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
A67764	Preparation to conversion, or, Faith's harbinger in a rare epistle, writ by a person of quality before his death, to his surviving friends, shewing, that Satan prevails most by deception of our reason, that the beauty of holiness and true wisdom is unseen to the world, that ingrateful persons are as witless as wicked, why most men hear the Gospel year after year, and are never the better, with wholsom instruction, to prevent destruction : all richly fraught with choise and pithy sentences, similitudes, examples, metaphors, rhetorical and pointed expressions, which being thought by many worth the transcribing at no small charge, is now committed to the press / by R. Young ...	Younge, Richard.	1658 (1658)	Wing Y176; ESTC R39195	18,400	18

further informed ask your selves only these three questions Whether you are of that small number whom Christ hath chosen out of the world Whether you are Regenerate Whether you have true and saving faith For otherwise all your hopes and perswasions are but vain presumptions and delusions First Are you of that small number For the greatest number whether of men or great men or great Scholars go the broad way to destruction and but a few of either the narrow way which leadeth unto life as appears by many cleer testimonies and examples for which see those known places Mat. 7.13 14. 1 Joh. 5.19 Rev. 20.8 Christs flock that believe the Gospel are but a little flock Luk. 12.32 and but few in number Isa. 10.22 53.1 Rom. 9.27 10.16 Rev. 3.4 2 Cor. 4.4 Mat. 8.34 27.22 Acts 28.22 Rev. 13.16 Yea of all the CCLXXXVIII several Opinions which Philosophers held touching the Chief good never any was 〈…〉 to think the way to attain to it was by doing as the most do Yea they all concluded that Number was the best note of the worst way And we even see by experience that the basest things are ever most plentifull And therefore it amazes me to think how men should be so blockish as they are in this particular for if you mark it most men walk in the broadway and yet every man thinks to enter in at the strait gate which could never be if they were not fools or frenzie Again take notice that many seekers fall short of heaven Luke 13.24 Do you strive The righteous shall scarcely be saved what then shall become of the unrighteous 1 Pet. 4.18 14 Secondly Are you regenerate and born anew For Christs words to Nicodemus a knowing honest moral man are express yea and he bindes it with an oath Verily verily I say unto you except ye be born again ye can in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven Now if you be regenerate it will appear by this Regeneration or new-birth is a creation of new qualities in the soul as being by nature onely evil-disposed In all that are born anew is a change both in the Judgement from error to truth and in the Will from evil to good and in the Affections from loving evil and hating good to love good and hate evil in the whole man from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God Is this change wrought in you For without it there is no going to heaven no being saved Then Thirdly Have you a true and lively faith in Jesus Christ For there is no coming to Christ but by faith Heb. 11.6 By faith we receive the forgiveness of our sins Luke 7.47 50. By faith we are justified Rom. 3.26 28 30. Gal. 3.8 By faith through grace we are saved Eph. 2.8 9. Luk. 18.42 By faith through the power of God we are kept and preserved to salvation 1 Pet. 1.5 Nothing but faith can assure us of Gods favor Eccles. 9.1.2.3 By faith we obtain whatsoever we ask Mat. 21.22 By faith we are blessed Gal. 3.14 By faith we know God 1 Joh. 4.7 Psal. 9.10 Without faith we cannot profit by hearing the Word Heb. 4.2 Without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Whatsoever is not of faith is sin be they never so glorious performances Rom. 14.23 and 10.14 Now you shall know whether you have faith by this Faith comes by bearing the Word preached Rom. 10.17 And the Spirits powerfull working with it Ioh. 3.3 5.8 Faith purifieth the heart Act. 15.9 worketh by love Gal. 5.6 and sanctifieth the whole man throughout Act. 26.18 Faith is known by its works Iam. 2.17 18.22 Faith and holiness are as inseparable as life and motion the sun and light fire and heat Again Faith believeth the threats of the Word together with the promises and thereupon feareth sin as it fears hell Again if the Image of God by faith be repaired in you you cannot but love them that love God 1 Ioh. 3.10 Besides this is a sure rule That that perswasion only which follows found humiliation is Faith That which goes before it is Presumption And as Ambrose speaks No man can repent of sin but he that beleeves the pardon of sin nor none can beleeve his sins are pardoned except he hath repented Lastly how easie a matter soever men think it is to believe he that goes about it shall finde it as hard a work to beleeve the Gospel as to keep the Law And onely God must enable to both Now if upon trial you evidently finde that you are of Christs little flock that you are regenerate and that you have this precious grace of Faith wrought in your heart you may comfortably assure your self that you shall be saved Otherwise the Devil and your own heart do but delude you in promising you the least benefit by the blood of Christ Yea it had been better for you that there had been no Christ come into the world For even the mercy of God which you have contemned and the means of grace and the offer of salvation shall but inhance your damnation Yea Christ himself that onely Summum bonum who is a Saviour to all Beleevers shall be a just Revenger to you if you go on and bid you Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire c. Matth. 