Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	good_a	jesus_n	lord_n	6,127	5	3.5800	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51287	An appendix to the late antidote against idolatry Wherein the true and adequate notion or definition of idolatry is proposed. Most instances of idolatry in the Roman Church thereby examined. Sundry uses in the Church of England cleared. With some serious monitions touching spiritual idolatry thereunto annexed.	More, Henry, 1614-1687.	1673 (1673)	Wing M2642; ESTC R223783	31,890	68

Godhead which is plainly Idolatry XLVI The harbouring a false Idea of God horrid and affrightful another kind of Spiritual Idolatry As is also to raise a false Idea of God more horrid and affrightful than the most terrible Idols of the Heathen and to flatter this and our selves as special favourites of it because we believe it to be such as we have falsly imagined it of adamantine severity or rather cruelty to infinitely the greatest part of mankind inevitably to be damned to everlasting ineffable torments and our selves fatally and necessarily to be made happy out of a partial fondness to our Persons before the rest of the world live as we list meerly because he will have it so and that this shall be the bottom of our faith and trust this certainly would be spiritual Idolatry also and an egregious violating that pretious Divine Attribute if not the very Nature of God whom Saint John has declared to be love God is love and he that abideth in love abideth in God and God in him Iohn 4.16 XLVII That those Christians that persecute and kill one another for conscientious difference in Religion turn the God of the Christians into a foul Heathen Idol In the law of Moses it is forbidden to offer strange incense or strange fire and it is as strictly forbidden in the Gospel of Christ. For when his Disciples would have had him fetch fire down from Heaven as Elias did for an affront done to their Lord and Master he rebuked them saying You know not of what spirit you are Luk. 9.54 Bitter and destructive zeal the Apostle calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the strange fire or Incense not to be offered to the Lord under the Gospel For nothing is more estranged from the Spirit of the Gospel than it John 16.2 The time comes saith our Saviour when any one that kills you will think he does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he does God an acceptable piece of Divine worship or service as if he offered an Oblation or Sacrifice to him And this is indeed that strange Incense fire and sacrifice that all Religionists offer to God be they of what perswasion they will Pontifician or Protestant that persecute and kill the one the other for conscientious difference in Religion as if they were the weapons of Christs warfare Who yet has so expresly said By this shall all men know that you are my Disciples if you love one another But in persecuting killing and sacrificing one another thus in a barbarous zeal thinking they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make an oblation of Divine worship to God thereby they turn the living God of the Christians which is Love it self into the foulest Idols of the Heathen who used to be worshipped with the bloody sacrificing of men and therefore plainly commit spiritual Idolatry violating and defacing the peculiar character of the God of the Christians while they thus pretend to worship Him XLVIII The laying out all the strength of our Bodies and Souls for the satisfaction of our own will another instance of this Idolatry Saint Paul exhorts the Romans Chap. 12. to present their bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our reasonable Latria viz. that Divine worship which is most fit and reasonable to give to God namely that we dedicate and devote all the powers and faculties of our souls and bodies for in that it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a living sacrifice the soul is manifestly implyed unto his service This is our reasonable and fitting Latria we owe to God and therefore if we imploy all the powers of our mind and strength of our body to serve our selves and our own carnal and worldly desires it is evident we make an Idol of our selves and give that worship to our selves that is reasonable to give to God only XLIX The letting out the fulness and entireness of our affection to any Creature another instance thereof And whenas it is written Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy Soul that is to say the greatest strength and fulness of thy affection shall be entirely carryed out towards him and other things be loved only for his sake God challenging this as his peculiar due if we let this height and entireness of affection go to any other person or thing friend wife child repute pleasure or whatever else this peculiarity of God is violated and it is most certainly a kind of spiritual Idolatry Which makes it less to be wondred at that people are so frequently crossed in those things or persons that they so excessively love And therefore it is our safety as well as our duty to have our affections moderate to all things saving to God alone where there can be no danger of excess L. The making our selves the ultimate end of our actions and services of God an egregious instance of this spiritual Idolatry And lastly for this is an argument so copious that a man may easily lose himself in it It is well known and cannot be denied but that God is the ultimate end of all He is so in himself and ought to be acknowledged so by us both in our words and actions Wherefore if we make our selves the ultimate end of our actions and our own Happiness as our own and not as according to the will and nature of God so that we serve and worship God for our own sakes making as it were a crafty bargain with the all-wise God and performing it too which is worst of all no further than it stands with our own present ease security and interest preferring these before his will and command this also is manifest Spiritual Idolatry and we again make an Idol of our selves in making our selves the ultimate end of our Actions For there can be but one ultimate end which is the will of the Father the light of the knowledg of God in the face of Jesus Christ manifested in us who is the brightness of his glory and express Image of his person Who declared in the flesh he came not to doe his own will but the will of him that sent him This therefore is the supreme Law and will of God touching the purity of his worship that we have no will nor end of our own For as we are to have but one God Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one God Deut. 6.4 so we are to have but one will even the will of the God whom we worship Which we have not if we have any self-will or self-ends unsubordinate to the will of God Whose Will and Law is the Law of an unself-interested Love that is ready to act and content to suffer any thing for the Good of the Creation of God be it never so bitter and painful as was most exemplarily conspicuous in our blessed Saviour And of this it is that that bosome friend of our Lord Jesus witnesses in the close of his Epistle John 5.20 And we know that the Son of God is come and has given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ. Little Children keep your selves from Idols Amen The End Chaitable constructions of some private Doctours expressions

