Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	apostle_n	faith_n	grace_n	3,447	5	5.5645	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58146	Blessedness, or, God and the world weighted in the balances of the sanctuary and the world found too light preached in a sermon at Paule, before the Right Honourable the Lord Major, Aldermen, and commonalty of the city of London, on a thanksgiving-day, for the prosperity of our navy in a conflict with the Spaniard, October 17, 1656 / by Francis Raworth ...	Raworth, Francis, d. 1665.	1656 (1656)	Wing R372; ESTC R18645	28,408	72

to consider his way which lies open and no wonder then we are hampered in finding out his ends which are secret It s sufficient though God for the present seem to scrible to a natural eye yet he will before he hath done make his Copy fair Though the building of Sion seem confused here lies a beam there an heap of morter there unhewn stones yet all things in the end shall serve this great Architect God hath not more glory now then we shall have good according to our capacity hereafter Rom. 8.28 Gods house may be stormed but it shall not be shattered Sion like a bottle may be dipt but it shall not be drowned who dare invade that Nation where God is Pilot or levy an army against that people whose God is the Lord For Fourthly All the Promises of God are thine both first for this life I profess Christians though we slightly overlook the Oracles of God Yet as there is not one c●mmand we could miss we stand in need of so much holiness so there 's not one promise though there be thousands there we could miss we stand in need of so much comfort And moreover there is as much reallity in the promises of your God as there is of formality in the promises of men what men speak falsly God speaks faithfully And if any poor soul say If God be mine why then is not comfort and peace mine Can a man have God to be his Lord and yet be tormented with so many doubts scruples as I am Yes your comfort is not always so much as your title your title is to Christ to peace of Conscience to a full and perfect joy in the Spirit but your comfort may be little but yet your title is always more then your actual comfort The reason why you are perplexed in your consciences is not because you have relation to God or because their 's no satisfaction for you in the Bible but because you want a mouth to suck the breast of Consolation and an hand of Faith to reach the Pearl of Price God always hath a promise for your Faith but you have not always Faith for a promise Specially the promises are yours 1. For the Perseverance of your Graces I fear saith a Believer I shall one day fall by the hand of this Saul of this lust no saith God The house of David shall grow stronger and stronger and the house of Saul weaker and weaker But though I depart not from God yet God may depart from me he may give me a Bill of Divorce and recal my sense of his Love and the testimonies of his Grace No saith God I will be your God and I will not depart from you The truth is our Faith could not keep us unless the power of God kept our Faith Therefore the Apostle tells us We are kept by Faith but it is also through the power of God to salvation You say you may fail because Gods promises are your conditions but remember withal your conditions are Gods promises he bids you make you a new heart that you may see your weakness and his faithfulness therefore he saith I le take away your stony heart c. God is on both sides the Covenant of Grace and though the evidence of a Believer may be blurred and blot●ed yet the Seal remains on and is never broken off Whatever Doctrines some vent against the immutability of special Love yet we may easily know by experience or rather I confess by Scripture That God hath other ways to correct his children then by casting them out of his Family 2. To pardon infirmities and sins God hath an hook to fetch in your wandrings and a brest to take in your weaknesses Christ hath righteousness against your unrighteousness blood to wash our tears Your Coyn though it have some allay yet if it have the right stamp that shall not hinder its currency in Heaven If you bring your duties to the touch-stone God will ne'r bring them to the Balance O how happy are they that though the world see it dirty under their feet can themselves at that time see it fair above head That when riches and health and friends fail them and they can't say we have cloathes to cover us or food to refresh us that can yet say Blessed be God we are not miserable for we have the promises the honey-combs of sweetness still by us And though you have but little in possession yet 2. For the future you have riches in Reversion Is he an Infidel that will not provide for his Family and will God neglect his own Shall ever any be able to write Infidel on Gods door He is a Father and as he now lays out by Providence so by Promise he hath laid up for his Children Will communion with God in his Ordinances satisfie you if not you have a promise of communion with God above Ordinances where the Sun shan't shine by day or the Moon by night for the Lamb shall be your light God hath already prepared Heaven for his and wonder not at the crosses calamities of this life for they are our Fathers foils and fires to prepare his for Heaven Earth is the place where you seek happiness Heaven is the place where you shall finde it A great part of our Estates lies in Bills and Bonds and it is kept for you in your Fathers hands till you come to Heaven You may look for much and often turn over your Evidences I mean your promises and see your future riches but you 'l never know all your Estate till you come to enjoy it and then you shall have as much peace as much glory in possession as now you have in hopes If therefore the promise of a Land of Canaan after a Wilderness the promise of an Harbor after storms and tempests will make you happy you can't be miserable and if the sense of the joy of Heaven if the Contemplation and Beatifical Vision of God if the actual participation of Glory with the Communication of the beauty and face of Christ himself can take away your miseries then you shall be happy for the Lord shall without doubt of scruple then manifest himself to be your God Fifthly You have a title to all the Attributes of God his Providential care is yours the eye is the tenderest part of the body the apple is the tenderest part of the eye now you all are as dear to God as the apple of his eye Zech. 1.8 A man will rather endure a thump on the back then a touch on the eye When you are asleep God is awake when you are in a fit of temptation careless of his glory yet even then he is careful for your salvation Israel that is kept may both slumber and sleep but he that keeps Israel cannot sleep no not slumber God so provides for all his children as if they were but one and so provideth for every single or particular childe as if he had never another

