Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	love_n	love_v	worldly_a	3,021	5	9.1436	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62084	The book of nature translated and epitomiz'd. By George Sikes.	Sikes, George.	1667 (1667)	Wing S6322B; ESTC R220778	50,008	113

advance the soul into a higher and more excellent state then at first he gave it will proportionally rarefy spiritualize and exalt the body at the resurrection into a far more excellent state then when formed by him out of the dust of the ground Gen. 3. 19. or fashioned in the lowest parts of the earth his mother's womb Psal. 139. 15. The spirit of man transform'd by the love of God ascends to a partaking of the divine nature 2. Pet. 1. 4. the body by its proportionable transformation will ascend into a spiritualty of being as partaker of the very nature of the spirit In the essentials of his constitution thus advanced compleated and perfected will he have an absolute fulnes of joy and blessednes for ever He will for ever have all he can desire and for ever be rid of all he hates and would not have And then farther from this radical fundamental joy in God will spring up innumerable other secondary joy's on the account of all that are in the same state of blessednes with himself His joy wil be multiplied according to the numberless multitude of saved men and angels Rev. 7. 9. The elect angels rejoyce in man's hapines why should not elected men rejoyce eternally in theirs Every man in heaven will ever love every one as himself that 's in the same blessed condition with himself and therefore equally rejoyce in the joy of every one as in his own If then therebe innumerable men that will have the like joy in God every one of them will have innumerable joyes Every ones unspeakable joy in God wil be innumerably multiplied by the like unspeakable joy in others All this is the necessary certain eternal fruit and consequent of man's wel-fix'd love of God Chap. 13. Sect. I. The temporary fruit of self-self-love THe temporary fruit of self-self-love in this world cannot be any true joy but only a sophistical deceptive seeming joy carrying reall sadnes in the womb of it He that loves his own will praise honour glory and bodily pleasur's loves and seek's after such things as conduce thereunto worldly riches dignities offices sciences c. Such a man when he has any considerable hopes or enjoyment of such things he has a proportionable kind of joy And because all these things may pass away be lost or destroy'd he fear 's to lose them and hates all that would diminish or destroy them From such danger fear and hatred sadnes must needs arife His joy then at best in such delusive transient vanities hath sorrow and vexation of spirit most intimatly connexed with it From the properties and conditions of self-love may we certainly conclude the properties of the joy arising there-from If such love be an inordinate unjust tortuous false vicious corrupt unclean thing contrary to the nature of God and man as also to the order of the whole universe if it be a most wicked filthy malignant abominable thing the joy arising from it must needs be of the same complexion and have the self-same evil qualities properties and conditions Self-love is the leading injustice and injury dishonorable to God and destructive to man It sets up a false God in the room of the true the will of man in opposition to the will of God Any joy man can have in such a course must needs be a false deceptive inordinate unjust vicious corrupt joy contrary to the nature of God and man as also to the nature and order of all creatures T is a most wicked filthy poisonous mortal dark lying joy As the root is so is the fruit And forasmuch as self-love render's a man the capital enemy of God as thereby usurping a power of living in the absolute Soveraignty and unsubjected exercise of his own will which is the peculiar prerogative and incommunicable priviledg of God alone all the joy he can possibly find in such a course is but yet a higher strein of enmity to God All his joy and complacency in things temporal is but a rebellious exulting and rejoycing in his contempt of and enmity to God The more a man has of such joy the greater enemy of God is he Self-love and the love of God cannot stand or dwell quietly together in the same will but as capital enemies will destroy and expell one another In like manner is it with the two opposite joyes thence arising The joy that spring's up from the love of God strengthen's man's union with God The joy which spring's from self-love divides separat's and alienat's a man more and more from God For the maintenance of a false joy such a multitude of temporal things appear's requisite as cannot usually be gotten without damage and destruction to others and ourselvs The love of such riches as are the nourishmēt and maintenance of a false joy will put us upon the exercise of many such foolish and hurtful lusts as drown men in destruction and perdition 1 Tim. 6. 9. True joy in the lord render's a man bountiful courteous merciful humble mild and sweet False joy in the creature make's him cruel wicked proud implacable revengful and all that 's naught The former preserv's peace unity friendship and all that 's good amongst men the latter tend's to the dissolution of all right friendship sowes envy strife divisions animosities and all that 's evil amongst them The former alway's profit's the latter alwayes hurt 's him that has it The former enlighten's and cleer's up mans understanding the latter more and more darken's and blind's it The former will have the greatest reward the latter the greatest punishment SECTION II. The eternal fruit of self-love IMmediatly after this life he that had nothing but a false temporary momentany joy in the fleeting things thereof wil for ever be deprived of all that he loved desired or rejoyced in He wil be compelled by the hand of God to have all that he would not have and he wil be everlastingly deprived of all he would have his own honour glory praise and bodily pleasur's The soul of man in hel cannot but think of such things as will give it perpetual sorrow It will look upon itself as the most deformed filthy disorder'd thing imaginable contrary to God in the utmost extreamity contrary to the uprightnes and glory of its own first-created natural being and much more contrary to the yet more excellent glory of spiritual life it was capable of having bio advanced into by a new creation or the true regeneration which it wilfully refused The soul finding itself in this dismal posture will most vehemently desire to be rid of itself by annihilation but never can Man in such case will most earnestly desire God may lose his being that there may be no omnipotent hand to keep him up in being and punish him He wil be eternally displeased that either God or himself or any other creatur's are continued in being because all makes for his woe Thus will fond self-love end at last in eternal self-abhorrency sorrow and

