Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A44414
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A sermon preach'd before my lord major at Guild-Hall Chappel on the 30th of Octob., 1681 by George Hooper ...
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Hooper, George, 1640-1727.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing H2705; ESTC R4457
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20,330
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39
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the Apostles laid on their hands and the Holy Ghost descended The Spirit had indeed before secretly Co-operated to that Faith and Encourag'd that Hope It had privately Prepar'd for it self a fitting Mansion but did not make it 's publick Entry till the Temple was ready When those previous Graces were form'd before then it solemnly appeared and thorough them powerfully exerted it self either in Signs and Wonders or in the more desireable Fruits those here of the Text. When therefore the Holy Ghost was come it did in many believers of the first Age for the Conversion of those that believed not so exalt the Faith it found and endue it with such an Extraordinary force that the Christians in the strength of their pure Belief wrought the greatest Miracles and were able by no more of it than might be compar'd to a grain of Mustard seed to remove Mountains to such Effects the Blessed Spirit advanced the Nature of Faith in a singular manner on a Particular occasion But it was however always to be understood that then the Operation was most Divine and the improvement most Natural when from Faith and Hope God giving the increase there arose Love their Proper genuine Fruit whose Production you are now to see For when a man by a stedfast lively Faith shall be assur'd of the Existence of his God as firmly as he is of his own and shall have on his Mind any suitable Conception of the Divine Nature any view of those ineffable Transcendent Perfections shall have once discover'd the Eternal Immortal Omnipotent All-wise the absolutely Holy Just and most infinitely Good As he cannot but fall down Prostrate before all this Greatness and adore the Majesty so must he if there be in him any resemblance of such qualities be infinitely affected at the sight of so much Purity and passionately devote himself to so great Goodness Had man no Interest in those Attributes did he stand by only and see and were the Kindness of the Gospel directed to the Angels yet certainly he could not but take part and concern himself to Esteem and to Love he would be naturally attracted and fix'd on such an Object by the tendency of a Rational Soul the Sympathy if I may so say of a Spiritual Being But if he shall find himself the happy Object of all that Goodness that all those Glorious Attributes shine on him if by the same Faith he shall come to learn that this Being of such inconceivable Perfection was wonderful in nothing more then in his love to Mankind and had prevented any Affection we could shew by one conceived for us before the foundation of the World when he shall reflect by what hand he is made and whose likeness he has the honour to bear that himself whatsoever he values himself upon or whatever he delights in is owing all to the Benignity of the same Cause when he shall have read in the holy writings such passionate expressions of good will how earnestly and concernedly the Almighty bespeaks us how willing he is to pardon how glad to reward how he lovesus more then we do our selves in one instance appear'd to love us more then he loved his so only Begotten Son when man shall have perceived much love for him from a Being so infinitely to be belov'd himself if he retains any thing of the Image of his Maker will he not resemble him in a correspondent Affection except he be yet but Earth if he has any apprehension any sense will he not discover it by grateful dutiful resentment he might as well at the Creation have refuss'd to Live as now to Love This way would a lively attentive Faith move After it has laid before us the History of the Divine Love it would of it self excite us to demonstrations of our own But further when Faith hath given us such a beauteous glorious Idea of the nature of God such an Obliging Engaging representation of his Goodness to man and has had its proper effect upon us has created in us a Due Value and Adoration for his Blessed being an approbation of his holy Will and a warm zealous Devotion to his service It then too begins to give us the confidence of entitling our selves more peculiarly to the Favour of God and we presume of a particular interest in his gracious Promises Assur'd of the Veracity of his Love and conscious of the sincerity of our own we look not only on the past testimonies of his goodness but expect the Glories of the future and hope now as earnestly for Heaven as we certainly believe it And if Faith alone which is in it self but a passive Impression on the Mind has that force in it as to be the cause of so much Love This Hope when once conceived being of a Moving Active Nature will not fail to quicken our desires anew and absolutely inflame our Divine Affection To sum up then the whole The soul having from Faith the glorious amiable view of God's Infinite