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	scripture_n	word_n	1,394	5	4.1742	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43200	A seasonable vvord, or, A plain and tender-hearted epistle to all sincere hearts in Parliament, Army and countrey, who have any willing, though weak desires to glorifie their Heavenly Father in their holy conversations : wherein is briefly urged, that Gods doing calls for the saints duties, experience of divine love requiring Christians seriously to eye it, and in their hearts and lives to act in a suitableness to it by Thomas Hearne, a friend to the truth.	Hearne, Thomas.	1650 (1650)	Wing H1309A; ESTC R10367	8,963	14

let solid and experienced Christians judg 4. Whether your contending for Subjects Liberty though in its time order and season every way desirable have not more made you the servants of sin then before mistake me not I say not so pardon me if I say it be my fear of many of my friends what is freedom if we we are led by the devil at his will My dear friends let us not put the Cause before its Effect Liberty of soul must be first I know t is our best work I do observe in my walkings abroad that many cry O what Tyranny do we groan under T is true Oppression where found when felt is a burden I wish t were less where there 's any but yet let not us neglect our souls Who cries out upon its corrupt heart who sayes in seriousness in humility O I have the devil loading it within whiles I cry out for liberty to my estate my body in my heart I am the servant to corruptions Alas what infatuated souls have we thus to begin at the wrong end of our business this t is to be ignorant of that which if not known we shal be hurl'd from God as far as Satan and sin can cast us Ah do not mistake me I am far from censuring any my confidence drawn from experience of many of you is that God hath really begun his good work on you all that I contend for is this that you that have so long lived in the Court the Presence the special Presence of God that you should now look again with affectionate glances on your Dalilahs your bosom-corruptions shal not this Proverb be verified on you I hope it shall The burnt childe dreads the fire have you not smarted for sin heretofore if not call out your weepings sobs sighs bemoanings were not these on this account O my heart is hard my affections frozen my wil perverse was it not for this end that the pleasent face of God might shine on you have you an answer to your cravings and will you now be wanton Are you come so neer the Land of Rest and now will you to Egypt again Ah friends shall I write with Tears or Ink truly t is no time of dallying t is good to examine your selves take Pauls grave Exhortation Try your selves know you not that Christ is in you unless you are reprobates God must be the King of your hearts or else your walkings must have the character of hell on them you cannot but know that Christ scorns to have sin his irreconcileable Enemy his Competitor t is his design to destroy the works of the devil abroad in the world will he leave him your hearts if you are his to command in then Is it not an affront to Royal Majesty to have a Rebel raign in any of his Dominions It can never be that heaven should be in your hearts and hell in your lives that grace should be within and yet turn the Gospel of grace into wantonness without this is intollerable as you are in heart you will be in life there may be a form of godliness without the power the power of godliness can never be without the form many may make a shew in the flesh that are not sincere in heart none can be sincere at heart but will glorifie God in their souls and bodies such indeed as are as some to my grief are who fetch their principles from their brains have their experience in their brains too heart-experience flows from Gods power and presence in the heart Indeed I have in my retired hours seriously pondered what might be the cause of these sad departings of Saints from the faith and I finde these the causes 1. Our not watching over our hearts when these are not called to an exact account I can say this by sad experience they will quickly cast in such temptations as will either deaden or withdraw poor souls from a cautious exact conscionable walking before God a watchful Christian is not easily insnared as long as souls are on their watch Satan lyes close but when security hath entertainment then in comes Satan and gives if grace do not mightily work a dreadful foyl this is true in our experiences when we feared sin when we trembled at the least inclination to corruption O then how holy were we how eminent both in experiences and practice but since that time we are so stupified and benummed that we are rather like stocks then Saints a spirituall slumber fallen upon the best and a spirit of prophaneness upon the most of us no such way to soul ruin as security 2. Another cause is this Our pretended injoyment of God so in spirit as that which ingages us to live above ordinances surely I have a little traced this and all other pretended injoyments of God and have compared them with the Saints of old and I finde the Scripture to speak to this sense that all such as injoyed God most in spirit were most of all others active in duty to have any thing from God and yet have no longing to bless the name of God to injoy on earth so much of God as not to crave for daily and constant supplies in my judgment savors of a soul that hath lived more upon reports then injoyments none know the sweetness of duties but such as still live above them in their faith never without them in their practice He that will not speak to the father by prayer will hardly in the constancie of his life adorn the Gospel that 's not the Saints burden which is none but the Saints priviledge he deserves and that justly to be a stranger to grace who never put up his requests to the God of grace for the pouring grace into his heart daily addresses to the throne of grace are the instrumentall means to procure sins death and the Saints joy 3. Another cause is An affectate desire we have more consulting with Satan then the Scripture to turn plain truths chiefly such as come closest to the heart into confused Allegories and here we rest all 's a mistery excluding hereby such words and exhortations as do most call on us for a holy and circumspect walking T is true Scripture is so deep that an Elephant may swim so shallow and plain that a Lamb may wade profound lest prophane ones slight it plain that the ignorant may imbrace it Souls have you not learned this yet that t is Satans policy chiefly this way either to divert our hearts from or darken our understandings in the eying any solid eminent truth lest when the snare is discovered we escape plain truths take most with honest hearts Take this All truths that do not in their interpretation point out Gods nature holyness and mans duty are of the devils stamp But 4. Another cause of this is when we call all exhortations serious cautions in Scripture as legal and carnal who is so blinde as not to see Satan here let him possess our hearts with