Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	ability_n	able_a	sin_n	198	4	6.3611	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39678	The reasonableness of personal reformation, and the necessity of conversion; the true methods of making all men happy in this world, and in the world to come Seasonably discoursed, and earnestly pressed upon this licentious age. By J.F. a sincere lover of his native countrey, and the souls of men.	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1691 (1691)	Wing F1180B; Wing F1466_CANCELLED; ESTC R214634	80,393	172

I hope it shall effectually lead me to repentance and dissolve for ever the strongest tyes betwixt me and my lusts SECT II. Conversion of the vilest Sinner possible THAT it is possible for the greatest and most infamous Sinner to be recovered by Repentance and Conversion and thereupon to find mercy and forgiveness with God is a truth as sure and firm as it is sweet and comfortable Three things will give full evidence of it 1. That their Sins do not exceed the power and sufficiency of the causes of Remission 2. That such Sinners are within the calls and invitations of the Gospel 3. That such Sinners are found among the instances and Examples of pardoning mercy recorded in the Scriptures And if the Causes of Pardon be sufficient and able to produce it if the Gospel-invitations do take them in and such sinners as these every way as vile and wicked have not been shut out but received to mercy then 't is beyond all doubt that there is at least a possibility of mercy for such sinners as you are I. 'T is past all rational doubt that the Causes of Remission are every way sufficient and able to produce the forgiveness of such sins as yours are For consider with your selves The power of 1. The Impulsive Cause 2. The Meritorious Cause 3. The Applying Cause 1. The sufficiency and ability of the Impulsive Cause of Pardon which is none other but the Free-grace of God the immense riches and treasures whereof do infinitely exceed the accompts and computations both of Angels and Men Exod. 34. 6 7. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin Mic. 7. 18 19. Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgressions of the remnant of his heritage He retaineth not his anger for ever because he delighteth in mercy He will turn again he will have compassion upon us he will subdue our iniquities and thou wilt cast all our sins into the depths of the Sea Once more Rom. 5. 20. Where sin abounded grace did much more abound So that whatever thy sins have been they do not they cannot exceed the ability and power of the Grace of God the all-sufficient Impulsive Cause of Remission That infinite Abyss or Sea of mercy can swallow up and cover such mountains of guilt as thine have been 2. Nor do thy sins exceed the power and ability of the Meritorious Cause of Remission namely the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ for that Blood is the Blood of God Act. 20. 28. He is the Lamb of God whose blood is sufficient to take away the sins of the world John 1. 29. There is but one sin in the world exempt from Remission by this blood and if thy heart be now wounded with the sense of sin as I here suppose it to be that 's none of thy sin how heinous soever thy other sins be 3. Nor do thy sins exceed the ability and power of the Applying Cause of pardon namely the Spirit of God For though I should suppose thy mind to be clouded and overshadowed with grossest ignorance thy Heart to be as hard as an Adamant or Nether Mill-stone thy Will stiff and obstinate thy Affections enchanted and bewitched with the pleasures of Sin yet this Spirit of God in a moment can make a convincing beam of light to dart into thy dark mind make thy hard heart relent thy stubborn will to bow and all the affecti●ns of thy Soul to comply and open obedientially to Christ John 16. 9 10. The Spirit when he cometh he shall convince the world of Sin c. Thus you see whatever your guilt be it does not exceed the abilities of the Causes of Remission On what an Encouragement is this II. And there is yet further Encouragement in this that if you will open your Bibles you may find your selves within th● Calls and Invitations of the Gospel And no man can say that man is without hope that is within a Gospel-invitation Consider Isa. 55. 7 8. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon for my thoughts are not your thoughts c. Here you have the nature of Conversion described Negatively and Positively by forsaking your ways and thoughts and turning to the Lord The way notes the external course of the Conversation the thoughts denote the internal frame and temper of the Mind both these must be forsaken And turning to the Lord denotes the sincere dedication of the whole man to God all which is possible and easy for the Spirit of God to do and this being once done abundant Pardon is assured If you say you cannot think it God tells you in the very next words That his thoughts are not your thoughts but as far above them as the Heavens are higher than the Earth Read to the same purpose Isaiah 1. 