Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	aaron_n	child_n	die_v	25	3	6.0391	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B08803	Several discourses concerning the actual Providence of God. Divided into three parts. The first, treating concerning the notion of it, establshing the doctrine of it, opening the principal acts of it, preservation and government of created beings. With the particular acts, by which it so preserveth and governeth them. The second, concerning the specialities of it, the unseachable things of it, and several observable things in its motions. The third, concerning the dysnoēta, or hard chapters of it, in which an attempt is made to solve several appearances of difficulty in the motions of Providence, and to vindicate the justice, wisdom, and holiness of God, with the reasonableness of his dealing in such motions. / By John Collinges ...	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1678 (1678)	Wing C5335; ESTC R233164	689,844	860

fruit of the womb as a blessing and blesseth him that hath his quiver full of these shafts but now the poor man knoweth not how to understand this and it is hard for him not to repine at the multiplying of it a great error doubtless but such as for ought I know good people may fall into we cannot trust God to provide for those which he giveth us if this hath been thy error God but pays thee in thy own kind by shortning thy number and maketh thy own secret sinful wish now to be thy Plague and Torment but this ordinarily is the sin of the poorer and meaner sort of Christians 2. Didst thou not let thy heart run out too much upon thy Children God is jealous and it is the nature of jealousy not to suffer a rival in the object beloved be it a person or a thing God is the object and he will be the prime object of his peoples love desire and delight It is his Law Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy strength it may be thy Child had more of thy heart more of thy love and and delight than God had no wonder if he hath taken it from thee this is now usually the sin of those whose circumstances in the world are better they have a fair estate in the world and Children few enough to leave it to and in such cases it is a very hard thing to keep our hearts within due bounds but our affections are ready to overflow especially if there be nothing in the temper or behaviour of the Child that takes off the edge of our affections to it 3. Doth not thy heart smite thee for the neglect of thy duty to thy Child especially if it were of any years Thy duty in instructing it or thy duty in reproving and admonishing it Elie's Sons were indeed men grown but God cut off his Children though their personal guilt justified God in his severity against them yet Eli smarted in their punishments for honouring his Sons more than God for dealing too gently with them for their most enormous wickednesses Thou mayest also neglect thy duty towards them in instructing them in making them acquainted with the holy Scriptures in admonishing them to keep the Lords Sabbaths and seeing to their external Sanctification of them This is undoubtedly a second piece of thy duty upon such a dispensation and to be humbled before God for those sins which thy conscience smiteth thee for and suggesteth to thee as probable causes of this rod of God upon thee 3. It is doubtless thy duty whatsoever thou findest to be satisfied with Gods good pleasure Rachel mourned sinfully while she so mourned as that she refused to be comforted If thou findest that probably God hath punished thy sin in the sickness pain and death of thy Child it is indeed matter of humiliation to thee it offers thee a just opportunity to resolve for the time to come to amend thy errors as to any survivors which God shall lend thee but yesterday cannot be called back again God hath done what pleased him It may be in mercy to thy Child though it be in judgment unto thee thou hast no reason to quarrel or murmure at God for any of his dispensations If it be for thy Child 's Original sin still thou hast no reason to blame God he is just and righteous in what he hath done But if God hath done it to give thy Child a quicker passage to Heaven to bring it sooner to a state of perfection to deliver it from an evil to come here thou hast reason to admire and adore the Divine goodness rather than to quarrel at Divine Justice There are a great many things that may conduce to the relief of a godly man or woman disturbed at this dispensation of Divine Providence It is a very ordinary dispensation of God though therefore it may look like a digression from the principal argument of my discourse yet it may possibly be not so judged by some of you whose case it either at present is or may be to instance in some heads of arguments which occasionally you may make use of for the quieting of your Spirits 1. Consider what-ever was the moving cause on Gods part yet the will of God is revealed The will of God is such a thing to satisfy a Christian with as nothing can be more nothing greater We have our Heaven by the will of God fear not little flock it is your Fathers will to give you a Kingdom We have all our grace all our glory from the will of God and shall we not thankfully accept a cross when it is the will of our Father to lay it upon our necks We pray thy will be done and shall we murmure against it when we see it done