Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	love_v	see_v	world_n	9,425	5	5.0660	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48731	A sermon at a solemn meeting of the natives of the city and county of Worcester, in the church of St. Mary le Bow, June 24, 1680 by Adam Littleton ...	Littleton, Adam, 1627-1694.	1680 (1680)	Wing L2567; ESTC R21369	14,936	41

term'd a Good-natured man a thing which is so far from being a disadvantage or disparagement that it is a great ornament to Religion but then he must to brotherly kindness add charity And now we are come to the very topstone of this spiritual edifice to the very pitch of perfection Charity being the fulfilling of the Law both Moral and Christian. Here you find that to Faith is to be added Vertue to Vertue Knowledge and so on which rationally infers that not any one or more of these will serve turn without the other So then it is not enough to be a Believer to be Virtuous to be Knowing to be Temperate to be Patient to be Godly to be Brotherly kind to be Charitable I say it is not sufficient for a man to be any one of these but he must be all these if he will be a good Christian and mean to deserve the name of one truly Religious Thus much of the first general head the second is that which more nearly and immediately concerns us which is gathered out of the Text it self that 2. Inasmuch as the Apostle here requires Brotherly Kindness and Charity to be superadded to Godliness that Godliness is not a morose humorous ill-natured much less a cruel mischievous and bloudy principle but must to make it a true genuine godliness be attended with acts of Kindness and works of Charity So S. Peter himself in his 1 Ep. ch 2. v. 17. Love the Brotherhood Fear God and then Honour the King as Gods Vicegerent and Lord of the Community As if there could be no right fear of God without love of the brotherhood and neither one nor other without a due honour to the King the Head of the brotherhood In like manner S. Paul resolves all Religion into Faith and Love faith toward the Lord Jesus and love toward the Saints which make up his mystical body whereof we are all fellow-members for in this sense we profess to believe the communion of Saints And so the beloved Disciple tells us that this is Gods commandment that we should believe in the Lord Iesus and love one another Thus Christ himself hath stated the business of his Religion If ye continue in my Word that is keep my commandments then are ye my disciples indeed And how 's that in another place he says it over in these words By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another It seems then that our loving one another is the same thing as continuing in his Word as keeping his Commandments and hereupon it is said that love is the fulfilling of the law This was that new commandment Christ brought into the world that we should love one another This the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and tryal of our love to God of our godliness it self that we love the brethren as he tells us For saies he he who loves not his brother whom he hath seen how can he pretend to love God whom he hath not seen Nor is this so a new commandment as himself acknowledges but that it was an old one too For our Saviour's Ancestor David in his short Catechism Psal. 15. has given much-what the same account of Religion Lord saies he who shall abide in thy tabernacle who shall dwell in thy holy hill i. e. who has a right to the priviledges of the Church militant who has assurance of an everlasting possession in the Church triumphant He answers this question in the four following verses He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart He that backbiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour and so on Which are all or most part of them expresses of brotherly kindness and charity and then in the close he tells us that He which doth these things shall never fall So then we are to love God with all our heart and strength that 's Godliness and our neighbour as our selves that 's Brotherly kindness and Charity as Christ himself hath summ'd up the duties of the Law And many other such passages there are in Scripture to evince this truth had I time to insist on them If this be so what shall we say to those who take up Godliness on other terms as if their strictness and zeal to God's service to his worship right or wrong excused them from all offices of love to their fellow-men their fellow-christians nay obliged them to be Vnkind to be Vncharitable and to persecute even to death those who not out of any evil meaning to them will not but out of conscience to God dare not comply with sinful conditions of communion with them This was foretold by our blessed Lord should be the lot of his followers that some such zealots there would be who would turn them out of the Synagogue excommunicate them for Hereticks and then kill them and yet by their so doing would think they did God good service Blessed Iesu where have these men who take thy holy Name in vain these Fellows of thine for so they stile themselves learnt of thee such principles such practices as these that it is lawful so cruelly and treacherously to deal with men who live quietly by them with S. Paul's Sword to destroy them from off the face of the earth and with S. Peter's Keys to lock the gates of Heaven against them to murder them in this world and to damn them in the next This Evangelium armatum this Sanguinary doctrine was no Gospel of thy making no doctrine of thy teaching Thy doctrine was sealed with no bloud but that of thy own who wast the teacher of it and that of thy Apostles and Martyrs who were the propagators of it and though thou saidst thou camest not to send peace but a sword yet that sword was not design'd to fight with but to suffer by it was a sword of a passive not of an active persecution as to thy Disciples by which they were to fall victims themselves and not to sacrifice the lives of others How contrary to thine and their meek innocent methods of converting souls are the traiterous contrivances and hellish conspiracies of those who for the advantage of Holy Church plot the murder of Kings the slaughter of Subjects and the ruine of States and rare Masters of Christianity as they are think it glorious to Proselyte whole Nations by baptizing them in their bloud May God ever preserve his gracious Majesty and Us the sinful people of this Land from such villanous Attempts of his and our Enemies I know the like Bigotries and Outrages are charged upon our Sectaries even at this time and that with great vehemence I am heartily sorry that any who delight to wear the name of Protestants as I think most of those people do should give a just occasion for such a charge But if it be so if

