Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	heart_n	holy_a	soul_n	2,522	5	4.8207	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58838	The life of God in the soul of man, or, The nature and excellency of the Christian religion with the method of attaining the happiness it proposes : and An account of the beginnings and advances of a spiritual life : in two letters written to persons of honour.	Scougal, Henry, 1650-1678.; Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1677 (1677)	Wing S2101; ESTC R2701	52,875	148

enlarge in so known a matter nothing can be more clear than that the happiness of Love depends on the return it meets with and herein the Divine Lover hath unspeakably the advantage having placed his affection on him whose Nature is Love whose Goodness is as Infinite as his Being whose Mercy prevented us when we were his enemies therefore cannot choose but imbrace us when we are become his friends it is utterly impossible that God should hide his Face and deny his Love to a Soul wholly devoted to him and which desires nothing so much as to serve and please him he cannot disdain his own Image nor the heart in which it is engraven Love is all the tribute which we can pay him and it is the Sacrifice which he will not despise Another thing which disturbs the pleasure of Love and renders it a miserable and disquiet Passion is absence and separation from those we love it is not without a sensible affliction that friends do part though for some little time it is sad to be deprived of that society which is so delightful our life becomes tedious being spent in an impatient expectation of the happy hour wherein we may meet again but if death have made the separation as sometime or other it must this occasions a grief scarce to be parallelled by all the misfortunes of humane life and wherein we pay dear enough for the comforts of our friendship But O how happy are those who have placed their love on him who can never be absent from them they need but to open their eyes and they shall every where behold the traces of his Presence and Glory and converse with him whom their Soul loveth and this makes the darkest Prison or wildest Desart not only supportable but delightful to them In fine a Lover is miserable if the person whom he loveth be so They who have made an exchange of hearts by love get thereby an interest in one anothers happiness and misery and this makes Love a troublesome Passion when placed on Earth The most fortunate person hath grief enough to marre the tranquillity of his friend and it is hard to hold out when we are attacked on all hands and suffer not only in our own person but in anothers But if God were the Object of our Love we should share in an infinite happiness without any mixture or possibility of diminution we should rejoyce to behold the Glory of God and receive comfort and pleasure from all the Praises wherewith Men and Angels do Extol him It should delight us beyond all expression to consider that the Beloved of our Souls is infinitely happy in himself and that all his Enemies cannot shake or unsettle his Throne That our God is in the Heavens and doth whatsoever he pleaseth Behold on what sure foundations his happiness is built whose Soul is possessed with Divine Love whose will is transformed into the Will of God and whose greatest desire is that his Maker should be pleased O the peace the rest the satisfaction that attendeth such a temper of mind What an infinite pleasure must it needs be thus as it were to lose our selves in him and being swallowed up in the overcoming sense of his goodness to offer our selves a living Sacrifice alwayes ascending unto him in flammes of love never doth a Soul know what a solid Joy and substantial pleasure is till once being weary of it self it renounce all propriety give it self fully up unto the Author of its being and feel it self become a hallowed and devoted thing and can say from an inward sense and feeling My Beloved is mine I account all his interest mine own and I am his I am content to be any thing for him and care not for my self but that I may serve him a person moulded unto this temper would find pleasure in all the dispensations of Providence Temporal Enjoyments would have another relish when he should taste the Divine Goodness in them and consider them as tokens of Love sent by his dearest Lord and Maker And chastisements though they be not joyful but grievous would hereby lose their sting the rod as well as the staff would comfort him he would snatch a kiss from the hand that were smiting him and gather sweetness from that severity nay he would rejoyce that though God did not the will of such a worthless and foolish creature as himself yet he did his own Will and accomplished his own designs which are infinitely more holy and wise The Exercises of Religion which to others are insipid and tedious do yield the highest pleasure and delight to Souls possessed with Divine Love they rejoyce when they are called to go up to the house of the Lord that they may see his power and his glory as they have formerly seen it in his Sanctuary They never think themselves so happy as when having retired from the world and gotten free from the noise and hurry of affairs and silenced all their clamorous passions those troublesom guests within they have placed themselves in the presence of God and entertain Fellowship and Communion with him they delight to adore his Perfections and recount his Favours and to protest their affection to him and tell him a thousand times that they love him to lay out their troubles or wants before him and disburthen their hearts in his Bosom Repentance it self is a delightful exercise when it floweth from the principle of love there is a secret sweetness which accompanieth those tears of remofse those meltings and relentings of a Soul returning unto God and regrating its former unkindness The heightned endearments of Lovers newly reconciled after some estrangements of their affections are a very imperfect shadow and resemblance of this The severities of a holy Life and that constant watch which we are obliged to keep over our hearts and ways are very troublesom to those who are only ruled and acted by an External Law and have no law in their Minds inclining them to the performance of their duty but where Divine Love possesseth the Soul it stands as Sentinel to keep out every thing that may offend the Beloved and doth disdainfully repulse those temptations which assault it it complyeth cheerfully not only with explicite Commands but with the most secret Notices of the Beloved's pleasure and is ingenious in discovering what will be most grateful and acceptable unto him it makes Mortification and Self-denial almost change their harsh and dreadful names and become easie sweet and delightful things But I find this part of my Letter swell bigger than I designed indeed who would not be tempted to dwell on so pleasant a Theme I shall endeavour to compensate it by brevity in the other Points The next Branch of the Divine Life is an Universal Charity and Love The Excellency of this Grace will be easily acknowledged for what can be more noble and generous than a Heart inlarged to imbrace the whole World whose

