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love_n life_n love_v soul_n 10,287 5 5.1411 4 true
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A54460 A sermon preach'd before the King and Queen in Their Majesties chappel at Windsor, on Trinity-Sunday, May 30. 1686 by the Reverend Father John Persall ... Persall, John, 1633-1702. 1686 (1686) Wing P1651; ESTC R11064 11,103 35

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even in this Night of Mortality some Souls by the help of Divine Grace and Light of Faith arrive to so high a pitch of Divine Love that nothing here below neither Pleasure nor Torment can move them So S. Vincent in a Bed of Roses contemns the Allurements of Pleasures and S. Lawrence in a Bed of Flames upon a Gridiron the Cruelty of Tyranny How many have fled to the remotest Desarts How many have shut themselves up in Monasteries betwixt four Walls of a little Cell not to be diverted from the delicious Contemplation of their Great God Now all this Amability is common to all Three Persons with this difference that in the Father it is originally as in a Fountain receiv'd from no other Person in the Son it is receiv'd by communication from the Father in the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son Which very Communication is infinitely amiable had we Eyes to behold it The chief Property of the Father is to speak which he does not to the Ear but to the Heart and Eye of the Soul delivering his Great Word with so Divine a Grace that the most delicious Voice that ever was heard the most agreeable Garbo that ever a pure Creature spoke with is but a meer Stuttering and Stammering if compar'd to it But the chief Perfection of Speaking is taken from the Word spoken if that be clear expressive sincere and eloquent both it and he who speaks it become in a high degree amiable The Eternal Word represents its Object to your view infinitely clearer than that could represent it self tho' never so intimately present so expressive it is that being but One only Word it expresses all Truths all Creatures whether actual or but barely possible All the delicious Objects of our Senses whatever can be seen or heard all the Truths our Understanding is able to conceive all the Delights our Will can desire 't is most sincere and true expressing all just as 't is represented in the Divine Knowledge and as it is in it self 't is eloquent above expression exhibiting to our view all the Tropes and Figures all the Art and Skill of Speaking that is possible Now from the Eternal Father thus speaking and from the Eternal Word thus expressing must needs proceed an Infinitely Amiable Love What can be more amiable than Love it self Love I say a Divine and infinitely perfect Love of an infinitely beautiful God Quam bonus suavis est Domine Spiritus tuus How good how sweet is thy Divine Spirit How good diffusing it self by Grace and Charity in Pious Souls How sweet giving them even in this life anticipately a taste of those joys which will beatifie them for all Eternity in the next The perfection of Love is taken from the Lover the Beloved and the natural intenseness of the Love the nobler the Lover is also the more deserving the Beloved is the perfecter is the Love The Lover here are the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity the Beloved are the same three Persons meeting and embracing each other in the perfect Unity of one God The Father loves the Son the Son loves the Father the Father and the Son love the Holy Ghost the Holy Ghost reciprocally loves the Father and the Son and moreover is the very Love whereby they Love each other all Infinite in all Perfections Dearly beloved Christians no Tongue or Pen can ever express the amability of the three Divine Persons it may perhaps by a Pious Soul in Prayer be felt and as it were tasted expressed in words it cannot be Do you desire to experience even in this life a feeling and taste of it Remember what the great Moses was bid to do when he approach'd the burning Bush Gen. c. 3. v. 3. Draw not nigh hither put off thy Shoes we must not approach to contemplate this great Mystery till we have cast off all the Dirt and Dust of terrene desires our Conversation must be no more on Earth but in Heaven Almighty God never regales sensual Souls with Spiritual Delights but such as neither find nor so much as seek after the vain Pastimes of this World This makes your Great Saints proclaim War against Flesh and Blood always annoying vexing and mortifying their Bodies because they experience that the more they withdraw themselves from Earth the more Almighty God permits them to tast of Heaven 't is a real truth though few will believe it that none lead a pleasanter life in this World than those who give themselves wholly to Almighty God for his Divine Majesty will never be overcome in Love The three Persons of the Blessed Trinity will love such a Soul come to it and regale it according to our Saviours Promise St. John c. 14. v. 23. If any Man love me he will keep my Words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him The Eternal Father will perfect that Image he created to his likeness the Son will illuminate it with the Rays of new Supernatural Lights the Holy Ghost will sweetly inflame it with Divine Love But remember the Condition we must keep his Commandments and in order to this let us look upon the Sacred Trinity as a Pattern to square our Actions by which is my third Point You will perhaps wonder how so profound and incomprehensible a Mystery can ever serve us as a Pattern for our poor and weak Actions Is it possible for a miserable Creature to imitate these ineffable Operations of the Divine Persons But remember that our Soul tho' now by Original Sin plung'd in Flesh and Blood is created to the perfect Image of her God God made Man to his own Image Gen. 1. v. 27. What wonder then if we endeavour to reform the Picture by comparing it with the Prototypon Besides do's not our Saviour himself assign the Perfection of his Eternal Father for a Pattern to frame ours by Be you perfect says he as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect Matth. c. 5. v. 48. Come then let us once more cast an eye towards this great Mystery and see whether we cannot find something for our Imitation We learn'd to Believe in the First Part to Love in the Second let us learn to rectifie our exteriour Actions in the Third The first thing which occurs for our Imitation is the Unity of all Three Persons in One Substance We cannot Identifie our Natures really distinct but we may unite them by Charity and Love Hence Christ just before his Passion prays to his Eternal Father in S. John c. 17. v. 20 21. not only for his Apostles but for all that were to believe by their Word That they might be One as His Father in him and he in his Father are One We must remember we are all Members of the same Body under the same Head Christ and consequently each one is to be in one another so as to make his Interest our own we ought to condole as
