Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	call_v	heart_n	spirit_n	2,759	5	4.7175	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57579	Practical discourses on sickness & recovery in several sermons, as they were lately preached in a congregation in London / by Timothy Rogers, M.A. ; after his recovery from a sickness of near two years continuance.	Rogers, Timothy, 1658-1728.; Woodford, Samuel, 1636-1700.	1691 (1691)	Wing R1852; ESTC R21490	114,528	312

his Family as a Little Church when he is at home and that by an unintermitting Diligence and Watchfulness antidotes himself against the Contagions of bad Examples and vain Company and the Temptations of an evil World when he is abroad Who is it that walks so circumspectly as to be unblameable and without Offence Who is it that is so couragious in his Reproofs so zealous of good Works so tender of his own Salvation and of the Salvation of others as he ought to be Our neglect of many thousand Duties calls for long and severe Punishments at the Hands of God And it is a Subject of great Wonder that he will be gracious even to any of the Sons of Men. And what reason has every one that is delivered from Sickness and Pain and Death to bless his holy Name and to say What am I O Lord God that thou shouldst visit and uphold and refresh so great so inexcusable so wilful a Sinner as I have been What am I a poor Worm of the Earth that thou shouldst so mercifully regard me What am I that I should live by thy Goodness when I have so often deserved to die by thy Justice What am I that when I had spent so much of my Time to little purpose thou shouldst give me still more time that he should again put me into his Vineyard when I had loiter'd in it for so long a space and when I had misimproved many thousand Talents and knew not what to answer for them he should pass by and remit my former Debts and put into my Hands a new Stock What am I that his Dew should remain upon my Branches when he might have said of me as of the barren Fig-tree Cut it down why cumbreth it the ground any longer O what Grace is this that a God whom I had so frequently and so heinously provoked should spare me to recover Strength That when I had mock'd him with so many cold and lazy Prayers he should give me opportunity to pray again when I had so often misimproved his Sabbaths and his Gospel and the Offers of his Son that he should continue to me the Blessings of his holy Day the Invitations of his Word and the Calls of Christ that so I may repent of my careless Hearing my Lukewarmness and my Unbelief In the humble sense of our own Unworthiness let us contemplate and admire that God that brings us from the Grave Many People will say If we were humbled and if we did repent God would soon help us This is very true but if God should never be merciful to us till we are prepar'd for Mercy his Mercy and his Help I am afraid would come very late For as we may say It is of the Lord's Mercies that we are not consumed because his Compassions fail not so 't is of the Lord's Mercy that we are delivered and he is gracious because he will be so 2. When we are delivered from Sickness and from the Grave we must remember that Deliverance so as to excite our selves to more Fervour and Affection Before all our Duties we should stir up our selves and that is to be done by an intense and serious application of our Minds to that particular thing which we go about by considering aright the Nature and Consequence of a well-performed Duty Thus when we are going to pray we should say Remember O my Soul to what a glorious God thou dost approach and with what humble Self-abhorrence thou shouldst look unto his Majestick Throne Remember thy own Vileness thy Sins thy Miseries and thy Wants and what need thou hast of a Mediator to make thy poor and thy mean Oblation to be an acceptable Sacrifice what need thou hast of wrestling and striving that thou mayst obtain a Blessing Thus when we give Thanks we may say Remember O my Soul the excellent Perfections of God and the Benefits which thou hast received their Seasonableness their Worth and all the wonderful Particulars they are attended with This excitation of our selves is not acquirable by a few cold and transient Thoughts 't is not one Sally of Religious Meditations now and then but a continuance of these Acts arguing and pleading the Case with our own Souls till the Fire of our Love and Thankfulness begin to burn We should think of the Mercies of God till our Hearts under the sense of his Goodness begin to melt and warm till all that is within us move and stir with holy Elevations towards him Then will the Holy Spirit cherish our Endeavours And when we are with all the Skill we can tuning our Harps he will come in to our Assistance and make the Musick more harmonious and our Praise more sweet and by his vital Influences banish all that Coldness that does usually damp and clog our Hearts in the Duties of Religion There is a great advantage in Soliloquies and a Man may in this Work talk to himself without the reproach of folly This is a means to quiet and appease a rising Storm Psal. 42. 