Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	brethren_n	know_v	life_n	4,656	5	5.3920	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54848	Philallelpa, or, The grand characteristick whereby a man may be known to be Christ's disciple delivered in a sermon at St. Paul's, before the gentlemen of VVilts, Nov. 10, 1658, it being the day of their yearly feast, by Thomas Pierce ...	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1658 (1658)	Wing P2190; ESTC R33406	27,750	46

same Kingdome Our Love must imitate the manner and the Degree of Christs Love For we must venture our Lives for the good of others and even in spight of all Dangers which may happen to the Body we must own and propagate and defend the Doctrines of the Gospel which is the most we can do for the good of other mens Souls and that which makes us most like a Saviour The Gospel I may say is the Christian Scool thither it is we go to learn Christ is the Master of it in chief All Christians are Schoolfellows or Condisciples The Love I have hitherto described is the highest Lesson which there is taught Those Titular Christians who do not attain to this Love are so many Dunces and Truants fit to be turn'd out of the School It is indeed a hard Lesson for us to love one another even as Christ hath loved us a Lesson only to be found in the School of Christ But yet how Difficult soever it is not impossible to be learn't For God is faithfull and expects not to reap but after the measure that he hath sown He will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able If there is in us a willing mind He accepts according to what we have and not according to what we have not The Grace of Christ is sufficient for us And we can do all things through him that strengthens us And therefore let us not despaire of getting the Mastery over our Lesson For we are all * {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as St. Paul speaks to the Thessalonians immediatly taught it by God himself Now the more largely I have discovered both what it is not and what it is to love one another as Christ requires the fewer words will suffice to make it as clear as the Sun at Noon that by this we must be known to be Christs Disciples For such a Love as This is is the fulfilling of the Law So saith the Law-giver * himself Mat. 22. 40. and so his principal Apostle Rom. 13. 8 9 10. where he speaks of Love in a Christian as Demosthenes did of Pronunciation in an Orator As if it were not only the first Thing but also the second and the third and so indeed the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the All in All of a Christian For mark the words of that Apostle whom we cannot accuse of vain or needless Repition He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law v. 8. All the Commandments of the Law are comprehended even in this Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self v. 9. Love worketh no evil to his Neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law v. 10. Three times in a breath without so much as a Parenthesis love is reckon'd to be the Pandect of all things requisite to make a Saint Nor let any man say within himself How can this be Since Gods word tells us that so it is And yet I think it is easie to shew you How too For the whole Body of the Law morall doth consist of ten Members which are call'd the Decalogue or ten Commandements of the Law The Lord Jesus hath reduced those Ten to these Two Thou shalt love thy God with all thy Heart And thy Neighbour as thy self On those two Hinges the very Door of Salvation doth seem to turn For on those two Precep-s hang all the Law and the Prophets Mat. 22. 40. But St. Paul hath reduced them all to One For thus he speaks to the Galatians * All the Law is fulfilled in one word even in this Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self The reason is because the Love of our Neighbour in the high Degree I here speak of doth carry along with it the Love of God Either of them saith * Austin is inferr'd by either for if we really love God we shall obey him when he commands us to love our Neighbour and if we really love our Neighbour it is for the Love which we beare to God Observe the Logick by which St. Iohn argues both backward and foreward By this we know we love the Children of God when we love God and keep his Commandements 1 Jo. 5. 2. There he argues from the first Table to the second Now observe how he argues from the second to the first and that two waies both in the Negative and the Affirmative In the Negative thus He that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen 1 Jo 4. 10. He that shutteth up his Bowels of Compassion from his brother how dwelleth the Love of God in him 1 Jo. 3. 17. Again he argues it in the Affirmative We know that we have passed from death unto life if we love the brethren 1 Jo. 3. 