18 Rev. 3. 20. John 7. 37. III. And to make the possibility of Remission yet clearer know for your encouragement that as vile infamous and prodigious Sinners as your selves are recorded and found amongst the instances and examples of forgiven sinners in Scripture Paul was once a fierce and cruel Persecutor and Blasphemer yet he obtained mercy 1 Tim. 1. 13 14. That sinful Woman recorded Luke 7. 37 38 was an infamous and a notorious sinner yet her sins which were many were forgiven her v. 47. Manasseh was a Monster of wickedness as you may read 2 Chron. 33. yet found mercy And if you view that Catalogue of sinners given in 1 Cor. 6. 9 10. you will seem to find among them the very forlorn-hope of desperate sinners advanced nearest to Hell of any men upon Earth yet see ver 11. what is said of some of them And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are justified All these things plainly shew I say not the Certainty that you shall be but the Possibility that you may be pardoned which is a mercy and encouragement unspeakable SECT III. The Conversion of prophane ones highly probable AND because Satan labours to discourage them that are gone in sin so far as you are by cutting off all hope● of mercy from them and bringing them to this desperate Conclusion Damned we know we shall and must be and therefore as good be damned for more as less If we had lived sober and civil lives we might have had some hope but because we have no hope 't is as good for us to take our full swinge in sin as to think of returning by Repentance and Conversion so late in the day as this is To obviate this deadly snare of Satan I shall here further add That there is not only a Possibility of your recovery but in some respect

There 's a great truth in that Observation of the Divine Herbert That if God had laid all common man himself would have been the Incloser For his Reason and Experience would have plainly informed him of the great and manifold advantages of distinction and propriety How many Quarrels and barbarous Murders have been occasioned by Whores which by keeping within God's bounds and rules had been both honestly and honourably prevented Were Men left to that Liberty Brutes are to scatter their Lusts promiscuously Fathers would not know their own Children nor Children their Fathers whereby both their Duties and Comforts would be prescinded together Such Mischiefs as these would make men glad of that Inclosure which the Laws of God have made for them But behold with admiration the perverse wickedness of Corrupt Nature manifested in this that because God hath enclosed and secured their Relations to them by his Laws which Inclosure is every way to their advantage yet this makes their Lusts the more head-strong and outragious and they cannot take that comfort in their own because their own that they think to find in another's because another's Remarkable to this purpose is that Relation of Mr. Firmin's which he received from his near Relation who was Minister to the Company of English Merchants in Prussia The Consul or Governour of that Company being a Married Man and that to a very proper and comely Woman was yet enslaved to others not to be compared with his own Wife for comeliness This Minister dealt with him about it One Argument he urged was this That of all Men he had the least Temptation having a Wife so comely that few Women were like her He answered yea were she not my Wife I could love her Had she been his Whore he could have loved her he thought none like her but because she was his Wife hedged in by God he cared not for her Oh! what hearts have Men that they should ever think that to be best for them which is most cross to God! Why should stolen Waters be sweeter than those of our own Fountain SECT III. God's choice must needs be far better for us than our own Ordinate and lawful Pleasures and Enjoyments far better and sweeter than exorbi●ant and forbidden ones And the Reason is evident and undeniable For amongst all the operations of the Mind its reflex acts are the acts that best relish pleasure And indeed without self-reflexion a man cannot tell whether he delights or no. All sense of pleasure implies some reflection of the Mind And those pleasures of a man must needs be the sweetest which afford the sweetest reflections upon them afterward And those the ba●est pleasures which are accompanied and followed with present regret or the stinging and cutting reflections of the Conscience upon them afterwards Lawful and ordinate Enjoyments are as Honey without the Sting Forbidden Pleasures are imbitter'd and extinguished by these regrets and reflections of the Conscience They are like that pleasant Fruit which the Spaniards found in the Indies which were sweet to the taste but so environed and armed on every side with dangerous Briers and Thorns that they tore not only their Cloathes off their Backs but the Skin off their Flesh to come at th●m And therefore they called them Comfits in Hell and such are all forbidden and unlawful Pleasures A Merchant saith the forenamed Author dining with the Fryars at Dantzick his Entertainment was very noble After he had dined and seen all the Merchant fell to commending their Pleasant Life Yea said one of the Friars to him we live gallantly indeed if we had any body to go to Hell for us when we die You see what mingles with Mens Sensual and Sinful Lusts. 