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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	believe_v	hear_v	word_n	1,549	5	4.7559	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77434	Errours and induration, are the great sins and the great judgements of the time. Preached in a sermon before the Right Honourable House of Peers, in the Abbey-Church at Westminster, July 30. 1645. the day of the monethly fast: / by Robert Baylie, minister at Glasgow.	Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662.	1645 (1645)	Wing B459; Thomason E294_12; ESTC R200181	39,959	57

That he had hardened her heart from his fear Hardnesse was naturall to her heart yet they found Gods judgement causing in justice that naturall evill to increase upon them From this part of the Complaint observe The Doctrine Judicial hardnesse is the godlies greatest grief Judiciall hardnesse of heart from the fear of God in the times of trouble is the godlies chiefest grief and complaint to God The troubles and calamities of the Jews were great at this time their sins also were great But behold here they complain to God more then for either their calamities or other sins that God had hardened their heart from his fear in the midst of all their sins and judgements This was it that made the Prophet Jeremy amazed The Proof Jere. 5.3 O Lord thou hast stricken them but they have not grieved thou hast consumed them but they have refused to receive correction they have made their faces harder then a rock The Reason why this condition of a people is most lamentable is first It is a presage of destruction The first Reason When strokes humble not a people and soften not their heart to the fear and obedience of God then it cometh to this Why should ye be stricken any more After correction is obstinately refused then cometh rejection 2 Kings 17.18 God is very angry with the ten Tribes and removes them out of his sight the great cause we have Verse 14. They hardned their necks like the necks of their fathers that did not beleeve in the Lord their God This same was the cause of the ruine of Jerusalem Jere. 19.15 I will bring upon this City all the evill that I have pronounced against it because they have hardned their necks that they might not hear my words Jere. 26.29 The Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath because they had hardned their necks and did worse then their fathers Another Reason The second Reason This is such an evill as draweth on eternall perdition after temporall ruine Rom. 2.5 After thy hardnesse and impenitent heart thou treasurest up to thy self wrath against the day of wrath There is a treasure and heap of everlasting wrath from this hardnesse Heb. 3.7 To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation Wherefore I was grieved with that Generation and sware in my wrath They shall not enter into my rest Meaning such grief and anger in God against this evil as holds out of heaven Thirdly The third Reason This sin hath extraordinary malignancy in it though neither eternall nor temporall wrath followed on it The hand of an angry God of a working devil and high degree of corruption are into it in its production all these three have place Before any be hardned in sin and become obstinate the corruption of the heart must be great and highly advanced Also Satans hand is in the blinding of the eyes and searing with the hot-iron in stupifying and making senslesse the conscience of the hardned person and God as a just Judge putting on the executioner must be also about this action So that this hardning is very oft the signe of a Reprobate to whom God shews no mercy Whom he will he hardens and sheweth mercy on whom he will shew mercy albeit it s not ever so as in our Text and elsewhere God hardens the hearts of some for a time whom thereafter he softens and to them sheweth mercy Yet oft being the case of Reprobates and ever very like to it and in it self a degree to that wofull condition it affrighteth the godly when they see it in themselves or others and becometh a great part of their complaint to God The Use is for Exhortation The Vse That we be carefull to grieve and complain to the Lord for this great evil wherever we see it in our selves or others Not onely the most faithfull of Gods Watch-men in all the three Kingdoms but also those of the people who by the anointing of God have the eyes of their minde opened to see the Spirituall estate of their own or their neighbours souls bear witnesse with an unanimous testimony that notwithstanding all the Judgements which lie on the Land yet this hardnesse of heart is greater and more universall then ever they have seen it This cannot be but the hand of God adding this Spirituall Plague as the worst and greatest of all our evils For this we have great reason to mourn and intreat the removall of it above all our Woes Motives to the Duty we need no other then the Reasons of the Doctrine If thou finde this evil crept in thy heart as I doubt not but it lodgeth sensibly in some hearts that hear me or though the Lord had blessed thee with the tender heart of Josiah