This silenced Aaron David Heli Hezekiah it leaves no room for a good Christians reply to it it is our Fathers will that is enough It is our Fathers will revealed by an Act of his Providence The Lord hath given saith Job and the Lord hath taken blessed be the name of the Lord. 2. Consider how many sadder cases than thine there have been Thou hast lost a Child an infant Job lost all his Children when they were grown up feasting at their elder Brothers house Aarons was a sad cause he lost his two Sons grown up in an act of sinning yet he held his peace Helies case was sad to lose two such wicked Sons in a Battel Davids case was sad God had expresly told him the Child should dye because of his sin and that by it he had made the enemies of God to blaspheme What doth David do He fasteth he prayeth he humbleth himself before God so long as the Child lived and while he had any hope but when the will of God was revealed when the Child was dead he ariseth and eateth bread as he was wont to do he saith that he should go to it it should not return to him 3. Consider Let the case be as sad as it will yet if thou lookest round about it there is mercy in it either mercy to thy Child or mercy to thee or mercy to both if thy Child be gone to Heaven there is mercy in that if it be delivered from evil to come upon the World or that part of the world where it should have had its portion there is mercy in that David's case was as sad as one can well think of any of this nature yet there was this mercy in it the living monument and remembrance of David's sin and shame was taken away 4. Suppose that God hath for thy sin taken it away and thou canst not satisfie thy self but it is so yet consider God eternally punisheth none for the sins of their correlates God may punish persons with bodily and temporal punishments for the sins of their Parents but not eternally as to those punishments every soul shall bear no

which it is called the Covenant of Grace God in and by it relaxing the rigour of the Law which required personal satisfaction to Divine Justice from the persons offending and a perfect performance of the whole Law and accepted the satisfaction given to Divine Justice by the nature offending hypostatically united to the person that was the Son of God and accepting from us sincerity instead of perfect obedience the sincerely willing mind instead of the perfect deed Such a Covenant we suppose and believe to have been made 2. We believe it not made for all but conformably to the purpose of Election if it had been made for all we could not understand but that all men must be saved 3. Nor can we think it was made for an uncertain number but as there are individual names written in the Book of Life so we believe the same concerning the rolls of this Covenant The Lord as the Apostle tells us knoweth who are his Christ was not Sponsor incerti foederis a surety of an incertain but of a certain Covenant Some would make Christs Covenant with his Father not to have been for these or those persons but indefinitely for those that should believe and so to have been conditional But certainly no considerate Christian can allow this who observeth that amongst men nothing but ignorance of future contingencies is the cause of incertain and conditional bargains the Parent that dieth and gives his Child a Portion conditionally that he or she marrieth so and so or be subject to such or such Governors would have left out that condition if he or she had certainly known what the Child would have done and it seems to us strangely to derogate from the eternal perfection of the Divine Being in point of Knowledge so much as to fancy that God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who both from eternity knew who would or would not repent and believe and needs must know it because they could do neither but by vertue of special grace infused by and derived from God should make a Covenant each with other that such or such persons who they knew would not repent nor believe if they believed and repented should have a share in the satisfaction and death of Christ 4. We do suppose and believe the blood of the Covenant that is the blood of Jesus Christ was intentionally poured forth according to the Covenant and for the persons concerned in it The blood of Christ is called the blood of the Covenant Zech. 9.11 Heb. 10.29 Heb. 13.20 and the Antitype to those ancient types of the blood of Beasts which was so called Exod. 24.8 So that we think it a very unreasonable assertion to extend the blood of the Covenant beyond the persons concerned in the Covenant But yet notwithstanding all this there is nothing more evident in the issues of Divine Providence than that this Covenant is held out to all indefinitely Mar. 16.15 Christs commission to his Apostles runs thus Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every Creature He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Here both the benefit of the New Covenant eternal life and salvation is offered to all and the terms believing and being baptized are also propounded unto all and according to that direction and commission is all our Preaching Now hence ariseth the difficulty If there be not a possibility of salvation for all men if they all be not within the verge of the Covenant If Christ hath not died for all why is the Gospel preached to every creature how can it consist with the