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	love_n	love_v	4,903	5	6.7044	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65061	Gods drawing, and mans coming to Christ discovered in 32 sermons on John 6. 44 : with the difference between a true inward Christian, and the outward formalist, in three sermons on Rom. 2. 28, 29 / by ... Richard Vines ...	Vines, Richard, 1600?-1656.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1662 (1662)	Wing V550; ESTC R3255	240,330	368

are infrustrably brought home who being left unto themselves neither would nor could have been any more saved than those that do stand out against God for if none so left do come in we may well conclude that all in that case would have stood out as well as these do But here an Objection may be made Object That every man is self-indulgent man must be supposed to love himself and to chuse his own chief good or-salvation and therefore were not his hands tied up for want of power he would not want will but certainly be saved For Answer Answ This goes about to lay the fault on mans non posse not upon his non velle which yet our Saviour affirms Joh. 5. 40. Ye will not come to me c. It 's true God hath linked his Glory and mans chief good or salvation together and so there is a self-love that 's joyned with the love of God for the salvation of man being linked to the Glory of God it follows that there must be self-love joyned with it I mean spiritual self-love self-denying self-love But observe besides this there is a carnal and sensual self-love in all men and that we properly speak of when we speak of self-love that hath the stronger bias of the two and carries us from salvation rather than to it and this is the self-love which prompts us to that by which we are deceived all our life-time pursuing rather what hath the species and colour than what hath the reality of happiness and content And therefore that which is here alledged as a reason why we should all be saved by our own will if so be there were a power because there is self-self-love in us is rather the reason why no man would be saved there being two self-self-loves every man naturally following the heavier bias of the two which wheels off to the body to the world and to things speciously good and draws him off from the concernments of his salvation and this self-self-love rather is the cause of mans hate and dislike of God because he assigns and pronounces Judgment to sin which self-self-love loves and tenders salvation in such way as is destructive to carnal self-self-love But as for that which we call spiritual self-love there goes much Grace to the working of it in man indeed if we had this self-love we should have one of the greatest fruits of supernatural Grace This is not naturally in man himself nor can be until there be an alter ego a new self another self for there are two selfs commonly in every man Not I but sin in me Rom. 7. Not I but Christ lives in me Gal. 2. the one self-love follows the one the other the other which is the stronger and leads a man unto perdition Point 5 Fifthly and lastly Let all Patrons and Advocates of Grace maintain the prevalency of Grace by its own strength and not because of some accessaries that strike in with it at such a time as the tide that strikes in with the wind But my Father draws saith Christ The Jesuites that have a hand in this controversie will tell you That the power of Gods Grace is prevalent may fall out so or so in the event by reason of congruities and seasons fit moods and tempers and perswasions Blanda tempora fandi God speaks to men in a seasonable time Few men say they but may be wrought upon if they be taken by the right eare there are some times of speaking to men when they are in a good mood but otherwise come to speak to them when they are off the hooks in a morose untractable condition as Jonah was in when God said to him Dost thou well to be angry Yea said he I do well to be angry to the death then if you move them with Arguments they prevail not A man so taken may resist the offers of salvation but we hold that the Grace of God is strong by its own strength able to overcome the most morose obstinate cross grain that can be when God intends it to be powerful Maintain therefore the prevalency of Grace not doing as those that will allow Grace to be prevalent in event but it is by reason of advantages that hit at that time as Auxilliaries that come in and get victory this is too little to say of Grace that it stands in need of such helps but it conquers the most cross grained and unwilling heart and therefore the invention is but to disparage and disgrace the Grace of God If you understood these things it would I hope settle you to be firm Advocates of the Grace of God But Secondly The benefits that practical godliness doth reap by the exaltation of Grace First This Doctrine proclaims down pride and advances the cause of humility No men so humble as they that are most sensible of the free grace of God towards them to make them something when they were nothing If thou receive why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received 1 Cor. 4. 7. If you will hold your selves receivers that will pull down your glory for glory is of man that hath not received Secondly It advances thankfulness And these are as the two scales the one up the other down Thankfulness and Humility You have a brave close saying of our Saviour when the Leper came back to give thanks for his cleansing Where are the nine saith he and he that was cleansed and came back was a Samaritan that 's not an idle word the rest were Israelites and took their cleansing to be a courtesie due unto them but this man thinking himself remote and if he were a Saviour yet he was no Saviour to him he was cleansed and came and gave thanks shewing that a man that hath least reason to look for any thing is most thanful Thirdly The sence of Free-Grace hath so great an Obligation to dutie that I wonder any men should preach Free-Grace to loosen the silver Cords of Duty and Obedience the law of God is the strongest and Free-Grace the sweetest tie For the Love of Christ constraineth us that is by bond of Ingenuity Cor. 5. 14. Fourthly Free-Grace is a great Quickener and will not let a man lie stupid and la●ie and drowzie so often as he thinks of the Free-Grace of God to him it 's like the Cock that crowes that awakened Peter to his Sence and Tears makes a man that hath tasted that the Lord is Gracious like a drop of oyle on a rusty Spring makes it goe nimbly sweetly and pleasantly The sence of Gods mercy that God pickt him out and made him one that he would convert and that when he had no more propension and likelinesse then another this quickens a man Fifthly It is a strengthener of obedience because it brings a man in all cases to depend upon God as his Center The young men shall faint those proud strong lusty ones of themselves shall faint but they that trust in the Lord they

