Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	body_n	heart_n	soul_n	4,786	5	4.6656	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40772	The faithfull pastor his sad lamentation over, heart-rending challenge and dreadfull thunders against, sharp reproof of, and seasonnable warning to his apostat-flock. In a letter written by a French minister to those over whom the Holy Ghost had made him an overseer upon their wofull defection, renouncing the faith, and joyning in idolatrous worship. Now carefully translated. Together with a word to mourners in Zion who by grace have kept the faith, to sleepers under the storm, and to the almost Christian; Sad lamentation over, heart-rending challenge and dreadfull thunders against, sharp reproof of, and seasonnable warning to his apostat-flock.		1687 (1687)	Wing F279; ESTC R216409	68,644	59

case estemed a prudent retraite to be in so me degree a victory But what shall we say of those who as you have done would neither resist nor fly What can we beleive of them but that they were resolved before hand to do what they did He that stayed at home to deny at last Iesus Christ said St. Cyprian (a) de Lapsis in the like case stayed of purpose to do so You will answer God forbid that you should have so wicked a thought We would have fled if we could All wayes of retraite were stopt and those that retired with pasports may speak at their ease what they please but for others the soldiers and Country were employed against them and double guards set at all places whereby they might escape the prisons are full of those they took either on the Frontiers or in seaport towns and terrible were the punishments inflicted on them every one is not Galy-proof nor can suffer the infection of a noisome Dungeon where those wretches dye a thousand times a day We must have done what we did sooner or later a few dayes make no great difference I confesse it is a sad case and if you had been detained in your flight it had made appear at least that you were willing to do your duty Then you might have alledged some specious excuse for your defence that you were Constrained and that there was no choice but of the Change of religion or a prison And as in the ancient Church they received with compassion the excuses of those who had suffered the extreamest pains for the profession of the truth who to obtain the peace of the Church used more their wounds then their tears and the marks of the tortures that tore their bodies than the voice of mourning as Cyprian said so likewyse we would have pitied your Chains and prisons But what right have you to speak of the Dangers of retreat who never tryed it You who never lost sight of your houses your excuse resembles that of the Loiturer who to have a pretence of his Lazyness said (b) Prov. 22. there is a lyon without You seek for a pretence of yeelding to the enemy Yousay the passages were stopt and a retraite was accompanied with a thousand dangers but why stayed you til the passages were stopt You had time enough to save your selves when they were all open Believe me Fear made the danger seem greater then it was You might perhaps have seen all the difficulties levelled before you if you had attempted to surmount them More then a hundred and fifty thousand of your brethren who escaped the vigilance of the Guards shew what you might have hoped for if you had had the courage to expose your bodyes for the safety of your souls The most of them that escaped retired since the Revocation of the Edict after they had beset all the frontier places with guards of souldiers Men women and children alone and in company disappointed the industry and diligence of those hunters of souls God wants not still his invisible thariots to save those that hope in him He can yet blind as he has often done those who oppose themselves to the retraite of his Children Let as then speak the truth that we may not disguise the cause of your defection The fear of men and love of the world have made you fall The dread of men has made you forget the fear of God You were affraid of the Dragoons these Missionaries of the red Dragon and the fear of falling into their hands made you forget that it was infinitely more terrible to fall into the hands of the Living God You remembred not that all the injuries of men can only afflict the body but that God can cast soul and body into Hell sire therefore he was more to be redoubted then men On the other hand your Goods stack to your heart (a) Cypr. de Laps The blinded love of thee good things of this world has deceived you and perhaps you were not in a condition to retire because you were chained by the affection you retained for your perishing riches so true is it that the heart cannot share the service of two Masters and that it is impossible at the same time to serve God and Mammon How unhappy is he who prefers the service of Mammon to that of God! What miserable gain is it to gain the whole world and to loose your own soul This love of your goods includes two things equally criminall Ingratitude and distrust First Ingratitude you received those benefits of the bounty of God and I do not beleive that in prostrating your selves before that Divinity made with mens hands which you have promised to adore you dare think that it is to it you are indebted for them It is God the living God not made with mens hands but by whom men are made who bounhfully bestowed them who preserved them by his Providence and encreased them by his blessing Has he given them preserved them and encreased them that you might love them more than him and prefer them as your occasion serves to his service Is this to give him the due acknowledgment of his goodness to choose rather to renounce his Covenant then the goods you received of him Has he been bountiful that you might be perfidious Can you do him a greater indignity then thus to set him at nought for the things that perish and to shew your selves more slaves to them than religious guardians of his truth Consult all ye Masters that can informe you of the nature of Ingratitude you will find it the blackest and most shamefull degree thereof to use benefits to the disservice of the Benefactor and to offend him by his own bounty This is that you have done to God you have abused his liberality to his dishonour If he had given you less to loose perhaps you would have served him more faithfully But because he made you live at ease and filled you with his treasure you could not resolve to quit for his sake that which you held of him Secondly You have discovered a shamefull distrust You were affraid you would never receive again what you had abandoned for his sake and forgat the (b) Mat. 19. promise he made to those who love him above all (c) Mark. 10. Luk. 18. to every one that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wyfe or children or Lands for his names sake that they shal receive an hundred fold in this world and in the world to come everlasting life What think you Did you believe he was not true to his word or that he wanted power (a) 1 Ep. Ioh. 5. Have you made him a lyar by your misbelieif or (b) Psal 77. have you limited him by an injurious dustrust Did you think he was not able enough to remunerat you for that you were to sacrifice for his glory or that he was not rich enough

