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	great_a	people_n	3,792	5	4.4298	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67047	A word in season. Or Three great duties of Christians in the worst of times viz. abiding in Christ, thirsting after his institutions, and submission to his providences. The first opened, from 1 John 2.28. The second from Psal. 42.1,2. The third from Jer. 14.19. By a servant of Christs in the work of his Gospel. To which is added, by way of appendix, the advice of some ministers to their people for the reviving the power and practice of godliness in their families.	Servant of Christ in the work of his Gospel.	1668 (1668)	Wing W3548A; ESTC R204145	100,163	272

their deliverance should be speedy So as Jeremiah on purpose writeth a letter to them to take them off this vain conceit Jer. 29.5 Build you houses and dwell in them and plant gardens and eat the fruit of them And seek the peace of the City whither I have caused you to be carried captive The matter needs no proof from Scripture we find it true in all our experiences that we are very prone to nourish up false expectations in our selves and to promise our selves good The error is common the causes not difficult to be assigned which are partly Natural partly Moral 1. For the natural cause I assigned it before The most of peoples natural temper as disposing them to wish good to themselves so enclining them rather to hope the best than to fear the worst Hence you will observe that all Christians are not thus mistaken you shall find some of more ●ad melancholick tempers as much ●rring on the other hand crying out like the Infidel in the Book of Kings if they hear any talk of good If the Lord should make windows in Heaven this could not be like Thomas they will believe nothing which they most desire without a sensible demonstration But the moral causes of this may be assigned variously and they are different according as the soul is which is thus affected In wicked men 2. The general moral causes are presumption and looking at second causes 1. I say in the first place Presumption an unjust assurance they give themselves of Gods favour toward them and consequently of his blessings upon then There is an Atheist that believes 〈◊〉 God at all but thinks that all thing fall out by chance and so he is n● concerned to regard a Deity and it 〈◊〉 no wonder if he promises himself well But those that will with the mouths own a Supream Being an● Moderator of all things yet are to● ready to promise themselves his favour and consequently the blessing that attend it The Lord foresaw 〈◊〉 Generation who when thy heard all th● Curses of his Law would bless them selves in their heart and say they shou● have peace Deut 29.19 though they walked according to the imaginations of their own heart adding drunkenness to thirst Now th●● presumption in sinful men either ariseth from Atheism the persons n● believing there is a God or that he 〈◊〉 not what he is or Vnbelief not giving credit to the word of God which saith There is no peace to the wicked Or from Error eying some particular sins for which they will believe all the wrath of God is powred out upon them or Eying some particular performances which they think sufficient to reconcile God again to them though before he was displeased with them and when that sin which is all the guilt they can see is expiated or reformed 〈◊〉 those particular performances which they lay all Religion upon are done they ●ook for good and healing when it ●●ay be in truth those things which ●●ey so eye do rather provoke God ●●ther than at all abate of the wrath which he hath began to pour out 〈◊〉 probability this was the cause at ●●is time in Judah It is not exprest whether this Sermon of the Prophet ●as in Josiah's time or in the time of 〈◊〉 Sons Josiah was a good Prince he ●tored the true Worship of God dejoyed Idolatry c. His Sons restored 〈◊〉 There were unquestionably different complexions of this people Some Josiah's time expected good and healing from his reformation others 't is like in his Sons time expected the same from their restauration of former Superstitions and Idolatry Both presumed looking for peace and there was no good for healing and behold trouble 2. The cause of Gods own peoples error in this kind is partly Presumption partly mistakes concerning his mind and promises partly eying second causes too much I say partly Presumption Even the best of Gods people are ready to lay too much upon particular reformations and particular duties We are too ready to impute all punishments to some particular sins and to lay all Religion upon some particular duties and when those sins are reformed and expiated and those duties done we are ready to conclude all will be well and presently to look for peace and healing 2. Partly mistakes of Gods mind and promises Godliness hath the promise of this life and that which is to come There are great promises even of the good things of this life made to the Church of God in the general and to believing souls in particular and God expecteth that we should give credit to them and wait in hope for them but we are troubled with the Disciples