Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	gain_v	lose_v	profit_v	2,452	5	9.3078	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55773	Moderation not sedition held forth in a sermon partly preached at St. Matthews Friday-Street the 5 of July 1663 ... / by John Price ...	Price, John, 1625?-1691.	1663 (1663)	Wing P3334; ESTC R12943	17,443	28

2. Moderation in our desires Desires are either Spiritual or Worldly as to Spiritual desires we seldome are immoderate but it is our great excellency to moderate our desires as to the World There is a triplicity of worldly desires according to the triplicity of the Object about which they are conversant they are conversant either about profit pleasure or honour in all which our desires should be moderate as to profit we are not to desire profit so much as to disprofit our Souls For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole World and lose his own Soul As to pleasures it should be our Spiritual prudence to see that they do not enervate and emasculate the Spirit that we be not so far Immersed in the muddy feculent pleasures of this World as to lose the rivers of pleasures which are at Gods right hand for evermore Carnal pleasures do not become a good Philosopher much lesse a good Christian. As to honour our desires should be modest and sober we should not eagerly pursue it but let it find us out and stay till Gods providence and and our own merit prefer us remembring that Honour is but a brittle airy trifle that it is not in the honoured but depends upon the honourers Mouth who as he gave it so may take it away when he pleaseth we should esteem it our only honour to be honourable in Gods Account And if we look on the whole World there is no object that is extremely desireable the face of it is not so beautiful that we should dote on it it is but a Ionah Gourd and though it seem for a time to yeild a comfortable shade yet it soon withers there is a Worm in it Desinet in piscem mulier formosa superne God and God alone is the most amiable and desirable object therefore it is but reason that we should desire him above all things and say with holy David Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee and with St. Paul I desire to be dissolved and be with Christ. 3. Moderation in our passions Passions are admirable things the Flower of the Soul the cream as it were of the Spirit if they be placed on right objects if they do not prove inordinate peccant straying A wise man is not without as the Stoicks foolishly imagin'd but above his passions he subjects his passions to his reason his reason to his religion and all to God He gives Laws to his passions and saith to them as the Centurion said to his Servants Goe and they goe Come and they come O how lovely a thing is a prudent Decorum a correspondent Moderation in our passions when they are carried towards their Objects according to the Dictates of reason and religion Passions according to the Philosophers are either concupiscible or irrascible Concupiscible such as love desire joy hope Irrascible such as anger sorrow hatred and the rest the first are carried toward their object respectively as we consider it as either present future or possible they do as it were twine about and embrace their object The second do as it were run away from it as distastful harsh grating and unacceptable Now in both these kinds of passions there is a great deal of Moderation to be exercised we may love the Creature but must not adore it we may not love the Creature more then the Creator we may desire but not all things equally not earth as much as heaven our desires should be intended and remitted according to the dignity excellency and usefulnesse of the Object desired We should desire those things most that are most desireable We may rejoyce but we may not be transported with any thing or be in an e●tacy like him that being long out of his Princes favour and having by some admirable exploit regained it at the hearing of the news died for joy Our joy must be well timed sober spiritual correspondent to the Object we rejoyce in We may hope but not for impossibilities Our hopes must be rational and religious And as we are to use Moderation in the first sort of passions so also in the other we may be angry but it must be without sin Be angry but sin not we may mourn but not as men without hope moderate sorrow like moderate rain is seasonable but violent inundations of sorrow drown the Soul and untune it for action we may weep but not bitterly unless it be when we sin hainously we may fear but it must not be without cause there were they in fear where no fear was a good Christian can properly fear nothing but God and sin we may hate but it must not be the man but his sin we may have honourable resentments of an injury that we may beware of the injurer and suck hony out of his poyson but we must not remember it to revenge it this were as it were to unking the Almighty and to intrench upon the prerogative Royal who said Vengeance is mine and I will repay it Besides it is more noble and Christian-like to forgive then revenge an injury when an uncultivated low spirited man does me an injury if I revenge it I make my self but his equall I do only as he did but if I forgive him I am his Superiour Passion is as it were the fire of the Soul this fire is good when it only heats but not burns it Igno quid utilius c. I may well compare a passion to fire for it is a good Servant but a bad Master A Passion is as it were the edge of the Spirit now this edge must not be either too blunt or too keen if too blunt it doth not at all affect it it hath no influence on it if too keen it doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divide the Soul assunder 4. Moderation in afflictions many are immoderately grieved at them they are always poreing on them they dwell too much on them they do as it were keep house with their infelicities they write Gods judgements in Marble and his mercies in the dust they are so sensible of the one that they are insensible of the other But beloved sense of misery should not take away sense of mercy a wise man and a Christian should compose himself thus he strikes me that made me he that moderates the World am I a fool or a rebell A fool if I know not whence my Affliction proceeds a Rebell if I know it and yet am discontented We should look upon God as our Father now a Father protects provides for cares for loves and sometimes corrects his Children and as St. Ierome speaks Happy is the man that is beaten when the stroke is a stroke of love Such are Gods strokes to his Children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Corrections are but as so many fatherly instructions Though God sometimes seems to frown upon them yet in that very frown you may discern a smile and though his