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	love_v	son_n	2,692	5	5.4689	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A04831	The marriage of the lambe Or a treatise concerning the spirituall espousing of Christ, to a beleeving soule, wherein the subject is fully handled in the nature of it, in the effects, priviledges, symptomes, with the comforts that arise to a beleever from this relation, wherein also the excellencie of Christ, and many other spirituall truths flowing from the subject are by way discovered. By Benjamin King, minister of Gods Word at Flamsteed in Hartford-shire.	King, Benjamin, b. 1611 or 12.	1640 (1640)	STC 14963; ESTC S103355	46,240	182

borne it he himselfe enjoynes it (e) Is dat quimandat qui jubet illo juvat and hee himselfe supports his spouse in bearing of it this yoke of Christ doth his spouse willingly beare in performing universall cheerefull sincere and constant obedience to all Christs commands in full purpose and desire of the heart in the earnest endeavour of the whole man which Evangelicall obedience Christ accepts and accounts as perfect obedience for his owne sake The fourth consequent of this spirituall marriage of Christ and his Spouse is that mutuall adhaering and cleaving to one another in ardency of (f) Quam quaeris aliam inter sponsos necessitudinem vel connexionem praeten amari amare Bern. Ser. 31. in Cant. affection and dearest love First for the love of Christ to a beleever it is transcendent and differing from a Christians love to Christ First in time secondly in degree thirdly as a cause differs from an effect First in time Christs love is the preventing love and this magnifies the love of Christ it is a chiefe porperty of great love when it is (g) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 2. Rhet. c. 9. preventing and therefore the Apostle Iohn calls it love indeede that Christ loved us first Secondly Christs love differs and exceedes the love of his Spouse in degree he being the fountaine of love and the love of a Christian but a streame flowing from that fountaine hee the Sonne of Righteousnesse Mal. 4.2 From whom the beames of mercies flow dayly upon the hearts of his beloved ones their love being but a beame comming from that Sonne therefore God is sayd to bee love it selfe in the abstract in regard of the transcendencie of his love surpassing the love of all Thirdly Christs love differs from a Christians love as the cause differs from the effect for the love of a Christian to Christ is nothing but an heavenly sparke kindled by the fire of Gods Spirit and the fervencie of his affection to a Christian the heate that is in the inferiour region of the ayre is nothing but an effect of the reverberation of the beames of the Sunne upon the earth the heate of a Christians heart that burnes within him with a love and zeale to the Lord Jesus is nothing else but a reflection of those hot sunne beames of Christs mercies shed abroad in the heart of a beleever Our cloathes in the morning receive heate first from our bodies but being heated by our bodies they keepe our bodies warme all the day following A Christians heart must first be cloathed with the sunne of righteousnesse and so warmed with his beames being but once throughly warmed it ever after glowes within towards Christ in love againe now as Christ beares a love to a Christian farre exceeding the love of the fondest Bridsgrome to his endeared Spouse so there is a retaliating affection in every beleeving soule towards Christ We may as well imagine fire without a power to give heate as to imagine Christs love bestowed upon a soule without this affection in the heart to whom Christ hath made his love knowne by betrothing himselfe (h) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Rhet. lib. 2. c. 4. Aristotle speaking of a friend describes him to be such an one that loves and is loved againe And againe in another place affirmes that to bee true friendship where love is (i) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 2. magni moral c. 11. reciprocall if then love amongst friends be mutuall much more betwixt (k) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist l. 2. Oeconomie c. 2. man and wife betwixt Christ and his Spouse the very name of Bridsgroome calls for love (l) Ludolphus de vita Christi ex Gregorio It is the observation of a Father sometimes God calls himselfe by the name of a Father sometimes by the name of a Master sometimes by the name of a Bridsgrome when he would produce a filiall feare in the hearts of his children hee calls himselfe by the name of a Father If I be a Father where is my feare when he would produce homage and service in his servants hee calls himselfe by the name of a Lord. If I bee your Master and Lord where is me honour and service When hee would beget love and affection in them hee stiles himselfe a Bridsgroome If I bee a Bridsgroome where is my love Now this love that a Christian oweth and giveth to Christ as the Spouse of Christ hath severall distinct properties whereby it is discerned from the love that worldlings may pretend to Christ First it is such a