Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	great_a	part_n	3,256	5	4.2928	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88397	Christ's valedictions: or sacred observations on the last words of our savior delivered on the crosse. By Jenkin Lloyd, minister of the gospel, and rector of Llandissil in Cardigan shire	Lloyd, Jenkin, b. 1623 or 4.	1658 (1658)	Wing L2653; Thomason E1895_2; ESTC R209921	53,582	228

dayes Exod. 10.21 which was a signification of their superstitious blindness and ignorance of the true knowledg of God and the obstinacy and disobedience to Gods Commandment And as then Meses brought the Israelites from the Egyptian bondage they were in under Pharaoh so the true Moses here Jesus Christ brings all that believe in him from the bondage of Satan unto everlasting happiness Let us now come unto the words themselves My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Psal 22.1 and these we find to be taken out of the Psalmist and in them Christ complains in a voice more then ordinary that he was relinquished of God the Father at that instant For the better clearing of the sense we must observe that Christs derelictions of the Father may be understood five several wayes whereof one only is true and here meant there were five conjunctions or unions in the Son of God The first is that of Essence between the first and second Person of the Glorious Trinity and that as it is natural and eternal so it is perpetual and inseparable of which Christ himselfe speaks I and my Father are one and therefore he said not My Father Joh. 8.16 but My God why hast thou forsaken me For the Father is not called God of the Son till after and by reason of the Incarnation 2. The second is the Conjunction of the Divine and Humane nature in the second Person and this can never be dissolved for what he once took he never puts off And the Apostle saies Christ that is God and Man suffered for us 1 Pet. 2.21 The third is the union of Grace Joh. 1.14 For Christ was a Man full of Grace and truth and this doth and shall remain The just dyed for the unjust 1 Pet. 3.18 the death of Christ had nothing profited us if there had been a separation of Grace The fourth is the union of Glory for the soule of Christ saw God from its very conception Joh. 1.14 and according to its superiour part was already truely blessed Aquin. 3. p. q. 46. ar 8. and therefore this conjunction could not be dissolved because a soule once truely blessed is alwayes blessed blessednesse being the summ and compendium of all goodness There remains a fifth union which is that of Protection whereof he speaks He that sent me is with me Joh. 8.29 and hath not left me alone And this for a short time was suspended and dissolved that the oblation of a bloody sacrifice might take place for the Redemption of mankind God was able divers wayes to have protected Christ and to have withstood his Passion according to that prayer of his in the Garden Marck 14.36 Father all things are possible to thee take away this cup from me nevertheless not what I will but what thou wilt Nay Christ could have defended himselfe and commanded Legions of Angels to have guarded his Person Mat. 26.53 No man could take his life from him but he laid it down himself Joh. 10.18 and he might as well bestowed on his body the gift of impassibility as that of incorruption But it pleased the Father it pleased the Son it pleased the Holy Ghost to permit the common decree that humane cruelty should prevail against him then he told his bebetrayers the hour was come Mark 14.41 in which the Son of man should be delivered into the hands of sinners God then so left and forsook his Son that he suffered his humanity for that Space to be without any consolation to endure for our sins most bitter sorrows yea the torments of hell it self And he put himself to those unspeakable sufferings by reason of the greatnesse of mans sin which he took on his body to expiate for us that we being delivered from sin 1 Pet. 2.24 should live in righteouseness by whose stripes we are healed And as this sin was infinite as being against a person of an infinite value the Lord God so the person Satisfying was to be of an incomprehensible dignitie and excellency And though one drop of his precious blood had been an ampler ansom for all mankind yet that his passion might be esteemed by us the more meritorious and gain more Souls he shed all because he did undertake for the sins of the whole world therefore it pleased him to suffer a world of torments when he laboured under that Dereliction of his father 1. Learn hence O man how infinite and inexpresible was the love of Christ to thee when he suffered with so much patience and humilitie such wonderful torments for thy sins His soul was very heavie unto death Man 26.3 There is no Christian but will acknowledge that our Saviour was ten thousand times more able to suffer then the most Constant Martyr that hath suffered for his Name and if he were more able to bear whence could it happen that he was prest with such sorrow such heaviness and such feare but that he alone suffered more then all the martyrs ever since righteous Abel to this day this should work an imitation in us to love the bitter cup of repentance and to reject the cups of Consolation and Secular delights to rejoyce in afflictions and to trample on the seeming felicities of this world Doth God visit our land with Plague Famine War or other judgements O! remember that these Calamities are but as a drop to that vast Ocean of sorrows the Son Gof od suffered for us and that they are far less then our sins deserved for they are but temporal and reach no further then our bodies but by his sufferings we are exempted from those miseries which might justly fall on our souls and bodies eternally We then are as prisoners once condemned for capital crimes but released again with our lives and only chastized with some few stripes have we not then great cause to rejoyce that we have escaped greater judgments 2. But though God seems for a while to forsake his friends and leave them in durances and to withdraw his grace and favour from them yet his indignation cannot last for ever in the end he will return unto them and shew them the light of his gracious Countenance and be merciful unto them if they call upon his glorious name in their distresses Christ upon the Cross suffered a great dereliction his Glory was obscured his divinity seemed to be hid the light of heaven was substracted from him in stead of a Diademe he wore a Crown of thorns in stead of a Scepter a Reed in stead of a statelyretinue belonging to a King they afforded him the ignominious fellowship of two theeves thus was he dejected and scorned and exposed to all imaginable crosses but behold upon his humble expostulation and prayer to God the sence was altered and a speedy Period put to all these calamities the heavens were unmantled the light appeared his last and worst enemy Death was conquered his body and soul

