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	suffer_v	suffering_n	2,047	5	9.4271	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23661	A discourse of divine assistance, and the method thereof shewing what assistance men receive from God in performing the condition of the promise of pardon of sin and eternal life / by W.A.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1679 (1679)	Wing A1059; ESTC R17227	99,779	333

his operation in them when their minds and spirits become purified and refined from inordinateness of affection and unruliness of passion until by degrees they are brought in some good measure unto a likeness and conformity to the spirit and temper of Jesus Christ whose Scholars they are They that are joined to the Lord are one spirit They mind love hate and design the same things which our Saviour doth They participate of that love gentleness benignity and goodness which was so eminent in him the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness righteousness and truth Ephes 5.9 by which means they come to be in the world as he was in the world as S. Johns phrase is Hereby saith S. John we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us Joh. 3.24 It is so like him that it must needs come from him and if it be in us it is because he dwells in us If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us 1 John 4.12 When we love one another as Christ hath loved us when we are merciful as our heavenly Father is mercciful his love and goodness is so resembled by us as that it is perfectly discernible in us Moreover the Holy Spirit is given to the Believers to be with them to strengthen them with resolution and courage to hold on their course of holy living and cleaving faithfully to Christ notwithstanding all opposition and discouragement they may meet with from the World in doing so To this end they are strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man Ephes 3.16 For God hath not given them the spirit of fear but of power and love and of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1.7 And not onely so but the Holy Spirit is given to the Believers to be always with them to maintain and uphold in them a comfortable and chearful frame of spirit and so to keep them from fainting when they are called to suffer for the sake of our Saviour or his truth or doctrine And it is doubtless from this effect among others of the Spirits abiding with the Believers that he is stiled the Comforter And for the same reason principally the joy which they have amidst their sufferings for righteousness sake is called the joy of the Holy Ghost 1 Thess 1.6 having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost And well may it be called the joy of the Holy Ghost because solid joy under such circumstances can proceed from no other cause but the Holy Spirits operation It is not the manner of the World as it is with Believers to rejoice in affliction in wrongs and injuries and hard usage from men but the contrary because they have no principle in them out of which such a thing should proceed And therefore our Savior saith to his Disciples My peace I give unto you not as the world giveth give I unto you Joh. 14.27 The Holy Spirit can raise joy yea great joy in the souls of the followers of Christ when they suffer never so hard measure from the hands of men so long as they know it is for their faithfulness to their blessed Lord and Master who hath suffered and done so much for them as he hath done The Spirit of God can so order their thoughts within them that they shall not look upon themselves as disgraced thereby but as highly honoured by their Master by giving them both opportunity and courage to do him that honour when his adversaries would cast reproach and shame upon him and his Cause and all that appear for it And thus the Apostles when they had been beaten departed from the Council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus their Lord Acts 5.41 The Holy Ghost can suggest to them also that a great deal of good by such sufferings may be done to others in causing them to think the more and the better of the Christian Religion when they see with what chearfulness the Professors of it can suffer for its sake When the Thessalonians received the Word in much affliction and yet with joy of the Holy Ghost they became thereby ensamples to all that believed in Macedonia and Achaia and from them and their deportment in suffering for the Gospel the word of the Lord sounded out not onely in Macedonia and Achaia but also in every place their faith was spread abroad and talked of 1 Thess 1.6 7 8. It was this joyous deportment of the primitive Martyrs in their sufferings that tended so greatly to the increase and enlargement of the Church as History relates it did The Christians then were enabled to glory in tribulation of this kind in as much as they were guided to consider that this patient enduring without repining would give them experience of their sincerity and fidelity in cleaving to Christ and then this experience would give them hope such as should not make them ashamed through any disappointment but great confidence towards God of being accepted Rom. 5.3 4. And not onely so but also touching the greatness of the reward which is laid up in heaven for such a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Upon account whereof our Saviour bids them to rejoice and to be exceeding glad yea to leap for joy in that day when they should be persecuted for righteousness sake and have their name cast out as evil and the like When the Christians were enabled to suffer the spoiling of their goods yea and of their lives too not onely with patience but also with joyfulness when they were as sorrowing and yet always rejoycing whence was this And how can it be imagined that they should ever be able to do and to be so but that they were strengthened with all might according to Gods glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness as S. Paul speaks Col. 1.11 The Spirit of God and of glory then rested upon them as the other Apostle saith 1 Pet. 4.14 How came S. Stephen to stand with such an undaunted courage before the Council as if his face had been the face of an Angel Why it was because he was full of the Holy Ghost he had a mighty presence of the Spirit with him to enable him thereunto S. Paul learned by experience that as his sufferings did abound for Christ so his consolations by Christ did abound also 2 Cor. 1.5 that when he was weak then he was strong that he had a mightier presence a more powerful and comfortable influence of the Holy Spirit in times of great trials and sufferings for Christ than he had at other times And this experience of his made him so far from being afraid of suffering that for the sake of that wonderful comfort which was wont to come along with suffering he was rather glad when suffering came than any way dejected and cast down for it 2 Cor. 12.9 10. Most gladly therefore will I

