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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

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54857	The signal diagnostick whereby we are to judge of our own affections : and as well of our present, as future state, or, The love of Christ planted upon the very same turf, on which it once had been supplanted by the extreme love of sin : being the substance of several sermons, deliver'd at several times and places, and now at last met together to make up the treatise which ensues / by Tho. Pierce.	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1670 (1670)	Wing P2199; ESTC R12333	120,589	186

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 gon and be Honest before th●…u talk'st of being Godly Now together with this compare S. Iohn's way of reckoning In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil whosoever doth not righteousness 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 does our Saviour say thus by this shall all men know ye are my Disciples if they see ye love God but by this they shall know it is ye love one another Because our love of one another does presuppose we love God which 't is impossible that we do in case we love not one another For he that hateth his Brother is a Murderer and abideth in Death 1 John 3. 14 15. Thus we see how this Scripture is profitable for Doctrin Sect. 3. 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 amongst 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 find Iustice shall he find Mercy shall he find Love upon the Earth shall he find 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 ye are my Disciples if ye Hate one another It is a Crime the more enormous to hate and persecute a Neighbour under colour of Devotion and zeal to God because it breaks the Commandments against each other For if the same God who saith Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart does also say in the same instant Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self It cannot but follow that to persecute or hate a Neighbor in pretense of affection and zeal to God is to take up the Second Table in anger and to dash it in pieces against the first And what is that in effect but to make the Law it s own Transgressor The character of a Christian recommended here to us by Christ himself is not certainly such a praedatorie and ravenous love of one another as was that of the Scribes and Pharisees wherewith they lov'd widdows Houses so far forth as to devour them and eat them up Nor such a cruel kind of love as that of the Canibals in Herodotus who glutted themselves with the flesh of men because they lov'd it as well as Ven'son For when Professors are transported with such an unnatural kind of love as gives them an appetite to bite and devour each other as the Apostle speaks to the Ephesians or to eat up God's people as if they would eat Bread as the Psalmist thought fit to phrase it it hath a tendency to nothing but mutual Ruin No the note of distinction whereby to know a sincere and a solid Christian is such a divine kind of love as tends to Unity and Peace and so by a consequence unavoidable to mutual safety and preservation If we are rooted and grounded in such a love to one another as that of Christ unto us all we shall be known by the fruit we bear to have been grafted into him who is indeed the true vine We shall not only do to no man what we would that no man should do to us which was the Motto an Heathen Prince would needs have carved in all his Plate But what we wish that all men would do to us we shall earnestly endeavour to do to all men we shall love them for God's sake whom for their own sakes we cannot love If we are mearly weak brethren we shall manifest by our weakness we are not wilful And if strong we shall bear the Infirmities of the weak We shall walk in wisdom towards them that are without I mean the Enemies of Christ both Iewes and Gentiles that we may neither be in danger of being corrupted by their secular and sensual baits nor heighten their prejudice to the Gospel by any matter of scandal in our converse Will it not be a very sad and a shameful thing if Iewes and Gentiles shall rise in judgment against a great part of Christendom whilst Christendom shall justifie both Iewes and Gentiles First for the Jews they are so much at unity amongst themselves that however covetous in their particulars and however cruel to us Christians yet they are kind to one another and full of good works too They suffer not the needy to go without his relief nor the Captive without his ransom Nay the Esseni amongst the Jewes had all things in common and living Virgins themselves bestow'd their cost and their care in breeding other solks children This was one of the Jewish Maximes as the most elegant of their Writers hath set it down that Godliness and Honesty or the love of God and the love of men are a kind of Twin-sisters which every Creature is to espowse who is not so wedded to the world as to admit of a Divorce from the caelestial Bride-groom 'T was never allow'd unto the Jewes to abhor an Edomite or an Egyptian or to count any man as an Enemy although he were scaling the City-walls till he had absolutely refus'd their solemn offers of Reconcilement Then secondly for the Gentiles Homer describes the love of Enemies The Pythagoreans gave it in precept and Antius Restio's brave servant reduc't the doctrin into practice Whilst some of the Heathens do love their Enemies were it not well if some Christians would love their Friends What a scandal is it at this day to the Disciples of Mahomet that grand Impostor that the Spirit of Division should seem to reign more amongst Christians than amongst them Nay are there not diverse great Potentates who profess to be the followers and friends of Christ and yet are ready at any rate to buy peace of the Turk to the end they may break it with one another Or not to go so far from home how little is there of Christianity except the syllables and the sound even in

