Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	answer_v	lord_n	soul_n	2,226	5	4.9588	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51879	The rich man's bounty, the true measure of his wisdom a sermon preached before the Lord Mayor, and Court of Aldermen, and citizens of London, at St. Brides Church, Easter-Wednesday, March 27, 1695 / by John Mapletoft ...	Mapletoft, John, 1631-1721.	1695 (1695)	Wing M563; ESTC R6441	19,146	36

godo dono per Dio. or give for Gods sake He prudently considers the few Moments he is to spend here as a point as nothing in comparison with that eternal duration for which he is design'dand made and that single thought destroys and annihilates all those false appearances of happiness which either the gross pleasures of Sense or the thin air of Applause or the noise of secular State and Grandeur which are usually founded in supported by store of Money can any way pretend to He judges of all these things as God doth whose Judgment is the Rule and Standard of Truth and who values Men by their true Wisdom and Virtue their Piety and Charity their Meekness and Humility not by their Birth or Titles or Riches or any Quality which the weakest and worst of Men may share equally with the Best and the Wisest He knows that the only true use of very great Affluence is doing a very great deal of good to very many to the Honour of God and out of obedience to his Commands that this is the highest improvement of perishable goods and the only way to change their nature and make them durable for ever since he will find the Rewards of his Charity in an Endless state of Felicity His neither valuing himself upon his Riches nor trusting in them his Poverty of Spirit his Humility and Contempt of the World when he hath most of it and parting with what others wast in Pride and Luxry to Feed his poor Brother secure him from the danger of Wealth He hath never any thing to spare for any Vice and thus doth his Wealth make his way to Heaven more Easie and more Pleasant too Nor is Poverty it self so safe a Road thither as Riches are to such a Mastering Mind He proposes to himself the Best and Noblest end Everlasting Life or the enjoyment of that Supreme Good from whence he came and for as well as by whom he was made to Eternal Ages This he knows is the only true and proper peculiar Happiness of Immortal Spirits He therefore values all things here below in proportion to their capacity and tendency to serve him in order to his Great his only Aim and Concern to live with God for ever To this end therefore he will chiefly use his Wealth and whatever Power or Interest that can give him And whereas Riches too commonly make Men forget both God and themselves they make this Wise Man more mindful of both since he is always contriving how he may discharge his Trust to his Lord and how he may avoid those Temptations and Snares into which they fall who will be Rich 1 Tim. 6.9 who set their hearts upon getting Money or place their Happiness in it who love the World and the things of this World to that degree as to stifle the Love of God in their Souls and that regard they ought to have to his Law and Will I shall conclude with a Reflection or two arising from or pertinent to this matter 1 If we desire rather to be RICH towards GOD than to lay up Treasure for our selves i. e. to exercise the Grace of Charity vigorously in due measure from right Principles and most to our own advantage we must endeavour to have our minds throughly possessed with influenced by a sincere hearty love to God For on this our love to God above all things we must found all that unfeigned affection and good will we bear to Men which will be a constant spur and restless incentive to all good offices they can need and we perform Our Blessed Lord having answered that Question Which is the great Commandment of the Law Mat. 22. in these terms Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy Mind adds of his own accord and as a certain consequent of the former And the 2d is like unto it Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self Now our Lord thus connecting these together and making them joyntly the sum of the Law and the Prophets that in which they all conspire or the Abridgment the whole of our duty doth hereby evidently instruct us That as the love and kindness we have for our Brethren is Inseparable from that sincere love we bear to God so it must be ever grounded thereon We must therefore love be kind and helpful to all Men because we love that God whose Image they bear in common with our selves whose Children they also are as well as we who hath commanded us to love them as we do our selves as he loved us when he sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins 1 John 4.10 11. and to reconcile us again to himself by his death on the Cross And if we do thus love our Brethren we shall gladly take all occasions to assist and relieve them we shall be as forward to help them as we desire they should be to help us were we in the like distress 'T is this this inward affection and hearty love to others out of that Love and Duty we owe to God which is both a Never-failing Spring and the very Life and Soul of all External acts of Charity And if this be wanting tho' we should bestow all our goods to feed the Poor 1 Cor. 13.3 if we were never so Bountiful out of Vain-glory or from any other Carnal Worldly consideration it would profit us nothing it would be no discharge of our obligation it would be of no account in the sight of God 2. Since Works of Mercy are so much every Man's concern in his Station and so much every Rich Mans especial proper Duty and mighty indeed only advantage they must be a good part of every Rich Man's business too of his thought contrivance and especial care It were therefore very good and adviseable if not necessary that all Men and particularly all Rich Men should seriously and attentively weigh and consider with themselves what proportion of their Estates it were fit for them to Allot and Consecrate every Year to Pious uses and to lay by such a part as they resolve on out of every Sum they receive which would have this good effect among many others that they would generally be ready for and glad of all good occasions of distributing to the necessities of the Poor And tho God hath given us no set Rule whereby to estimate this proportion yet we may doubtless make one for our selves in which our main care ought to be that our Rule be not too narrow that we do not too little A defect here may prove our final undoing whereas an Excess if such a thing can be imagined would besure to encrease our reward in the next life A Learned and Exemplary Divine of our Church Dr. Hammond in a Sermon Preach't upon this very occasion before the then Lord Mayor and Aldermen of this City observes that every Jew not the Rich only was obliged besides several other