Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	let_v	see_v	3,350	5	3.0636	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78144	A Christian standing & moving upon the true foundation. Or, A word in season. Perswading to sticke close to God, act eminently for God. In his present design a- against [sic] all discouragements, oppositions, temptations. Expressed in a sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons upon the day of their monthly fast, Octob. 25, 1648. By Matthew Barker, M.A. late preacher of the Gospel at James Garlick-hith, London, and now at Morclacke in Surrey.	Barker, Matthew, 1619-1698.	1648 (1648)	Wing B772; Thomason E468_40; ESTC R10148	45,680	72

was not right with him neither were they stedfast in his covenant And ver 41. They turned backe and tempted God c. Unstedfastnesse is the retreat of the soule from her true foundation playing fast and loose with God And may not we all joyne in with God in these complaints over our own hearts and cry out with the Prophet Psal 19. 12. VVho can understand his errors we may as easily know the way of an Egle in the aire the various windings and turnings of a Serpent upon a Rocke the motion of a Ship upon the wide Sea as to track and finde out the way of this adulterous woman THE FLESH in all her secret and whorish departings from God It is a thing to wonderfull for us Therefore the Prophet Jeremiah looking into the heart of man concludes that of all deceitfull things it is most deceitfull and so deceitfull as none can know it but infinite wisdom God himself Jer. 17. 9. the words there in the Hebrew run thus The heart is a supplanter above all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things and sick This is the great sicknesse and distemper that it labours under that it is so full of unquietnesse tumbling and tossing up and down running from creature to creature and no where can finde rest because it seekes it not in God Oh that we had eyes to see this sicknesse and hearts to weepe over this wounde that is yet unhealed bleeding fresh in our soules to this day Oh how exceeding apt are we to be affrighted or allured from God and our worke and duty What by carnall feares what by carnallhopes I feare the best of us live but little upon the true foundation although God hath given us in all the helps to establish us hath yeelded himselfe to the greatest advantage of our faith hath bound himself to us and us to himself in all the bonds and obligations as may be yet these treacherous hearts of ours doe breake all bands asunder cast away all cords from them Philo a learned man among the Jewes speakes thus If thou wilt search into the bottome of thine heart and not superficially thou shalt finde it an hard matter to beleeve and rest stedfastly on God and he gives this reason * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo in lib. Quis rerum divinarum haeres fit because of that affinity and kinred and connaturalnesse that is betwixt us and mortall things which are apt to draw us to trust in them and therefore † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. to trust in God alone he saith it is the worke of a great and heavenly spirit The best of us have as well flesh as spirit and so far as we are flesh there is great suitablenes betwixt us and these earthly things and therefore they have such an atractive force in them to draw us from our standing and repose in God alone And yet alasse Sirs doe we know what we doe when we thus backslide from God and imbrace the creature doe not we goe from strength to weaknesse from light to darknesse from fulnesse to amptinesse from truth to lies from all things to a meere nothing And can wee looke upon this with dry eyes unbroken hearts and faces not covered with shame Oh let it be your work this day to see this and lament it and I shall freely beare you company as I have cause in it And Right Honorable let me desire you also to deale uprightly with your selves and ingenuously-search into your own hearts and see whether you may not have cause to joyn in with us in the same work also I confesse you have been put upon as great trials as ever any Parliament or such a Society of men was sometimes God hath raised you up into a very high estate and that estate was not without its tentations and sometimes you have bin thrown down again as low and that estate hath had its tentations also Sometimes the whole Kingdom hath seem'd to be with you or under you sometimes as wholy against you Now amidst all these tumblings of the Kingdom these different complexions of the times have you bin stedfast still the same kept your selves close to the true principles upon which you and the wel-affected in this Kingdom first engaged in this Cause Though the people mobile vulgus have in themselves bin inconstant sometimes for you sometimes against you yet have they stil had a fixed station in you that you have bin no whit diverted or discouraged in your indeavours to save them whilst they have bin seeking to destroy you and themselves also And give me leave Sirs in all humility and yet