Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	able_a	love_n	zion_n	22	3	8.5996	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84659	Theion enōtikon, A discourse of holy love, by which the soul is united unto God Containing the various acts of love, the proper motives, and the exercise of it in order to duty and perfection. Written in Spanish by the learned Christopher de Fonseca, done into English with some variation and much addition, by Sr George Strode, Knight.; Tratado del amor de Dios. English	Fonseca, Cristóbal de, 1550?-1621.; Strode, George, Sir, 1583-1663.	1652 (1652)	Wing F1405B; Thomason E1382_1; ESTC R772	166,624	277

rather a moving trunk of flesh then a living soule and this in part excuseth the words and acts of Lovers as proceeding from men distracted rather then from men in their wits and hereupon the Romans had a law exempting such Lovers from the penalty of death holding them to be no better then mad men This holy phrensie of love hath not escaped the Saints of God on earth S. Paul was neer this when in his extreme love to his Country-men as Moses Exod. 32.32 Rom. 9.3 that wished himself blotted out of the Booke of God so he wished himself accursed from Christ unlesse the Jews his brethren might be pardoned and saved with him so that which is said of Peter ravisht with the glorious apparition on Mount Tabor the like might be spoken of S. Paul in his excessive love to the Jews he knew not what he said or as Felix said unto him Paul thou art surely besides thy self love in stead of learning hath made thee mad And if ever any exceeded in love Joh. 10.20 above all the love that ever was in the world it was Christ who so exceeded herein that the Jews once thought him mad And might not others as well as they have imagined the like of him when in the excesse of his love to his very enemies he would suffer himself to be taken delivered up and shamefully put to death for them Thus far did the love in Christ work him to go or seem to be besides himself and all that he might work us to return to and to look into our selves and up to heaven that as ravisht with the love hereof we might live here in the world as though we were out of the world and that we might so look on these delights below as men blinde and hear of them as deaf and discourse of them as not concerned but as men in part translated to heaven and here become earthly Angels S. Paul made his daily prayers unto the Father of our Lord Christ That he would grant unto the Ephesians the riches of his holy Spirit to be rooted and grounded in love Ephes 3.17 and that they might know the love of Christ which passeth all knowledge where he prayeth for the mutuall love between the head and the members their love to him but his love to them first For without this love of Christ to them they cannot love him He loved his first saith S. John and then without their love to him 1 John 4 1● they cannot understand the power that love hath ere it is rooted in them For it is able to make things in themselves base and contemptible to be of great price and esteem Might it not seem in our blessed Saviour a blemish and dishonour to his person to be reviled scorned whipt and crucified yet the love of Christ took and accounted all as acts of glory and all that he might prove himself thereby the Saviour of the world It is registred of the wife to the Emperour Theodosius That she as a Nurse-keeper rather than an Empresse attended the sick and weak and made playsters and drest the sores of the poor Hospitallers who when she was by some nice Courtiers gently reproved her answer was That although those offices were below the person of an Empresse yet were they not able to reach and expresse the love which she bore to the poorest members of her Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus who in his unspeakable love did more saith she for me then ever I can in the least deserve or in any measure requite CHAP. IX Love exchangeth and counterchangeth all with its beloved FOr proof of this I could instance in many Lovers Registred in profane Authors as in Pylades and Orestes each of them though but one was guilty took the fact upon himself that he might thereby redeem the life of the other King David when the plague seized on and destroyed the people cries out to the Lord 2 Kings 24.17 It is I Lord that have sinned let me suffer but spare these innocent sheep for what have they done And when the Souldiers came to apprehend Jesus whom they yet knew not and some of his Disciples being present with him he asks Whom seek ye they answered We seek Jesus he roundly and readily answereth I am he And this he did Joh. 18. to the end that he might save his disciples from their arrest and therefore he addeth Ye have me whom you seek therefore let these go their way Reade and consider that of S. Paul Who is weake 1 Cor. 21.29 and I am not weake who is offended and I burn not the troubles infirmities and sufferings of the Corinthians through the Apostles love to them are all become and made his Yea but see a greater power of love manifested in the same Apostle toward the Philippians whom he tells that his death will be gain to him v. 21. Phil. 1. for thereby he shall injoy Christ whereas life to him will prove but labour and pain v. 22. and yet saith he though the difference be so great as is betwixt everlasting joy and glory being with Christ and pain and labour living with you yet my love is such to you more then to my self that I am in a strait not knowing which to choose but concludes Though it be far better for me to die and to be with Christ v. 23. neverthelesse saith he v. 24. to abide in the flesh is more profitable for you and therefore he concludes v. 25. Having this confidence I shall abide and continue with you for your furtherance and joy of faith But S. Paul writing to the Romans seems to go beyond all the bounds of love I and of common reason Rom. 9.8 when he saith I could wish that my self were accursed from Christ for my brethren my kinsmen the Jews Expositors antient and modern generally conclude that this wish or desire of S. Paul was an expression of the most transcendent power of love which might possesse any mortall man but what the full extent and force of the words may be is not so clearly agreed on for some expound the words accursed from Christ wherein all the difficulty lies to intend a temporall affliction or corporall punishment 2. others a spirituall separation or excommumcation from the Church of Christ 3. a third sort will have an eternall separation rejection or casting away from the joyes of heaven to be here understood They who imbrace the first exposition conceive this desire of the Apostle to be like that of Moses saying Lord Exod. 32.32 if thou wilt not forgive the sins of the Israelites in making the golden calf then blot me out of thy book and this blotting out of the book they expound of deposing or casting Moses from his government of that people which was as they would have this in S. Paul to be but a temporall punishment and this they would deduce and inferre from the word accursed which in the

