Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	action_n	sin_n	will_n	1,909	5	6.8826	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67005	A sons patrimony and daughters portion payable to them at all times but best received in their first times when they are young and tender : laid-out without expence of money only in the improving time and words with them contained (in an answerablenesse to their ages) in two volumes ...	Woodward, Ezekias, 1590-1675.; Gouge, William, 1578-1653.	1643 (1643)	Wing W3506	409,533	506

that though we cannot comprehend we may be comprehended The Lord knoweth who are his and it is a great secret yet His secret is with them that fear Him I mean not alwaies and with all that fear Him they know that they are His though yet all know it not nor some at all times and this they know as not by extraordinarie revelation so nor by prying into his secret Decree how there He hath disposed of them This will as by fixing our weake eye upon a strong object blinde us with light It is a ventrous and a bold coming unto God and most dangerous also for if we climbe up unto His Decree we shall fall into the gulfe of despair because we come unto Him without a Mediatour f Hic sine m●diator●●es agitur disputatur de Dei beneplacito ac voluntale in quam sese Christus resert Luther Psal 22. P. 337. In doubts of Predestination begin from the wounds of Christ that is from the sense of Gods love in Christ we should rise to the grace of election in Him before the world was It was Luthers counsell and he found it of force against the devises of Satan g De praedestinatione disputaturus incipe à Christi vulneribus statim Diabolus cum suis tentationibus recedet Mel. Ad. in Staupicii vita p. 20. The way to melt our hearts into a kinde repentance for sinne is to begin from the love of righteousnesse and of God all figured out in Baptisme as well as in the Supper And this also was Staupitius counsell to Luther whereby he made the practise of repentance ever sweet to him whereas before nothing in all the Scripture seemed so bitter h Vera est ea poenitentia quae ab amore justitiae Dei incipit dixit Staupitius Quae vox ita aliè in animo Lutheri insedit ut nihil dulcius suerit deinceps e● poenitentia cum a●tea eidem in totâ Scripturâ nihil ●sset amarius Mel. Ad. ibid. vita Staup. But now suppose our case to be this and it is most likely to be so that we finde no work of the Spirit upon us no change wrought by His renewing grace we are as we were not cleansed from our old sinnes we have passed over this Iorda● we have gone into this water and we are come out as unclean as before our hearts are not sprinkled We see a price paid for us and no lesse then the price of the blood of God yet we have not consecrated our selves to Him who hath so dearly bought us yet we have not accepted Him for our Lord though we are His purchase i Rom. 14. 9. and for this end He died and rose again but other Lords rule over us And though we be called by His name yet we walk in our own wayes serving divers lusts as if we were our own and not peculiarly His who bought us with a price If I say this be our case then Luthers counsell is observeable which is this To enter into our closet there to spread our selves before the Lord in humble confessions as followeth k Oportet nos esse tales scilicet verè poenit●ntes non possumus esse tales Quid hic faciemus Oportet ut cognito te tali non neges te talem sed in angulum vadas juxta consilium Christi in abscondito ores patrem tuum in coelis dicens sine fictione ecce optime Deus poenitendum mihi praecipis sed tal●s sum ego miser quod sentio me nolle neque posse qua●● tuis prostratus pedibus c. Concione de poenitentiâ An. 1518. Lord thou hast set a fountain open but to us it is sealed Thou hast bid us wash and be cleane we cannot we are no more able to wash our selves then we can take out the seeming spots in the Moon Thou hast said When will it be c. we say it will never be no not when the Rocks flie in pieces and the earth shall be no more but then it shall be when thou giving that thou commandest art pleased to make us as thou wilt the heavens and the earth all new Thou hast commanded us to come unto Christ that we might live we cannot come no more then Lazarus could by his own power cast off his grave-clothes and turn up the mould from over his head and stand up from the dead We are bound up in unbelief as within gates of brasse and barres of iron Thou hast said Turn ye every one from his evill way we say we cannot turn r Lay down thy heart under the Word yeeld it to the Spirit who is as it were the Artificer can frame it to a vessell of honour Mr. Reynolds on Psal 110. pa. 42. no more then we can turn that glorious creature which like a Gyant runnes his course so gyant-like we are and so furiously marching on in our own wayes of sinne and death This is but part of our confession 2. We must acknowledge also that righteous is the Lord in commanding what is impossible for man to do Because the Lord did not make things so at first He gave us a great stock to deale and trade with but like unfaithfull stewards we have wasted the same and so have disinabled our selves Our inability was not primitive and created but consequent and contracted our strength was not taken from us but thrown from us This is the principall point of confession our inabilitie comes out of our own will ſ Read and observe with all diligence Mr. Dearings words on the third Chapter to the Hebrews ve 8. Lect. 15. Sentio me nolle neque posse I finde that I neither will nor can before D'S S. p. 215. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To be feverish is not voluntary but my intemperance which causeth a fever is voluntary and for that I am deservedly blamed pained No man chuseth evill as evill Transl out of Clem. Alex. Stro. l. 1. p. ●28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin is my voluntary act Loco la●d l. 2 p. 294. C●sset volun●●s propria non erit inf●●nus originally we will not be cleansed as Tho * Joh. 20. 25. so say we in effect not we cannot but we will not we will deny the Lord that bought us we will not come unto Him that we may live so stiffe are our necks and so hard our hearts that we will not turn for though out of the very principles of Nature we cannot but desire happinesse and abhorre miserie yet such a deordination and disorder lieth upon our Nature that we are in love with eternall miserie in the causes and abhorre happinesse in the wayes that lead unto it our will is the next immediate cause of sinne it puts it self voluntarily into the fetters thereof Necessity is no plea when the will is the immediate cause of any action Mens hearts tell them they might rule their desires if they would For

