Selected quad for the lemma: love_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A69542
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Two sheets for poor families ... by Richard Baxter.
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1665
(1665)
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Wing B1441; Wing B1403; ESTC R6530
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11,669
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17
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long on so terrible a precipice The tears and sorrows of many years may perhaps not repair the loss which one hour or act may bring The case of David and many another are dreadful warnings Know what it is that you are most in danger of whether lust or idleness or excess in meat or drinks or play and there set the strongest watch for your preservation Make it your daily business to mortifie that lust and scorn that your brutish sense or appetite should conquer reason Yet trust not purposes alone but away from the temptation Touch not yea look not on the tempting bait Keep far enough off if you desire to be safe What miseries come from small beginnings Temptation leads to sin and small sins to greater and those to Hell And sin and Hell are not to be played with Open your sin or temptation to some friend that shame may save you from the danger IX Keep up a constant skilfull Government Iames 1.19 Iam 3.13.17 1 Pet. 3.4 Mat 5.5 Ephes 4.2 3. Col. 3.12 Iames 1.26 3.5 6. over your Passions and your Tongues To this end keep a lender Conscience which will smart when in any of these you sin Let Holy Passions be well ordered and selfish carnal passions be restrained Let your Tongues know their duties to God and man and labour to be skilful and resolute in performing them Know all the sins of the Tongue that you may avoid them for your innocency and peace do much depend on the prudent Government of your Tongues Psalm 34.13 Prov. 18.21 X. Govern your Thoughts with constant skilful diligence In this Deut. 15.9 2 Cor. 10.5 Gen 6.5 Psalm 10.4 Psalm 94.19 Psal 119.113 Prov 12.5 15.26 right Habâ—ts and Affections will do most by eâ—clining them unto Good It s easie to Think on that which we Love Be not unfurnished of matter for your Thoughts to work upon And often retire your selves for serious meditation Be not so solitary and deep in musings as to over-stretch your thoughts and confound your minds or tâ—ke you off from necessary converse with others But be sure that you be Considâ—rate and dwell much at home and converse most with your consciences and your God! with whom you have the greatest business Leave not your thoughts unimployed or ungoverned scatter them not abroad upon impertinent vanities O that you knew what daily business you have for them Psal 119 59. Prov. 30.32 Ier 4.14 Deut. 32.19 Most men are wicked deceived and undone because they are inconsiderate and dare not or will not retiredly and soberly use their Reason or use it but as a slave in chains in the service of their passion lust and interests He was never wise or good or happy who was not soberly and impartially considerate How to be good to do good and finally enjoy good must be the summ of all your Thoughts Keep them first Holy then charitable clean and chaste And quickly check them when they look towards sin XI Let Time be exceeding pretious in your eyes and carefully and diligently Redeem it Ephes 5.16 Ioh 14 1 2. Acts 17.21 1 Cor. 7.29 2 Cor. 6.2 Iohn 9.4 Luk. 19.42.44 Psalm 39 4. Mat. 25.10.12 What haste doth it make and how quickly will it be gone and then how highly will it be valued when a minute of it can never be recalled O what important business have we for every moment of our Time if we should live a thousand years Take not that man to be well in his wits or to know his God his End his work or his danger who hath time to spare Redeem it not only from needless sports and playes and idleness and curiâ—â—â—â— and complement and excess of sleep and chatt and worldliness but also from the entanglement of â—â—ssâ—â— good which would hinder you from greater Spend Time as men that are ready to pass into another world where every minute must be accounted for and it must go with us for ever as we lived here Let not Health deceive you into the expectation of living long and so into a sensless negligence See your glass running and keep a reckoning of the expense of Time and spend it just as you would review it when it is gone XII Let the Love of all in their several capacities become as it were your very Nature 1 Tim. 1.5 6. Mat. 19.19 Rom. 13.10 1 Iohn 4.16 Ephes 4.2.15 16. Col. 2.2 1.4 1 Tim. 6.11 Iames 3.17 Phil. 2.1 2. 