Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bear_v	fruit_n	tree_n	1,451	5	8.5127	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39665	Husbandry spiritualized, or, The heavenly use of earthly things consisting of many pleasant observations, pertinent applications, and serious reflections and each chapter concluded with a divine and suitable poem : directing husband-men to the most excellent improvements of their common imployments : whereunto is added ... several choice occasional meditations / by John Flavell.	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1674 (1674)	Wing F1166; ESTC R26136	198,385	305

at mans bar there to be tryed for my life how busie should I be every hour of the day in writing to any that I thought could befriend me and studying every advantage to my self and yet what a vast difference is there between mans bar and Gods between a tryal for my life and for my soul Lord rouze up my sluggish heart by awful and solicitous thoughts of that day left I be found among that chaff which shall be burnt up with unquenchable fire Fear not O my soul though there be a blast coming which shall drive all the chaff into hell yet it shall blow thee no harm I know that when he hath tryed me I shall come forth as gold Iob 23. 10. I confess I have too much chaff about me but yet I am not altogether chaff there is a solid work of grace upon my soul that will abide the tryal let the judgement to come be as impartial and exact as its possible to be yet a grain of sincerity cannot be lost in it for God will not cast away a perfect i. e. an upright hearted man Iob 8. 20. He that 's appointed to judge the world is mine and his imputed righteousness will make me full weight in the balance Bless the Lord O my soul for sincerity this will abide when common gifts and empty names will flee as the chaff before the wind The Poem THe winnowing wind first drives the chaff away Next light and hollow grains those only stay Whose weight and solid substance can endure This tryal and such grains are counted pure The corn for use is carefully preserv'd The useless chaff for burning flames reserv'd No wind but blows some good a Proverb is Glad shall I be if it hold true in this O that the wind when you to winnowing go This spiritual good unto your souls might blow To make you pause and sadly ruminate In what a doleful plight and wretched state Their souls are in who cannot hope to stand When he shall come whose fan is in his hand His piercing eyes infallibly disclose The very reins and inward parts of those Whose outside seeming grace so neatly paints That with the best they pass for real Saints No hypocrite with God acceptance finds But like the chaff dispers'd by furious winds Their guilt shall not that searching day endure Nor they approach th'assemblies of the pure Have you observ'd in Autumn thistle-down By howling Enrus scatter'd up and down About the fields even so Gods ireful storm Shall chace the hypocrite who now can scorn The breath of close reproofs and like a rock Repel reproofs and just reprovers mock How many that in splendid garments walk Of high professions and like Angels talk Shall God devest and openly proclaim Their secret guilt to their eternal shame This is the day wherein the Lord will rid His Church of those false friends which now lie hid Among his people There will not be one False heart remian to lose our love upon O bless'd assembly glorious state when all In their uprightness walk and ever shall O make my heart sincere that I may never Prove such light chaff as then thy wind will sever From solid grain O let my soul detest Unsoundness and abide thy strictest test An Introduction TO THE Second PART OF HUSBANDRY HOw is it reader have I tired thee Whilst through these pleasant fields thou walk'st with me Our path was pleasant but if length of way Do weary thee we 'l slack our pace and stay Let 's sit a while under the cooling Shade Of fragrant trees were for shadow made Lo here a pleasant grove whose shade is good But more than so 't will yield us fruit for food No dangerous fruits do on these branches grow No snakes among the verdant grass below Here we 'l repose a while and then go view The pleasant herds and flocks and so adieu CHAP. I. Vngraffed Trees can never bear good fruit Nor we till graffed on a better root OBSERVATION A Wild tree naturally springing up in the wood or hedge and never graffed or removed from its native soyl may bear some fruit and that fair and beautiful to the eye but it will give you no content at all in eating being alwayes harsh sower and unpleasant to the taste but if such a stock be removed into a good soyl and graffed with a better kind it may become a good tree and yield store of choice and pleasant fruit APPLICATION UNregenerate men who never were acquainted with the mystery of spiritual union with Iesus Christ but still grow upon their natural root old Adam may by the force and power of natural principles bring forth some fruit which like the wild hedge fruit we speak of may indeed be fair and pleasant to the eyes of men but God takes no pleasure at all in it its sower harsh and distasteful to him because it springs not from the spirit of Christ Isa 1. 