Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	father_n	ghost_n	holy_a	5,369	5	5.6194	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

cry out as the disciples did it is a Spirit oh saith a Soul I had a little comfort in such an ordinance but I am affraid it is but a Spirit delusion but at length Christ speaks so powerfully to the Soul by the operations of his holy Spirit that the Soul knows it to be the voice of Christ And then with the disciples it gladly receives Christ into its Soul and when Christ doeth thus communicate himself he doeth then manifest his endeared affection to it oh but methinks I hear some poor Soul ready to say truly here is but little comfort for me for if Gods communicating himself to a Soul in the manner you have been speaking be a sign of Gods love then God help me my case is bad enough for I do not find such communications of the graces and comforts of the Spirit to my Soul God knows I come time after time to hear the word and I go to prayer and I receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper but I come with a dead heart and a dull Spirit and so I go away again and have none of those quickning influences of the Spirit reviving and refreshing of my Soul God doth not make me joyful in his house of prayer which makes me fear that I am none of those whom God loves Poor Soul doest thou utter this mournful language in a formal complementing way or is it the language of a Nathaniel doth it proceed really from thy heart then take this for thy comfort and carry it home with thee and let it be as a cordial to revive thy poo● drooping Spirits That God hath already communicated himself to thy Soul or else thou wouldst neve● desire after communion with him in duty As a wicked earthly minded Ahab having never so much of the earth is sick with vexation of Spirit for want of Naboths vineyard so a Godly Heavenly Heaven born Saint though it doth injoy communion with God it is dissatisfied because it thinks it hath not so much as others a stone cast up into the air will never rest till it comes to the earth which is its center so God being the center of a gracious Soul it is restless without communion with him but on the contrary if thou canst go from one duty to another and sit down satisfied with the bare performance of the duty and yet art flattering thy self that thou art an object of Gods ●ove I tell thee thou art but feeding on the east wind and carrying lye in thy right hand for there are one that can assure themselves of he love of God but they have such Revelation of God to their Souls ●s doth fill them with Heavenly ●oys Or make them be dissatisfied without those comfortable discove●…es of God to their Souls 8. Wouldst thou be assured of ●he love of God through a suffering Christ then see if God hath given ●hee an heart to desire to suffer for Christ when Christ hath helped the ●oul by an eye of saith to see what ●reat things he 'l suffer for his sake doth as the Apostle says constrein ●he soul to expose it self to the ●reatest sufferings for the cause of God when he shall be pleased to all him to it When the love of God ●omes to be shed abroad in the ●eart by the holy Ghost it will make a Soul say with Paul that it glorieth in tribulation when the Soul comes to be inflamed with the love of God many waters of affliction from God nor floods of persecutions from men cannot drown it oh saith the soul how can I shew my love enough to God that hath shewed so much love to me But on the contrary if thou art one that will suffer nothing for God thou canst not upon any sure grounds assure thy self that Christ hath suffered any thing for thee to purchase the love of God 9. Wouldst thou know thy interest in the love of God then see if thou doest hate sin For it is inconsistent for the Revelation of Gods love to the soul and the manifestation of the souls love to sin to be in the soul at one and the same time nothing gives such a mortal wound to sin nor makes it bleed to death sooner in the soul than the manifestation of the love of a wounded Saviour that did bleed for the soul My Friends you may take this for a certain truth that proportionably to the love of God that is manifested unto you such will be your hatred of sin that you commit against God as a woman that hath experienced much of her husbands love it makes her violent against her husbands enemies so a believer having experienced much of the love of God sets his soul the more against sin which he knows is Gods greatest enemy oh saith the Soul that hath the love of God shed abroad in it how can I hug this sin in my bosome that did pierce my dear and loving Lord Jesus to the heart how can I hide this sin as sugar under my tongue which did cause the tongue of my Lord Jesus to utter those bitter cryes and heart rending expressions with his eyes full of tears and his heart full of lamentations My God my God why hast thou forsaken me when God hath once discovered the freeness of his Love unto his people they quickly say with Ephraim what have I to do any more with Idols but if on the contrary thou lovest and delightest in sin and art ready to extenuate it it is a sign that the love of God is not shed abroad in thy Soul 10. If thou art one that canst really experience the love of God in and to thy Soul thou art not only brought to hate sin because it is such an enemy to that God who hath manifested so much love to thy Soul but God hath really destroyed Sin in thy Soul it being thine enemy as well as his I shall endeavour to set it forth by a similitude and how God doth manifest his love to his people by destroying their corruption suppose a man were walking on the way with his wife and she straying out of the way should be surprized by a company of bloody cut-throats and having took away or defaced her ornaments they should go about to murther her now though her husband could stand still awhile and see his wife somewhat roughly handled that she might take heed another time how she strayed so far from him yet when he sees them about to murther her then his bowells yern towards her and though she were in a fault yet still she was his wife whereupon he goes to her rescue destroyes those enemies of hers which otherwise would have destroyed her and thus he shews his love to his wife Truly my friends thus it is a true believer hath God for his husband while we are in this world we are walking on the way to heaven injoying the presence of our heavenly busband but the allurements of the flesh and the world are apt to draw