Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bring_v	sin_n	world_n	1,507	5	4.7924	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93124	Two sermons preached in St. Maries Church in Cambridge. By Robert Sheringham, Master of Arts, and Fellow of Gunvil and Caius Colledge.	Sheringham, Robert, 1602-1678.	1645 (1645)	Wing S3239; Thomason E285_1; ESTC R200065	41,774	103

healed I come now to speak of the last part which is His confession of the cause of those wounds in these words For I have sinned against thee The right method of healing requires that wee shew the cause of the malady as far as we are able for the cause being removed the effect will cease that David doth here in these last words For I have sinned against thee And this last part of my Text is that which we are chiefly to look upon and to take into consideration For before as I have shewed you hee gave occasion to those that were of the Church to sin to those that were out of it to blaspheme first he commits adultery and after that as if adultery were to be purged by murther or as if Uriah's lost honour had been to be repaired by the losse of his life hee commands him to be unjustly murthered But here you may see him marking out the way to repentance and going himselfe before to direct us For as hee was not ashamed to commit sin so hee was not ashamed to confesse it and to make publick satisfaction to the whole world for my Text and many other places of the Psalmes remaine as it were so many publick registers of his sins hee sighed and wept and lamented day and night and in a word shewed all the marks and tokens of an humble and contrite heart broken with the sense of his sins and the apprehension of Gods anger against them If a gold ring be broken it loseth part of its grace and lustre but if ye set a diamond or a saphyr or a ruby in the broken place it gives a greater lustre then it did before so David by his sins lost part of that grace and lustre that made him shine so brightly in the Church of God but his confession humility repentance and other vertues like so many precious stones set in a gold ring in the place where it was broken hath made him shine brighter after his fall then in his former times of innocence for as his sinnes were great so was his sorrow and repentance and I would to God that all men which have eyes to see the one had eyes also to see the other and could learn not to love that in David which David hated in himselfe This generall confession containeth in it three particular confessions which are the heads I purpose at this time by Gods help to insist upon First here is a confession in respect of the subject Secondly here is a confession in respect of the act Thirdly here is a confession in respect of the object The subject I. The act Have sinned The object Against thee I will begin with the first that is his confession in respect of the subject I have sinned that is I alone not as a partiall and lesse principall cause necessitated and compelled by a cause more active and powerfull then my selfe but by the free and full consent of my will I have so sinned that these sins are properly and onely mine It is the custome of many to excuse themselves and impute their sins to others or at least they will charge others to have had such a causality and influence upon them that they will seeme themselves to be but partiall causes at the most In Solomons time two mothers contended for one child and both of them challenged it to be their owne but when sinne is borne and brought into the world the contention is who shall not have it in this case the true mother would have the child divided as in that the false the Will whose child it is will not acknowledge it for her owne and when shee cannot wholly impose it upon others shee desires at least to have it divided between them Some impute their sins to the Devill and to the violence of his temptations as if hee did forcibly and irresistibly procure them to sin and this is a kind of hereditary disease which we take from our first parents for after Eve had transgressed the commandement of God by eating the forbidden fruit to excuse the matter shee laid the fault upon the Divell The Serpent said shee beguiled me and I did eat But David here useth no such evasions I have sinned saith hee hee condemnes himselfe and not the Divell and yet the Divell sinned as well as David and if Saint Augustines opinion be true the Divell sinned worse then David Lib. 3. de libero arbitrio cap. 10. Gravius est peccatum alteri per invidentiam dolúmque suadere quàm ad peccandum alterius suasione traduci saith hee speaking of the temptations of the Divell But yet David accuseth not the Divell who did only tempt but could not constrain him to sin for all that the Divell can doe is to allure and induce men by morall perswasions hee cannot physically determine their wils to evill hee may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tom. 6. Homil 91. as Saint Chrysostome speaks supplant cozen and deceive a man but he cannot force him to doe evill When the Divell tempted our Saviour Christ in the wildernesse without question hee imployed all the power hee had to make him sin and yet hee could not force him to it nay hee did not so much as offer to make him sin by force for if yee consider all the passages between them yee shall find great Boldnesse great Pride and great Malice in his temptations but no force at all his first temptation as they are writ in order by Saint Luke was this Luke 4.3 If thou be the Son of God command this stone that it be made bread Here is great boldnesse in this temptation What will nothing but a miracle serve the turne Must Christ turn stones into bread to satisfie his curiosity This was a bold request indeed but yet you see hee doth not force his consent but beg it The second temptation after hee had set him upon a mountaine and showne him all the kingdomes of the world was this All this power will I give thee and the glory of them for that is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will I give it if thou therefore wilt worship mee all shall be thine Here is great pride in this temptation a pride greater then that that made him fall from heaven for then hee said Ascendam super excelsa nubis similis ero Altissimo I will ascend above the highest of the clouds I will be like the most High Isa 14.14 but here his pride reacheth a degree higher hee desires to be greater then God and requires of him that hee would fall down and worship him but yet you see here is no force in this temptation If thou wilt worship mee saith hee all shall be thine hee leaves him here to his own free choice if hee will hee may if hee will not hee offers not by any violent assault to make him His third temptation after hee had set him upon the pinnacle of the Temple was this If thou be the

