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	holy_a	son_n	6,458	5	6.0598	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A18025	Chorazin and Bethsaida's vvoe, or warning peece A judicious and learned sermon on Math. II. vers. 21. Preached at St. Maries in Oxford, by tha[t] renowned and famous divine, Mr. Nathanael Carpenter, Batchellor in Divinity, sometime Fellow of Exceter Colledge; late chaplaine to my Lords Grace of Armah in Ireland.	Carpenter, Nathanael, 1589-1628?; N. H., fl. 1633.	1633 (1633)	STC 4673; ESTC S107660	26,403	96

obligation The cleare Sunshine of the Gospel confined for a time to their hemyspheare hath enlarged his influence from East to West and the sound of Gods word the partition wall broken downe is found to have dispersed it selfe to all Nations Whence we have seene them disinherited by their owne wilfull disobedience and can we repose a greater affiance in Gods favours than our owne penitent inclination dares to justifie Thinke you those on whom the Tower of Siloe fell are greater sinners than all the rest I tell you nay but unlesse yee repent you shall all likewise perish This may teach every true Christian not to stand upon termes of capitulation with Gods justice neither to foreslow the time or slacke our duty but by a seasonable repentance to prevent our punishment and by our prostrate humility abate the edge of Gods indignation Which calls to minde two other circumstances left as yet to our examination in the Tyrians and Sydonians penitency 1. The time that they would have repented long agoe 2. The manner to wit in sackcloth and ashes of which a few words as time shall give permission 16. The conveniency of time and decency of manner are the cheefest circumstances to season an approved action For Piety the Mother of good workes no longer seemes her selfe than when shee goes hand in hand with Discretion by whom shee is still directed as well how as wherein to dispose and improve her industry to the best approbation If all civill actions else seeme to challenge interest in this grace of Times opportunacy and decent manner of presenting the object to acceptance how much more stands the duty of repentance engaged to such circumstances wherein Misery as ashamed of her selfe is enforced to addresse it selfe to Gods mercy and guilty sinnes stand to be arraigned before Gods high Majesty If Chorazin and Bethsaida in the first infancy of Christianity had beene found so faire outshined by Tyre and Sydon had Christs works beene there shewen to their acceptance how farre shall these Tyrians and Sydonians set in the scale with us out waigh our endeavour and overpoyze our husbandry They had repented long agoe and prevented Gods heavy judgement with a seasonable and sweet conversion Long have the armes of his mercy beene open to embrace the first motions of our untoward inclination Long since have the knowledge of our Saviours miracles and Sermons the daily Ministery of his Preachers given sufficient evidence of his extraordinary love and abused patience Long since have his corrections and punishments as the messengers of his wrathfull displeasure summoned our slacknesse to his Court of Iustice famine and pestilence have long since scaled your Citty walls death and desolation have rid in tryumph in your streets the hideous cry of the fatherlesse children and childlesse fathers have peirced deepe into your eares The rumour of warre and feare of invasion awak't your sleepy security and armd'd you to prevention And is this beloved a time to procrastinate our repentance and trespasse further on his patience Stand wee not already beloved at the barre of his justice expecting every houre the giving up of the verdict and the fatall sentence of Condemnation And can wee be so sencelesse to play with death and stake Heaven against Hell buy a minutes space of pleasure with a perpetuall and datelesse durance of damnation The least mites of our sinnes summoned up together will swell into an infinite and more than the highest folly would it seeme in us to run further on this score when enough is cast up already to condemne us No minute of our lives but addes some scruple to the waight of our transgressions and what puffe of breath passeth from our mouthes which steales not away some touch of our integritie what can to morrow promise more than the present houre or wherein findes Religion lesse improvement than in fruitlesse procrastination Some boysterous hand of violent disaster may cracke or turne our houreglasse ere the sands are halfe spent or the time of our Pilgrimage slip away ere wee begin to calculate the motion Sera est in fundo par simonia Hee that too soone beginns to spend shall too late be taught to spare And hee that sets his Salvation on one and the last cast is sure to hazardall but uncertaine to win any To day if you will heare the Lords voyce harden not your hearts but bring forth fruit worthy Repentance Herein the inclination of the Tyrians and Sydonians foreseene of our Saviour might trace you out the way or with their supposed industry upbraided to Bethsaida and Chorazin shame your contempt or correct your negligence They had repented long agoe Neither was it altogether so notable in the Tyrians and Sydonians that they should with a ready hand catch at opportunity and at first call of Gods Grace and Spirit awake contrition had they not seconded and seasoned their contrite soules groaning under the heavy weight of sinne with devout humility and that not onely conceaved in the inward minde but expressed in