Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	authority_n	experience_n	great_a	31	3	2.1122	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55570	Tsofer bepaḥ, or, The bird in the cage, chirping four distinct notes to his consorts abroad I. of consideration, counsel and consolation, II. some experiences and observations gathered in affliction ..., III. the lamentations of Jeremiah ..., IV. a true Christians spiritual pilgrimage setting forth his afflicted and consolatory state in another metre : and as a preface hereto, an epistle to the Welsh churches, and a brief narrative of the former propagation and late restriction of the Gospel ... in Wales ... / by Vava. Powell.	Powell, Vavasor, 1617-1670.	1661 (1661)	Wing P3078; ESTC R19436	71,339	204

whole glory i. e. the whole Church 2 Cor. 8.23 shall be a defence therefore be comforted that the counsel of God the Priesthood of Christ and the Covenant of peace are unchangeable and abide for ever which is the sure foundation of every true Christians confidence and comfort Be not slothful in proving your knowledge of faith in love towards walking after and suffering for Christ For the visible and seeming differences are little and smal between the right Christian and the Hypocrite therein But in the Anointing Spirit Vertue Power and Life within which like the oyl in the Lamp feeds the wick of profession I beseech you also in the Lord Heb. 6.2 2 Jo. v. 9. Pro. 4.2 1 Tim. 4.6 1 Tim. 1.10 Tit. 1.9 and 2.1 as dear Brethren that you be not moved from the Doctrin which was delivered to you which is the same with the Doctrine of the Apostles called the Doctrine of Christ good Doctrine and sound Doctrine In opposition to these are the Doctrines of Devils 1 Tim. 4.1 Mar. 7.7 Col. 2.21 Heb. 13.9 1 Jo. v. 10. Rev. 2.14 15 24. and the Doctrines of men which either directly deny Christ or much derogate from him who is the perfect Law-giver And that Satan and his Instruments may the better introduce their own Doctrines they make it their design and indeavour to batter down the Scriptures for their Dagon cannot stand before Gods Ark. As the Jewes make it death for any of their Religion to read and keep the New-Testament The Papists also make it an Article of their Creed that unwritten verities as they call them and the Canons and Traditions of their Church are of equal authority with the Scriptures hold that they should not be translated into vulgar Languages nor the Common-people be permited to read them † Contrary to Dut. 6.6 to the 10. Josh 1.8 Ps 119.19 16 105. Joh. 5.39 Act. 17.11 and 18.24 Ro. 15.4 2 Tim. 3.16 17. Col. 3.16.17 Rev. 13. 22.10 Also the Quakers generally deny the Scripture to be the Word of God * which are so called See and compare Mat. 15.6 with Mar. 7.13 Lu. 8-11 with Mat. 13. 37 Ro. 10.8 with Deu. 30 14 See also Jo 10.35 Act. 4.31 12.49 13.44 46. 19 20 Eph. 6.17 1 Tim. 4.5 H.S. in his book called the Everl Rule pa. 28. or a Rule affirming there is no other Rule Way or Means c. but that which is manifest in men And one of the learned'st of them disdainfully calls the Scriptures broken Cisterns your Scripture your Word your Letter † S.F. In his book cal'd Rust ad Acad pa. 115.116 117. These 3 last instances I divers others heard from the Parties owne mouths and some upon that account call it the great Idol others affirm the writings of their Teachers to be of equal inspiration and Authority with it and that which is yet worse one woman put her Bible under her foot another Burnt it and yet these two were great Quakers but now are turned Singers a degree as they concieve above them But beloved you are better taught I hope will still retain your love of diligence and delight in and zeal for this word of God And especially to walk more according to it then those that pretend to experience alike power with a greater mesure of perfection than either the Prophets or Apostles ever did I am fearful and jealous that this attempt of taking away the authority of the Scriptures will end in takeing away the very Bibles from us Therefore I exhort you again in the words of Christ and Paul Search the Scriptures and give attendance to Reading be stedfast in those truths which you have been taught from them by the servants of the Lord some whereof are now glorifyed and others through grace ready to seal it with their blood Concerning God and his Atributes Christ and his Offices the Holy Spirit and it's manifestations the decrees of God before time the two Covenants viz. the Law and the Gospel the wreched state of all men by Nature and out of Christ the freeness of Gods grace Joh. 5 39. 