Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	grace_n	life_n	sin_n	2,939	5	4.9686	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59601	Immanuel, or, A discovery of true religion as it imports a living principle in the minds of men, grounded upon Christ's discourse with the Samaritaness : being the latter clause of The voice crying in a wilderness, or, A continuation of the angelical life / mostly composed at the same time by S.S.	Shaw, Samuel, 1635-1696.	1667 (1667)	Wing S3038; ESTC R35174	154,749	423

know not how much but I think he hath not very much of God neither fight of him nor love of him that could be content to abide for ever in this imperfect mixed low state and never be perfected in the full enjoyment of him And it seems that they in whom the love of God is rightly predominant potent flourishing do also look earnestly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Jude 2. without doubt they ought to do 2 Pe● 3. 12. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God! Let this suffice by way of general Reprehension 2. More particularly the consideration of the Active nature of true Religion may well serve to correct a mistake about that noble grace of faith How dishonourably do some speak of this excellent and powerfull grace when they make it to be a slothfull passive thing an idle kind of waiting or a Melancholick sitting still which indeed and in truth is Life and power Be not mistaken in so high and eminent a grace True faith doth not only accept the imputed righteousness of Christ for justification but by a lively dependance upon God drinks in divine influences and eagerly sucks in grace and vertue and life from the fountain of grace for its more perfect sanctification And for this cause I think a purifying vertue is ascribed to it Act. 15. 9. Faith is not a lazy languid thing content to wait for salvation till the world to come but it is even now gasping after it and accomplishing it too in a way of mortification self-denyall and growing up in God it is not content to be a candidate waiting for life and happiness but is actually drawing down Heaven into the soul attracting God to itself sucking in participations of divine grace and image into the soul Its motto is that of the famous painter nulla dies sine lineâ it longs to find some divine lineament some line of Gods image drawn upon the soul daily Faith is a giving grace as well as receiving it gives up the whole soul to God and is troubled that it can give him no more it binds over the soul afresh to God every day and is troubled that it can bind it no faster nor closer to him The believing soul is wearyed because of muderers murdering loves lusts cares earthly pleasures and calls mightily upon Christ to come and take vengeance upon them it is wearyed because of those robbers that are daily stealing away precious time and affections from God which are due unto him and calls upon Christ to come and scourge these thieves these buyers and sellers out of his own Temple In a word the godly soul is Active and faith is the very life and Action of the soul itself Lastly Let me exhort all Christians from hence to be zealous to be fervent in spirit serving the Lord and longing after him Stir up the grace of God that is in you Quench not i. e. blow up enflame the spirit of God in you Awake Christian soul out of thy Lethargy and rejoyce as the Sun to run the race that is set before thee and as a mighty man refreshed with Wine to fight thy spiritual battels against the armies of uncircumcised prophane and earthly concupiscences love and passions Eye God as your centre the enjoyment of him as the Happiness and full conformity to him as the perfection of your souls and then say Awake Arise O my Soul and hide not thy hand in thy bosome but throw thy self into the very heart and bosome of God lay hold upon eternal life Again observe how all things in the world pursue their several perfections with unwearied and impatient longings and say come my soul and do thou likewise Converse not with God so much under the notion of a Law giver but as with love itself nor with his commands as having authority in them but as having goodness and life and sweetness in them Again consider your poverty as creatures and how utterly impossible it is for you to be happy in your selves and say Arise O my soul from off this weak and tottering foundation and build thy self up in God cease pinching thy self within the straits of self-sufficiencies and come stretch thy self upon infinite Goodness and Fulness Again pore not upon your attainments do not sit brooding upon your present accomplishments but forget the things that are behind and say Awake O my soul there is yet infinitely much more in God pursue after him for it till thou have gotten as much as a created Being is capable to receive of the divine nature In a word take heed you live not by the lowest examples which thing keeps many in a dwindling state all their dayes but by the highest Read over the Spouse her temper sick of Love Davids temper waiting for God more than they that watch for the morning breaking in heart for the longing that he had to the Lord and say Arise O my Soul and live as high as the highest it is no fault to desire to be as Good as holy as happy as an Angel of God And thus O my soul open thy mouth wide and God hath promised to fill thee CHAP. VI. That Religion is a lasting and persevering principle in the soules of men proved by several Scriptures The grounds of this perseverance assigned first negatively It doth not arise from the absolute inamissability of grace in the creature nor from the strength of mans Free-will Secondly Affirmatively the grace of election cannot fail The grace of Justification is neither suspended nor violated The Covenant of grace is everlasting The Mediator of this Covenant lives for ever The promises of it immutable The righteousness brought in by the Messiab everlasting An objection answered concerning a regenerate mans willing his own apostasie An Objection answered drawn from the falls of Saints in Scripture as also from those Scriptures that seem to imply a mans falling away A discovery of counterfeit Religion and the shamefull apostasie of false professors An encouragement to all holy diligence from the consideration of this doctrine the rather that we may stop the mouths of those that falsly affirm that the same is prejudicial to true godliness I Come now to the third property of true Religion contained in these words and that is the perseverance of it And here the foundation of my following discourse shall be this proposition True Religion is a lasting and persevering principle in the Souls of good men It is said of the hypocritical Jews that their goodness was as the early dew that soon passeth away Hos 6. 4. But that principle of true goodness which God planteth in the souls of his people is compared to a well of water evermore sending forth fresh streams and incessantly springing up towards God himself our Saviour compares hypocritical professors to seed sown upon stony ground that springs up