14. Hereby we know weare of the Truth and have Confidence towards God if we keep his Commandements And this is his Commandement that we love one another v. 19. to v. 23. Hence you see it is evident There is not a clearer Demonstration of our loving God with all our hearts then the loving our Neighbour as our selves From whence it follows that every sin must needs argue some want of Love For if against the first Table it is through a want of some love to God And if against the second it must needs be for want of some love to Men Again it follows on the contrary that where Love is perfect and entire no Commandement can be broken For loving God with all our hearts we shall keep the first Table and loving our Neighbour as our selves we shall not fail to keep the second What I have shew'd in the Great I can easily shew in the Retail too to wit that Love is the fulfilling of the Law For if we love God as we ought to do we shall certainly have no God but Him Much less shall we worship a Graven Image We shall not lift up his Name in vain Nor shall we fail to keep holy his Holy Dayes And if we love our Neighbour as Christ requires we shall be sure to render to every man his Due And so by consequence we shall honour all our Parents and Superiors whether publick or private Ecclesiasticall or Civill Then for the Neighbour who is equall or in any degree inferiour to us we shall be sure not to injure him in any kind From whence it follows we shall not kill for that were to injure him in his Life Nor commit Adultry for that were to injure him in his Wife Nor steal or Plunder for that were to injure him in his Goods Nor bear false Witness for that were to injure him in his good Name And as we shall not thus injure him either in Deed or in Word so if we love him as our selves or as Christ lov'd us we shall not do him any injury no not so much as in our Thoughts we shall not covet or be desirous of any thing that is

our Neighbours Thus the four Precepts of the first Table and the six Precepts of the second Or if there is any * other Precept besides these Ten they all are briefly comprehended in this one word Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self And so I hope by this time we are all of one minde as touching ths Grand Characteristick by which we are to be known to be Christ's Disciples The peculiar Note of Distinction by which we are taken from out the world as it were sever'd and set apart from all other societies and sorts of men whether their Ring-leaders and Masters are Jews or Gentiles First for the Gentiles ye may know the Disciples of Zoroastres by their belief of two gods and their incestuous wedlocks Ye may know the Disciples of the Brachmans by their unparall'd self-denials in food and rayment Ye may know the Disciples of Pythagoras by their Reverence to the numbers of four and seven And the Disciples of Plato by their fancifull Idaea's in the concave of the Moon And the Disciples of Zeno by their Dreams of Apathie and Fate And the Disciples of Mahomet as well by the filthiness of their paradise as by their desperate Tenet of God's Decrees And then for the Iews ye may know the Disciples of the Scribes by their Traditional corruptions and their expositions of the Law Ye may know the Disciples of the Pharisees by their Form of godliness and their * appearing righteous unto men Ye may know the Disciples of the Sadducees by their denial of Providence and their dis-belief of the Resurrection Ye may know the Disciples of the Esseni by their overstrict Sabbatizing And the Disciples of the Nazarites by their abstinence from the flesh of all living creatures And the Disciples of the Hemerobaptists by their every day washings from Top to Toe Ye may know the Disciples of Iohn the Baptist by their remarkable Fastings and other Austerities of Life But by this shall all men know that ye are all the Disciples of Iesus Christ If ye love one another even as Christ hath loved you Whilst I am thinking what proper Uses are to be made of this Scripture the words of St. Paul which he writ to Timothy do straight occur to my remembrance All Scripture saith he is by divine Inspiration and is profitable for Reproof for Correction for Instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be furn●shed unto all good works 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. Were there no other Scripture then that with which I have entertain'd you I should think it very profitable for each of those ends and esteem the preacher well furnished for every good work First it is profitable for Doctrine because it teacheth such as are ignorant the true importance of Christianity which doth not consist as some would have it in our being born of godly Parents believing the History of the Gospel making profession of zeal to Christ posting up and down from Sermon to Sermon making many and long prayers or whatsoever is comprehended under the Form of Godliness that is the Image the Picture the Counterfeit of Devotion as the word in the * Original doth very naturally import 2 Tim. 3. 