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
B20831	A vvilderness of trouble leading to a Canaan of comfort, or, The method and manner of God's dealing with the heirs of heaven in the ministry of the Word wherein is shewed how the Lord brings them into this trouble, supporteth them under it, and delivereth them out of it, so that none finally miscarry / by W. Crompton ...	Crompton, William, 1599?-1642.	1679 (1679)	Wing C7034; ESTC R228944	108,751	231

a sweet smell there shall be a stink instead of a Girdle a Rent and Baldness instead of well-set Hair c. Crux salutare remediun est ad tollendam cordis duritiem non naturâ suâ c. i. e. The Cross is a wholsom Medicine to humble and soften the hard Heart not in it self as the Pool of Bethsaida did not at any time give healing but when the Angel descended into it but by a Spiritual Power using that Instrument to bow us Now stand and lay all these together then you may say This is the Wilderness or thus is a Soul prepared for Christ The whole may be comprised in one Thesis or Theological Conclusion Viz. Doct. That it is Christ alone who in the use of means brings his chosen Ones into such Trouble for their good In which Proposition are to be observed the Author Subject Means and End First The Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ego I even I the first and the last with whom the new Covenant was established having power to offer Grace in Promises I that have satisfied Justice and overcome all the Enemies of Mankind I that do prevail and am accepted in a real tender of my own Merits to the Father in behalf of my Church It is I even Jesus Christ that will do it He it was that spoke to the Patriarchs and by the Prophets he it was that made known the secret Will and good pleasure of God to Man he it is who made the Body and prepares the Soul to erect a Spiritual Frame and Government in the Heart supporting the bruised Reed and blowing the smoaking Flax till he turn the one into a brazen Pillar and the other into a triumphant Flame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I considerable either as God simply or Man really and truly or as Mediator God and Man jointly As God so he is a principle Efficient in this Work His Names whereby he is described in both Testaments do say so much viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All which do signify Being independent Authority Strength and All-sufficiency for his undertaken Charge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two Greek Names much magnified by Damascen and Aquinas the one being a Name of Nature and signifieth absolute and perfect Being even the chiefest Good the other being a Name of Authority and Power imports the extent of Divine Providence compassing disposing and working all in all See for this purpose especially two places of Scripture Exod. 34.6 And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord the Lord merciful Rev. 1.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and the ending saith the Lord c. As Man so he is the principal Instrument by and through his Humanity to convey Life into all his Members once called effectually and united Joh. 1.14 16. The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us c. Full of Grace and Truth And Of his Fulness we receive Grace for Grace Joh. 5.21 26. As the Father raiseth up the Dead and quickneth them even so the Son quickneth whom he will c. As God-Man the Mediator so he is the Meritorious Cause procuring and preserving Life for and in all his How and why this should be appropriated to the Son when as there is but one Nature and so one Principle of Action common to all the Persons in that sacred and ever blessed Trinity is somewhat difficult to believe but more hard to conceive and express possibly the following Reasons may give some light unto it Thus it is 1. Because such was the Will of God according to his infinite Wisdom so to order it that the second Person only should undertake the Office of Mediation fulfil the Law satisfy Justice and dispense Grace 2. Because it is a mixt Work neither simply Opus ad extra wholly outward for so it is common the Father and the Holy Ghost do cooperate with the Son in this Dispensation nor altogether Opus ad intra an inward Work for then there were no doubt nor scruple but it might be personal limited to any of the three as it was in the Incarnation all the three Persons were Joint-workers in a preparative Inchoation yet in the end and complement of it we see it was terminated in and upon the Person of the Son The Divine Nature was incarnate as relatively contracted with due reverence and submission be it spoken to a certain manner of subsistence in the Person of the Son Quomodo tota Filii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sit incarnata non tamen Pater cùm sint una 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credo licet ad exprimendum non intelligo Zanch. So it is in the Dispensation of Grace the thing is willed and the Subject prepared by a Joint Work of all the Persons in Trinity but the