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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bring_v	great_a	king_n	3,018	5	3.5536	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89580	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, now assembled in Parliament, at their publike fast, November 17. 1640. Upon 2 Chron. 15. 2. The Lord is with you, while yee bee with him: and if yee seek him, he will be found of you: but if yee forsake him, he will forsake you. / By Stephen Marshall, Batchelour in Divinity, minister of Finchingfield in Essex. Published by order of the said House.	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1641 (1641)	Wing M776; Thomason E204_9; ESTC R212613	31,991	52

any man should happen to lose his life in the Lords quarrell as the Angell said to Daniel Hee shall stand up in his lot Hee shall rise up and follow CHRIST cloathed with glory Revelations the nineteenth the Armies in Heaven that followed Christs triumphant Chariot were such as were holy and faithfull and loved not their lives to the death Would not this move any man to bee on Gods side Lastly Honoured and beloved in the Lord let the consideration of your great place and office that God Almighty hath called you to raise up your spirits to endeavour great things for the LORD For my part I am too weak to fathome in my thoughts what the great worke is to which you are called together by God You are met to seeke the good of the Land the good of the Church a greater charge than the salvation of your owne soules is put into your hands It may bee not onely our welfare and peace and Religion but even the welfare of all Christendome under God depends upon your meeting That God that might have left you as I said to bee hewers of Wood and drawers of Water hath called you to bee Repairers of all our breaches and the Prayers and blessings of all GODS people are upon you The eyes of all the Nation next under GOD and our gracious Soveraigne are fixed upon you Oh what a mighty tye doth this put upon the soule of every one of you to lay aside all businesse and pleasures and lusts and ends of his owne and solely to study how to advance CHRISTS cause and appeare where Christ would have him appeare Your work is great our evills are many but be not discouraged onely rememember that God is with you while you are with him As it is in Zech. 4. Who art thou O great Mountaine before my servant Zorobabel thou shalt become a plaine If God be with Zorobabel Mountaines shall become Plaines before him God can make those things that you apprehending as Hydra's and Monsters would tremble to thinke of to fall before you as the leaves of a tree There is a notable storie of Luther when hee first came out against the Pope Albertus Cranzius a Bishop that liked well his project but thought it impossible to bring it to passe wrote to Luther Frater Frater abi in cellam dic miserere mei Deus Frier Frier goe to thy Cloyster and say Lord have mercy upon mee this worke is too hard for thee yet Luther wrought wonders One Luther will doe great things if GOD bee with him One Parliament may doe great things if God bee with them Resolve upon it this day to bee for God make this another blessed seventeenth of November But if through feare treachery cowardise pride or sloth you withdraw your selves from Gods work Deliverance shall come to Gods people another way and you for your part shall not onely lose your share in the comfort but you shall bring all the guilt and sinnes that the Nation groanes under to stand upon your owne score before God Yea you will think it is a great word but I speake it not rashly it may bee more guilty than the very Authors of our mischiefes who have beene firme to their owne principles in the bringing of them in and you contrarie to your light and office doe further them if you not withstand them As hee who solicited an Emperour for a pardon for one that had killed two men and received a denyall upon that very reason that the delinquent had twice imbrued his hands in bloud replyed to the Emperour Nay you killed the second for if hee had beene cut off for the first hee had never killed the other So abundance of evills committed by private men are not the sinnes of the Rulers and Princes at the first but may afterwards through their connivence or want of zeale be truely reckoned and accounted theirs God forbid that you should bring so great a burthen upon your own soules and consciences Vp and be doing and the Lord be with you in his cause Now although your wisedomes best know what is to be done and it may seeme unfit to prescribe such a Colledge of Physitians a way of a Cure Yet give mee leave onely to propound one thing even the same which was prest in the forenoone which I suppose would prove a Catholike remedy for all our evills and the greatest meanes for the lengthning out of our tranquillity and the healing of all our distempers that is the promoting establishing and maintaining a faithfull learned painfull preaching Ministery that every Candlesticke may have a Candle that every Flocke may have a faithfull Shepheard to guide them This is the thing I would propound to you This was the course Iehoshaphat tooke who sent Princes and Levites who taught in Judah and went about through all the Cities and taught the people Blessed be God for the light that shines among us Yet I must tell you that of nine or ten thousand parishes which they say are in England I believe there are many thousands which these eighty yeares have not had the blessing to enjoy at the least any long time a setled faithfull preaching Ministery So that I believe and I speak somewhat from experience that many thousands if not thousands of thousands know not the right hand from the left in the very principles of the Doctrine of Christ What ever bee the cause whether it bee