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	soul_n	whole_a	1,465	5	5.4082	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44691	Self-dedication discoursed in the anniversary thanksgiving of a person of honour for a great deliverance. By J.H.	Howe, John, 1630-1705.	1682 (1682)	Wing H3038AA; ESTC R215393	32,263	171

his peculiar sacrificing also was In the addition of living the design is carry'd on of speaking both by way of allusion and opposition to the ritual sacrificing By way of allusion For a Morticinum any thing dead of it self the Israelites were not to eat themselves because they were an holy People though they might give it to a stranger much more had it been detestable as a sacrifice to God The beast must be brought alive to the Altar Whereas then we are also to offer our bodies a living sacrifice so far there must be an agreement Yet also a difference seems not obscurely suggested The victim brought alive to be sacrificed was yet to be slain in sacrificing But here living may also signify continuing to live You q. d. may be Sacrifices and yet live on According to the strict notion we find given of a Sacrifice it is somewhat to be in the prescribed way destroy'd and that must perish in token of their entire devotedness to God who offer it When we offer our selves life will not be toucht by it or at all impair'd but improved and ennobled highly by having a sacredness added to it Your bodies are to be offered a sacrifice but an unbloudy one Such as you have no cause to be startled at it carries no dread with it life will be still whole in you Which shews by the way 't is not an inanimate body without the Soul But the bodily life is but alluded to and supposed 't is an higher and more excellent one that is meant The spiritual divine life as Chap. 6.13 yield your selves to God as those that are alive from the dead And vers 11. shews what that being alive means Reckon your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ. Alive by a life which means God which aims at him terminates in him and is deriv'd to you through Christ. As he also speaks Gal. 2.19 20. I am dead to the Law that I might live to God I am crucify'd with Christ. Neverthess I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me Holy though it be included in the word Sacrifice is not in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and was therefore added without verbal tautology And there were however no real one For there is an holiness that stands in an entire rectitude of heart and life by which we are conform'd in both to the nature and will of God besides the relative one which redounds upon any person or thing by due dedication to him And which former is pre-required in the present Sacrifice that it may be as it follows acceptable to God not as though thereby it became acceptable but as that without which it is not so Yet also holiness in the nature of the thing cannot but be gratefull to God or well-pleasing as the word here used signifies but not so as to reconcile a person to him who was before a sinner and hath still sin in him But supposing the state of such a person first made and continued good that resemblance of himself cannot but be pleasing in the eyes of God but fundamentally and statedly in and for Christ as 1 Pet. 2.5 before quoted This therefore signifies both how ready God is to be well pleased with such a Sacrifice and also signifies the quality of the Sacrifice it self that it is apt to please Reasonable service or worship as the word signifies This is also spoken accommodately to the notion given before of offering our selves in opposition to the former victims wherein Beasts were the matter of the Sacrifice Those were brute Sacrifices You q. d. are to offer reasonable ones And it signifies our minds and understandings the seat of reason with our wills and affections that are to be governed by it must all be ingredient as the matter of that Sacrifice Implying also the right God hath in us whence nothing can be more reasonable than to offer our selves to him Present that is dedicate devote your selves set your selves before God as they did sistere ad altare present at the altar the destin'd Sacrifices make them stand ready for immolation You are so to make a tender of your selves as if you would say Lord here I am wholly thine I come to surrender my self my whole life and being to be entirely and always at thy dispose and for thy use Accept a devoted self-resigning Soul Thus we are brought to the thing it self Which now 2. In the next place with less regard to the allusive terms we come more distinctly to open and explain It is briefly but the dedicating of our selves Or as it is 2 Cor. 8.5 The giving our own selves to the Lord. So those Macedonian Converts are said to have done And there is a special notice to be taken therein of the word first which puts a remarkableness upon that passage The Apostle is commending their liberal Charity towards indigent necessitous Christians And shews how their Charity was begun in Piety They did not onely most freely give away their substance for the relief of such as were in want but first they gave their own selves to the Lord. But that we may not misconceive the nature of this act of giving our selves we must know it is not donation in the strict and proper sense such as confers a right upon the Donee or to him to whom a thing is said to be given We cannot be said to collate or transfer a right to him who is before Dominus absolutus The onely Proprietor and Supreme Lord of all It is more properly but a tradition a surrender or delivery of our selves upon the supposal and acknowledgment of his former right Or the putting our selves into his possession for his appointed uses and services out of which we had injuriously kept our selves before 'T is but giving him his own as 1 Cron. 29.14 All things come of thee and of thine own have we given thee It is onely a consent and obedience to his most rightfull claim and demand of us or a yeilding our selves to him as it is significantly exprest in the mentioned 6. to the Rom. 13. Though there the word is the same with that in the Text which here we reade present And now that we may more distinctly open the nature of this Self-dedication we shall shew what ought to accompany and qualify it that we may be a suitable and gratefull Present to him in evangelical acceptation worthy of God such as he requires and will accept 1. It must be done with knowledge and understanding It cannot but be an intelligent act 'T is an act of Religion and Worship as it is called in the Text Service we reade it which is much more general but the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worship 'T is indeed the first and fundamental act