Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	abate_v	affection_n	exercise_v	25	3	9.6132	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A17385	A commentary upon the three first chapters of the first Epistle generall of St. Peter VVherin are most judiciously and profitably handled such points of doctrine as naturally flow from the text. Together with a very usefull application thereof: and many good rules for a godly life. By Nicholas Byfield preacher of Gods Word at Isleworth in Middlesex. To which is now newly added an alphabeticall table, not formerly published.	Byfield, Nicholas, 1579-1622.; Gouge, William, 1578-1653.; Byfield, Nicholas, 1579-1622. Commentary: or, sermons upon the second chapter of the first epistle of Saint Peter. aut; Byfield, Nicholas, 1579-1622. Sermons upon the ten first verses of the third chapter of the first Epistle of S. Peter. aut; Byfield, Nicholas, 1579-1622. Sermons upon the first chapter of the first Epistle generall of Peter. aut	1637 (1637)	STC 4212; ESTC S107139	978,571	754

deliverance it is with us according to our faith Faith makes us whole faith delivers us as soone as we can get our hearts to trust upon God the Crosse is gone the Lord staied but till we would beleeve in him with all our hearts Now is this so doth God stand so much upon our faith in affliction How is it then that wee doe not beleeve Oh unbeliefe unbeliefe is ever worse than the crosse it selfe There is nothing the tempter would rather deceive us of then our faith Oh how is the heart of man turned away from true faith there are a great number of us as it were ●eprobates concerning the faith we are of no judgement wee are altogether blockish in this point of beleeving in God But in the second place let this doctrine perswade with us when wee feele impatiency or any other perturbation rising in us to check our selves and say to ●ur own soules where is my faith now and with the poore man in the Gospell let us run to Christ with teares in our eyes crying and saying I beleeve Lord help my unbeliefe and with the Disciples let us still pray Lord increase my faith Yea thirdly since the Lord accounts so much of our faith wee should strive after perfection even to get a strong faith and to shew our selves unmoveable in affliction and to this end wee should be much in the Apostles prayer that God would so fulfill the Counsell of his owne will that hee would be pleased to fulfill the work of our faith with power But some one may say what is it in affliction to shew our faith or what must we doe to approve our selves to God that we doe beleeve He that would approve his faith in affliction must doe foure things 1. First if he be conscious to himself of any evill that he hath too much favoured hee must speedily repent and give glory to God and make his peace with God Dan. 12.10 2. Secondly he must be sure he hold fast his assurance so as he call not the love of God into question For as the Lord will still owne his people in all their adversities saying they are his people so must they still stick to this the Lord is my God This is to beleeve to hold fast this assurance whatsoever befall us Zach 13. ult 3. Thirdly hee must be sure to lose no ground either in the affections of godlinesse or in the confession or profession of the truth No affliction must abate his love to godlinesse or the Word or Gods children nor hinder his free profession of the truth 4. Fourthly hee must commit his way to God and rely himselfe and all his a●tions upon God putting his trust upon Gods promises and goodnesse Psal. 37. Phil. 4.6 But especially the praises of faith in affliction will be greatly enlarged if we can adde these things following 1. First if wee can trust upon 〈…〉 ●●mmit ou● waies unto him resting upon his promise though we see no meanes to accomplish it Rom. 4. 2. If patience may have her perfect worke so as we could goe through afflictions with that firme unmoveablenesse that we would resist all perturbations and that in all sorts of trials 3. If we would beleeve though God himselfe did seeme to withdraw or to neglect us This was the great faith of the woman of Canaan 4. If we can hold out without hasting to use any ill meanes or unlawfull courses to deliver our selves Esay 28.16 5. Fiftly if wee can in affliction be wise to sobriety resting contented though God doe not discover the reason of his proceedings with us Rom. 12.3 6. Sixtly if wee can preserve a tender sense of our owne vilenesse being glad of smaller favours rejoicing when God is pleased to give us but a little help thankfully acknowledging any degree of succour not seeking great things for our selves But might some one say What should move us thus in affliction to rely upon God and to approve our faith in him Seven things should perswade us to trust upon God in all adversity 1. First Gods promise Heb. 13.4 Psal. 50.15 Iob 34.23 Esay 30.18 20. Psal. 94.12 13 14. Psal. 97.11 Psal. 125.3 Psal. 126.5 6. and it is certaine we may trust God upon those promises For Gods words are pure and sure words and have been tryed in the fire seven times 2. Secondly the liberty of asking what wee will of God Wee have reason to beleeve in him when wee are sure to have whatsoever wee aske of him 3. The consideration of Gods unchangeable counsell and decree wee are appointed unto all our afflictions 1 Thes. 3.2 3. 