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	love_v	natural_a	2,838	5	6.5697	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36377	The right use of an estate briefly directed and urg'd in a sermon lately preacht to a person of quality upon his coming to be of age / by Theophilus Dorrington.	Dorrington, Theophilus, d. 1715.	1683 (1683)	Wing D1950; ESTC R33460	42,593	62

other without imposing upon us any thing that is unbecoming or truly prejudicial The rules that God has given are certainly the fittest for us they enjoin nothing unnatural for they are adapted by Infinite Wisdom They are we may assure our selves as indulgent to us as they can be and be good they prohibit nothing but what is hurtful they cannot be supposed to confine the use of Gods gifts within too narrow and needless limits because they are enjoined by infinite Goodness 'T is inconsistent with that goodness which has bestowed these things on Mankind for use and delight to hinder him by any rules from using and delighting in them so far as is good and convenient for him Upon which accounts it becomes every man to endeavour first to know the rules by which God expects he should guide himself in the use of his enjoyments and after that to observe them This Verse that I have read is part of a sentence which begins at the 29 th Verse of the Chapter which is an exhortation to men to regard with great indifferency the things of this present Life It remains sayes the Apostle that they which have Wives be as thô they had none and they that weep as thô they wept not and they that rejoyce as thô they rejoyced not and they that buy as thô they possessed not and they that use this World as not abusing it Let not your Passions be much moved by any thing here that you may not abuse it while you enjoy nor be uneasie with discontent or grief for the loss or want of it And he begins and closes the sentence with a fit argument to enforce the Exhortation The time is short and the fashion of this World passes away as if he should say 'T is but a little while that we shall live in this world and all things here are lyable to change there is no Condition but is of uncertain continuance whether it be prosperous or adverse Therefore let all men keep themselves as indifferent to these things as they can and endeavour to use wisely and innocently whatever Portion God bestows on them while they enjoy it These words afford to our Meditation this instruction It ought to be the Care of all persons to make a regular and good use of those outward enjoyments which the Providence of God affords them The following Discourse on this I shall divide into these two parts 1. To show you how a man may use this World so as not to abuse it 2. To illustrate the motives to this that are included in the Apostles argument that the fashion of this World passes away To know in the first place wherein the right use of these things does consist let us observe that summary of every mans Duty which the Apostle layes down under Three Heads in 2 Tit. 12. where he directs men to live soberly righteously and godly in this present World Thus ought we to guide our selves in the use of what we enjoy to take care that we do not contradict in this that reverence and pious homage which is due to God nor that Justice and Good-will towards other men which we may desire to find in their carriage towards us nor that good and wise Government which best becomes and is most advantageous for our selves These three Heads include all the rules that are to be observed in this matter I shall therefore under these range them 1. He that would rightly use his Portion in this Life must not suffer himself to be transported thereby to the neglect or contradiction of those Duties of Piety which he owes to God Which includes these following Rules 1. Take heed that you do not love your present Enjoyments more than God This is actual abuse of them as well as it disposes us to further abuse for they were never made nor bestow'd to draw our chiefest Affection to them God is our chiefest good and does deserve the highest Interest in our Affections He has made the mind of man capable to Contemplate and admire himself to Love him and apprehend his Love to us and be delighted therewith to place then the chief affection of so noble a being upon any thing below the Supream good is to abuse both that and our selves 't is to content our selves with that low thing as our Happiness which was never intended to be so and is in its nature unfit for it Again whatever thing has the greatest share of our Affections 't is thereby in the place of a God to us that will have most influence and power in the whole government of us the homage of mind and body will be paid to it An ardent Love let the object be what it will prejudices the Judgment inclines the Will leads all the rest of the affections and so all the thoughts the words and the actions or the most of them shall be most readily employed with some relation to that If any Creature then is thus lov'd it becomes the Idol of a mans heart and we revive the absurd Idolatry of the Aegyptians who made every good thing a Deity But did the true God ever intend that his Creatures should be thus exalted into a competition with himself for the adoration of Mankind or can we imagine that he made these things Servants to us with a purpose that we should serve them and live negligent of our Duty to him Since all our enjoyments are the free gifts of a bountiful and gracious God 't is reasonable they should kindle in us the Love of Him The better and more delightful these are for kind and the larger Portion he bestowes we are the more bound thereby to love him Do not imagine that you can fix your affections in a great degree on your present enjoyments and yet highly Love God too these two dispositions are like heat and cold which cannot consist in an intense degree in the same Subject This is that the Apostle means in 1 Joh. 2. 15. where he sayes If any man loves the World the love of the Father is not in him As the one of these encreases the other does proportionably decrease if you much love the things of this World you love them too much and God too little Now this errour and abuse is practised in the following instances 1. To have the thoughts and affections wholly employed about the things of this Life and limited within the narrow bounds of this sublunary World to take delight only in considering and enjoying the Creatures here below to have no flights of mind no aspirings towards God to have him seldom in our thoughts and but very transiently when he is when the mind does never fix for a few moments upon him to think of God without any affection without any desire or delight this is evidently to love the things of this World more than him If the Judgment did esteem him the chief good and were convinced of his excellencies and were acquainted how suitable he is

