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
A52045	A peace-offering to God a sermon preached to the honourable House of Commons assembled in Parliament at their publique thanksgiving, September 7, 1641 : for the peace concluded between England and Scotland / by Stephen Marshall ...	Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1641 (1641)	Wing M766; ESTC R14789	35,078	57

God must prove successelesse in the event how wise how cunning how strong soever they are who manage an ill cause against the Lord and against his Church though for a time with that little horn in the 7. of Daniel they may be very stout and speak very great things and make warre with the Saints and prosper though they may carry the ball long at their foot they can never winne the goale God will come in an adversary against them he will awake as one out of sleep like a mighty man that shouts by reason of wine and put them to a perpetuall reproach Search all the Scriptures and you shall finde that this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord that no weapon that is formed against them shall prosper either their plot fails or the thing which they intended is turned another way Their plot failed not in the 6. of Daniel they aymed to get Daniel into the Lions den and in they got him but they little thought that the event should be Daniels preservation and exaltation and their own destruction So the devill and his Instruments failed not in their plot in getting Christ upon the Crosse but they little thought that this bruising of our Saviours heel should prove the breaking of the Serpents head The redemption of the Church and the leading of all the power of darknesse captivity captive Mark this all ye wisemen and great Polititians of the world that dare drive designes against the cause of God and his Church write it down and say your unworthy Minister taught you this day from God Though ye take counsell together it shall come to nought though ye speak the word it shal not stand for God is with us Hamans wife long ago could tell her husband if Mordecai was of the seed of the Jews he should never prevail against him but should surely fall before him Weigh therefore all your designes in the ballance of the Sanctuary lay aside all carnall and sinfull projects put your selves and all your reason under Christs footstool take Gamaliels counsell refrain from opposing those men who advance Gods work you cannot overthrow it lest haply ye be found even to fight against God Secondly this may be a mighty and wonderfull refreshing to all the servants of God in their deepest and heaviest pressures and afflictions though one deep call to another though thou seem to be cast beyond the Antarctick pole though all humane hope and help fail though thy heart fail and thy flesh fail thy God will never fail though thou art at thy wits end thou hast no cause to be at thy faiths end take Gods book in thy hand finde out the promises how God hath engaged himself to help at a pinch and when thou hast got a promise of deliverance then beleeve that heaven and earth shall be jumbled together rather then one jot or title of Gods promise shall not come to passe in due time Nay though he seeme to break his promise beleeve it not for so he seemed to do to Mary and Martha he sent them word Lazarus sicknesse was not to death and he seemed to fail for Lazarus died but they should have beleeved any thing rather then that that sicknesse should have been unto death Object But what if I can finde no promise that God will deliver me out of this strait I answer either thou art in covenant with God or not if thou be not in covenant if thou be an unbeleever an impenitent person I assure thee there is no promise in all this book of God that speaks one word of comfort to thee All Gods promises are yea and Amen to them who are in Christ Jesus I should wrong God and his truth and thy soul in speaking one word of comfort to thee But if in truth thou reliest upon Christ the bent of thy heart be turned to God and so thou be brought under the line of his covenant then I say to thee if there be no promise for thy strait thy strait is not greatly to be regarded God hath made promises to deliver thee from every evill work from what ever might hurt thee and thou needst not feare that which cannot hurt thee Thirdly and lastly Right Honorable and beloved how should this steel your spirits and raise up your hearts and make you with Jehoshaphat lifted up in the wayes of God you have great works to do the planting of a new heaven and a new earth amongst us and great works have great enemies they are attended with great dangers and oftentimes great fears ceize upon the spirits of Moses himself when he looks upon the work which he knows too great for him But could you remember that you walk not onely under Gods protection but under a promise that he will come in when ever you need him how boldly might you place your help in the Name of this God who hath made heaven and earth Set you your hearts to Gods work God hath set his heart upon you to deliver you and he can do it Darius set his heart on Daniel to deliver him and laboured it but could not do it But it is but for your God to command deliverance and it comes I may say the lesse because of all the experience you have had of Gods fulfilling this since your meeting together how often have you been at your wits end how often have you ebb'd and flowed and yet in all your extremities God hath come in beyond your expectation Trust still in this God seek him in his own way and say thus with your selves He is our rock our fortresse he will deliver us his truth shall be our shield and buckler Yet remember that I do not teach you that ye can never be left to suffer in a good cause that were to preach contrary to the Gospel all Christs disciples must take up their crosse and follow him you shall read in the 11. of Daniel ver. 33. That they that understand among the people and instruct many shall fall by the sword and by flame by captivitie and by spoil many dayes and when they fall they shall be holpen with little or no help but yet mark what follows their fall shall onely be as the silver fals into the furnace There are three ends why the Refiner of silver puts it into the fire First to try it whether it be pure or reprobate silver Secondly to better it to purge out the drosse Thirdly to burnish it to make it more beautifull So these shall fall to try them and to purge and make them white neither shall it be so long as their enemies please but even to the time of the end to the time appointed by God Resolve therefore upon it that if ye do suffer if evill do betide you in a good way and for a good cause your sufferings will be better for you then freedome from sufferings they shall be onely to try you