25.41 15 And so much for the discharge of my conscience and duty and to make a supply of that which I should have some way performed long since Yet least I should imitate those who kindle a fire under greenwood and leave it so soon as it begins to flame for I take it for granted that some of you will lay to heart what hath been said I have sent you three Books writ by an impartial Author not a Party which I hold exceeding profitable for you to peruse The one speaking more home and full to this matter The second shewing how it comes to pass that so many are deceived who hope to be saved The third setting out to the life the very thoughts words and actions of all natural men insomuch that no glass can more lively represent your faces then it does your hearts Therefore that you may not be disappointed of your end by mistaking your way that you may become as true friends to God and the Ministry as you have been bitter enemies and so have your part and portion with them at Gods right hand where are pleasures for evermore Be perswaded to read them with as much observation and circumspection as you would do the Evidences of your Inheritance Neither count it as a thing indifferent that may either be done or dispensed with except you are indifferent whether you be saved or damned Yea so minde what you read as if it were an Epistle writ from Heaven and sent to each of you in particular Expect not that Christ Jesus himself from Heaven should call to you severally by name as he did to Saul and say Ho Ishmael such a

fell out That you neither hate nor persecute any one of them To which I answer What then makes you so spightful in spitting out your spleen against them when you but hear a Minister mentioned What makes you so frequent in slighting scorning and scoffing at them where ever you come and in all companies What makes you pick so many holes in their coats finde so many faults with them raise so many objections if not lies against them that nothing they either do or deliver can please you As how many of your cavils and exceptions could I reckon up that I have heard from your own mouths if I would foul Paper with them Yea I could give you a large List of instances and in your own expressions But they are so trivial barbarous and base that I am ashamed to nominate them and no less unwilling lest I should arm other mad men with your weapons Now do but lay aside dissimulation and speak the naked truth and then say whether all this proceeds nor from an heart full fraught with enmity and malice against the Ministery even for the very graces of Gods Spirit that shines in them As it fared with that Councel of Priests Scribes and Elders touching Steven Acts 6.15 7.54 Do but examine your Consciences well and you will not deny it 6 Again what makes you that are so civil in other cases so uncivil as not to afford them of all other men the common Title of Master such an one which you will not deny to a very Cobler Can you tell me No I dare challenge the strongest brain'd Achitophel or the most fluent Tertullus amongst you to yield a wise reason thereof except that which God hath set down Gen. 3 15. I will put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman But further to convince you answer me another question What makes you to detain their dues from them and not pay them a penny except you be forced to it Or if you do for your peace or credit sake any thing is thought too much for your Minister and what you part with is drawn from you as so much blood from the heart And then also you will basely asperse him at least you will alleadge one thing or other to save your purses as He had not my voice nor consent when he was chosen or I hear at other Churches and come not at him or I like not his preaching or the like As any thing shall serve to save your silver and to forestal you with prejudice and make you resolve against your own Conversion For what is this but to pick straws as it were to put out your own eyes withal Yea many they be that will pretend conscience forsooth that they may rob their Minister and alleadge That he hath taken Degrees is Ordained He is a Black-coat Or rather which is the same in effect He is a conscientious Pastor or Sheperd of Christs sending and not an Intruder But left what hath been said should not prove sufficient how basely will you calumniate him that but takes his Dues especially of a poor body Ministers more then all the world besides must take a restern for a shilling And not he alone shall suffer but all these Church-men say you are so covetous that they never think they have enough when they have scarce enough to fill the bellies of their own families All which not onely argues you as brainless as beasts but proves you to be as full of the serpents enmity as the egg of a Cockatrice is full of poyson Thus every or any thing shall serve their turns that study quarrels Even as a crocked stick shall serve to beat a dog when a straight one cannot be found Now lay all together and