Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	john_n	love_v	world_n	13,642	5	5.6658	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62593	A sermon preached before the Queen, at White-Hall, upon Friday the 26th of Febr. 1691/2 by W. Talbot ...	Talbot, William, 1658 or 9-1730.	1692 (1692)	Wing T123; ESTC R7001	16,845	34

in the issue fare so well as then the afflicted righteous Besides who else can be the executioners of these Judgments but the wicked Can good men oppress steal persecute kill or would they continue good if they should None other are capable of being these instruments but bad men who can be contented to thrive and gain by any methods how base or wicked soever and who take great delight in any instances whereby they may express the enmity that has so long been between the seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman and of wreaking that spleen and malice which they the children of the Devil will ever bear to those that are born of God In short if there be any injustice or unkindness in God's making use of such instruments for the execution of his Judgments it must be either with respect to the persons that suffer or to the instruments themselves It cannot be with respect to those that suffer who having corruptions enough to need afflictions for Discipline and sins enough to provoke God's Judgments he is neither unjust nor unkind in making use of the most capable and apt whether brute or rational Instruments for the laying those afflictions upon them which they stand so much in need of or so justly deserve Nor with relation to those wicked instruments for taking God's permission of their villanies and suffering them to prosper and thrive by them in the severest sence yet if God has tryed and they have been proof against his former methods for their reformation what injustice is there in his giving over to try them any further Is God obliged to use violence to make men good and to force them to be happy against their wills 'T is enough that he has placed Heaven and Hell before them given them their option of Life and Death that he has waited long to see which they will choose that he has used various methods to incline them to make a wise choice and to reclaim them from those wicked courses which they are engaged in and which lead to eternal death if all this will not do and they will neither be led to repentance by his goodness nor driven by his judgements who can call God unjust or unmerciful in suffering them at last to take their course and to run into that destruction which they would not be persuaded to avoid And thus I hope I have sufficiently proved that it may be very consistent with God's Justice and Goodness to suffer good men to be afflicted bad men to be prosperous in this world and likewise bad men to be the instruments by which good men are afflicted And if God may be very just and good in permitting these things then may he notwithstanding that his permission be very knowing and powerful too for his not hindring a thing which he is just and good in permitting can be no argument of his want either of knowledge of that thing or of power to prevent it Having now vindicated the Divine Providence from those Objections which the Atheist raises against it and seen the unreasonableness of those Conclusions which he draws from bad mens succeeding in their oppressions and thriving with the spoils of those that are better than themselves I proceed in the last place to shew what more reasonable as well as useful Inferences we ought to make from hence and what practical Instructions this consideration will afford us for the government of our lives And it will be of very great use to us in these following particulars which I hinted in the beginning 1. Since God suffers bad men to prosper and good men to be afflicted in this world this gives us an irrefragable assurance of a future Judgment and State because otherwise there will not be an opportunity to manifest that universal and impartial Justice which is essential to the Notion of a God and which he constantly asserts he will govern himself by in his distributions of Rewards and Punishments to the Sons of men whom he assures he will recompence according to their works For however God may very righteously for the manifestation of his goodness and to convince men that not the least good in any shall fail of its reward recompence that little goodness or serviceableness that is in bad men with some outward prosperity here since there is a Hell prepared for them wherein they shall suffer the just punishment of the general impiety of their lives and for the manifestation of his Justice and hatred to sin punish the faults and failings of the best men with temporal afflictions since a glorious reward of all their piety and goodness is reserved for them in the other world yet if there were no such rewards or punishments to be distributed hereafter these dispensations here would hardly seem just As sure therefore as there is a God that judgeth in the earth and this Judge of all the world will do right so sure from the miseries of the good and happiness of the wicked here we may conclude that there will be a day wherein the Scene shall be changed a Judgment that shall set all these things right and straight shall assign to the wicked for their portion an eternity of tribulation and anguish and pain but to the afflicted righteous glory and honour and eternal life 2. Since God permits very good men to be afflicted and very bad men to flourish here this should teach us that Lesson of St. John not to love this world nor the things of the world for it must necessarily abate our love and value for the world to consider that it is a place where the greatest innocency and vertue cannot secure a man from sufferings but possibly expose him the more to them where a good man cannot be safe but lies open to the oppressions of tyranny and villany where bad men prosper and devour those that are more righteous than they undoubtedly to a good man this cannot seem a desirable place And then for the things of the world by which I mean the enjoyments of it the Power the Honours the Riches the Pleasures from hence we may make a due estimate of them too for certainly we must allow that God does best understand the value of things but it is very plain from hence that in his esteem these things are not very valueable for if they were he would never suffer his favourites whom he loves to be without them and his enemies whom he hates to ejoy them which since he does it is clear that in his judgment they are of no great worth and therefore should be of no great account with us because we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth 3. Since God suffers good men to be afflicted and wicked men to enjoy prosperity in this world this should excite and inflame our desires and longings after the other world not only because in general that will be a place where the Scene shall be shifted where