Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	adam_n	death_n	sin_n	5,480	5	6.3830	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46661	Invisibles, realities, demonstrated in the holy life and triumphant death of Mr. John Janeway, Fellow of King's Collegde in Cambridge. By James Janeway, Minister of the Gospel	Janeway, James, 1636?-1674.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Borset, Samuel.	1674 (1674)	Wing J471; ESTC R217020	74,067	160

Hell it self in as much as the cause doth eminently contain all and more evil than the effect This is the spiritual death whereby we are dead in sin the fruit of the first curse Thou shalt die the death The souls life in this world is its being in God and living to God and injoyment of God and the souls eternal life will be so to know God as to be formed into his likeness and to be received into a full participation of and communion with God The souls death here is its being fallen off from God and its being carried into its self and its eternal death will be an utter separation from him Now mankind being thus fallen from God Christ is sent for this very end to bring man back again to God and then man is brought unto God when he is brought out of that state of self-love into that state whereby he gives up himself wholly to God Thus the soul being quickened by the spirit of God leaveth off living to its self which was its death and lives to God which is its life Here comes in the great duty of denying of our selves for Christs sake which indeed were no duty if there were nothing in us contrary to God This then is our duty not to seek our own things before the things of God to lay Gods glory as the foundation of all our actions and if there be any thing in us contrary to that to give it no leave to stand in competition with God Now were this deeply rooted in our hearts how would contention anger wrath and heart-burning and all things of this nature cease Such influence would the taking Gods part against self have into the quiet and peace of men that it cannot be without it We see how wisely God hath ordered things that the very act of mans being off from God should be the cause of confusion war and misery and what can be more just and equal than this that God who is the author of our being should be the end of our being O then that once our minds were again reduced to this frame To live wholly to God! O that we were wrought into a through prejudice against self which stands between us and true peace I beg of you to spare some time from the world and retire into privacie where you may apply this to your own soul My prayer to God for you out of the strong yearnings of my soul towards you is that he would make this effectual to its intended end for the inward peace of your soul for your comfortable walking with God in this life and that condition wherein the wisdom of God hath placed you I writ these lines with the strength of affection I feel fear grief compassion working strongly O pity me in the midst of all these whilest I cannot call to remembrance the cause of these without a flood of tears Fulfill therefore my joy in being of one mind yea if there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort in love if any-fellowship of the spirit if any bowels of mercy fulfill ye my joy and be like-minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind Phil. 2. 1 2. I leave you to the love and mercy of God and to the working of his spirit which alone is able to put life and power into these words Which that he would do is the earnest request and servent prayer of yours John Janeway Now upon a faithful perusal of this Letter it pleased the Lord to give a meek and more complying spirit and in a great measure it wrought its intended effect The noble design of this sweet peace-maker took so far as to produce an ingenious acknowledgement and sorrowful bewailing of the want of that self-denial humility meekness and love which doth so much become our sacred profession Upon the hearing of this good news how strangely was this good man transported Upon the receipt of a letter from the former friend which gave no small satisfaction hopes that his former indeavours were not in vain And that he might drive the nail to the head he speedily backs his for former Letter with a second which speaks these words Dear Friend MY soul is inlarged towards you and my affections work within me and yet give me leave now to lay aside those weak flames of natural affection and to kindle my soul with divine love Here there is no fear of running out too far while all is in Christ and for Christ O that now I could let out the strength of my soul not as to your self but as to God! O that my heart were more inlarged that it may be comprehensive of a more full true Christian love God is altogether lovely and to be loved for himself and we are so far dark ignorant and blind as we do not see and account him most amiable O let me have such discoveries of his excellency that my heart may pant thirst and break for its earnest longings after the richest participations of him that I may for ever be swallowed up of his love O that I may love him a thousand times more than I do That I may rejoyce in him and take the sweetest complacencie delight in him alone that I could let out my affections most where I see any thing of himself any beams of the image of his holiness and that beareth the impression of his spirit Had you visited me from the dead could my affections have moved more strongly or my rejoycings have been greater than they were at the receipt of those lines which I had from you wherein so much of Christ in you and the goodness of Christ to me did appear Fulfil my joy in the Lord refresh my bowels and let not my rejoycing be in vain If it hath pleased the Lord to make the imperfect weak indeavours of his unworthy servant any way subservient to his own glory in you it is that which I account my self unworthy of desire to receive it from him as a manifestation of the riches of his free goodness to my self knowing my self to be unworthy to be his instrument in the meanest service much more in so great a one as this is Hoping and perswading my self of the effectual vvork of my former letter I am incouraged to write again both because of my promise and your expectation and the vveighty nature of the subject that I vvas then upon vvhich vvas Love True Christian love which is a thing so comly so beautiful and sweet and of such vveighty power in all actions to make them divine excellent that there is no labour lost in indeavouring to get more of it even in those in vvhom it most aboundeth The Apostle 1 Thes 4. 9 10. Though he knew that they vvere taught of God to love one another and that they did it towards all the Brethren yet even them he beseeched to abound more and more in that grace of love The former principal

