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	love_v	true_a	2,520	5	4.7349	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27047	Three treatises tending to awaken secure sinners by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. True Christianity.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Absolute dominion of God-redeemer.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Absolute soveraignty of Christ.	1656 (1656)	Wing B1420; Wing B1409L; Wing B1437; ESTC R11838	152,069	348

weight with you and no knowledge would serve your turn but by seeing and feeling you shall see and feel everlastingly to your sorrow The seventeeth Excuse It was so strict a Law that God would have Ruled me by and the way to Heaven was so strait and difficult that I could not endure it I was not able to deny my flesh and live such a life Answ 1. You were not Able because you were not Willing ●hat was there but your own wicked hearts that should make such a life seem grievous to you Every thing is hard and grievous to him who loaths it and whose heart is against it The chief thing that God called you ●o was to love him and make him your Delight And are Love and Delight such grievous things It was not grievous to you to love your meat or drink or money It was no hard matter to you to love a friend that loved you no nor to love your sin which was your enemy And what should make it seem hard to love God but a wicked heart Is not he better and more Lovely then all these And had you but Loved him all the rest of his service would have seemed easie to you To think of him to speak of him to pray to him to praise him yea to deny all and suffer for him would have been sweet and pleasant to you so far as you had Loved him It was not God therefore but your own naughty hearts that made his work seem grievous to you and the way to heaven seem hard He told you truly that his yoak was easie and his burden light and his Commandments were not grievous Mat. 11. 29. 1. Joh. 5 3. They that tryed them found them the very Joy and Delight of their souls and why could not you do so 2. But what if the way to heaven had been harder then it was was not heaven worth your labour were you afraid of being a loser by it Could not God requite your labour or sufferings Doth any Repent when they come to Heaven that it cost them so dear to come thither And is not hell worse then the hardest way to heaven seeing you have chosen hell to save you a labour and suffering in in this life you must have your choice And seeing you thought not everlasting life to be worth so much as God required that is the Accepting thankfully and minding and seeking and preferring it before this life you have none to blame for the loss of it but your selves The eighteenth Excuse It was God that made me of a sensual nature He gave me an Appetite to Meat and Drink and Ease and lust He gave me that flesh which ruled me how then can be condemn me for living according to the nature which he gave me Answ He gave that Appetite to be exercised moderately under the rule of reason for the preservation and propagation of mankind But did he not also give you Reason to govern that Appetite and the Revelation of his will to guide that Reason He gave you your flesh to be a servant and not a master Your beast hath fleshly Appetite without reason and therefore God hath put him under you who have Reason that you should Rule him Will you let your beast do what he list and madly run upon whom he list and say you do but let him live according to his nature which God hath given him Why God that gave him such a nature did intend him to be Ruled by a higher nature even by the Reason which he gave to you And so he did also by your flesh and sensual Appetite The ninteenth Excuse But I lived among so many baits which enticed this flesh that I could not resist them My meat was a snare to me my drink a snare my cloaths my house my land a snare every beauty that I saw was a snare and the better all these were the stronger was my snare If God would not have had my heart ensnared and drawn from him he should not have put so many baits in my way Yea and they were so Neer to me and Daily with me that though I was resolved to forbear them before yet when they were brought to my hand I could not forbear Answ Is this the thanks that God hath for his mercies He sent you all these as favours from his own hand He wrote his own name upon them that in them you might see his power and wisdom and goodness and so be led up to the Consideration of him that you might fall in love with himself who was the fountain the life the end of all And do you overlook God in the creature and live as without him in the world and dote upon that which should have drawn you to himself and then lay the blame on God If he send a Suitor to speak to you in his name and write you a love Letter with his own hand will you fall in Love with the Messengers or the Letter and neglect the Sender and then blame him that wrote his letter on so fair a paper or in so neat a hand or that sent it by such a comely Messenger Certainly these Excuses are too gross to take with the wise and righteous God or to seem sufficient to a well informed Conscience 2. And whereas you speak of the power of these objects was there not much more in God in Christ in the promised glory to have drawn your heart another way why then did not these take as much with you as the other You could not choose forsooth but be enticed with such baits as were fitted to your sensual Appetite and such things as a dog or a swine may enjoy as well as a man But you could chosse when Christ and glory were offered you yea you did choose to refuse the offer and tread them under feet by your neglect When Satan set your Cups and your ●arlots and your profits before you on one side did not God set his favour and everlasting hapiness on the other side And was it wise or equal dealing to preferr your lusts before that glory 3. Moreover it was not in the power of any of those baits to force your will or to necessitate you to choose them They could be but Baits to entice you and it was still in your own choice wheth●r you would yield to the encicement and choose them or not Shall every man be false to God that hath any bait to entice him from him will you excuse your child or friend if he would be false to you upon as great enticements as these If a cup-of drink or a whore or a little gain could draw him more then all you love and interest I do not think you would hold him excused And whereas you speak of the Neerness and Continuance of these allurements I would fain know was not God as Neer you and Continually neer you to draw you to himself Faith might have ●een him though flesh and blood cannot Did