Reason yet it confirms true Reason for Almighty God only exacts of us to believe when we have reason to believe then we must make Reason stoop to Faith when we have reason so to do We are to understand then that there is in us a twofold Reason one direct coming from the Objects we discourse on the other reflex reflecting upon Reason and considering how far it can go this often forces us to submit our direct Reason even to Humane Authority So an ignorant Peasant looking upon the Stars in a clear Night according to direct Reason rising from his Senses judges them not an Inch Diameter and that ten or twenty of them joyn'd together would scarce equal a Full-Moon but he hears all Mathematicians and Learned Men agree that each Star far exceeds the Moon nay and the whole Globe of the Earth he submits his direct Reason to this Authority and by reflex Reason discourses thus I who am an ignorant Man may well be deceived therefore these learned Men all agreeing I must in prudence yield So he submits his direct Reason even to Humane Authority and is taught so to do by reflex Reason and the very Light of Nature This is more evident in the Mysteries of our Faith Direct Reason tells us a Trinity in a perfect Unity is impossible but reflex Reason corrects this Errour discoursing thus My Vnderstanding is but Finite and Limited Almighty God is Infinite and would not be God if he were not in himself more than my weak and feeble Capacity can conceive If then I have a moral certainty that my Great God has reveal'd himself to be Three and One if his Holy Church which put into my Hands the Scripture it self assuring me that it is the Word of God interprets these Words These three are one St. John 's first Epist c. 5. v. 7. and these other I and my Father are one St. John's Gospel c. 10. v. 30. If I say this Church interprets these Words in a real strict sense which otherwise might bear a more easie Interpretation in a metaphorical or figurate sense I must and will believe it tho' it cost me the last drop of my Blood what seeming Impossibilities soever Sense and direct Reason objects against it and this I am taught by reflex Reason and the Light of Nature it self this is a Duty I owe to my Great God to acknowledge that I ought to believe more than I can understand From this Discourse I hope it appears clear enough how rational the Mysteries of our Faith are and how irrational it is to discredit them upon this account that we cannot understand them This is a Principle which ought to be the Ground of our Belief viz. That God can reveal more than we can understand and that many things to our Weakness seem impossible which to our Great God are very feasible this the Light of Nature teaches us and it must carry us through all the profound hard Mysteries of our Faith To deny a thing upon this account that it contradicts Sense and direct Reason is irrational injurious to Almighty God and destructive to Christianity It is irrational for Reason teaches us that our Senses and direct Reason are often mistaken How often do's the Mathematician and Natural Philosopher at first think that a Demonstration which afterwards he finds either by his own Study or anothers Discovery to be a Paralogism 'T is injurious to God because it limits his Omnipotency to our Weakness 't is destructive to Christianity because it destroys the two chief Mysteries of Christianity the Trinity and Incarnation both which seemingly contradict direct Reason I do not believe Christ to be a Natural Door tho' I hear him say I am a Door John c. 10. v. 9. nor a Natural Vine tho' I hear him say I am the True Vine John c. 15. v. 1. but God forbid I should deny either upon this account that I cannot understand how it can possibly be done but I deny it because the Church teaches me that I must understand these words in a Metaphorical Sense There have been Heresies from the Apostles times downwards to to our Age and many have died obstinate in their Heresie but I verily believe that both their Heresie and Obstinacy proceeded from a want of this Principle That God can reveal more than we can understand Let us then pay this duty to our great God an humble acknowledgment of our Weakness and his Power that he can reveal more infinitely more than we are able to conceive And so much for my first Part of the Trinity as it is the Object of our Faith Let us now lanch forth into a Sea of Love and consider this great Mystery as the thrice happy Object of our Affections The Almighty Architect created Man according to his perfect Image with intent to make him happy for an Eternity in the perfect Enjoyment of his God and therefore has imprinted in his Soul so violent an Appetite and Desire of that blessed Fruition that let a thousand Worlds joyn their Stocks together let Men and Angels and all that is created conspire to regale him his capacious Heart will never be perfectly satiated never at rest and quiet but in the Divine Embraces of an Omnipotent Immense Eternal Trinity the Fountain of all Beauty and Amability O you young Gallants of the World who spend your Time Fortunes Life and all in the pursuit of a fading Beauty a Rose surrounded with so many pricking Thorns of Cares and Solicitude a Flower so soon withered with Time so often blasted with Sickness so easily cropped by Death stop this your unadvis'd Career and know that you are far out of your Way if you pretend to look for Happiness in the Enjoyment of Mortal Beauty 'T is true your Souls were created to love and enjoy a Beauty but a True and Infinite one for an Eternity not a false Representation thereof for a Moment 't is the blindness of your Understandings and pravity of your Wills the sad Effects of Original Sin that make you thus mistake the Object of your Happiness and apply your natural or innate Appetite to Creatures which in reality seeks only the Creator One in Substance and Three in Persons Let us then raise our Thoughts as high as Faith can carry them to the Contemplation of this all-beatifying Object which will be our eternal Bliss if we make not our selves so miserable as eternally to perish First then Each Person is Omnipotent Eternal Immense All-knowing Infinite in Wisdom Goodness and all Perfections from the Complex of which arises so great an Amability and Beauty that no Rational Creature can behold it and not presently fall in love with it so far that whilst the happy Soul enjoys this Vision no created Beauty tho' never so exact and charming can make any Impression in her but only as she sees it clearly represented in the Divine Idea's and supereminently contain'd in the Object she above all admires and loves Nay