Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
virtue_n fortitude_n justice_n temperance_n 2,097 5 10.3230 5 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A44696 A sermon preach'd Febr. 14, 1698, and now publish'd, at the request of the Societies for reformation of manners in London and Westminster by John Howe ... Howe, John, 1630-1705. 1698 (1698) Wing H3041; ESTC R22726 19,125 54

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

no support no relief to their abject sinking Spirits in suffering for it What encouraging Testimony of Conscience can they have that not only act from No Direction of Conscience but in Defiance of it What God can they hope will reward their Sufferings which they incur by highest Contempt of God AND if such gross Immoralities be somewhat generally Redrest as more directly fall under the Magistrates Animadversion how great a Common Good must it infer inasmuch as those Evils in their own nature tend to the detriment decay and ruine of a People where they prevail THEY darken the Glory of a Nation which how great a Lustre hath it cast abroad in the World from the Romans and Spartans and other civilized People when their Sumptuary and other Laws were strictly observed that represt undue Excesses And when Temperance Frugality Industry Justice Fidelity and consequently Fortitude and all other Vertues excell'd and were conspicuous among them It were a great thing we should have to transmit to Posterity might we see England recover its former or arrive to the further Glory which it is to be hoped it may acquire in these kinds YEA and the Vices which are endeavoured to be redrest are such as not only prejudice the Reputation but the real Welfare of any Nation PROFANE Swearing tends gradually to take away the Reverence of an Oath which where it is lost what becomes of Humane Society AND more Sensual Vices tend to make us an Effeminate Mean-spirited a Desident Lazy Slothful Unhealthful People useless to the Glorious Prince and excellent Government we live under neither fit to endure the Hardships or encounter the Hazards of War nor apply our selves to the Business or undergo the Labours that belong to a State of Peace and do consequently tend to infer upon us a deplorable but unpitied Poverty and which all will pretend to abhor Slavery at length For they are most unfit for an Ingenuous Free sort of Government or to be otherwise governed than as Slaves or Brutes who have learnt nothing of Self-Government and are at the next step of being Slaves to other Men who have first made themselves Slaves to their own Vitious Inclinations Thus are such liable to all sorts of Temporal Calamities and Miseries in this World BESIDES what is of so far more tremendous import that the same vile and stupifying Lusts tend to infer an utter Indisposition to comport with or attend to the Glorious Gospel of the Blessed God and so to ruine Mens hopes for the other World and make their Case unconceivably worse in the Judgment of the Great Day than theirs of Tyre or Sidon Sodom or Gomorrha BUT how much may a Just Prudent Well-tempered Vigilancy and Severity do towards the prevention of all this And so much the more by how much Publick Animadversions shall render the things Men incur Punishment for not only in common Estimate Vnrighteous but Ignominious things THAT Principle of Shame in the Nature of Man if by proper Applications it were endeavoured to be wrought upon would contribute more to the reforming a Vitious World than most other Methods that have ever been tried to that purpose 'T is a tender Passion of quick and most acute sense Things that are thought Opprobrious have so sensible a pungency with them that tho all Tempers are not herein alike many that can feel little else reckon a Disgrace an unsufferable thing And I little doubt but if Punishments for grosser Vices were more attempered to this Principle they would have much more effect THIS hath been too much apprehended by the Vsurping God of this World This Engine he hath made it his business to turn and manage to the contrary purpose to drive or keep serious Religion out of the World yea to make Men asham'd of being Sober Temperate and Regular in their Conversation lest they should also be thought Religious and to have any thing of the Fear of God in them and make them Debauch to save their Reputation A plain Document to such as covet to see a Reformation of Manners in our Days what Course ought to be endeavoured in order thereto A great apprehension to this purpose that Noble Pagan seems to have had who enquiring whence Legislation had its rise from some Man or from God and determining from God if we will give the most Righteous Judgment that can be given doth elsewhere write to this effect That Jupiter pitying the Miseries of Men by their Indulgence to Vice lest Mankind should utterly perish sent Mercury to implant in them together with Justice Shame as the most effectual means to prevent the total Ruine of the World And so inseparable is the connexion between being Wicked and being Miserable that whatsoever molestation and uneasiness tends to extinguish Dispositions to Wickedness ought to be reckoned given with very Merciful Intentions IT is no improbable Discourse which an Ingenious Modern Writer hath to this purpose for I pretend not to give his words not having the Book now at hand that tho the Drowning of the World was great Severity to them who did then Inhabit it yet it was an act of Mercy to Mankind For hereby he reckon'd the former more Luxuriant Fertility of the Earth was so far reduc'd and check'd as not so spontaneously to afford Nutriment to Vice that Men in after time must hereby be more constrain'd to Labour and Industry and made more considerate and capable of serious Thoughts and that when also they should find their time by this Change of the State of the World naturally contracted within narrower limits they would be more awakened to consider and mind any Overtures should be in following time made to them in order to their attaining a better State in another World and consequently the more susceptible of the Gospel in the proper season thereof IF God were severe with so merciful Intentions what lies within the compass of these Ministers of his Justice appointed for Common Good ought certainly to be endeavoured in imitation of him whom they represent 2. THE Administration of Punitive Justice when the Occasion requires it tends also to the Common Good as it may contribute towards the appeasing of God's Anger against a Sinful People and the turning it away from them WHAT may be collected from that Noble Instance of Phinehas's Heroical Zeal upon which a raging Plague was stay'd compar'd with the Effect which Ahab's Humiliation and Nineveh's Repentance had in averting Temporal Judgments would signifie not a little to this purpose BUT I must pass to the SECOND Head of Discourse proposed viz. To argue and enforce from hence the Duty incumbent upon all under Government as their several Stations and Capacities can admit to be in due Subordination assisting and serviceable to the Magistrate as in executing Punitive Justice he is the Minister of God for good AND this as hath been said is to be the Vse of the former part of the Discourse which will answer