Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	great_a	life_n	lord_n	5,632	5	3.5018	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44691	Self-dedication discoursed in the anniversary thanksgiving of a person of honour for a great deliverance. By J.H.	Howe, John, 1630-1705.	1682 (1682)	Wing H3038AA; ESTC R215393	32,263	171

such indulgence waited on us with so long patience sustained us by so large bounty And now upon all when it might be thought we should be communing with our own hearts discoursing the matter with our selves What shall we render that he should say to us so shortly and compendiously render your selves Is that too much Are we too considerable to be his or his Mercies too inconsiderable to oblige us to be so The Mercies that flow so freely from him for he is the Father of Mercies The Mercies that are so suitable to us pardon to the guilty light to them that dwell in darkness life to the dead a rich portion and all-sufficient fullness for the poor indigent and necessitous the Mercies that we are encouraged to expect as well as what we enjoy The great Good laid up in store The Mercies of eternity to be added to those of time The Mercies of both worlds meeting upon us That here we are to keep our selves in the love of God waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life That looking for that blessed hope our life may here in the mean time be transacted with him That we may abide in the secret of his presence and dwelling in love may dwell in God who is love till the season come when we shall be able more fully to understand his love and return our own Nor are the favours of his providence to be thought little of in the time of our earthly pilgrimage And now if all this do effectually induce us thus to dedicate our selves 2. We are next to consider what our having done it ought further to induce us unto In the general it ought to be an inducement to us as we may well apprehend to behave our selves answerably to such a state as we are hereby brought into if we now first dedicated our selves to him and are confirmed in by our iterations of it For he takes no pleasure in fools therefore having vow'd our selves to him to serve and live to him let us pay what we have vowed Better it had been not to vow than to vow and not pay and instead of the reasonable sacrifice he required of us to give him onely the sacrifice of fools We are upon special terms and for special ends peculiar to the most high God They that are thus his are a royal Priesthood He hath made us Kings and Priests Both those offices and dignities have sometime met in the same person And to God and his Father i. e. for him Not that both those offices do terminate upon God or that the work of both is to be performed towards him but our Lord Jesus it being the design of his Father we should be brought into that high and honourable Station hath effected it in compliance with his design and hath served his pleasure and purpose in it He hath done it to i. e. for him So that to God and his Father may be refer'd to Christ's action in making us Kings and Priests not to ours being made such Yet the one of these refers to God immediately the other to our selves Holy and good men are Kings in reference to themselves in respect of their Self-dominion into which they are now restored having been as all unregenerate persons are slaves to vile and carnal affections and inclinations The minds of the regenerate are made spiritual and now with them the refin'd rectify'd spiritual mind is inthroned lift up into its proper authority over all sensual Inclinations Appetitions Lusts and Passions A glorious Empire founded in conquest and managed afterwards when the victory is compleat and in the mean time in some degree while judgment is in bringing forth unto victory by a steady sedate Government in most perfect tranquility and peace But they are Priests in reference to God the business of their office as such terminates upon him For him they worship and serve Worship is either social external and circumstantial that of worshiping Societies considered according to its exteriour part Herein One is appointed by special office to doe the part of a Priest for the rest In this sense all are not Priests Or else it is solitary internal substantial and spiritual wherein they either worship alone and apart by themselves or being in conjunction with others yet their own spirits within them work directly and aspire upwards to God And as to this more noble part of their worship every holy man is his own Priest And this is the double dignity of every holy devoted Soul They are thus Kings and Priests govern themselves and serve God While they govern they serve Exercise authority over themselves with most submiss veneration of God Crowned and enthroned but alwaies in a readiness to cast down their Crowns at the footstool of the Supreme Celestial Throne Into this State they come by Self-dedication And now surely 't is not for such to demean themselves at a vulgar rate They are of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Church of the first-born written in Heaven i. e. the Church of the first-born ones that is all compos'd and made up of such as that expression signifies First-born in a true tho not the most eminent sense being sons by the first i. e. the prime and more excellent sort of birth in respect whereof they are said to be begotten again by the word of truth that they should be a kind of first-fruits of the Creatures of God And this twofold dignity is the privilege of their birthright as anciently it was Are you devoted to God have you dedicated your selves hereby you are arrived to this dignity For in the abovementioned place it is said Ye are come you are actually already adjoyn'd to that Church and are the real present Members of that holy community For you are related and united to him of whom the family of heaven and earth is named are of the houshold and the Sons of God his under that peculiar notion when you have dedicated your selves to him You cannot but apprehend there are peculiarities of behaviour in your after-conduct and management of your selves that belong to you and must answer and correspond to your being in this sense his Some particulars whereof I shall briefly mention You should each of you often reflect upon it and bethink your self what you have done and whose you now are I am the devoted One of the most high God It was one of the Precepts given by a Pagan to his Disciples Think with your self upon all occasions I am a Philosopher What a world of sin and trouble might that thought often renew'd prevent I am a Christian One devoted to God in Christ. Your having done this thing should cloth your mind with new apprehensions both of God and your selves That he is not now a stranger to you but your God that you are not unrelated to him but his I was an enemy now am reconciled I was a common profane thing now