Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	lord_n	love_v	saint_n	5,636	5	6.4232	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96073	A modest discourse, of the piety, charity & policy of elder times and Christians. Together with those their vertues paralleled by Christian members of the Church of England. / By Edward Waterhouse Esq;	Waterhouse, Edward, 1619-1670.	1655 (1655)	Wing W1049; Thomason E1502_2; ESTC R208656	120,565	278

of God and he that resists shall receive to himself damnation This O Princes and Rulers was the honour of ancient Christianity that it subjects to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake that is If it cannot lift up the hand to assert it will lay down the neck to suffer If it say not Go up and prosper as it cannot to a bad cause because it dare not disobey God in calling evil good yet it will pray that God would overrule mens designs and out of them modell his own glory For as Tertul. said well long ago God forbid those should contrive their advancement by force whose glory it ought to be to suffer and thence to have the testimony of their fidelity For Christians ought not to obey powers as those Heretiques called Sataniani did the devil Ne noceant but out of conscience because Power is of God and Conscience is Gods Deputy to keep man from misrule Thus much briefly for the piety of elder times in order to God Now somewhat of their Charity in order to themselves and others First Elder Christians abounded in love one to another Our Lord gave the rule Joh. 13. 35. By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another Time was when it passed Proverbially Ecce quam diligunt Christiani When S t Cyprian was led to Martyrdom the whole people ran with him crying Let us die together with the holy Bishop And when Christians were sick though of diseases infectious yet Christians would go to them and tend them though they died with them A Christian must not be waspish the nettle of humour that harms every one that toucheth it is a weed in Christs garden but all Love even to Enemies for his sake who loved us when Enemies so much and no more know and beleeve we of God as we love him for his own and our Neighbour for his sake Let men talk as they will yet if they have a spirit of opposition and cannot walk peaceably with their brother yea and in a great measure with those without I shall not think their condition ever the better If their principle be to be singular and unsociable Vae soli for as the Father hath it Cum Deo manere non possunt qui esse in Ecclesia Dei unanimes noluerunt ardeant licet flammis ignibus traditi vel objecti bestiis animas suas ponunt non erat illa fidei corona sed poena perfidiae nec religiosae virtutis exitus gloriosus sed desperationis interitus Occidi talis potest coronari non potest There is nothing more reproachful to man then disunion we are all Natures progeny and we should not strive to the distemper of the womb that nourisheth us to production the sociable soul that God hath infused into us seems our Director that we should agree to serve our Creator yea and one another in all reasonable Offices of Civility We see the Harmonij in nature and that the drift of every thing is to accomodate the end of God in the inferiority and superiority of things there is no mutinies amongst the Creatures sensitive and vegetative The Supream Lawgiver hath implanted his Soveraign will on the instinct of every creature and it acts as and no otherwise then according to that limitation and designment Only Rationall being are frayers and breakers of the Peace 'T was an ill spirit in a Brother to imbrew even in the beginning of time and penury of men his hands in his Brothers bloud yet Cain did this but he had a Mark of Vengeance set upon him for it And 't was fit he should be branded for a Butcher who had no provocation but piety no person but a brother to act his murtherous villany upon How much more divine was the soul of Abraham who would have no contention with Lot for quoth he we are Brethren who put himself upon a holy colluctation with God for sinful Sodom and would not be denied till Mercy had put importunity to blush S t Bernard Ep. 6. writes to Bruno to deal with certain Monks who had deserted their order and he prescribes the Method Flectere oportet precibus ratione convincere columbinam eorum simplicitatem prudentiâ instruere serpentinâ ne putent obedientiam inobedienti adhaerere c. Yet alas we are at but a word and a blow we make men offendors for words for a trifle a misplaced phrase a mistaken sence a petulant carriage cursing one another as Jews and Samaritans did Morning and Evening in their Orisons The judicious S t Edw. Sandys notes That do the Psaltsgrave and Lantgrave whatever they could by inhibiting the Lutherans to rail against the Calvinists yet would they not be restrained but professed openly That they would sooner return to the Papacy then admit Sacramentary and Predestinary Pestilence meaning the Calvinist So in the conference of Mompelgart when Frederick Earl of Wertonburg exhorted nis Divines to acknowledge Beza and his Company for Brethren and ro declare it by giving them their hand they refused it utterly saying they would pray to God to open their eyes and would do them any office of humanity and charity but they would not give them the right hand of Brotherhood because they were proved to be guilty Errorum teterrin●orum that was the doctrine of Election and Reprobation A blemish which ancient Christianity knew not nay which the Protestant Religion is now much reproached for I wish we were not so ambitious to be more wise and Learned in Arts of reviling then our Forefathers were and if there must be a triall of wits would to God the subject and matter of it may be somewhat else then the life and honour of peace and Christian charity For in most Church-contentions it hath fallen out that one errour opposed hath brought up as great an one even from the opposition I know not what many think of contention and brawls but S t Paul cals it a fruit of the flesh and makes it exclusive of heaven and S t John saies He that loves not his brother whom he hath seen cannot love God whom he hath not seen In pure times Christians reckoned their love to Christ by their love to his members whom they relieved as that excellent Bishop Chrysanthius did out of his own estate and by their sound knowledge and skill in the things of God accompanied with justice modesty patience under the hardest Trials and advancing his glory as they had opportunity to do it they evidenced their love to God and to their Brethren for his sake This was the aemulation those holy men had to glorifie God by holy lives that those that saw them might be ashamed of their contradiction and persecution of them Primitive Bishops were simple-hearted not crafty and insighted in worldly policies but abounding in the work of the Lord rich in faith and Scripture-knowledge ready to