execution of that purpose and the actual fruition of Grace is in and by the Son first elected to that Hypostatical Union between the two Natures to the Office of Mediation then given as Head unto the Church whence Life and Motion is derived to his Mystical Body elect in and after him 2dly Here is the Subject to be observed whereon this Work passeth Her No one particular Person is here meant but a select Company to be gathered from divers Families Countries Kingdoms tho here more restrictly as limited to the People of the Jews and so to be knit into one Body The Church malignant the Whore of Babylon Rev. 17.1 3. called Antichrist is called and compared to a Woman a Whorish Woman for seeming Beauty Bravery Su●tilty and Impudency not any one but a Company that exceed in Wickedness and increase in it So the Church Militant the Spouse of Christ is likened to a Woman for flexibility and fertility not any one single Person but a chosen Company gathered together in one Vna Ecclesia quia ex una Fide per unum Spiritum nascitur Epiphan some of all sorts Men Women Jews Gentiles Greeks Barbarians not all of any sort Choice admits not of Universality The singular Number here and elsewhere used imports a Paucity or at least a Singularity of Persons Quare hunc trahit non illum noli judicare si non vis errare S. Aug. in Joh. Causa occulta esse potest injusta esse non potest Ibid. Epist 59. ad Paulin. Choice was made of Her not for the Multitude much less for any Merit See her Condition Ezek. 16. and her Behaviour before in the former part of the Chapter The Promise was of his own free Grace and good Will without any merit of preceding Will or Work in her Works of Nature might be foreseen either as future or possible but could not of congruity merit his Favour being so evil Works of Grace could not be foreseen because they were not nor could be indeed till Grace were first bestowed Good Works are an Effect no moving Cause much less meritorious for the procuring of Grace About

my weak Abilities Not doubting but your Noble Disposition will be satisfied with such ordinary Acknowledgments I commend you to the Blessing of Heaven and remain Your Servant in Christ W. CROMPTON ADVERTISEMENT The Author being very remote from the Press and not having seen the Sheets 't is likely some Errata's have escaped which the Reader is entreated to Correct or Pardon HOSEA 2.14 Therefore behold I will allure her and bring her into the Wilderness and speak comfortably unto her THis with the rest of the Chapter is no National History limited to the Body as some temporal Felicity conveyed in a Promise to that People but an Evangelical Prophecy extended to the Soul discovering the means and assuring everlasting Beatitude to the Church as under Grace True it is and from the Letter of the Text we may gather that God was good and bountiful to Israel but ungrateful Israel abused God's bounty As the fed Hawk forgets his Master and as the Full Moon gets farthest from the Sun so they forgat God and wickedly departed from him like ill Grounds they cast up Thorns where Roses were planted they printed the steps of Sin upon Divine Clemency Which moved the Lord to deprive her of his Blessings and to send her into Captivity by absence to learn the worth of his Presence and to take good leave and leisure to bewail her own Folly What can he do less than forget them so they may remember him Where being oppress'd and disconsolate as a mourning Widow bereft of Friends and means to relieve her she returns upon her self and complains unto God who saw her Tears heard her Cries and brought her from Babylon to Canaan turned all her sighing into singing and made her rejoice on that Bed which had soaked in Tears and made to swim again like David Psal 6.6 Repentance can turn Crosses into Comforts and like the Philosophers stone make Golden Afflictions But all this was for a further intent and purpose even to set forth their Sin spiritual Bondage and the manner of Conversion Under that this was meant And so the words are to be taken with the best Interpreters of the manner of God's dealing in the dispensation of his Grace to all in Covenant with him The ordinary Method which he observeth in bestowing Grace upon Men converted after actual Sins is here fully discovered First He convinceth all those of their Sins that distinctly and throughly whom he intends to convert as the skilful Chirurgeon searcheth that Wound to the bottom which he labours to heal This may be gathered from the 2 4 5 vers Plead with your Mother plead for she is not my Wife neither am I her Husband Let her therefore put away her Whoredoms out of her Sight c. As if the Lord should take a Prodigal aside and say These and these O Man are thy Sins thy Wantonness and Uncleanness thy Oaths and Lies thy Pride and Covetousness thus it is with thee thou art the Man that hast abused my Blessings profaned my Ordinances and mis-pent thy time and which is worst of all hast often refused Grace so seriously offered stay now and consider it what will be the end hereof God's Word is not like