Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	author_n	sin_n	will_n	1,685	5	6.8791	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27595	A discourse of the judgments of God composed for the present times against atheism and prophaneness.	Beverley, Thomas.	1668 (1668)	Wing B2137; ESTC R14172	93,326	282

pure and those we have also of our own Souls whose due perfection and accomplishment is a participation of the divine Nature or likeness and therefore from the correlation between God and the Soul flows that pertinacious exaction of the Soul from it self that it be good and holy that it may have peace with God But because the Soul finds so much disorder and contrariety in it self to that awful Law so many transgressions against it that cannot be undone it can have no rest here but needs something that may countervail that guilt within it There can be none so convenient so great and potent as the pardoning mercy of God in Jesus Christ who by his obedience to death in our Nature carries up the supreme forgiveness of God Yet this not exhausting that Principle and perswasion of the Soul that it must be inwardly good it is most necessary the Doctrine of pardon by a Saviour should be filled with a spirit and influence of Holiness that this grace may not seem prostituted as an indulgence to sin Thus the foundations of our peace stand upon the free Grace of God and sincerity of Holiness as an evidence we are within the compass of that Grace To assure which the very same Spirit of Holiness alone able to diffuse the comforts of this peace comes in and anoints the Soul with the Joy of it till it enters into the full possessions of Salvation which is the final acquittal from evil Evil may in the mean time be used for chastisement and higher inticement to Holiness but loses its sting when that Justice that armed it is satisfied Thus a man acting upon the Principles of his own mind when he finds himself oppressed with evil is led into the Doctrine of Christianity for observing the hand-writing upon himself he reads God the Author of affliction hence flows the sense of sin since God afflicts not without cause sense of sin and the displeasure of God upon it makes it necessary to inquire after the Doctrine of pardon and repentance These are no where in their Oriency but in the Gospel of Jesus Christ The Doctrine of pardon and peace carry a man into expectations of good from God This being not found here the Soul is sent to the promises of Eternal life made known and brought to light by Christ These give joy in tribulations and hope of the Glory of God This crowns the Soul and sets it triumphant over all evil in the world Less then this can give us no true sense or construction of the great miseries of our condition nor with reason cluck us out of them into so much as the discourse of lasting rest and safety The Soul of man so busie as it is first to inquire the reasons of its unhappiness then to find the remedies of it hath great advantage of accepting that truth which tells it all that is within it concerning these things and explains them so far that it finds it self at the very utmost ends of these wonders and to have as much made known of them as is to be known Thus out of the eater comes forth meat and sweetness out of evil considered by the mind of man either acting its own reason and securing it self the best it can against what it cannot remove or turning it self upon those Principles ingraffed within it that lead it to the source and Antidotes of misery Both which convey it to the Discipline of Jesus Christ as the true relief of humane condition and its infelicity CHAP. XIII Of the more direct operations of Judgments towards Reformation wherein first of the efficacy they have in confining Sensuality and setting free Conscience and its proper Motions LEt us now approach the considerations of the more immediate powers of Judgment 1. They give a notable rebuke and abatement to sense and the sensual temper Judgments trouble all the air sensuality hath to breathe in and make it dark they pour out their vial upon its Sun and a night ensues so that it every where meets terrour and disappointment which bring it low and enfeeble it Now this is that sensuality that over-grows at once the proper motions of a Soul and Conscience and that spiritual world with which the converses of a spirit most properly lye When this is wind-bound and brought to an ebb either through the hand of God upon the body the primary seat of it or those external objects that feed and minister to it immediately the mind that lay in a swoon and oppressed emerges and rises up It hath its opportunity and uses its freedom through the great clefts and rents the strokes of God make in this vail and cloud the Soul espies the spiritual world the shadow of the material one removing off by reason of these commotions caused by Judgments The great accounts of mans sin and impenitency lye in the deep plunges and immersions of his Soul into sense and sensual things wherein he grows immoderate above the beasts through the vigours of an immaterial and immortal Spirit dissevered from its true objects and natural motions and carried down this stream From whence retaining all its own force but misguided it grows extreamly foul while it at once neglects heavenly and spiritual things for which it was made boldly transgresses all rules of goodness and cuts its way through every thing to its impure satisfactions The light that is true and pure is kept from all approach to it and its own native exercise is suppressed whence it comes to pass that God and Eternal things are covered from it and as it were wholly blotted out it lives in the unclean pleasures of the body which have all the influence and sway upon it But awakened by the Judgments of God the Soul inquires after its own world and meets it every where God having graciously disseminated it into every thing within it and without it even as the open eye in the day time greets the light where ever it goes That great deal of sensual noise and business being made to cease the false light being put out and the windows out of which lust looks dammed up the Soul hath nothing else to do it finds leisure then to do like it self and is even provoked to it by its own force carrying it always upon action and when it is taken off from that to which it is only inclaved it returns upon its proper motion when the noises of Chariots and their jumping wheels the sounds of musick the light of candles as in the overthrow of Cities are removed in that stilness Conscience is heard in that silence of foolish fires purer rays shine upon the Soul For the beams of truth and the distinct voice of it fall every where were there but an eye and ear to receive and take them in On the other side the capacities of the Soul are always fitted to them and were they not importuned and incumbred by other things they would be continually opening to and earnestly expecting