curiosity who came to our Saviour and said Master wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel We are impatient and know not how to wait and thence are very prone to inform our selves if possible of the time and too credulous to take ungrounded informations and build up our hopes upon them Hence our prying into dark Prophecies and making various conjectures upon them our listning so readily to such as will pretend to a skill in them or to extraordinary Revelations Visions and Impressions and building up too great expectations upon our own conceipts or others dreams What a late example have we had as to the year 1666. That must be the year when the Jews should be converted Rome ruined c. What expectations were raised in many of that ●ear meerly as it appears from a mitake of the mind and Promises of God The year is past no such thing is brought ●o pass We looked for peace and healing behold no good but trouble still 3. Another cause is Gods own people too much eying secundary causes The unbeliever layes all upon them the Child of God layes too much upon them Hence if he seeth such a position of them as to the eye of his reason appears probable to produce some good effects to the Church and people of God he presently concludes all will be well not attending to the power of the first cause as he ought to do nor considering as he ought the guilt of the people or the person for whom he would hope well which may provoke God to lay a bar before second causes that they shall not work according to our expectations But I have spoken enough to the first Branch I come to the second which is the Proposition as I laid down God in the Wisdom of his Providence doth often give people great disappointments in their expectations as to outward peace and healing I shall not need insist upon the proof of this it is so plain in the Text We looked saith the Prophet for peace and behold no good for healing and behold trouble and in our daily experience To say nothing of vain persons how often are the expectations of the most considerate sober sort of Christians frustrated concerning the publick concerning their own private concerns Concerning the publick They look

for reformation of disorders and abuses Behold more corruption They look for healing of breaches Behold the Providence of God still follows them on with breach upon breach and there is no healing They looked for glorious times they see sad and miserable times That de facto this is true cannot be denyed it will not be amiss for us to take a little pains to enquire into the causes of it These issues of Providence having oft times but ill issues upon Christians faith and holiness 1. It must first be laid down for a Principle That as no Evil so not this Evil happeneth without Gods doing God hath an hand in these frustrations of our expectations 2. It must also be acknowledged that God hath said Psal 9.18 Prov. 10.28 Prov. 23.18 The expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever It is made as a curse upon the wicked That their expectation shall perish They shall be ashamed of their expectation but the expectation of Gods people shall not be cut off For the clearing of this little difficulty you must distinguish 1. Betwixt Gods peoples expectation for the fulfilling of the Promises of and necessary to another life and their expectation for the fulfilling of the Promises relating to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or things which concern this life 2. Betwixt their warrantable and due expectation and their irregular and unwarranted expectation 3. Thirdly Betwixt their expectation of those good things and their expectation of them now or then at this or such a time This being promised the answer is easie 1. The Exoectations of the Saints as to eternal life and salvation shall not perish This hope shall not make ashamed no nor yet as to such influences of grace as are necessary in order unto it they expect to be saved and they shall be saved to be sanctified yet more and more and they shall be sanctified to be preserved by the power of God through faith to salvation and they shall be so preserved 2. The expectations of the Saints as to other good things may fail as to circumstances of degree or time but they shall not utterly fail The expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever saith the Psalmist Hath God promised his Church a time of peace and tranquility It shall have it though it may be not in that year we expect it Hath God promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against his Church and do they expect the fulfilling of this promise It shall be fulfilled their expectation shall not perish for ever But if they will expect that the gates of hell shall not prevail against any part of his Church or any person of it or that deliverance shall come to his Church in such a way in such a year by such means here they may fail 3. Finally no regular expectation in Gods people of any thing which he hath promised shall fail The reason is 1. Because the Promise cannot fail Heaven and earth may pass away but not one jot or tittle of what God hath promised shall fail 2. Because