heated above its proportion how then wilt thou everlasting burnings how will thy heart endure this perishing for ever And consider this with it which that Father hath in the same place here if thy body be burnt or otherwise hardly used the soul will out it will forsake its dwelling k Nemo pervaldé dolere diu aut extinguetur aut extinguet Sen. ep 78. but if the body fall into these rivers of brimstone the soul must abide by it there is no getting forth as they were I mean the body and the soul joyned together like brethren in iniquitie so must they suffer together and no change shall they finde no ease in their suffering not so much as a sick man findes in changing of his bed or what a tyred man findes in changing his postures or his sides This present life is well called a vale of miserie for here are pains perils gripings c. But our death here may be as well called a shadow of death But a shadow in reference to that death where we still are dying but never die where we shall seek and wish for death but death flyeth from us But a shadow that to this Think we here-on and then we think on a short day spent in pleasures and of an eternall night to be spent in sighes And this is the first consideration which may make us well to husband and improve the day of our peace because a night must follow the day of our peace as the night follows the day and at the end of time a night which shall never have day or a day which shall never have night 2. It is very considerable that as sensuall pleasures continue not long so the longer they continue the more they satiate but the lesse they satisfie They run one after another and in their changes they are most pleasing the eare is not satisfied with the same tune be it never so sweet but quickly it desires another so the eye in seeing so our taste in relishing all our senses saith the Father l 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrysost Tom. 1. Hom. 30. p. 338. have their measure which will be soon at the top and quickly satiated though never satisfied And contrary things become most pleasant by their vicissitude and change What is sweeter then rest to the wearied man But if the rest exceeds its proportion but some few houres this rest grows wearisome and restlesse What more pleasant then the light yet such is our frail condition here that if we should have it long in our eye it would not be delightfull What more comfortlesse then the darknesse yet as our case is ordinarily we shut out the light that it may be more dark about us So long as we inhabit flesh varietie delighteth and still the same dulleth satiates yea quickly killeth Mr Dearings words are notable to this purpose m Lect. 14. All delights must have their change and the greater the pleasure is the nearer is satietie in any whatsoever appertaineth unto the body Wouldst thou never so fain sell thy self to serve any thing thou shalt finde nothing that will give thee a perpetuall pleasure to buy thy service hunger and thirst are soon satisfied the heavy eye-lid is easily filled with sleep Labour hath wearinesse and rest is soon tedious all play and pastime which so many make the crown garland of their life this also is dulnesse in a little while and this garland is as withered hay another thing must come to take this up or rather then this should be still we would never play while we lived Blessed be God that He hath given a day and night the day maketh the night welcome and the night the day so like ringers we are best pleased with changes n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. E●r●p Orest p. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herc. sur p. 4. or like tyred men a little refreshed with shifting their beds their sides and their postures Oh how should we avoid these paths of death which leade to that place where there is no change but from torment to torment And how earnestly should we set our faces towards those heavenly Mansions where the Saints shall with open face behold the glory of the Lord and shall have no other change but a changing into the same Image from glory to glory o 2. Cor. 3. 18. 3. It is of use to consider what darknesse is and what the bounds of the same the resolution is short we shall finde it to be no positive thing but a meer privation and as boundlesse it is as the light was for it is but the absence thereof If I take a candle out of a room I do not put darknesse into the same room but in taking away the candle I leave the room dark Thus of the great candle of the world it doth not make this side of our globe dark but withdrawing it self from our side it leaves us in darknesse This is of use to informe us That there is no efficient cause of darknesse either in our great world or in our little but a deficient altogether p Vide August de civit lib. 12. cap. 6 7. which cause is understood by the same way that darknesse is seene or silence is heard we heare silence by hearing nothing so we see darknesse by seeing nothing Shut the eye and behold darknesse Our enquiry is nought touching the efficient cause of an evill will or of a dark minde saith Mornaeus q Male quaeritur unde mal●m efficiatur for there is no such cause thereof If light withdraw it self either from our world without or from our world within there needs no more to leave all darke r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Basil H●x Hom. 2 pag 18 19. yea and to expose us to the power of darknesse and to lead us to the houre of temptation The usefull enquiry then is Who is that fountain of Light Which lighteth every man that cometh into the world And we must acknowledge here if there be truth in us and say contrary to that which the Fathers of old said in an opinion of themselves we see not nor can we see Nay we shall ever sit in darknesse and in the very shadow of death untill this Light this Day-spring from on high shall visit us who at the first caused the light to shine out of darknesse and made the aire light before He gave the Sun And this is that Sun of Righteousnesse We must acknowledge farther That as we have many wayes to shut out of our roomes this light in the aire but no way to shut out darknesse so there is an heart in us which can oppose this fountain of Light shutting our eyes against it and thrusting it from us so resisting the Holy Ghost but for darknesse we are held and chained in it and against that we have no power A consideration if put home that will hide pride from us