13. I cannot away with it it is iniquity c. but that I may not intangle the thred of my discourse I shall as in the former Chapters set before you a paralel betwixt the best fruits of natural men and those of a wild ungraffed tree The root that bears this wild fruit is a degenerate root and that 's the cause of all this sowerness and harshness in the fruit it bears it 's the seed of some better Tree accidentally blown or cast into some waste and bad soyl where not being manured and ordered aright it 's turned wild So all the fruits of unregenerate men ●low from the first Adam a corrupt and degenerate root he was indeed planted a right seed but soon turned a wild and degenerate plant he being the root from which every man naturally springs corrupts all the fruit that any man bears from him It 's observed by Gregory pertinent to my present purpose Genus humanum in parente primo velut in radice putruit Mankind was putrified in the root of his first parent Matt. 7. 18. A Corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit This corrupt root spoyls the fruit by the transmission of its sower and naughty sap into all the branches and fruits that grow on them they suck no other nourishment but what the root affords them and that being bad spoyles all for the same cause and reason no mee● natural or unregenerate man can ever do one holy or acceptable action because the corruption of the root is in all those actions The necessity of our drawing corruption into all our actions from this cursed root Adam is expressed by a quick and smart Interrogation Iob 14. 4. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one The sense of it is well delivered us by Mr. Caryl in loc This question saith he may undergo a threefold construction First thus Who can bring a morally clean person out of a person originally unclean and so he layes

them in the way to the prisons or stake with their little ones in their armes and throwing themselves at their feet would thus bespeak them What shall be our estate now you are gone to Martyrdom who shall instruct these poor Babes Who shall ease our afflicted consciences Who shall lead us in the way of life recompense unto them O Lord as they have deserved who a●e the causes of this Lord give them sad hearts Quis talia fando temperet a lachrymis And to let you see there is sufficient ground for this sorrow when God restrains the influences of the Gospel solemnly consider the following particulars That it is a dreadful token of God's great anger against that people from whom he removes the Gospel The anger of God was fearfully incensed against the Church of Ephesus when he did but threaten to come against her and remove the Candlestick out of its place Rev. 2. 5. 'T is a stroke at the soul a blow at the root usually the last and therefore the worst of judgments There is a pedigree of judgments first Gomer bears Iezreel next Loruhamah and at last brings forth Loammi Hos. 1. 4 6 8 9. There is cause of mourning if you consider the deplorable estate in which all the unregenerate souls are left after the Gospel is removed from them What will become of these or by whom shall they be gathered It made the bowels of Christ yearn within him when he looked upon the scattered multitude that had no Shepherd Mat. 9. 36. What an easie conquest doth the devil now make of them how fast doth hell fill in such times poor souls being driven thither in droves and none to rescue them Mathew Paris tells us that in the year 1072. when preaching was suppressed at Rome letters were then framed as coming from hell wherein the devil gave them thanks for the multitude of souls they had sent to him that year But truly we need not talk of letters from hell we are told from heaven how deplorable the condition of such poor souls is See Prov. 28. 19. Hos. 4. 6. Or The judgment will yet appear very heavy if you consider the loss which God 's own people sustain by the removal of the Gospel for ther●in they lose 1 their chief glory Rom. 3. 2. the principal thing in which the peculiar glory of Israel consisted was this That unto them was committed the Oracles of G●d On that account is was called the glorious Land Dan. 11. 16. This made them greater than all the Nations rou●● about them Deut. 4. 7. 8. 2 By losing the Ordinances they lose their quickenings comforts and soul-refreshments for all these are sweet streams from the Gospel fountain Psal. 119. 50. Col. 4. 8. No wonder then to hear the People of God Complain of dead hearts when the Gospel is removed 3 In the loss of the Gospel they lose their defence and safety This is there is their hedge their w●ll of protection Isa. 5. 