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	holy_a	sabbath_n	1,515	5	10.0460	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79826	The abuse of Gods grace: discovered in the kinds, causes, punishments, symptoms, cures, differences, cautions, and other practical improvements thereof. Proposed as a seasonable check to the wanton libertinisme of the present age. By Nicholas Claget, minister of the Gospel at Edmundsbury in Suffolk, M.A. of Magdalen Hall, Oxon.	Clagett, Nicholas, 1610?-1662.; Wilkinson, Henry, 1616-1690.	1659 (1659)	Wing C4368; Thomason E978_2; ESTC R207811	268,515	321

that if 3. A Woe denounced against them who make excuses and refuse to come like the guests in the Parable we either finde excuses not to come and feed on Christs heavenly dainties Luke 14. 18. or we be unprepared wanton loose guests and come not to his Feast with the Wedding Garment i. e. Faith in Christ with the whole train of Graces but in the deformed rags and pollutions of our sins I say if we be like those that either openly and positively reject his offered Grace or like those wanton abusers of Gods grace in the Apostle Jude tread in their steps and die in this Libertinism as a Woe is denounced unto them Jude Ep. v. 11. under condemnation v. 4. to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever v. 13. So if we be fellow-wanton Gospellers with them we shall follow them in their everlasting misery He is deservedly hanged that seeth a Felon die before and yet greedily pursues his wicked courses We are told Sodomites Apostate Angels Abusers of Gospel-grace are already in Hell If the examples of their torments make us not to abhor and eschew their sinnes divine justice wrongs us not in our everlasting destruction whom should self-destroyers blame but themselues I have been the longer in this Section because of the mighty importance of the matter the common wofull lamentable damnable refusall of Gospel gracious calls and invitations to everlasting happinesse unchristianly prophanely dishonourably abused SECT 6. 6. THe means of Grace is turned into Wantonnesse This sad 6. The means of Grace is turned into wantonnesse experience I shall give out in three things shewing When the means of grace are abused The evil of that abuse and What means of grace are abused 1. When are the means of grace abused They are so 1. when they are set higher than they are Means are made Mediators set in the room of Christ when an equall yea a superiour confidence is put in Instrumental institutions The hand and the courage of the Warriour is disparaged when the Sword is set up above him and there be more confidence in a dead instrument than in a living agent The Word the Sword of the Spirit is dead and successelesse out of the strong and living hand of the Spirit It is a double and common wrong both to the means of grace and to Christ when Christ is not eyed sought to admired trusted in by the means The error not onely of ignorant prophane Christians that trust in a bare Baptism and a following of their Church to save them but most real Christians some whereof more admire their Preachers than Jesus Christ more look after an impotent man with all the glory of his gifts than the power and the transcendently eminent endowments of the Lord Jesus The Apostle Paul taught a better lesson who although he planted and watered Churches with miraculous successe owned his own nothingness 2 Cor. 12. 11. abhorred the thoughts of self-sufficiency 2 Cor. 3. 5. was jealous of robbing Christ of his glory gave him the honour of his grace and power that he was used as the exalted and blessed instrument to convert multitudes of sinners and save their soules Rom. 15. 18 19. 2 When meās of grace are set lower then they are 2. When they are set lower than they are Then they are so when they are accounted as uselesse needlesse things as if heaven could be got without them grace might be had and kept though the means disused Nothing is more clear than that in ordinary dispensation extraordinaries not being our rule God hath confined grace and salvation to the use of means Knowledge Joh. 17. 3. The Gospel preached Rom. 1. 13. Baptism 1 Pet. 3. 21. Prayer Ro. 10. 13. The education of godly family guides Gen. 18. 19. Excommunications 1 Cor. 5. 5. The holy counsels and examples of Husbands and Wives one to another 1 Cor. 7. 16. The means of grace to the reproach of the God of grace are exceedingly undervalued when the sottish and conceited generation that live without Ordinances hold there is no dependance at all on holynesse and eternal happinesse upon Gods instituted means They are also set lower than they are when encumbred with Martha about needlesse things in the brood of earthly cares and employments neglect their attendances on heavenly means and make their affaires below excuses as too many doe to the dishonour of their regenerate part just as studious worldlings to put by heavenly exercises in the Worship of God 3. When they are contradicted and blasphemed as Paul's 3 Whē means of Grace are contradicted and blasphemed preaching was by the Jews true Prayer by the Spirit by unspiritual gracelesse Atheists that revile godly care of holy houshold guides to keep their children and servants in the knowledge fear and love of God whose pious endeavours to save the soules of their families condemning their wicked neighbours irreligion is the occasion but not the cause of their blaspheming their Prayers singing of Psalmes strict keeping of the Sabboth and week dayes holy and righteous conversation when the holy and heavenly institutions of the Lord Jesus are the markes at which sonnes and daughters of Belial shoot the arrows of their bitter words the meanes of grace are eminently abused 4. When they are judged and rested in as the onely evidences of grace The more ignorant carnall morall hypocriticall 4 Whē means are judged rested in as the only evidences of Grace sort of Christians have no better arguments that they are in the state of grace than this they have the means of grace It is an irrational conclusion A patient hath good physick therefore he shall recover a dunce hath good books and a good tutor therefore he will be a scholar a great Army is well furnished for war therefore it shall overcome The battel is not to the strong Eccles 9. 11. As unscripturall an inference it is The means of grace are enjoyed therefore the grace of the means is obtained Capernaum was lifted up to heaven in means and yet cast to hell Mat. 11. 23. Ordinances doe not confer grace as fire doth heat by their natural vertue but as the Lord Christ healed the sick by supernaturall Grace is not in the means as causes but by them as instruments Should many men have no use of the means to plead for their spirituall estate there would be nothing to speak them really Christian but they would be left as naked heathens It is not the having but the saving using of means that will stand by us 5. When they are made shelters of sin as dens are for Lyons 5 Whē means are made a shelter of sin cloaths are for bodies The Sacrifices and Temple were not to be a Sanctuary of Murder Adultery False swearing Idolatry Jer. 7. 9 10. Nor were the Pharisees to make long prayers to cloak the devouring of widdows houses Luk. 20. 47. The Harlots beginning with Gods services were poor fig