Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	heart_n	love_v	sin_n	9,337	5	4.8347	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31349	Catholicon, the expediency of an explicit stipulation betwixt the parochial ministers and their congregations, or, An essay to prove that the intervention of solemn mutual promises betwixt the parochial ministers and their people (faithfully to discharge their relative duties to one another) would be useful and expedient for these ends to promote in clergy-men regularity of life, and diligence in their ministerial function, to increase in the lay parishioners, Christian knowledge, sincere godliness, with a free and friendly conversation, to give a stop to separation, and reduct dissenters to the communion of the church without using secular compulsion, to secure the peace of the nation, to inlarge trade, and make provision for the poor, and that all may be effected without the least innovation, or alteration of the present legal establishment of the Church of England humbly tendred to the consideration of all English Protestants / by a parochial minister.	Parochial minister.	1674 (1674)	Wing C1498; ESTC R17127	21,417	32

measure now manifested to be like to produce such a general benefit may be objected against as impracticable by reason of the weakness of the present Ministry of the Church of England few of which are equal as to parts and prudence for the management of such a work as this is Answ My answer is very short and peremptory if I only say then let them be deprived of their places and more able Persons put in their rooms But I rather answer that notwithstanding the slanderous insinuations of some prophane Droles and other malignants I am confident to assert That there are not many of the Clergy of England and indeed it is not fit there should be any who are not able from the Scriptures of the New and Old Testament to prove unto the People their misery both of guilt and impotency in their lapsed state And that God hath sealed a New Covenant in the blood of Christ wherein he hath promised through the propitiation of that blood to forgive and blot out the sins of the penitent believer and to give grace and power to resist corruption on those that are sincere and humble and smother not or stifle their convictions and to increase Grace from Christs fulness to the sincere and diligent and to secure by his Grace the humble and the watchful that they shall not fall away and that finally he will give to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for honour and glory and immortality eternal life I doubt not also but that they are able from the Scriptures to prove the contrary threatnings namely That they who resist Gods Spirit in its motions and convictions sinning against their light are in danger to be given over to a reprobate sense and to be estranged wholly from the life of God through a blinded mind and hardned heart and that the Impenitent and Unbelievers continuing such shall perish in their sins and that he who useth not his talents is like to lose them and that he who trusts to an old age repentance or a death-bed change is in danger to be cut off in his sins for combring the ground And that there is unsupportable and everlasting indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish certainly to come on all those who obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness and die in a state of impenitency and unbelief I do not question also but that most of the English Clergy are furnished with ability to prove the equity beauty and real pleasure and benefit of all the holy precepts of the Gospel and obedience to them not only from the direct testimony and assertion of the Scriptures but also by rational appeals to the light and experience of those of their Auditors who have not lost that dignoscitive power of their souls whereby their spiritual sense discerns betwixt good and evil which power whoever hath lost is not far from the condition of the damned spirits for he also is reserved in the chains of darkness to the judgement of the great day if God do not in a miracle of mercy break through that darkness wherein the resolved sinner hath shut up himself Such duties are these to love God with all our heart and to delight our selves in the manifestation of his glory by Jesus Christ and to love our Neighbour as our selves to forgive injuries to compassionate and help them who are miserable either by reason of sin or outward affliction to delight in those who are holy upon earth and to mortifie and crucifie worldly and carnal lusts and chearfully to bear the Cross when we suffer for righteousness sake I doubt not also but they can from Scripture and from the like rational applications and appeals prove the real danger unseemliness and unprofitableness of every sin with the real damage that sinners suffer by sin especially in their souls being thereby estranged from the life of God and more indisposed than before the perpetration of it to the reverence love and delight and confidence in God which is the life and happiness of all rational spirits I doubt not I say but most Ministers can prove this also to the conviction of them who will ponder and consider the sad influences of their own sins and have not sinned away the ability of tasting the good word of God and the powers of the world to come I do not know that I have set down either in the promises precepts or threatnings any but what is necessary to be known by all who live under the means of grace even by Lay-men And if a Parochial Minister hath a competent knowledge of these truths and can make them out to the conviction and instruction of honest plain men who desire to know what they must do to be saved and if withal the Teacher himself be of an holy humble and sober conversation he is not to be judged unfit for the Ministry because he hath not studied the Mathematicks or Modern Politicks or cannot humour his Discourses to the pleasing of their Gusto who go to the Theater with greater devotion than they do to the Church and prefer a modern and modish Play stuft with that they call wit namely interlardings of prophaness and scurrility far before a serious and seasonable but plane Sermon Object If it be objected further that every Minister that is able to Preach and instruct plain men is not able to manage the guidance of a Parochial Congregation wherein may be persons of great learning and parts and quality the Nobility Gentry Lawyers and Physicians of the Nation and can any imagine that these will subject themselves by explicit Promise to the oversight of the Parochial Clergy many of which want both experience and prudence to rule their own Houses well how shall they then take care of the House of God Answ I Answer that supposing those Persons of great abilities and qualities to be Christians and Protestants they will think it agreeable to Scripture and reason to put themselves into the society of those Christians amongst whom they do cohabit for the celebration of publick worship administred by some person set apart to that office according to the Order of the Gospel If then they own themselves for members of the Church of England in their particular Parish Assemblies their quality and abilities do not exempt them from owning the Parish Minister as their immediate Pastor But on the contrary their better abilities oblige them to give so much more assistance and incouragement to him in his work And so the Minister who was not equal to the guidance of a Parish in the single strength of his own prudence will by the advice and countenance of such helps in Government be rendred more able and successful in his work And an humble and modest Minister cannot want help sufficient from God to make his work prosperous if he be sincere in aiming at Gods Glory and the good of his people And if through pride and self-willedness any balk the advice of

