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	lord_n	see_v	3,711	5	3.5921	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62960	An exhortation unto reformation amplified, by a discourse concerning the parts and progress of that work, according to the word of God, delivered in a sermon preached in the audience of the General Assembly of the Massachusets colony, at Boston in New-England, May 27, 1674, being the day of election there / by Samvel Torrey ...	Torrey, Samuel, 1632-1707.; Mather, Increase, 1639-1723.	1674 (1674)	Wing T1916; ESTC R13732	47,259	54

At a General Court held at Boston May 27. 1674. THis Court Orders That the Reverend Mr. Samuel Torrey be Thanked from this Court for the great and acceptable pains which he took in his late Election Sermon And that he be desired to Print his said Sermon with as much speed as may be And that William Stoughton and Thomas Clark Esqs Capt. Hugh Mason Mr. William Parkes and Mr. Peter Bulkley be Appointed in the Name of this Court to give him Thanks accordingly By the Court Edward Rawson Secret AN EXHORTATION UNTO Reformation AMPLIFIED By a Discourse concerning the Parts and Progress of that Work according to the Word of God Delivered in a SERMON Preached in the Audience of the General Assembly of the Massachusets Colony at Boston in New-England May 27. 1674. BEING THE DAY of ELECTION THERE By SAMVEL TORREY Pastor of the Church of Christ in Waymouth Isa 30.15 For thus saith the Lord God the holy One of Israel In returning and rest shall ye be saved in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength and ye would not Ver. 18. And therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you and therefore will be be exalted that he may have mercy upon you for the Lord is a God of judgement and blessed are all they that wait for him Jer. 3.22 Return ye backsliding Children and I will beal your backslidings Behold we come unto thee for thou art the Lord our God Rev. 2.7 He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches Cambridge Printed by Marmaduke Johnson 1674. To the Reader THe God of our Fathers hath done great things for this his people in the sight of the Nations We have heard with our ears our fathers have told us what work God did in their dayes how he did drive out the Heathen with his hand and Planted them how he did afflict the people and cast them out for they got not the Land in possession by their own Sword neither did their own Arm save them but his right Hand and his Arm and the light of his Countenance because he had a favour to them Yea the Lord hath given us his good Spirit to instruct us and hath not withheld Manna from us but hath turned this Wilderness into a Canaan and here hath he given us Rest the Land of Israel seldome rested longer fourty years and more and all this while hath he been feeding and leading of us by the hands of Moses of Aaron It would fill a Volume to declare in how many respects the Lord hath dealt with us as he did with his people in the dayes of old He that hath said I will make the Wilderness a Pool of water and the dry lands Springs of water I will plant in the Wilderness a Cedar hath in an eminent degree fulfilled that word before our eyes And we may conclude that the Lord intended some great thing when he planted these Heavens and laid the foundation of this Earth and said unto New-England as sometimes to Sion Thou art my People And what should that be if not that so a Scripture-Pattern of Reformation as to Civil but especially in Ecclesiastical respects might be here erected as a First fruits of that which shall in due time be accomplished the whole world throughout in that day when there shall be one Lord and his Name one over all the earth Upon all which accounts our not answering Divine Expectations concerning us hath the more of evil and of dangerous consequence in it Apostacy in any people is a great provocation to the eyes of Gods glory but much more in a people whom he hath brought under such manifold Engagements to the contrary as is to be affirmed of us in these goings down of the Sun It must be confessed to the praise of his glory that the Lord is not yet wholly gone from us and there are grounds of hope that he will not leave us nor forsake us at least-wise that as yet it shall not be For there are some though alas now but few of the first Generation still surviving who went after the Lord into this Wilderness when it was a Land not sown whose kindness God doth remember and it may be hoped that there shall be Peace and Truth in their dayes It must likewise be acknowledged that as for our Israel the Leaders thereof both in our Civil and Ecclesiastical state are in some measure faithful Scandalous evils when they break forth are born witness against and therefore the Lord will not impute them to the Land where they are committed When did the Lord ever give up any people to utter destruction but that first their Magistrates and Ministers were become corrupt Therefore as yet our Jerusalem shall not become heaps and the Mountain of the Lords house as the high places of the forrest Also the Lord who was still wont as there were any beginnings of Apostacy in his people of old to testifie against them by his Spirit in his Prophets hath raised up those in this Land unto whom he hath given grace and a Spirit of faithfulness to do the like witness the ensuing Sermon which is a token for good Nevertheless there are on the other hand awful Considerations which may cause us to fear vvhat the end vvill be O that vve vvere vvise that vve understood these things We have been and through grace to this day are a people near unto the Lord but in that respect vve have the greater cause not to be secure It is a very solemn Observation vvhich I remember Commenius hath speaking of those once-famous and glorious Churches in Bohemia viZ. That they were nearer to the Sanctuary then other Churches by reason of a more pure Discipline by them owned and professed and therefore when Contentions and Apostacies prevailed amongst them the Lord poured down his righteous Displeasures on them and hath set them forth as sad Examples before other Churches Let us lay it to heart And it greatly concerns us so to do for that there are sad evidences of our departures from the Lord in a woful degree and awful symptomes of the Lords departure from us Churches are not wont to cast off the good wayes of God at once but gradually it may be more generations then one may pass away first so neither doth the God of all patience and grace cast off them but in a gradual way of procedure How many stands did the glory of the Lord make e're it was quite removed never more to return in the former lustre Is it not so with this people In what place can vve behold the glory of the first Temple Do not the ancient men that have seen the first House weep over this If vve be not at all sensible of these things our case is no less desperate then Ephraims vvhen gray hairs vvere upon him but he knew it nor That people vvho vvere newly come out of the hands of those that sometime