they had been of us they would not have departed from us However we must have a love and kindness for them too and this Kindness to our brethren is to be exprest in thought word and action That we think the best of them put the best interpretation upon their actions that we wish them well rejoyce in their well-doing and condole their ills and this is that which by the Schools is called amor benevolentiae the love of good will That we speak the best of them according to the judgment of charity and that we judg not for fear of being judged That we do them all manner of good for this is the royal law to do as we would be done by And thus our blessed Lord who as he was our elder brother the first-born of the creation so was the author of our Religion he went about doing good and seeking opportunities of doing it Where this brotherly kindness is there will be no grudg and hatred no envy or malice at the heart no calumny and detraction no slander and reproach in the tongue no quarrel and strife no mischief or injury in action But then this kindness must not proceed so far as to degenerate into a sinful compliance with our brothers sins This would make us brethren in iniquity This the Apostle taxes Rom. 1. the last verse speaking of those who have pleasure in them that do evil things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that consent with them as the Psalmist says Thou sawest a thief and consentedst with him To be drunk with the drunken to fit with patience and hear my brother blaspheme God and damn his own soul to see him run down a precipice blunder into a pit and take the ready way for hell and not lay hold of him and pull him back this is such brotherly kindness as the Devil himself has for any man in the world What saies the rule in Leviticus Thou shalt love thy brother and not suffer sin upon him That 's the truest of loves Hence Correptio fraterna brotherly reproof in such cases is reckon'd to be one of the chief acts of Charity O my dear Brethren let it not be said of us that we meet for excess and riot for noise and quarrel but rather let it be seen by our carriage that we come together upon a religious a brotherly and a charitable account And that 's the thing we are all to conclude with where let me beg your patience as well as charity that you will not think me tedious whilst I inlarge my self upon this blessed subject of charity 3. CHARITY where art thou in what airy Mansion art thou lodg'd what invisible Palace dost thou inhabit Where may we find thee that we may make our dutiful addresses to thee S. Paul indeed has given a fair description of thee in 1 Cor. 13. but by those characters there laid down 't is very difficult finding thee out in any earthly abode and sure he himself was wrapt up into the third heaven when he took the copy of thy celestial countenance and drew those amiable lines and features of thy Seraphick beauty Thou wast she who from eternity wast that cement by which the three Persons of the glorious Trinity were united in the Unity of the Godhead and were satisfied in their mutual injoyments when as yet there was nothing without them nothing besides them Thou she who afterward by thy charms of love didst joyn the Upper and the Lower world who broughtest down the Son of God and madest him descend upon earth and who wilt bring us up to heaven after him whither he is ascended Thou art the very foundation and perfection of Christian Religion who with an infinite activity fulfillest all God's commandments and with as infinite a goodness coverest all our sins Thou createst and keepest up a good understanding betwixt a Prince and his People and betwixt the people among themselves making men of one wind in a house in a city in a Kingdom Thou art the very band and ligament of Peace who preservest and securest all the Interests of mankind their lives and liberties their plenty and prosperity in their several societies and stations He that abideth in thee abideth in God and God in him for thou and God are all one Thou with an omnipotence equal to Gods bearest all things indurest all things believest and hopest all things And at last after thou hast wrought thy mighty and glorious acts of kindness here below thou shalt ascend in triumph through the spangled vault and shalt enter into heaven with a train of thy good works following thee leaving thy two sister-graces behind thee at heaven-gate for in that blessed state of Vision and Fruition there will be no need of either Faith or Hope where thou alone O Charity together with the Three-One God shalt be all in all But hold what mean I in this transport to lose thee by inquiring after thee What did I say lose thee I have found thee I see thee Thou art blessed be God come into the Congregation and with thy gracious presence hast fill'd the Church I see thy holy flame sitting on each pious breast and inlivening and inlarging every devout heart with its heavenly warmth Let me now therefore look out for objects upon which thou mayst bestow thy blessed self Charity is of that diffusive nature that it extends it self to all mankind as being the emanation of divine goodness which is as infinite as God himself is and more especially reacheth its kindly effects over the whole Catholick Church to all of the houshold of faith it being that which unites and ties together all the members of that mystical body But I am not now to speak of it in that larger sense but in an importance appropriate to the Poor of our Brethren whom God hath appointed his Receivers as he hath made the Rich his Trustees That to wit that the Poor are his Receivers appears by the account Christ who himself is to be the Judge gives us of the last judgment Matth. 25. that what we do to any of our poor Brethren he takes it as done to himself and upon this score it is said He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord. This to wit that the Rich are but his Trustees is made good by the parable of the Talents which the only way of improving is to lay them out and by that charge the Apostle gives Charge them that are rich in this world that they do good that they be rich in good works ready to distribute willing to communicate c. Why charge them to do so if it be not their duty so to do This kind of charity is exprest in feeding the hungry in cloathing the naked in visiting the sick in relieving the widow and fatherless and generally in supplying the wants of all those especially in the circle of our own society and brotherhood who any way want our