at agreement among themselves but from a principle of Policy and not of Love Even Rebells and Schismaticks the greatest enemies of Church and state are wont to hold together and keep themselves close but from a principle of Faction and not of Love We read of Pilate and Herod that they were solemnly made friends but from a principle of Hatred to an innocent Christ not of love to one another The world is full of such Merchants as keep a good correspondence and are punctual Dealers with one another but from a principle of Traffick and not of true love The friends of Ceres and Bacchus have their times of Feasting and good-fellowship their times of injoying the Creature-Comforts but from a principle of loosness and not of Love Many love the merry meeting but not the men whom they meet Or if they are Lovers of the men 't is from a principle of Nature and not of Grace It being a meer Self-love which makes them so to love Others Nay farther yet a man may do the very things which are the principal offices and works of Love for which not his Love but only his vanity is to be thank't He may bestow his whole substance to feed the poor and yet may perish for want of Love May dare to dye a pretended Martyr by giving his body to be burnt and yet may be frozen for want of Love So I collect from the Apostle 1 Cor. 13. 3. Sect. 7. 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 little 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 word for it in several places If ye keep my Commandments ye shall abide in my love And this is my Commandment that ye love one another even as I have loved you Now we know the Love of Christ was both Extensively and Intensively great and proposed in both respects not more to our Wonder than Imitation First it was so Extensively Great as as that it reached to all in general 1 Tim. 4. 10. to every man in particular Heb. 2. 9. not to a world of men only 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 sorrows and acquainted with grief indeed an Intimate Acquaintance of the most heart-breaking grief that ever was suffered on this side Hell It put him upon the vassalage 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 Ruin 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 Hell for us he ascended into Heaven for us he maketh intercession at the right hand of God Rom. 8. 34. Sect. 8. 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. It must reach unto our Enemies and of them to all sorts too not only to those without the pale of the Church who do us little or no hurt even Iews Turks Infidels and Hereticks for whom we pray once a year in our English Liturgy but to our Crueller sort of Enemies within the Church our particular Persecutors and Slanderers for whom we pray in our Liturgy three times a week Sect. 9. Indeed the Hypocrites of the Synagogue did constrain the word Neighbor to signifie nothing but a Friend esteeming it Godliness and Zeal to hate an Enemy And some there are even in Christendom who feigning God from all Eternity to have hated more than he lov'd think they acquit themselves fairly and look upon it in themselves as a God-like property if they are much less inclinable to Love than Hatred They know they need not love more than the Saviour of the world was pleas'd to dye for and easily taking it for granted that he dyed only for some they think they need not exhibit their love to all Sect. 10. Such men must be minded that even our Enemies are to be treated as one sort of friends and that the Scripture-word Neighbor extends 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 spiteful to us gives us his reason in these words because God also is kind to the unthankful and to the evil Which is as much as to say that in the Extension of our kindness we must be Imitators of God For so he tells us in the very next words be ye merciful as your Father in Heaven is merciful And when a Jew askt the Question Who is my Neighbor Our Saviour answer'd him by the Parable of a Iew and a Samaritan not of a Iew and a Iew. Whereby we are given to understand that all are our Neighbors who stand in Need. Let that need be what it will a need of our Pardon or of our Purse we must not only 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 labour to melt them to reconcilement 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 civil 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 runs 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. Sect. 11. And from hence we

us such a love as never was thought upon before much less deliver'd under precept to any Sect or Society of Iewes or Gentiles Had his Commandment been no more than that we love one another it had been old with a witness no doubt I may say as old as Adam But because he added a Sicut Ego that we must love one another even as he hath loved us which was with such a new Love as till he came into the world was never heard of he had reason to call it a New Commandment 'T was said by Moses to the Iewes Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self But our Saviour saith farther that we must love one another even as He hath loved us which was not only as but beyond Himself For his loving us to the Death was in the comparative sense of Scripture to hate his own life for the love he bare us And although S. Iohn saith Brethren I write no New Commandment but an old Commandment which ye had from the Beginning he means no more by that last word than the first Beginning of Christianity which was with the preaching of the Gospel by Iesus Christ. Remember we therefore what Love this is which is the Badge and Cognisance of our profession the mark of difference betwixt the Sheep and the Goats and which is not exacted from Men as Men but from Christians as they are Christians We must not love as They do who corrupt one another as