love that will drive the soule to sicknesse in case the thing loved bee delayed Conticles cap. 1. vers 5. I am sicke of love saith the Church concerning Christ her Bridsgrome this sickenesse of the soule for love is nothing but a fainting and languishing for desire of Christ whom the soule loveth this the wise man expresseth Pro. 13.12 Hope deferred maketh the heart sicke now the soule hoping for those soule-transporting pleasures to bee found in the apprehension of Christs favour and sense of his presence and yet obtaines not the inward apprehension of his gracious residence in the soule upon this the heart begins to faint and languish and to bee sicke of love the desire of a Christian towards Christ is not any faint and remisse desire but a longing desire such a desire that stretcheth the affection to the highest straine and therefore expressed in Scripture by the metaphors of thirsting gasping panting now as experience teacheth in some cases longing brings danger when the thing longed for is not obtained whereas an ordinary desire will not hurt in the deniall of the thing desired as the effects of longing are dangerous when the thing longed for is delayed as fainting sownding languishing it is so in spirituall longing for Christ the soule thirsting for Christ and finding him not falls a sownding fainting and grows to a kinde of Sprituall sicknesse for love and desire of Christ This love is a kinde of doting love that carries the soule to a spirituall distraction this we may see in Peter who in the transfigration was so transported with affection so ravished with the love of Christ that like a man spiritually distracted he knew not what hee sayd saith the text Marke 9.6 So Saint Paul in his rapture into the third heaven he speakes like a man besides himselfe for the present 2 Corinth 12.2.3 and 5. I knew a man in Christ above foureteene yeares agoe whether in the body I cannot tell or whether out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth such an one caught up to the third heaven and I knew such a man whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth verse 5. Of such an one will I glory of my selfe I will not glory here wee see the Apostle for the present in a blessed kinde of spirituall distraction in love to Christ and heaven whereunto hee

was caught This love in the third place is a (m) Amat profecto castè quae ipsum quem amat quaerit non aliud quid praeter ipsum Bern. Serm. 7. in Canti● Sponsa non petit libertatem non mercedem non haereditatem sed osculum more planè castissimae sponsae ac sacrum spirantis amorem nec ●omnino valen t is flammam dissimulare quam patitur osculetur inquit me osculo oris sui quasi dicat quid mihi est in coelo a te quid volui super terram Bern. ibid. free love whereby the beleeving soule cleaves unto Christ for himselfe and those glorious excellencies it sees in our Saviour Christ this property distinguisheth it from that (n) Cave anima ne quod absit meretrix dicaris si munera dantis plus quam amantis affectum diligis Aug. medit l. 2. c. 4. meretritious and mercenary love in worldlings that follow Christ as Christ upbraided some of the same stampe for the fishes and bread wherewith hee fed them Iohn 6.26 This hired love the (o) Cum magno calumniatore habemus negotium si quaerit singere quod non est ut in Iob. quanto magis objicere quod est Aug. de temp Serm. 234. Devils objected against Iobs sincerity Doth Iob feare God for nought but Iob cleaving to God upon the dunghill and in the lowest condition proved the Devill in that particular as hee was from the beginning to be a lyar The fourth property of a Christians love to Christ the Bridsgroome of his soule is that it is a strong and peremptory love it will carry a Christian through all (p) Amemus nos Christum ejusque semper quaeramus amplexus facile videbitur omne difficile brevia putabimus universa quae longa sunt jaculo illius vulnerati perhorarum momenta dicemus Heus me quia pereginatio mea prolongata est Hier. scribeus ad Eustochium difficulties and straights to Christ The love of Rachel carried Iacob through 14. yeares of hard service the love of Christ will carry a Christian through more difficulties than Labans service had in it Cant. 8.6.7 It is sayd to be as strong as death that conquers the greatest gyant and the mightiest Monarch zeale that is love inflamed is as inexorable as hell it selfe it is sayd to have fiery coales that pierce the heart which fiery coales of love all the waters be it a deluge and inundation of miseries and calamities persecutions and temptations are not able to quench Love is of that strength that it facilitates the greatest difficulties This we see in the ordinary bodily recreations many men take a pleasure in a toyle as in hunting running leaping ringing wrastling and the like and all out of love to these recreations much more is the love of Christ able to sweeten the hardest duty that Christ imposeth upon his Spouse What was it that made the fiery faggots to those blessed witnesses of the truth to seeme as beds of Roses but love What made the Disciples to forsake all but Christ and that love