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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	evil_a	good_a	sin_n	7,176	5	5.3331	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42553	Philadelphia, or, a treatise of brotherly-love Shewing, that we must love all men: love the wicked in general: love our enemies: that the godly must especially love another: and the reasons of each particular love. The manner of our mutual love; the dignity, necessity, excellenc, and usefulness of brotherly-love. That the want of love, where love is due, is hatred, shewed in divers particulars. The greatness of the sin of malice and hatred; with the reasons why wicked men hate the saints: together with cautions against those sins that break the bond of love. Many weighty questions discussed, and divers cases cleared. By William Gearing, minister of the word.	Gearing, William.	1670 (1670)	Wing G436C; ESTC R223669	92,727	215

Transgression of the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now there may be a more strong bent of the heart against the Law of Love in deep-setled malice long continued in the heart and soul full of implacable rage and bitterness than in some acts of murther The hurt done to a mans Neighbour is incomparably greater in murthering him than that which is done by meer malice concealed and kept close in the heart be it never so great But the greatness of sin I suppose though against the second Table is not always to be measured by the hurt done to a Neighbour but by the greater or lesser opposition to the Law of Love And I am perswaded that some men going on with restless malice and bitterness of spirit against their Neighbour may be more guilty in the sight of God than some others that have committed that fearful sin of murther so great and hainous a sin is the sin of malice before the Lord who is Love SECT IV. 1. HEre let us consider What the occasions have been which have bred distast and di●content whether they have been wrongs indeed or wrongs only in appearance or whether being rightly considered their deeds which we have distasted and taken occasion to hate them for have been good tending to the discharge of their consciences and our reformation If they have been indeed wrongs and injuries yet nevertheless to harbour malice against them is to commit murther It is true that Hatred in such a case is not so great a sin as in the other cases mentioned yet in this case it being no less than a degree of murther we are to lament and to be humbled ●or it as for a sin exceeding hainous On the other side If it hath been for some actions which were not real injuries but only taken for such by reason of our own weakness partiality self-love prejudice against their persons c. then is our Hatred a sin of an higher Nature than in the former case and so we are accordingly to be affected with it Again if they have been such words or actions as have tended to the discharge of their consciences and for the reformation of us in our course or for the righting of others whom we have wronged if for any of these we have hated them and been malicious against them then is our sin yet more grievous and abominable So Jonathan dealt plainly with his Father Saul laying open the greatness of his sin in hating David to the death if the Father had had Grace to have made use of his Sons faithful dealing with him 1 Sam. 19.4 Jonathan spake good of David unto Saul his Father and said unto him let not the King sin against his servant against David because he hath not sinned against thee and because his works have been to thee-ward very good For he did put his life in his hand and slew the Philistine and the Lord wrought a great salvation for all Israel Thou sawest it and didst rejoyce wher●fore then wilt thou sin against innocent blood to slay David without a cause Thus when men hate others that admonish and reprove them in publick or in private and seek their restraint in sin or reformation or those that punish them being Magistrates or in office c. this is a bloody kind of malice and for this we are to be deeply humbled If malice be murther when injuries are received how much more when others have laboured to do us good if thou hast hated any for crossing thee in an evil way in word or deed thou hast sinned in an high degree and hast cause to be greatly humbled for it 2. Let us also examine how our hearts have been stirred less or more in hatred or bitter affections against any others for there is great difference of degrees in this as in other sins how hardly we have been brought to reconciliation how implacable What bitterness hath broken forth out of our hearts in words or actions against them what offence or evil example we have given to others by these means and accordingly should we charge our Consciences before the Lord. I fear many do very lightly pass over this sin of malice especially it having not much shewed it self openly but having for the most part part layen in the depths of their malicious hearts Owe nothing then to any man but to love one another Do not in malice think that thou owest ill will or an ill-turn to any but that thou owest love to all malice to none for whosoever hateth his Brother is a murtherer and ye know that no murtherer hath eternal Life abiding in him SECT V. IV. MAlice and Hatred makes men most contrary to God and most like unto the Devil It makes a man most contrary to God for God is Love 1 Joh. 4.16 It is the Nature of God to love men He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is of a most glorious lovely and loving Nature and is the Author of all Love in us This sheweth what a God he is to us and every Creature findeth him to be a loving God a loving Father As the Sun is Light and the Fountain of Light and gives Light to