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	world_n	5,072	5	5.7392	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39910	A discourse concerning God's judgements resolving many weighty questions and cases relating to them. Preached (for the substance of it) at Old Swinford in Worcester-shire: and now publish'd to accompany the annexed narrative, concerning the man whose hands and legs lately rotted off: in the neighbouring parish of Kings-Swinford, in Staffordshire; penned by another author. / by Simon Ford ...	Ford, Simon, 1619?-1699.; Illingworth, James, d. 1693. A just narrative or account of the man whose hands and legs rotted off.	1678 (1678)	Wing F1484; ESTC R28411	53,261	98

God and much less their future estate from the most evident Judgments temporally befalling them 1. Not their present estate towards God For a sore Judgment may befall a man greatly in Gods favour for a foul Crime as in the case of the Death of Davids child inflicted even after his Repentance for those hainous sins of Adultery and Murder because he had by them caused the Enemies of God to blaspheme 2 Sam. 12.14 doth evidently appear 2. And much less must we thence judge their future estate in another world For there is no sufficient cause to judge even Nadab and Abihu Lev. 10.3 1 Sam. 6.19 2 Sam. 6.7 the inquisitive Bethshemites Vzzah and others damned though God smote them dead in unwarrantable actions Yea even Moses and Aaron themselves died by a Divine Sentence in the Wilderness for their sin at Meribah and yet one of them Moses we have sufficient evidence is in glory Mat. 17.3 and have no reason to doubt the case of the other Yea men may be judged of the Lord in the Apostles supposition when chastened with sickness and death extraordinary that they may not be condemned with the world 1 Cor. 11.30 31 32. 1 Cor. 5.5 and an offender delivered even to Satan may suffer to the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord i. e. in the private Judgment which he undergoes from the Lord at his death 7. That we assign not particular sins as the special Causes of a Divine Judgment too peremptorily except where the circumstances notoriously evince it by the Rules before given or some of them at least For if we be therein mistaken in our Judgment yea if there be no moral certainty that we are not mistaken such as may rationally convince the persons concerned and others thereof the end which we are supposed to design by such application to wit to render the particular sin to which we attribute the procuring that Judgment more formidable is lost upon those whom we particularly intend to benefit by it and others too and we our selves are liable to be censured for putting an uncharitable brand upon our brother without a cause 8. That we vaunt not or magnifie our selves against our suffering Brother by comparing our selves with him as if we were therefore the better men because we fare better at Gods Hands he This is one property of Charity among the many excellent characters given it by the Apostle that it vaunts not it self 1. Cor. 13.4 i. e. with the diminution of a mans brethren for else it were rather a description of Humility than Charity nor is upon such an account puffed up And the most uncharitable account upon which any man can vaunt to the lessening of his brother is when it is done meerly upon the difference that Gods only pleasure makes betwixt the one and the other This among many others was one great piece of uncharitableness in Jobs friends that having in his sad sufferings taxed him with being of the number of those whom God had signally branded with remarkable Judgments and a partner in guilt with those of the old world whose foundation was overflown with a flood Job 22.15 16 20 21 29 30. though he were differenced in his punishment being a sufferer by the contrary Element of fire they in the mean while boast that their substance was not cut down as being men more acquainted with God more humble more innocent as they imply when they advise Job upon their experience to become so too 9. That we make no mans religious living formerly or eminent profession of it no not though we have some cause to think him declined from it now by objecting it to him under suffering a part of his calamity nor occasion him whilst he suffers under Gods hand to suffer for his sake too A thing too usual when bad men apply the Judgments of God or those which they interpret to be such to good men or those who have had a reputation to be such beyond their neighbours For this is to give them as the Persecutors did to our Saviour gall and vinegar to drink when they have already bitterness enough upon their spirits from the Cup of their Cross that God appoints them to drink off This was to David as he tells us like a Sword in his bones when profane men said to him in his affliction Where is now thy God Psal 42.10 and when they cast in his Teeth as their successors did afterwards in our Saviours his former trusting in God as if it had either been Hypocritical Psal ●2 1 8 9. or if real misplaced on one that had thus forsaken him Now to deal thus with our neighbour is at all times greatly uncharitable For it either argues an hard censure of him that he is an hypocrite or a greater and fouler affront if we do not so esteem him for then we turn as the same Psalmist elsewhere taxeth men of the same uncharitable temper his glory into shame Psal 4.2 and endeavour to make that a matter of disgrace to him which is really most commendable 10. In a word That we do not rejoyce insult or triumph over any man under Gods hand upon any account much less revile and reproach him but really pitty bewail and condole with him rather and as we have opportunity instruct admonish comfort and pray for him For to do the former is the constant guise of those that in the character of Gods Holy Spirit in the Scripture are marked for wicked men The Heathen Edomites were such Obad. 1● and they rejoyced in the day of Judah's distress Davids Enemies being so to him on Gods account were such and in his adversity they rejoyced Psal 35.13 Our Saviours Persecutors were such and as they judged him smitten of God they shaked their heads at him upon the Cross Isa 53.4 See Mat. 27.40 41 42 43 44. Mark 15.29 c. and reviled him with most unsavoury and reproachful speeches And although there be several Passages in Scripture which seem to propound Gods Judgments as a glad spectacle to good men and a matter of rejoycing when they befall those that are notoriously wicked As when it is prophesied That the righteous shall rejoyce when he seeth the vengeance c. Psal 58.10 And when God calls on all the Saints even in glory Apoc. 18.2 the holy Prophets and Apostles especially to rejoyce and triumph over Antichristian Babylon Yet it is to be observed that these and the like Texts relate only to such as were Gods publique and notorious enemies and the joy and triumph required or allowed in their destruction is only upon account of the success of his cause against them and the vindication of his Glory and Interests As appears remarkably in the Psalm quoted wherein he tells us how the observers should express their joy to wit by taking notice that verily there is a reward

