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	good_a	work_n	5,591	5	6.3844	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94160	A sermon preached at Nevvport in the Isle of Wight, October 1648. In the time of the treaty. / By Robert Sanderson, D.D. chaplain to the late King, and Regius-Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxon.	Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663.	1653 (1653)	Wing S628; Thomason E702_15; ESTC R203446	18,328	25

do his part too in giving theincrease and Crowning our endeavors with success Secondly a duty of thankfulness If by this good blessing upon our Prayers and endeavors we have been enabled to bring forth any fruit such as he will graciously accept take we heed we do not withdraw the least part of the glory of it from him to derive it upon our selves or our own endeavors Non nobis Domine non nobis Not unto us O Lord by no means to us but to thy Name be the glory Enough it is for us i● we have the comfort inward and shall have an immeasurable reward at the last for the good we have done either of both which is infinitely more then we deserve but far be it from us to claim any share in the glory let all that be to him alone Whatsoever fruit therefore we bear or how much soever let us not be high minded thereupon or take too much upon us for we bear not the Root but the Root beareth us and when we have done our outmost endeavors the fruit we bear is still the fruit of the Spirit and not the fruit of our endeavors I have dwelt long upon this first difference not so much because it was the first though that sometimes falleth out to be the best excuse we are able to make for such prolixities as because it is most material as arising from the different nature of the things spoken of whereas the three that follow are rather verbal arising but from the different manner of the Apostles expressions in respect of the words The first whereof the 2d of the whole four is That the evil effects proceeding from the flesh are called by the name of works and the good effects proceeding from the Spirit are called by the name of fruits The Quere is Why those these being both effects alike they are not either both alike called works or both alike called fruits but the one works the other fruits The works of the flesh there here the fruit of the Spirit For answer whereunto I shall propose to your choyce two conjectures the one more Theological which is almost as new to me as perhaps it will seem to you for it came not into my thoughts till I was upon it the other more Moral and Popular For the former take it thus Where the immediate Agent produceth a work or effect virtute propriâ by his own power and not in the vertue of a superior Agent both the work it self produced and the efficacy of the operation whereby it is produced are to be ascribed to him alone so as it may be said properly precisely to be his work But where the immediate Agent operateth virtute alienâ in the strength and vertue of some higher Agent without wch he were not able to produce the effect though the work done may even there also be attributed in some sort to the inferior and subordinate Agent as the immediate cause yet the efficacy wherby it was wrought cannot so properly be imputed to him but ought rather to be ascribed to that higher Agent in whose vertue he did operate The Application will make it somewhat plainer In all humane actions whether good or bad the will of man is the immediate Agent so that whether we commit a sin or do a good work inasmuch as it proceedeth from our free wills the work is still our work howsoever But herein is the difference between good and evil actions The Will which is naturally in this depraved estate corrupt and fleshly operateth by its own power alone for the producing of a sinful action without any co-operation at all as was said already of God or his Holy Spirit and therefore the sin so produced is to be ascribed to the fleshly Will as to the sole and proper Cause thereof and may therefore very rightly be said to be the work of the flesh But in the producing any action that is spiritually good the Will operateth onely as a subordinate Agent to the grace of the Holy Spirit and in the power and vertue thereof And therefore although the good work may in some sort be said to be our work because immediately produced by our Wills yet it is in truth the fruit of the Spirit and not of our Wills because it is wrought by the power of that and not by any power of our own Wills Nevertheless not I but the grace of God with me If this conjecture seem but a subtilty and satisfie not let it go the other I presume wil being it is so plain and popular The word fruit most-what relateth to some labour going before Hoc fructi ab labore pro his fero in the old Poet So in the Scriptures Nevertheless this is the fruit of my labour The Husbandman that first laboureth must be partaker of the fruits Labour first and then fruits That which David calleth the labour of the hands Thou shalt eat the labour of thy hands Psal. 128. Solomon calleth the fruit of the hands Give her of the fruit of her hands Prov. 31. The reason is because no man would willingly undergo any toyl or labour to no end he would have something or other in his eye that might in some measure recompence his pains and that is called the fruit of his labour Tully therefore joyneth Praemium and Fructum together as importing the same thing Who planteth a Vineyard but in hope to eat of the fruit of it Or what Husbandman would Plow and Sow and Plant and Prune and Dig and Dung if he did not hope to find it all answered again when he cometh to Inne the fruits Spe fructûs dura ferentes The first question in every mans thoughts when he is importuned to any thing of labour and business is Ecquid erit pretii will it be worth my labour what benefit shal I reap by it what wil be the fruit of my pains In all deliberations where two wayes are offered to our choice Wisdom would that we should first weigh as advisedly and exactly as we can the labour and the fruit of the one against the other and as we find those rightly compared to be more or less to make our resolutions accordingly We are called on hard on both sides God commandeth us to serve him Satan and the World sollicite us to the service of sin Promises there are or intimations of fruit on both sides Salvation to our souls on the one side Satisfaction to our lusts on the other Here then is our business and our wisdom to compare what is required and what is offered on both sides to examine on the one side first and then on the other whether the work exceed the fruit or the fruit the work Now the Apostle by the very choice of his words here hath after a sort done the business and determined the controversie to our hands In the service of sin the toyl is so great that in comparison thereof the

