Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	day_n	good_a	great_a	2,831	5	2.5730	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48928	A memorial of Gods judgments, spiritual and temporal, or, Sermons to call to remembrance first preached and now published for publick benefit / by Nic. Lockier ...	Lockyer, Nicholas, 1611-1685.	1671 (1671)	Wing L2797; ESTC R19409	116,705	258

doth To invite them to our Table which have scarce nothing to eat at their own Table who to be sure cannot invite us again and to be Legs to the lame and Eyes to the blind c. But these are so unthankful that who can have any heart to do any thing for them I answer Such whose hearts are simple and who as David shew simple friendship they will look upon Criples as Criples and blind as blind lame and blind in their Souls as well as in their Bodies and if you would have People be thankful be simple in your kindness let them see that you do not seek theirs in the least but them every way the relief of them Mephibosheth was never like to make a Man of use to attend upon David to honour his Table this had been rather to have sought a friendship than to have shewed one It is a Custome amongst the Turkes not to believe a Christian's or a Jew's complaint against a Turk without a Turk's witness too and that is the reason why in such Cases Justice is much corrupted and so little to be had I only allude to this The cases and conditions of many oppressed poor and mean ones is such that unless they can get such and such as are great to witness to their cause and own them and stick to them their own complaints will not be believed nor heard not indeed will any take it in hand unless they see that which may be good self-encouragement and advantage so that falleth out to be true which that great Statesman observed in his Days The rich have many friends not only one friend of which the poor would be glad but many friends and the Poor is hated of his own Neighbour Prov. 14.20 And Prov. 19.4 Wealth maketh many friends but the poor is separated from his neighbour When ye see a gold Ring on a Man's Finger there you take him up and his cause is good as Absalom said and ye do but want one well to plead it and I will do it and I will do it and what a many friends the wealthy Man and the Man with the Gold Ring and long Hair hath but a poor Man that hath but one Ewe Lamb as Nathan's Parables is but a little estate left and that in danger to be all taken away too who strives to plead this Persons case and to own and to cleave to such a helpless one Wherefore I exhort be simple in your friendship as purely born for adversity Secondly Be tender and strong friends that is not in word only but in deed and in the greatest actions and labours and deeds which distresses need to relieve them What a friend Barzillai was to David in his distress against Absalom beyond Jordan How brought he him all Provisions for Himself and Followers which David much remembred because it was so seasonable And what a friend was Obadia to the Lord's Prophets when the violence of Ahab and Jessabel was great who hid them by Fifties in a Cave when it must needs be with the peril of his life And our Saviour seems to grant such a strength in friendship as to lay down the life for a friend Joh. 15.13 Greater love hath no Man than this that a Man lay down his life for his friends Our Saviour seems to grant such a height in the love of friendship And the Apostle saith we ought to lay down our life for a brother And a friend is a created Brother of our own Creation and created of purpose for a plunge Therefore it will be lovely to get all the heights of true friendship in this evil Day because distresses and plunges are so high and hard and great Nothing less almost will relieve some poor distressed People unless we do much expose our selves as Obadia and the Brethren which rescued Paul out of the Tumult when he was knockt down and all thought he was dead And Rizpah the Daughter of Aiah took Sack-cloth and spread it for her upon the Rock from the begining of Harvest till Water dropped upon them and suffered neither the Birds of the Air to rest on them by Day nor the Beasts of the Field by Night 2 Sam. 21.10 Rizpah made a covering over her of this Sack-cloth and sate under it day and night with those dead Corpses of Saul's Family which friendship was very strong and tender and painful and David took it wonderful well at her hands And if she did so watch with the dead that no violence might be done by Birds or Beasts It was strong friendship in him which said come and let us go and die with him 'T were well if we could watch with the living and that we could play the friends so to many in Prisons and bonds and extremities which are not dead Corpse yet but almost so and many of them worse than so that is worse than if they were dead my meaning is that where distress is great we would become great friends Our Rule is to covet the best gifts to be most eminent and excellent in every Grace and be you in this of friendship Be thus always And Hyram King of Tyre sent his Servants unto Solomon for he had heard that they had anointed Him King c. for Hiram was ever a lover of David 1 Kings 5.1 This is the Property made of friendship in my Text A friend loveth at all times Had Hiram been a lover of David only sometimes and when David had no need of him doubtless David would have been cautious of him and not have put him among the number of his friends but he was always a lover of David And it fell on a day that Elisha passed to Shunem where was a great Woman and she constrained him to eat Bread And so it was that as oft as he passed by he returned in thither to eat bread Not once or twice coldly invited but she constrained him and as oft as he passed by and that she might be sure of him always when he went that way She said to her Husband behold now I perceive that this is an holy Man of God which passeth by us continually let us make a little Chamber in the Wall and let us set for him there a Bed a Table a Stool and a Candlestick and it shall be when he cometh to us that he turn in thither 2 Kings 4.10 Friendship is a natural thing and what is natural is durable I have none that doth so naturally care for me saith the Apostle Paul of Timothy A friend becomes a Brother that is naturally affected as if flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone and 't is supposed in nature that natural relations are natural always as hand and the foot to the head and the head to the hand and foot are tenderly and strongly careful and affectionate always Jonathan went to David in the Cave and strengthned his hand in God as well as when David was in favour with Saul and that their friendship

