Selected quad for the lemma: word_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	father_n	person_n	trinity_n	5,937	5	9.9723	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A12816	The femall glory: or, The life, and death of our Blessed Lady, the holy Virgin Mary, Gods owne immaculate mother to whose sacred memory the author dedicates these his humble endeavours. A treatise worthy the reading, and meditation of all modest women, who live under the government of vertue, and are obedient to her lawes. By Anth. Stafford, Gent.	Stafford, Anthony.	1635 (1635)	STC 23123; ESTC S117798	76,554	344

especially are remarkable First their forwardnesse in believing Secondly the speed they made to see what they had believed and Thirdly to publish what they had seene That they quickly believed appeares by the haste they made to see They no sooner saw him but they found him to be the King of Israell indeed yet withall to be a Shepheard They instantly discerne this to be the Shepheard who was to lay downe his life for his flocke The Prince of all Shepheards whose sheepe-fold is the world The Shepheard that was to seperate the Goates from the Sheepe They discover'd this to be the immaculate Lambe that was to take away the sinnes of the world They disclos'd this Lamb to be the greatest Lyon of the Tribe of Iudah Whom now they looke on in the Cratch Saint Iohn shall hereafter behold on his Throne These men in whom there was no guile as they could not deceive others so they could not in this be deceiv'd They needed not suspect any fallacy and therefore might safely relate this divine wonder to all they met The second witnesses of this Miracle are the Wise men After God had laid open the Treasure of his divine secrets to Idiots he shewes them also to the wise It seemes the Earth at this time was become the Booke of Gods greatest Mysteries and Heaven the Index In this they finde the Star of this King of the Iewes which having beene before the declarer of his Nativity they now make their guide in their journey The Starre performing this duty to its Creator at length brings them to Bethlem where they view him in the Crateh whose Nativity before they had found in the Heavens To him they doe Homage tender adoration and pay Tribute and opening their Treasures make him an oblation of Gold Incense and Mirrhe Whom before they had in vaine sought in the Heavens they now finde on the earth and in the most sorded part of it a Stable full of severall stinkes where he to whom none are worthy to be servants had two dull Beasts for his Companions Returne now you Sonnes of wisedome to your owne home by much more learned by more than much more happy than when you set out Heaven is now set open to you which before your unbeliefe kept shut against you If you be Chaldaeans or Persians or both spreade through those Nations the fame of that which you have seene Publish in all places this the greatest mystery of Piety which God is onely able to produce onely faith can apprehend Of all Creatures to man onely belongs the gift of Reason by the rule whereof he measures all things But doe not you doe so lest you fall not onely into an irreparable but a damnable errour Follow you the instruction of Faith and where ere you come with a holy Pride proclaime that God is manifested in the flesh justified in the Spirit seene by Angels reveal'd to Shepheards found out and ador'd by you your selves and hereafter to be assum'd and to sit in glory farre above those starres you daily read Goe and give out that there is nothing greater in Heaven than what you have found in a Stable Yet ere you depart convince the stiffe-necked Iewes of their lofty but grosse errour in diligently seeking to know God in that part wherein he will lye hid an● in taking no notice of him i● that part wherein he would be knowne in looking for 〈◊〉 Saviour from Heaven wh● is already borne on earth Yet now I consider their obstinacy better I wish you 〈◊〉 spare your here fruitlesse advise for the eares of thi● wicked generation is stopped their hearts obdurate and they are as fully resolved to goe on in their wickednesse as you in your journey Having proved his Nativity by these holy Testators let us now enter ourselves and view this pretty one in his narrow lodging lay our selves prostrate before him worship him and recreate our selues with the lovely object And that our delight may be the greater let us first behold him and his sweetest Mother a part and then both together But let us here shut out the Pharisees and barre them the sight of this Heavenly Infant who urge the Law and reject him the Author of it Let us exclude the Arrians who deny his coequalitie with the Father and the Sabellians who confound the Trinitie of which he is distinctly one and hold that there is in it one Essence and one person and the Samosatenians who derogate from his Nature and avouch the Word which truly he is to be no other then a vanishing sound Nor let us onely keepe out these but thewhole swarme also of Atheists and Hereticks Let the Philosophers too stay without who not so impious yet more ignorant cannot dive to the bottome of this Mystery But to all those who are honour'd in