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	love_n	love_v	3,170	5	7.1590	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54342	Helps to the assurance of God's love whereby a true believer may with the help of Gods good spirit know that he had a being in the love of God before he had a being in the world : to which is added a spiritual touch-stone for the tryal of the sincerity of our love to God / by Samuel Pack.	Pack, Samuel.	1673 (1673)	Wing P150; ESTC R26175	21,542	70

hatred of sin now my friends see if it be so with you doth your love to God thus manifest it self But if it be otherwise with thee instead of hateing sin you love it instead of making communion with God your end in duty you make self pride and vain glory your end If instead of letting your thoughts dwell upon God you are dwelling upon the world and vanity you can have but little well-grounded hopes that you love God and consequently that God loves you for saith the Apostle we love him because he first loved us in which words we have first an effect Secondly a cause the effect is our love to God we love him Secondly the cause God loves us and saith Jesus Christ the Wisedome of the father I love them that love me we must not think the meaning of the holy Ghost in that Scripture is to make our love to God the cause of Gods love to us but the evidence of it Now my friends I beseech you gather up all again and see whether you can experience in your own souls that you have a true knowledge of God and the gifts and graces of the Spirit of God and whether this love of God doth constrain thee to duty And whether thou art a fruit-baring Christian and doest in the place in which God hath put thee endeavour to bring others to God and examine thine unsatiable desires after more of this love of God and examine whither God doth sanctify afflictions unto thee and give thee communion with himself in duty and art thou made willing to suffer for God and art thou made to hate sin and hath God destroy'd thy enemies which are thy sins and see if thou hast received spiritual life from God and hast a Sincere love to God Now to conclude if thou findest none of these markes in thy soul of Gods love thy case is sad I would not be in thy Condition for ten thousand worlds yet though I would discourage thee from going on in thy Sin because a constant persisting in a course of Sin is a dreadful Sign of Gods hatred yet I dare not discourage thee in thy attendance on the means of grace because those are Gods lattices through which he does flourish himself Can. 2.9 Or as we have it translated shew himself unto poor souls therefore thou that canst experience nothing of the love of God I beseech thee as thou tendrest the good of thy precious and immortal soul be constant in attending on the means of grace thou knowest not how soon God may dart in such beams of his love to thy soul through the thick glass of Gospel ordinances as may make thee cry out with the spouse stay me with Flagons strew me a bed with Apples for I am sick of Love And for you that can say you have had experience of the love of God and can say of a truth that Christ hath kissed you with the kisses of his Lips and that his left Arm hath been under your neck and his right Arm hath imbraced you you that can say that the time was when You did sit under the banner of my beloved with great delight and his fruit was sweet to your tast you that can say that the time was when God did flourish himself unto your Souls through the Lattice and the Sun of Righteousness did shine upon your Tabernacle That God did so manifest himself unto your Souls in all or most of his Ordinances that it may be you did not know whether you were in the body or out of the body as Paul saith your hearts have been forewarned and affected with the presence of God by the influence of his Spirit Now it may be you walk in darkness and have no light instead of that sweet communion you had with God in duty it may be there may be nothing but deadness and dulness of heart and indisposition of Soul to duty It may be instead of that shining in of Gods love unto your Souls you may with Job apprehend God to be your Enemy and be ready to say that God doth set a print on your Heels and on your Feet and sew up your iniquities in a bag and seal up your sins Job 13.24 26 27. you that could formerly say with David come and see what God hath done for my Soul it may be are now ready to say with Job have pity upon as oh our friends for the hand of the Lord is upon us Job 19 21. and with the Church in the Lamentations Is it nothing to you all you that pass by Behold and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow Lam. 1.12 which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce Wrath. Oh wo is 〈◊〉 us for the Day of Comfort and Consolation is passing away and the shadows of the evening and morning are stretched out Now poor souls you that are thu● in Hell upon Earth for want o● comfort and consolation from Heaven give me leave to speak two or three words to you in order to the reducing you to you former comfortable estate yo● that are thus afflicted and to●sed with Tempest and not comforted it will be your prudenc● and it doth highly concern you to take notice what wind hat● brought this Tempest which ha● filled your Souls with such clouds of despondencies for either the East Wind of sinful Security or the North Wind of pinching Adversity or the South Wind of unsanctified Prosperity has undoubtedly raised these storms in your Souls which for some time and in some measure make an interposition between the comfortable rayes of the Light of Gods Countenance and thy poor soul For the first see if the east wind of sinful security hath not raised this Tempest of dejection and despondency though God doeth greatly delight to secure his people from the God of this world yet his people will find but small comfort in their sinful security before God whilst they be in this World though God doeth so watch over a believer that he shall never be overcome by temptations yet for want of watchfulness in a believer God may suffer him to be exposed to Temptation though a true believer cannot lose the God of comfort and consolation yet he may for a time lose the comfort and consolation of his God if the blasting East wind of carnal security make the ears thin and empty no wonder if thou art not filled with the south wind of comfort and consolation if David and Peter think their mountain so strong that they shall not be moved to deny the Fountain of their Comfort and Consolation God will most certainly deny them for a time the Comforts from the Fountain Again in the next place see if the south wind of unsanctified prosperity have not blown up these storms of sanctifiing Adversity for Gods end in imbittering our beloved outward enjoyments by denying us his comforting presence is to make his consolations more sweet unto us and

