Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	rejoice_v	use_v	weep_v	1,848	5	9.5776	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65701	A discourse of the love of God shewing that it is well consistent with some love or desire of the creature, and answering all the arguments of Mr. Norris in his sermon on Matth. 22, 37, and of the letters philosohical and divine to the contrary / by Daniel Whitby ...	Whitby, Daniel, 1638-1726.	1697 (1697)	Wing W1724; ESTC R1639	108,266	186

our case we do not love the Creature with the same sort of Love or in the same Sense in which we love God i. e. not with a Religious Affection but with a Natural only not as our Spiritual but as our Temporal Good not as the Good of our Immortal Souls but our Frail Bodies not as our End our Rest or our chief Good not for its own but for God's sake whereas we love God with a religious Affection as the Spiritual and Eternal Good of our Immortal Souls as our End Rest and our chief Good and even for himself For this he doth saith the Excellent Bishop Taylor who loves God above every thing else for all that supereminent Love by which God is more loved than all the World all that Love is pure and for himself For the Philosophers were wont to say A Man loved Virtue for Virtues sake if he loved it when it was discountenanced when it thwarted his temporal Ends and Prosperities and what they call loving Virtue for Virtu●s sake the Christian calls loving God for God's sake And had Mr. N. when he said There are but two sorts of Love that of Desire and Benevolence considered that this love of Desire may be branched into religious and natural Desires desire of things Spiritual and Temporal of things good for the Body and for the Soul of things to be used here and to be enjoyed here and hereafter of things as necessary for our being and our well-being of things to be desired for their own and for God's sake He would have discerned as great a difference betwixt one Love of Desire and another as betwixt Love of Desire and of Benevolence or at the least would not have thought that he who desired the Creature in a sense thus limited desired him in the same sense or with the same sort of Desire with which his Love and his Desire is carried out towards his Great Creator So that I need not now to advertise him that he should not insist so much on the English Particle with since the Original Greek from whence these words are cited ran thus Thou shalt love the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the whole Heart now sure we may love one thing ex animo from the whole Heart and desire it entirely and yet may also sometime imploy our desires upon other things The Second Objection from Scripture is taken from the words of the Apostles Iames and Iohn the words of the Apostle Iames are these Ye Adulterers and Adulteresses know ye not that the Friendship of this World is enmity to God Whosoever therefore will be a Friend of the World is an Enemy to God Whence he infers that in St. Iames's account our Heart is so much God's Propriety and peculiar and ought so entirely to be devoted to him that 't is a kind of Spiritual Adultery to admit any Creature into Partnership with him in our Love I Answer That as a Woman becomes not an Adulteress by any Affection to or Friendship with another Man for she ought to love her Friend and Neighbour and Relations and to shew Friendship to them but only by loving Friend or Neighbour with the love proper to her Husband with that love which comes in competition with and invades that conjugal Affection which belongs to him alone So neither doth all love of the Creature make us guilty of Spiritual Adultery but only that love of the Creature which is proper to God and stands in competition with him and makes us Idolize the Creature by giving it that share in our Affections which is due to God alone as is evident from the very words Ye Adulterers and Adulteresses for that Phrase as often as it Metaphorically occurs in the Old Testament imports the declining of the Iews to Idolatry and the giving that Worship and Service to Idols and false Gods which belongs only to the true and consequently that Friendship of the World which rendred the Persons here represented Guilty of Spiritual Adultery must be that inordinate Affection to the World which made it Rival God and Rob him of the Service and Obedience due to him and this the Context clearly shews for the Friendship of the World there reprehended was such as proceeded from the Lusts which were in their Members and caused them to desire the World 's Good not to supply their wants but to consume them on their Lusts and such a love of the World as produced Wars Fightings and even Murther that they might obtain the Worlds good things ver 1 2 3 4. But saith Mr. N. Every lover of the Creature is in proportion an Idolater upon our former Principle for by loving Creatures we suppose them our Goods that they are able to act upon our Souls and affect them with pleasing Sensations that they perfect our Being and are the causes of our Happiness which is to suppose them to be so many Gods so that there can be no such thing as loving the World with moderation since we ought not to love it at all for we Deifie the Object of our Love and to affect the Creature in any degree is so far to Idolize it To this I Answer First If there can be no such thing as loving i. e. desiring the Creature with moderation why doth the Scripture prescribe this Moderation as to the things of this World by saying Let your moderation as to these things be known unto all the Lord is at hand Be careful for nothing but in every thing by Prayer and Supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God Are not our Petitions of these things from God our desires of them Is not our dependance on that Providence for them which will give good Things to them that ask them the Remedy here prescribed against our anxious Cares for these things And must not then the Moderation here required Respect the same things Again Brethren saith the Apostle the time is short it remaineth that both they that have Wives be as if they had none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not and they that buy as though they possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing it For the Fashion of this world passeth away Here do not all the Ancient Commentators agree that the Apostle prescribes mediocrity as to these transitory Things we can enjoy but for a short time And that by commanding us to have and use them as if we did it not he only doth enjoin us not to have our hearts affixed and our chief care imployed about them and that to abuse the world is thus to use it to the Satisfaction of our Lusts or so as to imploy all our Studies and Affections on it doth not the Apostle himself thus explain our weeping for our lost Friends viz. That we should not do it immoderately and is not

