Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	light_n	light_v	shine_v	1,811	5	9.0754	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64366	A sermon against self-love, &c. preached before the Honourable House of Commons on the 5th of June, 1689 : being the fast-day appointed to implore the blessing of almighty God upon Their Majesties forces by sea and land, and success in the war now declared against the French-king / by Thomas Tenison ...	Tenison, Thomas, 1636-1715.	1689 (1689)	Wing T708; ESTC R22400	12,185	36

not subsist apart with such Conveniences as they might obtain by being knit into Regular Societies He therefore united them in Civil and Sacred Bodies That by conjoyned Strength they might procure those Benefits which in a separate State and by their single selves they could not come at For consider I beseech you how void of Comfort a Life of intire solitude would have been to Man with what a Life of Fear would they have been crucified who had stood perpetually by themselves on their own Defence with what a Life of Labour and Meanness would Men have been burthened if every one of them must have been his own only Servant If every one had been obliged to build and plant and till the Ground and provide Food and Physick and Garments for himself by his own solitary Power And how could a Man serve himself in any of these necessary Offices in times of Sickness Lameness Delirancie and decrepit Old Age To such a perillous and laborious Life as I have been speaking of indiscreet and vicious self-love tends for as far as Men do mind and seek themselves alone so far they dissolve Society and lessen its Benefits being rather in it than of it And if all stood upon as narrow a Bottom as some do Government it self would fail till Men learning Wisdom by Affliction finding their personal Interest in the Common Good should again enter into the Covenants of it So that the Soul which animates Society whose Advantages are so considerable is the great and generous Spirit of Charity That violates no Compacts That raises no Commotions That interrupts no Good Man's Peace That assaults no innocent Man's Person That invades no Man's Property That grinds no poor Man's Face That takes no Ewe lamb out of his Bosom That envies no Man That supplants no Man That submits its Private Convenience to the Publick Necessities That does all the Good it can But it does not so much as think of Evil unless to suppress and prevent it All the Evil that is thought of and done comes originally from Men of ill Natures and narrow Dispositions who behave themselves in the Publick Body as the Vermin and not the Members of it From a false and unnatural Self-Love it is That Children enquire too early into the Age of their Parents That Discord arises and separates Brother from Brother whilst each covets the greatest Share of the Inheritance That Friends divide and after Professions of the sincerest Love exercise the bitterest Hatred That so many Men are barbarously murthered and so many Houses set on fire by Thieves and Robbers who are tempted by incosiderable Spoils to such inhuman Villanies From Selfishness it proceeds That in the Kingdoms of the Earth there are sometimes Markets for Justice That Causes are often carried by secret Perjuries That Men intrude into Offices which they have more ability to pay than to execute That they affect the Honor or Profit of Publick Places and shun the Duty of them and appear only when a Private Turn for themselves or their Dependants is to be served That Trusts are managed as Estates And that he who has obtained a Guardianship does think he has made a Fortune That to gratifie a private Animosity many engage into a publick Embroylment That the Selfish make as many Inlets as possible in their own Cisterns out of the Publick Revenue ' though it be one great worldly Instrument of Protection These are the Practices which make all Times perillous and Self-Love is the Head from whence they flow Concerning this vile Affection S. Paul taught That it would possess the Men of the last Daies And we are in the III d. Place To consider what Times he means by those Daies and in what sense he speaks of Self-Love as the Distemper of the last Daies seeing it has been the Disease of every Age. By the last Days he means the last Age of the World the Age of the Messiah not excluding that part of it in which he himself lived for he gives Caution to Timothy against some Practices which he should presently meet with from Judaizing Christians and vain Philosophers S. Peter speaking of the Son of God saith He was manifest in these last Times referring to his own And S. Iohn speaks more expresly Little Children it is the last Time or this is the last Age of the World. There were several precedent Periods That of the Fathers before the Flood That of the Patriarchs before the Law That of Moses and the Prophets under the Law. But after the Age of the Messiah Time it self shall no more To this Age all evil Self-Love cannot be confined for that Dotage had a Being in the World from the very beginning of it The Murther of Cain was so early that he sinn'd without Example and from his Selfishness his Murther proceeded He could not bear the sight of a man more acceptable in God's Eye than himself though it was the greater Vertue of Abel which made his way to the greater Favour of that God who is a Respecter of Causes but not of Persons We therefore misunderstand S. Paul if we interpret him as speaking not of the Increase but of the Being of Self-Love For it is not its Existence but its abundance which he foretells prophesying that the World should as it were throw off the Dreggs of this its distemper into the Extream Parts of it and that its Covetousness would increase with its Age. What he wrote has been true in Fact from the Times of Demas and Diotrephes to this very hour Light is come into the World a glorious Gospel which shines every where and every where sheds its healing influence and men love darkness rather than light and shut up themselves in their own hard and rough and private Shells How this should come to pass few can readily understand S. Paul without a Spirit of Prophesie could scare have affirmed That in the Age of the Messiah which affords the best Moral Causes there should be the worst Effects Selfishness cannot be the direct Natural Effect of the Gospel of Christ which of all other Dispensations depresseth the Private under the Publick Good. And if the Heavenly Doctrines of it were heartily believ'd and the Divine Rules of it were exactly follow'd the Event would not be a Sword but Peace on Earth The Times would then be so free from peril that Men would have strong Temptation to say It is good for us to be here The Age of the Messiah is the best of Ages in His Design and in the Means of Vertue which he gives the World and if the Men of it be worse than those of other Generations the greater is the aggravation of their Guilt whilst under a Gospel of the widest Charity they exercise the narrowest Selfishness whilst the nigher they are to the last Judgment the more Criminal they grow in which respect the Self-Love of the last days though it be but equal to that of former Times