holiness of heart in the Worship of God we must be holy pure spiritual Worshippers we must keep up the Worship of God in the internal spiritual power and purity of it in our hearts these pure Churches Worship and Ordinances will not cannot stand without internal spiritual power and purity If we do corrupt the Worship and Ordinances of God by our Carnality Formality Hypocrisie and Spiritual Idolatry and such like spiritual corruptions and heart-abominations in the exercise of it God will take it from us It is our Spiritual and Heart-Apostacy from internal spiritual power and purity of Worship that is the deep and most dangerous defection of these Churches in Worship And although we do yet retain purity of Worship in the external Form of it yet if we do not speedily recover that which we have lost of the internal spiritual power and purity of Worship but persist in our spiritual Apostacy from it whatever our pretended professed zeal for visible and external purity of Worship may be we shall let go lose all pull down all and bury our selves in our own ruines New-England will be no more unto God then any other people Jer. 9.26 Egypt and Judah and Edom and the children of Ammon and Moab for all these Nations are uncircumcised and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart 4. We must labour to recover our first holy Care and Watchfulness against all Will-worship corrupt Worship and Corruptions in Worship Surely it hath been heretofore and almost hereunto the Commendation of these Churches that they have been sincerely fervently stedfastly zealous against all kindes and degrees of Will-worship It was the Commendation of this Church of Ephesus in her declining state Rev. 2.2 6 how thou canst not bear them that are evil Yet this thou hast God grant that these Churches may never lose this part of their Commendation that our Lord Jesus may never have occasion against us to reprove us and threaten us for our carelesness negligence sinful Connivance and Indulgence in this point as he did the Church of Pergamus Rev. 2.14 and of Thyatira ver 20. because thou sufferest It may be we are too secure and not aware of any danger of corrupt Worship let me say The more need we have of this warning for Will-worship doth ordinarily creep into Reformed Churches whilst they are asleep gradually secretly and insensibly and grow up unto a considerable and formidable height and strength before it appears and before Churches are aware thus the Church of Laod cea deeply corrupted with corrup Worship and knew it not Rev. 3.7 O these Churches in this declining scure lukewarm frame are in great danger of it let us therefore remember and receive the Apostles Exhortation Gal. 5.1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free and be not again intangled with the yoke of bondage 1. Let us take heed and beware of all dispositions and inclinations unto Will-worship Watch against the spirit of it Corrupt Worship gets in first by the spirit and principles of it and by the spiritual working of it in the heart of a people It gets first into the heart a people may uphold the pure Worship of God in the visible and external Form of it with much seeming love and zeal and yet their heart deeply corrupted with a spirit of Will-worship When the heart of a people is gone from God and his Worship it argues their heart is corrupted with a spirit of Will-worship as in Isa 29.13 there is a whorish heart Ezek. 69. They have broken me with their whorish heart there is a spirit of Whoredome Hos 4.12 How far the heart of New-England is corrupted with this spirit of Will-worship with prae-dispositions and inclinations thereunto would we may fear too soon and sadly appear under a temptation thereunto 2. Let us watch against all the wayes and workings of it even the secret subtile insensible infinuations and intrusions of it against all the depths and devices of Satan working by the darkest and deepest Counsels of Hell to introduce Will-worship into Reformed Churches We may think our selves secure from it unless over-born by the over-powering violence of some external Temptation but believe it Satan hath divers and various Forms of Will-worship suited and accommodated to the divers constitutions conditions of Churches and the diverse spirit and disposition of people that he hath to deal withall he hath many Antichrists 1 Joh. 2.17 there is a divers working of the spirit of Antichrist 1 Joh. 4.3 This spirit worketh by the power of Satan in a Mystery of Iniquity 2 Thess 2.7 And truly we have had many Antichrists It hath been alwayes Satans design to introduce corrupt Worship into these Churches under the most specious and spiritual Forms of it by a direct contrary Extreme unto gross Ceremony and Superstition the more cause we have to be very watchful against all such wayes and workings of it 3. Let us watch against all Temptations unto corrupt Worship whether more secret or more open There are many Temptations thereunto there is the Temptation of false Teachers corrupting the Doctrine of Worship and teaching of Will-worship Mat. 15.9 Teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men Rev. 2.20 to teach and to seduce There is the Temptation of corrupt Communion tempting Communion Col. 2.18 Let no man beguile you c. There is the Temptation of Division and Dissention tending to drive dividing Parties into Extremes in those matters of Worship which they contend about 1 Cor. 3.4 17. The Interest of a Party it is a very great and strong Temptation a spirit of Division especially when acting and working with a blinde inordinate preposterous superstitious Zeal in matters of Worship and when it is become judicial and incurable never fails to bring in corrupt Worship at one door or another It is the design of Satan to bring in Will-worship in the smoke and smother of the fire of Contentions Divisions do alwayes corrupt Churches There is also the Temptation of an undue Toleration which doth open a way to all the former and lead into corrupt Compliances in wayes of corrupt Worship Rev. 2.20 There is also the Temptation of Persecution and Tribulation O there are many Temptations unto corrupt Worship and these Churches have not been without some of these Temptations thereunto such Temptations are likely to multiply upon us O what cause have we then to be zealously and wakefully watchful more especially against such Temptations which are instant and most urgent and prevalent and of which we do already begin to see and feel the sad and lamentable effects and that confidering there is such a prae-disposition in the very Spirit and Constitution of the Generation to enter into this Temptation and such a powerful working of a Spirit of Libertinism to make way for and lead into this Temptation and also that men of corrupt Spirits Principles and Practises scandalous corrupters and broachers of corrupt Worship