childe to provide for in all the world besides The Lord hath a Book to write down your names and a bottle to put your tears in His power likewise is yours the Lord hath not so much need of your patience as you have of his power and as what the Lord is he is for you and as what the Lord hath he hath for you so what the Lord can do he will do for you Though the promise of God be the measure of your faith and therefore beware in times of tryal of charging your selves for unbelief when God himself possibly doth not in that particular command you to believe yet your faith is not the measure of his power The Lord usually doth for his Church more then they believe and we must believe he can do more for his Church then he doth nothing but contradiction to speak reverentially of God passeth omnipotency Gods people have a double guard one within them and that is The finger of God the Spirit another without them and that is The arm of God his Power a double hold also on God as he hath that double guard on them Promise what he will do experience what he hath done As Sions cause is good so she wants not as good a Champion to maintain it The name of the Lord is a strong Tower and though the righteous cannot rest in a name of Godliness yet they may in the name of God and therefore in times of trouble they run to it Prov. 16.10 Lord may Syon say Support under tryals and deliverance from danger is an Article of thy Covenant And will not the Lord be faithful Are our infirmities many the Lord our God hath mercy to pardon them Are our corruptions many he hath power to subdue them Are our sins great he hath love to cover them What a Constellation and Centre of Attributes are in God! Righteousness Holiness Wisdom Power Grace and mercy I every one of these Attributes is God and as when Mithridates espoused the daughter of a poor laboring man the General to testifie the approbation of his choice sent the old Father a Cap full of gold with which he being over-joyed runs up and down the streets shewing of it to all the people crying out All this is mine So may the people of God whose Promises Providences Ordinances Attributes Graces are theirs triumphantly signifie to the world All these are ours and that which is more then all this if more can be you whose God is the Lord Sixthly Have a propriety in God himself in Christ himself as the Lord when he could swear by no greater sware by himself so he having no greater thing to give gives himself Christ who is the beloved of the Father and the First-born of every Creature he likewise is yours your King to Rule you your Priest to satisfie for you your Prophet to Indoctrinate and teach you his Death and Resurrection and Intercession are yours not onely for signification but for efficacy His blood his precious and pearless blood is yours to pardon you His glorious and sweet Spirit is yours to purifie and purge you And for all things else in the World they are 1. But short and transitory Riches are well called Moveables and ere long they will either take their leave of us or we shall certainly take our leaves of them Honor is but brittle it is even like Glass of which they say when it shineth brightest its nighest melting And for the rest how uncertain are all things money for the Thieves Merchandizes for the Winds Cattel for the Rot Buildings for the Fire The glory of this World is in it self but the Scheme but the Picture of Happiness and it will not sit so long before your eyes as that you may draw its Picture it s gone before you can say 't is here But suppose Worldly happiness were long yet Secondly It s Insatisfactory Worldly comforts are even like drink to the Dropsie man encreasing thirst like Wood to the Fire enlarging its Flame The chest may be filled with gold but God onely can fill the heart These things cannot make you happy because they are desired not for themselves but for other things but the Lord is desirable not for something else beside himself but onely for himself Deus propter Deum If you have Riches you may look beyond them and see Honors to tempt your eye if you have Riches and Honors you may look beyond them and see moral Wisdom to tempt your head if you have all these you may yet look beyond and see health to tempt your heart And while these partial and imperfect happiness lay before you you may look beyond them all and see a necessity of something else that is God to be your God But let a man be made an heir of salvation let a man be adopted into the Family of God and be able to say The Lord is my God and I provoke that man to say its true God and Christ and Heaven and Grace are mine but I want something else besides these in the world to make me happy These things are not universally good clothes are but for the back meat for the belly musick for the ears flowers for the smell and eye c. but the Lord is a Catholick a viscerate and entire good he is Almighty or All-sufficient As a man that hath a minde to some particular dish can finde all dishes in that one dish as suppose Patridges Capons or Pheasants So a childe of God can finde all things in God riches honor pleasure The covetous man makes his gold his God but a gracious heart saith God is my Gold A man may have silver but silver shall never satisfie him without God but if a man love God he will satisfie him without silver When a poor Beggar is matched to a Royal Prince she views his Palace she surveys his gardens and pleaseth her self in a delightsome prospect of all his greatness and glory and can say These are mine for the Prince himself is mine So because you have a title to the Fountain the streams are yours Whatever happiness is scattered here and there abroad in the Creatures it is all virtually eminently and superlatively in God I read of a couple of Ambassadors the one a Spaniard the other a Venetian and they did both of them extol and prefer the Revenues of their particular Masters said the Venetian Ambassador My Master hath so many chests of Silver and Gold alass said the Spanish Ambassador Your Masters Treasures have a bottom but my Masters Treasures in the Indies have a Root a Spring So may a true Saint say to the World your riches and comforts have a leak or limitation but my Lord Jesus his comforts and riches his Treasures have neither Banks nor bottom God is mine and if he can make me happy I shall not be miserable This this my Beloved is your Inventory for Happiness that can say The Lord is our God I shall now