a Shadow which representeth obscurely and confusedly but as a Glass or rather a Picture which setteth forth things in their distinct Lineaments Which Conviction is begun and finished in part by the Law and in part by the Gospel as in the Sequel will appear Secondly He threatneth and denounceth deserved Judgments if they still persist and go on in their sinful Practices in vers 6 9 10 11 12 13. Therefore behold I will hedge up thy Way with Thorns and make a Wall that she shall not find her Paths Therefore will I return and take away my C●rn in the time thereof c. i. e. Except thou accept of Grace now in this thy day except thou repent and turn to me I will pursue thee with variety of Rods both privative and positive and will never leave thee till thou be amended or confounded It is Sin and Obstinacy that putteth Thunderbolts into God's hand and provoketh him to do his Work his strange Work and to bring to pass his Act his strange Act. Thirdly He proceedeth to some melting Promises in the 14 vers and others following like Sun-shine after a boisterous Storm or some purling Dew after a wasting heat or refreshing Spring after a nipping Winter The Sun of Righteousness never loves to set in a Cloud I will give her the Valley of Achor for a Door of Hope I will make a Covenant for them with the Beasts of the Field c. The meaning whereof is thus much If both the former ways viz. of Conviction and Affliction shall prove ineffectual as indeed they would if the Lord should leave them there and go no further if neither prevail to bring thee home unto me rather than thou shouldest remain still in the State of Nature or in the Wilderness of Legal Terror but almost converted or else after thy Confirmation of a League and Covenant with me should'st totally and finally apostatize I will take the whole Business into my own hand and go one step further with thee using such means as work infallibly and never fail I will allure her into the Wilderness c. Wherein are three things to be explained all tending to the Confirmation of the Proposition laid down in the beginning viz. I. The Certainty of the Work here intended I will allure her and I will speak to her The Lord is serious in his Offer of Grace and infallible in working it at one time or other for the Conversion of all those in Covenant with him Though it be full of difficulty yet it is certain for success It is difficult therefore the Lord undertakes it when no other means is able to do it and certainly it shall be done in his time and way Therefore he promiseth and annexeth certain binding Particles the more to assure it in our apprehension 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore behold which Particles are diversly construed by divers great Divines not unskilful in the holy Tongue causing some obscurity about the meaning but more touching the Connection of these with the former words what dependance they have and what Grammatical Construction they may admit Some take and understand them here casually only as if their profaneness and stubborness in Idolatry had been the moving cause to this Evangelical Work but then it would follow Let us sin that Grace may abound Which Devils Logic the Apostle confuteth Rom. 6. Others take them illatively thus Seeing she is grown to that height of Wickedness so vile and so proud that there is no hope nor possibility of her thinking or willing by any strength of her own to return therefore I will make her mindful and willing to come home O the never enough adored Depth of God's free Grace and super-abundant Love to his People I will heal them and

their Joy and Happiness encreased thereby were this remembred it would prove a comfort to those whose Religious Friends do often end their Days in such distress For by coming so immediately from the sight of such an ugly Obj●ct to the Intuition and Fruition of such Beauty as is in Christ the Vision is more beatifical To pass from the presence of Sin into the presence of God doth more ravish the Soul with Coelestial Joy God in Christ will excel in Beauty and Glory to that Man's Eye and Apprehension who hath lately seen the sinfulness of Sin As the Sin is never more glorious than when it breaks out of a black Cloud so the Glory of Heaven will certainly be more admirable and lovely to those unto whom Sin hath appeared exceeding sinful Now if it pass unseen these two Days and if it be not presented to be seen and loathed in one of those Hours then it will be presented at the Great-Day which is emphatically called the Day of Discovery 1 Cor. 3.13 in fulness of Horror and inevitable Fury When the Curtain shall be drawn aside and all the secrets of the World discovered and every Man see the actions of his Life as upon a piece of Tapestry spread before his Eyes appearing as so many Thorns and Venemous Beasts and no Mercy to be shewed no Grace to be offer'd when no Petitions will be received nor any Voice heard but Go ye Cursed into everlasting Fire As may be gather'd from divers passages of sacred Scripture viz. Psal 50.21 Matth. 