clear and spiritual discerning of God They did as it is storied of one of the Persian Kings enshrine themselves in a Temple of their own But what speak I of Heathen Philosophers Is there not the same unclean spirit of self-adoration to be found amongst many Christians yea and Teachers of Christianity too witness that whole brood those men who whilest they hang the grace of God upon mans free-will do rob him of his glory Some of these have impudently given a short but unsavoury answer to the Apostles quest●on in 1 Cor. 4. 7. Who maketh you to differ from an other Ego me ipsum discerno I make my self to differ These men whilest they pretend to high attainments do discover a low and most ignoble spirit To fasten and feed upon any thing in the Creature is the part of a low and degenerate spirit on the other hand it is the greatest perfection of the Creature not to be its own not to be any thing in it self or any way distinct from the blessed God the father and fountain of light and grace Holy Paul is all along in a different strain as in 1 Cor. 15. 10. I yet not I but the grace of God which was with me I told you before what a fair and honourable character the Holy Ghost hath given of holy David a man after Gods own heart now you may also find a description of these men too in Scripture not much differing from the other in phrase but very much in sense it is the same that is given of the proud Prince of Tyrus Ezek. 28. 2. They set their heart as the heart of God But we if we do indeed partake of the Divine Nature shall not dare to take any part of the Divine Glory if we conform to Gods Image we shall not set up our own This self-glorying in the predominancy of it is utterly inconsistent with true Religion as Fire is with Water For Religion is nothing else but the shinings forth of God into the Soul the reflection of a beauty and glory which God hath put upon it Give all therefore unto God for whatsoever is kept back is sacrilegiously purloined from him Glory we in the fulness of God alone and in selfpenury and nothingness The whole of Religion is of God Do we see and discern the great things of God It is by that light that God hath set up in us according to that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 11. The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God That love whereby we love him he first shed abroad in our hearts If our Souls be beautiful it is with his brightness the beauty and glory of essential Holiness according to that of the Apostle Heb. 12. Partakers of his holiness If we be really and truly full we receive it of his fulness according to that of the Apostle Ephes 3. 19. filled with all the fulness of God In a word if we be in any God-like dispositions like unto him it is by his spreading of his image in us and over us By all which it appears to be a thing not only wicked and unwarrantable but utterly impossible for a godly Soul to exalt himself against God for grace to advance it self against divine glory for grace is nothing else but a communication of divine glory and God is then glorified when the Soul in holy and gracious dispositions becomes like unto him How is it possible that grace should be a shadow to obscure divine glory when it self is nothing else as it comes from God but a Beam of glory and as it is found in the Creature may properly be called a reflection of it To conclude then Be ye perswaded that a man hath so much of God as he hath of Humility and Self denial and Self-nothingness and no more He is so far of God as he loves Him honours Him imitates H●m and lives to Him and no further 3. By this discovery of the Original of Religion we come to understand the Original of Sin and Wickedness And here according to the method wherein I spoke of the Original of Religion I might shew you how the original of Sin from without is of the Devil that first usher'd it into the World and ceaseth not to tempt men to it continually as also of men who are his instruments and that it does in a sense spring from many occasions without But these things are more improperly said to be the causes of Sin The inward cause is the corrupt heart of man that unclean spirit that devillish nature which is indeed the worst and most pernicious Devil in the world to Man It is an old saying Homo homini Daemon One Man is a Devil to another which though it be in some sense true yet it is more proper to say Homo sibi Daemon Man is a Devil to himself taking the spirit and principle of Apostacy that rebellious nature for the Devil which indeed doth best deserve that name But yet if we enquire more strictly into the original and nature of this Monster we shall best know what to say of it and how to describe it by what we have heard of Religion Sin then to speak properly is nothing else but a degeneration from a holy state an apostacy from a holy God Religion is a participation of God and sin is a stragling off from him Therefore it is wont to be defined by Negatives a departure from God a forsaking of him a living in the World without him c. The Souls falling off from God does describe the general nature of S●n but then as it sinks into it self or settles upon the World and fastens upon the Creature or any thing therein so it becomes specified and is called Pride Covetousness Ambition and by many other names All Souls are the Off-spring of God were originally formed into his image and likeness and when they express the purity and holiness of the Divine Nature in being perfect as God is perfect then are they called the Children of God But those impure Spirits that do lapse and slide from God may be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to implant themselves into a other stock by their own low and earthly lives and are no more owned for the Children of God but are of their father the Devil John 10. 44. By which you may understand the low and base original of Sin Nothing can be so vile as that which to speak properly is nothing else but a perfect falling off from glory it self By this you may also by the way take notice of the miserable condition of unholy Souls We need not call for Fire and Brimstone to paint out the wretched state of sinful Souls Sin it self is Hell and Death and Misery to the Soul as being a departure from Goodness and Holiness it self I mean from God in conjunction with whom the Happiness and Blessedness and Heaven of a Soul doth consist Avoid it therefore as you would avoid being miserable