the Stars of Heaven and to all sublunary things so God is Love it self and the Fountain of all Love he filleth the Angels in Heaven with Love he filleth the Saints on earth with mutual and spiritual Love and the natural Love and Affection that are in men one to another are sparks and rays of Gods Love all the Creatures are objects of his Love every Creature of God is good therefore beloved of God Do ye think God would vouchsafe to call himself by the Name of Love if there were not a wonderful excellency in Love now he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him he that embraceth the Love of God by Faith and thereupon unfeignedly loveth God and his Brethren dwelling continuing or abiding in this Love he continueth or abideth in God and God in him If in any Love it be true That the Soul is where it loveth it is most true in this Love of a Child of God to his heavenly Father and to all the Saints his Soul is with God with Christ his Beloved in Heaven and abideth in him This our Saviour knew full well when he taught us Mat. 6. Lay not up for your selves Treasures on earth but lay up for your selves Treasures in Heaven for where your Treasures are there will your hearts be also His delight also is in the Saints that are on the earth in those that excel in Grace and Holiness One that was full of holy Love was wont to answer all questions therewith Whence camest thou from Love Whither goest thou to Love Where dwellest thou in Love God is such a ones dwelling-place his home his resting-place and Christ is the Door by which he entreth into this dwelling by Christ he entreth and dwelleth in God Now malice makes men most like unto the Devil

on all things he sets his hand unto So must thou pray for others with the same fervency which thou usest in praying for thy self pray for that which will do them most good that they may every way be the better for thee that thou maist find by experience as Laban did That the Lord hath blest them for thy sake 4. Who doth not endeavour his own good with all his might The like care must thou have of thy Neighbours good especially of the Saints Love is a diligent Affection and the Fountain of Diligence Diligentia may well be derived à diligendo Diligence from Dilection or Loving the things as one saith are conjugate no less than the names Thy Love must be a labouring Love a Love that is full of mercy and good fruits The Apostle ascribeth Work and Labour unto Love because Love refuseth no pains it will spend and be spent even there where is least Love returned for most expended 5. Who doth not rejoyce in his own good Thou dost never envy thy self thine own Happiness So must thou rejoyce in the Gifts Parts Graces and Prosperity of others To envy at one anothers good is some of the Poyson of the old Serpent which he spitteth It is the principal quality of Devils to envy the Saints Happiness 6. Who is there that is weary in doing good to himself When doth a man cease to do good to himself So must thou do to others Thou must never be weary in well-doing to them A Friend a true Christian Friend loveth at all times Prov. 17.17 Let thy Love to thy Brother be without envy in Prosperity and without weariness in Adversity When the feigned Lover is to his Friend as the Cuckoo that affords you his company till you be weary of him in Summer but before Winter cometh takes his leave Be thou to thy Brother as the Black-bird that keeps constantly with us and is of use if need be to feed us in Winter Every man knoweth what is good for himself thence doth a good man conclude if Justice Mercy Knowledg Grace Credit be good for me then are they good for my Brother also and he will labour to procure them that he may serve his Brother through love Gal. 5.13 intending his good more than his own in loving of him True it is a man in loving another may have some respect to himself if he be Wise Judicious Learned to learn of him If Humble Loving Holy to imitate him If any way beneficial to be a Gainer by him in a way of God not of Lust or of the World But this is not the first and principal thing for which the Christian loveth another but as the result not as the moving Cause but as the Reward of Love as Man and Wife by shewing more Love to each other for Love's sake do reap more Love from each other SECT II. II. WE must love one another as Christ loved us Christ loved us when we were enemies to him Herein is the Love of God commended to us that when we were enemies Christ died for us Rom. 5.8 Yea when we were enemies to Christ and he might have wrought our destruction yet then he sought to us for our Love entreating us to be reconciled unto him he came to seek the lost Sheep of the house of Israel What surpassing Love is this That the great God should come and seek to his own Creatures for their Love that the Cedar should make suit to the Thistle What had Christ lost by it if every Son of Adam had been turned into Hell Could he not have made another World of Men to have glorified him and to reign with him in Glory yet that he should seek to us to be reconciled to him here is surpassing Love So must we love one another Are we injurious to one another and at variance one with another then let us seek to one another for reconciliation Christ so loved us that he was willing to lay down his Life for us Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his Life for us 1 Joh. 3.16 Christs could not shew greater Love to us than in dying for us Christs Love to us is the ultimum resolubile the last thing into which all his actions in the work of our Redemption is resolved Do ye ask Why God was incarnate why he suffered death why he endured such contradiction of Sinners such Mockings such a bloody Agony in the Garden this answereth all Because he loved us