Perfections together with the History of his Exceeding Kindness his undeserved and unchangeable Affection to Mankind and seeing too before its eye by Hope the prospect of Heaven it s assur'd blessed immortal expectations which way will it turn it self where it shall not see cause to Love and to admire It must give it self up encompassed on all sides surrounded with infinite Attractives and everlasting Obligations If any Person is to be beloved it is this which Faith presents if any past Favours can engage us none earlier nor greater then His If any Future Hopes can prevail none more Certain nor more Glorious then those And these Bands of Love each of them singly would certainly hold and fix us Irremovably but joyn'd together and Twisted in a threefold Cord they are impossible to be broken And so far have I represented to you these workings of Faith and Hope after the manner of Nature and without the Co-operation of the Holy Spirit But if we shall suppose that God himself comes in enlightens our Understanding and warms our Affections if he shall be pleas'd to draw the lovely Image of himself on our Minds to form in us a right Sense of all his Goodness and a true Conception of his everlasting Joys to enliven the Thoughts and actuate the Motions of the Soul What raptures and extasies are we then to suppose Whom then would we have but God And whom should we desire on Earth in Comparison of him Then should we be all on fire from Heaven And a Flame kindled in us that many Waters would not quench neither could the Floods drown Our Love for him would resemble his Divine Nature and as much surpass any Worldly Passion as God excells the Creation This then is the Holy Passion of those that are grown up in Christ to their full Stature This is the Fire they are Baptiz'd with who are Baptiz'd with the Holy Ghost And as soon as the Breathings of the Spirit have blown up and
complexion and shape of this Fruit something the Holy Ghost may own and they may then have leave to think Charitably and to presume from what they do see of what they cannot that the Spirit dwells there But to believe the Spirit to be where there appears nothing but the works of the Flesh is the same absur'd Creed with that of Transubstantiation it is to subdue our Reason and Sence so far as to take that for a Sheep which has the shape and qualities of a Wolf to think that a Dove that you see hiss and bite and sting This was the case of the Church of Rome When its Bishops first began to Change their Title into an Inherent Quality to challenge Holyness to their Persons as well as in their style when they pretended the Holy Ghost and Claim'd to be infallible and rested so far on that Presumption as to justifie their Actions by the Pretence and not to take Care to make their Pretences good by Actions answerable the World tho held in by all Arts of Policy and force of Power yet could not but discover and reject the Imposture rather then believe the Spirit should dwell in such restless ambitious bloody men they abjudged it from the See and thought it more reasonable the Pope might err then that the Doctrines of Image-Worship Indulgences and Transubstantiation should be True that Decrees for Perjury Rebellion desposing and Murdering of Princes should come from God This certainly What ever sort of men Attribute to themselves the Spirit of God in them should be seen nothing but what is agreeable to it nothing whereby it should be grieved within or dishonoured without Pure they should be within as those that Lodge a God And Careful of their outward Actions as of such as may be imputed to the Holy Ghost For to use our Apostles argument Profess ye That ye are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you 1 Cor. 3.16 If any man defile the Temple of God him will God destroy For the Temple of God is Holy which Temple ye are It is Holy not so as to bring a Necessity of Holiness on your Actions but to affect you with an unpardonable Guilt if ye unhallow and profane it The pretence to the Spirit so is it to be Examin'd by man And when false is in their sight a bold Presumption But can it impose upon the Holy Ghost himself Or will the unlike Counterfeit appear less impudent before him The divine Nature had before an irreconcileable Aversion to Wrath Anger and Hatred But what an indignity and Provocation must this be to find it self entitled to it That instead of mans being chang'd by the Spirit the Spirit of God should have received new impressions from Man Ananias and Saphira were struck Dead for telling a single untruth concerning the Value of an Estate They lye boldly to the Holy Ghost whose Fashoods are concerning himself And till Interpreters shall be agreed what hainous Crime is that Sin against him well may this bear the Name And may not the strangeness of our present Temper prompt us to suspect that the blessed Spirit has not only deserted us but abandon'd us to the Wicked one For if our Luxury Variance Aemulations Perverseness and Discontent consisted with our Interest if there were no temporal Danger that they threatned were these Divisions in a time of Confessed safety and general Security and we at leisure and Liberty to Quarrel We might then be content to say that those things were not the Fruit of the Spirit were the Works of the Flesh