Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	know_v	see_v	soul_n	5,443	5	4.7990	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29274	A sermon preached before the King at White-Hall, January XXX, 1675/6 by Henry Bagshaw ...	Bagshaw, Henry, 1632-1709.	1676 (1676)	Wing B432; ESTC R22956	15,000	36

Pharaoh who drowned so many Infants had yet redemption from plagues when an expiatory deluge was to succeed Or that Ahab who could swallow a poor Man's Vineyard at a Fast and cruelly mingled the blood of the grape with the blood of him that owned it had yet peace in his days when an Arrow was made sharp to pierce him No more can we call those Victories Mercies that were constantly waited on by greater judgments and we find by the Fall of those that had them that to build impious Trophies upon the Graves of Princes is to build upon sacred ground that will sink them But passing by this Subject I come now to infer some useful Truths from a general beholding of such Examples And here I shall show 1. The necessity of converting our speculation into a Religious Practice 2. The benefit of being upright betimes in order to our Peace 3. The folly of Irreligion whereby a future peace is utterly excluded neither has it a present one for its reward 1. The necessity of converting our speculation into a Religious Practice When the Psalmist bids us to mark the upright it is not a meer direction to our eyes but to our steps likewise and our gaze little avails us if if it reform not the lookers on The Christian Watch-tower is quite different from the Worlds there the Watchman stands fixt viewing his space and lazily measuring the course of another and the reports which are brought to him from sense never alter his posture begun But here we are bound to turn and move labour and strive in our Office of observing first advance our Reason to see the race and then work our Wills to pursue it Indeed a bare speculation is meer solecism in Religion a work contradictory to the main end We absurdly set against the designs of Providence if we use not Instances to promote Piety and the scope of his Laws if our light be not serviceable to guide us in duty God in his Government abroad leaves exemplary proofs to train us up for his Service and by express Commands in his Word farther enforces the obligation therefore a naked Theory of things is so far from becoming an ornament to our Natures that it rather increases their guilt by a flat resisting of his Will I know the contemplative powers enlarge our Souls but they are the active that better them the former give them the subtilty of spirits but the latter crown them with goodness And it is goodness alone that qualifies us for Heaven whereas subtilty may belong to the Angels condemned who retain their height of discerning as another addition to their plague for they reap nothing by it but a fuller sense of their pains Would we then give our Theory a right advancement Practice with it must be joyned It is to no purpose to glory in marking and beholding when it cannot separate us from Hell They are but False-Prophets that see and are not obedient to the Vision so they are but False-Professors and will finally perish in deceiving their own Souls that consider the upright Man in his ways but are never wrought to imitation Balaam we read could get up to a high mountain that he might see the utmost part of God's Israel From the top of the rocks he saw Numb 23. and from the hills he beheld them But taking the coldness and barrenness of his station he was utterly lost in that view when it filled him with delight but not with love chain'd up his fancy but left his corruption still free But whoever ascends Mount Sion he ascends a fruitfull Hill He contemplates the righteous in their path and by treading that path enriches his prospect 2. The benefit of being upright betimes in order to our Peace Peace is a summary of all Blessings a most comprehensive word to denote the Perfection of our state and being particularly referr'd to our end it implyes the security of our Happiness Now the perfection of our state is in nothing more furthered than in an early following the righteous Man's way since it creates a present and establishes too our future repose As for the present Good we enjoy it is perhaps unknown to the rest of the World because it lyes deep in our Souls and their workings we know are invisible to others yet however the foundation of our quiet abides the same and it lyes in an effectual restraining of our unbridled desires in a powerful asswaging of our griefs and fears and a thorough purging off the guilt of our consciences All these advantages a timely uprightness brings with it and every Saint may discern them in himself which is a sufficient allay to his outward troubles What an ease must this be in the midst of suffering to look within and find there every thing still and cleer the affections being calm'd and the enditements of sin made void Nay this is not all but God comes in with the consolations of his Grace to feed and refresh the inward man so that could the World here make an inspection it would be forced to confess of the perfect Walker that not only his end but all his progress is peace Let us next consider his future settlement where you may behold him even in his death-bed as if it were the stage of his triumph how undauntedly he encounters the terrour of what approaches with all the pleasure of a reflection And he is supported in it two ways 1. He knows the spring of his repentance was pure in its first rise which begets an assurance 2. That he has the testimony of after-fruits to confirm it Whence he joyfully meets that grim Serjeant and while he is haling him forcibly to rest he excuses the roughness of the seizure But this peaceable kind of spirit a late penitent is deprived of as he is of all honour in the performance For in both these respects his comfort fails when in the pangs of extremity he seeks his God though through the mercy of that God he may be saved His first discouragement is that he knows not the purity of the spring whence his repentance proceeds nor can certainly conclude that it is a filial love but rather a slavish fear that is the principle of the current For Death he sees is before him and all those evils that accompany it whence he may well doubt those tears to be false which flow from him and destructive too in their falshood by a shipwrack of his Soul And is not this want of evidence sufficiently tormenting though the Soul should be priviledged with happiness since thereby all sense of it is gone and the sting only retained of past pleasures While in the mean time the upright Liver continues down his peace by a register of his actings and brings at the very last gasp a full and entire spirit to close with his apprehension of coming Joyes His next discouragement is that an after-testimony of good fruits is cut off to confirm him in his fears