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	lose_v	13	3	7.6090	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

to heaven ordinarily with broken bones and a bleeding heart So that you see that Gods getting himself glory from his peoples sin gives no man a ground of presumption to go on in a course of sin against God Vse 4. In the last place Let this observation mind us in this case to be workers together with God Have we sinned and come short of the glory of God Let us do our indeavour to make our sins to turn to the furtherance of the glory of God Let us indeavour to make the best of our own bad markets What is done we cannot re-call let us indeavour if possible to make an advantage of our former miscarriages You will say How should that be Answ 1. Let the sense of your sins hasten your pace to the Lord Jesus Christ God hath a great deal of glory from our believing in him whom he hath sent The soul that accepteth of the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour giveth unto God the glory of his Power Wisdom Justice Goodness Truth it gives him the glory of the exceeding riches of his free-grace 2. Make use of your sins to increase your Confession your Repentance and Humiliation Confession giveth glory to God my Son saith Joshua Confess and give glory to God Let your former sins give you the further advantage for sorrowing after a godly sort that will bring forth carefulness indignation fear vehement desires zeal revenge as it did in the Church of Corinth 2 Cor. 7.11 3. Let the remembrance of them cause you to walk softly all the days of your life This is that which God requireth of all to walk humbly with their God The remembrance of your sins may be of notable use to you for this to keep down that pride which is naturally in all our hearts that swelling in an opinion of our selves of our own duties and performances that uncharitable judging and censuring and triumphing over others when we see them fallen in the day of temptations 4. Lastly Let the consideration of how many sins God hath forgiven you make you love much Thus the woman Luk. 7.37 47 made an improvement even of her former sins her much that was forgiven ingaged her to love that God much who had forgiven her so much This improvement St. Paul made 1 Cor. 15.9 10. I am saith he the least of all the Apostles and not meet to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the Church of God But by the grace of God I am that I am and his grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain but I laboured more abundantly than they all O this will be an excellent improvement even of your sins if your former unholiness shall now help to make you more holy your former unrighteousness shall help to make you more righteous for the time to come your reflexions upon how much you have done against God and his Saints shall now engage you to do more for God and the cause and people of God A good husband and house-wife will lose nothing but make some advantage of every rag every bit of wood c. I would have you be like them you have been formerly great sinners and done much to the dishonour of God your consciences can shew you a great dunghil of sin which you made in your state of vanity God hath changed your state changed your hearts let not that dunghil be lost look upon it often to help to raise up your hearts in the praises and admiration of Gods free-grace and the engaging your hearts more for God in your contrary duties for the time to come But so ●uch shall serve for this Observation also SERMON XXVI Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am still going on instructing you to that spiritual Wisdom which the Text telleth you may be gained by and is declared in the Observation of the motions of Actual Providence I am now proceeding to a Twelfth Observation of this nature which I shall give you thus Observ 12. The Providence of God in the distribution of the good things of this life doth in a great measure move circularly though mostly to the seeming advantage of ungodly men In my enlargments upon this notion I shall keep much to the same method which I observed in the former 1. Opening it unto you 2. Justifying the observation by instances 3. Shewing you the reasonableness of this motion of Divine Providence And lastly Making some suitable Application 1. My observation as you see concerneth the motions of Actual Providence as to its distribution of the portions of this life The Pagan Philosophers distributed all the good things they had any knowledg of into three sorts The good things of the body amongst which they reckoned long-life health strength beauty c. The good things of the mind the rich endowments of it such as knowledg invention judgment wit memory and moral vertue c. and the good things of fortune such as birth ingenuous education honours riches All these have a goodness in them which lyeth in their suitableness to the use of humane life or society The blind Heathen not seeing the fountain-head of these beautiful streams ascribed them to fortune But they are all in the hand of Providence that giveth to one a longer to another a shorter life to one greater to another lesser measures of health and strength c. to one more judgment wit c. than to another But I chiefly understand my Observation of the good things which the Heathen called Bona fortunae the good things of fortune such as honours riches c. These also are the Lords he it is saith Moses That gives us power to get wealth And the Holy Ghost by another pen-man telleth us That promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west but God pulleth down one and setteth up another Promotion doth mostly depend upon the favour of the great men of the Earth and you shall observe the Scripture everywhere maketh God the Author of the favour and grace which persons have found in the eyes of the Princes of the world 2. Now I observe in the first place That the wheel of Providence in making this distribution doth for the most part move circularly My meaning is that good and evil of this nature hath as all humane things its turns and vicissitudes sometimes to good men sometimes to bad men The Heathen had some prospect of this though what we call Providence they ascribed to fortune to whom they gave a wheel to signifie the rotation of all these sublunary contentments in which you know the same spokes are not always up nor down but sometimes these spokes are uppermost by and by they are at the ground and those that but now were below are up in their place And this is most perspicuous in bodies of people which are made up of those two sorts of men that divide the world godly