the next words Depart fromme in to Everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels 1. Depart From whom from the God th● made them in his Image From the Redeem that bought them by the price of his blood an● offered to save them freely for all their unworthyness and many a time intreated them to Accept his offer that their souls might live From the Holy Ghost the Sanctifier and comforter of the faithful who strove with their hearts till they quenched and expelled him O sad Departing who would not then choose rather to Depart from all the friends he had in the world and from any thing Imaginable from his life from himself if it were possible then from Christ Depart from what why from the presence of the Judge from all further Hopes of salvation for ever from all possibility of ever being saved and living in the joyful inheritance of the Righteous Depart Not from Gods Essential presence for that will be with them to their evelasting misery but from the presence of his Grace in that measure as they enjoyed it Depart Not from your fleshly pleasures and honours and profits of the world These were all gone and past already and there was no further need to bid them Depart from these Houses and Lands were gone Mirth and Recreations were gone Their sweet morsels and cups were gone All the Honour that men could give them was gone before they were set at Christs barr to be Iudged But from all expectations of ever enjoying these again or ever tasting their former delights from these they must Depart No from their sin for that will go with them But the Liberty of commiting that part of it which was sweet to them as Gluttony Drunkenness Whoredom Idleness and all Voluptuousness from these they must Depart But this is consequential It is Christ and the Possibility of salivation that they are Sentenced to Depart from But Whither must they Depart 1. Into fire 2. Into that fire which was prepared for the Devil and his Angels 3. Into everlasting fire 1. Not into a Purifying but a Tormenting fire Whether Elementary or not Whether properly or Metaphorically called fire let us not vainly trouble or selves to enquire It is enough to know that as fire is one of the most grievous Tormentors of the flesh so grievous will be those infernal Torments to the whole man soul and body Such as is most fitly represented to us under the notion of fire and of burning It s easie for a secure unbelieving soul to read and hear of it but woe and ten thousand woes to them that must endure it In this life they had their good things when it went harder as to the flesh with better men but now they are tormented when the godly are comforted as Luke 16. 25. 2. But why is it called a fire prerared for the Devil and his Angels 1. What is this Divel That hath Angels 2. Who are his Angels 3. When was it prepared for them 4. Was it not also prepared for wicked men To these in order 1. It seems by many passages in Scripture that there is an Order among Spirits both Good and Bad and that there is one Devil that is the Prince over the rest 2. It seem therefore that it 's the rest of the evil spirits that are called his Angels And some think that the wicked who served him in this life shall be numbered with his Angels in the life to come Indeed the Apostle calls him The God of this world 2 Cor 4. 4. as is ordinarily Iudged by Expositors and the Prince of the power of the Aire the Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience Eph. 2. 2. And he Calleth false seducing Teachers the Ministers of Satan 2 Cor. ●1 15 But that wicked men are Here meant as part of his Angels is not clear 3. If it be the preparation of Gods purpose that is here meant then it was from Eternity but if it be any Commination of God as Ruler of the Angels then was this fire prepared for them Conditionally from the beginning of that Commination and was Due to them at their fall 4. It seems that the Reason why here is no mention of preparing Hell-fire for the wicked but only for the Devils is not be cause indeed it was not prepared also for the wicked but to note that it is the Torment which was first prepared for or assigned to the Devils thereby shewing the greatness of the misery of the wicked that the Devil and his Angels must be their Companions Though some think as is said before that the reason why wicked men are not Mentioned here is because they are part of the Angels of the Devil and so included And some think it is purposely to manifest Gods General Love to mankind that prepared not Hell for them but they cast themselves into the Hell prepared for the Devils But the first seems to be the true sense And how apparently Righteous are the Judgements of the Lord that those men who would here entertain the Devil into their hearts and daily familiarity should be then entertained by him into his place of Torments and there remain for ever in his society Though few entertained him into Visible familiarity with their bodies as Witches do who so make him their Familiar yet all wicked men do entettain him into more full c ●nstant familiarity with their so uls then these withces do with their bodies how famliariar is he in their thoughts to fill them with vanity lust or revenge How familiar is he in their hearts to fill them with covetousness malice pride or the like evils and to banish all thoughts of returning to God and to quench every motion that tendeth to their recovery How familiar is he with them even when they seem to be worshipping God in the publike Assembles stealing the word out of their hearts filling them with vain and wandring thoughts blinding their minds that they cannot understand the plainest words that we are able to speak to them and filling them with a proud rebellion against the Direction of their Teachers and an obstinate refusal to be ruled by them be the matter never so necessary to their own salvation How familiar are these evil Spirits in their houses filling them with ignorance worldliness and ungodliness and turning out Gods service so that they do not pray together once in a day or perhaps at all How familiarly doth Satan use their tongues in cursing swearing lying ribaldry backbiting or slandring and is it not just with God to make these fiends their familiars in Torment with whom they entertained such familiarity in sin As Christ with all the Blessed Angels and Saints will make but one Kingdom or family and shall live altogether in perpetual Delights so the Devil and all his Hellish Angels and wicked men shall make but one house-hold and shall live altogether in perpetual misery O poor sinners I you are not troubled now