5. and this is the way to make us look upon it with Delight and Thankfulness when 't is past and gone We know that those Sermons which do but explain Truths to us and present them only in their native Excellency and Reasonableness do not equally affect us as those do that are pressed with a fervent and lively Application Nor do those Mercies which we only remember make so much impression as those which we often call to mind and as often urge upon our Hearts When we come before God we must make his Altar smoak with burning Frankincense we must cover it with our chearful Praises and a flaming Love Our knowledg of his Persections is obscure and weak but our Sense causes us very distinctly to feel his Benefits and therefore all our Affections should ascend towards him When his Sun shines full upon us our Hearts should open at his Coming smell with a sweeter Savour upon the being visited with his comfortable Beams As upon our being brought from the Grave and restor'd to Health there is a new Strength in our Bodies so there must be a new Vigour in our Souls and as we discover a very great Earnestness in our Petitions when we want a Mercy so there ought to be as much Fervor in Acknowledgment and return of Thanks when we have received it 3. After we are delivered from the Grave we ought to remember such a Mercy with very great Sincerity i. e. there ought to be a Correspondence between our outward Expressions and the more undiscernable Motions of our Hearts There must be in our Understandings an high Esteem of him who is the Author of all our Good a most deliberate and free choice of him as our Happiness and this Esteem and this Choice is the genuine Product of a real Admiration There is nothing indeed more common than for People on the smallest occasions to say I thank God for this or that but the manner in which

brings them to Glory even by such unlikely wayes He will have them to be train'd up with difficulties to strive and to wrestle with them that so their Fervour may shame the coldness and indifference of others who take no pains for their Salvation He will have them to go laden under the sense of their Corruptions that so finding their daily need of Christ they may still remember him who is their help and finding so much guilt in themselves they may apply themselves to his unspotted Righteousness for Justification and to his Word and Spirit for new degrees of Holiness that they may have experience of his Goodness and he of their Obedience and Love that they may know the Loving-kindness the Care and the Wisdom of that God that Pilots their Ship when it is covered with waves and stormes for stormes are the Triumph of his Art and he steers even the sinking Vessel to the Port. Secondly By being brought from the Grave a Man may be enabled to do much good to himself as well as to others that so he may at last with joy give an account of his Stewardship that he may increase his own reward and by Gods Grace make his Crown of Happiness more sparkling and more full of weighty Glory As no man ought to be satisfied with the lowest degrees of grace so every one may and ought by an Innocent Ambition and a multitude of good Works to indeavour to sit near to the Throne and not only to save himself but to carry others with him to heaven that may be his Joy and his Crown in that Day Reason 6. and Lastly There are several circumstances that may enlarge the kindness of being brought from the Grave and which ought to render us more thankfull for it Those that are good may have their iniquities visited with stripes and it cannot but be a terrible thing to fear that they shall be snatcht away whilest they are punisht with the rods which their own Sins have made As the Prophet was devoured by a Lion for his Disobedience to the command of God 1 King 13. 21. It is a great Mercy to live to see the good of his Chosen and it is a punishment to be taken away just when some great deliverance is coming to the Church It was a thing which Moses greatly desired to see the Promised Land and to go thither to see it indeed was granted him but to enjoy it was denied him because of the provocation at the Rock It is a Misery to see Plenty for others and not to taste thereof our selves like that Lord of Samaria who perished for his unbelief 2 King 7. 2. 17. 18. It is a great Mercy to be delivered after we have been afflicted and ready to dye when the terrors of God have amazed us and his fierce wrath has gone over us Psal. 88. 