Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	affection_n	great_a	love_n	1,344	5	5.2785	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A04831	The marriage of the lambe Or a treatise concerning the spirituall espousing of Christ, to a beleeving soule, wherein the subject is fully handled in the nature of it, in the effects, priviledges, symptomes, with the comforts that arise to a beleever from this relation, wherein also the excellencie of Christ, and many other spirituall truths flowing from the subject are by way discovered. By Benjamin King, minister of Gods Word at Flamsteed in Hartford-shire.	King, Benjamin, b. 1611 or 12.	1640 (1640)	STC 14963; ESTC S103355	46,240	182

was caught This love in the third place is a (m) Amat profecto castè quae ipsum quem amat quaerit non aliud quid praeter ipsum Bern. Serm. 7. in Canti● Sponsa non petit libertatem non mercedem non haereditatem sed osculum more planè castissimae sponsae ac sacrum spirantis amorem nec ●omnino valen t is flammam dissimulare quam patitur osculetur inquit me osculo oris sui quasi dicat quid mihi est in coelo a te quid volui super terram Bern. ibid. free love whereby the beleeving soule cleaves unto Christ for himselfe and those glorious excellencies it sees in our Saviour Christ this property distinguisheth it from that (n) Cave anima ne quod absit meretrix dicaris si munera dantis plus quam amantis affectum diligis Aug. medit l. 2. c. 4. meretritious and mercenary love in worldlings that follow Christ as Christ upbraided some of the same stampe for the fishes and bread wherewith hee fed them Iohn 6.26 This hired love the (o) Cum magno calumniatore habemus negotium si quaerit singere quod non est ut in Iob. quanto magis objicere quod est Aug. de temp Serm. 234. Devils objected against Iobs sincerity Doth Iob feare God for nought but Iob cleaving to God upon the dunghill and in the lowest condition proved the Devill in that particular as hee was from the beginning to be a lyar The fourth property of a Christians love to Christ the Bridsgroome of his soule is that it is a strong and peremptory love it will carry a Christian through all (p) Amemus nos Christum ejusque semper quaeramus amplexus facile videbitur omne difficile brevia putabimus universa quae longa sunt jaculo illius vulnerati perhorarum momenta dicemus Heus me quia pereginatio mea prolongata est Hier. scribeus ad Eustochium difficulties and straights to Christ The love of Rachel carried Iacob through 14. yeares of hard service the love of Christ will carry a Christian through more difficulties than Labans service had in it Cant. 8.6.7 It is sayd to be as strong as death that conquers the greatest gyant and the mightiest Monarch zeale that is love inflamed is as inexorable as hell it selfe it is sayd to have fiery coales that pierce the heart which fiery coales of love all the waters be it a deluge and inundation of miseries and calamities persecutions and temptations are not able to quench Love is of that strength that it facilitates the greatest difficulties This we see in the ordinary bodily recreations many men take a pleasure in a toyle as in hunting running leaping ringing wrastling and the like and all out of love to these recreations much more is the love of Christ able to sweeten the hardest duty that Christ imposeth upon his Spouse What was it that made the fiery faggots to those blessed witnesses of the truth to seeme as beds of Roses but love What made the Disciples to forsake all but Christ and that love they beare to him What made Paul and Silas sing in Prison and the Apostles to returne from the Councill rejoycing that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ but love to Christ What made the renowned Champion Stephen valiant in the midst of death but the sight of the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his father and I am perswaded that if it had beene offered to Stephen that hee should have beene delivered from his present paine upon condition he should have beene deprived of his present vision of Christ by the opening of the heavens the love of Christ would not have suffered Stephen to have accepted of deliverance upon such condition so we reade of those strong ones in faith though weake in sexe they would not accept of deliverance in the middest of their torturings that they might obtaine a better resurrection Heb. 11.35 To conclude this Paul being armed with this love challengeth all the powers and peeres of hell it selfe Rom. 8.35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distresse or persecution or famine or nakednesse or perill or sword as if he had sayd shall this or that if there be any more put them all into the scale and weigh but the love of Christ against them all and they shall bee found too light to sway my heart from the love of the Lord Jesus The fifth property the love of Christs Spouse is a bountifull love this the Apostle 1 Cor. 13.4 makes a property of true Charity that it is bountifull (q) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Ethic. l. 8. c. 13. bounty is the fruite of love and it is exercised towards any thing according to love if