5. For many profess to know God who in their works deny him † And let a mans profession be what it will yet if he act in contradiction to the Commandements of Christ that very acting is nothing better than a Denial of the Faith And so 't is call'd by the Apostle 1 Tim. 5. 8. Christianity doth not consist then in such a sanguin presumption as some call Faith in such a carnal security as some call Hope in such a parcel of * fair words as some call Charity in such a † worldly sorrow as some call Repentance But it consist's in such a Faith as * worketh by Love in such a Hope as doth * cleanse and purifie in such a Charity as worketh no ill to his neighbour but is on the contrary the † fulfilling of the Law and in such a Repentance as shew's it self by amendment and change of life bringing forth * fruits meet for Repentance Whatever some Mockers are wont to say we finde by the Tenor of the Gospel that a material part of Godliness is moral honesty The chief ingredients in a Christians life are acts of Iustice and works of Mercy than which there was nothing more conspicuous in the life of Christ The second Table is the touchstone of our obedience unto the first Our chiefest duty towards God is our duty towards our Neighbour God will have Iustice and Mercy to be performed to one another before he accept's of any sacrifice which can be offer'd unto himself For what saith our Saviour If thou bring thy gift to the Altar and there remembrest that thy Brother hath ought against thee leave there thy gift before the Altar and go thy way first be reconciled to thy Brother and then come and offer thy gift As if he should have said Get thee gone and be Honest before thou talk'st of being Godly Now together with this compare St. Iohn's way of reckoning * In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil whosoever doth not righteousnesse is not of God neither he that loveth not his Brother * And we know that we have passed from Death unto Life because we love the Brethren Nor doth our Saviour say in my Text By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if they see ye love God But by this they shall know it if ye love one another Because our love of one another doth presuppose we love God which 't is * impossible we should doe in case we love not one another For he that hateth his Brother is a Murderer and abideth in Death 1 Joh. 3. 14 15. Thus ye see how this Scripture is profitable for Doctrin And as for Doctrin so also for Reproof Because it serves to convince us of the small proportion of Christianity which is to be found among'st men who are commonly call'd Christians How much there is of the word and how little of the thing When the son of man cometh shall he find Faith on the Earth Yes store of that Faith which will ever be common to men with * Devils But when the Son of man cometh shall he finde Iustice shall he finde Mercy shall he finde Love upon the Earth shall he finde that Faith which worketh by Love and which worketh by such a Love as is the mother of Obedience and the mother of such obedience as is impartially due to the Law of Christ Alas how frequent a thing is it for Christians to persecute their fellow-Christians and then to reckon it as the character of their Discipleship under Christ As if they read the Text backwards or understood it by an Antiphrasis supposing Christ had meant thus By this shall all men know that ye are my

whole substance to feed the poor and yet may perish for want of Love He may dare to dye a pretended Martyr by giving his body to be burnt And yet he may be frozen for want of Love So I collect from the Apostle 1 Cor. 13. 3. It concerns us therefore to know what love this is having seen what it is not by which a man may be known to be Christs Disciple And the shortest way to know this is to reflect a while on the Love of Christ For such as was his Love to us such must ours be to Him and to one another We have his own word for it in the verse immediatly before my Text and c. 15. v. 10 12. If ye keep my Commandements ye shall abide in my love v. 10. And this is my Commandement that ye love one another even as I have loved you v. 12. Now we know the Love of Christ was both extrensively and intensively great and proposed in both respects not more to our wonder than imitation First it was so extensively Great as that it reached to All in generall 1 Tim. 4. 10. to every man in particular Heb. 2. 9. not to a world of men onely as that may signifie a part but to all the whole world without exception 1 Ioh. 2. 2. without exception of the ungodly Rom. 5. 6. without exception of enemies Rom. 5. 10. without exception of them that perish 2 Pet. 2. 