Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	heart_n	let_v	soul_n	9,658	5	5.0107	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30734	A sermon preached at St. Mary-le-Bow before the Lord Mayor, and court of aldermen, and citizens of London, on Wednesday the 28th of April, a day appointed by His Majesty's proclamation for a general and publick fast by Lilly Butler ...	Butler, Lilly.	1697 (1697)	Wing B6283; ESTC R14783	15,229	32

thy Redeemer's Sufferings and thy own Ingratitude Did the Son of God cry out under the burden of thy Sins and art thou easy and chearful under them Did he bleed and die for thee and canst thou not weep for him for the Sufferings thou hast brought upon him and thy unkind behaviour towards him O Blessed Jesus that I should be thus insensible of thy intolerable Sufferings and of thy infinite Love that I should take Pleasure in that which brought thee to so much Sorrow that I should cherish and embrace and be so fond of that by and for which thou wast wounded and bruised and put to all the Shame and Torments of the Cross Oh! what Lamentations what Tears can be loud or bitter enough to bewail the shameful returns I have made for that precious Life and Blood which were so freely given and shed for me Thirdly Let us endeavour to afflict our Souls with Grief and Shame by considering the filthy and abominable Nature of Sin we have been so fond and spent so much Time in the service of There is not any thing in Toads or Vipers so ugly so loathsome so destructive as there is in Sin Every Creature of God is Good but Sin is the Devil's Off-spring it is the Devil's Image and Work And what can make us more deformed than that which makes us resemble him which the God of Love cannot but hate which the Father of Mercies cannot but abhor which he cannot look upon It is the Transgression of a Holy Just and good Law it is the corruption of our Nature the plague of our Hearts and the filthiness of our Flesh and Spirit and do we not blush and loath our selves to think how much we have set our Hearts upon it that it was for this for the sake of this so base and filthy a thing that we have been all this while abusing the Love of a most Merciful Father and defeating the Design of our Compassionate Redeemer who gave himself for us to redeem us from Iniquity Fourthly Let us endeavour to afflict our Souls with Shame and Sorrow by considering what means of Reformation and what earnest Invitations from God we have sinned against God hath given us marvellous Light frequent Warnings great and precious Promises severe and dreadful Threatnings and called upon us with the greatest Compassion and Importunity that he might reclaim us from our Sins And is it not an evil and bitter thing O Sinner that thou hast resisted all these rendred them all of none effect and in spite of all the Methods of Heaven still persisted in the dangerous ungrateful and filthy Ways of Sin Try then how thou canst affect thy Heart with such Reflections as these upon thy sinful Doings Had I been born amongst Heathens and Infidels my Sin and Folly had been less but all that I have done against my God and Saviour and my own Soul I have done it in a bold and obstinate defiance of the Glorious Gospel of the Son of God against the plainest Commands and the strongest Motives to Obedience revealed in it There I had Life and Death Heaven and Hell plainly set before me but neither did the one move me with Fear nor the other encourage me with Hope to forsake my Sins and return to my God How often have my God and Saviour besought me by their Ambassadors to be reconciled to come unto them that I might have Life How have they stretched out their Hands all the Day long and with repeated Declarations and Instances of Mercy and Compassion invited me into their Embraces But alas all this hath been done to a stubborn and gain-saying Wretch O my foolish and unhappy Soul that thou shouldst be thus obstinately bent upon Sin and Ruin that thou shouldst be thus insensible of the most gracious Offers of Pardon and Mercy and the most dreadful Denunciations of Wrath and Vengeance that thou shouldst make so light of the most condescending Addresses of thy offended God of the most compassionate Invitations of a dying Saviour How grievous should the remembrance of these things be how intolerable the Burden of them Fifthly Let us endeavour to afflict and humble our Souls by considering how shamefully we have contradicted our Profession and broken our most solemn Ingagements by the Sins we have committed Is it possible we can think without regret and shame how we have dishonoured the Holy Name by which we are called how contrary we have walked to the Precepts and Example of our Lord and Master and how frequently we have broken our Vows and Resolutions of Amendment Say to thy Soul then and try how it will work upon it Oh! what a shameful Sinner hast thou been How wide a Difference is there betwixt thy Profession and thy Practice How holy is thy Religion how loose and prophane thy Life How regardless hast thou been of the Vows of thy Baptism of the Promises thou hast made in thy Distress and of the most solemn Engagements thou hast entred into at the Table of the Lord O my Soul doth it not become thee bitterly to bewail such false and absurd dealing such bold dissembling with thy Almighty and Gracious Lord such presumptuouViolations of the Covenant of thy God Sixthly Let us endeavour to afflict our Souls with Shame and Sorrow by considering for what Trifles and Vanities we have committed and continued our Sins When Lysimachus had sold himself and his Army for a Cup of cold Water he thus lamented the foolish Bargain he had made O ye Gods said he for how short a Pleasure have I Plutarch made my self of a King a Slave So let the Sinner say within himself For what perishing Enjoyments for what poor and short Delights have I forfeited the Favour and Love of God and endangered the Life of my immortal Soul For what Vanities have I wearied my self in committing Iniquity What Fruit have I of all those things for which I am now ashamed and the End whereof is Death That I should spend my Strength for that which is not Bread and my Labour for that which profiteth not That I should so wilfully expose my self to everlasting Death and Misery for the Pleasures of Sin which are but for a Season That I should prefer the empty Profits of Iniquity before the inestimable and incorruptible Reward of Righteousness That I should so offend my Merciful Creator dishonour my Gracious Redeemer and grieve the Holy Spirit of God so often and so wilfully as I have done for things that perish in the using for the most vain and momentany Enjoyments If we did but seriously consider these things and press them hard upon our Minds surely we could not be altogether stupid and insensible under them we could not but feel some remorse for the Folly and ingratitude of our Sins and humble our selves in the sight of God for them I shall hope therefore that we are in some measure thus affected with these Considerations have been laid before us that we

