Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	call_v	good_a	sin_n	1,729	5	4.5767	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92869	Zions deliverance and her friends duty: or The grounds of expecting, and meanes of procuring Jerusalems restauration. In a sermon preached at a publicke fast, before the Honourable House of Commons. By William Sedgvvicke, minister of Farnham in Essex.	Sedgwick, William, 1609 or 10-1669?	1642 (1642)	Wing S2392; Thomason E107_2; ESTC R18932	30,447	59

they that will deale with such must come armed with the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony Apoc. 12.11 And faith onely knowes how to use these You should carry the blood of the Lambe alwaies about you weare it in your hearts and thinke you have to doe with the enemies of that Christ that shed his blood for you against those that trample that blood under their feet by their superstition and prophanenesse such as are bloody enemies that thirst for the blood of Saints Faith will strengthen your hearts by the Word of God and assure you that in all your paines you worke in the belly of a promise and what you doe is to make God faithfull you are doing that which he hath promised to doe himselfe advance his Sonne and pull downe his enemies You want establishing mercies If you will not beleeve you shall not be established Isay 7.9 You want conquering mercies This is the victory that overcommeth the world even your Faith Nothing can stand against Faith Resist the devill stedfast in Faith and he will flye from you If God give more faith we need not feare more difficulties We may say as Paul I can doe all things through Christ that strengtheneth me Philip. 4.13 Dye under enemies or live to conquer them Therefore beleeve and you shall see the glory of God Joh. 11.40 and Jerasalem a praise in the earth Thirdly If you would give God no rest you must in praying and doing quit your selves and seeke the glory of God and the good of the Church First you must not seeke your selves Selfe is too base and low a thing to move a God with as at all times so now especially selfe must be below your thoughts and not worth your meanest considerations You especially I speake to whom God hath taken up into the mount as Moses to doe his businesse and to bring to us just and righteous lawes You must now doe as the Church is exhorted to doe Psal 45.10 11. Forget thy Fathers house thinke not of raising your estates advancing your selves or your posterity So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty The King of heaven will take pleasure in you and he will make the King on earth delight in you Would you overcome difficulties without labour first to overcome your selves You can doe nothing great and honourable so long as selfe hath any power in you Selfe and sinister ends would blast and undermine your consultations and divide you into as many wayes as you are men If every man should seeke his owne and not the things of Iesus Christ which would be a mischeife that hell it selfe could not parallel to speake our thoughts we feare no treason but selfe If you continue all to seeke the glory of God you will be too strong for any power either to divide or breake The first step of Israels deliverance was Moses stepping out of him selfe Heb. 11.24 25 26. He refused to be called the sonne of Pharaohs daughter God would not imploy him till he had learned to refuse Court offers Chusing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season A good patterne for publike persons rather be poore with honesty and a good cause then rise by Apostasy And had he not continued faithfull and constant in selfe-denyall Israel had beene lost Exod. 32.10 It was a hard pull God was angry and would have consumed Israel there was nothing lay in the way but Moses his sincerity and faithfulnesse to the cause If he could be wrought off the businesse was at an end God himselfe tries him Let me alone c. and I will make of thee a great Nation I will make thee great and raise thy house to a Nation But Moses is deafe to such offers he will not be taken off so he pursues his worke faithfully nothing will serve him but Israels deliverance such faithfulnesse to the cause of God had you need have The Apostle tels us 1 Tim. 6.9 They that will be rich fall into temptation and asnare and into many foolish and hurtfull lusts which drowne men in perdition and destruction If you will be rich or great you will have temptations and fall and drowne too in perdition You and Cause and Kingdome and all will drowne and perish if selfe-ends bias you Saul went right a while till faire Agag and the fat of Amaleh lay in his way till a rich booty turned him from his obedience see the story 1 Sam. 15. and the dangerous consequence of it What ever pretence he had for his sinne in sparing those wicked enemies of the Church that the people would have it and it was for sacrifice yet saith Samuel to him ver 26. Thou hast rejected the Word of the Lord and the Lord hath rejected thee from being King over Israel Neither people nor false piety nor pity can excuse neglect of Justice in Governours If you would doe great things for God Ier. 40.5 you must not now seeke great things for your selves Indeed you must be above the world and your selves You had need be more then men such as John Baptist was your worke is like his to pull downe mountaines and exalt vallies to make crooked things straight and rough things smooth And as he had so you have to deale with a generation of Vipers Now our Saviour shewes by way of question what he was not and what he was Matth. 11.7 8 9. What went you out to see a reed shaken with the wind No he was no light unstable man that would fluctuate and vacillate at every wind of threatning greatnesse What went you out to see A man cloathed in soft rayment No such they are in Kings houses John was no such man he could not suite Herods humour nor flatter his sinnes He would not alter his habit of Camels haire the Court could not change him What then went you out to see a Prophet Yea I say more then a Prophet Such should you be neither shaken with threatnings nor won by softnesse men stedfast in justice yea Counsellers and more then Counsellers As you may not seeke your selves so you must seeke the honour of God that 's the way to be more then men in our actions to be divine in our ends All other ends are too low for the meanest man much more for so great a Councell This is the way to prevaile with God ●he readily imbraces any proposition this way If any man have a designe to advance his name what ever be the impediments it must prosper for you cannot have a thought this way but God will second it He can as soone desert himselfe as those that worke for his glory If you find any thing that may exalt his Majesty and he give you a heart faithfully to desire it be it what or where it will you need not despaire though it lye under mountaines of Kingdomes you shall thresh them to dust Isa 41.15 though