that our Lawes and Constitutions are defective whether the negligence or corruption of our Governours whether the want of a preaching maintenance or whether all these bee the fault Certaine it is there hath beene hitherto a {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} somewhat which hath hindred the spreading of it And it is worth your most diligent enquirie whether the neglect of this hath not beene one maine cause of the ill successe of so many former Parliaments Could you provide mercifully for people in this you would make all safe and England would thanke you as long as it is England To incite you be pleased to consider but these two things First we deserve no further the name of a Christian Nation than this is done nor any further than this is advanced This is the Scepter whereby Christ rules The dwelling of his Word with a people is the greatest proof of their owning him for their Prince and his acknowledging them for his owne Subjects Is any Country esteemed a part of a Princes Dominion that is not ruled by his Lawes Neither can any Land be accounted Chists Kingdome where the preaching of the word which is the Rod of his power is not established And the Lord hath ever esteemed the hinderers of his Word to bee the men that would not have Christ rule over them Secondly if all the good Lawes in the world were made without this they would come to nothing order what you can leave this undone you will never doe the thing you aime at

goes if God goe It is a knowne story in the 1. Samuel 4. that when the Arke that was called the glory of God the visible token of Gods presence in the Covenant of Grace was taken Captive by the Philistines Phineas his wife bowed her selfe and travailed and though they after told her that a Man-child was borne shee regarded it not but called his name Ichabod saying The glory is gone because then Gods presence departed from them What need I say any more The worke of the Incarnation of the Sonne of God and the Redemption of the VVorld by him was such that one maine end of making this goodly frame of Heaven and Earth was that it might be the stage upon which that Worke should be acted A worke wherein not onely all mans happinesse lyes and whence it flowes but wherein all Gods Attributes are glorified to the highest and for which the Church Triumphant shall thinke Eternity short enough to prayse God Of this Worke I say the summe is given in one word Immanuel God is with us And plaine Reason may demonstrate that it must needes be so What is glory but the shining out of excellency VVhat is happinesse but the fruition of the greatest good Now there is no Excellency that shines out in any thing like to that which beames out from God in the Covenant of grace to his people There is no good that any people can enjoy like the fruition of God in that Covenant It is true God manifests himselfe to all the Nations in the World in him they live and move and have their being yet it is as in a darke Cloud they grope after him and cannot feele him but in the covenant of grace men behold him with open face like the Sunne shining in his strength as through a Mirrour Such a Mirrour as the Prince of Orange had that would shew the Sunne in his full bignesse and beauty Thus God shines in the Covenant of grace The Prince is virtually present in all places of his Kingdome but his Court is his Glory So where God is in his Covenant there Heaven is therefore this is usually in the Scripture phrase called the Kingdome of Heaven But if yet more particularly you enquire what Gods presence in his Covenant implyes As he who being askt what God was required first a day then two then three alledging that the more he studyed it the lesse able hee found himselfe to answer it So the more I thinke of this the more unable I see my selfe to make a satisfactory answer what I can take thus To the Nation of the Iewes it implyed something which concernes not us but mystically or analogically As to have the Arke Vrim and Thummim to have God to reveale himselfe in Visions and Dreames To answer by Thunder c. which my haste allowes me not leisure to explaine But to them and to all other people Gods presence in the Covenant of Grace implyes these three things First the owning and acknowledging of them to be his owne separated people knit to him in a league of love he is their God they are his people they have a propriety in God and God hath a propriety in them so that they may say of Him This God is our God and God of them This people is my people Now this is the greatest happinesse nothing can exceed it It hath bin often questioned what was the greatest favour that ever Almighty God did for man Some preferre Creation wherein man received his being and excellent endowments some Redemption wherein man is recovered to a better and surer estate than hee injoyed in Creation but out of question to be a Iedediah beloved of God to be neare to God as his Children as his Spouse is the comprehension of all that can be said or thought of the happinesse of a people And if you looke into the Scriptures you shall see that Gods love to his peculiar people is such a love as carryes with it all relations It is the love of a Father to his Children I will be your Father and you shall bee my Sonnes and Daughters saith the Lord Almighty It is the love that a man beares to the wife of his bosome I will marry thee to mee in righteousnes and truth and mercy It is the love of a friend I have called you my friends And Abraham the Father of all that are in Covenant he was stiled The friend of God And from this interest in God flow innumerable priviledges for being thus beloved of God and precious to him it followes that they are accepted in their services that all their sinnes are pardoned and that they have liberty to aske any thing that is good for them When Solomon was beloved of God 2 Kings 3. 