the assumption and profession of his glorious Name a free accesse is granted Enter then you little flock you few whom his Father hath bestowed on him and se● him who when he gave the Law appeared in Fire now he offers Grace involv'd in Hay Yet in this dejected posture in this course manner while he lay he wanted not a whole Army of Angelicall spirits that declar'd his Birth to Men and they who had before chanted his praises as he sate in Glory now sing his goodnesse lying in the Cratch Though he have a hoomely roofe over his head the East observes his approach Though the poverty of his Humanitie obscures his Deity the Starres in Heaven make it known Behold him who came humble to the humble for the humble and yet his humility is above all sublimity Reverently and intentively look on him who descended from Heaven to Earth who came to you into you who is borne in the night borne in the midst of Winter and borne after the wretched humane condition naked and none offer him assistance Swadling clothes are wanting some ragges are found out a Cradle is missing a Manger is at hand Here he cryes to you and holds up his pretty hands to Heaven which he cals to witnesse that he can humble himselfe no lower Can you view this humble this mercifull spectacle and not weepe your selues into marble O speedily put on sackcloth besprinckle your selues with Ashes kneele downe in the dust and dung under the Manger where your Lord lyes knock your selues on the bosomes fetch sighs and grones from the bottom of your hearts repay him the teares he lent you and by your sad gesture and deportment demonstrate how much you are bound to him who suffered for you even in his Birth Having seene the Sonne now stedfastly place your eyes upon the Mother Behold the unpolluted Mayd a great part of the wonder sitting neare the Manger being voyd of all lust chast in Soule and Body who doth now confesse that of which she is not capable without a miracle to wit that she is a Mother and with fixed eyes expressing now joy now admiration sees her selfe wedded to

These I may more properly averre to be learning not learned They may with as much justice deprive the Rose of her blush the Lilly of her white the Violet of her purple and the Christall of its clearnesse as her of this pretious ornament which she obtein'd by a studious pious imitation and preserv'd with a holy care But my wonder is the lesse when I contemplate the continuall Antipathy betweene Impudency and Innocencie Whosoever shall settle his meditation on her discourse with the Angell her pilgrimage to her cousens house and her divine Hymne there though he have sworn himselfe the slave of prejudice he will breake his chaine and reassume so much freedome as to declare her truly humble Sure I am if they would have her halfe a degree humbler they make her wholly abject To my thinking these sixe words alone Behold the handmaid of the Lord are able to convince of errour six thousand such shallow Authors To those who are plac'd in an extreame height all things below seeme farre smaller then indeed they are but to themselues they appeare the same but here it fals out otherwise where the introducer of one pregnant blessing that contein'd all other into the world and therefore worthily placed above it thinks all things under her farre greater then her selfe and above her in value Certainly all the ancient Fathers with one consent affirme that she deserv'd to be Empresse of all others who humbled her selfe below them all For my owne part I am so transported with the meditation of her meeknesse that me thinks I heare her thus expressing the humility of her sanctified heart to the heavenly Nuntio Is this a delightfull dreame or a pleasing vision that thus ravisheth my soule What a lovely prospect is this What do mine eyes behold Cedars stooping to shrubs Mountains to vallies The Ocean courting a Riveret I discover more then all this I see Heaven descending to Earth the supreame Majesty to humane misery a blessed Angell to a wretched mortall True it is I am the structure of Gods owne hands but an edifice not cleare not faire enough for the habitation of his onely Sonne Alas alas I am a vessel too uncleane to enclose a Deity Is this flesh of mine pure enough to clothe purity it selfe I am not worthy to be reputed his childe much lesse his parent Oh lend me thy harmonious voyce thy heavenly Rhetoricke thou celestiall Oratour that I may render him thanks and praise though not equall yet nearer to the grace I have received I deny not but wee see his Name written in every thing here below but in obscure Characters like the discovery of the Sunne in a puddle Thou art nearer him in essence in presence in goodnes in knowledge and canst finde out words more suteable to his worth Wherefore I earnestly beseech thee in thy best phrase to present the unfained gratitude of his most humble Hand-maid who esteems her selfe unworthy to touch much more to conceive him Neither shalt thou thy selfe depart without most humble thanks for the eternall honour thou hast done me by this visit It is probable enough she said much to this purpose this forme of speech being agreeable to her disposition and