Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	good_a	king_n	law_n	5,568	5	4.7787	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44515	Delight and judgment: or, a prospect of the great Day of Judgment and its power to damp, and imbitter sensual delights, sports, and recreations. By Anthony Horneck, D.D.	Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.	1684 (1684)	Wing H2824A; ESTC R215360	126,341	401

that Man hath a dominion over all irrational Creatures and is it not convenient that at the end of the World when all Men have acted their part on this Stage this Viceroy should be examined and asked how true he hath been to his Soveraign King What he hath done with the Creatures which have been given him for his use And whether he hath not minded his own business more than his Masters If there is no Judgment to come there can be no God for without a future retribution this God cannot be just and a God that is not just is imperfect and if imperfect he cannot be God so true is that saying of Averroes that whatever is most Noble and most Praise-worthy in Man must be attributed to the best and greatest Being God blessed for evermore But Justice we see is that which makes a Prince on Earth great and is one of the highest Perfections he is capable of which was the reason that when Ptolomy asked the Seventy Interpreters of the Jewish Law What King lived freest from Fear and Violence He was Answered He that exercises Justice punishes the Bad and rewards the Good and consequently this Justice must be ascribed to God as the most perfect Being it would be the most unreasonable thing imaginable that those who love and fear him most should be most oppressed and go without reward and those that abuse and dishonour him slight and undervalue him should live prosperously and never feel his displeasure or indignation If God be wise and just this cannot be and since this reward of the Innocent and severity on the Wicked is not administred and dispensed in this World it must needs follow that it must be in another and the day of this future recompence we call the day of Judgment And though the apprehensions of that vast multitude of Men which believe or profess it about the manner and method of this day be very different yet it is enough that all agree in the thing even those who have not the revealed Scriptures of the Old and New Testament from whence we may justly fetch the truest and exactest description of it those Revelations and Writings the Christians have and what is said in them concerning the righteousness of God being most agreeable to the Nature of God and the Actions of Men and the Rules the Supreme Architect hath engraven on our reason That there are some Men who deny a future Judgment we need wonder no more than we do that the Fool should say in his Heart there is no God That which makes a Man deny the one tempts him to be bold in disbelieving the other It 's the interest of a sinful life there should be no Retribution and how can a Man act against God with any cheerfulness or alacrity except he puts him out of his thoughts and to complete the folly fancies that he 'l never call him to a reckoning It 's Mens vices that are the cause of their Atheism and were it not that they are inamoured with their lusts their reason would soon joyn issue with these verities It 's not for want of Arguments that Men are unbelievers in this knowing Age but for want of sobriety and consideration and while they suffer themselves to be drawn away by their sensual appetite no marvel if in time their Flesh encroaches upon their Understanding and their bruitish desires corrupt their very Reason and they begin to think that God is altogether such a one as they themselves But let 's see 2. What there is in the prospect of this future Judgment that is able to damp the greatest Mirth and Jollity 1. In the prospect of this Judgment there appears a very serious Judge even the mighty Jesus the Son of God who was seen to weep often but to Laugh never even he that came into the World to teach Men self-denial in sensual pleasures not only unlawful such as wantonness Effeminacy Fornication Adultery Uncleanness Drunkenness Feeding our Eyes with Lustful Objects and which produce ill desires in us deriding and jeering our Neighbours for their infirmities luxury in cloathing eating and drinking mimick gestures filthy jesting love-tricks talking loosly c. But in some measure in Lawful also especially where a greater good is to be promoted and hath bid us use these outward comforts as if we used them not and rejoyce in them as if we rejoyced not with fear and cautiousness that they draw not our hearts away and with a generous indifferency as Persons who have laid up their Treasure in another World and look for the Blessed hope and the Glorious appearing of the great God Such a Judg appears in this prospect one who descended into this vally of Tears upon the most serious errand imaginable even to call sinners to repentance to make them sensible of what God expects at their hands to convince them that they have Souls to be saved to assure them that though God is patient yet he will not be everlastingly affronted by bold and daring Men and Judges otherwise of things than besotted mortals and is in good earnest when he bids them set their affections upon the things which are above one who will not be put off with fooling nor spare a Malefactor for a jest one who gave Mankind a being and habitation here not to play but to work not to mind trifles and rattles but the concerns of a tremendous Eternity a Judge whose Eyes are like flames of Fire and his Feet like Brass glowing in a Furnace who was indeed a Lamb when he had his conversation here on Earth and like one was led to the slaughter not opening his Mouth and his still so to all those that take his Yoke upon them and learn of him to be humble and meek but will at last appear in all the Robes of Majesty which the Clouds of Heaven and a guard of Ten thousand times ten thousand Angels and all the light of the Throne of God can furnish him with This Judge knows all the secrets of our hearts and before him all things are naked and open and no creature can hide himself he is one who cannot be imposed upon by sophistry nor wheadled into a wrong Judgment of things by equivocation whose presence will shake the World and put the greatest Captains and stoutest Souldiers into fits of trembling and make them cry to Rocks and Mountains Fall on us and hide us from the Face of him that sits upon the Throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. This Judg is not to be corrupted nor to be bribed cannot be carried away with outward respects which make Judges here on Earth pervert Judgment these Judge too often according to affection and call white black and black white good evil and evil good defend vice under the notion of vertue rashness under the name of fortitude laziness under the colour of moderation and timorousness under the title of cautiousness these do too often become advocates for the prodigal and