2. Your Honour is secured by keeping within God's Bounds and Limits Marriage is honourable in all Here Guilt can neither wrong your Consciences nor Infamy your Reputations ●ornicators and Adulterers go up and down the world as men burnt in the Hand Their Conscience lashes them within and men point at them abroad They are a terror to themselves and a scorn to men 3. The Health of the Body is secured by chast and regular Enjoyments but exposed to destruction the other way God hath plagued the Inordinacy of mens Lusts with most strange and horrid Diseases That Morbus Gallicus Sudor Anglicus and Plica Polonica were Judgments sent immediately by God's own hand as the Witnesses of his high displeasure against the bold and daring contemners of his sacred and awful Command Thus as Prov. 5. 11. They mourn at last when their flesh and body are consumed Other sins are committed in the Body but this against it as well as in it 4. The blast and waste of our Estates which is the usual consequent of uncleanness is prevented and avoided by keeping within God's Rules The truth of what the Scripture tells us Prov. 10. 5. is often exemplified before our eyes that by reason of a whorish woman a man is brought to a morsel of bread Adultery gives a man Rags for his Livery it lodges his Substance in the House of Strangers and entails wants and curses on him and his 5. In a word Continence or lawful Marriage exposes not the Soul to the eternal wrath of God as Uncleanness doth 1 Cor. 6. 9 10. This sin does not only shut a man out of his own House and the Hearts of good men but out of Heaven it self without thorow Repentance and Reformation SECT IV. The case standing thus 't is matter of just Admiration how the Sin of Uncleanness should grow so Epidemical and Common as it doth seeing such as live in this filthy Course must needs counteract and oppose their own Reason and Interest together For they forsake God's way which gives them as much liberty as can be reasonably desired and cast themselves into a course of Life clog'd with all manner of temporal and eternal Miseries of Soul and Body Honour and Estate The plain Rule and Dictate of common Reason which I laid down before being applied to this particular Case manifestly condemns it For seeing Honesty and Chastity comprizes the true Pleasure Profit and Honour of the whole Man is more congruous to humane Nature and Preservative of it it ought therefore to be preferred in the Estimation and Choice of all Men to unlawful adulterous Pleasures which for the Reasons above are inferior in themselves to chast conjugal Enjoyments and besides that are attended and followed with such a Train of present and future Miseries destructive to the whole Man And yet for all this to the amazement of all serious Observers never was any Age more infamous for this Sin than the present Age is and that under the clear shining Light of the Gospel What the special Causes and Inducements to the overflowing and abounding of this Sin are in the present Age will be well worth the enquiring and sifting at this time SECT V. Inducement 1. 'T is highly probable the influencing

grapple with the Wrath of an incensed God to all Eternity II. Supposition Suppose your selves now to be at the Judgment-Seat of God where you know you must be immediately after Death or that you did behold the Process and awful solemnity of the general Judgment of the great Day both which appearances are indisputably sure and certain Heb. 9. 27. 2 Cor. 5. 10. Suppose you saw all Adam's Posterity there assembled and convened even Multitudes Multitudes which no man can number all these separated into two grand Divisions Christ the Supream and final Judge upon the Judgment-Seat the Christless and Unregenerate World quivering at the Bar the last Sentence pronouncing on them the Executioners standing ready to take them away will you not then think you be ready to tear your selves with indignation for this your supine and sottish carelesness A Voice from the Throne like the Voice of a Trumpet sounds a loud Alarm to all Careless Negligent and Trifling Sinners and this is the Voice if you will not be in the same case with the miserable condemned World Put to it heartily then in the use of all means with God and Men for converting and regenerating Grace now which is the only thing that differences your state