same causes and meanes that mans love decreaseth the love of God increaseth SOme Divines have propounded the question why Christ the second Person in the holy Trinity rather than either of the other persons was made man and among other reasons this they give in answer That our first parents sin 1 Cor. 1.24 in desiring to be as God knowing good and evill directly opposeth the wisdome of God which is Christ And to shew the infinite love of God to man that Person who most directly was offended came down from Heaven tooke mans nature and suffered more than man could do and all to redeem man So that he alone God that can draw good out of evill and light out of darknesse used mans sin as an occasion through his love to save mankinde The Prophet Zacbary describes the state of the world Zach. 6. and in especially of the Israelites by foure Chariots the first whereof had red horses which typified the bloody Babylonians the second had black horses which noted the Persians under whom the Jews were neer their utter extirpation the third had white horses by which may be meant the Macedonians who as Alexander and others were gracious and favourable to the Jews the fourth had grizled or horses of divers colours which figured the changeable various and mixed government of the Romans which first or last is destructive to a State And now under this power and rule which contained all the misrule and barbarous usage of the three other Governments came the Messias into the world and this by the Apostle is called the fulnesse of time Gal. 4.4 because when the sin of the world was at the full now was the time of our blessed Saviour to come into the world and by his unspeakable love to redeem it The Prophet Isaiah sets forth Jerusalem thus Their hands are defiled with blood and their fingers with iniquity Isa 59.3 their lips have spoken lies and their tongues perversenesse none calleth for justice nor any pleadeth for truth the act of violence is in their hands their feet run to evill and they make baste to shed innocent blood their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity wasting and destruction are in their paths The way of peace they know not yea judgement is turned backward and justice standeth afar off for truth is fallen in the streets and equity cannot enter and he that departeth from evill maketh himself a prey And the Lord saw and wondered that there was no Intercessor therefore his arm brought salvation For he put on righteousnesse as a breast-plate and vengeance for a clothing and according to their deeds he will repay fury to his adversaries but to Zion shall the Redeemer come And is there any thing in all this that savours but of the love of God to truth and justice to his people though laden with their sins and for this punished and oppressed by their enemies The love of Christ in this kinde is not to be uttered or any way expressed I will summe it up therefore in that one passage of S. Paul the same night that our Lord Jesus was betrayed he instituted the Sacrament of his body broken 1 Cor. 11.23 and of his bloud shed as a sacrifice fully and solely expiatory for the sin of the whole world And while the Jews cried to the Romans Crucifie crucifie him he for them more incessantly praies to his Father Father forgive them and though they said Let his blood be upon us and our children yet he tells them My blood is shed for you and for all that will take and apply it to the forgivenesse of their sins The Psalmist in a wonder and amazement of this excessive love Psal ● 4 exclaims Lord what is man that thou art so mindfull of him or the son of man that thou visitest him for what is there in himself as man but that is to be abhorred his body being at the best but a bag of bones a sinke of foule water and stinking dirt and his soule like a cage of uncleane birds or a forge of wicked imaginations and a storehouse of sinne To the Psalmists question Why Lord hast thou so visited man no other answer or reason can be given then this of the Apostle Job 3.16 So God loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son to be made saith the Prophet Isay Isa 9.6 as a childe as the Apostle Saint Paul saith as a Servant who emptied himself as it were Phil. 2.7 to a nothing and all this as the effect onely of his infinite incomprehensible Love CHAP. XIV Gods jealousie JEalousie in man is an excesse of love and for the most part is the attendant of some ill condition in him whereas in God it is the quintessence as it were of his love And this riseth in God and moves him to anger and punishment when he finds himself dishonoured or neglected by those he loves Moses not onely tells us Exo. 20.5 that he is a jealous God but adds Exod. 34.14 that his Name is jealous And such is his jealousie that although he suffered the rebellious murmurings of his Israel Exo. 34.14 yet when they committed spirituall whoredome in making and worshipping the golden calf he destroyed 33000. of them and had not his deare servant Moses interceded he had in his jealousie utterly destroyed them all Covetousnesse by S. Paul is called Idolatry Col. 3.5 and when God finds his people worshipping or setting their hearts on these it moves him to jealousie Yea God is jealous of the inordinate or overmuch love of the husband to the wife or of the wife to the husband For these may love each other so much that some part of the love and worship due to God is bestowed on the Creature And for this God oft times turns jealous and in his anger takes the one from the other or bereaves them of their delight which is children And it being so that God hath commanded us to love him with all our heart and with all the strength and powers of the soule the least alienation of our love from God and bestowed on vain delights moves God to jealousie and provokes his anger And as the least withdrawing of our love from God works jealousie in him so when he finds us persist in a daily revolt from him he ceaseth any longer to be jealous See this proved in Israels case where God for Israels multiplied departings from him threatens My jealousie shall depart from them Ezek. 16.42 and I will be quiet and will be no more angry And this is the saddest condition that a soule can fall into for then it is apparent that God hath sent a bill of divorce to that soul and hath removed his love utterly from it for where God loves he cannot but be jealous Chap. XV. Gods revealing his secrets is a great demonstration of his love to man DElilab useth this as an argument Judg. 16.15 that Samson