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	life_n	sweet_a	3,320	5	6.9211	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96039	Wisdome and innocence, or prudence and simplicity in the examples of the serpent and the dove, propounded to our imitation. By Tho. Vane doctor in divinity and physick.	Vane, Thomas, fl. 1652.	1652 (1652)	Wing V89; Thomason E1406_1; ESTC R209492	46,642	189

but can afford them a full-handed harvest thereof They wander as the Apostle saith Heb. 11.27 in sheepskins and goatskins being in want straitned and afflicted wherein though the floods of affliction lift up their waves and are ready to overwhelm their souls and the windes of temptation as ready to overturn them yet if with St. Peter they can stretch forth the hands of their faith unto Christ he will pluck their feet out of the danger that gapeth for them and cover them with the wings of his protection as the Mercy-Seat covered the ark And as the Serpent if he have but a small part of his body joyned to his head he still lives So the afflictions of the children of God though they take from them all that this world hath added to them yea their bodyes from their souls if yet they keep their souls united unto Christ their head they still preserve their lives uncouquered when as the wicked whom every breath of disaster driveth away whom the satisfying of every sinfull desire shall force from that power of godlynesse which they ought in each action to expresse are dead while they live as the Apostle S. Jude saith Jude 12. twice dead and plucked up by the rootes If therefore the unstinted malice of the devill should leave us with Iob as naked as when wee came out of our mothers womb rob us of the instruments of our earthly eternity and our loves greatest inheritors our children deprive us of our lives sweetest companion our health and print our bodyes more full of boyles and sores than Dive's dogs could have licked and which doubles all these leave us nothing but a Wife whose weaknesse he corrupteth as he did in Paradise to become a fellow-tempter with himself and friends who in the depth of of this Misery shall rather make our griefs smart more with salt upbraydings than any way asswage them with the oyl of consolation and that all this sharp siege be laid against us to pluck us from our allegeance to Christ and to cut us off from being members of his body wee must willingly banish all the but cobweb comforts of this life to hold on the rock of comfort Christ Jesus with the disciples we must forsake our nets to follow him with the Patriarch Joseph leave our garments behind us and fly away rather than yeeld to any sinfull pleasure which should separate us from him yea devesting our selves of all our wealth fly away naked with the yong-man in the gospell rather than abandon our vertue which should apparrell our minds In which losse of outward things there is this advantage that it is a great allay unto the devills temptations for as a Serpent saith Pliny shuns a naked man but pursueth a clothed so the devill doth not so easily assayl a poor man with temptations who with the possession hath also laid aside the affection of temporall things but he hath a great advantage of prevayling over the rich as the Apostle saith They that will be rich 1. Tim. 6.9 fall into temptation and a snar of the devill and into many unprofitable and hurtfull lusts which drown men in ruin and destruction Wee must therefore part with the fruit of our bodyes to preserve us from the sin of our souls and rank our friends health wife yea life and all in the number of trifles knowing how infinitly they are over-ballanced by the proper worth of Christ as also by the benefit which reflects upon us from him Heb. 12.2 who is the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse and despised the shame and sitteth at the right hand of God Very many are the examples of heathen men who for some privat good unto themselves as the attainment of learning or some publique good unto their Country as the safety thereof have willingly surrendred up themselves to divers forms of outward calamity Democritus pulled out his own eyes Crates cast all his goods into the sea Pythagoras banished himself from his native soyl Anaxagoras neglected all publique honours all privat contentment that he might let his thoughts loose wholly to the studdy of Philosophy Ancurus the son of Midas sacrifised his life to the floods Curtius to the flames that they might fix their Countries in their former safety Codrus the king of Athens when both he and his enemies had enquired at the oracle of Apollo who should be conquerors and that it was answered They whose king should fall in the battell hence it being proclamed through both armies that no hands fury should direct it self against the king of the contrary side Codrus to delude the policy of his adversaries shrowded under the habit of a common souldier mingled himself in the battell and there with over-daring valour provoked death to seise upon him and so preserved as many by his valiant death as he had done by his just life And shall those heathen perform all these things for the gaining or keeping of some such thing as can but in the second file challenge a place in our affections and shall not wee doe and suffer more to hold Christ in our hearts by faith and love with whom the availes of the whole world being counterpoysed prove too light as he himself testifieth saying What doth it profit a man Math. 16.26 if he win the whole word and lose his own soul But above all matchlesse herein have been the examples of holy Martyrs and Saints in all ages of the Church whose unspeakable sufferings for the love of Christ and rather than they would beleeve or doe or so much as think a thought which was not warranted by his word were such that though they could not win pitty to their suffering or belief to their assertions yet by their patience and courage in suffering they taught the highest degree of admiration to the hardest conceipts Let then these great letters in the Christ-crosse-row make up a book for us which running wee may read and coppy out their actions for our lives imitation But alas how farr are most men in these dayes strayed from the Serpentine prudence of our forefathers in their care of preserving their head Christ Jesus unassayled or at least unhurt but rather like Judas who sold him for thirty pence many of us are ready to sell him thirty times for a penny The cruelty of the Iewes was piety compared to us that which the most of them did was as S. Paul confesseth of himself Heb. 6.6 ignorantly through unbeleef but wee professe wee know him professe wee beleeve in him and yet crucifie again to our selves the Son of God When thou contemnest or neglectest the Ordinances of God thou spittest in thy Saviours face when thou disobeyest the just commandements of thy superiours thou plattest a crown of thornes on his head when thy hands are hands of iniquity and thy feet are swift to shed blood thou nailest his hands and his