tell me whether this argues not hatred if not what can For love as the Apostle witnesseth suffereth long it is kinde charitable envieth not doth not behave it self unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil rejoyceth not in iniquity beareth all things endureth all things 1 Cor. 13. Yea love is so far from finding faults where are none that as wise Solomon hath it it covereth or passes over all sins and will not see them Prov. 10.12 So that if you loved the Ministers as you will pretend you do you would deal by them as the people did by Ulysses whom they so applauded for the acuteness of an ingenious minde that they spared to object unto him his bodily deformities Or if any one did shew the least malignity towards him that person was branded for a notorious wicked man as Homer relates And to speak rightly we need say no more of a man then He is an Enemy to his faithfull Pastor that is enough to brand him Nor can there be a greater argument of his being of the brood of Cain Haman Eliah Michol Doeg Shimei Ahab Rabshekah Tobiah Sanballar Pashur Zedekiah Elymus Herodias and their fellows then the hatred of good Ministers For such men would do the same to Christ himself were he their Minister There was never any so innocent or vertuous to whom such Belialists took not exceptions because they are as deeply in love with vice as others are with vertue Yea whom all men commend you have some Thersites will take occasion to blast I 'll give you an ear-mark to know such a one by whereas one of the modester fort will alledge his Minister is a Presbyterian or an Independent or a Royalist this overgrown Tead will object that he is a Roundhead the meaning whereof is a Religious Godly Conscientious man 7 But perhaps this is not your case Suppose it be not yet what I have before convicted you of is sufficient to prove you a souldier belonging to that great Red Dragon that fighteth against Michael and his Angels Rev. 12. Who when his hands are bound casteth a flood of reproaches out of his mouth against the Church and the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments of God and have the testimonie of Jesus Christ v. 15 16 17. But you are not at all versed in Scripture therefore we 'll come to Reason and therein answer me a few questions Do you do by the Ministers as you ought or as you would be done by Would you when you have discharged your duty and conscience to the utmost of your endeavour have ill constructions made of your best actions and intentions be rewarded with the greatest evil for the greatest good and the greatest hatred for the most superlative love For love to the soul is the very soul of love Is this an evidence that you have them in singular respect for their works sake Is this to receive them as an Angel of God yea as Christ Jesus Is this to make them partakers of all your goods and to be willing to pluck out your own eyes and to give them if need were as God commands and as the godly have been willing to do I think

carnal reasons as you do now I beseech you look to it Nor is our love or hatred to God any way better known then by our respect to and usage of his Ambassadors lip-Lip-love is but lying love If you love me keep my commandments says our Saviour Job 14.15 Wherefore let my counsel be acceptable Break off your sins by repentance kick no more against the pricks Refrain your selves from these men and let them alone lest ye be found even fighters against God Acts 5.38 39. Nor will it ever repent you if you come in Heaven that you were stopt in this your way to destruction Yea let the consideration of what you have already done make you sink down with shame and tremble for astonishment to think that notwithstanding you have been so many years in arms against your Maker and Redeemer and most spightfully and maliciously persecured his Ambassadors that came to rescue you from the subtlery and slavery of Satan that bloody devouring Dragon and vowed enemy of all mankinde yet God hath no taken the advantage of casting you into Hell but of his never enough admired mercy hath spared you to this hour whereas he might most justly have prevented all in sending you body and soul into everlasting torments when you were but a span long For know this that we need no more to condemn us then what we brought into the world with us Yea we were condemned so soon as conceived And that you and I are not at this present frying in Hell-flames never to be freed no reason can be alleadged but O the depth Wherefore take heed in time and as you tender the good of your own souls defer not a minute but study and bestir your selves how you may make your peace with God Yea do it while the yerning bowels the bleeding wounds and compassionate arms of Jesus Christ lie open to receive you whiles ye have health and life and means and time to repent and make your peace with God As you tender I say the everlasting happiness and welfare of your almost lost and drowned souls As you expect or hope for grace or mercy for joy and comfort for heaven and salvation for endless bliss and glory at the last As you would escape the direfull wrath of God the bitter doom and sentence of Christ the never dying sting and worm of conscience the tormenting and soul-scorching flames of Hell and everlasting separation from Gods blissfull presence abjure and utterly renounce this accursed sin Oh get an interest