demeanour To conclude this point six cleare demonstrations of her Humility eminent above the rest the holy Writ offers to our serious and reverend consideration The first in this submissive conference with the Angel The second in the house of Zachary where the more her vertue is predicated by her cousen the more she humbles her selfe The third in her delivery where she meekly submitted her selfe to all wants and inconveniences The fourth in her Purification when she observ'd the custome of other uncleane sinfull women and rankt her selfe with them The fifth in betrothing her selfe to a Carpenter and in paying as great an obedience to him as ever woman did to husband and in joyning with him in labour to get a poore living to maintaine themselues and their Sonne The sixth in having a care of the poore and in associating them at all times But of all these I shall treate more at large in the course of this divine story whose order now brings me to the mysticall conception of her blessed Sonne our onely Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ The heavenly Ambassadour having executed his great Masters command departs leaves God and Man in the wombe and the Sonne of Righteousnesse is now risen in the virginall orbe For this is the tenent of the true and ancient Catholicke Church that she conceiv'd immediately after the Angels speech whom I had rather follow then accompany many of these later times who oppose it I will onely produce a few testimonies and that of Gregory the great shall be the Leader The Angell saith he declaring and the Spirit approaching instantly the Word is in the wombe and presently in the wombe the Word is made flesh the incommutable essence coeternall to him with the Father and the holy Ghost still remaining Him secondeth Saint Austin of all the Fathers the most subtle and sollid These ensuing are his owne words When the Angell saluted the Virgin then did the holy Ghost make her fruitfull then did that woman conceive a man without a man then was shee replenisht with grace then shee receiv'd the Lord that hee might be in her who made her And in another place he writeth thus Make no delay O Virgin say but the word speedily to the Messenger and receive thy Sonne give thy Faith and feele the vertue of it Behold saith she the Handmaid of the Lord be it to me according to thy word Here was no delay at all the divine Agent returneth and Christ enters the Virginall wombe The mother of God is suddenly made fruitfull and is predicated happy throughout all ages She presently conceived the Divinity of the Word without the fellowship of a man In this celebration of the Nuptials betweene God and nature while my affection advanceth one steppe my reverence retires another Here Reason is transformed into Admiration Eloquence into silence Some are rather solicitous to search into the profundity of the Mystery than humbly to acknowledge it and by Reason seeke to pry into that which excludes all reason What was before time it selfe is believed not comprehended by man for that transcends the understanding of man which was before his nature No eyes but those of Faith can penetrate this Wonder All things in God are above reason nothing above Faith Here a Virgin conceives without the losse of Chastity a Maide remaines an immaculate Mother Eternity is here encompass'd by time glory masked in misery A thing finite containes Infinity a mortall encloseth eternity Here the Sonne is as antient as his Father elder than his Mother and is made of her whom he made Here is a concurrence or a congregation of Miracles It is a miracle that in the forming of such and so great an issue the aide of man should be

his taking care for his Mother was of his Piety He gives Temperancy the custody of Chastity and commends these to each other who were resolved to live and dye Virgins Saint Bernard sayes these words of Christ to his Mother included much bitternesse for they put her in minde that she was to make a dammageable exchange of Christ for Iohn of the Servant for his Lord of the Disciple for his Master of the Sonne of God for the sonne of Zebedaeus And this was the reason if we give beliefe to Mantuan that he called her Woman not Mother lest the very sound of that deare word should make her more sensible of his approaching losse and force her into an immoderate griefe But sorrow was no Noveltie to her for that saying of Christ In this world you shall have affliction was in her verified whose life contained more miseries then minuts which she patiently underwent knowing that the more distressed she was here the more blessed she should be hereafter And if we shall adde the light of Reason to the Evangelicall Truth we shall soone perceive that a fatall sadnesse haunted her from the birth of her onely Sonne to his buriall When she was great with him and readie to lye downe the inhumanity of the Bethlemites was such that they confined her and the Lord of all things to a Stable and would not supply her with as much as Linnen a Mantle and other necessaries wherewithall she might defend her selfe and her sweet Babe from the moysture of the night the sharpenesse of the winter and other intollerable inconveniences