a man love his body nothing is thought too dainty to feede it too gorgeous to cloath it if a man love his pleasure nothing is counted too deare to maintaine it so where there is any true conjugal affection in a Christian heart that heart will rellish any thing that tends to the honour of Christ it will downe with frequent prayer humble and dayly confession of sinne zealous and Godly walking with God sincere universall and constant obedience to Christ though it be with the parting of the most dearely beloved sinnes that soule will thinke no teares of repentance no hearing reading singing no duties publicke or private too much whereby the honour of Christ may be advanced and its love to Christ better expressed Luke 7.47 Mary Magdalen is sayd to love much and this her great love was expressed to Christ by her bounty in washing his feete in anointing his head in wiping his feete with the haires of her head and Christ himselfe accepts of her washing anointing kissing and all other of her acts of bounty as Characters of her great inward affection The sixth property of this love is that it is intire as Moses his serpent devoured all other serpents because his serpent was from God so the love of God being from God eates and consumes the love of all things besides as it is sayd of Ioseph that there was none greater in Pharaohs Court and in the land of Aegypt than himselfe the like may be sayd of Christ in a beleeving heart there is none greater than Christ he is the Pilot that governes the ship the King that governes the whole man the Master and Lord that keepes the house of a sanctified heart to whom as King and Lord all the powers of the whole man submit all doe homage all performe respect feare and love and if there be love bestowed upon any other thing besides Christ as upon our selves and our neighbours yet it is for Christs sake and in subordination to him whom to love in due measure is to love without measure The seventh property of a Christians soules love to Christ is that it is a constant love it is no great matter to professe love

ornaments wherewith Christs Spouse must adorne her selfe are the heavenly dispositions vertues qualities and graces of the soule as humility meekenesse temperance chastitie brotherly kindnesse heavenly mindednesse and the like This the Apostle intimates Col. 3.12.13 Put on therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindnesse humblenesse of minde meekenesse long suffering c. put on the word in the originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 put on as a garment or ornament and the garment it selfe is a concatination of graces a troope of heavenly vertues as mercy kindnesse humility c. this is the needle worke of divers colours wherewith the Kings daughter must bee adorned when she is presented to the King called a needle worke of divers colours in regard of the variety of graces that this needle-worke consists of as also noteing the glory of this ornament of grace and holinesse for as diversity of colours in needleworke so variety of graces make a soule more beautifull and glorious every grace having its distinct beauty and luster and all of them being joyned together in one soule one grace gives a glory unto another all of them together shining in the soule like so many diamonds in a Ring Secondly this teacheth the Saints a second duety to preserve their spirituall chastitie and to carry themselves as pure virgines towards their husband Christ the Apostle tels the beleeving Corinthians that he was jealous over them with godly jealousie for he had espoused them to one husband 2 Co● 11.2 that he might present them as a chaste virgin to Christ and this jealousie that Paul had over the beleeving Corinthians should every beleeving soule have over it selfe that Christ may have no occasion to bee jealous of the soules entire affection to himselfe alone therefore more than ordinarily vigilant must the Saints be that are espoused to Christ to avoyd spirituall fornication which is (o) Si susceperi o homo in cubili animae tuae adulterum diabolum meretricata est anima tua cum diabolo si spiritus irae si invidiae si superbiae si impudicitiae ingressus fuerit ad animam tuam receperis cum consenseris ei loquenti in corde tuo delectatus fueris his quae tibi secundum suam mentem suggerit meretricatus es cum eo Origen hom 12. in Levit. c. 2. In nulla parte oportet virginem adulteram esse non lingua non auribus non oculo non alio omnino sensu imo neque cogitatione sed corpus quidem velut templum quoddam aut thalamum sponsi habeat praeparatum Basil l. de vera virg committed when the soule prostitutes it selfe to the least sinne and entertaines the least lust with consent and delight If thou shalt receive saith Origen into the chamber of thy soule the devill thy soule hath played the adulteresse with the devil if the spirit of anger envie pride immodestie and the like shall enter into thy soule and thou shalt entertaine and hearken unto it and be delighted with it and the suggestions thereof thou hast committed whoredome with it Although the soule may commit spirituall adultery with any sinne yet more hainously with these three particular sinnes First with (p) Idololatria est mystica spiritualis animae cum idolis fornicatio Com. a Lap. in Ezek. 6.9 Idolatrie for of this God professeth himselfe to be a jealous God Isay 42.8 I am Iehovah and my glory will not I give to another and of this doth the Lord often complaine that his people had gone a whoring after Idolls and strange gods Levit. 