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	son_n	71	3	5.7490	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

them to make and to agree in Laws proper for their Government as to this he upholdeth the reason of Legislators Laws are the rules of Government 1. God hath given unto men a Divine Law for a Copy the Book of this the King of Israel was always to have before him and he was to read in it all the days of his life Deut. 17.19 Jos 1.8 The Divine Law concerns some generals but there must be many particular Laws respecting the complexions of several Kingdoms and bodies of people In the making of which the Providence of God and his influence is wonderfully seen upholding the reason of the Law-makers to the making of such Laws as are necessary and expedient and proper for the government of such a people It is true as the Hebrew Doctors were wont to say That the Spirit of God did not always touch the hearts of the Prophets so neither doth the Spirit of God always touch and direct the hearts of Legislators God suffereth sometimes the wisdom of the wise to fail them impious and wicked Laws foolish and insignificant Laws may sometimes be made to which it were blasphemy to intitle God in any efficient causation God will by these instances let us see men are but men but yet there is such an ordinary influence of Divine Providence that although some Kingdoms and Common-wealths in a Superfoetation of Laws may have some wicked and impious others foolish and insignificant yet they are not deficient in such as are necessary to maintain Justice and preserve civil order and peace Now although we must by no means intitle God to the wicked effects of men which he only permits nor to the follies and impertinencies of men yet he is justly to be entitled to the wise and prudent effects of his creatures for good useful and necessary Laws they are from the Lord who is wise in counsel from whom cometh every good and perfect gift If the Plowman be instructed by God with discretion and taught and the Thresher be instructed as to the discretion he useth by the Lord of Hosts who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working which the Prophet asserteth Isa 28.23 24 25 26 27 28. Then certainly the hearts of those who are instructed to the making of Rules for the Government of the great bodies of his people are instructed also from the Lord who is great in Wisdom and wonderful in Counsel And herein is the mighty Power and Wisdom of God seen in the preservation of Political Societies 3. A third thing wherein the Providence of God is seen in the preserving of these Societies is In the ordinary silencing of those passions in men which disorder and disturb all Government We justly look upon it as a merciful piece of Divine Providence to conceal from some beasts of great use in our lives their own strength which if known to them would make them our masters The multitude in any Polity is as an unruly beast and all Governments are preserved by their ignorance of their own strength and the bridle of Divine Providence by which God keeps them in and silenceth their passions which if let loose would quickly turn all into a tumult and confusion The Individuals of all Societies are full of boisterous and brutish passions so as a considerate man when he looketh upon such a City as this or any other great Political Body and considereth how many persons are in it of unruly tempers and passions who either know not the rules of natural Justice and Equity or if they know any thing of them their lusts and passions will not suffer them to live in any just observance of them will see reason to wonder how people of such heterogeneous tempers and different passions should ever live together a year or a month in peace and any degrees of order nor is there any thing which holds them together but the wonderful influence of Divine Providence silencing their passions and restraining those lusts in men which otherwise would set any Kingdom City or Nation on a fire and bring it quickly to an heap of rubbish and confusion It was said of old that in the degenerate state of man Homo homini lupus one man is a Wolf to another and nothing but the Divine Hand keeps them from biting and devouring each other the Lord by his Providence holds them in as the Horse and the Mule with bit and bridle When God thinks fit for the punishment of persons or Nations but a little to let loose the Reins we see what brutish passions do discover themselves in men what envy malice revenge oppression and other lusts and vices directly tending to destroy Societies So as we are only preserved because these disorders are but fits of distemper not abiding diseases in the bodies of people and the reason why they are no more is from Gods restraining influence upon unruly turbulent spirits He that ruleth the raging of the Sea and stilleth the waves thereof when they arise ruleth also the passions of men keeps them generally still and stilleth them if at any time they rise to any exorbitant heighth 't is the same power that doth them both Psalm 65.7 Thou stillest the noise of the Sea the noise of its waves and the tumults of the people It is God that saith Be still O ye inhabitants of the Islands Whence is it but from this that there are so few murthers rapes c. no more thefts and acts of Violence We see the fear of punishment will not restrain them as soon as God but takes off his restraint from them and the consideration how unreasonable multitudes appear in their fits of disorder is enough to convince men that the general tie of people have not reason enough to be a law unto themselves but are meerly governed and over-ruled by the influence of Gods restraint upon them for the preservation of his people in their political Societies 4. A fourth thing wherein the power of Divine Providence is eminently seen in the preservation of Men in their Political Societies is in discovering the secret devices and conspiracies of men tending to the disturbance and dissolution of Government in the places where they live I still understand this in ordinary causes When God hath a design to punish a Senacherib he suffers the plottings of his own sons to take effect against him God sometimes punisheth Rulers sometimes he punisheth People by such sufferances but ordinarily he doth not You have an hundred Treasons discovered for one that takes effect Here I might enlarge strangely how God brings to light those hidden works of darkness wherein the welfare of States and Kingdoms are concerned Solomon therefore gives good counsel Eccles 10.20 Curse not the King in thy thoughts nor the rich that is the Ruler I conceive in thy Bed-chamber for a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that which hath wings shall tell the matter that is it shall be discovered strangely and swiftly What eminent