to discharge the Offices of Churchwardens and Sidesmen and not suffer these Offices to go by House-row and be laid upon the shoulders of those who know neither the importance of their Office nor the nature or sense of the Oaths they are required to take CHAP. III. The Expediency of the Parochial Stipulation to reduce Dissenters to the Vnity of the Church and secure those who at present do Conform from falling away IF there be any consolations in Christ if any comfort of Love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any Bowels and mercies Those Christians most taste of the sweetness thereof who strive to preserve the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and rejoyce over all impartially that own the fear of God and the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ and who can according to the dictates of Catholick Charity and Evangelical Love truly so called freely joyn in all acts of holy Communion with any Christians amongst whom their lot is cast to be where the Communion is not clogged with urged compliance to sinful things and who do not obstruct others coming into Communion with themselves by any sinful or unnecessary requirements And it is no difficulty to prove that this propensity to Catholick Communion is the healing temper under which alone the Christian world may hope to obtain again that peace and unit the blessed warmth whereof made the Primitive Churches to flourish And it is no less easily evinced that Catholick Recusancy of Communion with others is that narrow engine wherewith the Devil hath cramped and tormented the Churches of Christ in these later ages and that from thence came Fire and Faggot Sequestrations Proscriptions civil broils and the rest of the mischiefs which have made Christian Kingdoms miserable through the several Sects pursuance of their Religious differences with more bitterness than they would have done Mahumetism it self On which account we can justly arraign several amongst us for as very Catholick Recusants or which is all one for as Universal Refusers of Communion with other Christians as any Papists yea or Russes But it is evident to all impartially observant that a more humble and charitable Spirit acted the Church of England at her Primitive Reformation And I hope that this Explicit Combination in her Parochial Assemblies pleaded for will not make any suspect that a less inlarged temper is hereby designed to be promoted seeing the first part of promise is of holding Communion with all Christians And we all protest to take all for Brethren who hold Christ as the foundation and walk by the rule of the New Creature and we pray for peace on them and on the Israel of God But alas this Candor of ours is made ineffectual to keep even all our flocks in their folds through a late complotment of some who though not intentionally yet will be found I fear eventually to play the Pioneers and plane the way for the reentrance of the most notorious sort of Catholick Recusancy For it is easie to observe that the great allurement of our members to turn aside to the Tents of our Companions is that such seem through their mutual ingagements to take those that unite to them under a more special care for both their temporal and spiritual concernments Will it then be imprudent to use some of the Viper in our Antidote or to cleave the Wood with a Wedge of its own When therefore it shall appear that we with no less solemnity or sincerity oblige our selves so to take care for all of ours yea and still to let our Fountain of Brotherly Love run over and be dispersed in the streets to all others that are Christians I am apt to think and it may be most of my unprejudiced Readers will be of my mind that it will be a more effectual course to reduce Dissenters than all disputes though evincing with the clearest evidence the sinfulness of Separation have been able to do and as Moses's Rod eat up the Rods of the Magicians the Combination of the Catholick members of the Church of England in the Parochial Assemblies thereof would do little less to most other unwarranted Combinations amongst us For when once the Sober and Conscientious Dissenters shall be convinced that all prudent and saithful care is taken to purge out all leaven of malice and wickedness out of our Parochial Congregations and that they may in those Assemblies have green pastures and still waters also and that Ministers are ingaged and excited to pursue the edification of their people in faith and holiness then and not till then it may be hoped that many pious and humble persons amongst them will in a small time fall in with publick Order But suppose that none of those who are departed from our Church should be reduced to the fold again yet if this Parochial Covenant were setled it would at least secure to us those that at present do hold Communion with us and bind them up so close and compact that no more could drop out We are not ignorant that when God hath so far prospered our Ministry and Labours in diligent Catechising and Preaching and other faithful endeavours That any inconsiderate and ignorant persons have been awakened by us to search and try their hearts and waies and turn unto the Lord as soon I say as such are observed to be grown serious in the frame of their Spirits and regular in their Coaversation presently they are assaulted by some Seducer to make one turn further And he suggests to them that it is not enough that they have taken God for their God and Christ for their Saviour by serious and resolved choice and purpose of heart that they have an universal charity for all men and special brotherly-Brotherly-Love unto the Brethren for all this they were brought to by our Ministry but as if these were the primar and rudiments of Christianity they are tempted to remove from under our Ministry who called them into the grace of God unto another Gospel But the Parochial Stipulation would be an excellent fence against these Seducers because our people then would let us know that they are tempted and would think themselves bound to do so having taken us for their Guides by Explicit Contract Whereas now alas many are turned Renegado's from the Church beyond recovery and the Minister it may be is the last man in the Parish that hears of it Moreover it is not to be doubted but that some or other of their honest Neighbours combined in the same Promises with them would take the Alarm and think themselves obliged to step in betimes and endeavour to prevent their falling away by applying the best arguments and counsel they could use and would also timely inform the Minister and Congregation of the danger of one of the Flock Besides our arguments that then we should use for their confirmation in the Unity of the Church would be seriously and impartially considered whereas now they either do not regard