Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	kindness_n	lord_n	temperance_n	801	5	11.3239	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44524	The great law of consideration: or a discourse, wherein the nature, usefulness, and absolute necessity of consideration, in order to a truly serious and religious life, is laid open: By Anthony Horneck, preacher at the Savoy.	Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.	1677 (1677)	Wing H2833; ESTC R220111	198,374	451

Go into houses where mad men are kept and see whether thy deportment and practice be not as like theirs as one thing can be like another it 's the character of mad men to choose means altogether unsutable to the end they design if they offer to kindle a fire with shining brass or attempt to build a house without materials or think that a Net will secure them against the bitterest Frost or hope to be Masters of a Trade without learning of it or talk of being acquainted with such a language when they have neither Books nor Men to converse withall we justly look up on them as distracted and would not one think thou art besides thy wits that hears thee hope for Heaven without taking the way that leads to it And talk of being saved when thy actions savor only of preparation for eternal misery To hope to be saved by following the dictates of thy flesh is as wise an act as to hope to be warm by sitting upon Ice or by surrounding thy self with Snow-balls Thou wouldst take that man to be besides himself that should choose to lie all night in mire and dirt when there is a convenient Bed provided for him or that should-prefer sleeping on a Dunghil before reposing himself upon a cleanly Couch And dost not thou act the same madness when thou preferrest lying in the Arms of an Enemy before resting in the bosome of a gracious Redeemer And hadst rather rest in sin more odious and loathsome to God than any Dunghil than delight thy self in him whose service is perfect freedom Can there be greater madness than to prefer Stone before Bread and a Serpent before a Fish And is not thy Distraction as great to esteem a sinful pleasure more than the favour of God And set by the Dross and Dung of this World more than by the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Is this thy wisdom to neglect thy weightiest Concerns and spend thy time in admiring Bubbles Is this thy wisdom to prefer a few drops before an immense Ocean of blessedness an Atom before an Infinite and the small dust upon the balance before Mount Zion which can never be mov'd Is this thy wisdom to thrust away salvation with both Arms and to oppose the endeavours of that God that would even compel thee to come to the Supper of the Lamb Is this thy wisdom to lie in a Dungeon when a Palace is prepared for thy reception And to be enamor'd with deformity it self when thou art courted by him who is altogether lovely Is this thy wisdom to relie on broken Reeds rather than on the Rock of Ages And to trust more to Castles in the Air than to him who is the Ancient of dayes and hath promis'd neither to leave nor to forsake those that call upon him faithfully And when the case stands thus with thee when thou art as mad as thou canst well be sure thou needest not be afraid that Consideration of thy wayes will make thee so Consideration Why this would make thee sober This would bring thee to thy right senses again This would make thee live like a rational man again This would restore thee to thy Wits again This would cure the Distempers of thy Brain This would be so far from promoting that it would chase away all madness and distraction This would clear thy Understanding and rectifie thy Will and Affections and make all thy faculties move more orderly Consideration would let thee see what madness it is to despise him whom thou standest most in need of and to neglect that now which upon thy Death-bed thou wilt wish thou hadst minded day and night This would shew thee what a folly it is to slight the Fountain of living waters and to hunt after broken Cisterns which can hold no water and to esteem a Wilderness a Land of Desarts and of Pits a Land of drought and of the shadow of death a Land which no man passes through and where no man dwells infinitely more than a plentiful Countrey Jer. 2.6 This would shew thee what a folly it is to forfeit the favour of him that must be thy Judge one day and to make him thy Foe without whose mercy thou must fall a prey to Hellish furies to scorn that Provision now the crums whereof thou wilt be glad to gather one day and to mock his kindness now when one day thou wouldst rejoyce at the least smile of his countenance if thou couldst but have it This would shew thee what a folly it is to be ravish'd more with a painted Coronet than with the real glories of a Kingdom and to rejoyce more in the present pomp and adoration of a Stage than in thy right to the reversion of a Crown and what distraction it is to think that the great God who changes not will make those blessed who renounce his bliss and quench Hell-fire for men because they are resolved to run into it to make those like unto the Angels of God that will live like Beasts here and prefer those to this Throne that would not have him to reign over them This would shew thee what a folly it is to make merry at the brow of a Pit and to sing Care away when thy sins call for mourning and lamentation Consideration sinner would let thee see That there is no Wisdom like that Wisdom which makes men wise unto salvation and that those who deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts living soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope and that glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ are the only men that are in their Wits and that the rest who forget their calling and walk not worthy of the vocation wherewith they are call'd do really unman themselves and live below their reason This would let thee see that those who give all diligence to add to their faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity and are not barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ are the men that choose the fittest means for the greatest end and that he that works to day in Gods Vineyard and so numbers his dayes that he may apply his heart unto Wisdom and lives like a person that remembers he hath a Soul to be saved is the man who governs his Affairs with discretion This would let thee see that men do pretend to Learning in vain while they are ignorant of mortification of their members which are upon the earth and of that spiritual life which is every mans greatest interest That the Logician who resolves all knotty Arguments is but a Fool while he knows not how to keep himself from the snares of the Devil and that the Grammarian who rectifies the errors of Speech is but a mad man while he takes no care to rectifie the errors

