Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	effect_n	faith_n	work_n	5,340	5	6.6017	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51697	The axe at the root of professors miscarriages in a plain detection of, and a wholesome caveat against the miscarriages opposite to faith in God / by Thomas Mall ...	Mall, Thomas, b. 1629 or 30.	1668 (1668)	Wing M328; ESTC R12069	51,837	51

true as the light or visnal-faculty is planted in the eye or else he cannot comprehend that light that shines unto him The evidence then which a true believer hath of any truth of God which he embraceth is the manifesting of that truth unto the Spirit not only by a form of words to the natural understanding but beyond that by a kind of demonstration unto the spiritual mind as the evidence of any object to the eye is by the shining of the light upon it which makes it to appear to be such as it is This kind of testifying or evidencing things Rom 8 16 in a spiritual way the Apostle calls The witnessing of Gods Spirit with our Spirit mentioning expresly two Spirits whereof if either be wanting there can be no Divine testimony But is not our belief grounded upon the testimony of Reason upon the consonancy of Scripture-revelations to right Reason And is not the testimony of reason an humane testimony Yea Do not we believe upon an humane testimony when we believe any thing written in the Scriptures for the testimony of the Scriptures If that we believe the Scriptures themselves upon the general consent of the Church or upon the probability and reasonableness of the things therein delivered or upon the observation of the truth of those writings in most things which all make up but an humane testimony This the same learned and judicious Divine proves thus White c p 98 99 The assent unto one thing for another is built upon that to which we first give our assent as a stone in a wall though it lyes immediately upon that stone that is next under it yet it is indeed supported by the foundation which bears up all the building We say we do believe but is not our Assent without sutable impressions upon our hearts and without a sutable carriage in our lives Doth the reality of Gods being believed Baxter's Divine Lise on John 17 3 make us look upon our selves and all things as nothing without God as nothing in comparison of God and to let the beeing and reality of our love desire and endeavours be let out upon the most real and transcendent Beeing Doth the belief of Gods Vnity contract and unite our stragling affections and call them home from multifarious Vanity Doth the belief of Gods Immensity and Incomprehensibility fill our Souls with admiration Doth the belief of Gods Eternity draw our Souls from transitory to eternal things Doth the belief of Gods Simplicity make us in love with holy simplicity Doth the belief of Gods Invisibility make us mostly esteem and value things invisible Doth the belief of Gods Immutability beget in us unchangeable resolutions for God Doth the belief of Gods Almightiness sill us continually with holy fear and promote trusting in him Doth the belief of Gods Wisdome make us delight in the wisdome which is from above and to choose God for our Teacher and Counsellour Doth the belief of Gods Goodness fill our Souls with a superlative love unto God and industrious desires to be conform●d to his goodness in our measure Doth the belief of Gods Holiness cause us to have most high and honourable esteems of holiness in the creature and to fall in love with it and wholly conform our selves to Gods holiness in Christ Doth the belief of Gods Truth and Faithfulness make us resolved for duty and an holy life seeing the commands of God are serious and the promises and threats true The true and sound assent to any Divine Revelation as an holy truth includeth a correspondency in the believer to the thing believed Such an assent descends from the understanding to the affections and so to the conversation True Faith and right Obedience cannot be separated for he that believes the truth of Gods promises fill'd with such things as he doth most want must needs desire the good contained in them and seeing God hath declared the effect of his promises attainable only in wayes of obedience if he neglect that means it is manifest he doth not desire the end Certainly if our assent doth not cannot act no more than a dead body can rise and walk it is but a dead faith The Apostle doth not say as one well observes Faith is dead without works Manton on Jam 2 20. but Faith without works is dead I here is a difference between these predications as there is between those A man without motion is dead and a man is dead without motion Works are not the cause that give life to Faith but yet they are the effects that argue life in Faith Faith is not alwayes alike lively but yet it is alwayes living and operation is the necessary effect of life O! What cause have we to repent of our dead Faith And what Shall it alwayes remain dead Take heed I beseech you not only of setting no your rest in a Knowledge but in a Faith falsely so called Take heed of pleasing your selves any longer with the name of Faith and remaining destitute of the vertue of Faith for the crucifying your lusts and corruptions and conforming your hearts and lives to the Commandements of God To assent to truth with the neglect of goodness or with lazy desires after goodness is but a vain Faith That assent that doth not now subdue sin Gen. 23.4 will not suppress fear when you come to dye What! will ye not yet bury your dead out of your sight Chap. III. The Miscarriages opposite to Consenting to have God to be your God the third Act of Faith 1. Against resusing God REfusing God Beware of still refusing to have the true God to be a God unto you and a God over you to have him to be your Portion and Soveraign To be God Gen. 17.1 7. Rom. 9.5 implies to be enough unto all to be an all-sufficient and self-sufficient good and to be over all and above all to be an all-commanding good Ephes 4.6 To refuse God is to refuse to place our happiness in him and to come under his government Hath not this been your sin God hath offered himself to be your chief good and absolute Soveraign but have not you refused such offers Yea do not you still refuse them There are many degrees of refusing as one well observes Although we may be free of some of them Ob. Sedgwick's Fountain opened c. chap. 6. yet are not we comprized in some one or other of them Are not some guilty of refusing by way of presumptuous persecution Are not others by way of malicious opposition Are not others by way of scornful derision Are not others by way of open though not malicious resistance And if we be not guilty of any of these refusings yet are not we guilty of refusing by way of dissent or unperswasion Are not we yet unperswaded to accept of God upon his own tearms Certainly there is no medium 'twixt Faith and Infidelity 'twixt receiving of God and refusing of God