truth and honour of that God who cannot lie by his Ministers to tell men that if they will but repent and believe they shall be saved To what end is the Gospel preached unto them To which I answer 1. That the Gospel only asserteth the infallible connexion of faith and salvation What saith the Gospel He that believeth shall be saved and will any say that a believer shall be damned or did ever any penitent and believing soul perish if there had then indeed we might have quarrelled at the truth of God but God will be true though all men be found liars What though ten thousand be told and have it rung in their Ears That he who believeth shall be saved and but ten of those ten thousand should believe provided that they be saved God I hope is true and what he hath said is to a tittle made good But you will say why then are all told if they believe they shall be saved The Minister of the Gospel may go to every particular soul and say to him or her if thou repentest and believest thou shalt be saved I answer 2. God is pleased to hide from his Ministers his secret counsels concerning the salvation of individual souls They therefore may and must say whosoever believeth shall be saved and God will confirm in Heaven whatsoever they deliver on Earth and by vertue of this Commission they may say to every individual soul Believe and thou shalt be saved they know not who are ordained to life and shall have effectual grace bestowed upon them inabling them to believe but they know the general proposition of the Gospel is true But still you will say why hath God by his Providence so ordered it to what end should the Providence of God order the publication and tender of the Covenant of Grace to a greater number than are concerned in it 3. What if we should say It is O Father so because it pleaseth thee and be forced here to cry out with the great Apostle Rom. 9.33 O the depth of the ri hes both of the wisdom and know ledge of God how unsearchable are his judgements and his ways past finding out vers 34. For who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his Counsellor Who is able to give a just account of Gods designs and intentions to what purpose he doth things It is enough for us to know that God doth them and that God may do them and there is no unrighteousness with him if he doth do it We ought to believe that God hath wise ends in what he doth though we are not able to find out what they be Yet it may not be amiss to tell you what Divines do say in the case though they cannot by searching find out God nor find out the Almighty unto perfection 1. There are those that say that Reprobates are only called to faith and repentance as they are mixed with the elect and the exhortations reach them only by way of concomitancy and possibly it may be doubted if there were any society or company of people in the world amongst whom there were not any ordained to everlasting life whether God would at all send his Gospel to them or direct any of the Messengers of his word to go and call them to repentance God incouraging Paul Act.

the face of the Earth God at first said Let the earth bring forth grass Gen. 1.11 He sendeth the grass of the field Deut. 11.15 He causeth it to grow for the cattel and herb for the service of man He multiplyeth the beasts of the field the birds and fowls of the air He leaveth us not without witness but giveth fruitful times and seasons filling the hearts of men with food and gladness 3. From whence is it but from the influence of God upon his Creatures that Creatures universally and ordinarily avoid the eating of such things as would be noxious to them and many creatures if they be distempered are directed to such things as will cure them But this is enough to have spoken to the second Conclusion 3 Concl. Thirdly God preserveth living Creatures by upholding those faculties in all living creatures upon the operations of which their lives are preserved their species are propagated and they are to propagate their species and to perform those actions which are proper to their several Beings and natures To uphold the Creation as to those things in it which have life there are divers faculties necessary which must be upheld here are four sorts mentioned in the Conclusion Let me speak a little to each of them It will be of excellent use to convince you of the necessity of a Divine influence or Providence upon you every moment 1. The first sort are those By which the Beings the lives and beings of Creatures are preserved and encreased to their due proportion These are those which belong to those principal faculties which the Philosophers calls Facultatem altricem auctricem I will put them together and instance in divers particulars We are craving changeable creatures subject to wasts and decays in our beings and we must have a Nutritive faculty or we could not live The action of this faculty is called Nutrition or Nourishing Now our nourishing depends upon our food the change of our food in our stomachs by the natural heat of our stomachs and this dependeth upon several powers which God hath created in all sensitive creatures in the upholding of which the daily Providence of God is wonderfully experienced although possibly not so wistly observed and considered by us as it ought to be Let me a little awaken you to a due consideration of it by instancing in several Particulars 1. In the first place