Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	faith_n	justification_n	sanctification_n	2,253	5	11.1405	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59601	Immanuel, or, A discovery of true religion as it imports a living principle in the minds of men, grounded upon Christ's discourse with the Samaritaness : being the latter clause of The voice crying in a wilderness, or, A continuation of the angelical life / mostly composed at the same time by S.S.	Shaw, Samuel, 1635-1696.	1667 (1667)	Wing S3038; ESTC R35174	154,749	423

know not how much but I think he hath not very much of God neither fight of him nor love of him that could be content to abide for ever in this imperfect mixed low state and never be perfected in the full enjoyment of him And it seems that they in whom the love of God is rightly predominant potent flourishing do also look earnestly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Jude 2. without doubt they ought to do 2 Pe● 3. 12. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God! Let this suffice by way of general Reprehension 2. More particularly the consideration of the Active nature of true Religion may well serve to correct a mistake about that noble grace of faith How dishonourably do some speak of this excellent and powerfull grace when they make it to be a slothfull passive thing an idle kind of waiting or a Melancholick sitting still which indeed and in truth is Life and power Be not mistaken in so high and eminent a grace True faith doth not only accept the imputed righteousness of Christ for justification but by a lively dependance upon God drinks in divine influences and eagerly sucks in grace and vertue and life from the fountain of grace for its more perfect sanctification And for this cause I think a purifying vertue is ascribed to it Act. 15. 9. Faith is not a lazy languid thing content to wait for salvation till the world to come but it is even now gasping after it and accomplishing it too in a way of mortification self-denyall and growing up in God it is not content to be a candidate waiting for life and happiness but is actually drawing down Heaven into the soul attracting God to itself sucking in participations of divine grace and image into the soul Its motto is that of the famous painter nulla dies sine lineâ it longs to find some divine lineament some line of Gods image drawn upon the soul daily Faith is a giving grace as well as receiving it gives up the whole soul to God and is troubled that it can give him no more it binds over the soul afresh to God every day and is troubled that it can bind it no faster nor closer to him The believing soul is wearyed because of muderers murdering loves lusts cares earthly pleasures and calls mightily upon Christ to come and take vengeance upon them it is wearyed because of those robbers that are daily stealing away precious time and affections from God which are due unto him and calls upon Christ to come and scourge these thieves these buyers and sellers out of his own Temple In a word the godly soul is Active and faith is the very life and Action of the soul itself Lastly Let me exhort all Christians from hence to be zealous to be fervent in spirit serving the Lord and longing after him Stir up the grace of God that is in you Quench not i. e. blow up enflame the spirit of God in you Awake Christian soul out of thy Lethargy and rejoyce as the Sun to run the race that is set before thee and as a mighty man refreshed with Wine to fight thy spiritual battels against the armies of uncircumcised prophane and earthly concupiscences love and passions Eye God as your centre the enjoyment of him as the Happiness and full conformity to him as the perfection of your souls and then say Awake Arise O my Soul and hide not thy hand in thy bosome but throw thy self into the very heart and bosome of God lay hold upon eternal life Again observe how all things in the world pursue their several perfections with unwearied and impatient longings and say come my soul and do thou likewise Converse not with God so much under the notion of a Law giver but as with love itself nor with his commands as having authority in them but as having goodness and life and sweetness in them Again consider your poverty as creatures and how utterly impossible it is for you to be happy in your selves and say Arise O my soul from off this weak and tottering foundation and build thy self up in God cease pinching thy self within the straits of self-sufficiencies and come stretch thy self upon infinite Goodness and Fulness Again pore not upon your attainments do not sit brooding upon your present accomplishments but forget the things that are behind and say Awake O my soul there is yet infinitely much more in God pursue after him for it till thou have gotten as much as a created Being is capable to receive of the divine nature In a word take heed you live not by the lowest examples which thing keeps many in a dwindling state all their dayes but by the highest Read over the Spouse her temper sick of Love Davids temper waiting for God more than they that watch for the morning breaking in heart for the longing that he had to the Lord and say Arise O my Soul and live as high as the highest it is no fault to desire to be as Good as holy as happy as an Angel of God And thus O my soul open thy mouth wide and God hath promised to fill thee CHAP. VI. That Religion is a lasting and persevering principle in the soules of men proved by several Scriptures The grounds of this perseverance assigned first negatively It doth not arise from the absolute inamissability of grace in the creature nor from the strength of mans Free-will Secondly Affirmatively the grace of election cannot fail The grace of Justification is neither suspended nor violated The Covenant of grace is everlasting The Mediator of this Covenant lives for ever The promises of it immutable The righteousness brought in by the Messiab everlasting An objection answered concerning a regenerate mans willing his own apostasie An Objection answered drawn from the falls of Saints in Scripture as also from those Scriptures that seem to imply a mans falling away A discovery of counterfeit Religion and the shamefull apostasie of false professors An encouragement to all holy diligence from the consideration of this doctrine the rather that we may stop the mouths of those that falsly affirm that the same is prejudicial to true godliness I Come now to the third property of true Religion contained in these words and that is the perseverance of it And here the foundation of my following discourse shall be this proposition True Religion is a lasting and persevering principle in the Souls of good men It is said of the hypocritical Jews that their goodness was as the early dew that soon passeth away Hos 6. 4. But that principle of true goodness which God planteth in the souls of his people is compared to a well of water evermore sending forth fresh streams and incessantly springing up towards God himself our Saviour compares hypocritical professors to seed sown upon stony ground that springs up