the expectation which God hath wrought in his peoples hearts is the work of the holy Spirit which cannot lie nor teach his people to expect a lie So then the reason of the disappointments of Gods people in their expectations lieth in the errour of their expectation Now this errour must be as to circumstances For the Promises made to the Church and the people of God in particular being for all good things they can be guilty of no errour as to the thing expected but with respect to circumstances which may make things not in themselves simply and absolutely good at this or that time to be evil The chief circumstances considerable in this case are those of Time Place Persons Means First The errour may be in the circumstance of time That God who hath plainly revealed his will as to a time when it shall go well with his people when be will restore the Kingdom to Israel when the fulness of the Gentiles shall come hath concealed the particular time when these things shall be He that hath plainly said The rod of the wicked shall not rest on the back of the righteous hath not told us how long it ma● be on their backs This hath opened a door for those who are too curious to be enquiring into the times and seasons which the Father hath reserved in his own power and when they think they have found out something to guide them they presently raise a great expectation upon it and no wonder if they meet with a disappointment The vision is yet for an appointed time if they could have tarried it would not have lyed but they could not wait for it they made haste and no wonder they have no good speed no wonder they are disappointed the promise is where it was the word of God is not frustrated only their mis-timed expectations are disappointed This was doubtless the cause of the great disappointment in the year 1666. the things people looked for in that year shall most undoubtedly have a being and be in their season brought to pass The Jews shall be called Antichrist shall be destroyed the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in and it is more than probable that the Church and people of God before the end of the world shall have a year of Jubilee Now many Christians too too hasty and curious in search of secret things desiring as the Disciples to know when these things should be They search the Scripture and finding a dark sentence Rev. 13.18 that the number of the beast was 666 conclude the year 1666 the particular year when God would at least begin to do these things 2. A second error may be as to the circumstance of place It is hard to fix promises to particular places God of old had promised not utterly to reject his people Israel which the Apostle interprets as to Israel in a spiritual sense the people whom he fore knew Rom. 9. the people of Israel upon those promises expected that the Tabernacle at Shiloh and afterwards the Temple at Jerusalem should never be rased nor the City of Jerusalem and the Nation of the Jews never forsaken And without all doubt many that feared God in that Nation had some such strange expectations and therefore under all judgments would still expect an help at last God dis-appointed their expectations yet failed not in his promise Under the Gospel Christ by his word hath secured his Church That the gates of hell shall not prevail against it now for people to apply this promise to this or that small part of the Universal Church and to conclude that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church of God in England or in Scotland or Holland or the like and to build an expectation suitably upon it is unwarrantable The ●●tes of hell which shall not prevail upon the whole Church may prevail against this or that

I am the Lord their God But I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors c. Very like the Prophet eyeing that promise in the Law cries out Hath thy soul loathed Zion Zion there 's a great argument couched in that word All the dwellings of Jacob were dear to the God of Jacob but the Psalmist saith God loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Zion was the name of a Mountain at the foot of which Hierusalem and in it the Temple stood thence it is called the habitation of Gods holiness his dwelling place and it is put for the Church of God Lord saith the Prophet this is Judah against which thine anger smokes hast thou utterly rejected Judah There are but two Tribes and an half left of that people whom thou chosest to draw nigh unto thee hast thou rejected them utterly rejected them In this Judah is Zion thy Temple the place which out of all the earth thou chosest for thy habitation and in which above all thou didst delight hath thy soul abhorred Zion She was as thy Spouse and thou lovedst her doth thy soul now loath her As to the form of the words you see they are by way of Interrogation Interrogations in Scripture sometimes adde force to Affirmations and Negations Hath the Lord as great a pleasure in sacrifices as in obeying his commandments that is he hath not And so some would have it here then the sense is this Lord I know thou hast not utterly rejected Judah thy soul hath not abhorred Zion which is true