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	work_n	work_v	5,063	5	7.8717	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93207	A short discourse concerning the work of God in this nation, and the duty of all good people, both governors and governed, in this their day.		1659 (1659)	Wing S3584; Thomason E986_19; ESTC R207794	8,134	16

A SHORT DISCOURSE CONCERNING The WORK of GOD IN THIS NATION AND The DUTY of all good People BOTH Governors and Governed IN This their DAY LONDON Printed by R. W. for Francis Tyton at the Sign of the three Daggers in Fleet-street 1659. June 25 A short discourse concerning the work of God in this Nation and the duty of all good people both Governors and Governed in this their day THe various dealings of God with his people in these Nations have all along of late years to some discerning spirits appeared full of Fatherly love and tenderness The Faith of these Watchmen in Israel staggered not at all notwithstanding the great stumbling-blocks which have by our back-sliding been cast into the way of Gods work I hope the Lord is now arising to make good their word yea and that the very snares wherein he hath permitted some honest persons to be entangled and the scourges with which he hath visited us for our Apostacies will be made effectual means of recovering strengthening and perfecting a testimony for Liberty Righteousness and Judgement upon the earth For though some of them of understanding have fallen yet this hath been but to try them to purge and make them white even to the time of the end because it is yet for an appointed time Dan. 11.35 Certainly it was the admirable wisdom of God to suffer so many interruptions of his glorious work as have for these last years sprung up amongst us He only acted herein the part of a wise Master-builder who for a time desists from raising his intended Fabrick till first he hath prepared all materials requisite to the carrying it on Now if we impartially search into the defects and imperfections of the whole body of good people which formerly rendred them unfit to proceed in the work of Reformation and obstructed the establishment of Freedom and Equity in the midst of us we shall then find good cause to acknowledge That the Lord in great goodness and wisdom though also in judgement and displeasure let some of us run back towards Egypt into the Wilderness and chastened others by the strokes of their own Brethren and familiar friends that thus he might shew us what was in our hearts and what folly and falshood is wrapt up in the minds of his children even of the best of his children which requires the rod of correction to drive it out And if it shall please the great God of Heaven the searcher of all hearts now at last to sanctifie unto us his chastisements and our stumblings we shall enjoy a sweet and precious fruit of all For by what hath befallen us these last times we are well cautioned how to steer our future course both in publick and personal exigencies off from those dangerous Rocks which we our selves or others in our observation have split upon to the prophanation of Gods Temple and the Shipwrack of their own good name and conscience The intent therefore of this short paper is to discuss a little the grounds why we stayed so long in the birth why God hitherto hath so long disappointed our expectations and made such delay in satisfying our hungering desires after Liberty and Righteousness in the Government and Frame of these Nations and withall to awaken all good Persons Parliament Army and all that love the righteous Old Cause to meet the Lord in the present Overtures which his Providence makes to us with meek and broken hearts fitted to become the subjects of that blessed and saving work which God hath yet to work out among us Only give me leave first to consider with you a while how throughly the tender mercies of God do allure us to the performance of our duty before exprest No people in the whole earth have had amongst them more evident footsteps of divine Wisdom Power and Compassion then this sinful Nation especially those in it who have been honest and faithful whose hearts and eyes were ready to fail for the salvation of God Their own souls could not have wisht or expected a more seasonable revival of Gods work nor a more explicit and publique approbation to the Ancient good Cause then God himself hath been pleased to give in the eyes of our own people and of all Nations in calling this Parliament to the exercise of their just authority after so long an interruption As for the seasonableness of this notable turn the low ebb whereunto the Nation is reduced by male execution of Government to the exhausting of the publique Treasuries and contracting of debts to the deadning of Trade both Forraign and Domestick and giving all our Enemies abroad and within our bowels advantages against us doth sufficiently discover that nothing could befall us more agreeable nor more in season though indeed of this the Parliament it self must be left to give more full evidence by their future counsels and actions yet the good condition in which things stood when by an usurped force the Parliament was interrupted comparatively unto what they have since declined into may justly quicken our hopes of being again through Gods blessing recovered into as good yea a much better condition then ever For what hath God designed by permitting such disorderly and impetuous endeavours of men towards Tyranny and self-exaltation and that of men obliged to the contrary by all the Obligations that Vows and Conviction could lay upon them as of late years he hath unless to shew us all in their examples what we are how frail and deceiveable in all the zeal and goodly appearance of our own righteousness and to shew us also how inconsistent a private selfish mind is with righteous rule which truths once throughly learnt and experienced by our Governours will admirably fit them for a right discharge of those weighty trusts which are committed to them This late remarkable passage of Gods Providence in restoring the Parliament of this Common-wealth to the Throne hath not only been seasonable but likewise a very express and open an Ownal of the Good Cause formerly engaged for and that greatly to the honor of them the Grand Engagers therein as also of them in the Army whose hearts the Lord moved to earnestly request and make way for their Session God himself hath honoured you in the sight of all people and made your cup run over in the presence of your Enemies God seems willing that you above others you who have already heretofore through his blessing made good progress in his reforming work should now proceed towards the accomplishing thereof Some of you he hath refined in the furnace of sufferings Others of your Number troublers of Israel he hath cut off with the stroke of his hand some whom he suffer'd to fall back with the torrent of the times he hath since toucht I hope with a deep and godly sense of their fallings and all this to try and to humble you that he may do you good in the end The Lord hath been hewing and polishing you for

