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	righteousness_n	work_n	2,859	5	6.2434	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44456	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, aldermen and citizens of the city of London, in the parish church of S. Mary le Bow, September 3, 1683 being the day of humiliation for the late dreadfull fire / by William Hopkins ...	Hopkins, William, 1647-1700.	1683 (1683)	Wing H2754; ESTC R17537	23,331	39

Natural whether they be good or bad yet those Societies themselves will cease with this world and cannot be punished in the next Now there concur two very different causes to the punishment of Sinners viz. The Righteousness of God and their own Unrighteousness The latter justly meriting those calamities which the former inflicts So that in every sad Providence we must acknowledge the just hand of God lifted up against us and recompensing the evil works of our own hands upon us 1. In all our Sufferings we must behold the righteous hand of God by whose Providence afflictions befall sinfull men For as Eliphaz saith Job V. 6. Affliction cometh not forth out of the dust nor doth trouble spring out of the ground The most inconsiderable and seemingly contingent events Matt. XI 29. Prov. XVI 33. such as the fall of a Sparrow or the turn of a die are under the government of Divine Providence And therefore it must needs be much more interessed in what befalls so noble a creature as Man nay great Societies of men The Calamities of Cities and Kingdoms must not be imputed to mere chance nor may we think that God is no farther concerned with them than by his general concourse with the immediate and second causes of them If we suffer by Fire or by Sea by immoderate Rain or Drought we must behold these as scourges in God's hand If we are punished either by War or Pestilence we must esteem both our Enemies and the destroying Angel God's Ministers and the Executioners of his just though fierce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrath He makes the creatures his weapons for vengeance on his enemies Wisd V. 18. If the Sea overflow its banks and drown a Countrey it 's by God's commission that the Ocean enlarges its Territories and swallows up a sinfull Land If Famine afflict a Nation whether the immediate causes be excessive drought or rains know that it is the Lord who breaks the staff of bread Ezek. V. 16. who sendeth unseasonable rain and withholdeth it in its season If the Pestilence rage in a City and consume its Inhabitants this evil also is of the Lord. If we undergo the miseries of War and our Enemies prevail over us we must remember Isa XXXIV 6. that it is the sword of the Lord that is in their hands and fills it self with our bloud They shall know that I am the LORD when I put MY SWORD into the hand of the King of Babylon Ezek. XXX 25. It is the Lord of hosts that pleads with us by the Sword and sells us into the hands of our enemies because we have sold our selves to work wickedness If the Fire consume our dwellings and lay our Cities in Ashes the Prophet tells us that God pleads with sinfull flesh by fire as well as by the sword Isai LXVI 16. Hos VIII 14. He sendeth fire upon our Cities and flames to devour our Palaces In short by whatever hands we suffer by whatever instruments he pleases to afflict us we must hear the rod and consider who hath appointed it Mich. VI. 9. We must acknowledge our sufferings to be from God and the chastisement of our sins 2. Whilst we behold God as the Authour of our calamities we must ascribe them to his Justice A Deo quidem punimur sed ipsi facimus ut puniamur Salvian de Gub. Dei l. 8. and not forget that the cause of our sufferings is in our selves For God would not inflict them did not we both need and deserve them The wrath of God is never revealed but against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men And even when his hand is heaviest upon us Ezra IX 13. Job XI 6. Psal CIII 10. our punishments are much lighter than our iniquities deserve There had been no such thing as Vengeance belonging to God but for the Wickedness of his Rebellious creatures Sin and Punishment are as nearly related as the Cause and Effect and the latter in the very notion of it implies the former For no suffering is properly a punishment unless inflicted for Sin Hence in the language of the Holy Scriptures to bear sin or iniquity signifies to be punished or put to death for it Exod. xxviij 43. Levit. XXIV 15 16. And Christ is said to bear the sins of many i. e. in their punishment Isa LIII 11 12. When a man is punished for his Sins he is said to eat the fruit of his ways Prov. I. 31. to be recompensed according to his deeds and the works of his own hands Jer. XXV 14. and to possess his iniquity Job XIII 26. All which forms of speech import our sins to be the meritorious and impulsive cause of our calamities And as we must acknowledge the Justice of God in our sufferings so must we likewise own his goodness his wisedom and fatherly care of us In our present lapsed condition in this state of Sin and Frailty Rev. III. 19. Heb. XII 5. he would not truly love us should he not when he sees it necessary rebuke and chasten us Should he not visit our transgressions with the rod Psal Lxxxix 32 33 34. and our iniquity with stripes we might have just ground to fear that he had utterly taken his loving-kindness from us and was about to break his Covenant It will neither consist with the Honour of his Justice and Wisedom nor yet with his Love to us that we should be permitted to sin without punishment I know some men refer all to irrespective Decrees or tell us that vindictive Justice is natural to God and that he must sacrifice some of his creatures in Hell fire to the honour of that Attribute Nay that he hath foredamned the greatest part of mankind by mere Prerogative and purely for the exercise of his Sovereign Power But this account of God differs infinitely from that he gives us of himself in the Holy Scriptures They represent him mercifull and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth Exod. xxxiv 6 7. keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin They tell us that Psal CXLV 9. Ezek. xxxiij 11. 2 Pet. III. 9. He is good to all and that his tender mercies are over all his works That he hath no pleasure in the Death of a sinner That he is not willing that any should perish but that all should come unto repentance He never goes about to get himself glory in the death of a sinner till he sees the sinner will die that he is desperate and incorrigible that he hardens his heart to that degree that neither gentleness nor severity can work upon him He seeks no advantages against his wretched creatures Though to punish be his work Isai XXVIII 21. it is his strange work He never sets about it but with reluctance and when we compell him to it for the vindication of Justice and Providence He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Lam. III. 33.