4. Fourthly the example of all the worthies of God as a cloud of witnesses should perswade us with faith and patience to run the race of godlinesse set before us For these all lived by faith Heb. 12.1 Their afflictions were as great as ours and they rested upon God and were not disappointed therefore we should be followers of them Heb. 6.12 5. Fiftly the speedinesse of our help and succour For yet a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry and therefore the just should live by faith their tentations shall not last long 6 Sixtly our owne experience Did we ever lose by resting upon God Was he not a help in trouble ever ready to be found Can wee say that wee ever beleeved in God and were ashamed of it afterwards Or can wee tell the time that by our care wee could ever adde one cubit to our stature Matth. 6. Rom. 9.33 7 Seventhly the recompence of reward proposed to them that will glorifie God by beleeving in him He will be made marvellous in them that beleeve 2 Thess. 1.11 A crowne of life is prepared for them that by faith and patience prove their love to God in enduring tentations Iam. 1.12 Lastly in that the Lord stands so much upon faith in the time of tryall it may serve for singular comfort unto us if the Lord be pleased so to leade us through afflictions that our faith hath proved unmoveable unto the end This is in a manner all that God would have of us certainly he is happy in whom Christ may finde faith when he comes to try him in the furnace of tribulation Thus of the effect of tentations as is briefly propounded in these first words of the Verse Now followes the amplification of it and that first by comparison with gold More precious than gold These words more precious then gold may be referred eyther to the persons of Gods children tryed or to affliction by which they are tryed or to faith that was tryed For the first it is most certaine that Gods servants are most precious in his sight He esteemes them more then all treasures They are his portion and inheritance He bought them at a high price and accounts of them at a wonderfull high rate They are his peculiar people and his jewels

the verses immediately before 2. and with the 13. verse upon which it depends as the reason of it 1. From coherence with the verses next before we may note that God expects love to the brethren at our hands as well as faith in Christ As we are joyned to God by faith so he stands upon it to have us joyned one to another by love nay it is certaine true faith will worke this love He cannot beleeve in God that loves not the godly 2. From coherence with the 13. verse we may note that an affectionate love to the godly is a strong inducement to holinesse of life and therefore used here as a reason to inforce it 3. Contrariwise unlesse we looke to those three things in the 13. verse we cannot love the brethren as we ought to doe For 1. Unlesse we gird up the loines of our mindes such as our selfe-love concupiscence anger c. we shall be unfit for society with the godly 2. Againe unlesse we be sober in the use of the delights and profits of the world our affections will be stolne away from the godly 3. And thirdly unlesse our hope carry us stedfastly to the contemplation of the glory to be revealed upon the godly in the day of Christ they wil in their present condition seeme to us many times of all men most miserable 4. A Christian should looke to his heart and waies if not for his owne sake yet for his respect to the godly to whom he hath joyned himselfe that he neither shame them nor grieve them Now hee may shame them and dishonour the profession three waies 1. By sluggishnesse in his profession 2. By inordinate living 3. By doubting and despaire These three stand opposed to the three things in the 13. verse 5. That God is not onely carefull we should love one another but hee stands upon the manner and measure of it as the whole verse shewes and therefore we should looke to two things that our affections grow neither 1. cold 2. nor corrupt There are foure things doe usually abate affection to the godly 1. self-Selfe-love and pride when men grow into great thoughts onely of themselves 2. Discord and vaine janglings 3. Worldlinesse 4. Too much viewing of the infirmities reproches or miseries of the godly and thus affection growes cold It is corrupt three waies 1. When we love the godly for carnall ends 2. When it is fruitlesse it is fellowship but not in the Gospell 3. When we respect persons Purified The tearme is a metaphor borrowed either from the Goldsmith or the Physitian or else from the ceremoniall law The Goldsmith purifieth his metall so doth God his chosen ones The Physician purgeth his distressed patients so doth God distressed sinners seldome is there any found conversion but there is some purgation taken even some sound practice of mortification which paines the spirit and throwes out forcibly the filthy matter lies in the soule But I think the tearme is chiefly borrowed from the Ceremoniall law and so shews us that in