some more noble use then ever before you were prepared for and hath now with a high hand and an out-stretched arm gathered you together to put you yet again upon the proof whither you will be a willing and obedient people in the day of his power It greatly therefore concerns you and all the good people diligently to search out what the holy acceptable and perfect will of God is which by all his various dispensations he would discover to us and incline our hearts to the obedience of what the reasons of his carrying us back from the borders of liberty and rest which once before we were entring into under the conduct of this Parliament into a Wilderness of confusion sufferings and oppressions during the late usurpation and what his designs in thus mercifully rallying us in order if we be not rebellious to our more compleat entrance into the Land of Rest and Truth and fuller conquest over all the Canaanites The main thing in which all Gods people generally from the highest to the lowest have been too unskilful is denying of self not corrupt sinful self only but righteous and holy self and contemning those allurements of gain which puft up the mind of man with boasting and vainglory This surely is that which we are call'd to be more fully instructed in and in the first place those that are Rulers The Changes and Overturnings we have had in this corner of the world do loudly proclaim to us that which the Rock of Israel said to David 2 Sam. 23.3 He that ruleth over men must he just ruling m the fear of the Lord that is he must receive the Pattern for his Rule and the motives to it from Jesus Christ the Fountain of all just Government and not seek them in himself in his own single interest or glory A self-glorying and self-inriching spirit is perfectly opposite to the Kingdom of Christ and to the common advantage of our Neighbour Our Lord himself though so spotless and righteous as he was saith I seek not mine own glory If I honour my self my honour is nothing I speak not of my self and again Not my will be done by all which expressions and others such like we see plainly that Christ having consideration of himself as single and alone in his righteous Manhood utterly refuses to speak or act in that capacity I do saith he nothing of my self but as my Father hath taught me I speak these things he that sent me is with me the Father hath not left me alone For I do always those things that please him Look how Christ in this respect deports himself in the exercise of his rule towards his Head the Father so ought you most Renowned Patriots in Parliament and Army to demean your selves in the exercise of your Rule towards Christ who is your Head you ought to see an insufficiency in the wisdom and strength of flesh a weakness in your selves left alone even in your best estate and that your safety and force lies in being yoaked to Christ through meekness of spirit and submission of will to him in all your enterprises Although Popular Government in a Free State considered in it self may justly of all others be accounted here with us the most natural and adequate medium whereby to attain and secure the peoples Liberty and welfare which is one great end of Magistracy yet if the persons managing this Government be slaves to their ambitious lusts and servants to gain the Government will be difficultly preserved from corrupting Good rules indeed in its constitution as frequent change of office and residence and the balancing particular mens interests and setting bounds to their riches and greatness with the like may greatly avail to its preservation and are needful But we shall never be settled upon the right Basis of good Government till Christ reveal himself in our Rulers as the Corner-stone of the whole building teaching them to deny themselves and naturally to take care of the Common-weal by faithfully and impartially distributing to every man his portion of Freedom Justice and Encouragement in due season and doing right to all without respect of persons not siding with part of the good people in neglect of the rest nor engrossing to themselves the benefits of power and rule to the unjust exclusion or oppression of any the discovery of this just upright spirit in our Magistracy will terrifie their enemies make glad all honest hearts and convince the dis-affected of the excellency of the Good Cause so long contested for The wise King of Israel tells us Eccles 8.9 there is a time when one man rules over another to his own hurt And when is that but at such time as he rules in a self-promoting and self-securing way contrary to Gods heart and to the common right for this corrupts his spirit mis-leading him from the fear of God and sets him at defiance with the popular Interest so that he is exposed to their severe judgement when they shall recover power and liberty as also to the wrathful displeasure of God whose powerful arm executes his righteous will everywhere and upon all persons without controle or limitation that therefore which next follows in the same Chapter is considerable And so I saw the wicked buried who had come and gone from the place of the Holy and they were forgotten in the City where they had so done this is also vanity which we have seen too in part fulfilled upon some great men of this last age of the world that a long time went together with the upright to the House of God and had a mighty name in the visible Church the Jerusalem below But in the generation to come their name shall be blotted out and the memory of them be cut off from the earth because they were enemies to the Crucifying work of Saving-grace It is observable that God hath suffered some bitter degenerate root or other to grow up shew it self in so many visible forms of Worship and sects of Religious Professors successively from Popery to Episcopacy and so downward even to these very times when they have once come to greatness and increased into a Kingdom what envy pride self-confidence bitterness against dissenting Brethren and other such fruits of a private self-magnifying spirit have suddainly sprung forth and obtained deep rooting in the midst of them It is worth observation also on the other hand that some gleanings may be found in various and differing forms and sects of persons who we cannot but in our consciences judge and hope are accepted with God and faithful in the main From hence certainly the Lord would instruct us how empty a thing the form of Godliness is without the power of it and that the power of Godlinese does nevertheless well consist with divers forms Circumcision is nothing nor uncircumcision but the new creature and the peace of God is upon all those that walk according to this rule But alas how how greatly do