17.7 Ezek. 6.9 Neither is there any one kinde of Spirituall fornication more distastfull to the Bridesgroome of the soule than for rhe soule to be difiled with this sinne therefore Ezek. 36.25 it is joyned with filthinesse from all your filthinesse and from all your Idolls will I cleanse you saith the Lord. Secondly with covetousnesse and inordinate (q) Mundi amor Dei pariter in tuo corde cohabitare non possunt quemadmodum iidem oculi coelum pariter terram nequaquam aspiciunt Aug. vel quisquis est auctor libro de duodecim abusionibus gradu 7. love of the world this is the second sinne with which the soule more hainously commits spirituall fornication this the Apostle Iames cleareth Iames 4.4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses know yee not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God whosoever therefore will bee a friend of the world is an enemie of God this spirituall adultery with the world is so much more grievous than carnall adulterie by how much God who is contemned is more great and excellent than man to whom a wife hath betrothed her selfe A third sinne is corporall uncleannesse 1 Cor. 6.15 the Apostle shewes this affirming that a man by this sinne takes the members of Christ and makes them the members of an Harlot this sinne by Gods owne verdict takes away the heart Hosea 4.11 and so alienates the affection from the Lord Jesus Behold then the duty of the Saints as to avoyd all sin so especially these three sinnes with which especially and more grievously the soule commits spirituall fornication as also to present themselves as chaste (r) Virginitas mentis est integra fides solida spes sincera charitas Aug. 11.13 in Iohan. Iom 9. virgines to the Lord Jesus Christ their dearest bridesgroome This point instructs the Saints in a third duty to walke before Christ in al manner of well pleasing propounding Christs word and example as a patterne of their lives This duty of a wife the Heathen (s) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 2. Oeconom c. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesiod Philosopher found out affirming that a well ordered woman ought to esteeme the carriage of her husband to be a Law of her life imposed by God though this rule faile in case the manners of the husband be ungodly and corrupt yet in the present instance betwixt Christ and his Spouse it failes not Christs life being a patterne of purity and perfect holinesse and absolute obedience in every particular therefore saith (t) Nupsisti Christo incede scoundum sponsi tui voluntatem Tertul. de velandis virg c. 16. Christianismus est invitatio divinae naturae Nyssen tract de profess Chrystia Tertullian Halt thou married thy selfe to Christ walke according to the will of thy husband this observancie and pleasing carriage was eminent in the Church Psal 123.2 Behold as the eyes of servants looke unto the hand of their Master and as the eyes of a mayden unto the hand of her Mistresse even so our eyes waite upon the Lord our God Christ would have his Spouse to be knowne to bee his Spouse even by her outward carriage by her holinesse towards God and righteousnesse towards man by her meeke humble courteous and mercifull carriage towards al expressing in her life the life of her husband Christ Vse 2 In the

the Apostle speakes 1 Tim. 2.6 gave himselfe not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ransome but a counter-ransome for all my sinnes and thus in all other arrests may the soule stop all in Christ so that as good Onesimus was loath to returne to his Master Philemon to whom once he had beene an unprofitable servant but when once he knew that Paul had written his Epistle to Philemon to tell him that whatsoever Onesimus owed him he should set it on Pauls score Philem. v. 18. Onesimus might then with boldnesse returne to his Master Philemon againe in like manner a poore soule considering how it hath offended God is loath to come before or into his presence but when it considers againe that whatsoever it is indebted to God it is set on Christs score then may the soule with boldnesse goe to God and stop the mouth of all accusers in the world who can lay nothing to the charge of Gods elect seeing it is God that justifieth Secondly this may comfort the soule against the feare of spirituall enemies the wife that hath a rich and powerfull husband thinkes her selfe safe from reproaches injuries and abuses of others farre more safe is the soule that is married to Christ from being hurt by the attempt of enemies or by any assaults of any spirituall adversaries for Christ is able to vindicate the cause of his oppressed Spouse to the utmost Protection is one priviledge the wife hath by her husband therefore saith Ruth to Boaz Ruth 3.9 opened Spread thy skirt over thine