Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	godliness_n	patience_n	temperance_n	6,100	5	12.1333	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65659	A short treatise of the great worth and best kind of nobility Wherein, that of nature is highly commended, that of grace is justly preferred; the one from humane experience, the other upon divine evidence. / By Henry Whiston, rector of Balcomb in Sussex.	Whiston, Henry.; Pearson, John, 1613-1686.	1661 (1661)	Wing W1680; ESTC R204022	110,367	185

not make him more conspicuous more illustrious True it is the profane great Ones of the world will still despise those of mean birth notwithstanding their godly life and do scorn generally to have any commerce with them or society in any office not only if they be low and Mechanick persons which might give just offence but though they be as able as themselves in any politick or civil capacity It hath been observed by Naturalists That there is such such an Antipathy betwixt two Birds that though their bloud be mingled together by force yet they soon sever and divorce themselves again from each other And it hath been observed also by Moralists of the Nobility and Communalty That howsoever they sometimes joyn together upon some common services yet they soon break again and upon the lest occasion fall quite in pieces Great Ones bear themselves commonly so high upon their birth that they care not that any should come nigh them though never do well qualified for parts and life Nor can they willingly give others that honour for their own which for the most part they arrogate to themselves meerly for the Vertues of others But look now as the profane great Ones despise the godly for their mean birth so God despises them for their wicked life As they look upon the godly as a base so God looks upon them as a black brood His own people descended from fair progenitours he ranks by reason of their vicious manners which the foul-faced Ethiopians Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me O ye children of Israel saith the Lord As they reproach the godly for their mean beginning So God reproaches them for their wicked living The Princes are Rebellious The Princes are revolters The hands of the Princes were chief in the Trespass The Nobles of Tekoah refused to put to their neck to the yoke of the Lord. Thus they are branded to eternity partly for their wickedness partly for their averseness to the works of Piety And as God so all good men though they be honourable by reason of their outward condition yet hold them as vile persons by reason of their filthy conversation And Satan surely cannot but laugh to see them stand extreamly upon their birth and yet make themselves the children yea the very first-born of Hell by their wicked life as if they desired to be chief in the lower as they are here in the upper world Crassum ridet Vulfenius ingens Atque horum centum curto centusse licetur Great Vulfenius laughs at such in grossest wise And hundreds doth scarse at hundred farthings prise We hate the exposing of any to derision but we would not unwillingly have our words make some impression We would have great Ones and Gentlemen see what little cause they have to brag of their Nobleness and Gentility while they make themselves the children of the Devil and liable to the same condemnation with the Infernal spirits by their profaneness and impiety For why Are not the Devils if I may so say as well-born and descended as the best Are they not the Sons of God and the children all of them of the Highest But not keeping their first estate wherein they were created that is their holiness they soon forfeited their happiness and forsaking their proper station by disobedience at the same instant they lost that excellency which they had over others of Gods creatures and their native preheminence A wonderful measure of knowledge indeed and no less power remains in them still but their holiness being gone the good Angel is wholly dead in them and the evill spirit alone doth survive And should they now please themselves and be proud of their endowments having forfeited the honour of their Creation and exposed themselves assuredly to eternal perdition Our condition is naturally the same with theirs but that they are fallen without recovery and there is a way opened for us to redeem our selves from our misery The only thing that preserves the elect Angels and which must raise lapsed man is Holiness Shall we then content our selves with our present greatness and not seek to recover by a holy life our former happiness The righteous not the Greatman Nobleman Gentleman is more excellent then his neighbour And shall the godly though mean of birth rise up and lay hold of eternal life by Righteousness and shall the great Ones and Nobles of the earth perish as the dung of the earth in their dung their own Wickedness Men aim generally at Greatness and labour to be as high as the best and did they seek it by Holiness they would certainly attain it first or last But now this right hand and left upper place and lower precedency and concomitancy turns all things topsie turvey and brings them in the end which otherwise might stand like innocent sheep at the right hand into the place of clambering Goats on the left Nothing at the last day will avail us but faith and sanctity when Christ shall come to be glorifyed in his Saints and to be admired in all that believe If men were wise they would not only as the children of this world provide for the present but as the children of light look through the present to future advancement They that minde only the present are like those that see with one eye alone which seldom see well and are not very sightly themselves to be seen but they that look to the present and the future are like ambidexters and lay hold at once both of this life and that which is to come Let great Ones then and Gentlemen look with both eyes to the present and future felicity and attaining by their birth to present Dignity like ambidexters let them lay hold of the future by Godliness and Piety And that they may be assured let them content themselves with nothing that is less then Piety As Christ saith If you love them that love you what reward have you Do not even the Publicans do the same And if you salute your brethren only what do you more then others Do not even the Publicans so So may we say here If men have Wisdom and Learning and Magnanimity have they more then the Heathen If they affect the Religion which they profess and seek the advancement both of it and those that administer thereunto Do not the Heathen do so We have shewed that these things may be in singular manner in natural men in such as are Noble only by Nature Let not Christians therefore be they Noble Gentlemen or others content themselves in going thus far but as St. Peter after he had reckoned up many vertues Knowledge Temperance Patience bids Add to all these Godlines As if he had said Let men see that they be all managed by the word of God and all tend to the glory of God This is the nature of Godliness to make

