Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	die_v	life_n	5,110	5	5.0778	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85887	A treatise of prayer and of divine providence as relating to it. With an application of the general doctrine thereof unto the present time, and state of things in the land, so far as prayer is concerned in them. Written for the instruction, admonition, and comfort of those that give themselves unto prayer, and stand in need of it in the said respects. By Edvvard Gee, minister of the gospel at Eccleston in Lancashire.	Gee, Edward, 1613-1660.	1653 (1653)	Wing G451; Thomason E1430_1; ESTC R209520	284,427	526

Moses ere those things were effected much time passed many stops occurred and Israel was many times out of hope of attaining them both in Egypt and in the Wilderness Nevertheless as the Lord audibly told Moses out of the bush that he was now come down to accomplish those things so his appearance in that manner to wit in a bush burning with fire yet unconsumed visibly told him if I may so speak the reason of all those delays and difficulties and the equivalent recompence or rather the advantage afforded them for and by the same Whilest the Lord was bringing them up like a vine out of Egypt to transplant them in Canaan they were like that bush all on a flame by reason of the afflictions and oppositions meeting with them from first to last in their way and their danger of perishing thereby yet they came through and survived them all by which means the presence and power of God in and for them was the more put forth and evidenced they had the light and lustre of that fire but escaped the devouring heat of it God shewing himself the more apparently with them and in their conservation As a Commentary or Paraphrase upon that Emblem of the burned unburned Bush we may take that of the Apostle spoken of himself and his fellow-laborers in the Ministry We are troubled yet not distressed we are perplexed but not in despair persecuted 2 Cor. 4.8 c. but not forsaken cast down but not destroyed always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Iesus How and wherefore is all this That the life also of Iesus might be manifest in our body for we which live are always delivered unto death for Iesus sake that the life also of Iesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh Here are a heap of expressions of sufferings and straits troubled on every side perplexed c. but each of these hath its stop allay and correction here are many plunges over head as if they were quite drown'd and lost but here are as many recoveries and fetchings up again But observe what 's the efficient cause of these their recoveries and what 's the final cause or end of their delivery up to such depressions and deadly hazards and of their holding out and safe coming off The efficient cause of their recoveries is the life of Iesus that it is that still brings them back and raiseth them up again when they are welnigh gone and the final cause both of their relinquishment to those dejections and perils and of their safe enduring and coming off from them is that the life of Iesus might be made manifest in them they are in deaths oft they dye dayly they are pressed out of measure above strength even to despair of life and have the sentence or answer of death in themselves as the Apostle elsewhere saith * 2 Cor. 11 23. 1 Cor. 15.31 2 Cor. 1.8 9 and wherefore all this but that they may have so many resurrections from death and those as eminent and as dayly reiterated and that the power vertue or life of Christ might be so much the oftner and the more conspicuously put forth in those resurrections With good congruity therefore doth Beza understand what follows vers 14. of the civil and analogical resurrections where he saith Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Iesus shall raise up us also by Iesus and shall present us with you 2. It may be for the Lords more illustrious appearing afterward or in the issue and upshot of the delay The greater deferrings and the stranger crossings there be of prayer while they are in putting up and prosecuting the more glorious may the appearing of God be in the end when they come to be answered What the Apostle saith to Philemon of his new converted servant Onesimus For perhaps he therefore departed for a season that thou shouldst receive him for ever Philem 15 16 not now as a servant but above a servant a brother beloved the like may be said of God in reference unto this case he may hide himself for a time that he may be the more seen and the more welcom and the more comfortably and constantly enjoyed when he doth manifest himself David tells us He waited patiently or he waited long for the Lord Psa 40.1 c. and then he inclined unto him and heard him he brought him up also out of an horrible pit out of the miry clay and set his feet upon a rock and established his goings This appearing of God after so long waiting when he was sunk so low and dangerously raised up Davids thankfulness unto God and admiration of him very high He hath put a new song in my mouth even praise unto our God Many O Lord my God are thy wonderful works which thou hast done and thy thoughts which are to us-ward they cannot be reckoned in order unto thee Upon this so earnestly sought so long expected so extreamly needed and now so admirably effected a deliverance God is very much exalted and dignified in Davids eyes his praise is now set forth not by an ordinary but by a new song in his mouth he is now rapt up into a wonderment at the works and contrivances of God and he sees an inexplicable multiplicity of marvels in them The Penman of Psalm 102. in the midst of all the sadness and solitariness he is in in Sions behalf foresees yet that the Lord will regard the destitute and not despise their prayer He will look down from the height of his Sanctuary and from Heaven he will behold the Earth to hear the groaning of the prisoner Psal 102.15 c. to loose those that are appointed to death And when thus it shall be he foretells what will be the consequent of it in reference to God to wit high and general and lasting advancement of his Name Glory and Praise So the Heathen shall fear the Name of the Lord and all the Kings of the Earth thy Glory When the Lord shall build up Sion he shall appear in his glory This shall be written for the generation to come and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord. There is a like remarkable place in Isaiah setting forth both unto what extremity the Lord sometimes deferreth his craving people and whereto it tendeth When the poor and needy seek water Isai 41 17 c. and there is none and their tongue faileth for thirst I the Lord will hear them I the God of Israel will not forsake them Unto this extent of delay the Lord may put off his servants prayers even till they be as a people that have all their pools and springs quite dryed up so that they cannot find a drop of water to cool their thirst and till their tongue be tyred and spent with drought and importunity of asking yet he hears them at length and then he hears them to the purpose I will open rivers in high