to mourn for the sins and calamities that are already and to tremble for what further is coming yet if thou see this Mischief proclaiming it self in the countenances and lives of the most of thy neighbours as truely an observing and conscientious eye will remark too much of it where-ever he will look even in the days and places of most solemn Humiliation when hardnesse of heart should be banished farthest away this evil I say wherever found in thy self or others should be complained of to God For having in it so much of an angry God a busie devil and of a high degree of humane corruption it being also a presage and certain forerunner if not remedied of greater Temporal Judgements then yet we have seen albeit we have seen and heard of as much wo as our fathers in these Kingdoms have felt for some hundred yeers though all their sufferings were put together Yet the hardnesse of our hearts if it continue will make all we have suffered but the beginning of evils yea this hardnesse of heart poisons and envenoms all our sufferings with a cursed quality Pestilence wounds spoiling of goods death are all sanctified and sweetned to a softned heart but to a hardned heart they are the first acts of a wofull Tragedie there is a treasure of wrath and lake of fire and brimstone at their end attending them If we were able on these days set apart for this end above all other to attain the blessing of a soft heart and the Judgement of a heart hardned by God removed we would quickly be secure of damnation we would becom certain of the removall of all these Judgements which have very long so heavily lien both on the Church and State and on the backs if not of our persons yet of many in whom our interest is great we should be assured of heavenly consolations against all evils that for the time were on or hereafter might befall us Let it therefore be our earnest endeavour to finde this blessing by the Word by the Sacraments by publike by private Prayer by Reading by Conference by Meditation At this time I will point at some Scripturall helps towards

weighty a difficulty upon such a meer Grammatication Holding therefore to our vulgar translation The matter of a sinfull action must be distinguished from its form How does God cause us to erre and yet is not the Author of our errours For the understanding hereof we must distinguish sin and the actions of God about sin In sin there are two things albeit inseparably joyned yet essentially distinct The matter and form the act and its pravity the one is naturally good the other morally evill This is visible in two actions whose matter is the same but the forms much different For example the stoning of Naboth and the stoning of Achan the substance of the actions the casting of the stones at both was the same but the forms was much different The casting at an innocent man and at a man condemned by God and all Israel the one form makes the stoning of Naboth an act of unjust murder the other form makes the stoning of Achan an act of just punishment The acts not of Gods will and decrees Three acts of Gods effectuall providence about sin for such concern not the words in hand but of his actuall providence about the matter and form of sin are many The most considerable of these to us for opening of our Text are three His concourse his efficacious permission his judiciall tradition so to speak For the first 1 An active concourse in the substance of the action the Lord hath an actuall yea an active concourse and if you will an efficiency in every act of sin so far as concerns the substance or matter of the sinfull action for in him we live we move and have all our being in the most sinfull action the matter of the act being a positive entity it must be a naturally-good thing and have its existence from the first and universall mover the fountain of all Being Without this kinde of efficiency and concourse Shimei could not have moved his tongue to curse David nor Doeg drawn his sword to have killed the Priests When God denies this kinde of concourse sin is necessarily stopped When he removes the life of the two Captains they cannot oppresse Eliah When God leaves the life but takes away the sight from the Sodomites at Lots door and the power from the arm of Jeroboam their sin is impedite When by suspending of his operation he takes away the will from David to kill Nabal though both life and power remained the sin is marred But for such kinde of working in the sinner and cooperation with the sinfull act Sin uses not to be ascribed to God more then the generation of living Creatures to the motion and influence of the Heavens for effects are denominate from the second and particular causes not from the first and universall though their efficiency and concourse be never so necessary and certain The next action of God about sin is 2 An efficacious permission of the sinfulnesse of the act his efficacious permission This for its object hath not onely the matter and substance of the sinfull act but its very form its pravity its anomy its sinfulnesse This malignant quality is a morall evill and so cannot be