that sufficient warrant so to interpret the other Particulars And since these words respect the Moderation of our Joy and Grief and we do joy and grieve according as we do affect the Objects of those Passions why should they not be also deemed to respect the Moderation of our Affection to or our desires of this World Secondly If we Deifie the Object that we love we Deifie every Woman that we love in order to Matrimony every Child and Relation we desire to preserve that so we may enjoy the Benefit and Comfort of their Presence we Deifie our selves when according to the Psalmist we desire life and love many days yea we Deifie all the Meat and Drink we love and therefore do desire to eat and drink of and if I love and desire a Cup of good Wine because it maketh glad the Heart of Man I am ipso facto an Idolater Thirdly I deny that it is necessary that he who loves i. e. desires any Creature suppose Meat when he is hungry or Drink when thirsty must suppose that Creature perfects his Being and is the cause of his Happiness or that it is able to act upon his Soul and affect it with pleasing Sensations 'T is only necessary that he should suppose those pleasing Sensations will follow upon the Enjoyment of those Creatures and are not to be had without them for put case a Sensual voluptuous Man were of your Opinion would he ever the less pursure the delights of the Flesh and of the sensual Appetites Is it not the Pleasure annexed to the Enjoyment of these things which all the World pursue And must they not then have the same reason to desire and pursue them while the same Pleasures are annexed to the Enjoyment of them whoever be the efficient cause of that Pleasure or whatever it be that acts upon the Soul and affects it with these pleasing Sensations Fourthly It cannot be Idolatry to suppose God acts upon my Soul by the virtue he hath put into a Creature rather than immediately by himself for then all the World must have been Idolaters before Mr. M. and Mr. N. made known this new Opinion to the World for he confesses that among the whole Tribe of Philosophers that went before them none of them thought any otherwise or any farther but universally held that Bodies had a power of producing such Sensations 'T is also evident that Children for a long time taste the Pleasures of the Creatures before they can be able to discern that God immediately produces these pleasing Sensations in them and that the Generality of the World are still uncapable of knowing that he doth so Now is not this to vilifie the Providence and Wisdom of God and to reproach his Goodness to say That he hath laid the World under a sad necessity of defrauding God of his Worship and committing that Sin of Idolatry which he that doth saith the Apostle shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Moreover all Idolatry implies an act of Religious Worship though misplaced now do we by desiring Meat when we are hungry or Drink when thirsty or by thus loving Meat and Drink as things which may gratifie our hungry or our thirsty Appetites by the virtue God himself hath implanted in them worship Bread and Drink All religious Worship proceeds from a direct immediate Intention either to give Honour to that which we conceive to be God or else ascribes to the Object worshipped some of the Divine Attributes or Essential Perfections but do we conceive Bread and Drink to be God by asking them of God that is desiring them or by rejoicing in them as his Blessing i. e. being pleased or affected with them as such or by conceiving he hath put any virtue into them to do us Good Do we ascribe unto the Creature any of the Divine Attributes or Perfections or say in effect they are Omnipotent by thinking God may enable them to raise pleasing Sensations in us or to work upon our Animal Spirits and by them upon our Souls Surely could there be any semblance of Idolatry in this case it must wholly lie not in conceiving that Creatures can move our Animal Spirits which is all we say or think they do but in conceiving that these Animals Spirits can act upon the Soul and that these Motions of them can be grateful or ungrateful to it The words of the Apostle Iohn run thus Love not the World neither the things that are in the World if any Man love the World the love of the Father is not in him For all that is in the World the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life is not of the Father but is of the World And the World passeth away and the Lusts thereof but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever Here you have again all Love of the World expresly forbidden as altogether inconsistent with the Love of God not the immoderate Love of the World only For 't is plain that the words import a great deal more namely That we are not to love the World at all that all Love of it is immoderate To this the Reverend Dr. Barrow Answers that The Apostle explains himself that by the World he means those things which are most generally embraced and practised in it the Lust or the desire of the Flesh that is Sensuality and Intemperance the Lust of the Eyes that is Envy Covetousness vain Curiosity and the like the Ostentation or Boasting of Life that is Pride Ambition vain Glory Arrogance Qualities as irreconcilably opposite to the Holy Nature and Will of God so altogether inconsistent with the Love of him begetting in us an Aversation and Antipathy towards him rendring his Holiness distasteful to our Affections his Justice dreadful to our Consciences and Himself consequently his Will his Law his Presence hateful to us And that this is the true import of the words is highly probable 1. Because these things saith the Apostle are not of the Father Whereas the moderate Desire of and Affection to the World 's Good things is of that God who hath implanted in us natural Affections and Propensions to them made them the Objects of our Desires and our Industry encouraged us to affect them by making the matter of his Promises and hath allowed us to rejoice in them 2. Because he saith He that loveth the World the love of the Father is not in him which cannot possibly be true of that Relative and Subordinate Love unto it which he hath made Provisions for Again if we understand by these things the desire of those things which gratifie our Appetites with Pleasure V. G. by the Lusts of the Flesh the desire of Meat Drink and voluptuous Enjoyments as they do gratifie the Flesh by the Lust of the Eye the desire of Gold Silver large Possessions noble Houses rich Furniture fair Gardens as they do gratifie the Eye By