as to the spiritual part of his people Hath God cast off Israel saith the Apostle God forbid he hath not cast off the people whom he fore-knew But all are not Israel that are of Israel Then the words have in them the force of an argument Lord I know thou hast not utterly cast off thy people thy soul hath not abhor●●● them therefore spare them as to this judgment So he pleads from Gods certain spiritual love to a part of the people formerly for the whole But I must confess I think this not the sense Interrogations sometimes are the language of persons inquiring for further certainty and satisfaction so I take it here as if the Prophet had said Ah Lord is the decree gone forth is there no hope art thou not to be spoken to for this people hast thou utterly reprobated them If not c. It follows Why hast thou smitten us and there is no healing These words have in them an Interrogation and an Expostulation No soundness in the Hebrew Here the Prophet begins to represent unto God the state of the people 1. They were smitten already smitten with a dearth 2. And in Gods purpose smitten with an approaching sword and captivity He owns God as the primary efficient cause Thou hast smitten he addes and there is no healing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word used in the Hebrew signifies health or soundness and healing or cure And so the complaint denotes two things 1. 〈◊〉 universality of the judgment they had no part sound no foundness 2. The desperateness of their distemper they could find no cure no remedy no healing their State Physitians were of no value they had tried but they could no help no healing he Expostulates with God not enquiring the cause Jeremiah was not signorant of cause enough in this people to justifie God in the severity of this dispensation but he speaks like a troubled man who would gladly have had it otherwise with his people if God had pleased 2. He further represents the sadness of this peoples case in this that their expectations were frustrated We looked 〈◊〉 peace and there is no good and for the time of healing and behold trouble There is nothing difficult in the words they only signifie the disappointment which God had given them in their great expectations The words may ●e understood either of the generality of the people who might have presumptuous hopes or of Gods own people who upon that great reformation which Josiah had began look't for peace ●oth were deceived no peace no good came but more trouble more disturbance still I intend not to speak to every Proposition might be drawn from these words I shall only fix upon one and that founded upon the words in the latter part of the Verse We looked for peace and no good came for the time of healing and behold trouble Prop. It pleaseth God in the wisdom of his Providence oft times to give people great disappointments in their expectations of peace and healing as to their outward concerns You may if you will take it in these two branches 1. People are very prone in evil times and disturbed times to look for good to look for healing 2. It pleaseth God oft times to give them great disappointments in their expeciations Trouble instead of peace● wounds instead of healing I say 1. It is natural to us in evil and disturbed times to look for good and to loo● for an healing It is true this Proposition is not universally verified in the Sons of men and the thing depends though not wholly yet in a great measure upon the sutural disposition There is much truth in that Maxim of Physitians and Philosophers Mores sequuntur humores Where any persons are more enclined ●o melancholly and that humour more prevails persons so enclin'd are more disposed to fears and jealousies and suspicions Where some other humour prevails in the body the person is more enclined to hope and presume so as you shall generally find men and women thus divided Some are more naturally disposed to fear the worst to be suspicious and jealous of every thing others ●●e naturally enclined to hope the best and to promise all good to themselves and the most of people either from this Natural cause or some Moral ●ouses for they also have some inscience on us are very prone to look ●or good for peace and healing and this ●s not only ordinary to the more ignorant and sinful sort of men but even ●o Gods own people The wicked cry ●●ace Peace when there is no peace to ●●e wicked saith the Lord. The Mother of Sisera looks out at the window when her Son was dead with agnail struck through his temples and cryes Why is his Chariot so long incoming Have they not sped Have they not divided the prey The false Prophets daub with untempered mortar Three hundred false Prophets spake good to Ahab and bid him go up to Ramoth-Gilead and prosper Nor are the better and wiser sort Gods own dear people exempted from this infirmity Even David saith in his prosperity I shall never be moved nor are we only vain in prosperity to promise our selves a stability in that state but in a time of adversity we are as ready to promise our selves a quick deliverance and freedom from it When the children of Israel were carried captives into Babylon they would needs believe