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
A62324	A sermon preached before the King at New-Market, April 2, 1676 by Samuel Scattergood ...	Scattergood, Samuel, 1646-1696.	1676 (1676)	Wing S843; ESTC R14320	12,816	31

the onely Good and the sole author and fountain of all our Happiness So then this Grace may be stiled indifferently either Fear or Love And it is no mystery neither Fear being ever an inseparable companion of Love For he that loves fears nothing more then to offend the person whom he loves and if he have the ill fortune to do it is ready to submit to any terms that will procure him a reconciliation So it is with the Saints they love God if not with an infinite yet at least with an ineffable love far above all the World And by how much the greater their Love is so much the greater is their Fear too So that if their Love be infinite and it is so in respect of its Object which is infinitely glorious and infinitely good then the fear also which they have of miscarrying in their Love and displeasing that infinite Majesty which doth so well deserve their Love and Adoration must be infinite too This is that Fear which supported Job under his mighty afflictions enabled him to baffle all Satans designs made him triumph over the fury and malice of Hell and transported him to that incomparable expression of the confidence he reposed in his God Though he slay me yet will I trust in him He knew that so long as he retained his integrity however God seemed for the present to frown upon him yet he would not cast him off for ever He knew that this storm would ere long blow over and that the sun-shine of Gods favour would again enlighten him and break through this black cloud which for a while seemed to intercept it But come what will on 't whether he live or die he is resolved both to live to die in the Fear of the Lord. This is his Load-star by which like a skilfull Pilot he steers through the tempest And though his riches have made themselves wings and are fled from him though his children be all slain in a moment though his friends brand him for an Hypocrite and the wife of his bosom rail against him and give him that desperate and hellish counsell to curse God and die though he is become a laughing-stock to those Persons whose fathers once he would have disdained to have set with the dogs of his flock though he be thus forsaken of all the world destitute afflicted tormented and in all outward appearance forsaken even of God himself too and made a ruefull spectacle of his wrath and indignation yet he sins not for all this nor charges God fooli●●●●●● nay he cleaves to him the closer well knowing that notwithstanding he seemed to be his enemy he was still in reality his greatest his onely friend And therefore he worships him as well when the days of affliction have taken hold on him as when God preserved him and made his candle to shine upon his head He adores him as much on the Dunghill as on the Throne praises his Name as well when his head is covered with ashes as if it wore a Diadem and gives him thanks when he hath left him nothing but a potsheard to scrape his sores as heartily as when he made him the greatest of all the men of the East and crowned him with loving kindness and tender mercies This I say is that fear which carried Job through such a sea of troubles armed him against the strength and policy of Satan and made him a glorious Conquerour over Principalities and Powers A fear which is as comfortable as the former is terrible That represents God to us as the greatest evil and drives us from him as from a consuming fire this makes us long for him as in reality he is as the greatest Good and wish that we had wings like a Dove that we might fly into his embraces That is a fear of his Justice and this of his Mercy that a fear of punishment and this of sin In a word that is a flash from Hell fire and this is a glimpse of the joyes of Heaven This then is the true fear of God which is here meant in the Text and that fear which every man must get into his heart as he tenders his eternall Salvation I do not say that every man shall be damned that attains not to that Seraphick Perfection which was in Job and S. Paul and many others of Gods most eminent Saints but certainly this I may fasely say that whosoever doth not either actually attain to it or else heartily be wall and lament his want of it and earnestly beg of God that he would bestow it on him is very far from the Kingdom of Heaven And now what I promised to shew you in the next place viz. what it is to depart from evil I have in some measure performed already for this is a necessary consequence and fruit of the fear of the Lord. I shall therefore tell you onely in a word what this evil is which we must depart from and that is sin which if we consider it aright is the onely thing in the world which we can properly call evil For every thing is good that God hath made and God hath made every thing else but sin That he utterly disclaims 't is the work of the Devil and Man and not of God Nay 't is so far from being a work of his that it defaces and destroys his work 'T is a burden which wearies the whole Creation yea and the Creatour himself too for the Scripture tells us that because of this it repented the Lord that he had made Man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart The whole earth had been one continued and universall Paradise untill this day had not sin turned it into a Desert 'T is this which hath made the Heaven over our heads to be Brass and the Earth under us to be Iron and caused it to bring forth thorns and thistles instead of wheat and barley There had been no sickness had not sin cursed the very food we put into our mouths and made us eat our poison There had been no death had not sin armed him and sharpned his sting There had been no Devil had not sin blackt him and there had been no Hell had not sin kind led Gods wrath and blown up that flame which never shall be quenched It remains then that sin which is the cause of all this is the onely true and reall evil in the world And if so then surely to depart from such an evil must needs be Understanding which brings me to the third and last particular Which is this That to depart from this evil of sin in the Name and Fear of the Lord is the greatest wisdom that Man is capable of But then we must be sure to do it in the fear of the Lord. For otherwise though we have never so ardent an affection and love for Virtue though we depart from vice with never so much care and vigilancy for wholly depart from it no man can we