Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	evil_a	good_a	sin_n	7,176	5	5.3331	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44070	The creatures goodness, as they came out of God's hands, and the good mans mercy to the brute creatures, which God hath put under his feet in two sermons : the first preached before the University of Oxford : the second at the lecture at Brackley / by Thomas Hodges ...	Hodges, Thomas, d. 1688.	1675 (1675)	Wing H2319; ESTC R17986	37,570	50

Life bears fruit every month which some think is a restoring of it to its primitive fruitfulness and for want of which some think the Fig-tree was cursed in the Gospel so Mr. Brightman And there are who think that one day Sodom and Gomorrah now a dead Sea shall again become a fruitful and pleasant Land And for this see Ezek. 16.53.55 There are too who think that the Creatures waiting groaning and longing to be delivered into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8. doth hint some Restitution of the Creatures to their first good and sound state Which whether it do or no I leave it to you to judge Only this I say that if the visible World shall pass through a purgatory-fire at the day of Judgment and if it shall be continued for the blessed Saints to contemplate God's goodness therein at first and the glory of Christ the second Adam who came to repair the ruins which the first made that then it is not improbable that the Creatures may then attain to their primitive goodness However sure I am that the Humane Nature is already in the Person of Christ advanced far above what it was in Adam at first The first Adam was of the Earth earthly the second Adam was the Lord from Heaven heavenly And again That all those that are Christs are already in part and shall hereafter in Heaven perfectly be restored to the Image of God wherein they were made at first and to a better and more happy estate then ever Adam had in Paradise V. There 's one Query more to be briefly spoken unto and then we shall have done with the Fifth thing propounded in the beginning of our Discourse and that is what is required of us towards the repair of the ruins of the Creation to restore the Creatures to their primitive goodness and beauty To this I answer 1. That God doth not require that we should repair the Angelical Nature that we should pour Wine and Oyl into their wounds or bind up their bruises their stroke is incurable there is no Balm in Gilead no Physician for their disease Only we must by endeavouring to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fit our selves to fill up those vacant places in the Heavens from whence they fell God can make of us if we duly apply our selves to him although we be but earthen Pitchers Vessels of Grace and Vessels of Glory Vessels every way fit for our Masters use both in Earth and in Heaven Col. 3.9 10 2. God doth expect that we should put off the old Man with his deeds and put on the new Man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him That being in Christ id est being indeed Christians we should become new Creatures be renewed in the spirit of our minds and walk in newness of life that as in Adam we all dyed and became dead in Sins and trespasses so in Christ the second Adam and by a lively Faith in him we should all be made aliue And because Adam was the Son of God by Creation at first that we should all be Partakers of the Divine Nature be his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works Live and walk as the Sons of God all as the Children of the most High that the Lord may take pleasure in us again as he did in Adam in Paradise before he sinned 3. We must make a good use of all God's good Creatures getting a new right to use them although the old one be not utterly lost and using them alway aright according to the Creators will and for his glory Many are the good uses we may make of the Creatures this Doctrine of the Creatures usefulness and goodness U I Hence we may be informed that God made not sin For all that he made was good and Sin that is evil and as Sin only evil and that continually There was no Anomy or Ataxy in all God's works but Sin it self is an Anomy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then God is not the Author of this evil and confusion This is the Truth we teach in all the Churches of the Saints and not as we are slanderously reported by the Romanists that we say that God is the Author of Sin God is Summum Bonum yea Goodness it self but Sin is Summum Malum the chiefest Evil and so bad that Hell and the Devil cannot make it worse Ye cannot call it worse than to call it by an Epithite drawn from its own name viz. sinful Sin This calls the Devil Father and Author God the good Husbandman sow'd nothing but good Seed in his Field 't is the Devil that Enemy that sow'd these tares Again hence we infer that Sin is very evil because it hath poyson'd so many good things yea hath been the cause of all evils in the World For at the first God made every thing very good That must needs be bitter indeed which hath imbittered so many and so great sweets Sin is the great Troubler of the World this is it which makes God's good things turn to be evil to us that curses our Blessings that makes a Garden of Eden a desolate Wilderness that turns the World upside down and makes that when Jeremy looked upon the Land of Canaan that Garden of God Chap. 4.22 23. He beheld the Earth and lo it was a Tohu Vabohu without sorm and void and the Heavens and they had no light Further hence we may learn that the Lord Jesus Christ is very good a Fountain of goodness For God made all good Col. 1.16 and he created all things by Christ By him not as a mere Instrument but a Co-worker with him He is the beginning of the Creation of God in this sense also Is there any good in the World and the Lord Christ hath not done it and he hath done all things Well Heaven and Earth are full of the goodness of our Lord Jesus and there 's No Man good but one and that is one who is God and Man the Man Christ Jesus Lastly as to information hence we are taught that the work of Redemption is very good exceeding good For this is a better and greater work than that of Creation If that deserve thousands of praises this doth ten thousands The song of the Lamb is to be a higher Note than the song of Moses Creation was a work of God's fingers but in our Redemption there was put forth the strength of his holy arm by which he got himself us the victory Behold now a new Heaven a new Earth the light of the Moon is as the light of the Sun the light of the Sun is seven-fold Old things are passeth away all things are become new And therefore if when God laid the foundation the Corner-stone of the World the Morning-stars sang together all the Sons of God shouted for joy No marvel now that Christ by whom all things were made