1 Thess 4.9 Iohn 13.35 Mat. 5.44 â—5 1 Cor. 13. Iames 4.11 Gal. 6 10. Titus 2.14 Phil. 2.20 21. Rom. 15.1.3 and doing them all the good you can be very much of the business of your lives God must be loved in all his creatures His natural Image on all men and his spiritual Image on his Saints Our Neighbour must be Loved as Our selves that is our natural neighbour as our natural self with a Love of Benevolence and our spiritual neighbour as our spiritual self with a Love of Complacence In opposition to complacence we may hate our sinful neighbour as we must our selves much more But in opposition to Benevolence we must neither hate our selves our neighbour or our enemy O that men knew how much of Christianity doth consist in Love and doing good With what eyes do they read the Gospel who see not this in every page Abhorr all that selfishness pride and passion which are the enemies of Love and those opinions and factions and censurings and backbitings which would destroy it Take him that speaketh evil of another to you without a just cause and call to be Satans messenger intreating you to hate your Brother or to abate your Love For to perswade you that a man is bad is directly to perswade you so far to hate him Not that the good and bad must be confounded but Love will call none Bad without constreining evidence Rebake backbiters Hurt no man and speak evil of no man unless it be not only just but necessary to some greater good Love is lovely They that Love shall be beloved Hating and hurting makes men Hateful Love thy neighbour as thy self and Do as thou wouldst be done by are the golden Rules of our duty to men which must be deeply written on your hearts For want of this there 〈◊〉 nothing so false so bad so cruel which you may not 〈◊〉 drawn to Think or Say or Do against your Breâ—â—â—â— SELFISHNES and WANT of LOVE do 〈◊〉 â—â—turally tend to Ambition and Covetousness and 〈◊〉 to cruelty against all that stand in the way of 〈◊〉 â—â—â—â—es as the nature of a Wolf to kill the Lambs 〈…〉 and contentions and persecutions in the 〈◊〉 â—â—oceed from selfishness and want of charity 〈…〉 malice is the Devilish nature Be as zeaâ—â—◠〈◊〉 â—â—â—ng good to all as Satans servants are in 〈◊〉 Take â—t as the use of all your talents and 〈◊〉 â—â—em as â—oâ— would hear of it at last Let it be yoâ—r business and not a
to the Father and of Faith in Christ to kindle and keep alive the Love of God The Love of God is our Primitive Holiness and specially called with its fruits Our Sanctification which Faith in Christ is but a Means to Let it be your principal end in studying Christ to see the Goodness Love and Amiableness of God in him A condemning God is not so easily loved as a Gracious Reconciled God You have so much of the Spirit as you have Love to God This is the proper guift of the Spirit to all the Adopted Sons of God to cause them with filial affection and dependance to cry Abba Father Know not desire not love not any creature but purely as subordinate to God! Without him let it be Nothing to you But as the Glass without the face or scattered Letters without the sense or as the corpse without the soul Call nothing Prosperity or pleasure but his Love Psalm 30.5 and nothing adversity or misery but his displeasure and the cause and fruits of it When any thing would seem Lovely and desireable which is against him call it Dung Psalm 63.3 Phil. 3.7 8. Matth. 16.23 2 Thess 3.5 2 Cor. 13.14 And hear that man as Satan or the Serpent that would entise you from Him count him but Vanity a Worm and dust that would affright you from your duty to Him Fear him much but Love him more Let Love be the soul and End of every other duty It is the end and Reason of all the rest but it hath no End or Reason but its Object Think of no other Heaven and End and Happiness of man but LOVE the final act and GOD the final object Place not your Religion in any thing but the Love of God with its means and fruits Own no grief desire or joy but a Mourning a Seeking and a Rejoicing Love V. Live in the Belief and Hopes of Heaven and seek it as your part and end and daily Delight your souls in the forethoughts Col. 3.1 2 4. Mat. 6.19 20 1.33 2 Cor. 4.17 18. 