Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	affection_n	know_v	love_v	6,073	5	5.9564	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52043	Meroz cursed, or, A sermon preached to the honourable House of Commons, at their late solemn fast, Febr. 23, 1641 by Stephen Marshall ...	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1641 (1641)	Wing M762; ESTC R19516	35,043	59

their owne at home not doubting but there were men enough to do the work though they kept themselves quiet But this neutrality of theirs cost them deare in the end their owne heart blood paid for it and it is most probable that Meroz in this Text was guilty of no other fault The Lord grant that they may be warnings to us that we bee not made warnings to others I hope this may suffice for reproofe The second Use and that which I most aime at is for exhortation Oh that I were able to speake somewhat to raise up your spirits to make you these blessed men who willingly helpe the Lord against the mightie I confesse the day the occasion of our meeting this Text and your place and office Right Honourable and beloved give me an infinite advantage to speake if I were able to improve all for your good The thing I aime at is to send you home with Luthers resolution who protested to God that no portion which God could give him in this world should content him but onely this to bee Gods Servant to bee a usefull man in his Church he would care neither for silver nor gold neither for honour nor reproach ease and labour should bee all one so that hee might bee accepted and usefull And would the Lord vouchsafe to make my labour effectuall with you in this thing I should bee a blessed man in my worke and you should goe home the blessedest company that ever met in such an Assemblie To this end I shall endeavour two things First to give you motives or incentives to inflame your hearts after such a temper of spirit that you may be willing to give up your selves to the help of the Lord and his Church Secondly some directions to enable you in truth and realitie to be usefull And although most of the things that I shall speake doe chiefely concern you our honourable Worthies yet they will in their proportion reach the meanest in the congregation To stir you up consider these three motives First the honour of God Certainly the highest end of our living in this world is to honour God Hallowed be thy name is the first petition of every one that saith the Lords Prayer Now a man never gives glory to God as God never sets up God in his right place till he have devoted himself wholly and absolutely to serve him in what is most acceptable with him And I have made it apparent that the Church of Christ is that field from which he expects the most plentifull crop of glory and and therefore would have the most cost bestowed on it He gets glory by all our actions but in what wee doe for the Church wee give him glory and that in the highest degree Secondly as for Gods sake so for the Churches sake It is ever well with the Church when the members of it doe preferre the Churches good above their owne Polititians and Historians observe this of States and Empires that they usually thrive when the Subjects are Common-wealths men every one endeavouring to promote the publick good Livie observes this of Rome that so long as men would leave their trades farmes and merchandise Ladies part with their Jewels and ornaments rather than any detriment should come to the Citie all Nations were subdued to them But when they grew private wealths men every one labouring to preserve and adorn his owne Cabbin only the ship presently was endangered and went to decay This is as true of the Church In all the rising times of it God hath ever stirred up such noble and generous spirits who have given themselves to the Lord and the service of the Church In the Acts of the Apostles you shall find that they were all of one heart and one mind No man said that ought of the things that he possessed was his own they had all things common Sold their possessions and goods distributing them as every man had need and lived so as if one soule possessed them all This was the thriving time of the Church Then their multitude increased by thousands and ten thousands and walking in the feare of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplyed But when once men grew to seeke their owne things and not the things of Iesus Christ and his Church the Church soone fell into a languishing condition As therefore you desire to keepe up the spirits and strength of the Church so labour to keepe up your own spirits for the Church as you desire that may not faint so doe you take heed of fainting in the service of it Thirdly as for Gods sake and the Churches sake so for your owne sake for your owne comfort and benefit and that in many respects As first Such a frame of Spirit as this will bee the best evidence of your owne safe condition of your peace with God t is a comfortable thing for a man to hate his lusts to strive against them to waite upon duties to attend upon Ordinances to bee often enquiring What shall I doe to bee saved but all this may bee but selfe love although such a love God approves of but when the soule comes to enquire what shall I doe that Christ may bee glorified that his Church may bee edified to know no crosse but the Churches crosse to preferre the joy of the Church before all his owne peace and wellfare this is not only an Argument of a man looking Heaven-ward but one that hath proceeded farre in the way A Scholler of the first and highest forme and this is that which Saint Iohn meanes when hee doth so frequently ang all our evidence to Heaven upon Love of the brethren Hereby wee know that wee are translated from death to life because wee Love the Brethren In this are the Children of God manifest from the children of the Divell Hee that loves not his brother is not of God Hereby wee know that wee are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him Every one that loves God loves him also that is begotten of him And many other expressions as if Saint Iohn knew no other evidence but Love now what Love is it Hee meanes it not of an inward affection only to wish well to them and so forth but by love to serve our brethren to lay out our selves our lives and parts and all to serve them To lay downe our lives for the Brethren as Christ laid downe his life for us This was that that bore up Hezekiahs heart in the time of his sicknesse when hee could pleade Lord remember that I have done that which is good in thy sight What was the good that Hezekiah had done even this Hee had set himselfe to purge Religion to set up Gods Ordinances to make the Church prosper given up himselfe to the publick service of the Church of God This made Nehemiah comfortably to goe to God Oh my God wipe