the outward signes and emblems of Sackcloth and Ashes 17. Humility is the first stone in the groundworke of Gods Temple the first step by which wee ascend the throane of his sacred mercy the first round of Iacobs ladder by which like Angels our soules climbe up to God in Heaven and his holy Spirit descends to us on earth The soyle wherein this hearbe of grace rootes it selfe is the heart of a true Christian whence it derives spreads his branches outwardly in our exteriour actions and behaviour and expresses it selfe in such formes and weedes as are consonant to Gods prescript and the sincerity of our affection This inward sorrow outward humiliation have the ancient Fathers and Patriarkes expressed in Sackcloth and Ashes as Emblemes of contrition so pleasing unto God that in Reprobates themselves though not effectuall to Salvation it hath beene found sometimes so farre accepted as in it selfe it was sincere As wee reade of Achab that God spared him for his humiliation In his Repentance he shewed not himselfe an Hypocrite though hee came not home to the Marke He was true and sincere though not perfect and constant and therefore lost he not his reward though hee obtained not his end The like may we reade of Nineveh whose contrition without doubt totall and perfect in a few yet unfaigned as it seemes in all having passed some steppes of humiliation though not ascended the highest pitch of true Repentance wrought notwithstanding so much good in Gods favour 〈◊〉 the suspension of punishment and their Citties preservation Hence may every good Christian inforce his conscience with what good advice our Church hath ordeyned the use of kneeling fasting and outward pennance for sinne as that which in some measure hath alwaies beene found acceptable in Gods sight as the complement of our devotion and the most decent formality in our practise of piety The body can be no more wanting to the soule than the handmaid to her mistresse in accomplishment of this holy service Wherein howsoever eyther party with all his faculties have designed and limited out their severall and distinct offices yet as so many lines directed to one Center they ought all to meete in the happie period of Gods gracious favour the onely cause and groundworke of our salvation To which unspeakable blisse and Glory prepared for the Elect in Christ the Lord for his mercy direct our devotion for the merits of his deere Sonne to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be ascribed all honour glory might and majesty now and for ever Amen FINIS

our owne sufficiencie Shall all the Coffers and Cabbinets of that Babilonish Strumpet be enhanced to furnish their expedition Shall Rome disrobe her felfe of her braveries and the Indios expose their unknowne treasures in the defence of their Antichristian Hierarchy and shall we suffer the Worthies of our Church for want of encouragement or meanes like Ostriches to bury their neglected Egges in the sand of obscurity for the earth to ripen or the Sunne to quicken O beloved these are matters that will no lesse rise up to our condemnatign than Tyre and Sydon against Bethsaida and Chorazin More propitious shall Sodome and Gomorrah finde the day of judgement than Capernaum the pride of Palestine as shee which having received better meanes of recovery had marched further in the broad way of impiety Their contempt of Christ above ours of Christs Ministers can challenge no greater precedence or disproportion He that despiseth you saith our Saviour speaking of his Messengers and Apostles despiseth me Which leades our discourse to the next point propounded to our consideration the things wherein Tyre and Sydon were compared to Bethsaida and Chorazin to wit the contempt of Christs workes and impenitence 13. Contempt and Impenitency even in the smallest matters are accounted sinnes of the greatest moment as those which seeme to stand in tearmes of defiance with Law and dare Iustice to doe her worst This wicked disposition found our Saviour in the inhabitants of Bethsaida and Chorazin which it seemes he saw wanting in Tyre and Sydons inclination He found the contempt of his person the contempt of his words miracles hee found the contempt of his Lawes Commandements the contempt of his sacred courtesies And least they might seeme to owe any favour to Repentance or recant wickednesse they are taught to persevere in sinne and shut up all the progresse of their Contemptuous behaviour with hardnesse of heart and obstinate impenitence Hence our Saviour first sendes after them as a swift pursevant the woe of Commination to summon them to judgement then delivers them over to ruine and destruction as the speedy executioners of his vengeance As if hee would thereby copie out unto us this infallible observation That impenitence and contempt of Christs word and workes are seconded by his heavy indignation and mens certaine punishment Should I in the large Theatre of worldly changes shew the hand of Gods vengeance in the wounds of his rebellious Enemies Should I draw the Curtaine and open to your eyes at once all the sad spectacles of pride and Gods indignation Should antiquity communicate her store to Memory and History expose all her treasure to observation The whole world would seeme the Scene and the beginning and end of time the bounds Time which hath seene the rise and fall of many puissant and famous Empires the erection and decay of many stately Trophies the greatnesse and confusion of many magnificent nations Time which in his vaste gulfe hath swallowed up