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	sin_n	sting_n	2,094	5	13.1353	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35344	A sermon preached to the honourable Society of Lincolns-Inne by R. Cudsworth ...	Cudworth, Ralph, 1617-1688.	1664 (1664)	Wing C7470; ESTC R38833	29,413	70

Devil and Apostate spirits are perpetually active and busie in promoting the Concernments of the Kingdome of Darkness And therefore doubtless He whom God hath made the Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls can never be so regardless of his Office nor so careless of his Flock and tender Lambs committed to his charge as to suffer those cruel Wolves to prey upon them at pleasure and to have no pity at all for them nor to extend his watchful Providence over them whom once he vouchsafed to redeem with his own precious bloud No certainly he that waded through so many difficulties and agonies for us in the daies of his Flesh he that bore our griefs and carried our sorrows he that was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities that sweat drops of bloud in the Garden and was nailed to the Cross for us in Golgotha He cannot so easily forget those whom he hath so dearly bought nor suffer all that power which God hath invested him with for the good of his Church to lie by him idle and unimployed But to the end that there might not be the least ground of Suspicion or Distrust left in the minds of men concerning this particular Christ after his Ascension into Heaven thought good to give us a sensible demonstration both of his Kingly Power and of his watchful Care and Providence over his Church that he would not leave them orphans and destitute of all assistence by sending down his Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost in a visible and miraculous manner upon his Disciples Acts 2. 32. This Jesus hath God raised up of which we are all Witnesses Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted and having received of the Father the Promise of the Holy Ghost he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear And verily if there had been no news heard of our Lord and Saviour Christ after he ascended above the Clouds out of his Disciples sight no real and visible Demonstration of his Existence Power and Providence over his Church the distrustful hearts of men would have been too prone to suspect that the pretence of an invisible Kingdome at God's right hand above had been no better then a mere Dream an aiery and phantastick Notion and they would have been too ready to have called in question the truth of all his other Miracles his Resurrection and Ascension witnessed onely by his own Disciples and to have surmised those several Apparitions of his that we reade of after his Death had been nothing else but Spectres or Phantasms like the vulgarly-believed Apparitions of the Ghosts of men in Aiery bodies But the sensible and miraculous Pouring out of the Holy Ghost upon his Disciples after his Ascension into Heaven was a palpable Confirmation of all Christ's other Miracles of the Validity of his Meritorious Death and Passion of the Truth of his Resurrection and Ascension and gives most comfortable assurance to all Believers to the World's end that though his Bodily presence be withdrawn from them yet he hath not left his Church utterly forlorn and destitute of all assistence but that his Spirit the Holy Comforter continueth to be present amongst them as his Vicegerent and to assist them for all the holy purposes of the Gospel to the World's end Now the principal Effects of Christ's holy Spirit which are to be hoped for and expected by every true Believer and private Christian are comprised by the Apostle under Three Heads here in the Text as consisting in a Threefold Victory over a Threefold Enemy The sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law But thanks be to God which giveth us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1. A Victory over Sin as that which is the Cause of Death 2. A Victory over the Law as that which aggravates the Guilt and exasperates the Power of Sin 3. Lastly A Victory over Death the Fruit and Consequent of Sin FIRST therefore There is a Victory over Sin to be obtained in and through Christ. Some there are that will acknowledge no other Victory over Sin but an External one that whereby it was conquered for us by Christ upon the Cross sixteen hundred years since where he spoiled Principalities and Powers and made a shew of them openly triumphing over them in it Col. 2. 15. and where he redeemed us from the Curse of the Law being made a Curse for us Gal. 3. 13. And doubtless this was one great end of Christ's coming into the world to make a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of mankind Not onely that he might thereby put a period to those continually-repeated and ineffectual Sacrifices of brute Beasts and the Offering of the bloud of Bulls and Goats that could not take away Sin nor propitiate the Divine Majesty but also that he might at once give a sensible Demonstration both of God's high Displeasure against Sin and of his Placableness and Reconcilableness to Sinners returning to Obedience and therefore to that end that the Despair of Pardon might not hinder any from Repentance and Amendment of Life promulgate free Pardon and Remission of Sins through his Bloud to all that should repent and believe the Gospel But it is a very unsound and unwholsome Interpretation of this Salutary Undertaking of Christ's in the Gospel as if the ultimate End and Design of it were to procure Remission of Sin and Exemption from Punishment onely to some particular persons still continuing under the Power of Sin and to save them at last in their Sins also that is with a mere outward and carnal Salvation it being a thing utterly impossible that those Undefiled Rewards of the Heavenly Kingdome should be received and enjoyed by men in their Unregenerate and unrenewed Nature For what is this else but to make Christ the grand Patron of the Kingdome of Darkness and to suppose God to be such a Being as may be bribed and corrupted by Sacrifice and Intercession to a partial Connivence and fond Indulgence of men in their Sins to all Eternity Or else to insinuate that there is no other Evil at all in Sin but onely in respect of that outward Punishment consequent upon it which is to destroy the Nature and Reality of Sin and to make it nothing but a mere Name or Phancy as if Good and Evil Just and Unjust as some Philosophers dreamed were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 onely had no Reality in Nature but depended onely upon Arbitrary Laws enforced by Outward Punishments or mere Opinion and so were onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Democritus expressed it mere Factitious things or else 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fictitious and Imaginary Either of which opinions if they were true then indeed Remission of Sin and Exemption from Punishment would quite take away all the Evil of Sin But if Sin be not a mere Name or Phancy but that which hath a Real and