making God the first mover and principall actor and themselves onely his under agents in sinning and this indeed hath alwayes been a common custome as Solomon long before St. Augustines time complained The foolishnesse of man saith hee perverteth his way and his soul fretteth against the Lord Prov. 19.3 But David here accuseth not God hee clears him as well as others and indeed it had been the most intolerable and unjust excuse that he could have invented for doe but look upon the world and yee shall see it the summe of perfection it is as a table whereon the divine Wisdome hath expressed many rich inventions and displayed them all in such colours as it is impossible any thing should be more compleat absolute and perfect if there be any disorders or any thing imperfect in it they are the effects of second causes and were not made so by God and if no disorder or no imperfect thing can come from God then surely no sin which is nothing else but disorder and imperfection Let no man then pin his sinnes upon God or thinke within himselfe that God constrained him to sin Say not thou It is through the Lord that I fell away for thou oughtest not to doe that which hee hateth Say not thou Hee hath caused me to erre for hee hath no need of the sinfull man Ecclus 15.11 12. God created not the world because hee wanted a place to be in neither did he create men because hee wanted some to set forth his goodnesse by their praises and others to under-prop his glory by their sins for God was in himselfe before hee created the world and was both the Theater and the Judge of his owne action his owne applause and approbation of himselfe was sufficient to his own happinesse though men had never been created God was as happy before hee made the world as hee hath been since and should be as happy if it were turned into nothing as hee is Let no man therefore think that God hath need of the sinner or that it is hee which procures his fall for whosoever sinneth puls down ruine upon himselfe hee is not Gods instrument but the principall cause of his owne wickednesse Loe this onely have I found saith Solomon that God hath made man upright but they have sought out many inventions Eccles 7.29 David therefore here layes all the fault upon himselfe hee cleares God nay hee cleares all the world I have sinned not God nor the stars nor the Divell but I alone It is onely I that have sinned And this is the first part of Davids confession wherein hee confesseth his sin to be his owne and thus must wee doe too The first thing that wee are to confesse is that our sins are our own wee must not seek to another authour for them nor ascribe them to any predominant cause if our souls be wounded as Davids was the fault is our own Other things may hurt our bodies but they cannot hurt our souls the soule hath an immunity and priviledge in this respect above the body nothing can hurt it but it selfe Therefore now thus saith the Lord the God of hosts the God of Israel Wherefore commit you this great evill against your soules to cut off from you man and woman child and suckling out of Judah to leave you none to remain Jer. 44.7 Wherefore commit you this great evill against your souls The Prophet condemns them here you see as the onely causes of their owne ruine they were the contrivers of their own destruction they committed evill against their own souls and were not subservient instruments to another Let us not then strive to excuse our sins our sins are our owne committed willingly and freely by us and therefore wee must not blame others but our selves Yea our sins are so truly our own that there is nothing in the world so much our owne as they for in respect of all other things wee are stewards not owners the dispensation is ours but not the propriety but our sins are truly ours we are the owners and proprietaries of them Other things are none of ours wee our selves are not our own our bodies and soules are none of ours 1 Cor. 6.19 20. but Gods and hee may dispose of them as hee pleases and when our bodies or souls or any thing that wee possesse are called our owne it is not in respect of an absolute and independent but in respect of a limited and dependent right which we hold under him for we gave not our selves a being but received it of God yea we were so farre from giving our selves a being when wee were not that wee cannot continue our being now wee have it the world hath no lesse need of his assistance now then at the first creation and when it shall have lasted ten thousand yeers it shall be still in its minority it must be no lesse sustained by God when it is old then in its first infancy And as wee our selves are not our owne but Gods so our actions are none of ours but his he co-operates with all his creatures and gives them vertue and strength to performe their actions Had they not a continuall supply and contribution of power and strength from him the starres would lose their light the heavens their influence all things would become naked disarmed and stript of all their qualities all the old elements would be dissolved and in stead of them darknesse silence horror and confusion would be the new elements of the world Wee cannot so much as eat or drink or move or speak without him for in him wee live and move and have our being Acts 17.28 not onely our being but our life and motion that is all our actions are from him Now if we be neither owners of our selves nor of our actions then surely those things which are without us as riches honours and whatsoever else is in the world is none of ours wee cannot call our selves the proprietaries of them But for our sins they are truly our own God hath no right at all in them wee produce them and give them a being of our selves and therefore they are as truely ours as any thing is his which hee created But some perhaps will say that God concurres as well to evill actions as to good and therefore if our good actions must not be imputed to our selves but to God our evill actions ought likewise to be imputed to him To this I answer that God concurreth to evill actions in such a manner as they cannot without injustice be imputed to him It s true when a man sins God assists the sinner and concurres with him in all subservient actions that are requisite to the sin yet the concourse of God is so innocent so pure so void of all malice that no man can without execrable blasphemy call God the authour of that sin For there are two different things to be considered in every evill act the first is the substance and