all former ages and for the most part envied them story hath notwithstanding almost every where left some register or other of Gods heavy wrath against mans impenitent rebellion What one chapter almost shall wee finde in the sacred volume of the Prophets which upbraides not Israel with Gods benefits and mans ingratitude and makes not their owne perversenesse the immediat Vaunt-currior of his vengeance Had Time cancelled all her records and bequeathed to posterity no monument but her owne losses it would seeme a book wherein the Characters of Gods anger and mans sinne are every where legible The scattered ruines of that sometime chosen generation groaning as yet under the worlds scorne and their owne calamitie carry as it were ingraven in their foreheads the fatall markes of Gods curse and their owne infidelity And that promised land wherewith as with a second Eden God sometimes inriched those sonnes of disobedience shewes her face to this age no otherwise than as an unpeopled wildernesse exposed to fruitlesse sterility and pagan usurpation Ierusalem that Sceptred Citty whose bosome had cherished so many kingly Prophets what other Monument hath shee consecrated to posterity than the example of her owne shame that she which somtimes as the bright starre of the East shone to the Nations terrour and the world admiration stands now as a blazing Commet in the worlds eye to threaten our security Should I leade your remembrance through the gates of that beseiged Citty and place your affections in the sad theater of desolation your passion might perhaps exceede my description yet fall short of their calamity Those bewteous buildings wherein peace sometimes had placed her Tabernacle behold now circled with a band of Romans and threatned with invasion Those seemely streets wherein Pride was wont to strut in ostentation now become a Shambles of civill Butchery Those populous houses wherein plenty had set her store made now a prey to the hungry Iawes of pining scarcity That pleasant ayre wherein millions had beene cherished now overspread with the poysonous vapours of pestilent contagion That sacred Sanctuary wherein the King of Kings had set his rest now a Brothell house prostitute to all impiety Behold and see with greefe and wonder here the sprawling Infants tossed on the pikes of remorslesse souldiers There age and sickenesse gasping in the streets in vaine for pitty Here a miserable Myriam sacrificing her sonne to famine making the wombe of her increase the toombe of her posterity There an outragious bloodhound dragging some disconsolable widdow by her dishevilled haires Here blazing Comets and signes from heaven the apparent Markes of anger There prodigies and wonders of the earth the forerunners of feare and desolation All these calamities notwithstanding the highest pitch of misery which eyther history could ascend or nature suffer is by our Saviour termed but the beginning of sorrowes Hell and the grave are ready to receive them where worldly vexation leaves them Sinne and security which have thus farre dragged them to the Barre of Gods judgement never shakes them off till execution That promised seede which should have beene the prime guest at the Lords Table are now the least in his affection while the scattered and despised Gentiles as it were from the hedges and high waies are invited home to his sacred banquet As if hee would shew us in a vision his Apostles shaking off the dust of their feete as an Evidence of the Iewes contempt and turning to the Gentiles These are the poore witnesses of Christ in whose opposed wants and miseries they might well reade their owne sinne and condemnation Which leades our observation to the third and last point which is the effect and consequence which should have followed Christs workes had they beene wrought among the Tyrians and Sydonians 14. The repentance of the Tyrians and Sydonians offers it selfe unto us under a threefod consideration First our Saviours foresight supposed to bee the ground of his Prediction Secondly the cause out of which Grace and Repentance are

usually ingendred in the sonnes of the Church Thirdly the manner of their repentance to wit in Sackcloth and Ashes To begin with the first wee must observe that out of this conditionate repentance of the Tyrians and Sydonians a ground is rather sought than found by our adversaries the Iesuits to establish a certaine middle kind of knowledge in Almighty God and free will in man God say they conditionally foresaw at the offer of such meanes as the Iewes contemptuously rejected the Tyrians and Sydonians conversion The object as the Schoolemen generall consent of Gods naturall first knowledge termed Scientia simplicis intelligentiae comprehends the latitude of things past present and to come as they present themselves onely in possibility The second of free knowledge depending onely on his decree termed by the Schoolemen Scientia visionis is the prescience of things absolutely and necessarily decreed to come to passe Sith then the conversion of the Tyrians and Sidonians which God foresaw should attend his works had he there acted thē went beyond a meere possibility of being yet came short of an absolute existence a prescience seemes to be granted somewhat more than the former yet lesse than the latter by which conditionate events are foreseene of God To this we may breefely answer with some of our side that the Scientia visionis comprehends not onely such things as are absolutely to come to passe but also such things as might flow and proceede