are circumscribed within the narrownesses of meaner conditions who yet not only stretch themselves round their own little circles but ascend as high and run out as far as they can into what is above and beyond them Who of any largeness of mind would have the great Revolutions in any part of the world concealed from him Men of a very common size of Soul are acquainted with the motions of their own Nation and they who are crowded up in the least room of Vnderstanding comprehend the things of their neighbourhood and the Periodical changes of the State they live under Herein wise men cast themselves backward upon former times and desire a knowledge from History much elder then themselves praedate their lives to the oldest moments by their researches what was done in them their Judgment upon and affectionate Sympathies therewith Again they throw themselves forward upon Futurity by all ways of Divination possible but how much more do they settle upon their own Center of Time and in that the fresh and new emergencies challenge their most conversable thoughts wherein they rest not in the bare Events but are earnest to know the bottom and reason of them and to sound their Original as far as they can and this every one doth according to the innate sagacity or improved observation he hath attained Thus that natural examinativeness of man pierces every way to its utmost possibility Now all this so far as ingraffed sense of a God or the Discipline of Religion hath its effect upon the Soul turns it self to God to observe the daily occurrents of his Providence and the Magnificencies of his Power either in mercy or wrath and comparing one thing with another makes a Character of the times according to those signs imprinted upon them by the Divine Hand Where this is not done it is a negligence so supine and contemptful of God that our Saviour rebukes it from the most ordinary marks of humane attention which is often more bold and prying then becomes it and yet dissembles and pretends a modesty when it is called to understand God and his doings He then that hath not viewed the bulk or extern presence of the late Judgments of God upon England must either be an utter stranger to it or to whatever is called Man He that hath not particularly and with an inquisitiveness agreeable to the searches of mans Soul made a rational inspection into them hath not aspired to the more Heroick efforts of a Soul Lastly he that hath not ascribed them to God and considered his intentions and the reformation comporting therewith hath not answered the obligations of a conscience that in all things reveres a Deity much less behaved himself as one placed in the highest Class of Religion I mean that most excellent one of Christianity This following Discourse presumes to no more then to give occasion to these native exercises of men concerning the Judgments of God in General and then to incline them upon the particulars so fresh upon us First to bring to their view those so notable Events of the late years that they may know of them whether they are things of every day which besides the common work hath upon some parts of it these huge Balls fixed besides the natural curling of ●●s waves the swelling of such ●●●ntainous Billows That they were very portentous the very amazed concernedness of all sorts of men about them demonstrated and after-History will in recounting them take that state to it self which it assumes in relation of greater things 2. To propose to their Reason whether they are not most justly owned to him that made and governs the world and whether there is not as great reason to acknowledge the one to him as the other Lastly to advise with their Conscience whether if Judgments of God they are not the most perswasive Intercessors of Repentance and Amendment of life to this whole Nation seeing the reasons why so gracious a Power punishes are sins and if these continue the executions of Judgment must rise higher till they swell into destruction or eternal wrath except he that is the Author of them were suspected of weakness of Counsel to do so great things to no purpose or want of power to furnish him with means to pursue his end Which consideration if lively applied would be most constraining of our humblest and most penitent supplications and returns to God both out of love to him who having so great a reach over us would make us better and not destroy us and out of love to our selves that we may not by further provoking him even necessitate him to our ruine For though we cannot abat● that blessed Being so far as to impute to him the passions and discomposures of anger but remove from him the trouble and disquiet that enter into Humane Indignations yet we cannot so much diminish from his own expressions of his wrath but to believe the effects of it much more real then those of created displeasures how many wisdoms and methods soever they run through And though we own him above and without extern cause yet we must acknowledge according to the determinations he hath made he doth with the highest freedoms of his own will and a tranquillity infinitely agreeing with his eternally happy condition execute punishments upon sinners according to his Laws even as a just Prince suffers procedures of Justice against Offenders without any disturbance or passion upon himself more then that he delights not in the misery of his Subjects but cannot because of that bend Righteousness from its own exaltness though he is still ready to moderate it by pardons upon becoming reasons Even as there are in God the relentings of his infinite Goodness at the sorrows and contri●ions of humbled sinners Now in these considerations lye the great obligations of Repentance and invitations to it exciting the most powerful Principles of self-preservation and more ingenuous affection in mans Soul and apprehending the most advantagious handles of it Love and Fear Such an Appeal then as this to men to use their own sentiments in things of so clear an importance ought to be made to every one but with more particular address to the Heroes of the Nation whose Vnderstanding and Virtue amplified with the Advantages of Government and Condition set them upon the higher risings of the world and give them the freest prospect upon all things from whence they discover not only secondary expedients of the Common Peace and Weal but also if these are governed by piety they will find those primer ones the worthier Policies of conciliating the Divine Favour Such as do this extend themselves beyond Demestick Blessings and become the Publick Good who having an Interest and Example to spread and Influences to derive consecrate them to God and the good state of a Nation with him that as their opportunities of knowledge are most open their Interests widest and their senses of evil quickest so their endeavours against