When her Childe was eight daies old she saw him loose bloud in his Circumcision which her divining soule misgave her to be a Type of the deare remainder he was to shed Then againe her minde was infinitely vexed for the butchery of those guiltlesse Children which were murthered for the sake of her owne innocent Infant of the sorrow and miserie of whose Mothers her tender compassionating heart was a most competent Iudge From this bloudy Massacre to save her Saviour she was constrained without taking leave of her friends or disposing of what was hers to take her flight with him through danger darknesse and horrour to make her way into Aegypt When he was twelve yeeres old she lost him an Accident more grievous than any of the former for heretofore her study had been to preserve what she had now her care was to finde what she had not What an Agony her soule suffer'd at the lamentable tydings of the beheading of her Sonnes Forerunner I leave to the consideration of all thankefull soules for she could not without being stayned with ingratitude but mourne for his absence and violent departure out of the world who had received so much joy at her presence before he came into it But above all these the unequall'd Treacherie of Iudas who deliver'd this Lambe of God as a prey to these Wolves the infidelity of his other Disciples the malignity of his Iudges the cruelty of his Executioners conspir'd to make her miserable Nor is it unlikely that she bewailed the ingratitude the obstinacy and impiety of her Nation who revil'd him that blessed them and tortur'd him who came to save them With what amazement and sadnesse was her heart surprised think ye when the newes came of her Sonnes being apprehended But when she saw him forsaken by his friends bound by his enemies accused before the high Priests derided by Herod despis'd by the people scourg'd and tortur'd by the command of Pilate his body trembling torne and pierced besmear'd with his owne bloud and hung between two Theeves then and never till then did the Sword foretold by Simeon passe through her Soule Luther saies this Prophecy of Simcon was spoken to her not to Ioseph for on her alone the whole weight of sorrow was to be laid True it is that many differ about the interpretation of this Sword To cleare all doubts we must take notice that the holy Scriptures mention foure sorts of Swords The first is a Corporall or materiall sword and of this Christ speakes to Peter All that use the Sword shall perish with the Sword The second is a spirituall Sword of which Saint Paul makes mention when he saies Receive the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God The third is a Sword of Scandall or Ambiguity with which the Apostles themselves were strucken when they forsooke their Master The fourth is the Sword of Griefe or Tribulation With this the Prophet David averres the Soule of Ioseph to have beene pierc'd when his death was plotted first by his trecherous Brothers next by his incontinent Mistresse That this Sword whereof Simeon Prophecied could be no materiall one is evident in that we read not of any violent death she suffered That it could not be the sword of the Spirit is manifest for the word of God was her daily delitious food at the same time when Simeon made this Prophecy Origen indeed will have it to be the sword of Ambiguity or Infidelity which erroneous opinion of his is refuted by many great Fathers of the antient Church and by Franciscus Lumbertus an accute Protestant Doctor of the moderne in these words Those saith he who will have this to be the sword of Infidelity are not to be hearkened to for besides that they can produce no proofe of this their opinion it is contradictory to the Text most rash and most untrue How can it be that the sword of Infidelity should penetrate the brest of Gods sacred Mother into which infidelity never made the least impression From the beginning her Faith was most firme and intire Let therefore those Blasphemies and wicked slanders of carnall men be put to silence I will attribute nothing to the blessed Virgin but what I reade in the holy Writ where she is pronounced blessed because shee beleev'd We have many testimonies of her Faith but of her Infidelity not one word is extant in the sacred Scriptures Yet this prophane assertion is not a whit strange or to be marvelled at in Origen who held that Christ dyed for the Angels and the Starres and whose soule was indeed no other than a Mynt of Heresies Melancton affirmes that her sorrow was much asswaged by her Faith which assured her of his Resurrection She knew she had borne the Messias whose bloud was to wash away the sinnes of the world Wherefore she might well be amaz'd distrustfull she could not be at all The holy Spirit certified her this was not a destroying death but a triumphing Her Faith the oftner it was tryed in the furnace of affliction the brighter still it shewed She stood with the affection of a Mother the passion of a woman but with the constancy and fortitude of a man in beholding her owne bloud spilt her owne flesh rent and mangled before her face With an unshaken confidence and a true internall valour she beheld his body naked