these they shall have a form of godliness and deny the power of it That whereas its said of some of the Elements they move to the Center and not from it so I may say in this case a corrupt man alwayes moves towards this Center and moves not from it This self-love begets not a love but a contempt of God as Aquinas and takes the wall of him in every thing for it makes him a servant only to work my own interest and to enjoy my self which is the great Idol of man to which every man naturally burns incense and offers sacrifice and is no more able whatsoever he may pretend to exalt and set up God any further then may stand with self then a current of running water that comes from a Spring is able to run above the height of the Head or Fountain for then it would follow that a heavy body should run above it self Thirdly that the true love of God above self or all other things cannot possibly flow from any other principle but that which is above nature viz. regenerating grace And I take it to be one of the most demonstrative arguments and the first product of saving grace to love God for his holiness and ability to delight in him for himself as the Psalmist saith Delight in the Lord and he shall give thee thy hearts desire This shews that there is planted in the soul a similitude and likeness unto God which likeness is alwayes the cause of love and where this likeness is not it is impossible that the corrupt heart of man should put forth any act of love to God himself And therefore it s a very hard thing to perswade a natural man that he loves not God until he find that grace in himself that shews him plainly that he did not love him before and the reason is because every man living measures his love of God by a false measure For First either he measures the love of God to him by a common goodness of God which as it may stand with Gods hate of him so it may stand with his hate of God and so all that love of God is but a love unto himself because it s sounded meerly in nothing else but common goodness that God vouchsafes to you peradventure in this above other men For as it is said of Abraham He gave all that he had unto Isaac but unto the sons of his Concubines he gave gifts and sent them away Gen. 25. 6. so those that are indeed the beloved of God to them he gives the inheritance of divine grace but as for others he gives them gifts but sends them away from all comfortable presence and enjoyment of communion with him And therefore that 's a false measure to measure the love of God to you by Or Secondly he thinks and will not be beaten off it he loves God because he can say and that truly that God is amiable and to be beloved above all and that the chiefest good and happiness of man is to be found in God and in the enjoyment of him These are fair words But the Schoolmen have a true saying Mans corrupt nature is more corrupt quantum ad appetitum boni then quantum ad cognitionem boni moe out of the way in choise of good then in knowledge of truth And therefore as it is the best way to know whether you love God or no by bringing things to particulars unto choise and unto vote to hic nunc to particulars that stand in competition with God then t is plain with you and alas plain with us all in our natural condition that sensitive interest and sensual profit is chosen and embraced before God as infinite experience sheweth that the poorest and meanest lust or the enjoyment of any creature in the world when it comes to choise shall carry it quite away from God which is a demonstration that this love of God is not in some and doth not preponderate I shall shew you First that an unregenerate man cannot love God Secondly why he cannot love God First He cannot No man until God renew his Image in him can love God for there goes renewing grace to this work to love God above self it s a rare thing very seldom do you find out this corruption Ah I pity you you know not the half of that contrariety that is in every one of you to God In Deut. 30. 6. The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart For there is a foreskin upon the heart of man that must be taken away and that is a natural hardness and indisposition and this sticks upon the very elect of God themselves until they are called according to Gods purpose for they are born uncircumcised and have not this love of God in them but a contrariety and enmity to God Indeed its true they have a love of God towards them while they are in a state of alienation from him and that is called Amor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but not yet Amor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the love of his good pleasure towards them but not a love of complacency and well-pleasedness in them For so the Scripture calls him only that serves Christ in righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost Rom. 14. 18. These are under the well-pleasedness of God only and therefore though the love of his purpose may be toward them yet this of complacency is not in them until they be converted I the Lord will circumcise thy heart to love c. Secondly the effects of alienation from God may be found in every natural man For so in Col. 1. 21. You were sometimes alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works And again in Ephes 4. 18. Being alienated from the life of God You will say this speaks to the Gentils what they were before they came to Christ I grant it but were the Jewes that were Church members as you may seem to be any better Of them Christ saith in John 5. 42. I know you that you have not the love of God in you You may very well think that they would have spit in the face of any that should have said they had not the love of God in them as you may hold any man in defiance that shall say it of you But you know not the enmity and contrariety that is in your hearts to God He proves it by this argument he that hath not true faith in Christ hath not a sincere love of God As men put fallacies to themselves in point of believing so in point of loving And I remember Aquinas goes about to prove that all unbelief arises from the hatred of God when a man traces his unbelief in Christ to the last result of it he shall find it to be the hate of God I would not strain things higher then they are but so far forth as they may give a good demonstration By which