from those miserable Wretches then III. Supposition Suppose God did but give you a fore-sight or fore-taste in the Terrors of your Consciences of that Damnation you have jested at and so often imprecated upon your selves did you but lie one Night in that Plight poor Spira and many others beside him have done with the terrors of the Lord upon your spirits under horror and remorse of Conscience which are the first niblings and bitings of that Worm that shall never die Tum pallida m●ns est Criminibus tacitâ sudant praecordia culpâ Paleness and horror fear and trembling upon the outward and inward man whilst God is making the immediate impressions of his wrath upon the Conscience seeming to want some one to let out that miserable wretched Soul that is weary to stay any longer in the Body and yet afraid to be dislodged lest its Condition be made worse by the exchange do you think you would ever imprecate Damnation any more and yet all these terrors and horrors upon the Conscience are but as the sweating of Marble-Stones before the great Rain fall But what if God should give you a Vision of Hell it self and of the inconceivable and unexpressible misery of those desperate and forlorn Wretches that lie there sweltring and groaning under the heavy pressures of the wrath of a great and terrible God immediately and everlastingly transacted upon their Souls would you ever jest with Damnation any more as with an harmless thing Nay would you not strive to the uttermost to flee from this wrath to come Do you not seem to hear in this rational and just Supposition a doleful Cry coming from Hell and the state of the Damned with this very Sound and Sense Good Souls if ever you expect to be delivered from this state and place of Torments strive to the utmost strive while you have opportunity strive whilst breath and strength do last to flee from and escape by sound Conversion this doleful state of Eternal Damnation IV. Supposition Lastly and in a word Suppose you had a Vision of Heaven as Stephen and Paul had in the Body suppose you saw the Glory of God and Jesus standing at his right hand surrounded with the triumphant Myriads of Palm-bearing Saints singing Hosanna's and Allelujah's to God and the Lamb for ever and blessing praising and admiring him that gave them another spirit vastly different from that which governs such as you blessing the Lord that enabled them to be praying and praising whilst others were cursing and swearing to be sighing and groaning for sin in secret whilst others were shouting and singing in Taverns and Ale-houses to beat down their Bodies and keep them under whilst others were pleasing and gratifying their Lusts would you still drive that course you do Well Sirs if ever you expect to come where these blessed ones are you must take the course they did Let this be your endeavour and it shall be my fervent and hearty Prayer FINIS BOOKS Printed and Sold by Thomas Cockerill at the Three Legs over against the Stocks-Market THE Works of the Late Learned Divine Stephen Charnock B. D. In ● Vol. Fol. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Succinct and Seasonable Discourse of the Occasions Causes Nature Rise Growth and Remedies of Mental-Errors Written some Months since and now made publick both for the healing and prevention of the Sins and Calamities which have broken in this way upon the Churches of Christ to the great scandal of Religion hardning of the Wicked and obstruction of Reformation Whereunto are ●ubjoyned by way of Appendix I. Vindi●iarum Vendix Being a Succinct but full Answer to Mr. Philip Cary's Weak Impertinent Exceptions to my Vindiciae Legis Foederis II. A Synopsis of Ancient and Modern Antinomian Errors with Scriptural-Arguments an● Reasons against them III. Sermon composed for the preventing and healing of Rents and Divisions of the Church by John Flavel Preacher of the Gospel a● Dar●●mouth in Devon With an Epistle of several D●●vines relating to Dr. Crisp's Works A Discourse of Regeneration Faith and Repentance Preached at the Merchant's Lecture in Broadstreet by Thomas ●ole Minister of the Gospel London English Exercises for School-Boys to translate into Latin Comprising all the Rules of Grammar And other necessary Observations Ascending gradually from the Meanest to higher Capacities By J. Garr●tson Schoolmaster The third Edition with large Additions By an eminent School-Master in London Seneca Epist 97. * Mali esse cog●ntur ne viles h●beantur † Generosus nobilis ex praeclaro genere ortus qui à genere non de●●ectit * Lauren. Humphredus de Nobilitate p. 64. Qui publicis rebus intersunt praesunt nisi viri summi ac nobiles Quis in Senatu praeit in foro praesidet principes sanè viri nobiles Quis jubet vetat agit satagit Quis versat volvit omnia Quis leges fingit refingit Quis in pace Rempublicam contra hostes bella administrat praeterquam viri nobiles c. Pliny Nat. Hist. Lib. 14. Cap. 22. Real Christian pag. 60. Pag. 63.