5. God bids him Aske what I shall doe for thee It is but aske and have And this is the confidence that wee have in him that if wee aske any thing according to his will he heareth us They have friendship with all his friends In Zach. 8. 23. Ten men shall lay hold upon the skirt of one that is a Iew of whom they be able to say Wee have heard that God is with you Indeed to have God thus making himselfe over to a people to bee their portion to love them and to owne them is not onely an heaven upon earth but the very heaven of heaven Secondly Gods presence with a people in his Covenant implyes Gods assisting them and prospering all the workes they put their hands unto This is the ordinary expression of the Scripture Every thing prospers where God is It is said of David whithersoever Saul sent him he prospered for God was with him Every house where Ioseph came prospered for God was with him In all undertakings in all Counsels for wars for peace for trade c. Gods aid and assistance comes in If they decree a thing God will establish it If they commit their worke to him the very thoughts of their hearts shall be established Whatsoever they doe God will make it to prosper Thou O Lord workest all our workes for us Whereas now if God be absent all mens endeavours are to no purpose in any kind Except the Lord build the house they labour but in vaine that build it It is to no purpose to plough that field that God will have lye fallow Ye earne much saith God but it comes to nothing ye sow much and bring in little ye eate and have not enough yee drinke and are not filled he that earneth wages puts it into a bottomlesse purse What was the reason the Lord blasted all And it must needs be so all the second causes worke onely by vertue of the first the great wheele carries on all the other A notable example of this that Gods presence is mans prosperity wee have in Hag. 2. where when God had told them that the reason of all their ill successe in their

Magistrates and Ministers of Justice will not execute them and people will not obey them The darke places of the Land are ever full of the habitations of wickednesse But if Christ smite the earth with the rod of his mouth the Wolfe shall dwell with the Lambe and the Leopard shall lye downe with the Kid the Calfe and the yong Lion and the fatling together and a little Child shall lead them There shall nothing hurt nor destroy where Christs Scepter rules Your Lawes cannot give men new hearts nor new strength that is the priviledge of the Lawes of Christ The Poets speake of excellent Musitians who by the power of their Musicke made stones leap into Walls beasts to bee tame c. This will doe more this will take the stone out of mens hearts this will give them a new heart this will make all the Commandements easie there is a kinde of omnipotencie in it Ibeseech you amongst all your excellent purposes for our good let this bee the first and chiefest If this will not doe nothing will If they heare not Moses and the Prophets they will not believe though one rise from the dead FINIS LONDON Printed by J. O. for SAMUEL MAN dwelling in St. Pauls Church-yard at the signe of the Swan 1641. Introduction setting forth 1 The fitnesse of the Text Amos 7. 14 15. Ezr. 8. 21. Verse 22. 2 The state of the Iewish Church which occasioned the Text Chap. 14 2 3 4. Verse 7. 3 The coherence and Analysis Verse 7. 4 The division The first part viz. The happinesse of the Church Psal. 139 7 c. Jer 50. 5. Isai. 56. 3 6. Doct. 1. The happinesse of the Church proved 1 By Scriptures Deut. 29. 5. 2 By Reason 2 Cor. 3. 18. The Churches happinesse further explaned to consist 1 Of Gods owning them 2 Cor. 6. Hos. 2. John 14 1 Joh. 5. 14. 2 Of Gods assisting and prospering of them 1 Chr. 11. 9. Gen 39. Job 22. 28 Pro. 16 3. Psal. ●● Isa. 26. 12 Psal. 127 Hag. 1. 6. 9 3 Of Gods protecting and defending of them Acts 7. 9. Gen 7. Vers 10. 2 Chr. 25. Jer 48. 46 Mal. 2. 11. Ier 2. 27. Iudg. 11. 24. Iudg. 16. 24. Use 1. for discouery of the greatest Traitors 1 Sam. 25. 29 Hest. 7. 5. Iudg. 18. 24. 2 Use of the Churches happinesse direction how to lengthen out our happines Ier. 37. ●● 3 Use of the Churches happinesse A ground of protection in any undertaking for God Num. 14. 9. Prov. 18. 10. Expos. in Esai 30. v. 15. The second part viz. The Condition of enjoying that happines 1 Chron. 28 9. 2 Chron. 28. 2. Vers 7. Vers 26. 2 Doct. 1 Cleered of Cavils by a three fold Caution * Psal. 62. 12. 2 Further explicat●d by the resolving of a question Quest What it is to bee with God Answ. 1. Negatively Isai. 58. Micah 6. 2 Affirmatively it imports 3 things 1 To be an holy people Deu. 32 9 Isai. 2. Hos. 14. Eze. 7. 16 Luke 1. 2 To bee true worsh●ppers of God in purity Rev. 14. 4 3 To be on Gods side in all Causes Exod 32. 26. 2 King 19 Num. 25. Ezek. 22. 30. 2 Chron. 18. 2. Use 1. Of the second poynt which is a Vse of deephumiliation Ezek 4. Nahum 2 Because we are 1 Not an holy people Isai 1. 2 Not with God in the matter of hisworship Exo. 33. 5 Ezek 8. 3 Not with God as in gaged in His Cause Ezra 9. 2 Vse Of the escond poynt Exhortation consisting of 3 branches 1 To turn unto God as an holy people 2 Be with God in matters of Religion * Hag. 2. 11 12 c Motives thereunto from the second Commandement Gen. 3. 24 1. * Prov. 6. 34 2. 3. 4. Job 19. 17. Gal. 6. 13 3 Be with God in every cause of God Motives hereunto 1 GOD hath deserved it at your hands 2 Gods cause hath many enemies and few friends 3 GOD hath for punishment to his Church permitted the enemy to prevail very far 4 Gods Cause is the best and his side will prove at last the prevailing party Florus Psal. 110. Dan 12 13 5 The consideration of the office and calling of this house of Parliament should provoke them hereunto above others 2 Chron. 17. 7. Psalm 74. 20. Isaiah 11. 4 c.