out of the Actuall decree made out of this or that condition thereunto annexed For although properly there bee no decree of God of conditionall things in respect of the act it selfe yet may there be granted a Conditionall decree in respect of the object So that the decree of God may bee conceited two waies eyther for a formall and explicate ordination or appointment or else for an implicate or virtuall which is grounded on another decree Now concerning future contingent things which never come to passe there is given not a formall but a virtuall decree of such things to wit which should exist if this or that condition were adjoyned Such a decree it was to bee conceaved out out of which our Saviour hypothetically foresaw the conversion and repentance of these Citties and not out of the use of their free will as they erroniously imagine But truth never wants an adversary to oppose or errour a subtility to contradict If God say our Iesuits foresaw their conversion and thereon decreed to annex unto his miracles a saving and prevenient Grace what force shall we finde in our Saviours exprobration Eyther God foresaw the repentance of the Tyrians and Sydonians and the perversenesse of the Iewes as emergent from the fruits of their owne free-wills or else he foreknew in his conditionall decree the supply of grace in the one and the want of it in the other If yee grant the former what barre shall wee set against free-will and Scientia media which wee establish If the latter what advantage of meanes and opportunity could the Iewes challenge beyond the Tyrians and Sydonians and what reason had our Saviour to upbraid the one with the others conditionate conversion The ground of our assertion is yet unshaken Certaine it is that neither of both could of themselves lift themselves into the bosome of Gods mercy without supernaturall and prevenient grace yet might the contempt of those offred meanes and abuse of free-will in morall actions prove a greater barre to the one than the other No man can climbe the staires of faith and repentance without a divine hand to support and guide him Yet is his owne naturall concupiscence of force sufficient to presse him downward towards the gulph of Perditition What should hinder then our Saviour Christ upbraidingly to oppose the Tyrians and Sydonians conditionate repentance to the Iewes stiff-necked and obdurate obstinacy sith the former had lesse disabled themselves from the acceptance of Gods favours the others had maliciously cast a blocke in that way which should leade them to Salvation Should two young Students stand in competition for some preferment the one perchance negligent in his former exercise and dissolute in his behaviour the other diligent in his studies and civill in his conversation What ingenuous Governour would not reject and discountenance the one encourage and advance the other Not that eyther of himselfe was able to worke out or deserve his owne Immunity but that the one had improved his abilities to the best advantage the other by negligence had shut himselfe from his owne promotion Thus farre might we answer our sworne enemies the Iesuits at their owne weapons and make the mint of Schoole divinity to serve better for our defence than their assault But why should we shew our selves so curious with the Israelites to run unto the Philistims to have our swords sharpned The propriety and phrase of speech wherein the Spirit of God usually accommodates himselfe to our understanding might sufficiently cleare this place from any such perplext subtility and take away that ground whereon they strive to erect their Babel of popish forgery But had these Sophisters in using the authority of holy writ beene as sincere as subtile they would not like Chymicks out of their metalls have laboured to extract out of the Text what God and nature never meant nor understood these words otherwise than as a patheticke exprobration wherein by the Tyrians and Sidonians a rude and neglected people he taxed the Iewes neglect in hearing his sacred Sermons and observing his mighty miracles which being the cheefest Causes and forerunners of grace and repentance offer themselves in the next place to our consideration 15. The dore of Repentance which opens unto us the sweet aspect of Gods mercy is fastned on two hinges whereof the first is Gods prevenient grace which dictates unto our understanding the mysteries of the Divine Law and workes our will unto obedience The second are those outward meanes presented by opportune occasions to our exterior senses ready to second the first conversion This latter stands againe indebted to two helpes to wit the preaching of the Word and Doctrine as the true evidence of our faith and the guift of Miracles as the seale of confirmation These sacred meanes of Grace and Repentance in a plentifull manner as it were prostituted to the Iewes contempt and that contempt obvious to our Saviours observation seconded by his heavy commination may easily expresse the horror and guilt of willfull impenitence and shew how many judgements of God as so many swift Pursevants stand in readinesse to follow the neglect of his sacred meanes and ministry And howsoever the Iewes amongst other Nations seeme to stand highest in Gods indignation as no sooner confirmed by his first pattent the first sonnes of his adoption but forfeiting their prerogative by unnaturall contempt and base ingratitude yet cannot we the heires of his second choise boast our selves of a greater liberty nor challenge an immunity from this strict