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	world_n	5,607	5	4.5010	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A69644	The life of faith in times of trial and affliction cleared up and explained from Hebrews X:XXXVIII ... / by Ioh. Brown ...	Brown, John, 1610?-1679.	1679 (1679)	Wing B5034; ESTC R7844	214,019	528

faith be acting on God through Christ and resting upon the promises of outgate and of an everlasting recompence and of throw-bearing and the other objects of faith necessary to be eyed in such a day for if this be not even the beleever may fainte and fall backward as we see in Peter Now this present acting of faith being the gift of God through His grace and influences it is manifest that Christian suffering unto which this is requisite must be also His gift 3. Hope is also requisite unto a Christian suffering for hereby must the sufferers head be born-up when he is swimeing thorow the sea of Persecution it is the Souls anchor which must not be wanting in a storme it is his helmet and must not be a missing in the day of battel Now this hope being the special gift of God and his work 1 Pet. 1 3. 2 Thes. 2. vers 13. it is manifest that Christian suffering unto which this hope is so necessary must be His special gift 4. Patience is likewise hereunto requisite for without it there will be nothing but wearying fainting fretting repineing and sinful longing to be from under the Crosse hence there is so great need of patience Heb. 10. vers 36. Luk. 21. vers 19. Iam. 1. vers 4. 2 Pet. 1. vers 6. And it is so much pressed Iam. 5. v. 10 11. 1 Tim. 6 11. And commended 1 Thes. 1. vers 3. 2 Thes. 1. vers 4. Revel 2 2 9. Now this patience is not the work of nature but His work who is the God of all patience Rom. 15. vers 5. And therefore Christian suffering must be His work and gift also 5. Humble submission and calmness of spirit is also requisite unto a right way of suffering for a proud haughty unquiet and undaunted spirit will never take a right lift of the crosse and this must also be wrought by the free and powerful grace of God and must be of Him from whom every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down even of the Father of lights Iam. 1 17. And therefore Christian suffering unto which this is so requisite must be of Him also 6. Such as will suffer Christianly for Christ must have Courage Boldness and Christian Resolution as accounting it their glory and honour to suffer for His sake and as remembering that as on the one hand their cheerful couragious and valiant suffering for the Interest of Jesus is no small encouragment to others to adhere to Him and to His cause so upon the other hand to suffer discouragedly and with a fainting heart is no small disadvantage to the cause Enemies being thereby more hardened and friends discouraged And this Courage and fixed Resolution must only be had from God Nature will not fournish this They must be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might Ephes. 6. vers 10. And as this is from the Lord alone so must the grace of Suffering Christianly be 7. He who would suffer as a Christian must have his Conscience sprinkled God must be pacified all quarrels must be taken out of the way for the sense and apprehension of an angrie God and sin and guilt looking the man in the face will much dash discourage and fainte him in his sufferings Now it is unquestionable that God's manifesting himself satisfied and well pleased with the man is His own free gift it is His proper work to sprinkle consciences from dead works and so must this Christian suffering be from Him which dependeth hereupon 8. When one is questioned for the Cause of Christ before learned and able States-men and Politicians or before learned Church-men he will have need of something wherewith to answere his Accusers and so be in case to give a glorious Testimony to the Truth and the cause of Christ otherwise the adversaries will think they have cause to triumph when he is made speachless though that Christian Martyr-woman who said she could not disput for Christ but she could burn for Him did sufficiently refell all the Arguments of her Adversaries which were but meer Sophismes especially if the maine crime be coloured-over with some alleiged personal fault In this or the like cases it is necessary that the accused have pertinent clear and pungent reasons of his actions in readiness whether to refell what is falsely alleiged or to defend what is just and righteous Now whence shall this be had or from whom is it to be expected but from Him who hath promised that it shall be given them in that hour Mat. 10. vers 19. But when they deliver you up take no thought how or what ye shall speak for it shall be given you in that same houre what ye shall speak And therefore Christian suffering unto which this is so necessary must be given of God also 9. Such as are suffering for Christ's sake had need to be very fixed stayed and stedfast in adhereing to their Principles as unshaken with any winde of temptation for cedeing and yeelding in matters of a Testimony dishonoureth the Lord whose truth is questioned encourageth and confirmeth Enemies and stumbleth and marreth the confidence of others therefore such as would suffer aright must stand to the truth and not yeeld in an hoofe nor sell or give away the least point of truth And this fixed and stedfast adhereing to the truth is of God alone He who stablisheth us in Christ is God 2 Cor. 1 vers 21. And when Paul is pressing the Thessalonians to stand fast 2 Thes. 2. vers 15. He addeth Vers. 16 17. Now our Lord Iesus Christ himself and God even our father Comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work And therefore so must the Christian suffering be of Him alone 10. A Christian sufferer for Christ must have a Christian love to Christ for it is this that maketh the sufferers not count their life dear to the death for Christ and maketh them hazard all for Him they love him better than they love Father or Mother or any thing else in a world and therefore are content to lose all for Him and His sake Now love is of God who is love 1 Ioh. 4. vers 7 8. And it is one of the fruites of the Spirit Gal. 5. vers 22. And must be from the God of all grace for we love Him because He first loved us 1 Ioh. 4. vers 19. And therefore so must this right suffering be from Him 11. Before one can suffer aright for Christ and His cause he must be dead and mortified to this world and to all the Riches Honours and Pleasurs to the lust of the eye to the lust of the flesh and to the pride of life as Iohn speaketh 1 Ioh. 2 16. Yea he must be dead to himself and to his own life otherwayes these will hang as weights upon him and hinder his swimeing through the sea of affliction and persecution Now this self denial being the singular gift of God suffering unto

