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	great_a	know_v	2,096	5	3.3529	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42772	An usefull case of conscience discussed and resolved concerning associations and confederacies with idolaters, infidels, hereticks, or any other known enemies of truth and godlinesse. By Master George Gillespie, late minister at Edinburgh. Whereunto is subjoyned a letter, written by him to the commissioners of the Generall Assembly, in the time of his sicknesse: together with his testimony unto this truth, written two dayes before his death.	Gillespie, George, 1613-1648.	1649 (1649)	Wing G762A; ESTC R213029	21,990	42

{non-Roman} or Covenants of peace 2. Distinguish between endeavour of duty and the perfection of the thing which answers that exception O then we must have an Army all of Saints it should bee said without any known wicked person in it Now even as t is our dutie to endeavour a purging of the Church from wicked and scandalous persons yet when we have done all we can the Lords field shall not bee perfectly purged from tares till the end of the world Matth. 13. So when we have done all that ever we can to avoid wicked persons in an expedition yet we cannot be rid of them all but we must use our utmost indeavours that we may be able to say t is our affliction not our fault 3 Distinguish between some particular wicked persons here and there mixing themselves with us and between a wicked faction and malignant party The former should be avoided as much as is possible but much more a conjunction with a wicked faction David would by no meanes meet and consult with the Kabal meregn●m the Assembly of Malig●ants neither did he only shunne to meet and consult with vaine persons who openly shew and bewray themselves but even with dissemblers or as the Chaldee with those that hide themselves that they may do evill Psal. 26. 4 5. We can know better how to do with a whole field of tares in which is no wheat then we can do with tares growing here and there among the wheat 4. Distinguish between such a fellowship with some wicked persons as is necessary which is the case of those that are Married and of Parents and Children or unavoidable which is the case of those whose lot is to cohabite in one Town or in one Family in a case of necessity travelling or sayling together Distinguish I say between these and an elective or voluntary fellowship with wicked men when love to them or our own benefite draweth us thereunto We neither loose naturall bonds nor require impossibilities but that we keep our selves pure by not choosing or consenting to such fellowship 5. Distinguish between infidels hereticks wicked persons repenting and those who go on in their trespasse what ever men have been yet as soone as the signes of repentance and new fruits appear in them we are ready to receive them into favour and fellowship Then indeed the Wolfe shall dwell with the Lamb and the Cow and the Bear shall feed their young ones shall lye down together meaning such as were Wolves Leopards Beares and now begin to change their nature not so with the obstinate contumacious and impenitent who still remain Wolves c Let us now 1. Examine our selves whether there be so much tendernesse of conscience in us as to close vvith those Scripture Truths or whether we are still in a way of consulting vvith flesh and blood 2. Be humbled for former miscarriages and failings in these particulars and for not vvalking accurately according to these Scripture Rules 3. Bevvare for the future remember and apply these Rules vvhen vve have to do vvith the practise of them And that I may drive home this naile to the head I adde beside what was said before these Reasons and Motives First t is a great judgement when God mingleth a perverse Spirit in the midst of a people Isay 19. 14. shall we then make that a voluntary act of our own which the Word mentioneth as a dreadfull judgement With this spirituall judgement is oftentimes joyned a temporall judgement as 2 Chron. 16. 9. and 20. 37. and 28. 20. so Hos. 5. 13. 7 8 compared with Hos. 8. 8 9. where their judgement soundeth forth their sin as by an Eccho The Chaldee paraprase in the place last cited saith The house of Israel is delivered into the hands of the people whom they loved Secondly remember what followed upon Gods peoples mingling themselves with the heathen Psal. 106. 35. They were mingled among the heathen and learned their workes Hos. 7. 8. E●hraim he hath mixed himself among the people that is by making confederacies with the heathen as Lu●ther expounds the place and by seeking their help and assistance Hos. 5. 13. But what followes Ephraim is a cake not turned hot and overbaken in the neither side but cold and raw in the upper side This will prove the fruit of such confederacies and associations to make us zealous for some earthly or humane thing but remise and cold in the things of Christ to be too hote on our neither side and too raw on the upper side Whereas not mingling our selves with the wicked we shall through Gods mercy be like a cake turned that heat and zeal which was before downward shall now be upward heavenward Godward let it be also remembred how both Ahaz ●Kings 16. 10 and Asa himself 2 Chron. 16. 10. though a good man were drawn into other great sins upon occasion of these associations with the enemies of God and his people this sin will certainly ensnare men in other sins T is well said by Calvin upon Ezek. 16. 26. that as we are too prone of our selves to wickednesse so when we enter into confederacies with wicked men we are but seeking new tentations and as it were a bellows to blow up our own corruptions as wine being mixed with water loseth of its spirits and white being mixed with black loseth much of its vvhitenesse so the people of God if once mixed vvith vvicked enemies shall certainly losse of their purity and integrity Thirdly as these unlavvfull confederacies dravv us both into great judgements and great sins so into a great security and stupidity under these great plagues and sins vvhich vvill make the estate of such to be yet vvorse Hos. 7. 9. after Ephraims mixing himself among the people t is added Strangers have devoured his strength and he knoweth it not yea gray haires are here and there upon him yet he knoweth it not although his confederates have distressed him and not strengthned him and although there may be observed in him diverse signes of a decaying dying condition yet he knowe● it not nor takes it to heart The same thing is insisted upon vers 11. Ephraim als●● is like a silly Dove without heart They call to Egypt they go up to Assyria He is as voide of understanding as a silly Dove whose nest being spoiled and her young ones token from her vvhich the Chaldee paraphrase addeth for explications cause yet she still returneth to those places vvhere and among those people by vvhom she hath been so spoiled So Israel vvill still bee meddling vvith those that have done him great hurt Fourthly vve finde that such confederacie or association either vvith idolaters or knovvn impious persons is seldome or never recorded in the Book of God vvithout a reproof or some greater marke of Gods displeasure put upon it If it vvere like the Polygamie of the P●triarchs often mentioned and not reproved it vvere the lesse marvell to hear it so much debated But novv