rebuilt with greater beauty its structures both private and publick Civil and Sacred are far more magnificent than before So that I may very well apply the first part of our Saviour's words to this great and eminent City Behold thou art made whole and add St. Chrysostom's gloss not by thy merit but by the Divine mercy and power For the rebuilding of it in so short a time and so great Splendour is little short of a miracle But though we do upon this account in some measure forget our Sorrows yet there is still just occasion for our solemn Humiliation this day to spend it in mourning and in all sorts of Penitential exercises For though the calamitous effects of the Fire be well nigh worn off yet whilst our Sins which kindled it remain they will afford us perpetual cause of Fasting and give us occasion to look back with Sorrow and to look forward with Fear When we reflect and see what destruction they have already wrought in this Land and City who among us hath so hard a heart as not to melt into Tears And when we forecast what farther and greater Calamities we have reason to apprehend from them is not the dreadfull prospect enough to make our hearts tremble and melt within us like wax What is onely intimated in the case of the Paralytick is a notorious truth in ours Our Sins were the cause of the Fire We confess it in the Publick Office of the Day we have erected a Pillar of Infamy in the midst of our City to be an everlasting memorial of the dreadfull Judgments of God and the dreadfull Sins of this Generation and which is sad to consider our Sins themselves reign in the midst of us and testify against us I hope therefore no man will have either the Folly or the Impudence to wash his hands and say I have contributed no Fuell to these Flames of London Though a late Inscription charge the Papists with the Fire it was not designed to absolve our Sins the undoubted Boutefeus and the worst sort of Incendiaries Though it might be intended to continue an immortal hatred of Popery sure it was never meant to reconcile us to our provoking abominations This would have been to ridicule the Wisedom and Piety of our Governours and contradict the best design of the Monument There is nothing so much hinders the good effects of Chastisements as transferring the blame on others or imputing them to accidents and resting in the second causes of them But certainly we have the least Temptation that may be to any thing of that kind For never were there more visible tokens of the just Vengeance of God than in the Fire of London Those circumstances which we are too prone to call accidents that concurred to the spreading of the Fire shew the Providence of that God whom we had provoked Whatever creatures assisted to the swift propagation of the Flames whether evil Instruments or the heat and drought of the preceding Summer or the Winds they were all God's Militia armed against us And neither strong East-winds nor the famous Popish or French Fire-balls carried on the Fire so much as the Trains our Sins had laid in all quarters of the City and the fierce Blasts of God's just displeasure Having so severely smarted for our Faults already methinks we should be well disposed to receive our Saviour's advice Sin no more One would think our sad experience should afford us some security against suffering again in the same way and on the same account We see that Beasts and Birds will not be twice taken in the same snare and shall we be more irrational than Brutes and suffer our selves to be often overtaken with the same Faults Oh that we could be blest with so happy a sight as that Reformation one might reasonably expect Jer. VI. 28. Iis ipsis quibus coercebantur plagis scelera crescebant ut putares poenam ipsam criminum quasi matrem esse vitiorum Salv. de Gub. l. 6. that either so heavy a Judgment as the Fire or so great a Mercy as the Resurrection of this City should singly produce But alas we are all grievous Revolters We have been made worse by our Afflictions and hardned by our Sufferings we like the Anvil have reverberated the strokes of God's hammer and they have made no impression upon us It is a sad Observation that Lactantius makes of the Heathen Romans Lactant. Instit l. 2. c. 11. nisi dum in malis sunt That they never remember God but in times of publick Calamity And yet Salvian's observation of the incorrigible temper of the Christian Romans is much more lamentable Neque ullam penitus Romani orbis aut Romani nominis portionem quamlibèt graviter plagis coelestibus caesam unquam fuisse correctam Salvian de Gub. l. 6. That no part of the Roman Empire though chastised with the severest plagues by Heaven was reformed thereby It behoves us to consider how far both these sad observations may be verified of us and whether what the Prophet saith of Judah may not be too truly and pertinently applied to us This is a Nation that obeyeth not the voice of the Lord neither receiveth Correction Jer. VII 28. How little influence had this sore Judgment upon us Did those of us that escaped that Plague repent of their Sins Zach. XI 2. Did the Fir-tree howle because the Cedar was fallen or the Oaks of Bashan for the Forest of the Vintage Did our lesser Cities and neighbouring Places take warning by this Calamity of our Metropolis No sure for then they would not as since they have done have tasted of the same cup. How did the Sufferers behave themselves was there any visible amendment did they come purer out of the Fire Nothing less The Fire that consumed our estates abated nothing of our Luxury and the Flames of our Lust raged when most of the fuell that had maintained them was spent How many here as Salvian observes at Triers lay drunk up and down in the warm ruines How did we ruffle it in rich Silks Lace and all sorts of bravery when it would have better become us to have lain prostrate before God in Sackcloth and Ashes How many were feasting and carousing at the Tavern when they should have been in the Temple fasting and deprecating farther miseries When the greatest part of the City lay in heaps and the poor remainders of it were black and disfigured by the Fire when which way soever we turned our eyes we could not avoid observing our desolations and the sad marks of God's displeasure how few of us abated the least delight saw one Play the less or spent in Devotion one hour the more If any did not run to the same excess of riot they had done before Salv. de Gub. l. 6. was it not as Salvian speaks Miserioe beneficium non disciplinoe rather to be ascribed to their Poverty than their Vertue But perhaps these