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	lord_n	love_v	3,294	5	6.0914	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64463	The texts examined which papists cite out of the Bible to prove the supremacy of St. Peter and of the Pope over the whole church.	Scott, John, 1639-1695.	1688 (1688)	Wing T826; ESTC R6438	34,807	58

Ghost had made them Overseers to FEED the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own Blood. Acts xx 28. 3. For Christ as I said had given this Power unto all his Apostles when he said As my Father hath sent me so I send you c. Joh. xx 21. What did he send them to do but to gather together in one the Children of God that were scattered abroad and to feed his Flock as He the good Shepherd had done Joh. x. 11. xi 52. And therefore we may say here of these words as Rigaltius doth of the former He said to Peter Feed my Sheep but he doth not say do thou alone feed them No it may be further observed that our Lord in his Life-time sent them all to the lost Sheep of the House of Israel Matth. x. 6 7. And a little before this seeing the People scattered abroad as Sheep having no Shepherd he bad his Disciples pray that the Lord would send Labourers among them not one who should depute others but as many as were needful to gather in his Harvest Matth. ix 36 c. 4. And therefore thus the ancient Fathers have expounded these words particularly the Roman Clergy themselves in their Letter to the Clergy of Carthage where admonishing them of their Duty in the absence of St. Cyprian by reason of the then Persecution they press them with these words to Peter Feed my Sheep which they tell them the rest of the Disciples in like manner did and accordingly it was now incumbent upon them also * Vice Pastoris custodire gregem in the room of the Pastor to keep the Flock This Launoy * Epist Par. ii ad Raimundum Formentinum p. 27 c. proves is the Exposition of the Church and most justly condemns Bellarmine and such like Flatterers as failing in his Duty Which required him to expound these words according to the Sense of the whole Church which is directly against this Exposition that Christ here gave this Power to Peter alone A great many of the ancient Popes of Rome he there shews speak otherwise and one of their Neighbours St. Ambrose expresly declares that those Sheep and that Flock which Christ bad Peter feed he did not alone receive but he both received them with us and with him we all received them † L. de Sacerd. dignit c. 2. As much as to say what Christ said to Peter he spake in him to all Bishops Which is the Sense of St. Austin in a great many places the same Author shows ‖ Launoy Epist pars v. Carolo Magistro making Peter here also to have represented the whole Church so that when it was said to him it was said to all Lovest thou me Feed my Sheep * De Agone Christiano cap. 30. 5. But what need any further Testimonies when this Preface is sung not only in the Feast of St. Peter but of all the rest of the Apostles and Evangelists except St. John and on their Octaves in the Roman Church at this very day We humbly beseech thee O Lord the Eternal Pastor not to forsake thy Flock but preserve it with continued Protection by thy blessed Apostles That it may be governed by the same Rulers which as VICARS of thy Work thou didst bestow upon it to be set PASTORS over it This is sufficient to shew that the Roman Church it self hath anciently believed this Charge was given to all the Apostles to feed his Flock and be the chief Pastors of it † Praeesse Pastores What will some say was there nothing here peculiarly spoken to Peter No Mystery in those words thrice repeated and specially directed to him by name as you cannot but acknowledg Yes no doubt but it is no more than this that Peter of all the rest had lately thrice denied his Master This might well have made Peter himself question his Love to Christ and move our Lord to ask him whether he still remained as confident as he was before that he had a greater Affection to him than any of his Disciples For so he begins this Speech Lovest thou me more than these As he had fancied he did when he said tho all Men shall be offended because of thee yet will I never be offended Matth. xxvi 33. The vanity of which thoughts he had found by sad Experience he alone denying nay abjuring his Master In this Peter was singular and did more than any of the rest For which cause more was to be said to him and more was to be done by him than any of them He was to answer thrice to three Questions which were solemnly put to him that by a threefold Confession he might obliterate his threefold denial This is all the Mystery which the ancient Christians could find in this solemn Speech made with particular Application to Peter as may be seen in St. Cyril of Alexandria * In John xxi St. Austin † Tract xlvii in Johan Greg. Nazianzen ‖ Tract xxix and a long train which I could set down of other Fathers which assures us that this was the common and literal Exposition of these words and that they understood no other reason why our Lord addressed himself only to Peter tho other Apostles were present but only this that he might declare he would have Peter notwithstanding his denying him thrice be confident upon this profession of Love to him he was restored to his Favour and that he would have him no less than the rest look upon the care of his Flock as belonging to him who had deserved by his shamefully repeated denial of him to fall from that Office more than any other of his Apostles For tho they all fled yet none denied him but Peter alone and therefore these words were as if our Lord had said Tho there be cause enough for me to reject thee yet because thou didst repent thee of thy Sin and dost now profess thy Love to me Feed my Sheep no less than the rest of my Apostles to whom I have committed the care of them which will sufficiently expose the vanity of the Catholick Scripturist * Seventh's Point n. 7. who bids us against the sense of all Antiquity to note that our Lord would not have required greater Love in Peter rather than in any of the rest nor have said Lovest thou me more than these if he had not here intended to give him higher dignity in Pastorship than the rest Note rather good Reader what hath been said and these words of St. Cyril who was a better Scripturist and more Catholick than this Jesuit I will not set them down at large but only the Conclusion of them which are very remarkable and expresly expound this Passage as I have done In that Speech of our Lord FEED MY SHEEP there was a kind of renewal † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. L. xii in Joh. p. 1120. of the Apostleship formerly bestowed upon him doing away the