1 Tim. 4.13 in opposition to mans free-will The Doctrine of Justification by the imputed Righteousness of Christ apprehended and received by Faith Sanctification distinct from Justification wrought by the Spirit in us Perseverance Assurance and growth in Grace by vertue of our union with Christ and his spiritual in dwelling and operating in us Living Godlily Righteously and Soberly in this present World Denying our selves following Christ shunning sin resisting Satan separating from the world in matters of Gods worship not medling with nor mingling the Traditions of men with Gods truths joyning your selves to and continuing in the fellowship of Saints and using carefully and conscientiously all the Ordinances of Christ as Preaching Hearing and expounding Scriptures keeping up publick family and private prayers Prophesying and singing of Psalms Hymnes and spirial Songs in the Churches Repetition of Sermons Observing the Sabbath Baptism and the Supper of the Lord and upon occasion dayes of solemn fasting or Rejoycing visiting one another especially the tempted and the sick relieving the poor and in case of scandal and heresie to deal with offending members by Admonition Suspention or Excommunication according to the Nature of the Offence and carriage of the Offender doing all your duties to magistrates Masters Parents Husbands Brethren Neighbours and Enemies according to the blessed commands of Jesus Christ Withall expecting the destruction of Antichrist the Restauration of the Jewes the Coming Kingdom and Raign of Christ still remembring your latter end the immortality of your precious Souls believing the Resurrection of the Body the Judging of all and the Salvation of the Righteous Finally my Brethren the hour of temptation being come upon us let us redeem time be watchful and sober keeping our lights burning our Lamps shining our Loyns girded our consciences awakned our garments unstained Let us fear God more than men Sin more than suffering self more then others living basely more than dying Christianly and Nobly Let us wisely consider Gods works Ps 64.9 Esa 5.12 and wonders though others should slight them and maintain Gods Wayes and Cause though they be despised by most and let us not carnally comply with nor superstitiously conform to the world to save our estates Liberties or Lives Nor yet forsake the assembling of your selves together but edifie confirm and comfort one another Encouraging the weak helping to restore those that are faln and to establish those that yet stand Doing your duties commanded by God what ever danger may come thereby Keeping your selves from error and every evil thing by the holy spirit in you And as our Saviour commands John 14.1 be not troubled praying also earnestly that neither I nor you may suffer for sin or sin in suffering not be sensless under present or faint under future tryals Let us

to justifie God and to judge himself under the greatest Afflictions Christ and Sin are most magnified in the eyes of Believers in their Affliction but in a different manner and to a different end and then Christ is most desired and Sin most despised It is the duty of a Christian to suspect and search himself when he doth not know evil by himself It is and should be the care of a Christian not to suffer for Sin nor sin in suffering Account the least spiritual thing better than the greatest and best outward and temporal things There is no real bondage but what is either from or for Sin Christians will sooner overcome their outward Enemies by praying for them than by praying against them Bad times well improved are far better than good times not redeemed or mis-spent The heaviest afflictions on Earth are but light in comparison of Christ's sufferings Sins deserts or the punishment of the Wicked in Hell Let not Christians by their own prudence think to prevent Afflictions for they cannot avoid them 1 Thess 3.3 2 Tim. 3.12 The World's Jury may find Christians guilty but God can forbear pronouncing the Sentence or reprieve and pardon the Condemned Shut thy eyes from beholding thy ears from hearing and thy heart from entertaining Sin He hath a good command over his spirit that can stop it when moved with passion over his Affections when they are under sail and over his Tongue that can silence it when he will Compar All Christians must be brought into the fire before they will be brought to close for it is impossible to joyn cold pieces or one cold and another hot Compar As the Iron when it looks red in the fire seems to a looker on to be fit for the work-man to work it yet the workman may put it into the fire again and adde coals to heat it more So may the Lord do with his suffering People when they and others may think they have suffered enough yet God that knows best may not think so In the way to Heaven there are three narrow and hard passages the entrance into the new birth herein a man must leave behind him sinful self the entrance into assurance therein a man must leave and deny religious self that is look off his own evidences and lastly the gate of death then a man must part with natural self religious self and sinful self The two first I have experienced the last I expect He that is willing to part with his dearest Lust will be willing to part with his dear Life also If a Christian be made free to lay down his Life for Christ or his Cause yet let him sell or lose it at as dear a rate as he can for Christ A Christian will have but little comfort to suffer for that which is but a Notion in his head and not a setled Truth in his heart Yet ☞ Note that the lesser the Truths are which Christians do suffer for if rightly the more their love