excellent way and that is the way of love which he layes downe in the thirteenth chapter which will doe all things endure all things without which if men had the tongues of men and Angels all other gifts of prophesie knowledge c. they are but as sounding brasse or tinckling cymbals This is the reason why Saint Iohn throughout all his Epistles calls for almost nothing but love because in that he calls for all My little children love one another And this is also the reason why the Devil doth so infinitely labour to sow the tares of division in the field of the Church hee knowes if he can break the bond of love he breaks the bond of perfection and opens the flood-gates to confusion Rest not therefore who ever thou art that desirest to do good in the Church till the love of it be fixed in thy breast as deeply as the love of the Ark was in the heart of the wife of Phinehas who died for griefe when the Arke of God was taken Or as Calice is said to have been in Queen Maries who affirmed that if her body were opened Calice would bee found in her heart To this end consider often how deare the Church is to thy deare Redeemer how comely and beautifull it is in it self comely as the curtains of Solomon even when it is black as the tents of Kedar with persecution How deformed uncleane and every way vain all other societies are in comparison of this As the Lilly among the thorns How near to thy selfe begotten of the same seed laid in the same womb with thee and thou also wert laid in its womb and sucked its breasts redeemed with the same blood enjoyest all the same priviledges hast all thy welfare in this world wrapt up in its welfare and expectest to live with it to all eternity in the same glory These thoughts rightly working upon thy heart would make thee willingly spend and be spent for the Churches good thy services would not be as the motion of a stone cast out of a sling at first swift by virtue of a violent impression but constant and strongest rather toward the later end as those motions are said to be which proceed from a naturall inward principle So then you easily apprehend the excellent use and indeed the necessity of the concurrence of these three qualifications of godlinesse self-deniall and love to the making up of a good Chruch-man the Lord make them evident in all your hearts and wayes Next followes What men thus accomplished may and must doe for the Church The service required may be reduced to these two heads First somewhat to prepare us for action Secondly to act as we are prepared By way of preparation three things are requisite First carefully to informe our selves of the state and condition in which the Church is otherwise wee deprive our selves of all possibility of being helpfull to it Be a man never so willing and never so able to relieve the distresses of his brethren hee can neither heal the sick nor help the poor unlesse hee knew who and where they were that needed and what helpe they wanted This made Nehemiah so diligently to enquire concerning Ierusalem and his brethren which were left of the captivity This made Daniel search into Ieremiahs Prophesies to know the condition of the Church and learn his own duty 2. This enquiry must not be out of Athenian curiosity as most people enquire after newes but so to know as to work our hearts to a fellowfeeling of their condition otherwise all our intelligence will be as dry clouds flying over our heads without a drop of raine Thus did Nehemiah as soone as hee understood that his brethren were in great affliction and reproach the wall of Ierusalem broken downe and the gates thereof burnt with fire he sate down and wept this prepared him for the good service he did afterward Thus also did Daniel who when God had shewed him though but in a vision the calamities that were to come upon the Church of the Jewes by Antiochus Epiphanes he fainted and was sick certain dayes And the want of this fellow-feeling is both taxed and threatned by God in Amos 6. No man is sorry for the affliction of Ioseph God esteeming it an argument of little love to sit downe with Haman at a banquet when the City of Shushan is in perplexity 3. As wee must know and bee affected with the Churches want so we must enquire what is in our power to do for it wherein we may be helpfull This I shall have occasion to speak of afterward The second sort of directions are for action And these may be brought to two heads First somewhat we must do immediately to God for the Church Secondly somewhat wee must doe for the Church from God First that which wee are to doe to God for the Church is to pray for it I name this first because it is the first and chiefest service that we can perform If any other talent bee a penny Prayer is a pound This is the talent of all talents concerning which I shall speak a little more fully as the seasonablenesse of it requires First it must be granted that all the friends of the Church may help it with their prayers if with Peter they have no silver nor gold but will give such as they have they may afford a subsidy of prayer They have all the spirit of adoption enabling them to cry Abba Father So that what the Master of the ship said to Ionah What meanest thou O sleeper arise and call upon thy God though he could neither sit at sterne nor handle the tacklings yet he might pray may be said to any man in regard of the Church though thou canst neither runne nor ride nor write nor fight yet thou canst pray Awake awake And as plaine it is that God requires it should bee so O pray for the peace of Ierusalem You that make mention of the Lord keep not silence give him no rest till hee establish and make Ierusalem the praise of the earth You that have escaped the sword remember the Lord afar off and let Ierusalem come into your minde But the chiefe thing I aime at is to discover the power of Prayer Which I shall never bee able fully to expresse None can tell what Prayer can do but he that can tell what God can do Yet these few conclusions may give some light toward it First God hath not promised to do any thing without it It is confest he doth many things without Prayer but he hath not promised to do any thing for his Church without it All this will I doe saith the Lord but for all these things will I be enquired by the house of Israel Secondly As he hath promised to do nothing without so he will do all things by it I will visit you saith God and performe my good word