We have a power a natural power to crave and desire food Without an appetite the creature desires no food can take none though it be set before him but instead of it the very sight of it maketh him sick he loatheth and abhorreth it and calleth to have it taken away out of his sight as we see in daily experience Now I would know by what this faculty is upheld but by the concourse and daily operation of Providence I do not intend to divert here into a Philosophical discourse concerning the causes of a decay of our appetite It is sufficient to tell you that the causes may be various and the variety of the causes which may produce such an effect is sufficient evidence that nothing but the upholding power of Divine Providence can hinder it It is God that must give us our daily food and it is God that must give us a stomach or appetite to it and the causes are so many which may abate and destroy our appetite that did not God daily watch over us and influence us as to this very thing it were an hard thing to conceive how it should keep preserved a few days much less as it is with many to very many years 2. But suppose us to have an appetite to say nothing of our power to take and chew and swallow our food We see by a daily experience if we have not a power to digest it if the natural heat of our stomachs be from any cause abated so as it will not change our food and this continueth upon us for any time and no remedy can be apportioned to it the creature dyeth whether it be man or beast If the nap of the stomach be but worn off our bodies soon appear thredbare we pine away and presently sink into our graves by which we learn that a natural faculty power or ability to digest our food is necessary to the preservation of our beings As I said before of the Appetite so I shall say again of this I intend no discourse of the variety of causes from which such a thing may proceed but the possibility of such a thing and that as an effect of various causes evinceth a necessity of a daily influence of God upon us to uphold this faculty in its vigour and efficacy which ministreth to our nutrition 3. But thirdly suppose our food taken into our bodies concocted and digested in our stomachs that it may nourish the whole body it must be by several vessels and channels distributed to the several parts of the body So as there must be supposed a freedom from obstructions in those passages and an attractive vertue and faculty in the several parts If these passages be any way stopped or the attractive vertue abated the parts are not nourished but decay and wither the creatures being destroyed Of such obstructions we have daily examples and indeed whoso considereth the various passages in our bodies through which that part of our food which proves for nourishment passeth and the variety of obstructions to which we are subject must needs again acknowledg that our Souls must be kept in life our bodies in health meerly by a Divine Power 4. Again What we take into our bodies for our proper food being in part found either not proper for us or in too great a proportion when the stomach hath done its office there is a separation made that not proper for us or in a superfluous proportion for that end must be voided and cast out and a natural faculty to do it must be supposed which if it ceaseth but for a while or the freedom of the passages by which it passeth be obstructed the life of the creature quickly determineth Now whoso considereth the variety of powers and faculties in a living body which must be all upheld and the variety of causes from which they may be incumbred yea and quite destroyed will be forced to acknowledg the incessant influence of Divine Providence in upholding and preserving both the being and well-being of every creature that hath a sensitive life 2. But yet here is not all For in order to our nourishing not only those faculties in the body nourished which I have mentioned must be upheld But also the faculties and vertues in the bodies nourishing by which they are made nourishing to us In all nourishing there must be a body giving the nourishment as well as a body receiving it each of these must have its faculties upheld or there will be no nutrition and consequently no preservation of life Philosophy telleth us that the nourishment

moneth in which God may take them The Children by adoption are picked out of the Children of wrath Reservat Deus injustos misericordiae per inducias justitiae God by the truce of his justice as Nierembergius phraseth it that is by forbearing the execution of his punitive and vindicative Justice reserveth unrighteous persons for mercy This is one end doubtless of Gods enduring so many sinners in the World that he might bring some of them even so many as he hath chosen unto life to obtain eternal Salvation But yet some will say why doth God permit such as he knows his long suffering and patience will never lead to repentance let me a little answer thy curiosity in this and shew thee that even in this the Lords ways are equal and his wisdom infinite 2. Whether they well repent and turn or no it is but reasonable that that God who hath sworn by his life that be desires not the death of a sinner but had rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live should give them a time to repent and how should this be if God should not bear with them and give them a space of life If they