they do not necessarily and infallibly conclude that a Man hath faith Conclude not for your selves by finding the antecedents of Faith 2 There are some things which faith only doth produce yet because it d th not produce them always a Man must not therefore negatively conclude from the absence of them the absence of faith 3 There are some things which faith only doth produce not as essential properties but as magnificent Testimonies Conclude not against your selves for the want of such effects of faith Be sure that you do not any longer try your selves by uncertain qualifications that belong not to every Believer at all times and none but believers but try your selves by sine infallible marks by the essential properties and effects of Faith in God Set not about this work without hearty cries to God for his spirit to irradiate the grace you are searching after and by witnessing with your spirit to put you out of doubt It is a vain thing for you to go about this work much more to think to go through with it by any strength of your own And be sure that you take heed of provoking God to withdraw from you in this work Cant● 4.4 5 6 7. Do not refuse the Light of Assurance when offered Hereupon Christ withdrew from the Spouse but put your selves in a disposed an I prepared way to receive the evidencing Light of the Spirit who will not affine you whether you will or no. Do not make use of Signs in a prejudicial way to those direct and immediate Acts of Faith Burges c. page 56 57. whereby you close with God While you are poring and digging into your own heart to finde faith there forget not to exercise applicative Acts of Faith When ever you would go down into your own hearts and take a view of your own graces first close with God himself in Christ and afterwards begin afresh upon the encouragement you have from the fight of grace within you to act Faith upon God with a redoubled strength 2 Pet 1 9 Mat 25 29 He that lacketh these things i. e. that doth not use them so not to use Talents is not to have them is blinde and soon forgetteth all the grace he hath If God do not appear presently do not murmur and repine against him While Job thought that God wronged him God ceased not to scare him with dreams and terrify him with visions but when he justified God God appeared for him But for a more full handling of the miscarriages about self-examination which you should mourn for and take heed of I shall refer you to the twentieth chapter of the Gospel-glass 4 Resting in an imaginary Assurance Against an imaginary assurance Presumption is mainly the work of a strong fancy What the ●ich Believer hath by propriety and in possession the same hath the presumptuous Professor in a dreaming fancy and imagination He pretends to be as knowing as bel eving as confident as the true Believer he never doubted of his Interest in God none more ●ocond and merry then he is thereupon Hath not this been your sin And is not God therefore contending with you Because we have built our house upon the Sands is not God razing all our sandy Foundations Psal 66.10 Psal 25.8 Because we have been careless of trying our selves is not God trying us as silver is tryed May not we even say God and upright is the Lord that will teach sinners his way that by the Thunder-claps of his Righteous Judgements is resolved to awaken us out of those foolish dreams in which if we should die we were undone for ever O that we may be dreamers no longer O take heed of presuming once more that God is your God either because he made you so he did the Devils Gods making you puts you into the relation of creatures unto God and God of a Creatour unto you but not of a chief-good and supream Lord. He is your Creatour Psal 17.14 whether you will or no but so he is not your God Or because you prosper in every thing and are not in trouble and distress as other men The more you have of a portion in this life the more cause you have to sear that God is not your portion Or because Christ hath died for you to purchase an interest in God So he hath if you will consent to have him for your chief good and Sovereign Lord other wise not O! how great will your confusion be when your Gold shall be found Dress your Wine to be Water your Graces to be Corruptions And you your selves appear no better then the mad Athenian Burges Resining pa●t 1. Serm. 6. Serm. 30. and 118. who thought all the Ships on the Sea were his Take heed of such a confidence of an interest in God as hath ignorance and self-love for its procreant causes as is grounded on a meer natural light or some false reasonings as is wrought without any serious deep humiliation for being without God preceding it and easily without any opposition as leaves the soul idle in the Work of God without love to and encouragement in God as is not attended with an holy fear and humility and as is not destroyed by sin but crosses Such a confidence is a presumptuous confidence and not assurance Even hypocrites may have some experimental knowledge Sern ●● 3. and yet not assurance of Faith they may know that they are enlightned and have other common gifts of the Holy-Ghost that sin is imbittered to their souls that they do assent to scripture Truths that they have some desires after God and Christ that they do at sometimes and in some things trust in God and yet they want saving Faith and therefore cannot know they have it O! take heed of thievishly fingering the Kings Coin without a Warrant Christ told the Jews that they were of their father the Devil John 8.54 though of his Father they said he is our God they made their boasts and brags that God was their God but God and Christ disowned them Chap. VI. The miscarriages opposite to confession the external Act of Faith in God Against positive confession without a call 1. RAsh adventuring upon positive confession without a Call from Heaven Hath not this been the sin of some and have not all Professors smarted for it The Acute Author of Christ Confessed who as the Publisher observes hath cut by a thread in clearly and judiciously determing the present grand Cases of the times gives a three-fold Answer to this Question At what times are we priviledged from and by consequence not called unto positive confession of Christ Christ confessed p. 65 66. 1 When the engagements for self-safety are not preponderated by or in an equal poize with those for our Saviours glory 2. When the interest both of the confession and Confessor will be visibly prejudiced 3. When the ends of confessing Christ cannot manifestly be promoted