is obliged not only for a more easie conversion but for conversion it self for many have allowed it a place in making conversion more easie for a man to return and believe But we speak of the necessitie of it that conversion cannot be at all without it as therefore I may give it you by this comparison they that do allow the work of a Mid-wife in the helping of a child into the world do not by that make her the Parent of the child So they that allow the grace of God to be requisite to help man to conversion the knowledge of God and Faith do not thereby affirm the grace of God to be the Parent the Worker Authour and begetter of this Grace and therefore they say too little that make grace only an assistant And therefore as the Prophet in Zachary 4. speaking of the second Temple after Solomons Temple was burnt down by the King of Babylon they should cry Grace Grace to it not by might nor by power but that the Grace of God should be seen in the building of the second Temple So I may say of the building of this second Inner Temple in man after the death of the first I mean Gods Image in Man that it is a work all of Grace and therefore to set it in common place shews less sence of Gods honour by it and of our obligation to it then it requires Those that grant that man more easily comes to Heaven by grace adjuvant do say truth as Christ helping up Lazarus but raising him from the dead was more then so for he gave him life whereby he rise so to grace that it helps up man is to say Truth But if you will be good Advocates and plead the cause of Gods grace aright which men were famous for in former times when it was disparaged you must acknowledge preventing and preoccupating grace which wholly raiseth the dead man in that sence in which Austin calls it preventing that comes before our Act that praeoccupates a man not barely helping the man to rise alone but raising the man dead and begetting a new life in him Those who are only for adjuvant grace eclipse the glory of divine grace so as if they should say Christ helped up Lazarus who else could not so easily have risen up but it would have cost more ado to have effected it These are such as make the grace of Conversion to be as one horse in a Teem that helps indeed to pull out the stalled Cart the more easily but doth not come so home as that of Christ John 15 4. Severed from me ye can do nothing But let us account it to be the onely strength whereby we are pull'd out of the pit of damnation and perdition the Contest of Nature with Grace for place and power to make abatement of the necessitie soveraignty freedome and power of Grace in mans Conversion hath been in all times very great and some have given a greater share to mans power therein then others that have given too much Therefore there have been Pelagdians they went to the full and semi Pelagians And for ought I know there may be quarter Pelagians that deny some part of the Grace of God But it is to be observed that God by his Word hath alwayes determined the point for his own grace In his great Oracle which I account the case of Esau and Jacob to be when their Mother went to inquire the Lord answer'd I love the younger and hate the Elder and that before they had done good or evil It is my pleasure so to do for I will have mercy on whom I will Now if you will go about to ask me how Reason umpires this point in the Contest between Nature and Grace we know that Nature vanquish'd by the Word hath stood upon some proud and captious reasons which do rather shew that it is determined against her For the partie that mutinies and rebells doth confess it go●s against him the mutiny of Reason is the great reason that it goes against Reason in this point as in that Opposition Rom. 9. 19. Thou wilt say Why doth he yet complain who hath resisted his Will Man must needs be free and blameless for God would have him so Thus Reason mutinies and complains and comes with captious Arguments but the Apostle restrains it Nay O Man who art thou that disputeth with God which makes it clear that God hath determin'd against that part which holds up the wasters and makes insurrection So then the Grace of God is alone and that appears further that Nature at all times is willing to part stakes and it s a sign she is the wrong Mother because willing to come to division which Grace will not it will have all 〈◊〉 none I confess it is not the business of modest men for its liable to great exception and cavillation no● is it my design to cry down Nature further then it need and ought but this I speak against that those men that stickle for it do not give something only to Nature but plume it with the feathers of grace and inrich it with those spoiles that I take ill that me thinks is not right Let me give what I can what I ought to Nature Let me adorn it but with its own and if could be that Nature might be adorn'd and grace lose nothing it was more to be born But where the Sea gains the Shore loses so it is in these two as much as men set up Nature they pull down Grace Therefore you that will be Advocates for free Grace do you kiss the hand of that Grace whereby as the Apostle saith You are that as you are I● prosecuting this I shall shew Serm. 23 First What are those Points or Articles of Doctrine that are to be defended and maintained to the end that the free Grace of God in the Conversion of our Souls may keep its necessity Soveraignty c. Secondly What those benefits are that practicle Godliness doth derive from the sence of Gods free Grace in making us something out of nothing us that were not yet to be The Points to be maintained for the Lustre and Glory of Gods free Grace are five the defending of which will keep you untainted from the diminution and disparagement that it receiv'd in any Point 1 First The reason of the difference which God makes between any man that is saved and one that is not is not Originally in Man himself If you wave or quit this you lose the point for this threed will run through the whole web If we ascend upwards and accompt the Heavenly Orbes S. Paul names the third Heavens Philosophers name more we must needs at length come to some first mover that we call the Primum Mobile that moves the rest under it and it self is not moved by any Orb above it for no process can be in infinitum So we may in the course of salvation count from step to step for so doth