Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	believe_v	faith_n	object_n	1,586	5	8.4180	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39696	Two treatises the first of fear, from Isa. 8, v. 12, 13, and part of the 14 : the second, The righteous man's refuge in the evil day, from Isaiah 26, verse 20 / by John Flavell.	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1682 (1682)	Wing F1204; ESTC R177117	170,738	308

in the Seas and all deep places You see Divine pleasure is the only rule according to which Divine Power exerts it self in the world we are not therefore to limit and restrain it in our narrow and shallow thoughts and to think in this or in that the Power of God may help or secure us but to believe that he is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think Thus those Worthies Dan. 3. 17. by Faith exalted the power of God above the order and common rule of second causes Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thine hand O King Their faith resting it self upon the Omnipotent power of God expected deliverance from it in an extraordinary way 't is true this is no standing rule for our faith ordinarily to work by nor have we ground to expect such miraculous Salvations but yet when extraordinary difficulties press us and the common ways and means of deliverance are shut up we ought by faith to exalt the Omnipotency of God by ascribing the glory thereof to him and leave our selves to his good pleasure without straitning or narrowing his Almighty power according to the mold of our poor low thoughts and apprehensions of it For so the Lord himself directeth our faith in difficult cases Isa. 55. 8 9. For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways saith the Lord for as the Heavens are higher than the earth So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts He speaks there of his pardoning mercy which he will not have his people to contract and limit according to the model and platform of their own desponding misgiving and unbelieving thoughts but to exalt and glorifie it according to its unbounded fulness as it is in the thoughts of God the fountain of that mercy so it ought to be with respect to his power about which his thoughts and ours do vastly differ the power of God as we cast it in the mould of our thoughts is as vastly different and disproportionate from what it is in the thoughts of God the fountain thereof as the earth is to the heavens which is but a small inconsiderable point compared with them 2. The power of God is a Supreme and Sovereign power from which all creature power is derived and by which it is over-ruled restrained and limited at his pleasure Nebuchadnezzar was a great Monarch he ruled over other Kings yet he held his Kingdom from God it was God that placed not only the Crown upon his head but his head upon his shoulders Dan. 2. 37. Thou O King art a King of Kings for the God of Heaven ●ath given thee a Kingdom power and strength and glory Hence it follows that no creature can move tongue or hand against any of Gods people but by vertue of a Commission or permission from their God albeit they think not so Knowest thou not saith Pilate unto Christ that I have power to crucifie thee and power to release thee Proud worm what an ignorant and insolent boast was this of his own power and how doth Christ spoil and shame it in his answer Iohn 19. 10. Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above Wicked men like wild horses would run over and trample under foot all the people of God in the world were it not that the bridle of Divine providence had a strong curb to restrain them Ezek. 22. 6. The Princes of Israel every one were in thee to their power to shed bloud And it was well for Gods Israel that their power was not as large as their wills were this world is a raging and boisterous Sea which sorely toffes the passengers for heaven that sail upon it but this is their comfort and security The Lord stilleth the noise of the sea the noise of the waves and the tumult of the people Ps. 65. 7. Moral as well as natural waves are checked and bounded by Divine power Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee and the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain Psal. 76. 10. As a man turns so much water into the channel as will drive the mill and turns away the rest in another sluce Yea not only the power of man but the power of Devils also is under the restraint and limitation of this power Rev. 3. 10. Satan shall cast some of you into prison and ye shall have tribulation ten days He would have cast them into their graves yea into hell if he could but it must be only into a Prison He would have kept them in prison till they had died and rotted there but it must be only for ten days Oh glorious Sovereign power which thus keeps the reins of Government in its own hand 3. The power of God is an everlasting power time doth not weaken or diminish it as it doth all creature powers Isa. 40. 28. The Lord the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not neither is weary Isa. 59. 1. The Lords hand is not shortened i. e. He hath as much power now as ever he had and can do for his people as much as ever he did time will decay the power of the strongest creature and make him fai●● and feeble but the Creator of the ends of the eart● fainteth not Thou saith the Psalmist abidest for ever thy years flee not Psal. 102. 27. In Gods working there is no expence of his strength he is able to do as much as ever he did to act over again all the glorious deliverances that ever he wrought for his people from the beginning of the World to do as much for his Church now as he did at the Red sea and upon this ground the Church builds its Plea Isa. 51. 9 10. Awake awake put on strength O arm of the Lord awake as in the ancient days in the generations of old art thou not it that hast cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon q. d. Lord why should not thy people at this day expect as glorious productions of thy power as any of them found in former ages SECT II. LEt us view the power of God in the vast extent of its operation and then you will find it working beyond the line 1. Of Creature power 2. Of Creature expectation 3. Of Humane probability 1. Beyond the line of all created power even upon the hearts thoughts and minds of men where no creature hath any jurisdiction So Gen. 31. 29. God bound up the Spirit of Laban and becalmed it towards Iacob So Psal. 106. 46. He made them also to be pitied of all them that carried them captives Thus the Lord promised Ieremy Ier. 15. 11. I will cause the enemies to entreat thee well in the time of evil This power of God softens the hearts of the most fierce and cruel enemies and sweetens the spirits of the most bitter and enraged foes of