with all freedom as a Messenger from God to propound these few Quaeres to you which I desire you to make a faithful Answer of to that God that knowes you and is within you All instability is either in the Eye in the Heart in the Tongue or in the Hand And have you been unstable unstedfast in none of these 1. Have you been stedfast in your Eye or Ends that from the very first day of your sitting your eye hath been still fixt upon the same common end the glory of God the publick advantage that as in the guiding of a Ship upon the Sea at the sametime we mey see manus ad clavum oculos ad coelum hands guiding the Rudder eyes fixt upon the heavens so while your hands have been upon the Rudder steering the torn Ship of this Common-wealth upon a raging Sea ● have you had your eyes fixt upon an heavenly end Or have they not sometimes at least been looking a-squint and rolling aside to some private end and interest of your own 2. Have you been stedfast in your Hearts or affection Have they been firm and born up stoutly against all opposition and discouragements that you have met with in that great worke which hath been under your hands Or have you not been closing at least some of you with indirect meanes for your own security in case the Cause should miscarry 3. Have you been stedfast in your Tongue or Language I mean in your debates and votes that still in all the changes of the times they have savoured of as much zeale justice resolution as ever Or else have they not altered in the nature of them according to the present emergency of things abroad or the instigation of some private end or party at home 4. Have you been stedfast in your hand or actions have you not been drawn to act something out of fear or favour which hath not born proportion to some former proceedings Have not popular Arguments as the pleasing or displeasing the people been used or enter tained by you or some of you to decline former Conclusions and those setled upon good Foundations of Religion and Justice Not but that upon the Emergencie of things unseene there may and ought to bee a change in mens actions and resolutions when we change that wee may still be in

the wayes of righteousnesse but to alter upon carnall grounds is unworthy a man much more a Christian much more such a society of Christians met upon affaires of so great importance and influence If you or any of you can in these things acquit your selves you have great cause to blesse God that hath thus establisht you if not let it open a Fountain of teares and sorrowes in your hearts in this day The next use which is the main is to invite and encourage Use 2 you to stand fast And O that I might be made instrumentall to strengthen your hands in that great work that is before you And Honored Patriots give me leave first-to addresse my selfe to you as CHRISTIANS and so I shall speake to my selfe and the whole Congregation and then as you are the TRUSTEES of the Kingdome 1. As Christians so you are both Wayfaring and Warfaring men O let nothing bee able to divert you in the race you are running or to dismay you in the battels you are fighting What ever it is that seeks to draw you off from the true foundation say to it as Christ to Peter Get thee hehinde me Satan yea fight against it as the enemy of your safety liberty strength and fulnesse Yea say to it as Peter to his Saviour Whither should we goe hast not thou the keyes of eternall life Is there any creature can open me the doore to enter into li●● and true peace Is there any foundation that 〈…〉 the weight of my immortall soule but God alone Is there any good but the enjoyment of God that can run parallel with the line of eternity Or hath my God been a barren Heath or dry Wildernesse to me that I should distrust him or depart from him It is left in Story concerning Catilines Army in a fight against the Romās though most of his men were slain yet every man was found dead in the place where the Captain set him So beloved let nothing affright us from S●lust our standing but if we die let us die upon our Rock in the actuall embraces of Jesus And if any of us have adulterously departed from God let us now come back and say I will returne to my former husband for then it was better with me then now Hosea 2. 7. The Scriptures doe much presse this every where Luke 9. 62. No man laying his hand to the Plow and looking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 back is fit for the kingdome of Heaven is not a man well constituted for such a kingdome When once we are entred the possession of this kingdome the glory and pleasure of it are so to ingrosse the whole man as that we must never look back And Lot and his wise in their departure from Sodom were commanded not to look back Christianity is a daily departing out of spi●ituall Sodom the Flesh the seat of all uncleanesse being departed from it let us never look back with lingring desires to come again into acquaintance and fellowship with it but flye and escape from it as for our life for who ever lives in it wil● be destroyed with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A millta●y word from Souldiers whose revolt●ng or flying 〈◊〉 odious So the Apostle Heb. 11. 