A SERMON Preached at NEWPORT IN THE ISLE of WIGHT October 1648. In the time of the TREATY BY ROBERT SANDERSON D. D. Chaplain to the late KING and Regius-Professor of Divinity in the University of OXON. London Printed by T. M. for Andrew Crook at the Green Dragon in S. Pauls Church-yard 1653. A SERMON PREACHED In the Isle of WIGHT Before the late KING GALAT. 5. 22 23. Ver. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance against such there is no Law HE that shall impartially look upon former and the present times shall find that of Salomon exactly true There is no new thing under the sun Vetus fabula novi Histriones The things we see done are but the same things that have been done onely acted over again by new Persons and with a few new circumstances It was in the Apostles times and in the Churches of Galatia even as it is with us in these dayes False Teachers had crept in among them who by their Hypocrisie and pretensions of the Spirit had so corrupted their Faith that they were removed after a sort unto another Gospel and so extremely sowred their Charity that from provoking and envying they were now grown to biting and devouring one another The Apostle wondering at this so unexpected a change I marvel you are so soon removed Gal. 1. 6. to see them so befooled in their understandings and bewitched in their affections as to suffer so sore and sudden a decay in the two most Essential parts of Christian Religion Faith and Charity thought it high time for him after he had first schooled them O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you to offer this advice towards the allaying of those heats and distempers that were the causes of this so sad and dangerous an alteration The Remedy he prescribeth for that end verse 16. is short but very sure if they will follow it Walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh As if he had said You talk much of the Spirit but you make it little appear in the fruit of your lives that you are led by the Spirit The Spirit and the flesh are contraries and they lust contrary things verse 17. If you were as careful to walk in the Spirit as you are to boast of it you would not be so forward as now you are by the cherishing of unbrotherly contentions and other wayes to fulfil the Lusts of the flesh An hard thing it is to bring an overweening Hypocrite to a true understanding of himself for Pride and Hypocrisie are two such things as few men are willing to own That they might therefore with better certainty be able to discern whether they were indeed Spiritual or but yet carnal the Apostle proceedeth to describe the flesh and the Spirit by sundry their different effects A Catalogue we have for that purpose of the works of the flesh in seventeen particulars in the three next verses before the Text and then another Catalogue of the fruit of the Spirit in nine Particulars in the Text it self Wherein we may observe three things First the Notion or general Description of spiritual graces as they are here proposed they go under this name The fruit of the Spirit Secondly the particular species given in under that name or Notion They are these nine Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness and Temperance Thirdly a special Priviledge belonging to all and every the aforesaid particulars to wit exemption from the Law Against such there is no Law In the general Description which is like to be our onely business at this time the thing we are to take notice of is the difference that may be observed between the Titles under which Saint Paul hath entered the several particulars of both sorts as they are set down the one in the beginning of verse 19. The works of the flesh are manifest which are these Adultery c. The other in the beginning of verse 22. But the fruit of the spirit is Love c. And these differences are four First Those effects of the former sort proceed originally from the flesh these from the Spirit Secondly Those are rather styled by the name of Works these by the name of Fruit The Works of the flesh but the Fruit of the Spirit Thirdly Those are set forth as many and apart Works in the Plural these as many but united into one Fruit in the Singular Fourthly Those are expresly said to be manifest of these no such thing at all mentioned The first difference which ariseth from the nature of the things themselves as they relate to their several proper causes is of the four the most obvious and important and it is this That whereas the vicious habits and sinful actions Catalogued in the former verses are the productions of the flesh The graces and vertues specified in the Text are ascribed to the Spirit as to their proper and Original cause they are not the Works of the flesh as the former but the Fruit of the Spirit Where the first question that every man will be ready to ask is What is here meant by the Spirit The necessity of expressing Supernatural and Divine things by words taken from Natural or Humane affairs hath produced another necessity of enlarging the significations of sundry of those words to a very great latitude which is one special cause of the obscurity which is found in sundry places of Holy Scripture and consequently of the difficulty of giving the proper and genuine sense of such places and consequently to that amidst so many interpretations of one and the same place wh●lst each contendeth for that sense which himself hath pitched upon of infinite Disputes and Controversies in point of Religion Among which words three especially I have observed all of them of very frequent use in the New Testament which as they are subject to greater variety of significations than most other words are so have they ever yet been and are like to be to the worlds end the matter and fuel of very many and very fiery contentions in the Church These three are Faith Grace and Spirit Truly I am perswaded if it were possible all men could agree in what signification each of these three words were to be understood in each place where any of them are found three full parts at least of the four of those unhappy Controversies that have been held up in the Christian Church would vanish And of the three this of the Spirit hath yet the greatest variety of significations God in his Essence the Person of the Holy Ghost good Angels evil Angels extraordinary Gifts wherewith the Apostles and others in the Primitive times were endowed the several faculties of the soul as understanding affections and conscience the whole soul of man Supernatural grace besides many others not needful now to be remembred all come under the appellation of Spirit