in Christ For till we become members of his mystical body by regeneration and a lively faith we even the best of us are as Traitors condemned to suffer eternal torments in Hell-fire being onely reprieved for a time O bless God all the dayes you live yea to eternity that the gate of mercy yet stands open 10 But withal take hold of the opportunity before the Draw-bridge be taken up left you never have the like again Do not dally with God and your own souls for if this warning be slighted never look for the like For warning such a warning not taking is a certain prefage of destruction Pro. 29.1 1.24 25 26. The sons of Eli would not hearken unto nor obey the voice of their Father why because saith the Text the Lord was determined to destroy them 1 Sam. 2.25 I know saith the Prophet to Amaziah the Lord hath determined to destroy thee because thou hast done this and hast not obeyed my counsel 2 Chron. 25.16 20. Whereas contrarily the Ninevites by hearkning to Jonah and those very murtherers of the Lord of life by listening to Peter were converted and saved Acts 2.36 37. O take heed of proferring your own carnal reason before the written word of God And that what is spoken of Babel may not be verified in you We would have cured him but he would not be cured lest you be given up to destruction as she was What sayes our Saviour This is the condemnation none like this that light is come into the world and men love darkness rather then light because their deeds are evil John 3.19 20. Indeed if you will rather beleeve Satan or his sollicitor the Flesh or be led by the perswasions of your own flattering heart which is deceitfull above all things and most desperately evil Jer. 17.9 No marvel you should be deaf to all hath been said as thinking your selves already good enough and then farwel all hope of being better For the opinion of mens being wise and good enough is the sole and onely cause of their being no wiser nor better Yea therefore are millions Christians in name onely because they think themselves Christians indeed And who is there in all this Nation that thinks not himself a Christian though they are able to yeild no reason except this They are neither Turks nor Jews nor which is worse then either as they suppose Round-heads A strong argument I promise you able to move the gentlest spleen alive to laughter for the Devil can make as good a confession of his faith as this Yet all the reasonings of Carnal men are thus weighty As let me give you a few instances 11 They will say they love and fear God as they ought when what he commands they do the contrary are flint unto God wax to Satan have their ears always open to the Temper shut to their Maker and Redeemer when they are Traitors to him and take up arms against him A good sign they serve God and Christ when Satan the World and the Flesh have more command of them When they are so far from loving and serving him that they hate those that do it and that for their so doing and from fearing him that they more fear the worlds scorns then his anger They will in like manner pretend they love Christ that died for them when they hate all that resemble him in holiness They are Christians in name when they will scoff at a Christian in deed and are enemies to the cross of Christ Love a form of godliness but hate the power of it They will do what God forbids yet confidently hope to escape what he threatens will do the Devils works yet look for Christs wages Expect that Heaven should meet them at their last hour when all their life-long they have gallopped in the beaten road towards Hell Expect to have Christ their Redeemer and Advocate when their consciences tell them that they seldom remember him but to blaspheme him and more often name him in their oaths and curses then in their prayers Will persecute honest and orthodox Christians and say they mean base and dissembling Hipocrites think they do God good service in killing his servants Joh. 16.2 as Paul touching Stephen and the Jews touching Christ Boast of a strong faith and yet fall short of the Devils in believing Jam. 2.19 These are some of their syllogisms or arguings I could even tire your ears with the like But what doting blockish

Preparation to Conversion Or Faith's Harbinger In a rare Epistle writ by a Person of Quality before his death to his surviving Friends Shewing That Satan prevails most by deception of our Reason That the beauty of Holiness and true Wisdom is unseen to the World That ingrateful persons are as witless as wicked Why most men hear the Gospel year after year and are never the better With wholsom instruction to prevent destruction All richly fraught with choise and pithy Sentences Similitudes Examples Metaphors Rhetorical and pointed Expressions Which being thought by many worth the Transcribing at no small charge is now committed to the Press by R. Young of Roxwel in Essex Much Respected IF you ask Why I take this pains Turn to Levit. 