passions are up represent to his mind the sweetness of revenge the dismal aspect of the indignity the unsufferableness of the disgrace the wayes and means how to compass the vindictive design the shame that 's thrown upon his honour the baseness of the injury the sordidness of the action the ingratitude that 's shewn in it the uncivility the offender hath discover'd the verdicts of his acquaintance in case he doth not reward the offender according to his work the blot that will be upon his Family for ever the various advantages he formerly had against the wretch which yet he scorn'd to take c. And while his mind is fill'd with these imaginations it 's possible reflections on the folly of his anger on the charity he owes to all Mankind the example of Christ and his Apostles praying for their Persecutors the generosity of pardoning an offence and forbearing of revenge when it lies in our power to be even with the offender such thoughts as these I say may strike his mind but if he suffer the motives to revenge to lodge more quietly in his mind than the motives to patience and forgiveness it 's soon guessed which of these will be Conquerors Let but his mind ruminate and enlarge more upon the great duty of forbearing revenge than upon the pleasure of taking revenge and the thoughts which inflamed his spirits and made the blood boil in his veins will cool by degrees and the motions of the flesh will give ground to those of the spirit The same may be said of all other sins which he that names the Name of Christ is obliged to depart from he that would be rid of them must not let the transitory satisfaction those sins afford hover in his mind more than the great worth of an immortal Soul where the latter is made the most frequent-object of our thoughts the other will dwindle away and at last expire To make this appear we need no other proof but common experience and though after a man hath ruminated on the odiousness of a darling bosome sin he may fall into it again yet the arguments which make against it and prompt him to part with it being called in again and again and laid on afresh and as they wear out or decay renewed and strengthen'd with greater enforcives it will be found That he who sin'd with courage and confidence before begins now to sin with trembling and reluctancy of mind and at last is mov'd to bid an eternal farewell to it The frequent thinking on these reasons the renewed and reiterated contemplations of the horrid ingratitude against God and of the shame and sorrow the sin must end in first weaken and loosen the Tree then break it and at last do quite root it up and destroy it X. Impediment X. Converse with evil Company There is not certainly a greater encouragement to real holiness than religious society and good examples That innocence we see makes deeper impressions on our hearts than that we hear of and our eyes afford greater motives to imitation than our ears A Religious Friend charms me into that Piety he embraces and his kindness instills his devotion into my Soul I am apt to imbibe his principles of virtue with his kind expressions and frequent converse makes his goodness as familiar to me as his person The severest mortifications if I see them perform'd by those I love lose much of their rigor and dismal aspect and become amiable and as unpleasing a thing as Self-denial is it looks more easie and facil when he I am intimately acquainted withall shews me that it is practicable There is no sense works upon the affections like that of sight it makes the object live in the understanding and from thence the will and affections are sollicited into embraces of it This was the reason why the Christians of old when they would in sober sadness apply themselves to a truly Christian life retired into Desarts where some devout Hermits had their Cells that by looking on their exemplary devotion they might be tempted into a chearful imitation of their goodness And as it is with Religious Society it both makes the task of the greater and weightier matters of the Law less difficult and kindles desires in our breasts to follow so excellent a pattern so evil company on the other side doth as much discourage men from performances as are somewhat troublesom to flesh and blood and hereof Consideration of their wayes is not the least This implies some self-denial and the sound of the words imports making War with the soft and sickly desires of their flesh and having wrought their own hearts into a detestation of this duty they fright others from it as from some Medusa's head which will certainly turn them into stones or insensible creatures they care not for sincere devotion themselves and would not have others live stricter and preciser than their Neighbors they have a low esteem of the wayes of God and would not have others prize them at a higher rate They delight in sensual satisfactions and look upon other mens discourses concerning spiritual delight as Nonsence They are averse from subjecting themselves to the Will of God and would have others as disobedient as themselves They think it was a far better World when there was not so much Praying and Preaching as there is now and would have others slight Christs invitation to the Supper of the Lamb as much as themselves He that makes such his familiars and looks upon them as discreet and rational men must necessarily continue a stranger to Consideration of his spiritual and everlasting Concerns for as they are no admirers of discourses which may advance the welfare of a Soul and seldom take the Name of God in their mouths except it be in their Oaths and Curses so to be sure they 'll tell very dismal and doleful stories of Religion upon all occasions and represent the severer performances of Piety in such an antick dress that he who prizes their company or acquaintance shall applaud their invention admire them for their witty conceits and despise all serious thoughts concerning things of everlasting consequence The Age we live in hath taught the world to vend Profaness under the name of Wit and to contemn Religion under the Mantle of Repartee and quickness of fancy and he that loves to be with these beaux Esprits will in all probability learn to be as careless and as secure as they Evil company where a man delights in it will infect him do what he can it he have any good in him they 'll waste and consume it if he be destitute of virtuous Principles they 'll keep out all Considerations as shall either discompose him in his folly or shed resolutions into his Soul to come away and seek a better Kingdom insomuch that it may be truly said of such a man as of him in the Gospel who Travelled from Jerusalem to Jericho That he is fallen among