7.22 23 25 41. Hodie hodie poenitentiae locus saith St. Augustin To day there is room for Repentance you must repent now or perish then If the Tap be not now thaw'd it may be frozen for ever Hell vomiteth up our highest desires and will afford no felicities Happy is he whose Sins are ever before him here in a grieved memory they shall never be set before him there if they vex thee now as a loathed burden they shall not torment thee then The Sins which ye have seen to Day ye shall see them again no more for ever Secondly The Grounds whereupon this truth resteth are such as follow viz. 1. That inviolable dependency which all effects and conclusions have upon their own Causes and Principles whence they flow Acts Powers and Habits are unseparable from the Person as they are one from another Every Agent is and shall be attended with its own Works the Dead in the Lord are blessed and their Works follow them The Ox knoweth his Owner and the Ass his Master's Crib Sin lieth at the Sinner's door and will acknowledg no other Master What is once done cannot be undone No Power can recal it from being Only a penitent sight of Sin may hide it from the sight of Justice and Mercy can recal it from being imputed An act contracting Guilt may pass from a Person and yet not redound upon the Person by a supernatural interposition of satisfying Merit Christ must come between and stay his Course or else Sin would not only be set before us but even upon us in full Guilt and Weight and that for ever 2. The nature of the Soul in her retaining Faculties is another Ground whereby she is necessarily enabled by reflexion to recal to see and judg all her own past Actions This is essential and therefore it is that such Power and Impressions do remain inseparated either to punish or chear them by the remembrance of things past To which you may adjoyn the office of Conscience which is to bear witness and accuse or excuse according to Demerit A guilty Conscience we use to say and more say than some are aware of what they say is as a thousand Witnesses It will tell us all that we have done for many Years ago and present us with all the Follies of our Youth This is the Book wherein Men may read their own History and Doom both what they have done and what they have deserved There are two Rules the one is God's Word which pointeth out both Estates and the other is every Man's Conscience which is privy to the frame and standing of his Heart and which of these Estates is his As long then as there is such a Soul with us endowed with such admirable Faculties viz. Understanding Memory and Conscience so long will Sin be before us if we once do evil we shall hear of it ever after till Sanctification be perfect and Grace be crowned with Glory 3. The Order of Divine Justice requiring some proportion between the pleasure taken in Sin and the vexation for it after Beautiful it appeared in coming but ugly and deformed in going sweet it was in the offer and act but bitter in the close like Hony which is very sweet but begets most bitter Choller Or as Claudius his Mushrom which was pleasant but poysonful How much she hath glorified her self and lived deliciously so much torment and sorrow give her Rev. 18.7 As it shall appear hereafter with the Impenitents in Hell suffering by way of Satisfaction so it is here on Earth with Penitents suffering by way of Correction Intention of delight in the act of sinning is justly recompensed with extension of continued Grief It will vex you long because it did affect you much Sin was before you when it should not and now it must be before you when you would not Justice being refused in the first will be heard in the latter Thirdly The Ends of all this wherefore a single Commission is followed with frequent Presentations we may conceive to be such as these 1. To keep the Heart of God's People in a spiritual frame of Self-denial and Humility and that the habitual grace of Repentance may be upheld and more lively in exercise Hereupon I am apt to think that Mr. Fox that industrious preserver of the Honour of many of God's Servants was observed to say That nothing did him more hurt than his Graces nothing more good than his Sins being ever before him His Graces through the prevailing power of Corruption remaining were ready to puff him up and to set him in God's room by self-seeking whilst his Sins kept him down and kept him humble and meek Few know the benefit of this Combat It is one of the best remedies against spiritual Pride and Security to keep the Mind upon Sin and Sin in the Mind Hence that confident speech of renowned Austin I dare be bold to say that it is good for proud Persons to fall into some Sin Vnde sibi displiceant qui jam sibi placendo ceciderunt Salubrius enim Petrus displicuit quando flevit quàm sibi placuit quando presumpsit Aug. de Civit. Dei lib. 14. That they may be humbled as Peter was and so saved 2. To terrifie his Adversaries and so to leave them inexcusable when the full weight of Sin falls upon them If the memory of Sin do so follow them which have repented and are pardoned how will it be