doth appear to Christ therein God's Minnums or least things are better than the World's Mountains or greatest things The Saints are to bear a three-fold Testimony to and for Christ and his Truths Breath-testimony Life-testimony and Bloodtestimony Speaking words maintaining Opinions and the outward performing of Duties and partaking of Ordinances are but the least things in Religion Affections Parts or Applause from the World or from Christians are very dangerous and not to be trusted in I never trusted Christ but I found him faithful nor my own heart but I found it false In looking upon the Scriptures and good men I did learn oft to know what I should be but I found it hard to be what I knew I ought to be From the first change wrought in a true Christian he may fear and suspect himself to be a Hypocrite but he never intends to be never approves of being a Hypocrite nor never countenances himself in Hypocrisie Let God's hiding thy infirmities and secret sins from thy Enemies make thee the freer and willinger to confess them unto him Learn to know Sin disallow of it dispise it overcome it inwardly and to put it from thee to fear its return and to be more estranged towards it more watchful to avoid Temptations and wise to shun Occasions that lead to it The strength of all Corruptions sometimes appears in one and do but overcome your Master-sin and you overcome all The power and strength of Corruption is but seldom known to wit when Temptations Opportunities and Occasions of Tryal come The best way to keep from Sin is to set God in his Power Purity and Glory still before our eyes to fear our selves to keep near to Christ to fast and pray privatly to engage other Saints for our help to cherish the holy Spirit to keep up constant practice of Holiness to provide contrary means against it to resolve strongly to withstand it to eye God's Promises Commands and Threatnings to withstand the first occasions to reason it off at a distance to believe it away when it comes near to avoid all occasione thereof When you would repent for some secret sins you have committed it is better and safer sometimes to do it in a general way than to think and speak of the same particularly for Satan and Sin will be ready to step in when they know we are attempting any thing against them It is advantagious for a Christian to disclose Satan's secrets to God and to his People but to keep his own secrets from him as much as he can That soul doth soon grow empty that is alwayes letting out but not carefull to lay in It is not for one that hath but little Grace and particularly knowledge to be too forward among more able and knowing Christians for then is his time to learn Christians should not be to learn their Duties when they should be doing them nor doing them when they should be suffering for them Com. Take heed Professors lest you be alwayes wooing Christ and yet never married to him Of being Concubines and not Queens Cant. 6.8 Com. Be not as the untilled ground bearing grass for the beasts of your Lusts but be like the Field or Garden bringing forth fruit for the Husbandman and Dresser Com. Be not as the Rock or Stone-wall which have savoury medicinable Herbs growing thereon for others but the Rock and Wall themselves never the better for them Having gifts to edifie others but your own hearts never the better Sin to a man before his Conversion is like cold Iron which he can hold in his hand without trouble Com. but after Conversion Sin heated by the fire of the Law is like hot Iron which a man will willingly cast away Lay in lay up and lay out for Christ Remember that you will shortly reach Immortality but never Eternity Make Christ your All and you will be sure to lay down your self All. ☞ Com. Keeping from Sin is Soul-Preservative-Physick Repentance for

all his works in and for God Joh. 3.21 Rom. 6.10.1 Cor. 10.31 4. To bring his will to submit to the will of God in every thing Mark 26.42 Heb. 10.7 Take heed of sinning presumptuously i.e. 1. Knowingly Luke 12.47 Heb. 6.4 6.2 Pet. 2.20 2. Willingly and wilfully Hos 5.11 Heb. 10.26 3. By contemning the Law and Love of God Prov. 3.13 Rom. 2.4 4. By flighting Jesus Christ's Person Power and his Blood Mat. 12.24 Luke 19.14 Heb. 10.29 5. By blaspheming and doing despight to the Spirit of God Luke 11.15 Heb. 10.29 6. By falling into the hands of God without Christ and true Sanctification Heb. 10.29 Com. A Christian in Affliction if he understand not what God intends thereby should believe God intends not to hurt him As a Wife or a Child that a Husband or Father brings into a Wood or Water ☜ yet they are confident it is not to hang or drown them It is a sign that People do not repent when they grow worse Rev. 16.9 11. A passionate and troubled spirit is like a little Pryll of Water which every showre of Rain or Beast that passes thorow doth change the colour of it and make muddy Quick Onsets and Endeavours to Reform are far better than many Purposes and Resolutions It should trouble a Christian much to have such Graces which he receives from God beget so little good in him Oh my soul will neither great Love great Mercy great