15. How sad a thing is it to dye under a sense of the weight of sin and to have no prospect of a Pardon to feel as it were the very scorching flames of Hell and to have no hope that these will ever be cool'd or remov'd but rather grow more hot and scorching to have no Comfort from Heaven or Earth no rest for the Body no composure for the Soul to be sinking and to have nothing to lay hold upon to stand shivering on the brink of destruction and to see no way of escape to be compassed in with sin behind and with Miseries before to be in darkness and to see no light not to know where our Lot will be fixt not to know but that it may be among the damned To be near to the Judgment Seat of Christ and to be afraid of appearing there This is a state in which no man would chuse to dye for it is inexpressably terrible and it is a most wonderful mercy to be delivered from a Case so sad as this For how uncomfortable is it to a mans self to be roaring in the disquietness of his soul not to be able to live because of the insupportableness of his Pain nor to dare to dye because of the greatness of his sins that are always before him and that are like to lye down with him in the dust How uncomfortable is it to the Relations and Friends of the sick and dying that see him strugling and crying under pains which tear him to pieces How uncomfortable is it to them to hear his doleful Expressions about his Eternal state to see the anguish of his soul and the arrows of the Almighty sticking in it which makes him a terror to himself and to those that are round about him How woful a thing is this and if a man get to Heaven at last by the mighty Grace of God yet it is a thing very undesireable to go thither as by the very gates of Hell for a man to have his days shortned and his strength weakned in the way Psal 102. 23. and to have his Sun go down at noon looks like the displeasure of God and no man would dye by the frown of God A man cannot be blamed who is loth to dye till he save some Hope that it shall go well with him for ever 'T is a sore Evil to be thrown aside as a broken vessel in which there is no pleasure Jer. 22. 28. It is a great mercy to be kept from raging violent distempers and to be deliver'd from such after we have long groaned under them It is a great Mercy to have such a sickness as will allow us time to exhort and direct and counsel others and 't is very desireable that we may by a Christian Carriage set our Seal to Religion and shew its Power and Reality 'T is a most glorious thing to dye in the Lord i. e. as one Paraphrases it in the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Spirit of Faith and Love in a Spirit of Elevation towards God which makes the dying believer to go towards Heaven with all his force and like his Saviour commit his soul with joy into the hands of his heavenly Father Du Bosc Sermons p. 354. We ought to pray that we may not be like the wicked in our death and that we may be found of our Lord in peace and that we may say with old Simeon when after long expectation he saw the Messiah and embraced him in his arms Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation Luk. 2. 29 30. This we may beg of God for it is not only for our happiness but for his Glory when we can trust him tho' we go into a state which he has promis'd indeed but which we never saw What a glorious thing is it when we are drawing near to the end of Life to be able to wait and not only to wait but to long not only to believe and hope but to rejoyce and triumph in the thought of seeing God To give to those that

again the first Visit they make is to their old Good-fellows as they call them and they are welcomed into the jolly Company with full Bowls and with loud Huzzaes but let us go to such as will entertain us with Praises to God for our deliverance and not drink our healths but seriously pray for them Eightly When God has brought us from the Grave let us by all means see that so sore an Affliction and so great a Deliverance may be sanctified to us And we may know that they are so when they produce these following effects First When they take off our hearts from the World and the Creatures and drive us more to God Secondly When they make us more frequent and fervent in our Prayers Thirdly When they produce those holy ends for which they were sent upon us Fourthly When they make us to acknowledge God and to see his disposal and his hand in all that is come upon us Ruth 1. 20. The Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me Ver. 21. The Lord hath testified against me and the Allmighty hath afflicted me Fifthly When they make us to humble our selves and to lay our Mouths in the dust knowing that tho our troubles were very severe yet they were very just Ezek. 16. 63. That thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done saith the Lord God And Job 42. 