they beare to him What made Paul and Silas sing in Prison and the Apostles to returne from the Councill rejoycing that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ but love to Christ What made the renowned Champion Stephen valiant in the midst of death but the sight of the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his father and I am perswaded that if it had beene offered to Stephen that hee should have beene delivered from his present paine upon condition he should have beene deprived of his present vision of Christ by the opening of the heavens the love of Christ would not have suffered Stephen to have accepted of deliverance upon such condition so we reade of those strong ones in faith though weake in sexe they would not accept of deliverance in the middest of their torturings that they might obtaine a better resurrection Heb. 11.35 To conclude this Paul being armed with this love challengeth all the powers and peeres of hell it selfe Rom. 8.35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distresse or persecution or famine or nakednesse or perill or sword as if he had sayd shall this or that if there be any more put them all into the scale and weigh but the love of Christ against them all and they shall bee found too light to sway my heart from the love of the Lord Jesus The fifth property the love of Christs Spouse is a bountifull love this the Apostle 1 Cor. 13.4 makes a property of true Charity that it is bountifull (q) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Ethic. l. 8. c. 13. bounty is the fruite of love and it is exercised towards any thing according to love if a man love his body nothing is thought too dainty to feede it too gorgeous to cloath it if a man love his pleasure nothing is counted too deare to maintaine it so where there is any true conjugal affection in a Christian heart that heart will rellish any thing that tends to the honour of Christ it will downe with frequent prayer humble and dayly confession of sinne zealous and Godly walking with God sincere universall and constant obedience to Christ though it be with the parting of the most dearely beloved sinnes that soule will thinke no teares of repentance no hearing reading singing no duties publicke or private too much whereby the honour of Christ may be advanced and its love to Christ better expressed Luke 7.47 Mary Magdalen is sayd to love much and this her great love was expressed to Christ by her bounty in washing his feete in anointing his head in wiping his feete with the haires of her head and Christ himselfe accepts of her washing anointing kissing and all other of her acts of bounty as Characters of her great inward affection The sixth property of this love is that it is intire as Moses his serpent devoured all other serpents because his serpent was from God so the love of God being from God eates and consumes the love of all things besides as it is sayd of Ioseph that there was none greater in Pharaohs Court and in the land of Aegypt than himselfe the like may be sayd of Christ in a beleeving heart there is none greater than Christ he is the Pilot that governes the ship the King that governes the whole man the Master and Lord that keepes the house of a sanctified heart to whom as King and Lord all the powers of the whole man submit all doe homage all performe respect feare and love and if there be love bestowed upon any other thing besides Christ as upon our selves and our neighbours yet it is for Christs sake and in subordination to him whom to love in due measure is to love without measure The seventh property of a Christians soules love to Christ is that it is a constant love it is no great matter to professe love

to be his spokesman to make me an instrument of perswading some poore blind and naked soules to accept of Christ to be their husband who is able to inrich them with what their soules can desire and now what arguments shall I use to perswade such to this Marriage Gen. 24.35.36 Abrahams servant going to take a wife for his Masters sonne Isaac that he might perswade Rebecca and her friends the more forceably the one to goe with him and the other to part with her he tells them that the Lord had blessed his Master Abraham greatly c. and so by this Argument obtaines his request in perswading Rebecca to goe with him and her friends to part with her The great God of heaven imploying mee his unworthy servant to intreate a Spouse for his sonne I can use the same arguments that Abrahams servant did I wish it might be with the same successe My Master the Almighty God of Abraham of Isaac and Iacob is exceeding great his greatnesse being infinitenesse and he is exceeding rich not onely with Abraham in flockes and heardes in silver and gold the cattle upon a thousand Mountaines being his Psal 50.12 but he is the possessour of heaven and earth it selfe the great Commander and Soveraigne Lord of the whole world rich in himselfe unspeakeable incomprehensible and inconceiveable glorious eminencies and this God hath one onely begotten son and unto him hath he given all his riches as in the 2 Psalme and the 8. verse Aske of