5. Walls and hedges saith Musculus in loc are the Ordinances of God which serve both ad se perationem munitionem to distinguish and to defend them When God plucks up this hedge and breaks down this wall all mischiefs break in upon us presently 2 Chron. 15. 3 4 5 6. Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true Go● and without a teaching Priest and without Law And in those times there was no peace to him that went out nor to him that came in but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the Countiries and Nations was destroyed of Nation and City of City for God did vex them with all adversity How long did Ierusalem remain after that voice was heard in the Temple migremu● hinc Let us be gone 4 With the Gospel we lose our temporal injoyments and creature comforts These usually come and go with the Gospel When God had once written Loammi upon Israel the next news is this I will recover my wool and my flax Hos. 2. 9. 5 and lastly to come up to the very case in hand they lo●e with it their spiritual food and soul-subsistence for the Gospel is their feast of fat things Isa 25. 6. their spiritual wells Isa. 12. 3. a dole distributed among the Lords poor Rom. 1. 11. In a word it is as the rain and dews of heaven as hath been shewed which being restrained a spirituall famine necessarily follows a famine of all the most terrible Now to shew you the analogy betwixt this and a temporal famine that therein you may see what cause you have to be deeply affected with it take it in thse six following particulars A famine is caused by the failing of bread or that which is in the stead and hath the use of bread D●inties and superfluous rarities may fail and yet men may subsist comfortably As long as people have bread and water they will not famish but take away bread once and the spirit of man faileth Upon this account bread is called a staff Psal. 105. 16. because what a staff is to an aged or feeble man that bread is to the faint and feeble spirits which even so do lean upon it And look what bread is to the natural spirits that and more than that the word is to gracious spirits Iob 23. 12. I have esteemed the words of thy mouth more than my necessary food If once God break this staff the inner man that hidden man of the heart will quickly begin to fail and faulter It is not every degree of scarcity of bread that presently makes a famine but a general failing of it when no bread is to be had or that which is yields no nutriment For a famine may as well be occasioned by Gods taking away panis nutrimentum the nourishing vertue of bread that it shall signifie no more as to the end of bread than a chip Hag. 1. 6. as by taking away panem nutrientem bread it self Isa. 3. 1. And so it is in a spiritual famine which is occasioned either by Gods removing all the Ordinances and making vision utterly to ●ail or else though there be preaching prayer and other Ordinances left at least the names and shadows of them yet the presence of God is not with them There is no marrow in the bone no milk in the breast and so as to soul-subsistance 't is all one as if there were no such things In a corporeal famine mean and course things become sweet and pleasant famine raises the price and esteem of them That which before you would have thrown to your dogs now goes down pleasantly with your selves To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet Prov. 27. 7 'T is the Dutch Proverb and a very true one hunger is the best Cook Iejunus stomachus raro vulgaria temnit Horat In time of famine coursest fare contents The barking stomach strains no complements 'T is storied of Artaxerxes Memor that when he was flying before his enemies he fed

away you must into the land of darkness Though thou cry with Adrian O my poor soul whither art thou going die thou must thou barren Professor though it were better for thee to do any thing else than to die What a dreadful screech will thy conscience give when it sees the ax at thy root and say to thee as it is Ezek. 7. 6. An end is come the end is come it watcheth for thee behold it is come O said Henry Beauford that rich and wretched Cardinal Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England when he perceived whereto he must wherefore must I die If the whole Realm would save my life I am able either by policy to get it or by riches to buy it Fye quoth he will not death be hired will riches do nothing No neither riches nor policy can then avail That side to which the Tree leaned most while it stood that way it will fall when it is cut down and as it falls so it lies whether to the South or North Eccles. 11. 