oftentimes even devoted the Beasts as well as their sinful Masters Owners to destruction And doth he not in some cases command the Beast to be put to de●th and so to be sacrificed to justice And again Did not God require under the old Law frequent yea daily sacrificing of Beasts making the life of the Beast to go for the life of a Man And lastly as to this Objection Did not our Saviour permit the Devil to go into the herd of Swine and so they 2000 of them ran violently into the Sea and were choked in the Sea Answ 1 I say that God hath a supreme Right Title to all the Beasts of the Fold Psal 50. the Field or the Forest All the Beasts of the Field are mine and the Cattel upon a thousand hills And that he may dispose of or do what he will with his own Who may say to him what dost thou That when God destroys Mens Cattle he doth it not out of the least hatred to the Beast but to testify his hatred and abhorrence of the Sins of the Owners of them and hereby to punish them or to bring them to repentance to melt or mollify at least their hard hearts and cause them to say as David 'T is I or 't is we that have sinned these Sheep or Oxen c. what have they done Or to prove and try them and do them good in their latter end as was the case of Job If God may justly punish Parents in their Children because they are their goods surely then he may punish Masters and Owners in their Cattel because they have a propriety in them and the taking away the lives or the loss of their Cattel redounds to them As for the Beasts that were offered up in Sacrifice by Gods Ordinance and Institution He might as justly do it as to give Men a Charter or Patent to Arise Kill and Eat for the preservation of their natural lives For by the Sacrifice the Sinner was freed from that temporal death which the Sin deserved for which it was offered And besides this Sacrifice was typical of Christ the Lamb of God which taketh away the Sins of the World and so was of use also to the saving of the Soul of the Sinner As for the Gergesens Swine I say 1 Our Lord Jesus Christ was Lord of all and therefore might justly permit or suffer the Devils to enter into them and to hurry them headlong into the Sea 2 Thereby their Owners should have learnt how good and merciful God was to them that he did restrain the Devil and not suffer him to possess their whole Country And that goodness and mercy of Christ that whereas there was a Legion of Devils in one Man he suffered them not when cast out to disperse themselves about the Country and possess a Legion of Men i. e. above 6000 Men but only this herd of Swine 3 Our Saviour teaches us that natural Men value and prefer their Swine before their Saviour 2 Let us consider that we may deal merciful with these Creatures that they are Fellow-creatures with us yea our Fellow-servants to the great Lord of Heaven and Earth as well as they are our Servants and we Lords over them And must give an account when our Lord Christ comes if he find us beating our Fellow-servants if he find us drinking with the Drunken and presently falling upon these our Fellow-servants 3 As they are our Servants to consider that they are good Servants to us who are too often bad Masters to them If we will use them they submit their necks to our yoke If we abuse them they do not complain In their mouth is no reproof That which usually inflames Masters against Servants is when Servants will answer again will contradict or at least dispute it with them Now these our Servants they are mute dumb Creatures they cannot plead their own cause they return not a word for a blow not a word for many blows though without a cause or a sufficient cause 4 Let us consider these Creatures were partakers of the curse of Mans Sin by reason of this they groan and travail in pain their yoke is harder and their burden heavier We should look on their sorrows and sufferings as occasioned as merited by us by our disobedience to our soveraign Lord. How do they spend their days in our service end their lives for our service for Food for Physick sometimes for a Sacrifice and oftentimes even for a Pleasure Delight or Recreation They suffer for us We eat the sour Grapes and their Teeth are set on edge and this justly too because they are our proper goods and we are Lords over them Many times they suffer with us as in War and other publick calamities and let this suffice let them never suffer unnecessarily from us If we do we make them exceeding miserable the poor abused Beast hath no knowledge or foresight of death as Men in misery have to put an end ere long to his bondage and misery nor any hopes of a Resurrection or a future reward for his sufferings as good Men have to comfort them The Turks I read hold that the Beasts shall rise again and although that is no part of my Creed yet I dare say if they should they will rise in judgment against those that have cruelly used them here 5 We may go to school to them and learn many a good Lesson from them How great is the love and faithfulness of Dogs the meekness of Elephants the shamefastness of the adulterous Lyoness the chastity of the Turtle the watchfulness of the Cock the utility of the Sheep 'T is said of King Porus his Elephant that he exposed his own life to save his Masters How often doth the Holy Ghost send us to school to the unreasonable Creatures Go to the Ant thou Sluggard consider her ways and be wise Those who do not know God that hath nourished and brought them up how are they reproved by the Oxe and the Ass Isa 1. The Oxe knoweth his Owner and the Ass his Masters Crib but Israel doth not know my People doth not consider Those which know not the day of their Visitation may go to school to the Crane Swallow who know their appointed seasons Those Children who are without natural affection to their aged Parents let them go to the Stork and learn of that Creature to requite their Parents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to feed their Parents when they are old 6 Consider that if we be Friends with God the very Beasts themselves are not only our Servants but our Friends also Our Lord Christ hath reconciled all things in Heaven and Earth Whiles we were Rebels and Traitors to God our soveraign the Angels of Heaven and the Beasts of the Earth became Enemies to us and in pursuit of their allegiance were ready to fight against us but now being reconciled to our Soveraign and returned to our obedience these our Fellow-subjects are again at peace