doth rise when our natural inclinations prosper and the creature is exalted in our Soul Religion is faint and doth languish but when earthly objects wither away and lose their beauty and the Soul begins to cool and flagg in its prosecution of them then the seeds of Grace take root and the Divine Life begins to flourish and prevail It doth therefore nearly concern us to convince our selves of the emptiness and vanity of Creature-enjoyments and reason our heart out of love of them let us Seriously consider all that our Reason or our Faith our own Experience or the observation of others can suggest to this effect Let us ponder the matter over and over and fix our thoughts on this truth till we become really perswaded of it amidst all our pursuits and designs let us stop and ask our selves For what end is all this At what do I aim Can the gross and muddy pleasures of Sense or a heap of white or yellow Earth or the esteem and affection of silly creatures like my self satisfie a rational and immortal Soul Have I not tryed these things already Will they have a higher relish and yield me more contentment to morrow than yesterday or the next year than they did the last There may be some little difference betwixt that which I am now pursuing that which I enjoy'd before but sure my former Enjoyments did shew as pleasant and promise as fair before I attain'd them like the Rain-bow they looked very glorious at a distance but when I approached I found nothing but emptiness and vapor O what a poor thing should the life of man be if it were capable of no higher enjoyments I cannot insist on this subject and there is the less need when I remember to whom I am writing Yes my dear Friend you have had as great Experience of the emptiness and vanity of humane things and have at present as few worldly engagements as any that I know I have sometimes reflected on those passages of your life wherewith you have been pleased to acquaint me and methinks through all I can discern a design of the Divine Providence to wean your affections from every thing here below The Tryals you have had of those things which the World dotes upon hath taught you to despise them and you have found by experience that neither the endowments of Nature nor the advantages of Fortune are sufficient for happiness that every Rose hath its thorn and there may be a Worm at the root of the fairest Gourd some secret and undiscerned grief which may make a person deserve the pity of those who perhaps do admire or envy their supposed felicity If any earthly comforts have got too much of your heart I think they have been your Relations and Friends and the dearest of those are removed out of the World so that you must raise your Mind towards Heaven when you would think upon them Thus God hath provided that your heart may be loosed from the World and he may not have any Rival in your affection which I have alwayes observed to be so large and unbounded so noble and dis-interessed that no inferiour object can answer or deserve it When we have got our corruptions restrain'd and our natural appetites and inclinations towards worldly things in some measure subdued we must proceed to such exercises as have a more immediate tendance to excite and awaken the Divine Life And first let us endeavour conscientiously to perform those duties which Religion doth require and whereunto it would incline us if it did prevail in our Souls If we cannot get our inward disposition presently changed let us study at least to regulate our outward deportment if our hearts be not yet inflam'd with Divine Love let us however own our alleagiance to that infinite Majesty by attending his Service and listening to his Word by speaking reverently of his Name and praising his goodness and exhorting others to serve and obey him if we want that charity and those bowels of compassion which we ought to have towards our Neighbours yet must we not omit any occasion of doing them good If our hearts be haughty and proud we must nevertheless study a modest and humble Deportment These external performances are of little value in themselves yet may they help us forward to better things The Apostle indeed telleth us that bodily exercise profiteth little but he seems not to affirm that it is altogether useless it is alwayes good to be doing what we can for then God is wont to pity our weakness and assist our feeble endeavours and when true Charity and Humility and other Graces of the Divine Spirit come to take root in our Souls they will actuate themselves more freely and with the less difficulty that we have been accustomed to express them in our outward conversations Nor need we fear the imputation of hypocrisie tho our actions do thus somewhat out-run our affections seeing they do still proceed from a sense of our Duty and our Design is not to appear better then we are but that we may really become so But as inward acts have a more immediate influence on the Soul to mould it to a right temper and frame so ought we to be most frequent and sedulous in the exercise of those Let us be often lifting up our hearts towards God and if we do not say that we love him above all things let us at least acknowledg that it is our Duty and would be our Happiness so to do Let us regrate the dishonour done unto him by foolish and sinful men and applaud the Praises and Adorations that are given him by that Blessed and Glorious Company above Let us resign and yield our selves up unto him a thousand times to be governed by his Lawes and disposed upon at his pleasure and though our stubborn hearts should start back and refuse yet let us tell him we are convinced that his Will is alwayes Just and Good and therefore desire him to do with us whatsoever he pleaseth whether we will or not And so for begetting in us an universal Charity towards men we must be frequently putting up wishes for their happiness and blessing every person that we see and when we have done any thing for the relief of the miserable we may second it with earnest desires that God would take care of them and deliver them out of all their distresses Thus should we exercise our selves unto godliness and when we are imploying the powers that we have the Spirit of God is wont to strike in and elevate these acts of our Soul beyond the pitch of Nature and give them a Divine impression and after the frequent reiteration of these we will find our selves more inclined unto them they flowing with greater freedom and ease I shall mention but two other Means for begetting that Holy and Divine temper of spirit which is the Subject of the present Discourse And the first is a Deep