despised vilified and distrusted persons in the Land while those who are but reputed Temporisers are the men looked upon received into the bosom promoted and entrusted Now where Religion is talked of and the ground and band of all correspondency and confidence is mens absolute flexibility and giving up themselves to any publique interest for private and self-respects sake even Charity her self will judg Religion is taken in but upon design It being thus manifest that many mens forwardness for Religion hath been to serve base carnal ends we may gather thence both what intolerable abuse hath been done to Religion and what guilt is then contracted 1. Religion hath grosly been abused and sadly suffered thereby and that many ways It its life and being whilest overgrown and overtopped with hypocrisie and worldly-mindedness in its honour whilest exposed to scandal and reproach and in its advance and growth whilest the Reformation intended and begun hath been by no means so much undermined retarded and blasted as by this All the professed contradictions and oppositions of the Papists and prophane have not so availed to crush and strangle this work as these self-designers like the Samaritans in Ezra Ezr. 4.1 2 coming in to joyn with the children of the Captivity in building the Temple on purpose to cross it have done 2. A great trespass is thereby committed Jer. 22 14. See our English margent Et lacerat sibi fenestras meas tectum cedrinum deinde pingit Iudici Junius i. e. Rerum e domo mea amocarum in usum suum loco obducit colorem floridum Jud●ci ne fraus manifesta sit Id. this is for men with Jehojakim as our margent and Junius read that place in Jeremiah to cut out Gods windows and his Cedar-sieling out of his Temple therewith to build and deck our own houses and to paint over the breach they have so made in Gods house with Vermillion that is to bestow upon Religion a vain flourish or colourable complement and under pretence thereof to dispoil it of its solid and substantial furniture For that fact of Jehojakim the Lord pronounceth a wo upon him Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong that saith Ver. 13 14 15 An Regnaturus es quia tu misces te cum ista Cedro Jun. i. e. Res sacras admisces tuis an his artibus regnum tuum stabilum iri existimas Id. I will build me a wide house and large chambers and cutteth him out my windows and Cedar-sieling and then paints it over with vermillion and in particular tells him Shalt thou reign because thou closest thy self with that Cedar Let the false pretending dissemblers to Religion that seek and set up themselves and enlarge their houses and estates thereby take to themselves this woe else it will certainly take hold on them Let us go on to other particulars Here is a decay cooling dying of Religion we are all generally baptized persons professed Christians we bear the name of Christ own the Religion of his Gospel in opposition to and distinction from Heathenism Judaism Turcism yea and Popery We declare for Protestantism and Reformation but where is the soundness life vigor and efficacy of these things If any sense or power of these things moved in us at first unto the embracement of them what is become of it The Lord may say of us as of Jerusalem I remember thee the kindness of thy youth Jer. 2.2 the love of thine espousals In the beginning of Reformation in King Edwards Queen Maries and Queen Elizabeths days there was some zeal and forwardness expressed for the truth and for the pure worship of God in acting for the abolition of Popery and for Church-Reformation and in sufferings unto death but from that time how soon were we departed How continuedly have we degegenerated How far are we now fallen from that life and fervor Where are the forward actors Where are the resolute Endurers for the Cause of God A zealous strict gracious and fruitful course of life and conversation hath all along by the most been layd aside loathed hated denyed and persecuted We have of late begun high attempts and engagements as if we would not only recover but exceed and out-strip our first settings forth for Religion but this rise hath seemed to be but like that of a body mortally sick or wounded which in the approaches of death well have one or a few starts and liftings up to recall as it were its departing Soul but is not able to hold up when it is raised and therefore yields presently again to the seizure of death May we not fear that the late stirrings and sticklings for Reformation were but as sprints or struglings before death considering how little these are seconded yea how quite flat these are layd down yea what intentions studies and practices clean contrary to them are taken up and practised Methinks when I consider the story of Gideon I see a lively portraicture of the men of these times Gideon at first when in his low condition when he threshed wheat by the wine-press to hide it from the Midianites and when he confessed his family was poor in Manasseh and he was the least in his fathers house and the Lord set him to throw down the Altar of Baal and cut down the grove by it and to build an Altar unto the Lord and to offer thereon a burnt sacrifice with the wood of that grove he was very forward zealous and couragious both in the removing of Idolatry and erecting the worship of the true God But when he had accomplished his great conquests and the deliverance of Israel from the Midianites and Amalekites how then proceeded he in reference to Religion Why he makes a request to his people for their golden Ear-rings Judg. 6.11 15. cap. 8 24 c. accordingly they grant and spreading a garment every man therein casts the Ear-rings of his prey and he makes an Ephod thereof and puts it in his City and all Israel goes thither awhoring after it Even thus have men the Gideons the mighty men of valor now delt with Religion At the first when they were little in their own sight then down with the Altar of Baal and the grove down with Idolatry Superstition and all humane Innovations and Inventions in Religion Then for nothing so much as for Reformation and purity in the Worship of God and in the Ministry and Government of his House but when the Wars are over and Victory is obtained then the conclusion about Religion is this Let every man bring in his golden Ear-ring the uncouth and extravagant Notions and Opinions which he hath taken up during the War an employment which hath often proved not more hurtful to mens bodies by bringing diseases wounds and death then to their minds and souls by breeding Error and vice and make a many-coloured changeable Ephod that is an interwoven mixture and free Toleration