Infamy his of Falls and blotting out the cowardise of human Infirmity Where a great Person of our own hath justly remarked that word renewal ‖ Bp Andrew Tortura Tort p. 51. He doth not say that our Lord augmented his Dignity which is the new Doctrine but that he renewed it or restored him to it Which Dignity he had said in the beginning of this Discourse Peter was advanced unto when our Lord named him not praealiis above others but cum aliis * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyril Ib. with other Disciples to be an Apostle and therefore now did not give him more than the rest but only declared he did not take the forfeiture he had made of that Dignity but re-instated him in it together with the rest This is undoubtedly the ancient Sense of Christ's Church to which I know not what to add for the Explication of these words unless it be this that Peter had just before this Discourse of our Lord's begun to express his earnest desire to recover his Favour casting himself into the Sea when the other Disciples came by the Ship to get to our Saviour which may be look'd upon as a token of excessive Love to him and of a more than ordinary desire to enjoy his Company From hence a very learned Writer * Dr. Jackson Book iii. upon the Creed c. 7. of this Church thinks our Lord takes occasion to make this Speech to him but whether to check or to cherish that desire he dares not determine the import of which he gives in this Paraphrase Thou hast made profession of more than ordinary Love to me of readiness to lay down thy Life for my sake tho all others even these thy Fellows should forsake me and art willing I see by thy present hazard of it to make good thy former words But wouldst thou have me yet to shew thee a more excellent way I have told it thee long since Thou art converted strengthen thy Bretren SIMON the Son of JONA if thou desirest to prove thy self a CEPHAS or testify the sincerity of thy Faith and Love which by the Powers of darkness were of late so grievously shaken FEED MY LAMBS FEED MY SHEEP Yea seeing thou thrice deniedst the Shepherd of thy Soul I say unto thee the third time FEED MY SHEEP Let the Memory of thy fore-passed threefold Sin also let this my present threefold admonition excite thee unto triple diligence in thy Charge to shew such pity and compassion as I have shewed if you do but so contrive it that Peter have all under his Care and the Apostles themselves be his Curates But they who can be pleased with such Conceits as these have little Reverence for the Holy Scriptures and it is a great Affront unto our Understandings to offer us meer Imaginations for Reasons their own Dreams instead of the Divine Oracles If it may consist with Christian Sobriety to make such a nice distinction between Lambs and Sheep as to make them imply different things any more than the two several words for feed † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and for lovest thou me are thought to do it is far more likely that our Lord intended to signify the Care that ought to be taken of all Christians suitable to the diversity of their States Some of which as a great Man ‖ Dr. Jacks B. 3. c. vii Sect. x. of our own Church speaks are to be handled tenderly and cherished like Lambs others to be look'd unto like elder Sheep and to be fed with stronger Meat but with less personal or assiduous Attendance This hath some sense in it which is very useful and agreeable to all Mens Thoughts but if we set our fancies on work they abound with vain Conceits of which we can find no end For if Lambs and Lambkins and Sheep only be St. Peter's Walk and he the Shepherd where are the Rams as a no less learned * Dr. Collin's EPPHATA p. 51. than ingenious Man asks they are excepted it seems and Rams as Turrianus fancies are the Apostles or their Successors that is Bishops or as Cardinal Tolet † In xv Joh Annot. 3. Bellarmin's Equal will have it they are Kings and Princes and so these two Apostles and Kings are by this Interpretation both shut out whom Bellarmine intended by his Device to have shut into Peter's Fold But the graver sort of Writers even in the Roman Church are ashamed of such Mysteries as these which they see may be invented at pleasure Maldonate ‖ in Joh. xxi 15 c. himself to say nothing of Jansenius bids those who subtilly enquire why Christ calls his Disciples Lambs rather than Sheep think again and again what they do and take heed lest they expose themselves to the laughter of the Learned for the difference is in word not in sense save only that the word Lamb hath something in it more soft and tender and might be used to commend them the more to Peter's Affection For this diminutive form of speech is a sign of very tender and ardent Love and more moving than any other as appears by the common instance of a dying Father who expresses more of his own Affection and works more upon his Friends if he says I commend to you the Care of my little Babes than if he simply says I commend the Care of my Children to you Whence it is our Saviour sometimes used this form just before he parted with his Disciples John xiii 33. Little Children yet a little while I am with you c. and his Apostles also particularly St. John who uses it seven times in his first Epistle to declare the Greatness and Tenderness of his Love and to excite the like in others That Writer * Maldonate indeed pursues no less than the other the pretensions of the Church of Rome from these words though he like not this Curiosity insisting upon Christ's committing all the Sheep i. e. all Christians to Peter Which will not do their business since they were no otherwise committed to him than they were to the rest of Christ's Apostles who had the same Power given them and were to take the same Care of all Christ's Flock that he did Not that every one of them was to feed or teach all Christians simply and universally understood for that was impossible and would have made the Labours of the rest useless if one were sufficient but all indefinitely so that among them none should be neglected but instructed by some or other of them This must necessarily be the meaning for otherwise our Lord bad Peter do that which could not be done by one Man or if it could have been done would have made all the other Apostles idle and left them nothing to do No say they we do not mean that Peter alone was to preach the Gospel to all Nations so he could not feed all but