you have abandonned Shew to me in that age any one Town that did not produce some example of constancy or any one Church that preserved none of her members in the persecution But not to go further search into the History of your own Town and families and ye will find there some examples that you ought to imitate for the most part of you do still bear the name and possess the goods of those that were then either Martyrs or Confessors you are doubly guilty to have forsaken the truth that of it self is so worthy to be preserved and to have so ill kept the pledge which your fathers left you when they had purchased it with their valour and blood But perhaps it is too great a trouble to you to consult former ages search in your own age and consider other Churches in your own Province if there be an example of Apostacy like unto yours The greatest part its true have fallen away but there is not any place but some one or other has stood when the battel was sharp and kept constant for some time and suffered to the utmost extremity before they were vanquish'd The most part yeelded not till they came to subscribe the sentence of their death They forced their enemies to exhaust their lasting torments and Cruel politiques before they could bear them down You see every where the spoiling of their goods and prisons with other violences and above all you see a great many penitents who have repared their forced fall by a couragions retreat who fill forreigne Countries and aedifie their brethren by a voluntary return to the truth which they had by constraint forsaken Is it possible that there is none but you that have given an example of a revolt without exception What dismall conspiracy of a whole Church against the Lord and against his Christ At all times and in all places during the most cruell persecutions there have been some saints some faithfull Christians who have carried upon their Unshaken Root the Heavenly Commands who having been fortified by the doctrine of the Gospell were not affrayed neither of Banishment to which they were condemned nor of the tortures that were prepared for them neither of the losse of their goods nor of the most frightfull punishments Among you only there is found so little love to God so little Zeal for his glory that you have not shown one instance of fidelity How will ye behave your selves in that day when it shall please God to restore peace to his afflicted Church To whom will you address for a reconcilement seing you have all revolted Where is the Church among you that may receive you into her besome upon your repentance and submission Seing you have as I may say extinguished it by your infidelity So far that there is not one living member remaining Whereas God has reserved some thousands of true Christians in the Kingdom where you are how comes it to pass that you cannot make one of the number Is there not one left that has not defiled himself with an idolatrous worship But I mistake there has been some examples of Christian Courage among you its true but they were such as might load you with shame and Confusion Five or six women and maids were more Zealous then you who chose caves and deserts rather than to submit to that sentence of death which you sealed to your own destruction (a) Id. Ibid. A holy Bishop of old Boasted that his Church produced women couragious enough to partake with men in the Victory and Crown of Martyrs but with you all the Glory was on their side That weak sex surmounted the temptations that men were affraid of We have seen women triumph over the vanquished men who resisted the evil example of their brothers fathers and husbands and raised themselves on the ruines of the stronger sex who by their constancy reproached the others weakness and cowardize ready to cry out with a famous Martyr of the first ages Farewell my life farewell my goods (b) Basil Serm. I love rather to loose all these then be guilty of blasphemy and impiety against God my creator by one single word Go on holy and generous women and if there be any whose constancy time and the example of their relations has not shaken perfect ye that which you have begun persevere to the end and your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord The Crown of life is prepared for you he is faithfull who has promised Love and know no more after the flesh Know no Father but God no Husband but Christ Keep for him your souls which he has redeemed And Crown with a Christian death your noble beginnings Call to mind what a holy woman ready to die for Christ said to those of her Sex that ran out to gaze on her as a Spectacle (c) Basil 16. Dot not alleadge said she to me the frailty of our sex thereby to shun the trouble that accompanies the profession of Piety We are made of the same matter men are of and created after the image of God as well as they He did not only take of the flesh of man to make the Woman But he has made us bone of his bone and therefore according to the design of God we ought to have as mush patience courage and Constancy as they Thus when Christ was taken by the Jews the most part of them abandoned him in the Garden others denyed him at the High priests house but the women were not affraid of his Cross and were ready to accompany him with the homage of their faith and love even to the grave Preserve the Glory of your sex and relent not when there remains but one assault more to obtaine a compleat Victory But as for you Husbands less couragions then your wives Fathers and Mothers more fearfull and luke warme then your Daughters was it not enough to commit so great a sin without making it greater by revolting considerately and advisedly Should you have submitted your salvation to the arbitration of men Did you use art and cunning that you might with more advantage betray the cause of God and Must you agree on terms to destroy your seves Some of you would not sin alone but chose rather than to want company to draw in others by your wicked Counsels But there was not one found among you who to restraine others from this shamefull action had the Courage to speak with Joshua to those that were going to betray the truth of God. (d) Jos 24.15 Choose you this day the God that you will serve but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. So far alas were you from speaking thus that you encouraged one another to the mutuall ruine of your souls and to your bad example added your unmercifull exhortations When you saw any one whom the importance of the Change kept unresolved you determined him by your perverse Counsels and adopted the words which