Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A43044
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A free-will offering by James Harwood ...
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Harwood, James.
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1662
(1662)
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Wing H1097; ESTC R8676
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24,477
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96
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a good Christian He is an unsufferable subject that pretends the fear of God and fears not the King He is a Demi-Chtistian who vaunts how he honors the King while the fear of God is not before his eyes But let us look into this Ark and we shall find Manna laid up in it good advice for after ages That enjoyned is Fear God Who should I fear if not God But what is he and what must I go do God is a Spirit uncreate eternal a parte post so are we a parte ante so none but he for God is never to have an ending nor ever had a beginning And this Eternity à parte ante is it that no humane reason can fathom Lord where Reason fails give me faith to believe and that it is an eternal God Creator of Heaven and Earth that I must fear And have I not just cause to fear him whom so oft I have offended But this Scripture hints not at fear of punishment but such a fear as love leads on to the keeping Gods Commandments He hath the true fear of God in him that fears to break the Commandments He that says he fears God and casts his word behinde him doth not so much deceive the World as the Devil deceives him When I square my life by Gods Law then I keep this command a prophane person then hath no fear of God in him and if to be guided by Gods Word picture out this party such then who pervert the Word of God to their own damnation how dwelleth the fear of God in them I have cast my eye up let me now look down and look at a debt I owe as to God so to the King Religion obliges me to fear God the Law the King The Law Moral as my common Parent the Law Municipal as my Lord and Soveraign truth is he is a loose fellow will not be bound up to the Law The King is set over by God for is it not said By me Kings do reign Prov. 8. and since of his setting up none but a Devil will pull them down Obedience and reverence is due to the Prince and the want of each assert the breach of this charge Let no man separate assunder those whom God hath joyned together Yet let me set a vast distance betwixt fear and fear my Spiritual fear I reserve for God a Civil for my Soveraign There is an awful reverence due to the one as my Creator I owe reverence to the other for that set far above every sublunary Creature Love is the fulfilling of Gods Law and a filial fear leads on to the completion of the Kings commands As he that fears not the King the fear of God is not in him so he fears not the King who fears not to break his Laws Know it and for an assured truth That when the King in his vertual Capacity is contemned his personal Capacity stands in need of a guard And therefore either fear to break the Kings Law or else it is to be feared thou wilt attempt to wrong the Kings Person Experience is a witness to this Thesis and proclaims How haters of the Law have turned murtherers of their Soveraign Lord the King These deserve pity for they hate reproof while had rather dye in their sin then be told of their sin Let us resolve To fear God and the King let us shew our fear to him by our fear to stray from his wholesome Laws Laws able to keep you in possession of your own in peace one with another Thus you shall preserve the bond of peace in the unity of the Spirit live as Christian Brethren and dye true loyal Subjects To conclude where there is no fear of God there is a want of the grace of God But that you all may possess Grace and Peace Grace which assures you have Peace with God Peace which witnesses you are in high grace with the King Fear God for love and love the King for the fear of God And that thy fear may not interfear thy charge is Fear God and the King SIONS SAD COMPLAINT Isa 36. part of verse 13. O Lord our God other Lords besides thee have ruled us THis is a mixt Song sung in the tune Lachrymae sung in the Cliff Gaudete The people of God call d to minde their Babylonian Bondage and tears stand in their eyes They are brought back from Babylon and now with their sad thoughts are intermixed mirth and merriness The parallel of these Jews is the River Alphaltes in whose channel run salt and fresh waters How can it but grieve to think of their long and late Captivity How does it solace to enjoy their lost liberty that so long sufferers exhausts tears that sufferers are become conquerers For this cause rejoyce and again I say Rejoyce That other Lords have bore rule this flats our joy That they have but do not revives our drooping spirits Let us look behinde before at what past at what present at our late banishment miraculous restorement These duplicated thoughts extract mixt passions joy and sorrow hope and fear We grieve when we remember what past joy for that our griefs are past Those other Lords put us in fear O Lord our God thou puts us in good hopes And thus fear and hope sorrow and joy are here housed Of this I rest assured while this I hear read O Lord our God other Lords besides thee have ruled us These Israelites are not grieved that God hath punished but complains of that body of sin which provoked the Lord to punish They quarrel not at the stone they look at the thrower and takes all well as it comes from God yet think meaner of themselves for that O Lord our God other Lords besides thee have ruled them Them and us they led the round we hold out the dance Their Thraldom was long since ours scarce got from our doors The Jews were Captives in a forreign Land we made slaves at home a mighty King conquered them the off-scum of our Kingdom tyrannized over us Worshippers of Idols inslaved the Israelites Pretenders to God and Godliness plauged our Church and Nation When Religion must cloak faction that is the height of Rebellion and the Church then sadly suffers when her new Gospellers abhor Idols yet commit Sacriledge What can adde more to misery then to have the Law of God and the King trod undersfoot When the Kings Laws suffer an Eclipse the Kings Crown is under a cloud when the Preachers of the Gospel are turned out of their pulpits they are not far off who mean to rob them of their benifices We have experienced the merciless mercy of these Egyptian Taskmasters who caused us to make our stint of brick and seek our stubble live like men and miraculously get our maintenance O if we could have over-ruled our selves others should not have ruled us our sins led us into bondage it is of the Lords doings to redeem us Hadst thou not been the Lord thou couldst