AN APPENDIX To the late Antidote against IDOLATRY WHEREIN The true and adequate Notion or Definition of Idolatry is proposed Most Instances of Idolatry in the Roman Church thereby examined Sundry uses in the Church of England Cleared With some serious Monitions touching Spiritual Idolatry thereunto annexed LONDON Printed by I. R. for Walter Kettilby at the Sign of the Bishops-Head in St. Pauls Church-yard 1673. Reader I Shall not wonder if thou be at a loss what to impute this my so sudden appearing in publick again upon the same Subject for I must confess I my self am in some sort at a loss what to impute it to Whether to the excess of my zeal in a cause of so great importance or to my impatience to be freed from these Polemical Engagements which are not so suitable to my Genius But so far as I know my own meaning it is both And therefore having since my last by further converse with either books or men discovered as I conceive the utmost that can be said touching the point betwixt Me and my Antagonist for the more timely assisting so weighty a truth and for the freeing my self from any future trouble I have here aforehand obviated whatever I can suspect he may return as material in answer to my Reply This it may be may save us both any further labour at least it will my self For I profess my self to have neither hope nor ability of satisfying others by any other evidences than by which I find my self so fully and clearly satisfied That I have vindicated some uses in our own Church from all suspicions of Idolatry is but what I owe to her as a professed member of her body and to the honour and memory of our pious and judicious Reformers That I have annexed some few Monitions touching spiritual Idolatry is for the rescuing my self also from the imputation of an over Bigotical zeal against the external or ritual For I am abundantly aware how little the avoyding the outward or ritual Idolatry will avail to salvation unless we also seriously endeavour to purify our selves from the inward or spiritual without which purity no man shall see God But in pretence of cleansing our selves from the inward to make nothing of the outward is the fruit of that false spirit that appeared in the Gnosticks of old and has expresly showed it self in these latter times amongst some high flown Enthusiasts who have had the boldness to declare that there is no such thing as external Idolatry Which is spoken with as much soundness of truth as if they should declare That there is no such thing neither as outward Murder Adultery Perjurie and Blasphemie But our blessed Saviour that infallible example of life has taught us a better lesson of fulfilling all righteousness And they that will be externally wicked what have they but their own vain boast to witness their integrity That God would deliver thee and my self and all men from all manner of Hypocrisie that we may injoy God in the simplicity of Heart and a good Conscience to our present and everlasting comfort is the earnest desire of Thine in the love of the Truth H. More Errata sic corrige PAge 23. Line 20. for chance r. shame p. 24. l. 6. for mind r. mine p 25. l. 16. r. fouly p. 26. l. 17. r. real p 29. l. 22. r. it is p. 32. l. 13. r. be commensurate p. 37. l. 26. for mind r. mine p. 38. l. 29. r. bis bounty p. 40. l. 28. for dispute r. dispell p. 45. l. 27. for a motion r. admotion p. 48. l. 28. r. at the name p. 54. .l 24. r. live we as p. 55. l. penult for they r. these p. 59. l. 8. r. 1 John 5.20.21 AN APPENDIX To the late Antidote against IDOLATRY I. A brief account of his proceeding in his Antidote against Idolatry I Have already in my Antidote against Idolatry with sufficient useful evidence and certainty discovered what is and ought to be held to be idolatry amongst Christians but in such a way that I only exhibited several cases or instances of Idolatry and proved them sometimes rather by Testimony either Divine or the common suffrage of men I mean such as are Christians than from the intrinsick general Notion of Idolatry not at all intended to be proposed in that Treatise that method I then took being sufficient for the use and purpose then aimed at which was to convince the World by plain and obvious Arguments what things professed and practised in the Roman Church might justly be esteemed Idolatrous II. The definition of Idolatry with the usefulness thereof But now for the greater satisfaction of the more curious and Philosophical Genius out of those several instances in the abovesaid Treatise I shall draw one common Notion or Definition both true and adaequate which will be a certain measure whereby we may expeditely understand whatever is truly Idolatry and what not For it is plain that to whatsoever the Definition belongs the thing defined belongs to the same and to whatsoever the Definition does not belong the thing defined cannot belong to it Of so great importance is it therefore to propose a true and adaequate Definition of Idolatry Which I conceive is this Cultus superstitiosus quo peculiaritates Divinae violantur Idolatry is a kind of superstitious worship whereby the peculiarities of the Godhead are violated There is no kind nor act of Idolatry which will not fall under this general Notion nor any kind or act of Ritual worship that falls under it that is not Idolatry as will more plainly appear after our explication thereof III. The explication of the Definition As for the Term defined Idolatry there is no man so unskilfull though according to the Notation of the word it signifies properly the worship of an Image or Idol as to think that to be the adaequate sense of Idolatry since they that worship the Sun are acknowledged to be Idolaters though they worship him without an Image And therefore that scruple passed over nothing hinders but that the Notion of Idolatry may be as large as the proposed Definition which is superstitious worship whereby the peculiarities of the Godhead are violated I add superstitious to worship that the Genus may be the more immediate and by superstitious I understand pseudoreligious if I may so speak that is false or depraved religious worship And I name no object because I would not restrain it to any one kind of object but be the pretence of worshipping God Saints Angels or what ever object else when it is in such a way as that the Divine peculiarities are violated that is Idolatry according to this Definition Superstitious worship therefore is the Genus of the Definition what remains the difference viz whereby the peculiarities of the Godhead are violated I am fain to make use of this more general and abstract term peculiarities that it may comprehend whatever things are peculiar to God whether his