Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	grace_n	work_n	7,426	5	6.4759	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91744	The Lords property in His redeemed people. Opened in a sermon at St. Pauls Church, London, Octob. 28. / By Edward Reynolds, D.D. and chaplain in ordinary to the Kings Majesty. Printed by the order of the Lord Mayor and court of aldermen.	Reynolds, Edward, 1599-1676.	1660 (1660)	Wing R1263; Thomason E1048_2; ESTC R203481	17,874	45

How the one is more perfect and the other more sublime and wherein consisteth the sober and religious use of it But when a man will exalt his Reason into the Throne and set up his own high Imaginations which should be brought into Captivity to the obedience of Christ above Law and Gospel and suffer the wantonness of a luxuriant and discursive fancy to dispute away the love due to the one the faith due to the other and the obedience due to both when men will make their Reason the Judge of Gods own Word and the last resolvtion of every thing which they mean to do and believe This is to tell the world that they are their own and that they acknowledge no authority above themselves 2. When a man maketh his Own Will his chief Law which he is resolved to obey All the contest between God and wicked men is whose Will shall stand The Lord commands that his Will be observed the sinner resolves that his own Will shall be obeyed The Law requires duty the sinner will not do it The Law threatneth curses the sinner will not believe it The Word convinceth of what is Gods Will and the sinner swelleth in contumacy and obstinacy against it Cesset voluntas propria non●erit infernus In this case the Lord resolves to make sinners know whose word shall stand His or theirs Jer. 44. 28. To break those whom he did not bend and to make known his power against their pride Exod. 9. 16. To fetch his glory out of strong and stubborn people Isa. 25. 3. As a Tempest teareth an Oak that resists it but hurteth not the corn that yields unto it He resisteth the proud and will overcome when he judgeth 3. When a man maketh his Own interest his ultimate end directing all his aims and designes to his own gain pleasure credit ease advantage looking in nothing beyond himself eating to himself drinking to himself Zac. 7. 6. Bringing forth fruit unto himself Hos. 10. 1. without any conscience towards Gods Will or aim at his glory But are we so little our Own then that we may not at all seek our selves or eye those things wherein our own interests are concerned Doubtless we may He that commands to love our selves allows to aim at the profiting and pleasing of our selves For love shews it self in benevolence and beneficence willing and doing our selves good But it must not be either arbitrarily or ultimately not arbitrarily but with submission to the Rule of Gods Will and not ultimately but with subordination to the Glory of his Name We may seek our own preservation yet so as to acquiesce in Gods Providence in whose hand our times are and so as to be willing that God be magnified in our mortal body Whether by life or by death We may seek the improvement of any gift temporal or spiritual which God hath given us yet so as to aquiesce in that measure which he is pleased to proppotion unto us and so as to consecrate our selves and all our endowments unto his glory that Christ may divide all our spoils We are to seek our own salvation yet even this if a case could so be put is to be postponed unto Gods glory But such is his goodness as never to oppose these two or set them in competition with one another but ever to conjoyn and to twist them together Whensoever we seek the Glory of God we do eo ipso promote our own salvation Whensoever we prosecute our own salvation we do Eo ipso bring Glory to God Whatsoever glorifies God doth ever end in our salvation Faith glorifies God Abraham was strong in faith giving Glory to God Rom. 4. 20. And the End of our faith is the Salvation of our soul 1 Peter 1. 9. Works of Obedience glorifie God Joh. 15. 8. And they are the ready way to our own salvation for after we have done the Will of God we shall be sure to receive the promises Heb. 10. 36. God can glorifie Himself in our damnation but we neither can nor may do any thing tending to our damnation that God may be thereby glorified for whensoever we break the Law We dishonour God Rom. 2. 23. 4. When a man maketh his own performances the principal ground of all his hopes and desires having no joy or comfort but what he can draw out of himself trusting in his own power to effect and bring about his ends as Pharoah and Babylon did Exod. 15. 10. Isa. 14. 13 14. Sacrificing and burning incense to his own net and drag Hab. 1. 16. ascribing successes to his own might and power Deut. 8. 17. As the proud Assyrian did Isa. 10. 13. and expecting salvation from his own good works like the proud Pharisee Luke 18. 11 12. But may we not build on our own performances for salvation Doth not the Apostle call Good works a foundation 1 Tim. 6. 19. And may we not then build upon it In answer hereunto we are to distinguish inter Rationem condignitatis rationem ordinis Between the merit deserving the reward and the order and consequence which God hath put between the one and the other making the reward mercifully but with all certainly to follow the obedience Again we are to distinguish Inter causam essendi cognoscendi between the cause of confidence a priori and the means and arguments whereby to know it a posteriori Our good works are not the merit or cause or proper foundation of our own salvation or confidence concerning it but only the free Grace of God and the Righteousness of Christ thereby bestowed upon us yet from an holy life as an effect of Faith in Christ and fruit of divine love and certain Antecedent unto salvation we may draw comfortable arguments a posteriori to establish our hearts in the expectations of it In which respect the wise man saith That in the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence Prov. 14. 26. And for the Apostles Metaphor of a foundation it is there opposed evidently to that which he calleth in the same place verse 17 The uncertainty of Riches to note the stability and permanency of that treasure which they that are rich in good works shall at last enjoy so that there is nothing of causality intended in it Not to pass by the notion of a very learned man upon the place who telleth us that there the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} importeth the same which Gnikar doth in the Rabbins which signifieth as he observeth out of Maimonides Scriptum quo cavetur de refundenda creditori pecunia so that the Apostles meaning is the same with Solomons Prov. 19. 17. He that hath pity on the poor bendeth unto the Lord and so hath {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Bonum nomen very good security for that which he hath given God will pay him again We have seen what it is for a man