feet when thou oppressest or dost not relieve the poor thou givest him gall and vinegar to drink when thou dost or consentest to any thing which endomageth his children his Servants thou cryest out with the Jewes crucify him crucify him Qui in deum delinquit eum relinquit Hee that sins against God forsakes him Whosoever purchaseth any profit enjoyeth any pleasure giveth way unto any Passion satisfieth himself in any action which Gods word hath pronounced unlawfull it is he that contrary to the prudent serpent hazards the losse of his head putteth himself in danger to be separated from Christ to preserve his hands or his feet his hayr or his nayles or any thing that is of lower valew and is like unto the Jewes who cryed out not him but Barabbas Such are all covetous persons whose greedy affections are like Pharaoh's lean kin which when they had eaten up the fat it could not be perceived that they had eaten it but were still as evill-favoured as they were before so these men whatsoever they devour are never satisfied but have their desires as vast and empty as ever and are like Apprentises Christ-masse-boxes to take all in but to restore none till they be broken nor they till they bee dead Such are also the Receivers of bribes who like Gehazi when they receive a bribe believe they receive a Blessing for so he called it but as he found it so shall they that a bitter Curse is couched under it for whatsoever men get by bribery sacrilege oppression ufury cosenage forswearing lying or the like is like to prove as fatall to them as that peece of flesh which the Eagle stole from the altar that had a coal clave to it which set her nest on fire Such also are all those who doe spend their means as unlawfully as these get it who as S. Gregory saith when the poor members of Christ are pinched with hunger and want doe profusely spend their Estates on harlots on drink on dice on balls on plays on vain and soul-killing pleasures or else their time in idleness and impertinent visits like one Vatia on whom was made this Epitaph Here lyes Vatia who grew old in nothing but idleness Or else in vain obscene foolish fruitless discourses interlarding their speeches with lies to make them more plausible powdring them with oaths to make them as they think more gracefull O what a folly is it in those men and in whom almost is not that folly that when they may hold Christ and the consequent thereof their Salvation for denying of themselves unlawfull gains or pleasures such as perish like Jonas gourd as soon as they be sprung up and leave nothing behind them but repentance when they may keep the true faith and love of Christ with the loss of their lives by which loss they shall gain it of their honours of their estates of their friends for which they shall be recompenced even in this life an hundred fold will yet notwithstanding with Jeroboam for the politique respect of keeping of his kingdom with Peter for the declining of some bodily danger with Ananias and Saphira for with-holding back a little money with Saul for preserving the fattest of the Cattle with the man of Israel for the unchast embraces of a harlot with Baltazar for c●rowsing in the cups of the Sanctuary yea with our first Parents for an apple or a piece of bread as Solomon saith will transgress and suffer themselves to be separated from the fountain of life Christ Iesus rather than say with holy Joseph Gen. 39. How can I doe this evill and sin against my God O let not let not the least shadow of such weakness fall upon our souls as shall make us prefer any thing before our union with Christ but let us as we ought witness the truth of the Apostles saying in our selves Mat. 19.27 We have forsaken all and followed thee Now that which must knit and glue us unto Christ is faith which while we hold we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts the temptations of the devill as saith the Apostle The devill and his instruments the wicked while they rob us of our externall felicities doe but as David did unto Saul cut off the lap of our garments but if they force us from the fortress of our faith as he did unto Goliah they cut off our heads Let us therefore keep faith and a good conscience and make no shipwrack of that precious merchandize like Hymeneus and Alexander reproved by S. Paul but in all the rough tempests of this lifes calamities let us anchor our faith and hope upon Christ who is the sure ground of our salvation In all the Syren enchantments of sinfull pleasures with Ulysses let us tie our selves to the main-mast of a strong immoveable godly resolution whereby whatsoever evill wee suffer or seeming good we may enjoy to rent us from the stedfastness of our faith we may ever with such a calm and constant indifferency give them entertainment that neither the one nor the other may remove us but that we may still remain like a man in an open field who to which part of the horizon soever he sends his eye he himself is alwaies in the center And let us not like the dirty-minded Gadarens banish Christ out of our Country for the loss of a few swine nor forsake our profession of him nor swerve one hayrs bredth from the line of his Commandements to inherit whatsoever either profit or pleasure or ought else hath endeared to the eye of the world seeing their purchase is care their possession trouble their essence vanity and their end misery But rather in the midst of this worlds conflicts let us engrave that triumphant motto of S. Paul on the Ensign of our Faith Rom. 8.35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or anguish or famine or nakedness or perill or persecution or sword I am certain that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor strength nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. CHAP. VI. A Fourth excercise of Prudence in the Serpent not unworthy our imitation is this The Serpent when hee swimmeth to avoid the danger of drowning keepeth his head alwaies lifted above the waters So wee while wee swim through the Sea of this lives actions must ever bear up the head of our reason that we be not drowned in pleasure and delight The world is a Sea and man a ship adversity is his ballast prosperity his sayls passions his Saylors and reason his Pilot who sits at the helm to steer his course aright adversity like ballast keeps us even and steddy but when our over-busie passions doe hoyse up more sayls of pleasure than our weak barks can bear we run our selves under water and over-whelm our reason