Mat. 20.1 by the similitude of the unfruitful Figtree Mat. 22.2 If it be referr'd to the Fault Luk. 13.6 the Prayer was also heard in that relation for by the powerful efficacy thereof was given to many Repentance and Compunction of heart in which number was the Centurion Mat. 27 54 Luk. 23 48 and those who returned striking their guilty brests confessing him to be the Son of God The Persons prayed for are either h●s Manual Executioners those who divided his garments or those who were the effectual causes of his Passion as Pilate who gave the sentence the people who cryed out Crucifie crucifie him the Scribes who falsely accused him or as we may ascend higher the first man Adam and his posterity All were involved in the Sin all are included in the Prayer And thou O my soul before thou hadst a being the Lord foresaw thee also to be ranckt sometimes amongst his enemies and thy self not capable of petitioning he prayes the Father for thee that thy foolishness be not imputed to thee And that his intercession might be acceptable he seems to guild the offences of his enemies with compassionate extenuations as far as it might stand with his omnipotent Soveraignty by adding For they know not what they do For certainly he could not palliate that injustice in Pilate nor that cruelty in the Souldiers nor that envie in the High Priest nor that foolishness and ingratitude in the People nor false Testimonies in the Perjurers this only remained that he might in all excuse their ignorance for as the Apostle sayes If they had known it 1 Cor. 2.8 they had not crucified the Lord of Glory The Schools have made so many divisions and sub-divisions of Ignorance that there goes as much learning to understand Ignorance as Knowledg but their ignorance in condemning the Lord of life was of a very strange and transcendent nature The people knew him to be innocently condemned and Pilate himself sealed it with a publick voice Luk. 23.14 Mat. 27.24 I find no fault in this man c. and I am innocent of the blood of this just man The Integrity of his Life declared him to be Immaculate and sin-less the greatness of his Miracles proclaimed him a God and the whole current of the Prophets testified him to be the Messias and yet they would not acknowledg him to be the Christ the Lord of Glory The reson whereof is delivered by S. John Joh. 12.37 and the Prophet Isaias because their eyes were blinded and thoir hearts hardned that they should not see with their eyes nor understand w th their hearts and be converted and healed But that blindness proceeded from an Ignorance which does not excuse because it was voluntary concomitant not precedent After the same manner are those who sin out of malice they are alwayes infected with some Ignorance which is hatch't with the sin The Philosopher said Every Evil man is an Ignorant man And truly it may be spoken of all sinners They know not what they do For no man covets evil as it is evil because the Object of the Will is a thing not good or ill but only really or apparently Good Therefore they that make choice of evil do chuse it as it represents the Species and forms of goodness yea they apprehend it as the chiefest good The cause of this is a perturbation of the inferiour part which doth so clod and darken reason that it cannot rightly discern the Atoms of goodness in things coveted for he who commits Adultery or Theft would never affect either were it not for the false good of delectation or gain which couches under Adultery or Theft not perceiving the evil of turpitude and injustice which likewise harbour there So that whosoever sins is like the man who desirous from a high Turret to throw himself headlong into some fierce River shuts first his eyes and then commits himself to the mercy of the Waters He that is the Actor of evil hates the light and labours under a pretended darkness which being vincible and voluntarie does no way clear the Action But wherefore then serves the prayer I answer If the words be understood of those executioners that performed only their commanded duties and probably were ignorant as well of his Inocency as of his Divinity or of us who were not then existent or of such sinners who knew not what was then in agitation at Jerusalem the Lord might most truly then Ejaculate these sweet tones of his Compassion but if they be applyed to those grand contrivers and actors of that horrible treason and well knew him to be the Missias and an innocent man then it is to be confest that Christs purpose thereby was only to extenuate the sins of his adversaries in the best manner he could for although their Ignorance could not simply excuse yet it may have the colourable reason of an excuse for if they had wanted all ignorance their offence had been more grievous and certainly if a better and more probable plea could have been found he had willingly presented it even for Caiphas and Pilate the worst of all his enemies 1. Hence may we first learn Christ's charity to be so Supereminent that we may with the Apostle conclude It passeth all knowledge Eph. 3.19 Neither are our tongues able to expresse nor our understandings to conceive the height of it If any of us labour under any cross of grief as the pains of our teeth our eyes or any other member we are so possest with a sense of any of these sufferings that we think on nothing else nor will scarce admit any negotiations or visits of friends whereas crucified Christ wore on his head a Crown of thornes not being able to move without excessive grief nails pierced his hands and feet from whose borings he drew most bitter pains his naked body wearied with unmerciful whippings publickly exposed to ignominy and cold throwing on him new sorrows and new torments yet as though he contemned those cruelties and suffered nothing being only solicitous for the salvation of his enemies and desiring to avert from them an impendant danger he presents to his Father this mournful Obsecration Father forgive them c. If those wicked men had suffered an unjust persecution what would he do if friends if kindred had suffered not enemies not traitors not Paracides His heart amongst so many storms of injurious sufferings as a Rock in the midst of the Sea beaten with unruly waves stood quiet and immoveable after the infliction of so many deadly wounds they deride his patience and triumph at their evil doings he speaks not as an enemy striving with his fierce adversaries but as a Father bemoaning his infants or a Physician his patients strugling with a grievous disease and presents them to an omnipotent hand to cure their odious infirmities This is the force of an upright charity not when one is reputed to have no enemies and have