the effecting of sanctification is wrought that which was signified in those Legall purifyings either of women after child-birth or especially of the Leper after the healing of his leprosie It is true that seldome or never is there a birth of saving grace but there followes it a fluxe of mortification a vehement casting out of naturall impurities and there must be also a purifying of the soule But I take the tearme to be most fitly borrowed from the clensing of the Leper for that most neerly expresseth the state of our soules both in nature and grace And so divers things may be here noted some implyed some expressed in those ancient shadowes The things implyed are 1. That by nature we are all of us polluted in our selves and so polluted as we have reason to doe as the Leper Levit. 13.44 and cry uncleane uncleane 2. That the infection of sin is such that it will infect the very house wee dwell in and the garments we weare even all the creatures we use so as all things are to us impure Lev. 13. Tit. 1.13 3. That in our native condition we are out of the campe even strangers from the common-wealth of Israel even when we professe our selves members of it Num. 5.2 3. Eph. 2.11 The things expressed in the state of our soules in respect of sanctification are lively shadowed out in the ceremonies of purifying mentioned Lev. 34. 4. to 33. which howsoever they containe more then the precise respect of this Text calls for yet for the more full explication of the ceremonies of clensing I handle them as they are set downe in order Now before we enter upon the particular explication of the Text wee must understand 1. That the ceremoniall law did make two distinct things in sanctification 1. Healing 2. Clensing for first the Leper was healed then clensed Now this word here used doth expresse onely the likenesse of the clensing of the Leper there is such a difference to be put in our sanctification For first our hearts are turned to God and then we fall upon divers exercises of faith and repentance by which we settle our owne hearts in the assurance of our conversion The ceremonie shadowed out the first of these degrees the Leper was cleane when after his confession of uncleannesse his leprosie stayed and spred no further and did not fret inward So are we truely turned to God in that moment when under the sense of our owne vilenesse we so judge our selves that our hearts begin to cease from evill and sinne loseth his dominion and that it doth not prevaile over our hearts but groweth lesse and lesse but yet though this be done in a moment many times yet there is a great deale more to be done before we can have comfort in our conversion or be soundly clensed and setled in our consciences before God 2. We must know that sanctification shadowed out by that clensing is taken in the largest sense even for all that righteousnesse that is conferred upon us either in justification or sanctification as it is strictly taken 3. That in the businesse of sanctification none of the Lords people healed of their leprosie should trust onely upon their owne judgements but seeke all direction and helpe they can from their faithfull and able Teachers There was nothing done in the law but the Priests said and did all as it were whether it were in discerning the disease or the healing of it or in judging of the state of the Leper they tooke the testimony of the Priest in all things yea when one would have thought they might have done all by the same rules of discerning The clensing or purifying of the leprosie was either more slight or more exact In some leprosies it was but to wash and so be cleane Lev. 13.53 54 55. to note that repentance in some and from some sinnes is far more easie then in others The more exact clensing is distinguished

due benevolence from their husbands God himselfe hath freed the comming together of man and wife from the aspersion of impurity in that he hath said that marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled And this shewes the wonderfull indulgence of God that for the respect he beares to his owne institution of marriage and for the necessitie of marriage for the propagation of mankind and prevention of fornication is pleased to beare with and cover and not impute the many frailties follies vanities and wickednesses are found betweene man and wife And withall we may hence see reason to condemne their doctrine as a doctrine of Devils that forbid marriage as an impure thing and such as hinders holinesse and the blemish will never bee wiped away from some of the Ancients who to establish their owne Idol of I know not what virginity have written most wickedly and most basely against marriage Quest. But what then doth God allow any kinde of comming together so it be betweene man and wife Ans. No he forbids comming together in the time of the womans separation for her courses Ezech. 