19.17 Heb 3.13 and you have there both my answer and warrant for I do but supply with my pen what I was bound to perform with my tongue If for a President Take that of Photian who when a Friend of his would have cast himself away suffered him not saying I was made thy Friend to this purpose And he that loves not such a Friend hates himself If why I have been silent so long These are the only reasons Want of courage fear to displease and left you should think me to have had more Zeal then Wit and more Religion then Discretion A case too common which makes me fear that what our Saviour says Mar. 8.38 Whosoever shall be ashamed of me c. will prove a dreadful Text to a great many For who almost does not make a very Idol of Discretion and more fear the censures of men then the displeasure of God Men owe God some good will but like those Rulers Joh. 12.42 they dare not shew it They would please him yet so as they might not displease others nor themselves Never considering that he who bears with his Friends vices makes them his own Now in case you shall with those Gentiles Rom 10.20 receive more good by it then you desire admire the providence and free grace of God who will shew mercy to whom he will shew mercy Exod. 33 19. Rom. 9.15 That little which Croesus learnt of Solon saved his life And had Pilate taken that fair warning his wife gave him it might have saved his soul Nor am I without hope to prevail with some of you since Nathan wrought more upon David by one private particular Admonition then all the Lectures of the Law could do for three quarters of a year together However it were happy for millions were they so plainly dealt withall Wherefore be perswaded to hearken a while unto me as you would have Christ another day hearken unto you Which that you may do I will even refer the point to your selves to determine As let me propound your case in the person of another as the disguised Prophet dealt with Ahab 1 King 20. v. 39. to 43. Or as Christ dealt with the Priests Scribes and Elders Luke 20. v. 1 to 20. The case is this 2 God in great love sent Sampson to deliver the men of Judah from the slavish thraldom of their enemies but they in requital binde him in whom all their hope of deliverance lay and deliver him up to those enemies that kept them under to the end they might slay him and still make slaves of them Judg. 15. Again after this God sent unto their successors the Jews his onely Son to the end he might heal their diseases feed their bodies inlighten their mindes and save their souls And they in requital of all hate revile scourge and crucifie him though in killing him they did their utmost to split or sink the onely ship that could save them Two rare and remarkable Examples Now tell me what you think of these blockish Jews Were they more wicked or witless or ingrateful I know you will answer me You cannot tell as the Priests Scribes and Elders did our Saviour when the conscience of their own guiltiness had stopt their mouths Luke 20.1 to 8. Or if you do make a satisfying answer it shall be like David's answer to Nathan's parable wherein he pronounced sentence of death against himself 2 Sam. 12 1 to 8. For it is your very Case if you had but eyes or the wit to see it I mean all you who any way misuse or are ingrateful to your Ministers whom God out of his infinite love hath sent to be your Deliverers from the grievous slavery and thraldom you are in under Sin Satan and Hell I know you think your selves wise men and Christians good enough yea what but your high thoughts and good opinion of your selves hath brought you to become scorners of your Teachers and Instructors and more of their godly instruction As proud men are wont to admire their own actions but to abate the value and derogate from the esteem of others every whit as basely to vilifie other mens doings as they over-highly prise their own as Julian observes But consider it rightly and this alone could you be taxed with nothing but this not onely shews you to be foolish and frantick but so ingrateful and wicked withal as if your wickedness and unthankfulness did strive with Gods goodness for the victory as Absalom strove with David whether the Father should be more kinde to the son or the son more unkinde to the Father As what can you alleadge for your selves or against your Pastors Are they any other to you then those three Messengers-were to Lot that came to fetch him out of Sodom that he might not feel the fire and brimstone which followed Gen 19. Or then the Angel was to Peter that opened the iron-gates loosed his bands brought him out of prison and delivered him from the thraldom of his enemies Acts 12. 3 What wrong do they do you They beg and dig they dig and beg as that good Vine-dresser did whose Mattock kept off the Masters Ax Luke 13.8 9. They beat their brains they spend their spirits pour out their prayers plot and contrive all they can to save your precious souls were you but willing to be saved They bring you the glad tidings of salvation would furnish and endow you with the spiritual invaluable and lasting riches of grace and glory They are content to waste themselves like a candle that they may give light unto and bring others to Heaven 1 Cor. 9.19 2 Cor. 12.15 And do you instead of honoring respecting and rewarding them hate traduce and persecute them This is not for want of ignorance For you shew just as much reason in it as if those blinde deaf diseased possessed distracted or dead persons spoken of in the Gospel should have railed upon our Saviour for offering to cure restore dispossess recover and raise them again And had not they great reason so to do For shame think upon it For did you know and rightly consider that you cannot be nourished unto eternal life but by the milk of the Word you would rather wish your bodies