5.7 Luke 12.20 Heb. 6.20 1 Cor. 15.28 Ephes 4.6 1.23 Phil. 3.18.20 Ps 73.25 26. Iohn 18.36 of the endless sight and Love of God As God is seen on earth but as in a glass so is he proportionably enjoyed But when mourning seeking Love hath done and sin and enemies are overcome and we behold the Glory of God in Heaven the Delights of Love will then be perfect You may desire more on Earth than you may Hope for Look not for a Kingdom of this world nor for Mount Zion in the wilderness Christ Reigneth on Earth as Moses in the Camp to guide us to the Land of Promise Our perfect blessedness will be where the Kingdome is delivered up to the Father and God is All in All. A doubt or a strange heartless thought of Heaven is Water cast on the Sacred fire to quench your Holiness and your Joy Can you travel one whole day to sâ—ch an End and never think of the place that you are going to which must be intended in every righteous act either notedly or by the ready unobserved act of a potent habit When Earth is at the best it will not be Heaven You live no further by Faith like Christians then you either live for Heaven in seeking it or else upon Heaven in Hope and Ioy. VI. Labour to make Religion your pleasure and delight Look oft to God to Heaven to Christ to the Spirit to the Promises to all your mercies call over your experiences Psalm 1.2 3. 84.2.10 63.3.5 37.4 94.19 119.47.70 Isa 58.14 Psalm 112.1 Romans 14.17 5.1 3 5. 1 Pet. 1.8 Mat. 5.11 12. Psalm 32.11 and think what matter of high Delight is still before you And how unseemly it is and how injurious to your profession for one that saith he Hopeth for Heaven to live as sadly as those that have no higher Hopes than Earth How should that man be filled with joy who must live in the joys of Heaven for ever Especially rejoyce when the messengers of Death do tell you that your Endless Joy is neer If God and Heaven with all our mercies in the way be not Reason enough for a joyful life there can be none at all Abhor all suggestions which would make Religion seem a tedious inksome life And take heed that you represent it not so to others For you will never make them in Love with that which you make them not perceive to be delectable and lovely Not as the Hypocrite by forcing and framing his Religion to his Carnal mind and pleasure but bringing up the heart to a holy suitableness to the pleasures of Religion VII Watch as for your souls against this flattering tempting world Gal. 6.14 1 Ioh 2.15 16. Iames 1.27 4.4 5. 1 Iohn 5.4 5. Rom. 12.2 Gal. 1.4 Titus 2.12 Mat. 19.24 Luk. 12.16.21 16.25 Iames 1.11 5.1.2.4 Luke 8.14 Hâ—b 11.26 especially when it is represented as more sweet and delectable than God and Holiness and Heaven This world with its Pleasure Wealth and Honours is it that is put in the ballance by Satan against God and Holiness and Heaven And no man shall have better than he chooseth and preferreth The bait taketh advantage of the brutish part when Reason is asleep and if by the help of sense it get the Throne the Beast wâ—ll ride and rule the Man and Reason become a slave to Sensuality When you hear the Serpent see his sting and see Death attending the forbâ—dden fruit When you are Rising look down and see how far you have to fall His Reason as well as faith is weak who for such fool-gawds as the pomp and vanities of this world can forget God and his soul and death and judgement Heaven and Hell yea and deliberately command them to stand by What Kâ—owlâ—dgâ— or Experience can do good on that man who will venture so much for such a world which all that have â—â—yed it call Vanity at the last How deplorate then is a worldlings case O fear the world when it smileth or seems sweet and amiable Love it not if you Love your God and your salvation VIII Fly from temptations and crucifie the flesh Rom. 8.1.13 Gal. 5.24 Rom. 13.14 Gal. 5.17 Iude 8.23 2 Pet. 2.10 Eph. 2.3 1 Pet. 2.11 Mat. 6.13 26.41 Luke 8.13 and keep a constant Government over your appetite and senses Many who had no designed stated vice of worldly interest have shamfully fallen by the sudden surprize of appetite or lust When custome hath taught these to be greedy and violent like a hungry Dog or a lusting Bore it is not a flâ—ggish wish or purpose that will mortifie or rule them How dangerous a case is that man in who hath so greedy a Beast continually to restrain that if he do but neglect his watch one hour is ready to run him headlong into hell Who can be safe that standeth