grievously wounded my own Conscience To this wounded and trembling conscience is opposed the spirit of a sound mind mentioned 2 Tim. 1. 7. God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power of love and of a sound mind A sound mind is in this place the same thing with a pure and peaceable Conscience a mind or Conscience not infirmed or wounded with guilt as we say a sound or heal body which hath no disease to infirm it such a mind is opposed to the spirit of fear it will make a man bold as a Lion Nil conscire tibi nullâ Pallescere culpâ hic mu●●● aheneus esto An evil and guilty Conscience foments fears and terrours three ways 1. by aggravating small matters and blowing them up to the height of the most fatal and destructive evils so it was with Cain Gen. 4. 14. Every one that meets me will slay me Now every child was a Giant in his eye and any body he met his over-match A guilty Conscience gives a man no sight of his enemy but through a magnifying or a multiplying glass 2 It begets Fears by interpreting all doubtful cases in the worst sense that can befastened upon them Pessimus in dubiis Augur timor If the Swallows do but chatter in the chimney Bessus interprets it to be a discovery of his crime that they are telling take of him and saying Bessus killed a man Nay 3 If a guilty Conscience have nothing to aggravate and magnifie nor any doubtful matter to interpret in a frightful sense it can and often doth create fears and terrors out of nothing at all the rules of Fear 〈◊〉 not like the rules in Arithmetick where many nothings make nothing but fear can make something out of nothing yea many thing● and great things out of nothing at all Psal. 53 5. there wer● they in great fea● where no fear was here was a great fear raise● or created out of nothing at all● had their fear been examined an● hunted home to its original it would have bee● found a pure creature of fancy a Chimaera have●●● no fundamentum in re no other foundation but 〈◊〉 troubled fancy and a guilty Conscience thus it 〈◊〉 with Pashur he was a very wicked man and a bit●● enemy to the Prophet Ieremy and if there be none 〈◊〉 fright and terrifie from abroad rather than he 〈◊〉 want it he shall be a terror to himself Ier. 20. 3 4. he was his own bug bear afraid of his own shadow and truly this is a great plague and misery he that is a terror to himself can no more flee from terrors than he can flee from himself O the effic●cy of Conscience how doth it arrest the stoutest sinners and make them tremble when there is no visible external cause of fear Nemo sejudice nocens absolvitur 1. Object But may not a good man whose sins are pardoned be affrighted with his own fancies and scared with his own imaginations Sol. No doubt he may for there is a twofold fountain of fears one in the body another in the soul one in the constitution another in the conscience it is the affliction and infelicity of many pardoned and gracious souls to be united and married to such distempered and ill habited bodies as shall afflict them without any real cause from within and wound them by their own diseases and distempers and these wounds can no more be prevented or cured by their reason or Religion than any other bodily disease suppose an Ague or a Feaver can be so cured Thus Physicians tell us when adust choler and melancholy overflows and abounds in the body as in the Hypochondriacal distemper c. what sad effects it hath upon the mind as well as upon the body there is not only a sad and fearful aspect or countenance without but sorrow fear and afflicting thoughts within this is a sore affliction to many good men whose Consciences are sprinkled with the bloud of Christ from guilt but yet God sees good to clog them with such afflictions as this for their humiliation and for the prevention of worse evils 2. Object But many bold and daring sinners are found who notwithstanding all the guilt with which their consciences are loaded can look dangers in the face without trembling yea they can look death it self the King of terrors in the face with less fear than better men Sol. True but the reason of that is from a spiritual judgment of God upon their hearts and consciences whereby they are hardened and seared as with an hot iron 2. Tim. 4. 2. and so Conscience is disabled for the present to do its office it cannot put forth its efficacy and activity now when it might be useful to their salvation but it will do it to purpose hereafter when their case shall be remediless 3. Cause 3. We see what a forge of Fears a guilty Conscience is and no less is the sin of Unbelief the real and proper cause of most distracting and afflictive fears so much as our Souls are empty of faith they are in times of trouble filled with fear We read of some that have died by no other hand but their own fears but we never read of any that died by fear who were once brought to live by faith If men would but dig to the root of their fears they should certainly find unbelief there Matth. 8. 26. Why are ye fearful Oye of little faith The less faith still the more fear Fear is generated by unbelief and unbelief strengthened by fear as in nature there is an observable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 circular generation vapours beget showers and showers new vapours so it is in things moral and therefore all the skill in the world can never cure us of the disease of fear till God first cure us of our unbelief Christ therefore took the right method to rid the disciples of their fear by rebuking their unbelief The remains of this sin in Gods own people is the cause and fountain of their fears and more particularly to shew how fear is generated by unbelief let a few particulars be heedfully adverted 1. Unbelief weakens and stumbles the assenting act of Faith and thereby cuts off from the soul in a great measure its principal relief against dangers and troubles It is the use and office of Faith to reallize to the Soul the invisible things of the world to come and thereby encourage it against the fears and dangers of the present world Thus Moses forsook Egypt not fearing the wrath of the King for he endured as seeing him that is invisible Heb. 11. 27. If this assentting act of Faith be weakned or staggered in the soul if once invisibles seem uncertainties and visibles the only realities no wonder we are so scared and frighted when these visible and sensible comforts are exposed and endangered as they often are and will be in this mutable world That man must needs be afraid to stand his ground that