by the way of efficiency Therefore God must be the Author or these Divines make him the Author Or because God is the Author of his own judgments and paenal dispensations and God sometimes punisheth sin with sin therefore God must be the Author of sin taken properly as it is an oblique action contrary to his Law This is forsooth their proof of that crimination when-as there are no Divines in the world but think it not only blasphemy but non-sense to talk of God as the Author of sin which must be an action contrary to the will liking and approbation of God as the very nature of sin doth import 2. Their second Crimination is That God hath damn'd his creatures out of his meer Prerogative and Soveraignty We do indeed think and must so think till our Adversaries can possess us with other Idea's and notions of God than either Scripture or reason will help us with That there is nothing which either hath or shall come to pass in the world but God did know from all eternity neither can we conceive how God should know any thing but because he willed it either in a way of efficiency or to permit it We do say that God had a jus absolutum from eternity an absolute right over his creatures to determine how he pleased concerning them But we also say That in his paenal dispensations he acteth not according to his Soveraignty and absolute right and that every mans destruction is of himself and the proximate and meritorious cause of the punishment and eternal ruin of any Soul is his own sin God doth not condemn any Soul but for sin recompensing their own iniquities upon their heads and whatsoever is absolute and Soveraign right his Law from which he never varieth in the motions of his Providence is The soul that sinneth shall die Where is the difference then What maketh this great clamour and odious representation of eminent Divines as to the method of Gods proceedings in his actual Providence Papists Arminians Calvinists all are agreed That the wages of sin is death The soul that sinneth shall die God will condemn none but for sin Only it seems they are not agreed as to the Nature and Attributes and Prerogatives of God Those Divines whom they call Calvinists must assert God to have the same Power over his creatures which a Potter hath over the clay This the other will not understand though God expressly told it the Prophet Jeremy and the Apostle from him hath expressly told it us and this is all the difference that I can understand 3. Vse Thirdly you may from hence learn How the Righteousness of God shall be cleared in the last day in the condemnation of sinners although it hath not pleased him to give to all a power to that which is truly and Spiritually good This is a point which very many in this Generation also will not understand but the fault is in themselves If God say they hath not given to all men a power to repent and to believe how shall he be righteous in the condemning of Sinners There is no consequence at all in this but upon this Hypothesis That except men have a power to do that which is Spiritually good they are in no capacity to do that which is morally evil Whether they have a power to repent or to believe without the effectual Grace of God yea or no Certainly they have a power in a thousand things to break the Law of God yea and to do also many things which are contained in the Law of God and although the doing of these things would not save them yet certainly the omiting of them or doing contrary to them may give God a righteous cause to condemn them Suppose one of you who are Fathers to have two Sons both of them wild and fond of their play and eager at it you call them both to come to you and tell them that if they will come you will give them both mony to go and buy such things but if by such a time they have not those things and appear to you in and with them you will certainly whip them One of these Children hearkens to you leaves his play comes running to you and begs the money you promised him then procures the things and appeareth to you in the habit you desired and you are well pleased with him The other Child is mad of his play which if he would he might leave he could not have the things without mony out of his Fathers Purse but he will not leave his play nor stir a foot towards his Father nor so much as ask his Father for mony his Father indeed sends him no mony but shuts him out of his sight and ordereth him to be severely whipt because that he would not leave his idle game and come to him and ask the mony of him which he promised and because he had not bought the things and appeared before him in that habit and dress which he had commanded will not one say this foolish Child is right served shall his Father be judged unrighteous or severe because he gave the Child no mony as he did the other and the Child could come by the things without mony and if it had them not could not appear in or with them before his Father The case is much the same betwixt God and us God seeth two Men or Women both his Creatures alike in Adam both born in Trespasses and Sins wildly playing over the hole of the Asp and the den of the Cockatrice sporting themselves in Sin and in an hourly danger of Hell-fire God calleth them by his Ministers to leave their Sins and to turn unto him he saith let him that hath been drunk be drunk no more let him that hath been unclean be unclean no more let him that hath told a lye that hath broke my Sabbaths lye and break my Sabbaths no more let him read my Word and hear my Word and let him come and pray unto me and beg of me an heart to believe and to repent and I will give it him and he that believeth shall be saved but in the great day it shall be found That he who hath not repented and hath not believed shall be damned One of these sinners leaveth off his leud courses falls to an external Discipline readeth the Word heareth the Word of God applyeth himself to God by Prayer beggeth of God an heart to repent and to believe his Gospel God hears him gives him a power gives him repentance unto Life and a saving Faith in Christ and he obtaineth everlasting Salvation The other is mad of his Lusts and after them he will go let what will be the issue of it he will not read the Word not hear that his Soul may live nor so much as ask special Grace of God not to plead with God for Faith or Repentance God giveth them not to him he dieth in his impenitency and unbelief God throweth him into Hell