his service rightly performed unto God exceed the service which other creatures perform to him Now the more excellent the service is the greater is the profit thereby redounding unto man He therefore must needs have incomparably more profit from his service of love freely performed unto God then from any service that inferiour creatur's do by a natural necessity and impulse perform unto him And the more perfectly any man serv's God the more profit he receiv's unto himself 'T is the true interest then and highest concern of man to be incessantly performing his service of love to God with all his heart soul mind and strength seing all redounds singly and intirely to his own advantage The service other creatures perform to man is not remunerable or capable of reward because not freely performed but by natural necessity The service perform'd by man to God being free is remunerable Man then receiving all the advantage by both services let us distinctly consider what profit he receiv's by the first and what by the second By the first perform'd by other creatures unto him his being is for a while continued in this mortal state By the second performable by him in Christ unto God is his everlasting wel-being atteinable So much then as the eternal wel-being of man excell's his bare temporal being in a mortal body does the second service exceed the first in dignity and profit A bare being is not profitable unto man unless he may have a wel-being Other creatures then by serving him with all they have unless he serv God with all he has will but aggravate his sin and adde to his misery Being was given unto man in order to his wel-being So is the service of other creatures performed unto man for his temporary being in this world in order to that service he ought to perform unto God with reference to his eternal wel-being in the world to come If the second service be not performed by man to God the first to wit of other creatures unto him is render'd void and to no purpose as much as in man lies Yea it is perverted to the service of the devil in enmity to God All the service perform'd by other creatures to a man that serv's not God is lost or worse The main end and chief design of God in creating the world is frustrated and rendred of no effect by the man that serv's not God We do plainly experience that man can't continue his being in this world unless maintein'd and upheld by other creatur's nor can other creatur's continue or subsist unless upheld by the same hand that made them If they could they would be greater in this point of self-preservation then man Man can't maintein them in being but is maintein'd by them Some other hand then above both mainteins them and him by them But man alone stands indebted unto God as for his own being and theirs so for the continuance of both By the first service perform'd by inferiour creatures unto man they are brought into union with him By the second performed by man unto God he is brought into union with God So in and by man the world comes to be united with God All things that came out of the love of God to man by the love of man to God are brought into union with him that made them He then that does not love and serve the lord does what in him lies towards the disjoyning and seperating of the world from God and the bringing of all things into disorder and confusion Man alone in whose nature and constitution all sorts of created nature life and being are put together is the means in and by whom all inferiour creatures come to be united with God SECTION III. FRom the first obligation on man or debt of love which he owes unto God does naturally arise a second like unto it and that is the love of all creatures as the works of his hands and as bearing any thing of his image or superscription upon them on which account himself pass'd that universal approbation that every thing that he had made was very good Gen. 1. 31. But forasmuch as amongst all things there mention'd men for whom the rest were made do beare the most compleat and lively image of God upō them they are on God's account to be loved by us more then any inferiour creatures All men as of one and the same nature ought to look upon themselvs as one man not many There ought by the very law of nature to be the strictest union the greatest peace and agreement amongst them that 's possible As their love of God in the first place so is the love of one another in the second as bearing his image founded in the law of nature Thou shalt love the lord thy God with all thy heart soul strength and mind say's Christ. This is the first and great commandment And the second is like unto it Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself On these two commādments hang all the law and the prophets Mat. 22. 37 40. All men are bound by the law of their own nature to live in perfect union with God and with one another by love The greatest unity amongst men arises from their first being united with God and the firmer their union the greater their strength Self-love divides us from God and consequently from one another So come we to lose that strength which depend's on union and to lie naked and exposed in our own single persons to all the wiles and darts of the devil c. Inferiour creatures are to be loved by mā only on God's account as the works of his hands bearing some characters and shadowy resemblāces of his infinitly persect being and life We are not to look on ourselvs as obliged to them for any benefit use or service we receive from them or have of them but unto God only who causes them to perform such beneficiall service The loving of inferiour creatures as gratifying our sensual desires is so far from being a natural consequent of our loving God that 't is direct enmity to him Such love of this world and the things thereof is enmity to God If any man thus love the world the love of the father is not in him Jam. 4. 4. 1 Jo. 2. 15. To ask of God creature-contentments to consume upon our lusts Jam. 4. 3. is to desire him that he would maintein us in our enmity against himself The multiplicity of heathen Gods and the various idolatries in the world have arisen from man's unlawful prohibited love of inferiour creatures Many heathens concluded that any thing that did them good was a God On this account were they induced to worship the sun moon stars fire air earth water sheep oxen c. Such unlawfull idolatrous love of inferiour creatures has its rise as a natural consequent from self-love When we love our own wills in distinction from and opposition to God's we love the creatures appointed for