Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	affection_n	life_n	love_v	3,278	5	5.8521	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33349	Three practical essays ... containing instructions for a holy life, with earnest exhortations, especially to young persons, drawn from the consideration of the severity of the discipline of the primitive church / by Samuel Clark ...; Whole duty of a Christian	Clarke, Samuel, 1599-1682.	1699 (1699)	Wing C4561; ESTC R11363	120,109	256

promote his Religion 7. This is the Disposition of Mind which the Christian Religion requires of all its Professors And that this Disposition of Mind cannot otherwise be attained and preserved than by working our selves up to a great contempt of the World by being very temperate in the enjoyment of earthly Pleasures and by withdrawing our Affections from the desires of them is evident No Man who hath this Worlds Goods can cheerfully and bountifully bestow them to the Glory of God and to the Good of Men so long as he retains an over-fond Affection for the splendour of the World and cannot deny himself in any of its Pleasures No Man can set his Affections on things above while he places his Happiness in things here below nor have his Conversation and his Citizenship in Heaven while his Heart and Desires are fix'd on Earth In a word no Man can love God as the Supreme and only Good and make Religion heartily the usiness of his Life while his Affections are fondly fastened on the Pleasures of Earth and the Gratifications of Sense 8. He that notwithstanding his Belief of the Gospel does yet retain such a Love for the World as that he cannot persuade himself without great regret to part with any present Gratification and is solicitous not to be as Religious and to do as much good as he can but to live as sensually and to enjoy as much Pleasure as he thinks possibly consistent with the hopes of Happiness such a one 's divided Affections and unmortified Desires will certainly be too strong for the Governance of his Reason and his unwillingness to part with the Pleasures of this Life will be in great danger to deprive him of the Happiness of the next No Servant can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other ye cannot serve God and Mammon Luke 16. 13. The carnal or sensual Mind saith St. Paul is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be Rom. 8. 7. And in the 1st Epistle of St. John ch 2. ver 15. If any Man love the World the Love of the Father is not in him The avoiding eternal Misery and acquiring endless Bliss is not so easie and trivial a matter as to be the Purchase of a few faint Wishes the Work of a Mind distracted and as it were wholly taken up with other Cares He that hath proposed to us this glorious Reward has yet proposed it upon such Conditions as that we think it worth our caring for He indispensably requires that we fix our Affections upon heavenly things and though we may and ought to make use of the Blessings of this World thankfully as Accommodations in our Journey yet that in the whole Course of our Lives the general Design of our Actions be directed to this great End If therefore we suffer other things so to interpose as to steal away our Hearts and Affections we cannot possibly keep up this Disposition Man's Nature and Operations are finite and what time and attention he bestows on one thing must necessarily be subracted from another If then the Vanities of this World entertain and busie us they must unavoidably interrupt our attendance on the one thing necessary and when we begin to look upon these deceitful things as our proper Happiness our esteem will in proportion decrease to those which really are so Hence the Cares of the World the Deceitfulness of Riches and the Pleasures of this Life are said to choke the Word and it becometh unfruitful Matth. 13. 22. compared with Luke 8. 14. And St Paul tells us 1 Tim. 6. 9. That they who will be rich that is they whose Desires are eagerly bent upon the good things of this present Life fall into Temptation and a Snare and into many foolish and hurtful Lusts which drown Men in Destruction and Perdition 9. And that this over-fond Love of the present World this solicitous Desire after Riches and Pleasure is inconsistent with that Disposition of Mind which the Christian Religion requires seems to be the true and principal Scope of several of our Saviour's Parables to demonstrate The Parable of the rich Man Luke 16. is evidently intended to this purpose He is described to have been clothed in Purple and fine Linnen and to have fared sumptuously every day and when in Hell he lift up his Eyes and saw Abraham afar off and cried to him to have Mercy upon him and to send Lazarus that he might dip the tip of his Finger in Water and cool his Tongue the Answer he received was this Son remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented 'T is not said that he had spent his Substance in Rioting and Drunkenness 't is not said that he had deserved this Punishment for his Cruelty and Uncharitableness But only that he had lived delicately and fared sumptuously that he had already received his good things that is that he had received a plentiful share of the good things of this present Life and that he had received and valued them as his Portion and his Happiness and that therefore now there remained nothing for him but to be tormented 10. That the design of this Parable is not meerly to condemn Rioting and Extravagancy Drunkenness and Excess is evident For had that only been the design of it the rich Man would have been plainly described to have been guilty of those Vices But since our Saviour does not directly lay those things to his Charge neither must we do it The Parable says he was clothed in Purple and fine Linnen and fared sumptuously every day And as his Station in the World might be he may fairly be supposed to do so without the imputation of Excess As God has placed Men in different Stations in the World and accordingly made very different distributions of the good things of this Life amongst them so it cannot be denied but that these good things may be made use of according to every Man's Quality and Condition It cannot therefore be certainly collected from the rich Man's faring sumptuously that he wasted his Substance in riotous living as the Prodigal is described to have done in the foregoing Chapter for he would certainly in this Place have been directly accused of doing so if the Parable had been levelled against nothing less than Rioting and Excess 11. Again that the Design of this Parable is not meerly to condemn Uncharitableness and Cruelty is also evident For though it represents the rich Man on the one hand clothed in Purple and fine Linnen and faring sumptuously every day and on the other hand the poor Man lying at his Gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the Crums that fell from the rich Man's Table yet it contains only this Description of the poor