38. If any man draw back my soule shall have no pleasur● in him it is a qualifyed expression he meanes that such persons and practises are abhorred and loathed by him Solomon gives this description of a righteous man Prov. 28. 1. The righteous are as bold as a Lion as a young Lyon who turnes not back for any The primitive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et neseit remeare Leo. Claud. Christians would not yeeld to Arrius in a Letter We cannot be too peremptory and rigid in such cases as these To these we might adde innumerable examples of Martyrs in primitive and latter times whose constancy and resolution against all tentations is incredible Ecclesiasticall Stories will abundantly furnish us with examples of this kinde I shall mention onely one passage out of Lactantius Saith he That I Nostri autem ut de viris ta ceam pueri mulierculae tortores suos taciti vincunt expromere illis gemitū nec ignis potest Lact. lib. 5. cap. 13. may not speak of men our women and children being silent doe evercome their tormentors and the very fire cannot so much as extort a figh from them Yea the very Heathens constancie and firmnesse was admirable though it was but a guilded Vice a wilde Branch not springing from a divine root When Alexander the great was in India he met with a Sect of Philosophers whom he desired to acquaint him with the greatest Rarity of their Countrey of Vide Philonē in lib. Qd omnu probus liber ubique passim which hee might inform the Grecians They bid him report this That there were there certain men who could never be forced to change their mind or to doe those things which they were unwilling to And whom no Prince upon earth should ever make to act the least thing contrary to Bonus nec cogi potest nec vetari their opinion If this was the constancy of Heathens to some slight Opinions and Principles growing upon the root of Nature how much more should Christians that are set upon an everlasting Rock be firm to those principles that they have received by supernaturall revelation and infusion And here beloved let me particularly intreat your constancy to that Cause in which you are ingaged If it be not good why did you at first ingage if it be why should you ever desert it Did you owne it in the midst of difficulties and outward uncertainties and will you now leave it when as God hath crowned it with such admirable successe and victory Be not like foolish children because you have not all you would have therefore to throw all away And let not some miscarriages in instruments redound to the disadvantage of the cause it selfe But more particularly I desire to addresse to you honorable beloved as you are the Trustees of the kingdom In you I see this day the whole kingdom before me for your sakes I have pitcht upō this Text Theam the sum of all I have to say to you is this Remember your trust stand fast you have the liberties wealth safety prosperity of this great people put into your hands hold them fast they lie upon your shoulders therefore stand firm The Poets feigned that Atlas did bear up the heavens with his shoulders that when he stirred it caused an earthquake under God you are to bear up the pillars of this kingdom can you move and give back and not the kingdom shake and in danger of a sad fall What the Sunne is in the Firmament what the heart is in the body that are you Sirs in this Nation If the Sunne should goe back would not all men wonder And if the heart keepe not stedfast to

complain that you have been ill rewarded by some for the favour you have shewed them it hath not won them over to you but emholdened them against you and rendred your Authority more contemptible And therefore did you onely move upon principles of just policy you could not well dispense with justice But surely you are in this case to act upon higher grounds hath not your cause been stiled the Cause of God and your warres the warres of Christ against Antichrist For what ever power it is that doth presse the forms of godlinesse to the destruction of the power that tramples upon the Saints of the most high that in the Temple of God sits above God and will make times and places holy which God hath left common impose Laws to binde the Conscience in matters of divine worship which Christ hath never instituted is certainly Antichristian and hath not that power against which you ingaged been of this nature Now hear what the voice from heaven saith concerning Babylon when she is falling Revel 18. 6. Reward her even as she rewarded you and double to her double according to her works And the third Angel having powred out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters and they becoming blood Revel 16. 