Forbearance great Intreaty nor great Wages prevail with thee to serve Christ freer and better A deep sence of sin begets deep sorrow for sin and true sorrow for sin leads to wel-grounded Faith from hence flows inward Peace Joy and Holiness The Lord would soon turn from his Wrath if men were turned from their Wickedness A Christian is not only to be contented with any condition but he is to be religiously contented or in a religious manner not as a meer man and to see that the least things he hath more than he deserves and the worst things that he endures yet sweetned and sanctified to him Com. As a Husbandman when great Rain comes unyoaks his Oxen and turns them home where they are feeding and gathering new strength to work again So God doth his Children in time of Affliction and Persecution Com. A Christians time of Affliction is like to a Womans washing or scouring day when the Cloaths or Vessels are all out of order but it is in order to set them in a better frame speedily Of all men a Christian may be freer to lose or to part with any thing than another man for he loses nothing but either what is hurtful to him to wit his sins or what he shall regain and recover of a better sort and in a more abundant degree As if he lose a small temporal ESTATE he hath in reversion an Eternal INHERITANCE If he lays down a body that is full of Corruption he shall have another free from Corruption and therfore he may say better than the Heathen could What I keep I lose and what I give or lay out I save The Lord hath I am perswaded done more by the Afflictions which he hath lately brought upon his People than either was done or like to be done by any other wayes or means Viz. 1. He hath driven his People more together and made them more one * Vnio in Larine signifies Vnion or a Pearl Oneness among Saints is a Pearl of great value 2. He hath separated more between them and the World like winnowing drives the Chaff further from the Wheat 3. He hath convinced them more of their miscarriages both towards him and toward one another 4. He hath made them to know persons and things better 5. To prize Spiritual Priviledges and Ordinances more Such a fulness as Christians had of Ordinances made them despise them like the Israelites the Manna 6. To experience their own weakness of Faith together with their great misbelief by checking the over-much Confidence of his Saints 7. To cry more earnestly to him and wait more constantly on him 8. They are unloaded and much discharged of the burden of the World A Christian should take heed lest he be giving way to his heart to steal out now and then to sin and get some sweet-bits thereof between Duties He should be careful also to fence that Gap most by which the strongest Temptations do enter oftenest in There will be a reviving of old sins if there be not effectual Repentance for them and a care by Faith through all Duties and Ordinances to get new strength against them and a constant watch kept over them When God makes the World too hot for his People to hold then they will let it go A Christian comes not to know the weakness of his Grace till the Spirit ceases to work in and by it nor the power of his Corruption till Satan works therein by his Temptation A Christian's flesh shonld keep from the shew and his Conscience from the guilt of Sin Sin 's best is before but its worst is behind and the sting and tayl of it longer than it self Where Sin is not killed it will kill Sin was condemned by Christ to save the sinner Rom. 8.3 Oh then let not the Sinner seek to save the Sin to condemn Christ again As the natural Sun the nearer it is to us and the more direct over us the less shadow it casteth So Christ the nearer he is to us the less Darkness and Sin we have Christians should account restraints from Sin great Mercies to them but Recoveries out of Sin with advatage greater Sin hath no mother but a man's heart nor father but Satan Sin draws the Soul into it either by power of policy by force or by fraud Christians should not give offence carelesly nor take offence causelesly Fear thy Friends more than thy Foes thy Sins more than thy Sufferings and Liberty more than Bondage Some Christians have four Thorns that grieve them a Thorn of Affliction from God a Thorn of Persecution from men and a Thorn of Temptation from Satan and of Corruption in themselves which is the worst and that which should trouble them most Though a man may be bled in time of self-ostentation both by God and men by God in Affliction and by men through Persecution Reproaches c. yet that Vein is apt to fill up still Christians should desire to be handfasted and heart-tied to the Lord and to be strong in Faith on Christ Love to him and Resolution for him Self-loathing destroyes self-love much and the more we loath our selves the better we love others Christians should not envy the patience of God towards their Enemies for it is nothing in comparison of what grace he shews to them If Affliction doth us good we should not desire to be free from it till it does us more good much less if it hath not done us any good at all The reason why men do not more magnifie GOD's Grace