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	patience_n	temperance_n	4,558	5	12.0461	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54843	The law and equity of the gospel, or, The goodness of our Lord as a legislator delivered first from the pulpit in two plain sermons, and now repeated from the press with others tending to the same end ... by Thomas Pierce ...	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1686 (1686)	Wing P2185; ESTC R38205	304,742	736

well to the Will as the Understanding It gives us as I may say a kind of Livery and Seisin of all we hope and pray for and even long to be united to though by the Help of a Dissolution In so much that the Plenitude of this One Grace in the sense I mention'd which Plenitude is expressed by a threefold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and boldly rendred a full Assurance I say the Plenitude or fulness of this one Grace which is attainable by Christians whilst here below is worthily reckon'd by St. Paul The Inchoation of our Glory This very Grace is once affirm'd to be a kind of beatifick although an antedated Vision of the Glory of God And for a man to leave This for a better world with such a cordial Believing in the Lord Iesus Christ as was here recommended by Paul and Silas which I have hitherto explain'd by several passages of Scripture is nothing else but to pass from a Paradise to a Heaven or to use St. Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from one Glory to another For we all with open Face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3. 18. § 10. But some may tacitly now object against Paul and Silas in the Text or at least against St. Luke the Relator of it That if by Faith we must be justified and also sanctified in part before we can expect it should ever save us they should have told the Jailour of it in Terms at large and have shew'd in the Retail how many Duties of a Christian are succinctly comprehended in that expression not have told him only in Gross as Dutchmen make their dishonest Reckonings He must believe in the Lord Iesus Christ. For how knew the Jailour he was to do any thing but to Believe or to believe in any other than the second Person in the Trinity God manifest in the Flesh for they seem to have made no mention to him of his being to believe in God the Father or in God the Holy Ghost much less did they add the other Articles of the Creed which are Ingredients in the object of Saving Faith § 11. To which I answer by two Degrees And first of all by a concession That if indeed Paul and Silas had said no more to their Catechumenist than that He must believe in the Lord Iesus Christ not explaining what was meant by that Habit of Faith from which the Act of his Believing was to proceed nor yet explaining what was meant by the Lord Iesus Christ who is often put by a Synecdoche for the whole object of our Belief Faith in Christ being the Pandect of Christian Duties which are all shut up in Faith as Homer's Iliads in a Nutshell Then indeed they might have made him a Solifidian or a Fiduciary which had not been the way to his being sav'd But secondly I answer That the objection is made of a false Hypothesis For Paul and Silas dealt honestly and discreetly with the Jailour when having told him he must believe in the Lord Iesus Christ for his being sav'd it presently follows after the Text they spake unto him the Word of God that is they expounded the Scriptures to him And in the doing of That they prov'd the object of his Faith to be the Trinity in Unity not solely and exclusively the Lord Jesus Christ but in conjunction with God the Father and with God the Holy Ghost too Again in expounding the Scriptures to him they could not but tell him what was meant by an effectual Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ importing such a kind of Faith as is ever working and such a kind of working as is by Love and by such a kind of Love as is the fulfilling of the Law and of such a Law too as does consist of somewhat higher and more illustrious Injunctions than those of Moses and of such an obedience to those Injunctions as is attended and waited on by Perseverance unto the End There is no doubt but they acquainted him in their expounding of the Scriptures and speaking to him the Word of God how very highly it did concern him not only to escape the Corruption that is in the world through lust and also to believe in the Lord Iesus Christ but besides This as St. Peter speaks to give all diligence for the adding to his Faith Vertue to Vertue Knowledge to Knowledge Temperance to Temperance Patience to Patience Godliness to Godliness Brotherly kindness to Brotherly kindness Charity For that these were all needful and no redundant superadditions is very clear from St. Peter in the next verse but one He that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see a far off and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins But if these Things be in you and abound Then indeed as St. Peter adds ye shall not be barren in the knowledge of our Lord Iesus Christ. If ye do these things ye shall never fall 2 Pet. 1. 10. Now can we think that St. Peter did not teach the same Doctrin with Paul and Silas or can we think that Paul and Silas would withhold from the Jailour that Train of Duties for want of which he had been Blind and not in Case to see God no whatever might have been wanting in their succinct and pithy Answer whereby to give him a right Understanding of it was abundantly supply'd by their following Sermon And though the Heads of their Sermon are not put upon Record but only the Text upon which they made it yet St. Luke records This That such a Sermon there was preach'd in that he saith They spake to him the Word of God § 12. And truly This is such a Method as I could wish were well observ'd by all that are of their Function I mean the Stewards of the Mysteries of the Living God Unto whom is committed the Word of Reconciliation whose lips are made to be the Treasuries and Conservatories of Knowledge and which the People are appointed to seek at their Mouths For the Text we have in hand is often turned to advance either Truth or Falshood even according to the handle by which 't is held forth to the giddy People And is made to be eventually either venomous or wholsom just in proportion to the sense in which 't is taken and digested by them that hear it If to Believe is only taken for an Assent unto the Truth or a Relyance on the Merits of Jesus Christ or a confident Application of all his Promises to our selves And this in a kind of opposition to the Necessity of Good works which ought to be in conjunction with it Then 't is apt to cause a wreck in the waters of Life and through the Malignity of a Digestion a man may be kill'd by the Bread of Heaven But if 't is taken for obedience to the Commandments of Christ