will be requir'd and less will be sufficient for them that have less But I beseech you let the thing be effectually done Call your self into your Chamber or Closet and there as the Psalmist says Commune with your own heart and be still Examine your self wherein you have transgress'd and wherein you have been most apt to transgress especially in those things which are your foulest transgressions Search as far as you are able into the very particulars of them where you have forgot the particulars yet at least to remember the kinds of them The kinds of every ones sins are known to himself The kinds wherein men may sin are infinite and yet these may be reduc'd under certain Heads and are so in some Books to which you may have recourse in this duty of Self-examination If you have not such a Catalogue of Heads which were well worth the having and considering at such a time you may do well to think deliberately with your selves what you know that God has commanded in Scripture and what you know that God has forbidden in Scripture and examine your self how you have done those things which God has commanded and avoided what God has forbidden Especially If you know any Catalogue in Scripture either of Commands and Duties or of Prohibitions and Sins you may do well to examine your self by that Catalogue and to consider what the state of your soul is as to every Particular For example you know the Ten Commandments of the Moral Law you may take a particular account of your obedience to those Commands You know the three Theological Virtues Faith Hope and Charity examine the state of your soul as to these three Graces and Virtues You may possibly have observ'd sundry Catalogues of sins I quoted you one in Gal. 5. 19. you find there how God threatens all them that are guilty of such sins you may do well to ask your selves with the Apostles Is it I and see what answer you can make upon each of those Particulars To do just as I advise in this matter I know is not so absolutely necessary for the same thing may be effected sundry ways but this way is the best that I am able to advise and I am sure the thing might be profitably done I question how faithful they are to themselves that leave it undone The use of this advice is as far as 't is possible to find out the particulars at least to find out the kinds of your sins That having found you may mortifie them bring them forth one by one in Confession and recount them to God in the bitterness of your soul and take up strong resolutions against them beseeching God by his Grace to enable you to fulfil those resolutions Yet when all this is done I cannot say you have mortified your sin till you have truly forsaken it and at least broke the Habit of it This is true Mortification when the sin is cast off and forsaken when the lust the parent of it is so conquer'd and subdued that though still it dwell in us we cannot help that yet it hath no more dominion over us But what shall we say when the sin is not forsaken when lust is in full dominion when Religion and the fear of God is so abandon'd and lost that one does not stick at those Sins which the Gentiles that have onely the Light of Nature would have detested and abhorr'd Or when one allows himself in the Habitual Practise of that which he knows to be Sin or might know if he would but consider it In this Case the Person being spiritually dead which is the fourth and last State I am to show how such an one may yet mortifie the Deeds of the Flesh that is may recover from this Death and so scape Eternal Death which is the next thing that falls under consideration And surely this Estate being extraordinary bad is not to be remedied without extraordinary Care Lust where it has got an Head where it has the Dominion is like that Unclean Spirit Mat. xvii 21. that was not to be cast out without Prayer and Fasting Without Prayer there is nothing to be done in any spiritual Business especially in this there is need of most intent and most vehement Prayer And there is need of Fasting too that is of much Severity to be exercised upon our selves and that not onely in Abstinence from Meats which of it self St. Paul says profits little 1 Tim. iv 8. but we are chiefly to abstain from the satisfying of our Lusts in those things which are more to us than Meat and Drink This being as much the hardest as most needful Severity our Saviour calls it The plucking out of the Right Eye the cutting off a Limb Mat. v. 30. St. Paul calls it The Circumcision of the Heart Rom. ii 19. and Gal. v. 24. The crueifying of the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts. I know 't is in vain to proceed upon this Subject to show how a Man spiritually dead should mortifie fin how one dead in any kind should do any act of life in that kind much more to excite you with great Cost and Pains to endeavour it unless first I show that you are capable to do it for no Man that thinks what he does will set about much less be at great cost to do that which he thinks impossible to be done Therefore ere I go any farther I shall endeavour to show how he that is spiritually dead may mortifie Sin and what is to be done on his part towards the mortifying of it I trust you understand what is most certainly true that as there is no Man wholly free from Lust so there is no Man entirely under the Dominion of it That Devil is not so great in any Man living that he can quite put out the Eyes or stop the Mouth of his Conscience Nay he cannot hinder it from observing and speaking out and interrupting him between whiles No Habit is so deeply radicated in us so entirely possest of us but that it may be broken off it may be alter'd by degrees and turn'd quite into the contrary as we may order the matter That ill Habits may be alter'd we know and by what Causes as by Diet and Physick by Education and Converse by diligent Exercise whether for ones Moral Improvement or whether out of any other Design We know Men may be extremely changed for we see by experience they are so It were no hard thing to shew by Examples some that have been in their time Lavish Riotous Spend-thrifts and come after to be Greedy Sordid Penurious Wretches Some that were Dissolute and Loose without appearance of any Sense of Religion have in time come to be Superstitious Schismatical and Factious Such as have been factious in their Sect of Religion having afterward found that to be a Cheat and judging all Religion to be so have turn'd Ranters and