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	love_v	true_a	4,053	5	4.6245	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B06039	A sermon preached at Great Yarmouth, June 6th. By R.S., M.A. and rector of [illegible] in the county of Norfolk.	Scamler, Robert, b. 1653 or 4.	1677 (1677)	Wing S807B; ESTC R183256	44,829	80

of necessity but from the abundant freeness and generosity of his Spirit He should not have needed unless he had pleased to mould us into Shape and form us into Creatures What worth or merit can be alledged miserable dust and ashes that we are whereby we might claim a prerogative or Title to a Being Alas it was undeserved nevertheless he did it without force or compulsion which was an Illustrious Act of his free grace and bounty yet farr excelled by that much more eminent one in the Redemption of us from the slavery and servitude of sin and Satan yes and re-instating of us in a better condition then that which our First Parents so justly forfeited To love us before we were I confess is great love but to love us when we had rendred our selves vile yea and worse then nothing what can it be stiled but the heighth of love To love us in our non-entity is an Embleme of a most Noble Spirit but to love us after our monstrous ingratitude I cannot express it Eph 2 7. but in the words of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the exceeding riches of his glorious and merciful grace For man by his own default had lost his Original Righteousness and was trappand by Satan of all those blessings God of his special favour intended to bestow upon him We were so far from meriting this grand mercy the gift of his only Begotten Son that we had provoked him in the highest measure immaginable and cast all his commandments behind us What can we therefore conceive should move him to give us his Son surely not any loveliness or attractiveness in us We were not such amiable and beautiful Creatures as to cause a God to descend from the Battlements of Heaven and subject himself to the miseries of humane nature but his mercy and wonderful goodness alone which caused him to be invested with the garments of flesh and our Restauration to happiness is to be attributed to nothing but the free Bounty and grace of God For Sense or Reason cannot scruple so evident a demonstration especially if we consider against whom we thus transgressed whose Law it was we thus contemptuously trampled upon whose I pray was it but the Law of the great Legislator himself Did we not Rebel against the Supream Governour of Heaven and Sin against him who spreadeth out the Firmament like a Curtain and limiteth the Sea that it shall pass no further Isa 9.7 How doth the Prophet stile him Wise in Counsel wonderful in judgment and admirable in the execution of his unsearchable Will He is essential purity it self He abhorreth iniquity with a perfect hatred and utterly detests against every thing that is unjust Yet still it was against him that we offended who is cloathed with righteousness as with a garment and holiness as a Breast-plate It was him whom we provoked and consequently forfeited all natural right and possibility to happiness Yet stand still all ye that fear the Lord and see what glorious things he hath done for our souls Behold how his restless love could never be at quiet until it had employed his Omniscience to contrive means and expedients to reconcile both his Justice and Mercy in reconciling Sinners to himself Nay and this merciful design by the Incarnation of his Son He prosecuted in a way so worthy of himself and highly advantageous unto Man 1 Pet. 1.12 that the Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are ardently desirous to pry into them How did this make St. Paul to cry out Suam commendat erga nos charitatem Deus Rom. 5.8 God commendeth his love towards us in that whilst we were Sinners Christ died for us that is when we wanted all motives to invite and had nothing but our misery to cry aloud in the Ears of God for pity and compassion It is an usual expression when we see one in a deplorable condition to say his poverty or misery speaketh in his behalf but this is more eminent surely in our case and it was our misery was so prevalent with the Almighty as to give us his Son to save us when all expectation and hope of Salvation was taken away And how did this Son express his love to Mankind even as the Apostle tells us He being in the form of God Phil. 2.6 7. thought it no Robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of man and being thus arrayed as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross The sense of which is that it was beneath so great a love to love at a less rate then death it self and from the supereminent heigth of glory to stoop to the extreamest of indignities being abased to the bottom of abjectedness that we might be exalted to the contrary extream O Eternal Fathet of mercys thy love and goodness is unmeasurable and thy tender mercys are over all thy works what a large portion hast thou given us of thy love that to us a Son is Born to us a Son is given Thou hast not dealt so with any other creatures as thou hast done with man on whom thou didst stamp thine own Image cloathed him with immortality and constituted him Supream over the rest of the Creation Nay so great was thy goodness O God that when we had lost our selves by departing from thee we should still be found of the in sending thy Son to save and restore them that were lost Lord what is man that thou shouldst so regard him or the Son of man that thou shouldst thus respect him with all thankfulness and praise we remember this day we extol thy love and the humble descent of the Son of thy love Christ Jesus Oh grant that he may be conceived in the heart of every one of us that by the operation of the Holy Spirit Christ may dwell in us and we in him Oh let that Spirit which was in our Saviour inspire our hearts continually with devout affections towards thee that we may love thee beyond what our tongues can express or hearts imagine and so joyn cheerfully with that Coelestial Chorus who are still giving honour blessing power glory and dominion to thee for ever and ever for this thy unspeakable love to Mankind in giving thy only begotten Son that all may have everlasting life And so I descend from the efficient cause of Mans Redemption the love of God to the parties whom he thus loved and they come under a two-fold Consideration their Quality and Quantity We begin with the First God so loved the World By WORLD may be understood the whole compages of all Beings because every creature by the Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour received almost a new life and was in some measure delivered from the bondage of corruption But by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the text is especially signified all