power so as if he will he may do it No man will deny but a man hath a power to deal justly to give Alms to the Poor and many other things so as he is but an Hypocrite that pretends want of strength to many external actions which God hath commanded him which are but acts of moral discipline hence it is no great wonder to hear the Patrons of freewil urge this as the whole duty of man But alas though this be his duty yet it is but the least part of his duty Our great duty to God lies as in external acts of Piety so in the internal government of the motions of our hearts affections according to the rule of the Divine law it lyeth in external actions such as praying hearing the word c. But chiefly in the government of our inward man that we may perform all our actions whether respecting God or man in such a manner as he hath required Now that which we call strengthning grace is That influence of the holy Spirit upon the Soul by which the Soul is inabled to perform whatsoever God requireth of it both in doing and suffering in such an acceptable manner as God requireth at our hands Duty may be divided 1. Into such acts which are in our own power as to the external acts to perform without any Spiritual gifts or more special influences of grace thus a man may read the word he may hear Sermons he may do acts of justice and charity and many other things by virtue of the common Providence of God keeping up in man his natural faculties for this now there needeth none of that special strengthning grace about which I am discoursing Secondly 2. Such as a man may perform by vertue of common gifts and influences such as knowledg utterance c. Which although God doth not give unto all yet he doth give unto many who never tast any thing of his distinguishing grace Thus men may pray preach c. It is true some have more ability unto these acts than others and some Christians at some times may find more strength and ability than at other times but this dependeth not upon any influence of special strengthening grace but upon the different tempers and complexions of persons upon their different measures of knowledg and gifts and parts and their strength as to these acts riseth and falleth as their gifts and parts increase hold or decay 3. But thirdly there are duties that are more internal such as meditating of God delighting believing in him breathing after him fervency of Spirit in his service the right manner of performing all external acts Now to the performance of this there needeth a special influence in the Spirit of God besides all the advantage which any man can have from natural parts or gifts And the experience of every Christian justifieth that God useth a great variety in his dispensings of it some Christians find much more than others do others find much more at one time than at an other both for the performing the acts of Mortification and of Vivification the practice of dying to sin and living to righteousness and also for the bearing any burthens which God in his Providence layeth upon him and going through any sufferings which God hath laid out for him and these gradual withdrawings of these Divine assistances are what we call Divine desertions as to these manifestations of grace Now my next business must be to shew you the wisdom and reasonableness of the motions of Divine Providence in the inequality of these dispensations which sometimes proves matter of great trouble to Gods People 1. For the differences of strength and ability to the more external acts of our homage to God it is not so properly within my subject to be discoursed I shall therefore speak but shortly to it something I am willing to speak because I fear too many Christians mistake this for strengthning grace This difference ariseth 1. from a difference or decay in knowledg and other parts and common gifts Knowledg of the things of God is the foundation of this practice and it cannot be expected that Christians weak in knowledg should be able to express themselves so freely in prayer or in Spiritual conference or any other exercise which dependeth upon knowledg as the more knowing Christian can 2. Secondly As difference as to degrees of knowledg is one cause so different frequency in Practice is an other a man in practical things is perfected by practice As he that never almost writeth will forget his hand and he that useth not himself to read or speak Latine or any other Language will in a short time lose the very ability he once had to do it so it is but a reasonable thing for us to imagine that he who seldom or never prayeth should lose his gift and ability to pray and he who seldom or never Preacheth should lose his gift and ability to Preach We find by experience and may find it whenever we try it that a man that hath an excellent ability to pray neglecting that gift in a short time will lose his gift and not be able to continue Ten lines of sence without a Book To this may be added that these performances do also depend upon other natural and common gifts which if they fail through age or other infirmities it cannot without a Miracle be expected but that this strength and ability should abate also I know also that God may blast these gifts and oft doth for mens sins their neglect of the use of them their not glorifying of God with them but Gods usual way of doing this is either by permitting the decay of these gifts upon which these exercises depend or leaving the Hypocrite to fall into such a senslesness and sottishness in life as quite takes him off from any regard of these pieces of homage unto God but thus much shall serve to have spoken to these varieties and decays of strength in the inward man 2. For the other which are the influxes of Divine and special grace it is certainly reasonable that God should not dispense equal measures to all if we consider 1. That all are not of a alike groweth and standing in the Church There is nothing more ordinary in Scripture than to compare the Church to a Fold of Sheep to a Family c. Now there is no Fold where all are are grown Sheep alike scarce any Family where are not some Infants or young Children Christ must carry the Lambs in his Arm while he feedeth his Flock like a Shepheard The Scripture speaking of Christians distinguisheth betwixt Babes and grown Persons betwixt those that are perfect and such as are not perfect such as are Spiritual and such as are Carnal such as are fit for strong Meat and such as have need of Milk now although it be true that this influx of Grace is from the Spirit of God yet the Spirit of God ordinarly worketh Secundum quod nactus