Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	death_n	heart_n	sin_n	2,741	5	4.2229	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60255	Moral considerations touching the duty of contentedness under afflictions In a letter to the most affectionate and best of fathers Mr. James Simpson. By R.S.	Simpson, Richard, 1661 or 2-1684.	1685 (1685)	Wing S3819A; ESTC R219634	24,953	98

would not have this Anticipation so wholly to possess your Soul as to spoil the fruition and take away all the lawful pleasures and comforts of those worldly blessings God is pleased to allow you No This were to let the thoughts of Evil swallow up the relish and enjoyment of Good this were to let your fears drive away all tranquility serenity and happiness out of your mind and yet never cure nor remove the danger As therefore the increase and possession of the many Good things of this life as the height of Prosperity ought not to delude us so far as never to think of a possible Alteration in our condition for tho we are now healthy and rich we must think there will come a time when we shall be sick and under misfortunes So we ought to be careful that the overmuch thought of this change and alteration in our Condition these possible crosses and misfortunes do not so much possess our souls as to make us forget the Goodness of God in bestowing these good things upon us or neglect that duty we owe to God for them viz. An honest charitable use of them in our callings relations places and stations a hearty chearful and yet with all a sober and moderate delight and satisfaction in these honest lawful Comforts of life and all possible praise and thanks-giving to that God that hath been pleased by entrusting us with these things to make our lives some way serviceable to him profitable to others and comfortable to our selves Think therefore that things may be a great deal worse than they are now and that however they be you ought to acquiess in in the will and pleasure of God concerning them but still be thankful for what you have trust Providence for the future and alwaies hope the best 3. I come now to the due Moderation of our Desires in the want of what the World calls Good And 't is certain that almost the whole Art of Attaining to that happy contented state of life after which we are inquiring consisteth in the due regulation and government of our desires For that mind can never be contented that having not regulated its Desires is too furiously bent upon the world and those things which our own vain thoughts and the mistaken estimate of the generality of men call Good in it that still runs before that station and condition God Almighty hath ordered for it and tho it attains this year what it earnestly persued the last yet still it will be gadding farther and keep before its Acquests Its thoughts and endeavours are restless and still aspiring and aiming higher and so it can never enjoy what it hath because it alwaies busies it self too much in the anxious pursuit of what it hath not Whereas if a man would but bring himself and his thoughts into a low and just esteem of this world and all the gawdy vanities in it if he would moderate his desires and keep them either under and below or at least equal with that Station of life Divine Providence and honest Industry has alotted him he might enjoy his Estate comfortably and happyly and possess his Soul in peace and quietness Now that our desires may be within their due bounds and not run gadding after what they ought not nor be so irregularly bent upon things often falsly stil'd Good We ought carefully to direct them aright i. e. to things which we clearly and distinctly know to be really Good And the only way so to direct them is to employ our understanding or faculty of discerning which God to that end hath given us strictly and attentively to examine and consider the real goodness of these things and its measure that accordingly we may determine our will to affect and earnestly persue them or be indifferent towards them and fix our Affections upon higher and nobler objects We are therefore to look strictly into Riches Honours Pleasures and Greatness and consider whether they are not uncertain deceiving things what Stability there is in them what good they will do after death what quietness or tranquility they will yeild us or rather take from us whether they have in them any real influence to make us better or wiser And when we find as we needs must that they have no Stability in them will do us no Good after death we are immediately to withdraw all degrees of love and desire from them and set up our hopes and hearts upon more noble and more durable enjoyments Honors and greatness are known to be rather dangerous and troublesome than desireable rather Curses than Comforts and Blessings Envy Malice Jealousy and an infinite number of sins and disturbances always attend them They make Thrones but uneasy Seats and Honors no more than splendid Miseries We ought to consider them as Gilt that covers a bitter Pill and looking through this dress and outside easily observe that it conceals a State obnoxious to danger solicitude care trouble envy discontent unquietness and infinite temptations A Condition which if there happen