contraction of the guilt of the first man so by the merits of the Man Christ Jesus they are justified freely by Gods grace if they do not fall off from the mercy of the Covenant by prevaricating the conditions of it For through his bloud he hath conveyed notice to all men that they are the Sons of God that they are the Heirs of eternity Coheirs with Christ and partakers of the Divine Nature meaning that they are so by the design of God and the purpose of the manifestation of his Son he being unwilling any should perish but that all should be saved Such was the unmeasurable love of Christ that he would have all men to be saved without exception of City or Country Nation or Language without exception of the ungodly enemies nay without exception of them that perish for it is to give them a space to repent in that he is slack as some men count slackness concerning his promise 2 Pet. 3.9 But alas in our late years of Rebellion when men pretending to fight the Battels of the Lord took up the Weapons of the Divel and under a pretext of the Lords cause entered a solemn league and covenant and swore Allegiance to the Prince of Darkness then also began to flourish their doctrine who say that God designed many Souls to Hell before they had a Being and Existence upon earth insomuch they were incapacitated to work out their salvation their sentence of condemnation being already past in the predeterminate counel of God then began men to flatter themselves that they were the only Children of God the Saints that should inherit the earth and none but they the true people of Sion who were the espousers of their fantastical opinion and perswasion judging all others to be held as Reprobates in the eyes of God because they were so in theirs Then was broached that opinion of a converting grace and irresistable power as if God would urge men to salvation and make them happy without any endeavours of their own if they did but rely on Christ and his Merits for the payment and satisfaction Which Doctrines are of so pernicious consequence that First it renders the Cross of Christ foolishness For wherefore did God give us his Son wherefore did he die rise again and ascend to his Father to what purpose was all that wast of bloud which he shed in our behalf if men were absolutely decreed to salvation or reprobation from all eternity to what end did Christ come into the world when as without consideration to his sufferings or the merits of his death and passion his Father had predetermined from eternity such a number for the pleasures of Heaven and so many for torment without end If it be thus then is Christ dead in vain because the Father might have effected this without putting his Son to the expences of his bloud to redeem us If it be thus the Father had no great love for his Son to put him to such cruelties and hardships not having any cogent or absolute necessity Nay if this doctrine was true it would blemish the wisdom of Heaven for if he had resolved to save some and damn others from eternity he might have done it without the contrivance of that device of reconciling us to himself by the death of his Son because that was intended only to satisfie his Justice and manifest his mercy and what need of that if we consent to a predetermination But then Secondly As it renders the death of Christ insignificant unnecessary so if this be true then is our preaching vain For to what end serve all the commands instructions calls counsels admonitions and reproofs of the Gospel for first they are unnecessary to those who are elected since if they be fully perswaded that they are decreed to salvation from eternity what need they trouble themselves about it when they know they shall be brought in in Gods due time and pleasure by such a converting grace and power as cannot be resisted by them And as the Gospel is useless to these so in the Second place to those who are reprobate for if they be fully perswaded thereof to wit that they must inevitably perish do they what is possible to prevent and avoid it why should men beat the air in labouring to perswade them to that which both the persons to be taught and the persons teaching are fully persuaded can never be effected by them Nay further let us suppose a man doubtful of his state yet if he consent to this doctrine is not the conclusion as if he should say if I be of that number God hath determined from eternity to save I shall be saved though I do what seemeth good in my own eyes for at some time or other which I am as yet ignorant off he will force me from my sins and compel me to obedience by such a power as cannot be resisted by me but if it be my hard lot to be put in the Catalogue of reprobates let me be never so industrious to work out my salvation let me wear the ground with my religious knees by my constancy in praying let me pine my body to a Skelleton by the austerities of fasting and humbling my self before God let me be never so religious never so devout yet still I must be fuel for that fire prepar'd for the Devil and his Angels because it was decreed so from eternity and is more unalterable than the Laws of the Medes and Persians This is the fruit which springs from so corrupt a root and the very case of Ludovicus that learned Italian for he was so miserably infected with this principle that no arguments and reasonings could convince him of its error till perceiving himself indisposed and already fallen into the Neighborhoods of sickness he sends for the Physician who made acquainted with his opinion answered him in his own stile if he should live he should live without trying the experiments of his art and skill the Patient ruminating on his words at last was convinced in his Conscience that as means were to be applied for the restauration of health so likewise for the salvation of the soul Away then with this deluding phantasie which is the parent of nothing but those Twin-Sisters of darkness presumption and despair and let us endeavour to justifie God in his saying that his will is that all should be saved 1 Tim. 2.4 to which end he hath proportioned sufficient means to all so that none can perish but through their own impenitency and perseverance in sin But alas how hath the luxuriant fancies of Geneva endeavoured to poyson this sweet truth by saying that is not meant that God would have every soul to be saved but two or three more or less out of every order and occupation But St. Peter better illuminated than those pretenders to the Spirit hath fully answered their cavil 2 Pet. 3.9 by saying that God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is unwilling that any