never were suffered to think a thought how should their own thoughts another day accuse them It is an aggravation of judgment against sinners That God gives them a space of repentance and they do not repent How should God condemn them for their filthy speeches their hard speeches their Oathes and Blasphemies if God should not suffer them to vent these things How should they repent if they had no time to repent If they will abuse the patience of God and after the hardness and impenitency of their hearts treasure up wrath against the day of wrath their blood is upon their own heads God is vindicated in his Justice 3. The permission of sinners in the world seemeth reasonable that if they will not be made better others may be made good by Gods patience toward them and forbearance of them If there were none of these Briars and Thorns in the world how could God teach his people by them Indeed this is one of Gods great ends in the permission of sinners But let me open this a little in two or three particulars 1. God by the exemplary punishment of them for their sins oft-times turns others from their sins It is true God doth not make all prodigious sinners examples of his judgment in this life but some he doth and by it makes others to fear and tremble and to avoid those Rocks upon which their Souls split If I remember right it is reported of Waldus the Father of the Waldenses that he was converted by the sudden death of one of his companions I know that examples of judgments are not Gods ordinary means of conversion nay they are rare instances of converts that are made that way especially where the word is ordinarily preached When Dives in the gospel fancied that if one were sent to his brethren from the dead they would believe and avoid those flames he was told by Abraham they had Moses and the Prophets and if upon the reading and hearing of them they would not believe if one should go from the dead they would not believe Those that harden their hearts under the word are ordinarily judicially hardned against judgments or other means that to the eye of reason seem probable means to change their hearts but are not under a Divine institution for that end as the word of God is But yet to some they are so far sanctified God sometimes goeth out of his ordinary road Besides though such examples of judgment seldom prove sole and principal causes or means yet they often prove partial causes and social means and together with the word conduce much to such a blessed end I have known one my self that hath owned the ringing of Bells giving notice of persons that he knew who probably died in their sins as a great means to awaken him to a consideration of his ways and a change of heart and life whiles his Soul reflected upon the sound and he said to himself what should become of me if this Bell now rang for me if my Soul as this poor wretched creatures Soul were now before the Judgment seat of Jesus Christ Princes the time they go to School use to have their Vmbraes some other person I forget it may be the name they use to give them that they may be corrected for them and their Prince by their correction might learn to take heed of errors The elect of God those whom he hath foreordained to eternal life they cannot die in their sins but God suffers some vile and wicked neighbours they have to perish in their reaking lusts and maketh this a means to awaken them to consider what sin will at last bring them to 2. God defameth sin by a plenty of sinners It is one of the idle pretences men in this age have for their filthy stage-plays that sin is there discredited by the representation of it and shewing the Spectators how ill it becomes men to be debaucht the truth is vertue and sobriety is discredited there for in the debauchery of them our age hath exceeded all Heathens But for those that will see the vileness and ugliness of sin they need not see it in a play in effigy they may see it more livelily in the converse of their neighbours and I doubt not but much sin is restrained in the world by the much sin that is committed in the world the reeling of the drunkard from one side of the street to another defameth drunkenness and the indecent immoralities of others both in their words and actions make sin more abominable to many considerate Souls as they say the fire is hotter in winter by the Antiperistasis of the cold so the heat of love to God and zeal for him is advantaged by the excess of hatred to God and his ways which they see in others 3. There is yet a third way by which the sinners of the world do good to the Saints and that is augendo fidem ampliando patientiam increasing their faith and patience every sinner is a grieving thorne and a pricking briar to the house of Israel and by these briars and thorns God teacheth them as it is said that Gideon taught the men of succoth It was the saying of an ancient writer Nullus bonorum habet inimicum nisi malum qui ideo esse permittitur ut vel ipse corrigatur vel per ipsum malus exerceatur that is no good man hath any enemy but a wicked man whom God doth therefore permit that either himself may be amended or the good man may by him be exercised Thou that wondrest why God permits so many sinners in the world wonder why there are so many rods and ferulars for Children why there are so many whipping-posts and racks so many bride wells c. Assyria is the rod of Gods anger Isa 10.