Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	earth_n	heaven_n	lord_n	2,528	5	3.5705	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86974	A sermon preach't to his Maiesty, at the court of White-hall. Aug.8. / By Jos. B. of Exon.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1641 (1641)	Wing H414; Thomason E1100_2; ESTC R208332	12,915	54

a little through a lazy security thou hast forfeited all by disuse and maist expect to heare Stulte hac nocte Thou art rich in profession of Grace Was any man more officious then Demas yet he soon fell to imbrace the present world with a neglect of the future Think not now that I am falling in with our late Excutifidians to teach that a true solid radicated saving faith may be totally finally lost no I hate the motion it is presumption that I taxe not well grounded assurance presumption of outward profession and priviledges not assurance of the inward truth of grace Presume not o vaine man of what thou wert or what thou hast Devills were Angells Hierusalem was the holy Citty Rome was for her faith famous through all the world Rom. 1.8 Woe to Ariel to Ariel the City where David dwelt Es 29.1 Our owne once good estate may aggravate our misery can never secure our happinesse Son of man what shall become of the vine of all plants saith the Prophet The more noble it is the worse it speeds if fruitlesse Oh let us not be high-minded but feare England was once yea lately was perhaps is still the most flourishing Church under heaven that I may take up the Prophets words Es 13.19 the glory of Churches the beauty of excellency what it may be what it will be if we fall still into distractions and various Sects God knowes and it is not hard for men to fore-see Surely if we grow into that Anarchicall fashion of Independent congregations which I see and lament to see affected by too many not without wofull successe we are gone we are lost in a most miserable confusion we shall be as when God overthrew Sodome and Gomorrah Es 13.20.21 and it shall be with us as the Prophet speakes of proud and glorious Babylon The shepheards shall not make their fold here wild beasts of the desert shall lye bere and our houses shall be full of dolefull creatures and owles shall dwell and satyres shall dance there and the wild beasts of the Islands shall cry in our desolate palaces I take no pleasure God knowes to ominate ill to my deare nation and dearer mother the Church of England for whose welfare and happinesse I could contemne my owne life but I speake it in a true sorrow of heart to perceive our danger and in a zealous precaution to prevent it Oh God in whose hands the hearts of Princes and all the sons of men are to turne them as the rivers of waters put it into the heart of our King and Parliament to take speedy order for the suppression of this wild variety of Sects and lawlesse independencies ere it be too late Thus much for the subject and termes of this change The agent followes He turneth Never was there any sterility whereof there may not be a cause given Either the season is unkindly parching with drought or drenching with wet or nipping with frost or blasting with pernicious aires or rotting with mildewes or some mis-accident of the place inundations of waters incursions and spoyle of enemies suddaine mortalities of the inhabitants or some naturall fault in the soyle or misdemeanure of the owners idlenesse ill-husbandry in mis-timing neglect of meet helps unculture ill choyce of seed but what ever be the second cause we are sure who is the first Hee turneth Is there any evill in the City and he hath not done it Alas what are all secondary causes but as so many livelesse puppets there is a divine hand unseene that stirres the wires and puts upon them all their motion so as our Saviour said of Pilate we may say of all the activest instruments both of earth and hell Thou couldest have no power over mee unlesse it were given thee from above Is Ioseph sold to the Merchants by the villany of his envious brethren The Lord sent me before you Gen. 51. Doe the Chaldeans and Sabeans feloniously drive away the heards of Iob doth the Devill by a tempestuous gust bluster downe the house and rob him of his children The Lord hath taken Iob. 1. Is a man slaine by chance-medly the axe-head slipping from the helve Dominus tradidit So whether they be acts of nature of will of casualty whether done by naturall agents by voluntary by casuall by supernaturall Digitus Dei est hic He turneth What can all other causes either doe or be without him who is the originall of all entity and causality There is much wisdome and justice in distinguishing causes giving each their owne whereof whiles some have failed they have run into injurious and frantick extrems Whiles on the one side wild and ignorant hereticks have ascribed all to Gods agency without acknowledging secondary causes on the other Atheous fooles ascribe all to the second and immediate causes not looking up to the hand of an over-ruling and all-contriving providence We must walk warily betwixt both yeelding the necessary operatiō of subordinate means imployed by the divine wisdome and adoring that infinite wisdome and power which both produces and imployes those subordinate means to his own holy purposes Tell mee then art thou crossed in thy designes and expectation Blame not distempers of times disappointment of undertakings intervention of crosse-accidents this is as some shifting Alchymist that casts all the fault of his mis-successe upon his glasse or his furnace but kisse that invisible hand of power which disposeth of all these sublunary events if against thy will yet according to his owne Even nature it selfe will teach us to reduce all second causes to the first Behold saith the Lord I will heare the heavens they shall heare the earth the earth shall heare the corne wine oyle and they shall heare Israel Lo here is a necessary scale whereof no staffe can be missing How should Israel live without corne wine oyle how should the corne wine oyle be had without the yeeldance of the earth how should the earth yeeld these without the influence of heaven how can heaven yeeld these influences without the command of the maker Ose 2.21 When I meet therefore with a querulous husbandman he tels mee of a churlish soyle of a wet seed-time of a greene winter of an unkindly spring of a luke-warme summer of a blustring autumne but I tell him of a displeased God who will be sure to contrive and fetch about all seasons and elements to his own most wise drifts and purposes Thou art a Merchant what tellest thou mee of crosse winds of Michael-mas flawes of ill weathers of the wafting of the Archangels wings when thou passest by the Grecian promontory of tedious becalmings of pyraticall hazards of falshood in trades breaking of customers craft and undermining of interlopers all these are set on by heaven to impoverish thee Thou art a Courtier and hast laid a plot to rise if obsequious servility to the great if those gifts in the bosome which our blunt Ancestors would have termed Bribes if plausible