that hath the Love of God shed abroad in it is insatiably desirous of more of it a David that hath tasted the sweetness of the Love of God he can in a sense thereof cry out Psal 4.6.4.51.8 Lord lift thou the light of thy countenance upon me and Lord restore unto me the Joy of thy Salvation It is reported of the Lyoness that when she hath once tasted of mans flesh she will never be satisfied without more of it when a Soul has once tasted of the sweetness of the Love of the lyon of the Tribe of Judah by feeding upon his flesh by Faith he will never be satisfied without more of it Now if God should put them to their choice as he did Solomon and ask such whether they would have the shinings in of Gods countenance or the pleasures of sin Oh say such Souls Give us the sweetness of thy love in Christ But suppose a Soul be asked whether it would have the Love of God or the pleasures and profits of the World oh saith the Soul the profits and pleasures of the world are but glistering vanities that are empty of what they promise and inticeing with what they have and God can quickly take the world from me or me from the world But if I have once the love of God I shall enjoy it for ever for neither death nor life Rom. 8 38 39 nor Angels nor Principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor highth nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now my friends I pray see whether you have these sharp appetites after more of the love of God then it is indeed sign that you are objects of the love of God a true Believer that has tasted the sweetness of the love of God is ready to say as Rachel did in another case Give me Children Gen. 30.1 or else I dye so saith the Soul give me more of the love of God or else my life will be a burden to me Oh saith the soul I am compassed about like Jehosaphat with Moab Ammon and mount Seir sin the world the Devil the father torments my Spirit and the children my flesh and being now in this deplorable state if God will not revive my soul with the sweet cordials of his Love what comfort can I have in my life Now if thou art thus breathing after more of the love of God it is a sign thou hast it already or else thou wouldst prefer any thing before it but if on the contrary thou canst with Herod prefer an Herodias sinful pleasure before the love of God and with Saul prefer the love of the people of the world before the love of God or with Demas prefer the profits of the world before the love of God Mat. 14.9 1 Sam. 15.30 2 Tim. 4.10 it is a sign thou never yet hast had it shed abroad in thy heart 6. Wouldst thou know whether thou canst assure thy self of the love of God then see whether God doth exercise thee with Afflictions and sanctify afflictions unto thee as unsanctified Prosperity is no certain sign of the love of God so neither are unsanctified Afflictions for Ahaz was under great afflictions and yet an object of Gods hatred and God is pleased to Stigmatize him to the world 2 Chron 28.22 to be that King Ahaz In which God does as it were point with the finger saying this is that incorrigible wretch that would not be wrought upon by Afflictions But if thou art exercised with Afflictions and those thou art exercised with draw thee nearer unto God and make thee mourn that thou shouldst provoke thy loving-tender-hearted father to lay such strokes upon thy back and that if thou wert put to thy choice thou hadst rather be rid of thy Sin than of thy afflictions and not be rid of thy sins also it is a sign that thou art an object of Gods love This is cleared up from the 3 of the Revelations compared with Psal 94. 〈◊〉 In the Revelations afflictions are made a sign of Gods love those whom I love I rebuke and chasten in that 94 Psal we may see when afflictions are signs of Gods love and that is when they are teaching Afflictions when in Afflictions God teacheth us to know the evil of sin in its cursed nature which is the meritorious cause of all Afflictions In a word when Afflictions are so sanctified as to make us love God more hate Sin more and contenm the world more and to desire to lye down patiently under the hand and will of God and say with Ely it is the Lord 1 Sam. 3.18 let him do what seemeth good in his sight and with Hezekiah Good is the word of the Lord good is this affliction from the hand of my good God and that it is the grief of thy soul when thou doest find a contumacious will thwarting the will of God and this reluctancy in thy will to submit to the will of God under afflicting providences is thy burden then I say it is a good sign nay an infallible sign that God doth exercise thee with those afflictions in love to thy precious Soul Indeed it is too ordinary for Gods people yea his beloved ones to look upon Afflictions as signs of Gods anger but though it be so with some yet it is not so with all I knew a gracious woman in Cambridge was wont to say that if God should not be pleased sometimes to afflict her she should fear he had forgot her and truly I think if there were more of this gracious submissive frame of Spirit amongst Christians in making a right construction of the dealings of God towards them it would put a period to those murmurings complaints and that uncomfortable deportment that doth so much predominate even in Gods beloved ones when they are under Afflictions 7. If thou wouldst know whether thou art an object of Gods love then see if God doth give thee Communion with himself in dutys an object of Gods hatred may injoy the ordinances of God but only true Believers can injoy Communion with the God of Ordinances Can. 2.4 The Spouse tells us that when her beloved brought her into the banquetting house his banner over her was love which in the original is the house of wines and is therefore very fitly translated banquetting because wine is frequently used at banquetting and that which is comprehended in the words is mainly this that when believers are found diligently attending on the means of grace God will at one time or other in one degree or other manifest himself and his love towards them The world is compared to a sea and Gods people in the world are like the disciples on the sea tossed with the waves of afflictions and temptations and Christ apppears to them spiritually as he did to the disciples corporally but they are ready to