S. Austin speaks with a meerly seditious or schismatical Love nor must we love as they do who only love one another for filthy Lucre much less as They do who love one another for filthy Lust Nor must we love as They do whose love consisteth only in this that they agree in the hatred of some third Party Nor must we only love as they do who love one another as they are Men only that is as they are sociable and civil Creatures But we must love one another as being Lovers of God and as being such whom God loves as being Children of the Highest and younger Brothers of our Redeemer as being all made Consorts of the very same Hope and all Co-heirs of the very same Kingdom Our Love must imitate both 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 utmost 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 School thither it is we go to learn Christ is the Master of it in chief all Christians are School-fellows or Condisciples The Love I have hitherto describ'd 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 an 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 't is not impossible to be learn't For God is faithful 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 despair of getting the Mastery over our Lesson For we are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Paul speaks to the Thessalonians immediatly taught it by God himself Sect. 16. Now the more largely I have discover'd both what it is not and what it is to love one another as Christ requires the fewer words will suffice to make it 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 Matt. 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the All in All of a Christian. For mark the words of that Apostle whom we cannot accuse of vain or needless Repetition 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 Sect. 17. 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 moral doth consist of ten Members which are commonly call'd the Decalogue or ten Commandments 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 these two Hinges the very Door of Salvation doth clearly turn For on these two Precepts hang all the Law and the Prophets Matt. 22. 40. But S. 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 does 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 bear to God Observe the Logick by which S. Iohn argues both backwards and forwards By this we know we love the Children of God when we love God and keep his Commandments 1 Joh. 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 John 4. 10. He that shutteth up his Bowels of Compassion from his brother how dwelleth the Love of God in him 1 John 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 Joh. 3. 1 4. Hereby we know we are of the Truth and have Confidence towards God if we keep his Commandments And this is his Commandment that we love one another v. 19. to v. 23. Sect. 18. Hence we see it is evident There is not a clearer Demonstration of our loving God with all our hearts than 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 Commandment 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 Sect. 19. 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 Ecclesiastical or Civil Then for the Neighbour who is equal 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 Adultery 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 Sect 20. And now I do not doubt but we are all of one mind as touching the Character and Badge by which we may 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 exorbitant societies and sorts of men whether their Ring-leaders and Masters are Jews or Gentiles First for the Gentiles we may know the Disciples of Zoroastres by their belief of two gods and Incestuous wedlocks We may know the Disciples of the Brachmans by their unparallel'd self-denials in food and rayment We may know the Disciples of Pythagoras by their Reverence to the numbers of four and seven The Disciples of Plato by their fanciful Idaea's in the concave of the Moon The Disciples of Zeno by their Dreams of Apathie and Fate 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 we may know the Disciples of the Scribes by their Traditional corruptions and Expositions of the Law We may know the Disciples of the Pharisees by their Form of godliness and their appearing righteous unto men We may know the Disciples of the Sadduces by their denial of Providence and dis-belief of the Resurrection We may know the Disciples of the Esseni by their overstrict Sabbatizing 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 We 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 we are all the Disciples of Iesus Christ If we love one another even as Christ hath loved us CHAP. II. Sect. 1. WHilst I am thinking what proper Lessons we are to draw from Christ's words the words of S. Paul which he writ to Timothy do straight occur to my remembrance All Scripture saith he is by divine Inspiration and is profitable for Doctrin for Reproof for Correction for Instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be furnished unto all good wooks 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. For were there no other Scripture than that which hath given me my present subject I should think it very profitable for each of those ends and think the workman well furnished for every good work Sect. 2. First 't is profitable for Doctrin because it teacheth such as are ignorant the true importance of Christianity which does 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 does 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 acts in contradiction to the Commandments 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 does 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 an Hope as does 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 find 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 perform'd to one another before he accepts of any sacrifice which can be offer'd unto