not a little troubled at the barrenness of Christians in their discourse and their not improving their society for the quickning and warming of their hearts the expence of pretious time unaccountably the ill management of visits and the impertinency of their talk he oft reflected upon with a holy indignation It vext him to the soul to see what prizes sometimes were put into the hands of Christians and how little skill and will they had to improve them for the building up one another in the most holy faith and that they who should be incouraging of one another in the way to Zion communicating of experiences and talking of their Country and of the glory of that Kingdom which the Saints are heirs of could satisfie themselves with empty common vain stuff as if Christ Heaven and Eternity were not things of as great worth as any thing else that usually sounds in the ears and comes from the lips of professors That the folly of common discourse among Christians might appear more and that he might discover how little such language did become those that profess themselves Israelites and that say they are Jews he once sate down silent and took out his pen and ink and wrote down in short-hand the discourses that passed for some time together amongst those which pretended to more than common understanding in the things of God and after a while he took his paper and read it to them and asked them whether such talk was such as they would be willing God should record This he did that he might shame them out of that usual unobserved unlamented unprofitable communication and fruitless squandring away that inestimable Jewel Opportunity Oh to spend an hour or two together and to hear scarce a word for Christ or that speaks peoples hearts in love with holiness Is not this writing a brave rational divine discourse Fie fie Where 's our love to God and souls all this while where 's our sense of the pretiousness of time of the greatness of our account Should we talk thus if we believed that we should hear of this again at the day of judgement And do we not know that we must give an account of every idle word Is this like those that understand the language of Canaan Did Saints in former times use their tongues to no better purpose Would Enoch David or Paul have talked thus Is this the sweetest communion of Saints upon earth How shall we do to spend eternity in speaking the praises of God if we cannot find matter for an hours discourse Doth not this speak aloud our hearts to be very empty of grace and that we have little sense of those spiritual and eternal concerns upon us As the barrenness and empty converse of Christians was a sin that he greatly bewailed so the want of love amongst Christians and their divisions did cost him many tears and groans he did what he could to heal all the breaches that he could by his tender prudent and Christian advice and counsel and if prayers tears intreaties counsels would prevail cement differences they should not long be open Nay if his letters would signifie any thing to make an amicable and Christian correspondencie it should not be wanting And because the wounds of division are yet bleeding I shall insert two healing Letters of his which speak what spirit he was of Which take as follows CHAP. XV. Two Letters to Cement differences and cause Love among Christians IT cannot be expected that wounds should be healed till their cause is removed that which moveth me to write to you at present and puts me upon intentions of writing again is That I may do my utmost by mouth and pen for the removal of that which is the cause of the inward grief and trouble of my soul and I am perswaded of others also as well as mine viz. those divisions that I could not but observe to be between your self and another Christian friend I hope after my asking counsel not only of my own heart but of God also he hath directed me to that which may be to his own glory and the good of your soul and not only for the removing of grief but the rejoycing of the hearts of them upon whom former divisions had any effect I therefore desire you to entertain these following lines as the issues of deep affection to your soul and the honour of Religion and I beseech you read them not only as from me who desire your good with the strength of my soul but as from God himself of whose love your good improvement will be a token That that end which I propose to my self I cannot but perswade my self you your self design commend and desire which is Christian charity that sweet meek Gospel spirit which is so highly and frequently commended by our Saviour to the practice of his Disciples O that where there hath been any breaches there might be the nearer union and that ye might be joyned together in the same spirit might keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace And for this end that you would remove all old hindrances watch continually lest you give and be careful not to take occasion of offence The necessity usefulness sweetness of true spiritual love appears by the word of Gods frequent urging of it by the sense of Christians the uncomfortableness and deformity of the contrary Now that you may in an unintermitted constancy injoy peace within and without and rejoyce my soul I desire you to joyn your own indeavours with the consideration of those things which I shall now and hereafter send to you First Consider that it is a Christians duty to go out of himself to lay down his own ends and interests and wholly to take upon him Gods cause to do all for God and to act as under God to be Gods instruments in our souls and bodies which are Gods Thus did God create man for His own glory and not that man should seek himself And when man fell he fell out of God into himself out of that divine order and composure of mind in which God had made him into confusion from a love of God into a corrupt self-love and self-seeking Now if we do but descend into our souls observe the actings intents and contrivances of them we cannot but observe how confusedly and abominably all work together for the pampering pleasing and advancing of self We are not to think that if we do not presently discover this in our selves that it is not so with us For in some degree it is in every one even in the truly regenerate as far as they have the relicks of corruption in them so far they have in their souls this self-love Now this disorder in our minds whereby they are taken off from their right ends is that very natural corruption and depravedness which we received from Adam and it is and to a spiritual sense ought to be worse than