4 5 6. the Angel of the waters saith Thou art righteoas O Lord which art and wast and shalt be because thou hast judged thus For they have shed the blood of Saints and Prophets and thou hast given them blood to drink for they are worthy You see what a foundation you have to build the execution of justice upon to supersede all objections and resolve all scruples in it 4. Lastly shew your resolution in the propagation of the Gospel and promoting of Religion within your spheare that it may have a free course in the Kingdom Let the faithfull Dispensers of it be encouraged and countenanced by your Authority though all see not by the same light and cannot act by the same rules let men be own'd and countenanced not by their opinions but by their piety and faithfulnes in the work of God owning them upon other grounds will be apt to make parties and raise jealousies among them And certainly nothing will tend so much to the establishing of the Kingdom to the advancing of Reformation to the ●●ine of Antichrist as the free progresse of the Gospel Those seeds of Popery that are yet in the hearts of the greatest part of the Kingdom will never be rooted up but by this means Antichrist hath a double sword in his hand temporall and spirituall his temporall Religio suaderi potest non cogi Lact. Sword shall be beaten out of his hands by the temporall and the spirituall by the spirituall even the Word and Spirit And was his spirituall power removed his temporall would fall of it self He first enslaves the Conscience and then he picks mens purses and brings them under his power Whiles Episcopacy is received upon a Jus Divinum no wonder though it stands firme And that to meddle with the Lands that bore it up in its pomp and pride is the highest sacriledge forsooth and who ever toucht them it would be as that Aurum Tholosanum their ruine and undoing Whiles men are thus perswaded and abused a Bishops title is the surest in the world but let the Gospel and truth take place in the hearts of men and both the fabrick and the props will fall down together Antichrists kingdom is nothing but darknesse and light destroys it We read Revel 14. 6. of an Angel flying in the midst of heaven having the everlasting Gospel to preach to the Earth and then in 8. verse another Angel comes saying Babylon is fallen is fallen And Revel 18. 1 2. When the earth was lightned with the Angels glory Babylon fell The spirituall whore doth dresse up her self in a false glory with scarlet purple gold and precious stones Revel 17. 4. which is discovered and destroyed as the true glory breaks forth in the world Thus you see your work is to stand fast to move and encourage to it let me propound these severall considerations 1. Consider how deeply God hath ingaged you to stick fast to him how wonderfully he hath gone forth with you in your counsels and Forces and hath done greater things by you and for you then any Parliament before you your bowe hath abode in strength and Gen 49. 24. your Arme hath been made strong by the Arme of the mighty God of Iacob He hath given your Enemies as the dust to the sword and as the driven stubble to your Isa 41. 2. bowe If ever any victories had the Arme of the most high God ingraven upon them then have yours Can you Sirs look back and see what difficulties God hath brought you through what mountains he hath led you over and not cry out even with astonishment as Balaam in his parable What hath God Numb 23. 23. wrought Could a man ever have thought to see the Hierarchy f●ll and the Kingdome stand to see that power that had so twisted it selfe in the power of the State to be pull'd away and yet a visible power of the Kingdome remaining To see a poore despised handfull of men as the Saints were to have their heads lifted up and to become a terrour to their numerous Enemies as the Iews were in the dayes of Morde●ai What had become of you and all those that faithfully adhered to you if God had not wrought for you after an extraordinarie rate had he suffered your enraged Enemies to prevail could you have expected to be followed with Propositions to restore you to Honour Safetie and freedome Or could you have compounded for your lives at a lower rate then slavery and beggery Think upon this and you m●y easily see your ingagements to cleave close to God Magnus Animus magnam fortunam decet Answer that high estate to which God hath brought you by high resolutions for him 2 Consider how you have ingaged your selves to God by Protestations Covenant and such Declarations as have revived the hearts of your friends and raised up their hopes of you to a great height and made them ambitious who should appear most eminently for you in this cause Never did Parliament before you pretend so much to God and entitle him so immediately to the work before them as you have done Now as Nehemiah said Shall such a man as I flee Nehem. 6. 11. A man that have made the Lord my confidence and am set apart for his immediate service So shall such a Parliament as you ever flee or faint that have thus bound your selves to God and profest your relyance upon himself in the managing of the work in hand And have more solemnly upon all emergent difficulties set your selves to seek God then any former Parliament shall such a Parliament as this ever give back faint or flee 3. Consider the necessity of your standing fast A whole Kingdome