I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself to death for me Gal. 2.20 The Apostle speaks here in the Person of all Beleevers These following Reasons may demonstrate to us that Christs Love was the Cause that made him to lay down his Life for us R. 1. Because there was no desert in us It is not our Love to him first that made him to love us no we love him because he loved us first Our Love to him is the effect and consequent of his Love to us not the cause of his Love What is there in any man considered as fallen from God that can deserve such incomprehensible Love as that God should dye for us Can Sin deserve the Love of Christ What is a natural Man but a very Body of Sin We do not nor can we Love God because we are enmity to him Amor descendit non ascendit There is more Love in a Father to a Child than in a Child to a Father His Love did first descend to us before our Love could ascend to him The Prophet Ezekiel sets forth the odious and most undeserving condition of Man under a Parable of a polluted Infant when we were most forlorn polluted and most helpless then was the time of Love Ezek. 16. When thou wast wallowing in thine own filthiness then was the time of Love 2. Because Christ reaps no good by us What if Adam and all his Posterity had been damned he had lost no whit of his Blessedness he was infinitely happy from everlasting and so is to everlasting and would be had not a man been partaker of his Glory therefore it must needs be his meer Love to us and such a Love as doth earnestly desire and tender our everlasting good and Salvation It was for our Reconciliation and Justification that he endured Wrath he died for our Redemptoin he shed his Blood for us miserable Creatures to make us eternally happy Sons of God and Heirs of Salvation What Motive or Ground had Christ to dye and suffer if it were not his meer Love to us so that we may well cry out with St. Augustine O Lord thou hast loved me more than thy self because thou wouldst dye for me and not for thy self 3. Because Christ laid down his Life being never desired of us therefore meer Love to us did encline him to dye for us Had Men taken Counsel together to devise a means to pacifie Gods Wrath had men been let

happy are ye and be not afraid of their terrour neither be troubled but sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you as of evil doers they may be ashamed that falsly accuse your good conversation in Christ Christians should labour so to walk that they may have nothing to cover their malice withall but that it may be manifest to their Consciences and to the eyes of others that they hate them and set themselves against them for Righteousness-sake and that their Adversaries may be ashamed Then are men brought to shame when things that are shameful are laid open but when Christians by worldliness or distempers or by playing the busy body c. do give them something to cover their malice against them withall they keep them from being ashamed But when a Christian walketh unblameably and watchfully he uncovereth the shame of their malice against him making it to appear that it is for Righteousness-sake and so causeth the shame of it to reflect upon their own faces insomuch that many times their own Consciences do condemn them them for such as fight against God which may be a means of their Conversion or restraint 2. Carry your selves meekly towards them when they are most maliciously and furiously bent against you Two Angels coming into the streets of Sodom in the Evening were entertained by Lot And in likelihood they appeared in the form of men shewed themselves in a shape surpassing in Beauty whereupon these wicked Sodomites boiling with filthy and unnaturall lust desired to abuse them contrary to the Law of Nature taking them to be mortal men and observing into what house they entered between Supper and Bed-time they assaulted his house and called upon him to bring forth his guests that they might deal with them according to their filthy Lust Now mark the carriage of Righteous L●t in this case Gen. 19.6 7 8. And Lot went out at the door unto them and shut the door after him and said I pray you Brethren do not so wickedly Behold now I have two daughters which have not known man● let me I pray you bring them out unto you and do ye to them as is good in your eyes only unto these men do nothing for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof Now it must be confessed that here was a great failing in this carriage of Lot which must not be imitated by any means that to save his guests from being unnaturally abused he would expose his Daughters to the beastly lusts of the Sodomites which was so much the greater in ●hat as appeareth afterwards they were contracted and so it was a great injury to their husbands that had espoused though not yet married them But this was partly out of want of Knowledg as it seemeth for then many Truths were not so cleared as now they are partly it was out of weakness the unlawfulness of Polygamy and so the unlawfulness of doing evil that good might come or yeelding to some sin to prevent a greater sin as in this case These and the like truths were not so clear●y opened to the godly it seemeth as now they are partly it was out of weakness of Faith that he did not rest upon God who had ways enough to keep him out of so great a strait without any such indirect and unlawful means as appeared afterwards and partly out of a sudden confused haste being beset with a mighty number of men desperately wicked and enflamed with violent and raging lust so that not having time to retire his thoughts and compose his Spirit and to take things better into consideration he sell upon this unwarrantable shift I am perswaded he had much rather have lost his heart-blood if that would have