any alteration or change in the Administration of Goverment any distemper or rebellion in the Nation any faction among the Grandees or Insurrection among the Vulgar will be infallibly hunted after pusht at and ruin'd So that Honor is rather a Burthen than a Priviledge it makes our charge and our accounts the greater our rest and contentment the less And we may find enough in great imployments to make us sensible of the dangers troubles and uneasiness of them enough to make us humble but nothing to make us proud or haughty or create any great love and desire of them To be short the madness and folly of Greatness the vanity of Pleasures and the deceitfulness of Riches make up a great part of the Writings of many Modern and Ancient Authors I shall not then give you or my self the trouble of tedious proving and insisting upon that which all-most every Book you meet with will do for me Onely give me leave to insist a little particularly upon that immoderate Love and Desire of Riches which is observable in the generality of men The getting and increasing of Estates is so much the Business of Mankind as if they at the same time in buying of Lands purchased Salvation and Eternal Happyness to themselves To let alone all the dangers cares and other ill consequences of Riches still Mortality Death and the Grave terminate all the fading felicity they do or can yield us and the fear and pre-apprehension of such an end should be apt one would think to sower and allay even that comfort and pleasure which these would perhaps otherwise offer This one thought is sufficient to embitter their enjoyment and render them insipid 'T is like the Worm at the bottom of the Gourd that withers and spoils their fruition and puts the possession of them out of the capacity of making us happy For great cares and great fears can never consist with true happiness Riches I

from that false Varnish that had formerly wrought too much upon humane Infirmity This raised in him a just undervaluing and loathing of the bewitching but deceiving Charms of this world And this made him acknowledge Gods great Goodness to him in that restraint Thus 't is an Everlasting truth that All things work together for the best to them that love and fear God Thus Afflictions you see come for the good and amendment even of good men are always sent for our instruction or prevention of Sin and 't is our fault and weakness if they have not the blessed effect Now since there are few or no persons who have been observant of Gods dealing towards them but are able to say from their own Experience ' T is good for them that they have been afflicted We have reason to be thankful for them at least to receive them with Submission Patience and Content Especially considering that God owes us nothing is under no obligation no law of conferring benefits upon us but all that we have we have of free gift and bounty And Morality tells us that if we receive an Alms from another it is very reasonable that we should be content with what the other pleases to give without prescribing to his Liberality The best of men are Sinners and therefore deserve far worse at the hands of God than the worst Afflictions that do or can befall any man in this life If we therefore be not so happy as we desire it is well we are not so miserable as we deserve if things go not so well as we could wish they had done it s well they are not so ill as they might justly have been And the worst we here suffer being less then we deserve and the least we enjoy more than we can in Justice expect We ought in reason to be content and thankful for the least Mercy And to be patient and humble under the greatest Evil. There have been Examples of great Afflictions that have befallen better men then we are And when our Condition is at the worst 't is much better than we deserve or what many others better then we enjoy The Evils then we suffer being much short of our Demerit the Good we enjoy much beyond what we Deserve what absolute and indispensible Necessity lies upon us to be Content with our Condition though Afflicted or Poor For though we want something that others have yet we have somewhat by the Bounty of God that many as good if not better want We should learn Contentment by considering others wants and our own Enjoyments And not learn discontent from others Enjoyments and our own Wants Men would questionless be patient under Sufferings of any kind if they carried with them a due sense of their unworthiness and upon a judicious account look'd upon their meanest lowest worst Condition as better than they deserv'd at the hands of God The best of Mankind may easily find that all that which was truly Good thro the whole Course of his life is a pitiful slender Scantlet and would be infinitely out-weigh'd by his Sins Omissions and Defects And the due Comparison and Prospect of this would quickly give him a seasonable lecture of humility and patience And there 's no man but upon a strict and impartial search of himself may find enough to deserve Affliction somewhat amiss that requires amendment some Evils growing into Exorbitancy in a word Corruptions enouth to grow into greater Enormities which the All-seeing God knows and in mercy and goodness prevents by the