thought not so And when he thought to do more against Gods people then God intended God told him the Ax did but boast it self against him that hewed with it and the sawe magnified it self against him that shaked it and the staffe lifted up it self as if it forgot it self to be a piece of wood And it must needs be so else God were not onely and wholly to be trusted in nor onely and wholly to be sought and prayed to and consequently not onely and wholly to be acknowledged as God Could any hurt his servants against his will his servants must fear some others besides him finde out any creature reasonable or unreasonable Angels or devils good or bad who do or can do any thing otherwise then as second causes which are wholly carried by the first cause and for my part I should acknowledge a Deitie in it the creature should passe for a God and Gods absolute soveraigntie would be denyed Whereas the Scripture teaches us that not onely the hearts and wayes of ordinary men but even the hearts of Kings which are most soveraigne and independant and lots which are most casuall are all disposed of by God who works all in all I note this for these two ends First to teach all that are in covenant with God in all the evils that betide them to look further then the rod that smites them Some cunning enemy undermines thy peace some foule mouth reproaches thy good name some powerfull and malicious enemies spoil thy cattell some fire burns up thy sheep and servants some winde from the wildernesse smites the foure corners of thy house and makes it fall upon thy children some devil afflicts thy body with sore boyles and thy soul with invenomed arrows What shouldest thou now do contend with the instrument bite the stone like a dog that strooke thee Oh no! Remember Shimei could never curse David till God bade him As●ur could never smite Israel till God used him as a staffe in his own hand Satan could touch nothing that Job had till God delivered it into his hand No not enter into an herd of swine till Christ sent him Look not therefore to the creature but with Job acknowledge it is Gods hand onely The not having learned this lesson is the cause of most of that sinfulnesse that is found in our ill-bearing of crosses and makes us exceedingly wrong the creature our selves and our God most of all 1. We wrong the creature which is but Gods instrument in over-fearing it or over-grieving it as if our weale or wo did come from it and so make an Idoll of it attributing somewhat to the creature which is peculiar to God Secondly we wrong our selves for beside a great deale of lost care and griefe and pains which increaseth our sinne and sorrow in fretting at the Instrument and gnawing the chain which tyes us in knocking at a wrong doore seeking help where it cannot be had we lose the good which God intends God never sends a crosse but it is upon some arrand for our good Gods rod alwayes hath a voice Hear the Rod and who hath appointed it Now would we hear God speaking by his rod lie down at his foot and say with Job Shew me why thou contendest with me we should then finde that Gods correction would seal our instruction to try us to withdraw us from some sinfull way and to keep back our soul from the pit which by not looking at Gods hand we deprive our selves of Thirdly we wrong God most of all when with our sinfull communicating to the creature a great part of that griefe care feare desire c. which should be onely bestowed upon him we do also hereby deny his providence as if there could be any evill in the City which the Lord hath not done Secondly since we never can be a prey till God will give us to be a prey Keep in with God and you are safe enough none shall arrest you till Gods hand be to the warrant We observe since the beginning of the Parliament many walk confidently abroad in the very face of Creditours Bayliffes and Sergeants when they have got a lawfull Parliament-Protection who before durst not shew their heads they know they cannot be arrested till their master puts them out of his protection O how much more boldly may they walk who abide under the protection of the Almightie who being called to great services for God and endeavouring to walke faithfully in their work may conclude that no Writ can be served on them on earth till their masters hand have signed it in heaven See how our blessed Saviour encouraged himself and his disciples by this argument in the 11. Joh. ver. 7. Christ told his disciples they must go again into Judea why Master say his disciples the Jews of late sought to stone thee there and goest thou thither again Now mark Christs answer v. 9. Are there not twelve houres in the day if a man walk in the day he stumbles not because he sees the light of this world The meaning is this That as they who travell by day travell in safetie so they that walk in the light of Gods call in any businesse walk safe from danger go about a businesse without a call and we walk as at midnight Men that have letters of publike faith letters of safe conduct dare go anywhere through troops of enemies from one end of an enemies countrey to another Go on therefore boldly ye Worthies of the Lord do his work faithfully there shall no evill befall you nor any plague come nigh your dwelling a thousand shall fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand but till God put your Name in till God say to plague or pox or feaver or Traitors or death ceize upon such a Nobleman take such a Parliament-man they never can touch you And I should expect Gods delivering you in displeasure to any evill anywhere sooner then when your hearts and hands are employed in his service The second observation is from the manner and time of their deliverance God let them alone untill they were almost in the teeth of the wilde beast untill the bird was even caught in the Fowlers snare and then he comes and snatches them as a prey from their teeth then he breaks the Fowlers snare and the bird escapes And that affords us this lesson When Gods people are come to the greatest extremitie of danger that is the time which God chuses for their deliverance There are 2. branches in this lesson First God uses to let evils go on against the Church till they come to extremities Secondly when the extremitie is come then Gods help comes in First God lets evils run on till they come to extremity I do not say God lets them alwayes come to extremitie for then the Church should ever be in extremitie her enemies are alwayes devising mischiefe