of God who is goodnesse it self it s a privation and defect and so the cause of it is not efficient but deficient If we would render the cause of a lame mans crooked walking we behoved to distinguish betwixt the walking and its crookednesse The walking we would ascribe to the motive power of the mans soul and to the instruments of motion in his body but the crookednesse of it to the defect and hurt of some instrument of motion not to the soul or to the faculty or to the instrument of motion but onely to some defect of the instrument So the finfulnesse of sin is to be ascribed not to any efficiency of God but to the deficiency of mans will which now is sinfull and before sin was weak as being made of nothing and so able to change it self from good to evill but however the sinfulnesse of sin cannot be charged on Gods either efficiency or deficiency yet it must exist by his free permission for nothing can have any existence in the world any being in the dominion of God without the leave and permission of the great Lord and Master of the World That action of God which in respect of sin is called a permission in regard of the sinner is a desertion This is really one thing with desertion This considered will help to clear that which is the hardest knot in this matter the efficacy that is said to be in the permission and yet without all efficiency of the permitter in the sinfulnesse permitted This matter which naturally is exceeding dark will be best seen in similitudes When the Sun goes down the darknesse of the night necessarily doth follow when the Sun declines towards the Southern signes of the Zediack the Winter blasts certainly do come on the Sun the fountain of light and heat in propriety of speech cannot be called the cause of the nights darknesse or of the Winters cold yet these as ordinary and necessary consequents are usually ascribed to the Suns removall Hot water removed from the fire becomes incontinent cold A ruinous Wall when its props are removed falls quickly to the ground The coldnesse of the water flows not from the fire but from its own nature the falling of the Wall comes from the naturall heavinesse of the stones which without the impediment of a supporter makes them to fall downward It is so with God and man when he withdraws we become dark as midnight cold like Ice we fall to the ground These effects necessarily follow his desertion but not as effects onely as consequents their proper cause is neither in God nor his removall but in our nature which of it self since the fall is full of these malign qualities This kinde of providence about our sins is expressed in words of the active form of blinding the eyes and hardning the heart Not that the Lord infuses any darknesse or hardnesse in the heart which is not its own but because upon the removing of his illuminating and softning Spirit the naturall blindnesse and hardnesse of mans spirit lurking before doth then appear The third action of God about sin Gods third action is a Judiciall Tradition is that which I did call a Judiciall Tradition when God as a just Judge punishes sin by sin when he gives over men not onely to their own heart but to the devil and his instruments to be tempted seduced and drawn away to commit wickednesse with greedinesse However all the sinfull actions be immediately the works of the sinner alone and the upstirring to these actions be from the devil and his instruments laying arguments objects and occasions as baits and snares in the way of the sinner yet God as a just Judge sending out Satan and men as his executioners and making way for

Princes or States refuse or delay to grant Ecclesiastick Government to the Churches that live in their Dominions Have the Independents the Brownists or the Anabaptists or any of the Hetorodox Societies among us wanted their own Government since the first hour of their self-erection The Judgement of this Errour appeareth in three Circumstances It is demonstrate to be a Judgement and Plague First That it is evident to all Secondly That it were most easily amended Thirdly That it is singularly hurtfull The Evidence of it may be seen in the confession of all The greatest and most unreasonable Sectaries will not deny but every true Church should be without all delay invested with Government And if you will speak with the men who most have and do retard the erection of the Government desired they will professe their true intention and desire to see the Church-Discipline established For this evil Anarchy hath been so oft by so many of Gods faithful servants witnessed against that now it s defended by none Concerning the second The facility of its erection it is as clear For I pray who are the men that will take it upon them to impede it Can we at this present or could we for some yeers complain of the violence of a seduced Court Can the blame be cast on any Popish or Prelaticall Faction Will either Brownists or Anabaptists professe their deniall to us of what they long ago have taken to themselves Who then must answer to God for our shamefull Anarchy for so long a time The hurt of it is too too