Corrosives and Catharticks of Affliction So great and constant is his love to us even in his punishing us How many dayly Sins and Offences do we continually stand guilty of How many contempts and abuses of Spiritual and Temporal Blessings have we to answer for And yet God does not punish these with an utter deprivation of them Nay Corruption and Vice is con-genial with our very Being In every year you will find the Iniquity incident to that Age And as we improve in Stature Age and Knowledge our Sins are rather varied and chang'd then forsaken And yet God does not as most justly he might cut us off in the midst of our Iniquities but spares and gives us time and opportunities for Repentance Now if he be thus patient towards us in our sinning against him when we oppose and provoke him 't is but reason that we should be patient in our sufferings from him when he endeavours to heal and reclaim us To Conclude Gods Love and Goodness still continues even in Affliction for he hath ordain'd after a few years or days thus spent after a few Afflictions undergone with Christian Courage and Fortitude An Eternal State of unchangeable and perfect happiness And Death the worst of temporal Evils will cure all these maladies and deliver up the soul into a state of endless comfort and felicity I Promis'd Sir in this short Discourse to confine my self within the Rules of mere Morality and I think I have been just to my Resolution As to the First Prosition about Regulation of Passions it is acknowledged to be a Moral Theme and that nothing almost can be writ upon that subject which will nor fall within the proper and peculiar Province of a Moralist As to the Second Proposition Touching Submission to God and Acquiescence in his pleasure at all times and in all things I will upon your desire give you the Names of those Heathen Moralists whose writetings do Authorize most of what I have here set down And how far bare Morality has gone in this point I shall in Conclusion of all represent to you in the words of a Heathen Poet. Juvenal Satyr 10. Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus quid Conveniat nobis rebusque sit utile nostris Nam pro Jucundis aptissima c. Boyle's Seraphick Love pag. 31. Unto the Wiser God 's the Care permit Of what 's for us and our affairs most sit They will for Pleasant things the Best confer To whom man is than to himself more dear We by our blinder Passions led astray Do for a Wife perhaps or Children pray Which they may chance refuse us our of love Knowing what both the Wife and Boyes would prove I pray God Grant that these and the like Considerations which I hope will work the better because they come from your Son may be effectual to create holy resolutions in you Contentedly to bear what ever God pleases to lay on you And may Heaven bestow on you such an Entire and Perfect Resignation of your self to Providence such a chearful acquiescence in that state and condition of life God hath placed you in such truely Christian Patience under Afflictions that being in a Constant Readyness with satisfaction and thankfulness to receive whatever cometh from his Will and alwaies acknowledging his Wisdom Goodness and Justice in all his dealings towards you your life may be as comfortable and happy as t is capable of being in this world and most excellently disposed for a better in Glory I am with all imaginable Duty and Observance Dear Sir Your most entirely Affectionate and obedient Son Servant R. S. Qu. Coll. O●on Dec. 20. 1682. A Prayer for Submission to the Divine Will BLessed Lord who knowest what is fit for us better then our selves and lovest us more truly then we do our selves into thy hands I resign my Soul and Body Will and Affections all I am and have in the World Deal with me and mine as shall seem expedient to thy godly Wisdom Leave me not in the hands of my own counsel my own hurtful devices and fancies as a sore punishment for my Sin but take me wholly to thy self dispose and order me after thy own good pleasure And make me not only sensible of thy love in all thy dealings with me but also thankful to Thee for the same through Christ our Lord. Amen A Prayer for Contentment ALmighty God who art kind even to the unthankful and to the evil I humble my self in the dust before thee bewailing earnestly the secret risings of my heart against Thee my vile misconstructions and hard thoughts of thy Providence Thou knowest the anguish of my Soul O Lord pardon O Lord forgive Suffer me not O my God to be lost in my own wild murmurings and repinings but draw me graciously to thy self Open mine Eyes that in all these Crosses of mine I may discern thy Love and enable me by thy grace to welcom them as so many special marks and tokens of thy favour 'T is of very faithfulness Thou hast caused me to be troubled O make me sensible of thy mercy Send out thy light and thy truth that I may see the wonderful blessings I enjoy and continually praise Thee for them Reconcile me daily more and more to my present Condition 'T is the Condition thou hast plac'd me in t is fit and proper for me thou who art infinitely wise hast alotted it and thou art ever gracious in thy alotments 't is the very best Condition I am capable of Lord make me thankful Amen FINIS