Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bad_a	good_a	reason_n	1,431	5	5.5448	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87158	The weary traveller his eternal rest being a discourse of that blessed rest here, which leads to endless rest hereafter. By H. H. D. D. Rector of Snaylwell, and Canon of Ely.	Harrison, Henry, 1610 or 11-1690.	1681 (1681)	Wing H893A; ESTC R215784	80,142	276

to fall short of it So run that ye may obtain is the command and all precepts of Scripture are back'd with threats for ill or not doing as well as promises for doing well and are intended by God as so many arguments and strong motives to hold us to our duty do we our part and God will certainly do his and we cannot lose the reward of Well done good and faithful Servant enter into thy Master's joy The last judicial sentence of Christ of which we read Matt. 25. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the World is an invitation of so much mercy and loveing kindness that none can give nor can any expect or require more What can the eloquence of Man add to it or what better assurance can be desired than the gratious promise of so powerful so faithful a Lord Or what greater reward can any hope to receive than that which the Author and dispenser of all good assures us by letting us know what ever we do to the poor and needy he will interpret it as done to himself and so reward our labour of love as to Crown it with eternal Rest an inheritance of that Kingdom and all its joys as well as honours which fade not away But we must not understand this award of eternal life this glorious inheritance to be the reward of the righteous for the merit of their good works as everlasting fire is to the wicked for their demerits what ever the Romish Church pretends to from those words of our Saviour in the forenamed 25th of St. Matt. The particle for say they is as truly causal by way of merit and efficiency in the one as in the other the form of Speech in both sentences the same Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire For I was hungry and ye gave me no meat Come ye blessed inherit the Kingdom for I was hungry and ye fed me In answer to this 't is clear enough that though the particle for be granted to signifie causality in both sentences yet need it not signifie the same kind or degree of causality in both and if it need not then it must not unless they resolve to contradict many other plain Scriptures rather than depart from their own vain and proud conceit of meriting Heaven in strict justice For first The word or particle for may signifie only the cause of our or others knowledge that the Kingdom of Heaven is their inheritance by true title of gracious promise or the Covenant of grace and mercy in Christ Jesus which accepts and rewards repentance and faith working by love whereof these works of Charity are the fruits and signs For every Authentick Declaration or Revelation of any truth before unknown is the true cause of our knowledge of it though not of the real truth which is so known Now among such as profess Christ and call him Lord 't is hidden to us who are the true heirs of the Heavenly Kingdom and who not untill at the day of final judgment when all Men shall be judged by their works The first infallible certain knowledge which shall be had of this difference is from the declarative sentence of that infallible righteous Judge who hath declared he will proceed with one and the other according to their several works when all must appear before the Judgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in the Body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 The ones performance of good works declared and testified by the Judge shall be the true cause by which Men and Angels shall know them to be the heirs of that Heavenly Kingdom which here they sought and longed after with faithful desires and endeavours such as prepared and fitted themselves for it The others omission of good works testified by the same Judge shall be the true cause by which we shall know them to be utterly unworthy of Gods everlasting favour and mercy most worthy of death eternal We shall then truly know that the one are Crowned as saith St. Cyprian according to Gods grace which graciously accepts of faithful sincerity in stead of strict legal perfection and that the other are condemned according to justice because they neither fulfilled the law nor embraced the Gospel upon its gracious terms and conditions That the ones omission of good works and commission of evil ones is the true meritorious cause of their condemnation And that the others performance of good works at least in faithful resolution and that hearty inward faith hope and love which would have produced them if time and space had been granted is the testimony or declaration that they are the Sons of God heirs of everlasting life though not the meritorious cause of their Salvation and life eternal We commonly come to know the cause by the effect and therefore this word for may and doth often point out not the cause of the thing it self but the effect and our knowledge of the cause by it That 's the Major 't is commonly said for the Mace is borne before him Let no Man think that the bearing of the Mace before him is the cause of his being Major his lawful Election was the cause of his Majoralty and his Majoralty the cause of the Mace being carried or borne before him but the bearing the Mace before him is the true cause of many Mens knowing him to be the Major And this answer to the question may serve with greater probability than ought our adversaries bring for themselves But with more clearness and evidence of reason agreeing with the Analogy of Faith and the current of Scripture I answer That the particle for implys a causality in both the sentences but in one that of the wicked the strict meritorious sole cause of their condemnation whereas in the Godly and Charitable Persons the heirs of Heaven the for implys such a causal influence as that which they call conditio or causa sine quâ non good works or that faith working by love of God and Man whence they spring and the necessary conditions without which no Man shall inherit the Kingdom yea the necessary qualifications without which he hath not only no worthiness but no capacity no fitness to prepare himself for that Kingdom whose happiness is to see God with mutual complacency And no Man can so see the holy merciful gracious God the God of Love and Father of Mercies the faithful righteous unchangeable fountain of all that is pure loving or lovely unless he be like him and bear the Image of those his perfections though imperfectly as to degrees yet impartially and sincerely as the transcript and resemblance of that Wisdom which comes from above first pure then peaceable Unless his religion be that undefiled one before God which visits the Fatherless and the Widow in affliction and keeps himself vnspotted from the World These and the like graces