His Love did meet with they durst not suffer a quarrelling thought to lodge within their heart but all their frettings and repineings would be turned into wonderings and praises 3. The Afflicted Beleever would hence draw this Conclusion Seing Christ was put to suffer such and such evils before me I may inferre that the sting venome and curse of these evils are taken away Seing He hath passed thorow the straits of Affliction He hath made the passage easier and wider for His followers He hath sweatened the passage and taken the sting away so that now it cannot hurt or harme so much as otherwise it would Christ hath gone thorow Sorrow Shame Paines Wants Temptations Mockings Spittings Scourgings Yea and Death it self and thereby hath paved a Way for His Followers and hath strawed it with flowres of fragant Love His footsteps all alongs the way have dropped fatness O how sweet hath He made an hard bed now He became poor that we might become rich even while poor and so might sanctifie Poverty to us He became a man of Sorrowes and acquanted with griefe that He might sweeten that lot unto His Followers and keep them from the evil of it from the hurt and poison of it May not this Consideration encourage His Followers to embrace the Crosse with Love Complacency and Delight when it is thus sweetened to them and in a manner no Crosse May not a Prison become an heartsome Palace unto His People when they consider how the Prince of Life the Absolute Lord of all the Chiefe or Standard-bearer amongst Ten Thousand was taken from Prison Esai 53 8. How welcome should an unjust Sentence from men be when our blessed Lord was taken also from judgment and was wickedly condemned for a Traitour How sweet should the most shamful and painful Death be to us that the wicked can devise as the expression of their imbittered malice and rage when Noble Jesus was crucified and so put the most shamful and cursed Death that could be seing hereby Death hath lost its sting and the curse is taken away for he was made a curse Gal. 3 vers 13. 4. The Afflicted Beleever may hence Inferre That seing Christ hath thus been exercised himself He knoweth how to Pity and Sympathize with such as are so handled Was He Mocked Vilified Maligned Despised falsly Accused Condemned for a Traitour to Caesar Buffetted Spit upon Scourged and Hanged as a thiefe He knoweth what it is to be so exercised and what such a condition calleth for and what they in such a condition have need of He knoweth what word of consolation will be fittest for them And this is no small encouragment unto the Beleever as was shown above Consid. 2. 5. The suffering Beleever may draw this Conclusion Seing Christ was put to all these sharp and sad sufferings I may well lay my hand on my mouth I may put my mouth in the dust be silent let the Lord lay one me what He will and by this meanes he may quiet all the insurrections of his spirit against the Lord and put a check unto all the insolent thoughts that arise in his mind against the Lord's procedour with him upon whatsoever occasion as 1. Doth this trouble and vex his spirit that he is innocent as to what is laid to his charge and is persecuted without cause And will he not be quieted when he remembereth how the Innocent lamb of God was handled how He was mis-used and persecuted who did never man hurt who never did sinne nor was guile found in His mouth 1 Pet. 2. vers 22. They hated and persecuted Him without a cause Ioh. 15. vers 25. as they did David who was a typ of Him Psal. 35. vers 19. and 69. vers 4. See also Psal. 35. vers 7. and 109. vers 3. and 119. vers 78 161. 2. Doth it vex him to think that he hath to do with unreasonable men worse than Heathens or Turks And will not this stop his mouth That they can be no more rude absurd cruel and unreasonable than those with whom Christ had to do What faire law or justice could Christ get They could not get so much as false witnesses to agree in any thing to accuse Him of yet they would persecute Him to the death Pilat was convinced of his Innocency and yet did deliver Him to be crucified What men more irrational than the brutish ignorant rabble set on by judicially-blinded and enraged Ring-leaders the Priests and Rulers 3. Doth it vex them to think that their own familiar friends and acquaintances turn their back upon them and refuse to comfort them And had not Christ this to wrestle against when all fled and forsook Him and His own Disciple betrayed Him Is it not said that He came unto His own and that His own received Hi●… not Ioh. 1 11. 4. Doth it trouble them to think that they are exercised with many troubles at once and which is worst of all when outward troubles are lying on the Lord is hiding His face And I pray was not this also Christ's lot was not He put to cry out even while on the cross and within a few minuts of expiring and of giving up the ghost My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And had He not a sadder inward exercise while in the garden where He was made to sweat drops of bloud than any that can befall them He had the weight of Law-wrath to bear that was due to all the Elect ones but the hidings which Beleevers can meet with are only fatherly with-drawings 5. If the duration and continuance of the trouble and affliction come into their mindes and vex them let them think that it cannot be worse with them than it was with the Lord Christ whose whole life was a life of suffering we read of His weeping but never of His laughing How oft was He in hazard of His life even from His Infancie How was He maligned slandered called a Devil a glutton and a wine-biber a profane Person How oft were snares laid for Him and how did Trouble follow Him to His grave 6. The afflicted Beleever may hence Inferre That it is his duty to study and to endeavour patience for in this did Christ leave us an example that we should follow His steps 1 Pet. 2. vers 21. In this passage of Peter we have some particulars which were evidences proofs or effects of Patience in Christ in all which we should labour to follow our Example as 1. As He was free of sin before He began to suffer His Enemies could lay no sin to His charge so while He was under their hands all the paine and trouble they put Him to caused Him not to sinne in thought word or deed So should the Sufferer labour strive against sin It is true we cannot be sinless and our corruptions will work yet it is our duty to wrestle against corruptions and to set a watch upon the door of our lips and to