God The things spoken of being not only a shame to those that profess themselves the children of God but an infinite dishonour also to God himself For what is Godliness but the imitation of God And wherefore are we styled and profess our selves the children of God but that we ought and take upon us to be holy as God is holy and to shew forth the vertues of him that called us out of darkness into his marvellous light Now when a man shall profess himself a Painter and take upon him to make the picture of a King if he mishape him and give him an ill Phismony or ill feature stangers will be ready to judge of the Kings person as of an ill-favoured creature So if the life of Gods children which be as little pictures or Images visible representations of the vertues of the invisible God be wicked and profane Heathen and Infidels will be ready to blaspheme the name of God while they judge and speak of him according to his Counterpain Thus the cruelties of the Spaniards in the Indies who styled themselves The children of him who is the Father of mercies and yet committed fearful butcheries gave occasion to that and the like Blasphemies What a God with a mischief is this who hath begotten such impure and wicked sons If the Father be like the Sons there is little goodness of a certain in him And if Pagans should live amongst us and see how multitudes do abuse the name of God sometimes for their politique ends and worldly gain sometimes altogether needlesly and in vain How the most commit the greatest sins constantly and salute God every day as confidently in his Ordinances What would they think but that the God which we serve were a dead Idol a leaden God such as one of the Kings of France was wont to wear in his cap kissing it and begging pardon of it when he had committed any foul murther and promising it should be the last and yet by and by fall to killing and kissing again And why should they who keep as constant a course in Gods service as they do in sin be thought to sin lesse grossely though not so ridiculously as he What is it to use the ordinances and offices of Religion so but to use them as the ordinances and offices that belong to a dead Idol and not to the living God Doth not God himself complain of this as of a grosse and ridiculous deportment Will you steal and murther and commit adultery and swear falsly and burn incense unto Baal and walk after other Gods whom ye know not and come and stand before men this house which is called by my Name and say We are delivered to do all these abominations Is this house which is called by my Name become a den of Robbers in mine eyes Behold even I have seen it saith the Lord. Thus they put on Religion a matter of it self of inward excellency to set a better face upon their outward pomp and glory and they which before the Supream Judge of all were full of abominable corruptions stood fair in the eyes of men by a formal Profession And this is a common carriage with men and passed over as a matter of nothing but we may take notice of that which the Psalmist saith That the Lord sees though for a time he be silent and that he utterly dislikes those actions wherein Hypocrites think him like themselves and that he will set those things at last in order before their eyes which they would not set as they should have done in right order before his We should therefore be more careful of our demeanor for the time to come and as we call God Father who without respect of persons judgeth according to every mans work we should passe the time of our sojourning here in fear We should take all heed lest we any wayes dishonour our Noble Parentage and labour in all things to be imitators of our Father as dear children Our Life should answer our Name and our Conversation our Profession lest otherwise the issue be thus A good Name and an ill Fame a fair Profession and abominable Transgression We did set before you but now the wicked practise of an evil Prince we shall put you now in minde of a better precedent who used a Picture the Picture of his Father to better purpose taking it out and viewing it when he was to act any thing of great concernment that beholding his Fathers image in the frame he might do nothing unworthy his Fathers Name Let us abominate the former practise and learn from the latter to give much more that honour to the Father of our spirits which he did to the Father of his Flesh. Let us do nothing to dishonour Him from whom we derive the greatest honour to be called his children Let the Image of his Divine vertues be alwayes in our minds engraven upon our hearts and let us carry our selves so holily so mercifully so perfectly in all things that all that see us may see that we are called by the Name of the Lord and that we are a seed which the Lord hath blessed It is a pleasure to Parents to see their own resemblance in their children and it is an honour to children to keep alive the vertues of their dying or deceased Parents And it is no lesse pleasing to God that the life of his children should answer their birth no lesse joy to the Almighty to see his Sons walking in the truth after the Commandement which they have received from their Father to see them carrying like Gedeons Souldiers a Divine light burning in their earthly Pitchers To see them exercising the graces of his immortal spirit in their mortal bodies And how signal and triumphant a badge of righteousness and how great a crown of glory is it for them to behave themselves so holily and obediently that God shall not have cause to complain of them as he did of some I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me But shall willingly speak to their eternal both commendation and consolation Surely they are my people children that will not lie children whose words and works are sutable children who will not carry truth in their lips and a lie in their right hand children that will not carry God in their profession and the Devil in their conversation 5. Hence they that be poor and pious may take solace though they suffer many times in this life much disgrace their Nobility is as good as that of the best though they live here under a cloud of obscurity What repute great ones have with the world They have with God and good men the one are the onely excellent Ones with the sons of men the other with the children of God The one are the the Worthies of the world the other are the Lords Worthies of whom the