blessfull state of any Kingdom I will speak freely let it light where it will that principle that springs up into popular applause secular greatness worldly pomp and bravery flesh-pleasing or any kind of selfexa●tation which is manifold is really contradistinct from that Divine principle that Religious nature that springs up into everlasting life And certainly notwithstanding all the recr●minations and self-justifications which are on all hands used to shuffle of the guilt these governours must lay aside their fullen pride as well as the people their proud fullenness before the Church of God be healed in its breaches purged of Antichristianism or can probably arrive at any sound constitution or perfect stature But I suppose Religion will not have its full and desirable effect upon a Nation by healing the sickly heads of it except it be like the holy oyle powred upon the sacrificer's head which ran down also upon the skirts of his Psal 133. 2. garment Therefore Secondly It is indispensably requisite for the through healing and right constituting of any political body that the subjects therein be thus Divinely principled This will not fail to dispose them rightly towards their govern●urs and towards one another 1. Towards their Governours There are many evil and perverse dispositions in subjects towards their Rulers all which Religion is the most excellent expedient to rectifie The first and fundamental distemper here seems to be a want of due Reverence toward these vicegerents of God upon earth which easily grows up into something positive and becomes a secret wishing of evil to them This fault as light as some esteem it was 2 Sam. 6. 16. Prov. 30. 16. 1 Joh. 3. 15. severely punished in Queen Michal who despised her Lord King David in her heart and her barren womb went down to its Sister the grave under great reproach And if an ordinary hatred be so fouly interpreted by the holy Apostle Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer surely disloyal and malignant dispositions towards governours must needs have a fouler face and we may say by a parity of reason whosoever hateth his Prince is a Rebel and a Regicide Now this distemper as fundamental and epidemical as it is the spirit of true Religion will heal and I think I may say that only For I know nothing in the world that hath nay I know that nothing in the world hath that Soveraignty and dominion over the dispositions and affections of the soul as this principle throughly ingrafted in the soul doth challenge to itself This alone can frame the heart of man into that beautifull temper and complexion of love and loyalty that he will not curse the King no not in his conscience no Eccles 10. 20. not though he were well assured that there were no winged ●e●●enger to tell the matter An other distemper in Subjects respective to their Governours is Impatience of bearing a yoke Which is an evil so natural to the proud and imperious spirit of man that I believe it were safe to affirm that every irreligious subject could be well content to be a Prince however there may be many who utterly despairing of such event may with the Fox in the Fable profess they care not for it From this principle of pride and impatience of subjection I suspect it is that the rigid Chiliasts do so scornfully declaim against and so loudly decry the carnal ordinances of Magistracy and Ministry not that they do verily seek the advancement of Christs Kingdom which indeed every disorderly tumultuous proud impatient soul doth ipso facto deny and destroy but of themselves To whom one might justly apply the censure which Pharaoh injuriously pa●●es upon the children of Israel with a little alteration Ye are proud therefore ye say let Exod. 5. 17. us go and do Sacrifice to the Lord. This distemper the power of Religion would excellently heal by mortifying ambitious inclinations and quieting the impatient turbulencies of the fretfull and envious soul by fashioning the heart to a right humble frame and cheerful submission to every ordination of God You will see in this Treatise that a right Religious soul powerfully springing up into everlasting life hath no list nor leisure to attend to such poor attainments and sorry acquests as the Lording it over other men being feelingly acquainted with a life far more excellent than the most Princely and being overpowred with a supream and Soveraign good which charms all its inordinate ragings and laying hold upon all its faculties draws them forth by a pleasing violence unto a most zealous pursuit of itself A principle of humility makes men good subjects and they that are indeed probationers for another world may very well behave themselves with a noble disdain towards all the glories and preferments of this The last distemper that I shall name in Subjects toward their Governours is Diseontents about conceited misgovernment and mal-administration which commonly spring from an evil and finister interpretation of the Rulers actions and are attended with an evil and tumultuous zeal for relaxation Now this distemper as great as it is and destructive to the well-being of a body politick true Religion would heal both root and branch Were that noble part and branch of Christian Religion universal Charity rightly seated in the soul it would not suffer the Son of the bond-woman to inherit with it it would cast out those irefull jealousies sowre suspicions harsh surmises and imbittered thoughts which lodge in unhallowed minds and display itself in a most amicable sweetness and gentleness of disposition in fair glosses upon doubtfull actions friendly censures or none at all kind extenuations of greater faults and covering of lesser For this is the proper genius of this divine principle to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or very unbelieving of evil and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or easily entertaining of good reports gladly interpreting all things to a good meaning that will possibly admit of such construction or if you will in the Apostles phrase Charity is not easily provoked thinketh no 1 Cor. 13. 5. evil And as Charity doth put up this root of discontents so will faith allay and destroy those discontents themselves which are about misgovernment and ill administration This noble principle administers ease and satisfaction to the soul if she happen to be provoked For it will not suffer her long to stand gazing upon second causes but carries her up in a seasonable contemplation to the supream cause without whom no disorder could ever befall the world and there commands her to repose her self to wit in the bosome of infinite wisdome and grace waiting for a comfortable issue He may well be vext indeed that has so much reason as to observe the many monstrous disorders which are in the world and not so much faith as to eye the inscrutable providence of a benign and all-wise God who permitteth the same with respect to the most beautifull end and blessed order imaginable