and began to wash his Feet with Tears And of St. Peter that when he began his Repentance he went out and wept bitterly And of those Converts he made Act. 2. That they were pricked in their Heart at the mention of their great Sin in crucifying the Lord Jesus Repentance as it is often described in Scripture is a turning from Sin and a turning to the Lord a turning from Sin in the Judgment Will and Resolutions and in the Affections likewise the love of it is turned into Hatred and delight in it into Shame and Sorrow for it And this inward turning from Sin goes before and produceth the turning from it in the outward Conversation and Practice Therefore St. Paul tells us that Godly Sorrow worketh Repentance not to be repented of 2 Cor. 7. 10. We first grieve for Sin and then forsake it We feel the remembrance of it lie heavy upon our Minds and then and therefore set our selves to shake off the uneasy Burden Secondly The Necessity of this Sorrow and Humiliation will be farther manifest if we consider that without this there cannot be that Love of God which the first and great Commandment requires of us If we love God with all our Heart we cannot but look with great displeasure upon that which is most contrary to his Nature and Will which his Soul hates and his Honour suffers so much by Can we see him most highly provoked and injur'd whom our Soul dearly loves and not be afflicted at it He that can reflect upon his Rebellion and Disobedience that can remember how often and how many ways he hath grieved and offended God and not mourn and be ashamed at the thoughts of what he hath done How dwells the love of God in him How absurd are all his pretences to it Thirdly The Necessity of this Sorrow and Humiliation will be yet farther manifest if we consider that without this there can be no true Love of our Neighbour without which we cannot be Christ's Disciples Love will not suffer us to be unconcerned at the Calamities of those who are the Objects of it We cannot but grieve to see their Bodies in pain their Minds distracted their Goods rifled and their Enemies executing their bloody Designs against them and are we not ashamed to pretend in any sense to love our Neighbours as Christ hath loved us if we can see them under far greater Miseries than all these and yet be little affected with them If we can see them diseased in their Souls dead in Trespasses and Sins inslaved by the Devil pulling down the Wrath of God upon them and ready to fall with their Souls and Bodies into unquenchable Flames and not have our Bowels moved and our Hearts pained within us Fourthly Without this Sorrow and Humiliation there can be no true Faith without which it is impossible to please God or to be justified in his sight How can we believe that God is our Maker and Preserver and the giver of every good Gift and yet offend him daily without Remorse How can we believe that he hates all the Workers of Iniquity that he is angry with the Wicked every Day and will by no means acquit the Guilty and yet be easy under all the great and provoking Transgressions we have committed against Him How can we believe that the Son of God came down from Heaven and suffered all the Shame and Torment of the Cross for our Salvation and feel no wounds in our Spirits no shame in our Faces for all the ungrateful Returns we have made to his tender Love How can we believe that he gave himself for us to save us from our Sins whilst we cherish and embrace them with pleasure and will not be delivered from them How can we believe that Glory Honour and Immortality are the certain Reward of those that work Righteousness and yet remember with little concern how carelesly we have neglected so great Salvation How can we believe that Indignation and Wrath Tribulation and Anguish eternal Death and Misery will be the undoubted Portion of every Soul of Man that doth Evil and not look with Horror and Bitterness of Spirit upon our sinful Lives What brutish Folly and Ingratitude doth the unrelenting Sinner accuse himself of whenever he is so absurd as to call himself a Christian I proceed III. To shew the Seasonableness of this Duty of Sorrow and Humiliation God doth sometimes more loudly call to Weeping and Fasting and Mourning and the Sins and Circumstances of a Church and Nation increase their Obligations to them as with us at this Day Had ever any Age or People more or greater Sins to mourn for than we have Is not the whole Head sick and the whole Heart faint and the whole Body full of Wounds and Bruises and putrifying Sores Have not all sorts of Men corrupted their Ways Are they not altogether become abominable Are not Atheism and Infidelity Rioting and Drunkenness Chambering and Wantonness Strife and Envying Pride and Covetousness the prophanation of God's Sacred Name in horrid Oaths and Curses and the contempt of Divine Worship the most notorious things we can any where observe And can sorrow for Sin ever be more seasonable than now now that it is so general so impudent and so exceedingly multiplied in all its Kinds Is it not a most proper Season to mourn for our Sins when we have already smarted so much for them and the Rod is still upon us when they have brought us into so many Difficulties afflicted us with so many Losses shed so much English Blood and made so many Orphans and Widows and Childless amongst us Is it not high time to humble our selves under that mighty Hand of God we have felt so heavy upon us is still so visibly lifted up against us and from whence alone we can expect that Success and Peace and Settlement our Sins have hitherto withheld from us But that nothing may be wanting to perswade us to concern our selves effectually for the discharge of the Duty of the Text I shall shew IV. The great Benefit of our performing this Duty intimated to us in these Words and he shall lift you up First We might comfortably hope that if we were generally or but some good Numbers of us thus humbled God would lift us up above all our Difficulties and above all our Enemies that we should dwell on high and our place of Defence should be the Munition of Rocks secure from all those Storms and Tempests our Sins have raised against us The great End of God's sending his Judgments upon a People is to humble and afflict their Souls with the remembrance of those Sins whereby they have provoked him And therefore we may reasonably hope that he who doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the Children of Men will take off his Rod when the Design of his Correcting is in some good measure accomplished God had expresly threatned to destroy Niniveh within fourty Days Yet when they fasted and cried