perspicuous Whosoever will lay the Sword the Pestilence and all the Calamities that destroy the Land on our delay to build the House of the Lord shall have for him the Prophet Zechariahs direct Warrant Zech. 8.10 Before these days there was no peace to him that went out or came in because of affliction For I set all men every one against his neighbour And if we indeed believe It is not the strength of men but the Lord Christ who setleth troubled Kingdoms What hope can we have that he will ever settle our State so long as his Church lies neglected in so wofull a confusion Beside outward Judgements this Errour is the cause of the greatest spirituall Mischiefs The hedge of Discipline lying level with the ground makes open doors yea invites and calls for all the devouring beasts to prey on the Flock of Christ From this it is that so many thousand souls are permitted to perish eternally in ignorance in profanenesse in Heresies in damnable Sects without the least controll or any mans endeavour to reclaim them So long as the Law permits no Pastor in England to exercise his Pastorall charge on any person he may well weep and mourn when the devil in his sight plucks away numbers of his Sheep but with his Shepherds Crook with the Ordinance of Christs Discipline to hold off that Lion it is not in his power It is not onely the passionate desire of all the Reformed Churches abroad of all the godly and Orthodox Party at home but also their confident expectation That the Honorable Houses without further delay will at last set up the walls of the House of God who now is going on apace by so many Successes to ruine their enemies and to settle the state of their affairs much according to their hearts desire The neglect of this piece of Thankfulnesse may provoke the Lord to repent him of his favours and to call back in one day what he had been giving in many I point but at one other Judiciall wandering False Doctrine is a Judiciall Errour that which usually and properly goeth under the name of Errour the word of our Text false Doctrine contrary to the ways of Gods Truth That Errour is a sin and a Judiciall one infliflicted by God as a punishment of former sins we may see in divers Scriptures 2 Thess 2.10 11. Because they received not the love of the Truth for this cause God gave them over to strong delusions to believe a lye Here Errours are Judgements which God puts Satan to bring on men for their coldrife entertaining of the truth And how grievous a Judgment Error is this and other Scriptures clear Here it is made a cause of damnation That they might all be damned who believed not the Truth The Socino-Remonstrants have taught our new Masters to extenuate much and at last to deny the sinfulnesse and danger of Errour They would hide the Vipers sting till the pretty and beautifull worm be once taken into the bosom where a little warmed it makes it quickly appear how innocent and harmlesse a creature it is They tell us that all sin is in the Will Errour is a dangerous evil and the cause of damnation but the seat of errour is the minde Is not the minde the most high and divine facultie of the soul Is not the corruption of the best things truely worst The mindes pollution with the darknesse of errour is eminently contrary to the light and truth of the divine nature Against this greatest of errours the excusing of all errours we should minde the truth of God who cannot lye In the place cited errour is made the cause of damnation elsewhere the Apostle tells us That false Doctrine eats up and kills the soul as a Canker Gangrene or Pest doth the body 2 Tim. 2.17 Also false Teachers are called Ravening Woolfs who tear and rent in peeces the souls of the seduced Acts 20.29 The Apostle Peter is in the same minde 2. Epistle 2. He tells us the condition of false Teachers They bring in damnable Heresies their wayes are pernicious their distruction is swift their damnation slumbereth not It is as certain as was the damnation of the Devils of the old world drowned in the deluge of the Sodomites All this is Peters Doctrine And this he had from his Master Christ Matth. 7.15 Beware of false Prophets When they have the fairest shew of piety he that knows the heart pronounceth They are but ravening Woolfs Matth. 15.14 If the blinde lead the blinde both shall fall in the ditch If we beleeve the Lord a false Teacher doth not onely destroy himself but draws with him all his blinded Scholers into the ditch of the same perdition 1 Cor. 12.25 27. The Apostle tells us The nature of Shism That the Church is the Body of Christ and that Schismaticks make a Schism in Christs Body that is they rent his Body in peeces they who crucified him would not rent his seamlesse Coat but Schismaticks can tear his skin cut his flesh rent his Joynts and Members in peeces Understand the Language of them who plead for liberty of errours What is meant by liberty of conscience and what is the true sense of their language who require a toleration of Errours If you beleeve Christ or the Doctrine of Paul attested by Peter and the rest both Prophets and Apostles whom I have not time