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	part_n	way_n	1,424	5	4.6103	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77757	God all in all or The highest happines of the saints. Jn [sic] two parts. The I. Asserting this happiness to consist in the enjoyment of God. II. Enquiring into the quality of that enjoyment. Together with a short appendix, wherein is very briefly considered, the claim of natural reason, and private inspirations to a guidance of us in the things of God. Also what courses dishonour the Gospel, and what duties we owe it. By Edward Buckler, preacher of the Gospel.	Buckler, Edward, 1610-1706.	1655 (1655)	Wing B5349; Thomason E1442_2; ESTC R209631	53,023	167

dilige fac quicquid vis said to Christ God doth freely say us First love me and then do what you will 3. All our abilities all our doings and sufferings will finde no entertainment above unlesse this love of God give them a certificate that they came from her See 1 Cor. 13.1 2. 4. 'T is something that this will continue to be a duty when most duties else shall be obsolete and out of date they are practicable on earth this in heaven They have their time this its eternity Now if there be so much of excellency in the Object God and in the Act Fruition this is motive enough if the Lord will vouchsafe to set it on to aspire after the enjoyment of God above all the enjoyments else that are under the Sunne SECT IX Some brief Directions as to the forementioned Duty IF the Saints would be as much in heaven as is here possible and grow up more and more in this unspeakable happinesse of enjoying God they must follow these directions First you must endeavour to encrease your knowledge of God and your acquaintance with those excellencies that he is cloath'd withall Much of that time which you spend in the study of other things will be very well worth the redemption to be laid out upon this * Incognitum non potest amari Aug. What you doe not know you cannot love what you doe not love you cannot so much as desire to enjoy There must be some appresion of the object before there can be any motion of the faculty toward it See before Sect. 2. Secondly you must endeavour to get and maintain an assurance of your interest in God give all diligence to put this out of question 2 Pet. 1.10 If there be never so much beauty goodnesse love power grace holynesse c. in God you can never enjoy it in case it be not or you think it is not there for you Fruition doth presuppose propriety and some knowledge of it He that is in his sins God will not own him and he that is in Christ and yet doubts it will not easily be perswaded to own God and be sure to build your assurance upon good grounds I have read of a melancholy man that supposed all the Ships in such a Haven to be his own * Thrasilaus putavit omnes naves in Pireum portum appella ntes suas esse and of a Gentlewoman in Mantua who would not be perswaded but that she was married to a King * Marcel Donatus de hist. med mirab l. 2. c. 1. as that poor man enjoyed those vessels which he had no title to an inch of and that woman the husband whom she never saw so doe those men God who have no interest in him but in a dream Thirdly abate of your desires to enjoy other things Love not the world that is Let not your hearts go out immoderately after it if any man doe so the love of the Fathers is not in him 1 Ioh. 2.15 A River let out into many channels must needs run the shallower in some 'T is grown into a Proverb that those persons who love over-many are never wont to love over-much * Alterius vires subtrahit alter amor The love of God and of the world are like two buckets in a Well while one goes up the other goes down We must leak our hearts and let out all that is too much of our love to the world they will then be the better at leisure to contemplate the beauty and to be ravisht with the excellencies of our God Shall we suffer any thing to be competitors for our hearts with him What is the enjoyment of a wife a child a friend an estate an office a command to the enjoyment of a God Indeed what is any thing to him before whom all the Nations of the world are lesse than nothing Isa 40.17 Fourthly walk close with God the nearer you walk up to him the more you are like to enjoy of him More particularly 1. Walk lovingly Let all your doings be done in charity 1 Cor. 16.14 Let Gods love in your souls be as a weight in the scale * Quod est pondus in librâ hoc est amor in animâ carrying all your designes its own way Let this love be the poize of all your actions and goe no other way but whither this shall lead you * Amor meus pondus meum illo feror quocunque feror Draw out the exercise of this grace as far upward toward God as you are able Love is a sociable affection it will carry you into the company of God and bring him into yours you are promised so much in Ioh. 14.23 If a man love me my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him 2. Walk beleevingly Keep your eye of Faith as open as you can you have no way else of seeing him who is invisible Heb. 11.27 Neither is God wont to dwell in our hearts but by faith Eph. 3.17 If this eye of our soul be shut or drowsie we may say with Augustine Mecum eras non eram tecum God was with us but we were not with him We can have no converse even with those friends that are about us whilst we are asleep In a word 3. Walk holily This is to walk with God Gen. 5.24 and to have our conversation in heaven Phil. 3.20 then is God most enjoyed when a gracious life shall goe along an equal pace with a gracious heart if the Saints cannot sin themselves out of Gods favour yet they may out of his familiarity How often in Scripture is peace and comfort and the enjoyment of God promised unto his people in a way of holinesse See Psal 50.23 Galat. 6.16 Phil. 4.8 9. Pretend what you will you converse but a little with God who converse much with sin See 2 Cor. 6.16 1 Ioh. 1.6 7. SECT X. Of the enjoyment of God in Ordinances BEcause the most ordinary way of Gods conversing with his Saints here in the body is by his Ordinances as we have in part seen before Sect. 6. I shall enquire briefly into the causes why the Saints many times enjoy so little of God in them that they may see and remove those abatements of their felicity Is it not 1. Because we doe not seek God in his Ordinances but think we may enjoy as much of him any where else To how many are the Ordinances of God as indifferent things If once it become indifferent to men whether they eat and drink or not no wonder if they find neither their palats pleas'd nor their bodies nourished Qu. May not God be enjoyed his goodnesse love and sweetness tasted out of Ordinances as well as in them Sol. If this may be yet see whether 1. It be to be injoied by those that neglect his Ordinances What did the King do when such as were invited to his feast made light of it