3. So it fares with these mystical trees I mean fruitless Professors Had their hearts and affections inclined and bended heaven-ward whilst they lived that way no doubt they had fallen at their death but as their hearts inclined to sin and ever bended to the world so when God gives the fatal stroke they must fall hell-ward and wrath-ward and how dreadful will such a fall be When the dead tree is carried out of the Orchard it shall never be among the living trees of the Orchard any more many years it grew among them but now it shall never have a place there again And when the barren Professor is carried out of the world by death he shall never be associated with the Saints any more He may then say farewell all ye Saints among whom I lived and with whom I so often heard fasted prayed I shall never see your faces more Mat. 8. 11 12. I say unto you that many shall come from the East and West and North and South and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of heaven but the children of the Kingdom shall be cast forth into outer darkness there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth When the dead tree is carried out of the Orchard the Husbandman cuts off his branches and rives him asunder with his wedges This also is the lot of barren Professors The Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him and will cut him asunder he shall be diffected or cut abroad Luke 12. 46. Now therefore consider this ye that forget God le●t I tear or rend you in pieces Psal. 50. 22. O direful day when the same hand which planted pruned and watered thee so long and so tenderly shall now strike mortal strokes at thee and that without pity For be that made them will not have mercy on them and be that formed them will shew them no favour I●a 27. 11. For the day of mercy is over and the day of his wrath is fully come When this tree is cleav'd abroad then itsi rotten hollow inside appears which was the cause of its barrenuess it looked like a Fair and sound bodied tree but now all may see how rotten it is at the heart So will God in that day when he shall di●●ect the barren Professor discover the rottenness of his heart and un●oundness of his principles and ends then they who never suspected him before shall see what a hollow and rotten-hearted Professor he was Lastly the fruitless tree is cast into the fire This also is the end and sad issue of formality Iohn 15. 6. He is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned This is an undou●t●d truth That there is no plant in Gods vineyard but he will have glory from it by bearing fruit or glory on it by burning in the fire In this fire shall they lye gnashing their teeth Luke 13. 38. and that both in indignation against the Saints whom they shall see in glory and against Iesus Christ who would not save them and against themselves for losing so foolishly the opportunities of salvation Do you behold when you sit by the fire the froth that boyles out of those flaming logs O think of that some and rage of these undone creatures foaming and gnashing their teeth in that fire which is not quenched Mark 9. 44. REFLECTION HOw often have I passed by such barren trees with a more barren heart as little thinking such a tree to be the emblem of my self as Nebuchadnezz●r did when he saw that tree in a dream which represented himself and shadowed forth to him his ensuing misery Dan. 4. 13. But Oh my conscience my drousie sleepy conscience wert thou but tender and faithful to me thou wouldst make as round and terrible an application of such a spectacle to me as the faithful Prophet did to him v. 22. And thus wouldst thou O my soul bemoan thy condition Poor wretch here I grow for a little time among the trees of righteousness the plants of renown but I am none of them I was never planted a right seed some green and flourishing leaves of profession indeed I have which deceive others but God cannot be deceived he sees I am fruitless and rotten at the heart Poor soul what will thine end be but burning Behold the axlyeth by thy root and wonder it is that there it should lye so long and I yet standing still mercy pleads for a fruitless creature Lord spare it one year longer Alas he need strike no great blow to ruine me his very breath blows to destruction Iob 4. 9. a frown of his face can blast and ruine me Psal. 80. 6. he is daily sollicited by his justice to hew me down and yet I stand Lord cure my barrenness I know thou hadst rather see fruit than fire upon me The Poem IF after pains and patience you can see No hopes of fruit down goes the barren tree You will not suffer trees that are unsound And barren too to cumber useful ground The fatal ax is laid unto the root It 's fit for fire when unfit for fruit But though this be a dead and barren tree Reader I would not have it so to thee May it to thee this serious thought suggest In all the Orchard this dead tree's the best Think on it sadly lay it close to heart This is the case in which thou wast or art If so thou wast but now dost live and grow And bring forth fruit what praise and thanks dost ow To that wise Husbandman that made thee so O think when justice listed up its hand How mercy did then interceding stand How pity did on thy behalf appear To beg reprieval for another year Stop Lord forbear him all hope is not past He can but be for fire at the last Though many