Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	knowledge_n	lord_n	temperance_n	1,588	5	11.7145	5	true

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