Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	hand_n	lord_n	see_v	2,615	5	3.2521	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54418	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, at St. Margarets Westminster, Nov. 7 being the fast-day appointed for the plague of pestilence / by Richard Perrinchief.	Perrinchief, Richard, 1623?-1673.	1666 (1666)	Wing P1606; ESTC R18375	21,998	62

cut down but we will change them into Cedars By these and several such like follies do many men transform their deliverance it self to a greater Judgment and make the saving of some temporal concernment the occasion of their spiritual ruine Lastly Corruptions and Lusts having got strength by frequent satisfactions and by a constant practice arrived to habits of sin are not to be taken off by common and ordinary means but are as the Leprosie when got into the walls Lev. 14.45 that was not to be removed but by pulling down the whole house The instances of impossibilities are used to express the difficulty of reforming a customary sinner Jer. 13.23 Can the Aethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil It is a miracle of Mercy and an extraordinary triumph of Grace if ever an habitual sinner be changed or altered For sin by wilful and habitual enterprises having gotten dominion makes the soul of man naturally uncapable of the means of Repentance The Scripture tells us what strange monsters men become by constant practises of Iniquity Zech. 7.12 Their heart is as an Adamant and exceeds the hardness of rocks their foreheads are as brass Jer. 6.28 that cannot blush at the reproaches of any wickedness The Historian observes Tac. An. l. 110. of those that are grown to the height of impiety Novissima voluptas est infamia Infamy is their last pleasure their understanding which is naturally impaired by frequent acts of sin is debased to the narrowness of sense and therefore to the most stupid Creatures doth the Holy Ghost compare them as to the Oxe Isa 1.3 the Asse the wild-Asses Colt the deaf Adder Job 11.12 Psal 58.4 Hos 7.11 the silly Dove and the wandring Sheep and the advantage lies on the side of the beast In this condition they will blindly charge through a legion of destroying Angels to come to their sinful enjoyments and to attain their wicked hopes In such persons all the gracious methods to repentance are disappointed For the Prophet observes Isa 26.10 that Let favour be shewed to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness So that goodness prevails not nor is wrath more succesful for it is added Ver. 11. Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see All Corrections and Chastisements bestowed upon these are like blows spent upon wilde beasts which do rather more enrage than tame them These are the dreadful causes which make good the supposition in the Text that bring the possibility into an actual being and therefore require all our industry and caution to avoid them lest they betray us to the sadness of the inevitable consequence Which is next to be considered it being The second part of the Text Then will I punish you seven times more for your sins Wherein the Consequent which is Punishment and the necessity of the Consequence I will punish do first require your contemplations 1. That punishment should follow sin there seems to be a necessity of nature For were sin rightly considered and did it appear as hateful in our eyes as it is in the eyes of God and good men we should see so much misery in it self separated from the horrid train of its effects and merits that we should deem it torment enough to satisfie any revengeful Adversary without the superadditions of his fierce anger Men reckon for punishments not only the loss of Life or Limb or Estate but put into the Catalogue a forfeiture of priviledges the degrading from honours and the imposition of base and servile offices All this is Sin in it self for it is a renouncing of all our rights to the Divine Goodness a laying aside our robes of righteousnes a stripping and making our selves naked of innocency which is the glory and honour of the Creature and it is also a drudging and service of the soul to the carnal appetite which was appointed to be her slave This seems to be so accounted by God for he is said to hide his face from the sinner which though it admit many other senses yet may be also true in this that he doth as a Father who is unwilling to see his child carried about as a publick shame or behold him panting upon a Wrack And pious men apprehend it no otherwise for the transgression exacts more tears and groans from them than the terrours of a pursuing anger There is indeed a different respect betwixt sin and punishment as commonly apprehended because that is our own choice when this is accounted the effect of anothers displeasure yet the event diminutio capitis a real loss is the same in both which in one comes forth by way of emanation in the other waits the formality of a Judge and Sentence But this may be thought a notion too nice for our grosser apprehensions and indeed God's Justice is not satisfied in it as not fully answering his ends in punishing For it is not enough for the correction of the sinner who by his sin being grown more sensual must be afflicted there where he is most delighted Nor is it enough for the terrour of others who cannot survey and be warned by our spiritual losses Therefore he hath established between them a 2d Consequence as from a necessary cause to the effect all the effects of sin being afflicting and consuming For wickedness burneth as the fire Isa 9.18 it devours the briars and thorns Iniquity preys upon the Transgressour if it be let alone till it hath consumed him For every sin doth in its way and measure either waste the body fill it with diseases abate its strength shorten its day obstruct its lawful delights and keep off the solid comforts of life or it impairs the reasonable Faculties weakens the Vnderstanding confines it to poor and low cares limits and restrains the Will cloggs it in its brave essaies pinions it as to noble flights discomposes the passions with sad apprehensions or frolicks of madness Or else it plainly wastes his Estate brings the sinner himself from a plentiful Table to a morsel of bread and sends his Children to seek their meat in desolate places Or else it corrupts his Fame makes his Memory an execration and his Name an astonishment These are real punishments which thus afflict the Transgressour and raise an horrour in those that are about him God having put a kind of Nemesis a vindicative Justice in the course of things and chained Sin and Punishment together as the Romans did their Malefactors to the Souldiers that were to be the Keepers or Executioners But this is not all for there is a 3. Necessity of the Consequence which is that of Justice to the Merit From sin immediately flows guilt which is an obligation to punishment answerable unto it and the execution of it depends not upon the bare efficacy of sin but upon the Rectitude of some Cause without who as a Judge or