handmaide for thou art a neere kinsman Spread thy skirt over me that is be my protector in being my husband Christ will not be wanting to his Spouse in any comfort or succour that a wife expects from her husband much lesse in protection one of the meanest duties of a loving husband therefore Ezek. 16.8 when once the time was the time of love betwixt the Lord and his people he saith he spread his skirt over his people and covered their nakednesse let then the Spouse of Christ be dayly assaulted by Sathan the world and the remainder of corruption and let the soule goe to Christ as Ruth to Boaz Spread thy skirt over thy servant for thou art my husband Lord and Master and the Spouse of Christ shall be safe under the wings of Christ that all the powers of darkenesse and powers of hell it selfe shall not be able to pull Christs Spouse out of his Armes This may comfort the beleeving soule that being once espoused it shall be for ever espoused to Christ Hosea 2.19 I will betroth thee unto my selfe for ever saith the Lord unto his people Ruth 3. ● Naomi may be deprived of her husband Elimelech in a strange land because Elimelech was a man subject to the like mortality as all of his owne species are but the soule once married to Christ can never bee deprived of him who being both God and man is he who was and is and shall be unto all eternity so that which Babylon sayd in a proud and presumptuous manner Esay 47.8 I shall not see widdow-hood that upon good grounds and not presumptuously may the soule espoused to Christ affirme of it selfe I shall sit as Queene and never suffer spirituall Widdow-hood so that the condition of beleevers in this marriage estate with Christ is farre better than that of Adam in Paradise Man in his innocencie was espoused to God but then God left in man a power to dissolve this matrimoniall knot and man breaking the Covenant there was a dvorce drawne now God is so farre pleased out of his super-abundant mercy and compassion not to be found in any but a God infinitely good to treat of a second marriage to the soule of man divorced from him Ier. 3. ● which marriage is grounded upon a more sure foundation even upon Christ and in Christ he is pleased to bee married to the soule not for a certaine time to be at last expired but for all eternitie not now leaving the Matrimoniall covenants in mans own custodie but undertaking the keeping of them himselfe To conclude this if it be such an happie thing for man and wife so to live together (a) Faelices ter amplius quos irrupta tenet copula nec malis divulsus querimoniis suprema citiùs solvit a nor dic Hor. that the bond of love be not broken till death it selfe doth breake it then farre greater happinesse and comfort for a beleeving soule to thinke that this bond of Spirituall wedlocke shall not be broken by death it selfe but remaine indissolveable to all eternitie Vse 4 In the fourth place this point serves for exhortation It may be a ground of perswasion to every one that is as yet an aliant from Israel a stranger from God from his promises his Christ that he would accept of Jesus Christ to be the husband of his soule and so his soule may be the Spouse of Christ and so have interest in all the saving promises of the Gospell and be made a member of the Common-wealth of Israel and of one that was a farre off made nigh to God in Christ by Spirituall alliance Iohn 3.29 the Baptist stiles himselfe a friend of the Bridegroome 2 Cor. 11.2 Paul as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or spokesman of Christ tells the Corinthians that he was jealous over them for he had espoused them to one husband that he might present them as a chaste virgin to Christ Every Minister of the Gospell with the Baptist should be a friend of the Bridegoome with Paul a spokesman for Christ this the Apostle sheweth 2 Cor. 5.20 that he and the rest of his function were Ambassadors for Christ as though Christ did entreate others by them to be reconciled to him for as great persons as Emperours and Kings dwelling in remote places from the virgin Ladies whom they would espouse unto themselves send entreaties of marriage by their Ambassadors who use to carry their lively pictures and portratures of their persons and so present them to the women they desire to be espoused unto in like manner the Lord Jesus the great King whose Throne endureth for ever and whose Scepter is a right Scepter keeping his Court in heaven and that being his glorious Throne where his chiefe residence is and his greatest glory displayed he offering conditions of Marriage to poore soules sends them by the Ministers of the Gospell his Ambassadors and hath put into their hands the word of his Gospell Christs love Letter in which his glorious excellencies and treasures of incomparable benefits dwelling in him in a plentifull manner are evidently set forth which the Ambassadors of Christ opening and declaring to the people cannot but shew forth the excellencies of his person of his riches honour beauty and all other desirable qualities in a Bridegroome Oh then that God would be pleased having appointed me an unworthy messenger to this great dignitie as