both as to God and as to his Son but of none as to him I thank God all is in a good way of cure now through Jesus Christ Donatum ob causam non est donatum sed potius permutatio A gift given for some cause is not a gift but rather an exchange of one thing for another but when very costly in it self and yet of no cost to us then it sparkles in the eyes of the receiver such a gift is Christ in this great work of the cure of our carnal state And doth the freeness of this love sparkle in your eyes and lay bonds upon you and make you go bound with holy affection and admiration No man that was ever cured of a desperate disease wherein he gave himself up for death but it was much obliging to him as to the instruments used for his Cure Naaman the Syrian thought himself bound to choose the God of Israel for his God that had cured him of his Leprosie If you be cured of your filthy Leprosie which is Christ's Priestly work and Kingly work too your Cure is between them both Do you choose him and own him for your Jesus and Lord as the Apostle here doth I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ by kindness conquers as Jeptha did If I do thus and thus for you slay your Enemies deliver you from slavery Shall I be your King And will ye chuse me to rule over you and they consented willingly If Christ hath cured your Soul diseases then are you under the Law of this great kindness and willing that he should be your Lord and to Rule you in all things according to his Word Secondly The Apostle was taken as with the love of Christ so with the love of the Father in this matter I thank God he hath found out a way to do me good a new and living way through his Son So the Apostle Peter Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead to an Inheritance incorruptible 1 Pet. 1.3 He saw an abundant mercy in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as well as in the Son our Lord Jesus Christ That having no more Sons should part with him out of his Bosom in Heaven to lodge Him in a Manger yea worse to lodg Him in Hell nay in a Place worse than that the filthy heart of the fallen Sons of Adam So the Apostle Paul again writing to the Ephesians saith But God who is rich in mercy for the great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sin and trespasses hath he quickned us together with Christ that in the Ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus Ephes 2.4 5 6. He saw rich mercy and great love exceeding riches of grace in God that by his own Son and not by any lower hand he should quicken Men dead in trespasses and sins And surely some thing of this is where this great Work is wrought a confessing that Jesus is the Lord To the glory of God the Father Vse 3 The last Use is for Exhortation seeing Christ is the proper remedy of our fallen state let this draw us to him to attend his Word and Ordinances and to attend the Angels stirring of these Waters Christ doth open Prison doors and deliver Captives but he doth it according to his Commission Now well observe the termes of his Commission Is 61 The Lord God hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek To which agrees 1 Pet. 3.19 By the which also he went to preach to the Spirits in Prison which were disobedient in the Days of Noah Preaching how lightly soever esteemed and how much soever opposed and suppressed is the great Ordinance by which Christ frees Captives and Prisoners and therefore this Ordinance which is the most general Ordinance to convince and convert should carefully and tremblingly be attended upon They that make light of preaching make light of their own depraved state of their Captivity to sin and Satan these groan not with this Apostle under the body of death Christ did create every day orderly by his Word he could have done it without but he did all as his Father appointed him and did not Movere per saltum make hast and pursue his own will or his own infinite and absolute Power so he doth in the new Creation and therefore wait upon wisdomes Posts Whoso is simple let him turn in hither where he will have Line upon Line now a little and then a little to touch and turn his heart Presently after the Creation was finished the Creator takes to himself the Title of Jehova Gen. 2.4 These are the Generations of the Heaven and of the Earth when they were created in the Day that Jehova Eloim made the Heaven and the Earth When you do approach to the Preaching of the Word Remember this Name of Christ that he is Jehova and able to give Being to his Word That what he bids you to be that he makes you to be Be exhorted when you attend Ordinances to pant for this thing that Christ as Jehova would Preach to you as one giving Being in your heart to every Word which he speaketh in your Ear That Christ would so speak that you might hear and believe all that he sa●th as they at Iconium Act. 14.1 Take an Harp go about the City thou Harlot that hast been forgotten make sweet melody sing many Songs that thou mayest be remembred Isa 23.16 This spake the Lord to Tyrus a filthy sinful City and their punishment fore-told and the time for Seventy Years and then counselled to bemoan her self that she might be remembred and it is observable how holy bemoaning our selves is called and holy panting for deliverance from the slavery of sin and wrath it is called sweet melody and singing many Songs So indeed is such panting under the body of death and to be delivered from it as here the Apostle doth The mourning Doves note under the sense of our wretched state with a panting after Christ to cure it no Musick is such melody in the Ears of God to make him to remember us Thus crie and be ye all pained to be delivered Thirdly Take to you words and tell your great Physician how it is with you And if you want words help your selves with those Ephes 4.18 This I say and testifie in the Lord that ye walk not as other Gentiles in the vanity of your minds having your understandings darkned being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in you because of the blindness of their heart being past feeling c. Take up these words and apply them to your own depraved condition saying O wretched man that I am what a vain mind I have and how I walk in the vanity