Doubtless it came to pass by the awakening of their minds by God to consider things more than their Neighbours did to consider the nature and tendency of morality and immorality and what was like to be the issue of both at last in respect of rewards and punishments in another World And the innate light and reason of their minds would dictate to them that Vice could not possibly tend to their happiness nor Vertue to their infelicity in the next World And this made them before they were Proselytes so far as the light of nature assisted by God did lead them to chuse to do what was most likely to end in happiness and to avoid what was most likely to make them miserable at last This no doubt made them betake themselves to the worship of the true God onely when others of their Neighbours did not and in this to join with the People of Israel though not entirely in the same Institutions of Worship because they were not given them in command as they were to the Jews This difference between them and other of their Country-men did first spring as I say from their taking important things more into consideration than others did And by this they came to be prepared to receive the Gospel so that they fell in with it readily when it was preached unto them sometimes at the first hearing Those Proselytes we read of Acts 13.48 were such as were ordered and disposed in their own minds towards eternal life to wit to look after it and to be thoughtful about it and as many as were so did as we there see believe Such as these Proselytes were those other sheep I doubt not of which our Saviour spake John 10.16 which as he said are not of this fold them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice They were made tractable afore-hand ready to follow the Shepherd when they should hear his voice Such also we may well suppose the good Ground hearers to be who were of good and honest hearts as they are described Luke 8.15 of honest minds not willing to represent things to themselves better than they are nor to put a cheat upon themselves and their own souls by flattering them into a better opinion of themselves and of their good condition Godward than there is cause Like him of whom the Psalmist speaks Who flattereth himself in his own eyes until his iniquity be found to be hateful Psal 36.2 They are not of such partial and dishonest minds as to be thoughtful and careful about the outward Man and things of this present World and to be altogether regardless and careless of their souls the better part and of the concerns for Eternity nor treacherously to betray them Thus far to shew how God hath prepared men for the belief of the Gospel onely by making principles and notions of natural religion operative in them by a powerful impression of them upon their minds CHAP. II. How God by adding Revealed Religion to that which is Natural prepared the Jews for the performance of the condition of the Promise IN times under the Law and before the appearance of Christ in the World Almighty God prepared the People of the Jews for the Faith in Christ by adding Revealed Religion to that which is Natural and by making that which was Natural more powerful and operative to such an end by that which was revealed After the Original Law which is implanted in the Nature of all men became much blurred and defaced in the minds of men a fair Copy of it was delivered to that People by God written in two Tables of Stone And this was done as for other ends so for this to wit to awaken in them a greater sense of the guilt of sin and their liableness thereby to the wrath of Almighty God and to condemnation The Law worketh wrath saith S. Paul Rom. 4.15 that is it maketh the Transgressor of it the more punishable and exposeth him the more to wrath For the strength of sin is the Law as the same Apostle saith in another place 1 Cor. 15.56 it is that which armeth those actions against a man which would not have been punishable if there had been no Law against them For where there is no Law there is no transgression as he saith in the former Text. And where there is no transgression there can be no punishment due And by parity of reason where the Law is more obscure and less discernable the transgression of it must be the less punishable and the more manifest and express the Law is by which men are left without all excuse of ignorance touching the evil prohibited the greater and more criminal must the offence needs be as when committed against a Law promulgate and fully known This is that which stops the mouths of men against all excuse and plea of ignorance and lays them naked and open to the penalty of the Law What the Law saith it saith to them that are under the Law that every mouth might be stopt and all the World found guilty before God or subject to his judgment Rom. 3.19 And as the offence against the Law is aggravated and enhansed by how much the more the Law is known to be expresly against it by so much may the punishment be expected to be increased by that means He that knew his Masters will and yet did it not shall be beaten with many stripes above what he shall suffer whose opportunity of knowing his duty hath been less Now this was the case with the Jews they were under the natural Law before it was promulgated to them as well as all other Nations But that Law of Nature was grown so blurr'd and illegible through the pravity and degeneracy of men that they could hardly discern that to be sin in many cases which was sin by the Law of Nature As for instance I had not known Lust to be sin saith S. Paul unless the Law had said thou shalt not covet They could hardly discern inward concupiscence in this or that particular to be sin unless it brake out into open act But now by the promulgation of the natural Law this came to be known to be sin which indeed was so before but not so certainly known to be so and the like in other cases But when this and other things were by a promulgate Law more clearly known to be sin it was then at their greater peril if they fell into them and consequently they must needs be the more apprehensive of their danger and their fear the greater in case they did S. Paul personating a Jew both before and after the promulgation of the Law saith I once was alive without the Law but when the commandment came then sin revived and I died He did not know himself to be in so ill a case as the Law when it came discovered him to be And therefore he saith again that sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived him and by it slew