to his Mercy upon the Vows and Protestations of his Love perform those Vows or is he not false and forsworn does he well and faithfully discharge the trust that was put in him does he kindly requite the Love that laid the greatest possible obligation upon him No there is no gratitude no faithfulness in that man If one falls into the hands of savage Thieves he may be stript and robb'd and be glad to escape without further harm but to be thus used by a man who by great pretences of kindness has allur'd me into his Power must be the highest baseness in him and the greatest trouble and vexation to me What thanks do your Children owe you who have begot them to Sorrow and Misery when your extravagant Lusts devour what should afford them a good Education and comfort them after your Death Certainly 't is the provision that Parents make for their Children or their endeavour to provide well for them the care and pains they take to render them wise good and useful to the World and to enable them to subsist without a precarious dependance if they can which is the thing that layes the great obligation upon Children to Love and reverence their Parents 't is for the most part meerly accidental that they are born and 't is a great unkindness and prejudice to give them being without taking what care you can for their Happiness have you natural affection who to enjoy unlawful and excessive Pleasures will leave them in a condition that can have none at all I cannot chuse but wonder at those men who inherit an Estate which has kept up the grandeur perhaps of a long race of honourable Ancestors and by their folly and extravagance do spend it and leave their Children Beggars They leave perhaps a bare Title to their Children or other Relations without any Riches to procure it respect and esteem If these men had any thing of a noble Spirit they would scorn to bring either their own Posterity or their Name and Title down into the dirt such are the disgrace the ignominy of the Family they will be remembred with hatred as long as they are remembred by Posterity I wonder that such men are not afraid lest the Ghost of some departed Ancestor should disturb them at those midnight revels which wast the Estate and bring the Honour which they purchased with great Labour and hazard into contempt and disgrace 3. Another rule of Righteousness may be To practice all requisite Humility in your carriage towards men this is the Justice of requiring no more respect from others than is due to us and of giving to others all the respect that is due to them Let no man arrogate to himself those excellencies which he really has not nor desire the respect due to them whilst he is without them There can be nothing more ridiculous than to see a rich Fool conceit himself wise to think his mind is full of Wisdom because his Baggs are full of Gold and Silver or for him who bears a Title to think himself upon that account an Oracle 'T is too often seen that they who have these things in eminence above others are ready to conceit that they have Wit Vertue or Beauty above them too and accordingly they expect to be Honoured or if they do not conceit they have every excellency in them yet they put too high an esteem upon those they have they think nothing comparable to a great Estate or a Title of Honour and all the respect of Mankind they account due to themselves Thô the useless Creatures live as Cyphers in the Universe and only serve to encrease the number of men they are dogmatical in their most foolish and mistaken Opinions and most peremptory and stiff in all their unreasonable humours and purposes They are deaf to advice and offended at reproofs and will not receive any the most useful Instruction because that implies they wanted it They hate the most important advice that is given them under the notion of Controll and cannot distinguish between obedience to the good Rules and obedience to those that give them They despise the dictates of right Reason and vertue if suggested by an Inferiour from an apprehension that to regard them is to submit to that Inferiour thus their Pride infatuates them to a willingness rather to be ruined than directed Be not too desirous of your own Commendation nor too much elevated when you hear it those who are much delighted with their own Praise do usually not much care to hear any mens Commendation but their own but Humility will not envy other men their just Commendation nor blot it with detraction Do not despise him that is inferiour to you in any thing he may perhaps excell you in another God seldom gives all sorts of excellency to one man And as you would not have him despise you for your want of that wherein he excells do not you despise him for his want of that wherein you excell The wise Providence of God has thus variously distributed his Gifts that all men might be useful acceptable necessary to one another every man ought to be respected for his particular endowment and according as the nature of it does deserve Indeed no man should be despised for if there be nothing else in him he is a man a Creature capable of reason and bears some impresses of the Divine Creators Image A humble mind will not despise the love and offer'd Services of the meanest person but will account himself under obligation to requite them with kindness and good Offices he will neither refuse them nor take them as so much due to him as to deserve no acknowledgment So far as honesty and the advantage of others will permit a humble man will endeavour to render himself easie and pleasant to all in a company or in his neighbourhood he will not so stiffly gratifie and humour himself as not to deny his own inclination sometimes to gratifie another which is the common error of those that are new Gentlemen or such as have gotten a great Estate but have not had a genteel Spirit infused by Education The civility of the World and that which we rightly call a genteel Carriage is nothing else but a humble deportment towards all that we converse with The richest the noblest that are not Magistrates must content themselves to submit to Magistrates and give to each of them the respect which is due to the place he holds 'T is a Pride that tends to confusion and all disorder when such despise and affront those Officers of the State who out of their Office are meaner persons than themselves They ought to be respected in the exercise of their Authority out of reverence to the supream Authority which is over every man in the State and from whence they derive theirs He that affronts the meanest Authority does in effect affront the highest and is in a preparation to slight the Authority of all