1. And so intensively great was the Love of Christ that it made him empty himself of glory and become of * no reputation † it made him a man of sorrowes and acquainted with grief indeed an intimate Acquaintance of the most heart-breaking grief that ever was suffer'd on this side Hell It put him upon the vassallage of * washing and wiping his servants feet It made him † obedient unto the Death and to seek the lives of his Enemies whilst his enemies sought his He in order to their safety as they in order to his Ruine It made him once our Priest after the order of Aaron and our Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck For us he descended into Hel for us he ascended into Heaven for us he maketh intercession at the right hand of God Rom. 8. 34. Thus Christ as our Master hath set us a Copy of His Love to the end that we as his Disciples might do our utmost to take it out Our Love must be so extensive that it must reach even to All not onely to all our fellow-Disciples but to all men living upon the Earth it must reach unto our Enemies and of them to all sorts too not onely to those without the pale of the Church who do us little or no hurt even Iewes Turks Infidels and Hereticks for whom we pray once a year in our English Liturgy But to our Crueller Enemies within the Church our particular Persecutors and Slanderers for whom we pray in our Liturgy three times a week Indeed the Hypocrites of the Synagogue did constraine the word Neighbour to signifie nothing but a Friend esteeming it Godlinesse and Zeal to hate an Enemy And some there are even in Christendom who feigning God from all Eternity to have hated more then he loved think they acquit themselves fairly and look upon it in themselves as a God-like property if they are much less inclinable to love then Hatred They know they need not love more then the Saviour of the world was pleas'd to dye for And easily taking it for granted that he dyed onely for some they think they need not exhibit their love to all Such men must be taught that even our Enemies are to be treated as one sort of friends and that the Scripture-word Neighbour extend's to both 't was so extended even by * Moses and so by † Solomon if by Moses and Solomon much more by Christ who having first commanded us to love our Enemies to bless them that curse us to oblige them that hate us and to pray for them that are spitefull to us give's us his reason in these words because * God also is kind to the unthankfull and to the evil Which is as much as to say that in the extension of our kindnesse we must be imitators of God For so he tells us in the very next words † be ye mercifull as your Father in Heaven is mercifull And when a Jew askt the Question * Who is my Neighbour Our Saviour answer'd him by a Parable of a Iew and a Samaritan not of a Iew and a Iew Whereby we are given to understand that all are our Neighbours who stand in Need. Let that need be what it will A need of our Pardon or our Purse we must not onely forgive them in case they reduce us to want of Bread but we must give them our † Bread too in case they want it We must pray for them and pity them and indeavour to melt them to reconcilement we must do them all the good offices within our power excepting such as are apt to hurt them we must shew them such favours as may help to raise them out of the Pit not such as may sink them the faster in we must not be so rudely civill so discourteously complaisant as to * suffer their sins to be upon them without disturbance but must rather oblige them with our † rebukes lest for want of such favours they go down quietly to destruction For so run's the precept Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart on the contrary thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy brother and shalt not suffer Sin upon him Although a man be so scandalous as to be shut out of our * company by the direction of the Apostle yet the same Apostle tells us we must not count him as an Enemy but admonish him as a brother 2 Thes. 3. 15. And from hence we are to argue à minori ad majus For if our Love must thus extend to Enemies how much more to such as are friends friends to our persons and to our God too The love of Ch●ist had degrees so must ours As the Apostle tells concerning Christ he is the Saviour of all but especially of them that believe 1 Tim. 4. 10. so the same Apostle doth also tell us of our selves we must do good unto All men but especially to them who are of the houshold of faith Gal. 6. 10. And even of those that are faithfull a primary care is to be taken for them that are of our own Country † It was not onely for Gods sake that David was kind unto Ierusalem but for his Brethren and Companions sake he prayed to God for her and did his utmost to do her good Psal. 122. 8. Our Saviour being himself an Israelite did * prefer the lost sheep of the House of Israel How kind was Moses to His Countrymen when he became for their sakes extremely cruell unto Himself