satisfied them but he thought nothing would save his guests unless these wretches filthy lusts had some other Objects to feed upon But passing by his great oversight and infirmity let us take notice of his carriage otherwise and that ye shall find was full of Love unto his guests according to the Law of Hospitality full of detestation against such foul unnnatural wickedness full of meekness towards these Sodomites as appeareth in his speech fore-mentioned He gave them never a bitter word he only sought to keep them from this sin CHAP. XXVIII NOw to conduct let me exhort every Christian to maintain a watchful eye over their Love that it wax not cold in these evil-times Our Saviour long since prophesied of the latter times that because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold Mat. 24.12 That there should be a flood of iniquity and a frost of love The times wherein we live tell us that iniquity doth abound I had almost said it cannot abound more now then let brotherly love continaee Heb. 13.1 This Love like that Fire under the Law came down from Heaven therefore preserve it we had need be very careful for sinful times are cooling times Sin is as apt to quench Love as Water to quench the Fire These objects of Love are continually the same When Love goes away the power the zeal the practice of religion goes away It is an argument your Love is truly divine if you keep it flaming in the worst of times It you suffer your Love to God and his people to decay you will lose all the good that ever you have done If your Love decay all the people of God with whom you have taken sweet counsel together prayed together fasted together all these shall rise up in judgment against you Oh think what manner of damnation yours will be ye shall feel the most dreadful effects of Gods eternal hatred who have suffered your Love to Gods ways and people to dye within you Oh if your Love decay it is not easily recovered again and to recover your first Love you must repent and do your first works it will cost you much labour much sighing much sorrow of heart before you can recover your former degrees of Love Take heed of a slavish fear of wicked men St. Paul opposeth the spirit of fear to the spirit of Love 2 Tim. 1.17 Be not too familiar with those that are unsetled in the truth Many had loved more had they disputed less Set your hearts on the things of the world Demas forsook the fellowship of the Saints because he embraced this present world FINIS Books to be sold by Thomas Parkhurst at the Golden Bible on London-Bridg MR. Sedgwick's Bowels of Mercy fol. The Taylor 's Works the first vol. fol. 2. An Exposition of Temptation on Mat. 4. verse 1. to the end of the eleventh 3. A Commentary on Titus 4. Davids Learning A Comment upon Psal 32. 5. The Parable of the Sower and of the Seed upon Luk. 8. and 4. A Learned Commentary or Exposition on the first Chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians by Richard Sibbs D. D. fol. A practical Exposition on the third Chapter of the first Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians with the Godly Mans Choice on Psal 4. ver 6 7 8. By Anthony Burgess fol. The view of the Holy Scriptures By Hugh Broughton Fol. Christianographia or a Description of the multitude and sundry sorts of Christians in the world not subject to the Pope By Eph. Pagitt Fol. These six Treatises next following are written by Mr. George Swinnock 1. The Christian Mans Calling or a Treatise of making Religion ones busineis in Religious Duti●s Natural Actions his Particular Vocation his Family Directions and his own Recreation to be read in Families for their Instruction and Edification The first Part. 2. Likewise a second Part wherein Christians are directed to perform their Duties as Husbands and Wives Parents and Children Masters and Servants in the conditions of Prosperity and Adversity 3. The third and last part of the Christian Mans Calling Wherein the Christian is directed how to make Religion his business in his dealings with all Men in the Choice of his Companions in his carriage in good Company in bad Company in solitarine●s or when he is alone on a Week-day ●rom morning to night in visiting the sick on a Dying bed as also the means how a Christian may do this and some motives to it 4. The Door of Salvation opened by the Key of Regeneration 5. Heaven and Hell Epitomized and the True Christian Characterized The Fading of th● Flesh and the flourishing of Faith Or One cast for Eternity with the only way to throw it well all these by George Swinnock M. A. Large Octavoes A learned Commentary on the fourth Chapter of the second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians to which is added First a Conference between Christ and Mary Second the Spiritual Mans Aim Third Emanuel or Miracle of Miracles by Richard Sibbs D. D. 4 to An Exposition on the five first Chapters of Ezekiel with useful observations thereupon by Will Greenhil 4 to The Gospel-Covenant or the Covenant of Grace opened Preached in New England by Peter Buckely 4 to Gods Holy Mind touching Matters Moral which himself uttered in ten words or ten Commandments Also an Exposition on the Lords Prayer by Edward Elton B. D. 4 to A plain and familiar Exposition of the ten Commandments by John Dod 4 to Fiery Jesuite or and Historical Collection of the Rise Increase Doctrines and Deeds of the Jesuites Exposed to view for the sake of London 4 to Of Quenching the Spirit the evil of it in respect both of its causes and effec●s discovered By Theophilus Bolwheile A Defence against the fear of Death By Zac● Crofton The True bounds of Christian freed●m or a Discourse shewing the extents restraints of Christian Liberty wherein the truth is setled many errors con●●●ed out of John 8. ver 36. FINIS