me and I will give thee the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession the sonne of God installed into his Fathers inheritances offers himselfe to bee married to thy poore soule whosoever thou art that wilt accept of him to bee thy Bridegroome Oh that thy soule with Rebecca would accept of this match without farther delay The (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Ethic. l. 9. c. 1. Philosopher tells us that sometimes a lover findes fault that he loves above measure and yet is not loved againe whereas he hath nothing in him that is amiable or worthy of love Christ indeede may complaine that he offers love to many a poore soule and yet findes no love againe neither can the soule alleadge this for a reason of unkindenesse to Christ againe that there is nothing in Christ that is lovely for in Christ there is nothing that is not worthy of the greatest love that can lodge in a mortall breast what lovely quality can the soule desire in an husband that are not in Christ Doth the soule desire riches With me are riches Prov. 8.18 saith Wisedome it selfe Doth it desire Nobility of Birth God the Father witnesses his sonnes Nobility Thou art my Sonne this day have I begotten thee Psal 2.7 Doth it desire beauty Christ is fairer than the Sonnes of men Psal 45.2 Desires the soule power in an husband for protection All power is given unto him of the Father twelve Legions of Angels are at his command and Legions of Devills were constrained to crouch unto him hence also by the Prophet was he called Wonderfull and Powerfull Esay 9.6 Desires the soule goodnesse in an husband Christs lippes are full of grace Psal 45.2 He is a very fountaine of goodnesse Desires it yet Wisedome Christ is Wisedome it selfe Wisedome of the Father and made Wisedome to every beleever 1 Cor. 1.30 Lastly desires it glory in an husband Christ is the King of glory Psal 24.8.10 The Apostle remarkeable sets downe all these amiably qualities together Heb. 1.2.3 God hath in these last dayes spoken unto us by his Sonne behold his Nobility whom he hath appointed heire of all things behold his Riches by whom also he made the world behold his Wisedome who being the brightnesse of his Fathers glory and expresse Image of his Person there is his beauty and upholding all things by the Word of his Power when he had by himselfe purged our sinnes there is his goodnesse sate downe at the right hand of the Majestie on high there is his glory Moreover all these excellencies are in Christ so they are in him in a more (c) Necessario efficitur in Deo omnium rerum in esse perfectiones easque perfectissimas perfectissimo modo Zan. de natura Dei l. 3. c. 7. eminent manner Many excellencies may be in the creatures by participation from God but they are not so in the creatures as in Christ many excellencies are sprinkled up and downe in the Creatures in an imperfect manner as some creatures excell in beauty some in power some in wisedome but all these and many more that are diverse and opposite perfections and vertues in the Creatures are al in Christ in a most perfect and eminent manner there is as the Apostle affirmes One manner of glory in the Sunne another of the Moone another of the Starres yet what glory the Moone hath or the starres they receive it for the most part from the Sunne and all their glory meetes in the Sunne in a full manner so it is with the creatures in heaven as of Angels and Saints another of creatures under the heaven yet what glory is found in these creatures they have it from God and Christ the Sonne of Righteousnesse and meetes in him as in a center of perfection making one perfect excellencie and excellent perfection And now O humane soule what is there in the world in which thou canst finde these things that are to be found in Christ why dost thou then wed thy heart to riches honour pleasure that (d) Bern. serm in iliud Ecce nos reliquimus omnia Anima inquit rationalis caeteris omnibus occupari potest repleri non potest Anima rationalis facta est capax majestatis tuae ut a te solo a nullo alio possit repleri Aug. in Soliloq c. 30. cannot satisfie thy soule and slightest Christ in whom are treasures of riches supercoelestiall honour inconceiveable pleasures Why doest thou give Christ the lowest place in thy heart that deserves the highest Why puttest thou the creature above the Creator who at the first gave thee dominion over the creature What shall I say to perswade thee to forsake all other lovers to give entertainement to Christ that he may espouse himselfe to thy soule I cannot speake more impressively than in the words of the (e) Quid per multa vagaris ●omuncio quaerendo bona animae tur corporis tui Ama unum bonum in quo sunt omnia bona sufficit desidera simplex bonum quod est omne bonum satis est Aug. vel quisquu est auctor l. de Spit Anima Father Why doest thou O man wander up and downe by many things by seeking the good of thy soule and body Love that one God in which are all good things and it sufficeth desire that one good which is every good and it is enough And now me thinkes I perceive some soule with Agrippa almost perswaded to be a