sea of felicity The Israelites are carried into Babylon and the Babylonians are planted in the Land of Israel Gods own people at a loss and the Devils darlings bear all the sway Sad news for the Saints to see such in their possessions and they transplanted into a forreign Land and imprisoned But we must not judge them the best who prevail the most As sinners in the next world shall not escape Gods venngeance so Saints in this life oft times are sad sufferers yea and such sufferers as cannot sing a song of Sion while by the banks of Bybylon O! Mesery without Remedy is able to leave heart-less the best of Saints yet when my reason fails to foresee deliverance let my faith in God tow me to the firm land of his gracious promises Though I should see no hopes in my frail judgement of a settlement yet will I hope for peace for that thou the God of peace art become gracious unto thy land to it and us To us who wanted grace to serve thee gracious to us who were enemies to our selves The God of peace hath made our peace he will have peace with us who had open war with him His mercie is over all his works and our sinful works cannot over-master his mercy Of his own free grace he is reconciled with us our sins set us at odds Gods love to man made the composition what love owe we to him who so loved the world who loved man that loved not himself who shewed love to us to learn us to love one another When Heaven proclaims peace a shame it is for us earthy worms to live at odds let the grace of God lead on to have peace will all men and the more mercie the Lord shews to us the less debate let be found among us our selves But wherein O Lord art thou become gratious unto us If any want eyes and sees it not let him that hath ears hear it Was there ever such an universal devastation Threè Nations off the Hinges Givil and Ecclesiastical Government disjoynted The Heads of the Kirk and Kingdom made shorter by the head Pharaohs lean Kine devoured all the fat Peters Patrimony was but a breakfast The Kingly Revenue unable to pay the publique faith The Riches of the Land exhausted The Souldier unpaid and our lives and livelihood left to the indiscretion of an Arbitrary power When we were fallen into this irrepairable Consumption the Lord set us on foot again composed our differences without blood-shed made peace when no hopes of peace replanted thousands under their own vines Now we may live at home without fear enjoy our own without sequestration have the society of our Wives and young ones in despite of Pike and Pistol O God my God this is thy great work this we attempted but could not bring to pass This thou hast done and none else could do it To our endess comfort we may now report how Thou O Lord art become gracious to thy Land Thou hast restored the Kingdom to the King and the King to his Kingdoms the Nobles to their Honours and the Commons to their Birthright the Law is restored and the Gospel preserved and there is peace from Dan to Beersheba And now is not he ungrate who will not warble out this note O Lord thou art become gracious to thy Land If it had not been thine thou wouldst not redeemed it if thou hadst not been the Lord of Hosts no other L. General could have done it But what is thine who can keep from thee To think who thou art is able to blunt the edge of all opposers Blessed be God for that our Land is thine and thou hast owned it and that thou who art Lord of Heaven we hold our land here below on thee But by the Land is meant all in the Land The Brutes have found Gods favour they did groan under the pressure of a Civil War The War is ended and they at quiet now they may take their pastime in the pastures skipping over the Mountains and leaping over the Valleys Their Masters by a Metonymie may be here meant and by Land be understood the inhabitants of the land blessed not onely in their new Restorement but late punishment We had little grace till we had a large lash we had sinned much and have suffered long And as the Walnut-tree brings forth most fruit when most cudgel'd so that Sons of God are most penitent when most afflicted And thus our God is doing us good when we think harm he was never more gracious to his three Confessors then when they were in the furnace He casts us into the fire of affliction to make us run for current coyn in his Kingdom He brings us to Heaven by Hell-gates and first hacks and hues the bole of our bodies to make men serviceable timber to build up a living Altar His Cedars are fel'd and now made fit his metal melted and the gold resined The fuel is consumed but the Bullion forth coming our Tormentors taken away and we sufferers saved O our good God he whips his childe and burns his rod purges us and expunges our foes Blessed be our God who in mercy hath corrected us while in fury he hath consumed them them who had pulled down Majestie Magistracy Ministery They made our Kingdom an Akeldama a field of blood our Church a Den of thieves our Judicatures the High-places of high injustice But thou O Lord hast delivered us out of the Lyons paw from blood-thirsty and blood-guilty men who tyrannized over King and Kingdom Church and Church-men And for this cause we cannot but singing say and saying sing How O Lord thou hast been gracious to thy Land GODS MAGISTRATES THE Peoples Deliverers Psal 77.20 Thou didst lead thy people like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron THese words are spoke by David when sore afflicted what misfortune had befallen him I finde not upon record that shrewdly incumbred is without dispute But what a King and surrounded with sorrow and beset with care O! Majestie is not exempt from misery no more then the fairest day from a dark cloud and dashing shower But say the storm be raised and David in it How comes it to be becalmed When I think what God did for the three it puts me in hopes how he will relieve one I cannot but confide How my God will free his servant from the conspiracy of wicked men while I call to minde How thou my God didst lead thy people like sheep out of Egypt by the hand of Moses and Aaron Never people more made slaves forc't to work much and want their wages their task of brick is enreased and their stubble take from them they are ordered to spend all their days in Pharaohs Brick-kilns and yet while they do Pharaohs work Pharaoh murthers all their males Our Kingly Prophet in the midst of his pressures calls to minde this slavish oppression he grieved before takes up now had almost despaired of support but