5. When they fill our Hearts with Admiration and our Mouths with his Praise Seventhly When the Mercies we receive carry our Affections with more flame towards the Benefactor from whence they came As the warmth of the shining Sun causes a new fragancy and a sweeter smell among all the Flowers of the Garden Eighthly When they bring us to more knowledge of God and to more true calmness and joy in him These are glorious Effects of a sanctified affliction and of a sanctified escape from it and a sign that they came not by a common but by a special Providence and by a right of the Covenant of Grace by which all things are ours I might add in the ninth place when we taste his Fatherly Goodness and Love in all that we enjoy if we find these things within us 't is a sign we have both heard the Rod and him that did appoint it Mich. 6. 9. Oh how happy are we if God by taking away our health has given us himself and if by sending sharp sickness and pain upon us he has prepared us for a sweeter relish of his Love Happy are we if our Temporary Sickness tend to an Eternal Health and our short Sorrows to an Everlasting Joy Happy yet again are we if he have not only Commanded us to take up our beds and walk but also said unto us that our Sins are forgiven if we can say with Hezekiah Isa. 38. 17. Behold for Peace I had great Bitterness but thou hast in Love to my Soul delivered it from the Pit of Corruption for thou hast cast all my Sins behind thy Back It must be our great endeavour that after we have been tryed we may come forth like Gold and that we do not as the three Children in another case come out with our old Garments and with the same Sins upon us Let us earnestly beg of God that we may have a compleat Salvation and a total Recovery That as our Bodies are supplied with new strength so our Souls may prosper also For to be diseased in our Souls whilst our Bodies thrive is as if the House in which one lives were very well repaired and adorned to all advantage and the Man that dwells in so fair an Habitation were forced to go in raggs so fine a dwelling and so ordinary an Inhabitant would not agree well together Oh let us take care that whilst God has healed our Diseases we be not inwardly distempered with the Plague of our own Hearts That Man is not to be called healthful that let him look never so well has a Disease in his Vitals that by slow Degrees preys upon his Life Neither can that Man be truly said to be recovered whose Soul is either void of Grace or that having had it in some measure languishes and decays He is composed of Contradictions of Life and Death at the same time he is alive and well as to his Body but his Soul is dead in Trepasses and Sins The most excellent and valuable part of himself does remain under the power of Death and whilst it is so is an Object more unpleasing to God than a dissolving Carcass in the Grave would be to us The Welfare and Recovery of our Souls is what we ought more to seek than the Welfare of our Bodies Both indeed are Mercies but the former is much the greater of the two What is Purple and fine Linnen and soft Raiment that sets off a Man to the Eyes of others to that Faith and Love and Patience and Hope and those other Graces of the Spirit that beautifie the Soul and render it amiable in the Eye of God What is all the Meat and Drink that refresh our Bodies to that Heavenly Manna that Celestial Nourishment that an healthful holy Soul feeds upon The prosperity of our Bodies their ease and capacity of performing their several Actions is one of the greatest Ternporal Mercies but alas this will signifie nothing at all if we do not prosper in our Souls There is a way indeed whereby we may gather Grapes of Thorns and Figs of Thistles i. e. Refreshment and Comfort from those Afflictions that peirct us to the quick and that Sorrow which was at first unwelcom to us may prove an Angel of Light and strike off our Chains if we can say with David It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy Statutes Psal. 119. 71. Ver. 67. Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy Word His was a very blessed Cross that flourisht into such fruit as this I think I should not say amiss should I say that God has as it were brought every person here from the Grave and saved him from going down into the Pit from a Grave and a Pit which has been often digged for us by the Plots and Designs of our Enemies and into which we had long ago fallen had not God mercifully saved and helped us God has very lately done great things for our Brethren in Ireland whereof I do believe your Hearts are glad for as you mourn'd with them in their Sorrows so t is fit you participate with them in the Joys that they now have by the quick advances of their increasing Deliverance and from the dangers that so nearly threatned them And God has not after the mighty wonders of his Providence left us here in England when destruction has been coming towards us with hasty paces when it has from the proud Fleet of our Enemies threatned