suppalpations if restlesse importunities will hoyse thee thou wilt mount But something there is that clogs thy heele or blocks thy way either some secret detractor hath forlaid thee by a whispering mis-intimation or some mis-construction of thy well-meant offices hath drawne thee into unjust suspition or the envy of some powerfull corrivall trumps in thy way and holds thee off from thine already swallowed honor There is an hand above that manageth all this What are we but the Keyes of this great instrument of the world which he touches at pleasure depressing some whiles others rise and others againe stand still Yea let me make higher instances of you men of State that sway the great affaires of Kingdomes and by your wise and awfull arbitrements decree under Soveraignty of either warre or peace either take up or slacken the raynes of Commerce so framing the many wheeles of this vast engine that all may move happily together you may rack your braines and enlarge your forraine intelligences and cast in the symboles of your prudent contributions to the common welfare but know withall Frustra nisi Dominus let your projects be never so faire your treaties never so wise and cautious your enterprises never so hopefull if he doe but blow upon them they are vanished The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong nor yet bread to the wise Eccles 9.11 What should we doe then but look up to that Almighty hand that swayeth all these sublunary yea and celestiall affaires It is the weake fashion of foolish children to ascribe all their kindnesses or discontents to the next cause If good befall them it is the Taylor to whom they are beholden for their coate the Confectionary for their sweet-meats not their parents who pay for all these Againe if the knife be taken away from them the Servant is blamed and beaten with their feeble but angry hand not the mother that commanded it yea it is the brutish fashion of unreasonable creatures to run after and bite the stone not regarding the hand that threw it Wee Christians should have more wit and since we know that nature it selfe is no other then Gods ordinance of second causes and chance is but an ignorance of the true causes and our freest wills are over-ruled by the first mover oh let us improve our reason and Christianity so much as to acknowledge the secret but most certaine hand of an omnipotent agent in all the occurrents of the world for certainly there cannot be a greater injury to the great King of heaven and earth then to suffer second causes to run away with the honor of the first whether in good or evill Secondly what should we doe but kisse the rod and him that smites with it patiently receiving all chastisements from the hand of a powerfull wise just God Had we to doe with an agent lesse then omnipotent we might perhaps think of him as one said of the Egyptian Magitians They could hurt but they could not heale they could doe evill but not good or we might feare something might betide us against beside without his will finite agents cannot goe beyond their owne spheare were the power of great Princes as large as their wills none of their designes should be ineffectuall Or had we to doe with a powerfull agent that were not also infinitely wise we might think he might be over-reacht in his plot But now that infinite power and wisdome are the very essence of God let us what ever we doe or may befall us take up that holy resolution of good Ely It is the Lord let himdoe what seemeth him good 1. Sam. 3.18 But in the meane time let not those wicked wretches by whose unjust hand the just God thinks good to scourge his owne comfort themselves with the hope of an impunity because they are unwittingly used in his executions No they are no whit the more innocent because God beats his owne with their malice neither shall they be lesse avenged because they have heedlesly done Gods will whiles they despitefully doe their owne Ashur is the rod of Gods wrath when God hath sufficiently whipt drawne blood of his Israel by him he casts him into the fire the fire of that wrath which Ashur feeles from God is a thousand times hotter then the fire of that wrath which Israel feeles from Ashur Shortly God will have his due honor both in afflicting his owne and in plagueing those that afflicted them his agency is equall in both He turneth a fruitfull land into barrennesse Hitherto the agent now followes the meriting cause of this change The wickednesse of them that dwell therein God is an absolute Lord Domini est terra he is not accountable for any reason of his change whether of barrenesse or plenty there needs no other ground to be given but Quia voluit and even so it is in this stirring peece of earth which we carry about us Why this womb or those loynes are sterile that fruitfull yea why this or that soule is so he needs not give any reason but his will yet so far doth he condescend to us as to impart to us an account of the ground of his proceedings Man suffreth for his sin saith the Prophet and the earth suffreth here for the wickednesse of the inhabitants Evermore God hath some motive for the inflicting of evil As it is in the main point of a mans eternal estate Mans Salvation is ex mero beneplacito The gift of God is eternal life but his damnation is never without acause in mā The soule that sinneth shal dy So it is in this case of lesser good or evill when God speakes of turning wildernesses into ponds of water in the following words ye heare no cause assigned but meer mercy but whē he speaks of turning fruitful lands into barrennes now it is for the wickednes of indwellers This is a most sure rule therefore All judgements are inflicted for sin Chastisements are out of love but punishment out of Justice Yea so doth God order his judgements commonly that in the punishment we may reade the sin and in the sin we may foresee the punishment and can confidently define where punishment is there hath been sin and where sin is there will be punishment I have heard and seene some ignorant impatients when they have found themselves to smart with Gods scourge cast a sullen frowne back upon him with Cur me caedis or with the malecontented mother of the striving twins Why am I thus Alas what mere what miserable strangers are these men at home There is nothing in the world that they doe more misknow then themselves had they ever but look't in if but at the door yea at the window yea at the Key-hole of their owne hearts or lives they could not choose but cry out with holy Iob I have sinned what shal I do to thee O thou preserver of Men They would accuse arraign condemne themselves and would