18.6 Nor doth he allow of brutish sensuality though it passe betweene man and wife for though God beare with many things yet the chastitie he imposeth doth not only restraine forraine beds but moderateth even the excesses of concupiscence in married persons so as in those things their conversation ought to be a conversation with feare Doct. 3. The practice of the duties of the second Table adorne religion as well as the duties of piety in the first Table Doct. 4. Some observe that a chaste conversation is especially charged upon the woman which must be warily understood for God hates whoredome in men as well as women But yet it is true that some sins as they are abominable in any so they are much more in women as we see in swearing and drunkennesse so it is true of filthinesse in the woman and therefore the whorish woman is called a strange woman in the Proverbs But I thinke it is not safe to restraine the sense of this place or other the like places so but I take the meaning of the Apostle to be so to commend chastitie in the wife as that which is necessary in all both men and women And so I come to consider of Chastity and so would shew first the motives to it secondly the meanes to preserve it and thirdly the way how Chastity may be manifested and made knowne to others For the first many things should perswade with a Christian to preserve chastity and to avoide whoredome and bodily lusts First it is the speciall will of God and a speciall part of their sanctification to avoid fornication 1 Thes. 4.3 Secondly the promises of God all of them should allure men to perfect their holinesse and to avoid all filthinesse both of flesh and spirit 2 Cor. 7.1 Thirdly the hatefulnesse of the nature of the sin of fornication and whoredome should deter●e Christians from the committing of it This is an hainous crime an iniquity to be punished by the Judges Iob 31.11 These lusts are lusts of the Gentiles 1 Pet. 4.3 A sin not so much as to be named amongst Christians Eph. 5.3 A sin that utterly corrupts naturall honesty Pro. 6.27 29. It is a sin not only against the soule but against the body of a man even that body that was bought with the bloud of Jesus Christ and was made for God and is the Temple of the Holy Ghost and is a member of Christs mysticall body 1 Cor. 6.15 to the end Fourthly the consideration of the cause of this sin should abash men it is a worke of the flesh even a fruit of a corrupted and filthy nature Gal. 5.22 Fiftly the effects of whoredome are very fearefull for it is a sin that defiles a man Mat. 15. and it makes a man unfit for the company of any Christian 1 Cor. 5.9 It brings dishonour and a wound can never be blotted out Pro. 6.33 and it causes the fearefull curse of God upon men Heb. 13 4. and that both upon their states and soules in this life By meanes of a whorish woman a man may be brought to a morsell of bread Pro. 6.26 It is a sin will root out all a mans increase Iob 31.11 12. And upon the soule it brings a fearefull senselesnesse and disability to make use of the means of salvation Whoredome and wine take away the heart Hos. 4.11 and God casts them many times into a reprobate sense Rom. 1. so as they are past feeling Eph. 4.18 so as the adulterous person goeth about like a Foole to the stockes or like an Oxe to the slaughter Pro. 7. ●2 In a word the adulterous person destroyeth his owne soule Pro. 6.32 y●● which is worst of all it deprives men of the kingdome of Heaven 1 Cor. 6.9 and casts both body and soule into the Lake that burnes with fire and brimstone Pro. 9. ult Rev. 21.8 22.15 For the second the meanes to preserve chastity in married persons are these First they must labour to excite and nourish matrimoniall love one to another P●● ● 18.19 Secondly they must doe as Iob did make a covenant with their eyes and not carelesly give liberty to their senses to wander about after vaine objects Iob 31.1 Thirdly they must store their heads and hearts with Gods word especially such words of God as doe give reasons and motives to disswade from this sin Pro. 2.1 3 4 11 12 16 17 Psal. 119.9 Fourthly they must continually meditate of their mortality and that they are but pilgrims and strangers here and must come to judgement 1 Pet. 2.11 Eccles. 11.9 Fiftly they must by confession and godly sorrow and prayer crucifie these first risings of inward lusts and so by repentance for the lust of the heart prevent the filthinesse of the flesh Gal. 5.24 Sixthly they must walke in love that is exercise themselves in a Christian and profitable society with such as feare God Eph. 5.1 3 4. Lastly they must with all care and conscience avoide all the occasions of this sin such as are 1. Idlenesse that sin of Sodome Ezek. 46.49 2. Fulnesse of bread and drunkennesse as is noted in the same place They must beat downe their owne bodies 1 Cor. 9.27 3. The desire to be rich for the love of money breeds noisome lusts 1 Tim. 6.9 4. Ignorance of God and his truth Eph. 4.17 18. 5. Evill company especially the society of such as are filthy 6. Lascivious attire and filthy dressing such as are strange colours and naked breasts this is whoredome betweene the breasts Hos. 2. 7. Lascivious pictures and profane representations of filthy practises such as are exprest by those wicked stage-players against which the very light of nature pleadeth 8. Chambering and wantonnesse and all provocations to lusts Rom. 13.13 For the third point if you aske how those husbands could behold the chaste conversation of the wives I