nothing but Uncertainties and Fears CHAP. XI Of the Contempt of the World 1. FOurthly Endeavour to get above all the Desires of this present World This is the hardest Lesson in Religion but withal the most necessary and the most useful All Wickedness proceeds from the immoderate desire of some temporal Injoyment or other and the Love of the World is most immediately the Root of all Evil. No Man sins but when he is seduced by an over-fond desire of some Honour Profit or Pleasure and no Man can be sure of preserving his Innocence so long as he is inslaved to and under the Dominion of any of these Desires The way therefore to lay the Ax to the Root of the Tree and to remove the Foundation and first Cause of our Misery is to get above all the Desires of these Transitory Enjoyments and to keep them perfectly in subjection and under the command of Reason We must be able to contemn these things even where they are Innocent and then we may be secure that they shall never be able to seduce and intice us into any thing that is sinful 2. Now the means by which the Christian Religion teaches us to do this is not as I have already said by retiring and withdrawing our selves from the World to neglect all Business and lay aside all Secular Cares but by fixing our Thoughts stedfastly upon that future State which the Gospel has clearly discovered to us to fill our Minds with such strong and vigorous Ideas of the Happiness of the next World as will in any state of Life beget and preserve in us a settled Contempt of all the Enjoyments of this 3. The first and lowest degree of this Contempt of the World is a Resolution not to purchase any of its Injoyments with the Commission of any great and known sin This is the very lowest degree of Sincerity and the least that any one who pretends at all to be a Christian can resolve with himself to do for the sake of God and religion He that to purchase any Honour or Profit will not scruple to make use of downright Fraud or of any Means which he himself knows and is convinced to be Unlawful He that to gratifie any sensual Appetite and to injoy a present Pleasure will venture directly to break a positive and express Command such a one bids open Defiance to God and Virtue and can hardly impose upon himself with any vain Imaginations of his being Religious 4. The next degree of this Contempt of the World is a Willingness to part with all things for the sake of Christ when we cannot keep them together with our Religion This also our Saviour absolutely requires of them that will be his Disciples If any Man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own Life also he cannot be my Disciple And whosoever doth not bear his Cross and come after me cannot be my Disciple Luke 14. 26 27. 'T is true this is more peculiarly adapted to those early times of the Gospel when 't was impossible for a Man to embrace the Doctrine of Christ and profess himself his Disciple but he must immediately forsake all that he had in the World and become poor in the most literal sense for Christ's sake But certainly it thus far obliges Christians at all times and even when God does not call them to suffering and parting with all for his sake that they ought to have such an indifferency for the things of this World as to be always in a readiness to part with whatever shall come in Competition with their Duty 5. But there is yet another degree of this Contempt of the World which though less considered is yet of more universal and more constant obligation And that is that We be sparing and temperate in the use even of Lawful and Innocent Enjoyments as those who expect their Portion not in the Pleasures of this World but in the Happiness of the next This is the proper and peculiar Virtue of the Christian Religion and indeed the only true Rule of Temperance To give Men a full Liberty of satisfying to the utmost all their sensual Appetites in all instances not directly forbidden and to set their Hearts upon the Injoyment of all worldly Pleasures as far as they can possibly within the Limits of Innocence is to allow Men a Liberty which Experience shews they cannot bear and which will certainly seduce them into the Borders of sin On the other hand to restrain Men from injoying the good things of this present World any further than is strictly necessary to preserve their Life and Health is to lay a snare on the Consciences of men and to tie 'em up to what God and Nature has not tied them The only true measure therefore of Christian Temperance is that we so govern our selves with respect to the Injoyments of this present Life as becomes those who profess to be followers of Christ and Candidates for Heaven who look upon this World only as a State of Labour and Trial but expect their Portion and their Happiness in the World to come That is that we so use these present good things as to preserve our selves always in the Disposition fittest for the Performance of our Duty to keep the flesh always in Subjection to the Spirit and to maintain constantly that Temper of Mind which may prepare and fit us for the Injoyment of God and for the Happiness of Heaven 6. The Design of the Christian Religion is to draw off Mens Affections from things earthly and sensible and to fix them on Nobler and Spiritual Objects It gives us the most refined Precepts exemplified in the Life of our Saviour for our Rule to walk by and sets before us as the Reward of our Obedience the Happiness of that Place where we shall be like to God because we shall see him as he is The first thing therefore that our Saviour requires of them that will be his Disciples is so to wean themselves from this present World as to be always prepared for the more spiritual Happiness of that which is to come The first thing that the Christian Religion teaches us is so to look beyond this World in the main Scope of our Lives and to have so slight an esteem for and be so little immersed in all earthly Injoyments as to have our Hearts fixed always there where we expect our Treasure It teaches us to look upon the good things of this present World as Talents committed to our Charge for the doing what good we can in the present State and thereby purchasing to our selves a Treasure incorruptible in the future It teaches us to set our Affections wholly on things above and to have our Conversation always in Heaven It teaches us to love God as the Supream and Only Good and to make it the Business and the Pleasure of our Life to Advance his Glory and to