Eruditione seculi an scientia Scripturarum and S t Cyrill says Humane learning est catechismus ad fidem I will not deny but that great parts are often hinderances to the work of grace in the soul men will not come off to Christ without great ado who are wedged to the wisedom of this world which contradicts the wisedom of God in the foolishness of preaching learned Pharisees are apt to reproach Saint Paul's with the titles of bablers Ministers like him in Erasmus who being 80 yeers of age knew nothing higher in their calling quam in scholis Dialecticam ac Philosophicam vel docere vel decertare palestram hîc sine fine garrire ad predicandum Christi Evangelium elinquem c. are in a kinde monsters these set the ass upon Christi not Christ upon the ass this to tolerate is as Campanella well notes to measure Christs rights by our straight and narrow model to hide as heathens do the light of Scripture under an Aristotelique bushel for surely the work of a Minister of Jesus Christ is to preach the Word in and out of season to treat of the mysteries of faith not to trade in frivolous questions and nice subtilties to acquaint the soul with what is Gods command and mans duty by prayers to move God to mercy and by tears to prevoke men to pity themselves to raise a holy flame in the heart to God and to every thing that bears his likeness This as Erasmus appositely notes is the work of a Minister And if some Ministers would consider this and more endeavour to be what God requires them their success would be greater then now it is for when people see such Ministers catching at this and hunting after that advantage instead of being crucified to the world and dead to the desires of it crucifying the world by their discourses which preface it to bonds and blood when they see them Chemarims whose fiery zeal and devout outsides serve onely to palliate covetuousness and pride they are much offended at and less resolute for the honour and estimation of the Ministry And alas it is no new thing to see Religion passive under politick projects in coyning which to the Churches dishonour as well as Christs his pretended Vicar is not behinde hand for since pride and state hath bin incathedrated the Priest is so confounded in the Prince the Christian simplicity so over-winged by politick craft that they not onely forget to be humble which Erasmus notes Nostri temporis Episcopi quidem suos habent pro servis Emptitiis imò pro pecudibus but also charge the Church with the burden of their spurious productions and deny her the Ordinances which Christ hath indulged her A learned Father of our Church in his notable Treatise of Scisme lately come forth hath furnished me with a very pat and pregnant instance to this point The Pope as head of the Church to use their words is to supply the Church with all necessaries to Doctrine and Discipline and to the preservation of a succssion in the Church to do which he is to propagate the Episcopal Order in all places under subjection to him upon the revolt of Portugall he refused to admit any new Bishops there and the reason he gave was Lest by that he should acknowledge or approve the Title of the present King against his Catholique Son of Spain by which neglect of his the Episcopal Order in Portugal and the Dominions annexed to that Crown was well neer extinguished and scarce so many Bishops were left alive or could be drawn together as to make a Canonical Ordination the three Orders of Portugal did represent to the Pope that in the Kingdom of Portugall and the Algarbians wherein ought to have been three Metrapolitans and Suffragans there was but one left and he by the Popes Dispensation non-resident and in all the Astatique Provinces but one other and he both sickly and decrepit and in all the Aphrican and American Provinces and the Island not one surviving so that as zealous as his Holiness is for successions maintenance he can be contented to endanger it to take a revenge or to shew a displeasure Thus between those who deny Ordination and others who for private ends disuse it the Church suffers and Christs holy Ordinance hath not its due reverence which the elder Christians provided against this made them nourish up young plants to supply the decay of old Standard they knew that dangerous men and errors would come in when Apostolique men departed and as old Ely nursed up young Samuel so did they cherish the youth of after hopes 'T was a good note of S t Cyprian that the Devil has no greater envie against any then men in place and eminency in the Church ut Gubernatore sublato atrocius atque violentius circa Ecclesiae naufragia grassetur In the Emperour Adrians time when men were giddy and had more itching ears and inquisitive heads then before Egesippus notes a crowd of errors forced the Church and he assigns this for reason Men of Apostolique abilities being dead and those who succeeded them being not so qualified to resist them by argument and the sacred force of reason and Scripture they broke in tanquam in vacuam domum custode suo privatam An Argument perswasive enough to Christians that a learned Ministry and Schools of Institution are necessary and usefull since nothing more disorders then Error nothing sooner discovers it then Art rightly used and carried on by the blessing of God Alas error comes with a top-sail charged with the colours of Truth and so dexterously is the craft of this pyracy couched that none but an exact Artist can discover it The Arians and Orthodox differed but in one letter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet upon that depended the honour of Christs coaequality and coessency with the Father how easily might zealous ignorance have dispensed with an Iota upon which so great a point of faith depended and so have given way to Christs dishonour had not the Fathers learnedly and with Athanasian mettle withstood it O Christians there is more goes to make up the Churches and Religions prosperity then good meanings there needs sound heads as well as honest hearts to make her terrible as an army with banners Satan hath more sophistry then a sigh or an elevation of the eye both good both beseeming will enodate His craft winds it self into company with the sons of God and ought he not be a notable craftsman who can cull the scabbed sheep out of the flock of faithful ones Lord what baits has he to beguile us with an Apple for Eve a look-back for Lots wife a Bathsheba for David a witch of Endor for Saul self-self-love for Jo●as and fear for Peter's temptation And when he is most swollen with malice then his masque is holiness Servetus that blasphemous Spaniard burnt at Geneva