and the fulfilling the Lusts thereof But when common Danger alarms us continually within and threatens terribly from abroad when the interest of the Liberty of our Native Country calls upon us to unite and arm against the growing strength of a Violent forraigner and a Tyrannical Religion presented upon the Point of his Sword when all Moral Considerations joyn in with the Suggestions of the Spirit and call for Love and Peace or we are utterly ruin'd here and for ever then not to hearken to continue this unnatural feud is not from the Flesh only from a Carnal mind for that would have at least Carnal prudential Thoughts but is one would fear from the Prevalence of the Evil Spirit There must be something more then Humane that is the cause of all this Infatuation enough to justifie the Liberty of the Speaker if he should take up that of the Prophet Micaiah I saw the Lord sitting on the Throne of Heaven and all the Host of Heaven by him 1 Kings 22.9 on his right Hand and on his left And the Lord said who shall perswade Ahab to go up and fall Who shall perswade a Country full of the blessings of God but ungrateful and unworthy to give up what they have forfeited and execute God's wrath upon themselves Who shall perswade a Country of so much Strength Riches Laberty and Peace to fall Voluntarily under Dishonour Poverty and a forrain Yoak In the Text there came forth a Spirit and stood before the Lord and said I will perswade him And the Lord said wherewith And he said I will go forth and I will be a Lying Spirit in the Mouth of his Prophets And what is it but a Lying Spirit That shall accuse the best reform'd Church of Popery the easiest Government under the Sun of Tyranny that shall talk now of Grievances and Impositions and shall speak of want of Trade in times of the most flourishing Commerce that shall haunt Places of publick resort and fly about the Land in Libellous Prints with false Tales and mishapen Truths to enrage the Minds of men against lawful Government their only common Security to confound our just fears with Ridiculous jealousies and distract us in the Face of an Enemy with false Alarms And if to this Spirit God shall have added seven more as wicked as the other If he has mingled a perverse Spirit in the midst of us a Spirit deaf to the Voyce of the Charmer charme he never so wisely hearkening to no Accommodation submitting to no Terms of Communion fearful in things indifferent and bold in things unlawful a Conscience tender at one time and fear'd at another easie of belief in Surmises against Authority but difficult and beyond all Precedent scrupulous in Poofs that are for it a Spirit of Revenge and Ambition in the Great of Mutiny and Sedition in the Meaner a Spirit of Schisme in matters Ecclesiastick and of Faction in Temporals if to all these the Lord shall have said as to that you shall perswade and Prevail go forth and do so They will then effect their Errand By our Hatred of one anoother by our Frowardness and disobedience they seem to be now at Work by these they will engage us into a Civil War and expose us to a forain and then will Arbitrary Government and Popery things of forain growth and Strangers to our Land come in with Armed force through the wide Breaches we have made our selves But may God be more merciful yet to us that so little deserve it check these unruly Spirits that are gone out in the mid'st of us and give us of his Holy Spirit May He that commands the Wind and the Sea and they obey him He that is not in tempests nor earthquakes but in the still voyce restrain the striving lay the swelling of the Waves compose our minds and asswage our animosities turn the hearts of the Fathers to the Children and of the Children to the Fathers lest he come and smite the Earth with a curse May he that has graciously joyn'd us in so many common advantages Spiritual and Temporal shed his love abroad in our hearts by his Holy Spirit that as we have one Baptism one Spirit one Faith one hope of our calling so we may be before Him as one holy congregation that as we have one Prince one Law one Interest so we may be as a City at Unity in it self God unite us before himself in his worship and before the face of our enemies for our Defence that we may be an Example to those of our Religion that yet enjoy it undisturb'd and a Refuge to those that are Distressed that we be not the Scandal now and a little after the Ruin of the Protestant Profession To this effect let us beseech Him that by his spirit he would give our Governours an affectionate zeal for his honour for the good of his People Long-suffering and Gentleness towards those who much need it that He would possess the People with a reverent Love for the Majesty of God for his Vicegerent with Meekness Faithfulness and Goodness that he would endue all subordinate Magistrates with proper graces with the steady resolution of a true Fidelity to God their Prince and the Law that he would grant that we abuse not wantonly the blessed means of our reformed Religion to Schism or Heresie the Publick Quiet to Civil Discord our Liberty to Faction nor our Plenty to Luxury and Intemperance That the Peace of God maybe on all our Consciences and the Joy of the Holy Ghost on our Minds that our Fruit may be unto Holyness and our end Everlasting Life FINIS