and a great breach of Charity also as implying a malicious design against our brother which we seek an opportunity to execute This seems to be the fault of those Disciples themselves who enquired of Christ concerning the man that was born blind for they first resolve upon it that this was a Judgment of God on him for some sin and then they came to our Saviour to resolve them Joh. 9.2 for whose sin it was his own or his Parents And it seems evident by the whole carriage of their discourses that Jobs friends though they unanimously first conclude among themselves that his sufferings were Divine Judgments upon him for some foul crime yet they are at a loss what crime of that nature to find him guilty of and therefore they tax him at all adventure with all the horrid Crimes they can imagine to draw a confession from him at least of some of them for the justification of their own uncharitable censure 3. That we do not hastily call such severe Providences of God towards such particular Persons Judgments whom we can charge with nothing that is notoriously sinful in the general Judgment of all Mankind or at least of all Christians For it is a great piece of uncharitableness as well as injustice which is too ordinarily practised in such places where the common Christianity is crumbled into Sects and Parties for dissenters of all sides to impute the sufferings befalling their opposites to Divine displeasure against them for holding such opinions as differ foom theirs or practising in some particulars otherwise than they do Now this ariseth ordinarily from a partial fondness which every one hath for his own opinion or way which inclines him to think God hath as great a kindness for it as himself and his Party have and to conclude all his Providences to be accordingly engaged to serve under those banners of distinction under which he hath listed himself whence such persons find it easie upon every unusual stroke of God upon any that are not every way agreeable to their humour to conclude that the very point in difference betwixt them is judged by God and their opposites confuted from Heaven by a Demonstration of Divine displeasure against them And such an unhappy Paralogism as this we are told by our Historians it was which in the dark times of Popery gave the cause in the opinion of an whole Synod against the married Clergy when the side of the Room where the maintainers of it sat fell down killing some and burting others For thereupon they that were for Priests single life cryed down the Cause of the faln Party with them as witnessed against by God himself and by that sorry Argument and Noise prevailed Now against this great mistake by the way we shall never be sufficiently armed except we govern our Apprehensions by these Two Principles 1. That God never appointed the dark Rule of Providence to us it is no other to judge Canses by whether right or wrong good or bad Judg. 20. 21 25. Oftentimes for secret ends of his own he blasts a good and prospers a bad cause as the had Cause of the Benjamites in two set Battels against the good Cause of the Eleven Tribes and the horrid and blasphemous Imposture of the Mahometans hath now for many Ages by the permission of Providence prospered wonderfully against the greatest part of the Christian world 2. That Gods great and signal Judgments of which we are discoursing are now adays rarely inflicted but for such Crimes as are generally condemned in the Judgment of all Mankind or at least the generality of Christians according as he designs the notice of them to be spread in a greater or narrower compass And the Reason is evident to wit because it cannot otherwise be rationally expected the Justice of them should be clearly and convincingly owned and so the good they are intended for must needs be hazarded to so many as are dissatisfied in the merit of the Cause that is taken to procure them But when a Divine severity justly makes an example of any person in the general opinion notoriously criminous they are all inexcusable who thenceforward do the same things they condemned in another Rom. 2.1 as the Apostle saith and confess Gods Judgment to have righteously befaln him for 4. That we publish not on the house tops in our Saviours phrase on another occasion that which is Mat. 10.27 it may be whispered in our ears only and few possibly no other persons know of For it may so fall out that our intimate acquaintance with some men and their circumstances may give us knowledge of their particular vices secret as to all the rest of the world and of Gods secret strokes befalling them in their persons or private concerns which we in our own thoughts may rationally conclude to be Divine Judgments inflicted for them Now in such Cases though we may with great charity declare our apprehensions hereof to the parties concerned themselves and admonish and exhort them on that occasion yet it were great uncharitableness to publish to others either the one or the other For when God intends as appears by his way of proceeding therein only a private correction it must proceed from a defect of charity in us if we by divulging it turn it into a publique Execution to the exposing our Brother to an open shame And the very justice of every petty School may convince us of the evil of so doing wherein the corrections given within those walls are forbidden to be divulged under a like penalty to that which the disgraced School-fellow suffered 5. That we apply not the severe strokes of God upon our neighbour to the satisfaction of our private spleen and revengeful Humour which is too ordinary when we think such as lie under them have wronged us or it may be they really have so and we conclude their sufferings are Divine Judgments befalling them on our Quarrel This was the uncharitable Consure of Shimei against David when he tells him that God had avenged on him the blood of the House of Saul by the Rebellion of Absalom For it is plain by the Text 2 Sam. 16.5 6 7 8. that Shimei was of the very family of Saul and it may be looked upon himself as in some probable vicinity to the Crown if the succession of it had continued in that family At least 't is probable that by the translating it from thence he found his hopes as to those preferments and other advantages which usually are attained at Court by those of the Royal Blood blasted and defeated It is true indeed that Gods Justice doth sometimes appear in the remarkable vindication of eminently good mens and his useful Instruments Causes but for every ordinary person upon every petty trifling injury to expect that he should do the like for him or suppose he doth it is too great a Presumption 6. That we judge not our Brethrens estate towards