5.22 I do not deny but Men may do worse but what necessity is there for their doing that which is bad to avoid that which is worse Must I therefore slander and abuse a Man because it is a less sin then to murther him I know such Doctrines are usually branded with the name of foolish preciseness but sure I am they are agreeable to that wisdom which is from above and he that means to arrive to this wisdom must of necessity become a fool a fool in the eyes of the World and that must be a Christians greatest glory for know ye not that the friendship of the World is enmity with God whosoever therefore will be a friend of the World is the enemy of God Jam. 4.4 upon which words Antonisnus thus paraphrases A friend of the World is he that loves the pomp the lasciviousness the pride and vain glory of the World and he that will please Men in things of this nature things usually found in promiscuous Dancings becomes an enemy of God Ludovicus Vives tells us of some poor Indians that were brought from the farther parts of Asia who seeing some of our Europeans Dancing together wonder'd what madness and fury had possess'd them indeed he that should stand upon a Hill afar of without hearing any Musick and see people skip about and sometimes beat the Earth with their feet sometimes lift themselves up into the Air sometimes in such a posture sometimes in another could think no less then that they were forsaken of their reason I will not here alledge any examples of Men and Women who have found by sad experience what a sad Exit their Dancing and revelling hath had how in the Ball which Lodowick the design'd Arch-Bishop of Magdeburg gave his kindred and relations the house fell upon the Dancers heads and crush'd the Burgemaster and his friends to death nor how that vertuous Virgin in Famianus Strada was ravished in a Ball. The misfortune that befell John the Baptist through the jocular Dancing of Herodias ought to fright devout persons from having any esteem and veneration for it upon which passage St. Chrysostom thus comments Where there is Lascivious Dancing there the Devil is always present God hath not given us feet for Dancing but to walk modestly not to skip like Camels but that we might be fit to stand one day in the Quire of Angels If the body be deformed or disfigured by such leaping how much more the soul such Dances make the Devil Dance and this way men are cheated by the Ministers of darkness It were endless to rehearse here what Men of learning and wisdom have said against this sport one passage out of Cornelius Agrippa may serve for all Nothing can be more ridiculous then promiscuous Dancing This lets loose the reins of wantonness is a faithful friend to sin the great incentive to uncleanness an enemy to chastity and a recreation unworthy of rational Men. Here many a matron hath lost her honour here many a Virgin hath learned that which she had better been totally ignorant of From hence many have come away worse then they were but none better 12. Delight in seeing Stage-Plays must not be omitted here and how far this delight may be allow'd of and how far detested I cannot shew you better then by giving you the contents of a Letter I formerly writ to a young Gentleman upon this Subject Sir THough you did pitch upon none of the best Casuists when you sent your case to me yet since you have thought fit to ask my opinion whether it be lawful to go and see a Play a thing our Gallants are so exceeding fond of I must crave leave to tell you that in the Primitive ages of the Church such a question from one who professed himself a follower of the Holy Jesus would have been looked upon with novery pleasant aspect they supposing that every Christian who knew or was sensible into whose name he was Baptized understood that things of this nature are as forrein to Christianity as lasciviousness and wantonness and as contrary to the design of our noble Religion which is to plant a Spiritual Life in us as wallowing in voluptuousness or luxury But the times are altered and our Virtuosi have allow'd of it and what men in former ages scarce thought fit to be named among Christians this hath made not only convenient but in some respect necessary and essential to a person of Quality so that this Question as the case stands may with some justice be askt and even a very sober person may now with some reason demand whether there be any harm in beholding these dramatick representations And here I would not be thought so rigid or foolish rather as if I believed no representation of History or Mens actions in the World lawful for that would be directly contrary to Christs own practice who instituted a Sacrament to represent his death and passion by and to keep up the remembrance of it to the Worlds end and though this is not acting things to the Life yet it at least imports so much that something Historical may be represented in lively and significant Characters the management of which must be left to the prudence and discretion of sober Men. But then these representations must be restrain'd altogether to vertue and goodness and such accomplishments of the Soul which the wisest and holiest Men in all ages have been desirous and ambitious of and though vertue cannot be well either discoursed of or represented without its opposite vice yet such is the nature of vice such the unhappy consequences of it that if either the pleasure or ease or prosperity and success of it be shewn and acted though but for a few minutes whatever Fate it ends in it 's so agreeable to the corrupted tempers of Men that it leaves a pleasing impression behind it nor is the after-clap or doleful Exit of it strong enough to prevent a liking or satisfaction especially in the younger sort who are generally more taken with its present content and titillations then frighted with its dull and muddy conclusion for while its present success and sweetness is acting the Cupid strikes the heart and lays such ae foundation there as mocks all the death and ruin it after some time doth end in I doubt not but the joys of Angels and the triumphs of glorified souls might be acted to the life and great good might issue from the gaudy Opera and if justice patience sobriety humility and contempt of the World with all the garlands and solid joys that attend them were represented with their future recompense in a serious way without jesting or raillery not a few Men and Women might be signally edified by it their affections raised above their ordinary level and their courage kindled to press towards the noble prize but then there must be nothing of the present amiableness of vice mingled with the Scenes for though vice must almost