Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	hear_v	sinner_n	tempter_n	36	3	16.8147	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84690	The spirit of bondage and adoption: largely and practically handled, with reference to the way and manner of working both those effects; and the proper cases of conscience belonging to them both. In two treatises. Whereunto is added, a discourse concerning the duty of prayer in an afflicted condition, by way of supplement in some cases relating to the second treatise. / By SImon Ford B.D. and minister of the Gospel in Reading.	Ford, Simon, 1619?-1699.	1655 (1655)	Wing F1503; Thomason E1553_1; ESTC R209479	312,688	666

To drink of the cup of which he drank and to be baptized with the Baptism wherewith he was baptized Mat. 20. 22 23. Besides some of the causes of Christs sufferings are the same with those of his members although in all there be not a parity For our Saviour Christ was under the Discipline of the rod and a learner by it God opened his ear with a rod as he doth the Saints Isai 50. 5. He was made perfect by sufferings Christs graces had an additional perfection of degrees Luke 2. 52. and in them he grew as other Saints under the Ordinances and among other Ordinances under the rod Heb. 2. 10. 17 18. He learned obedience by the things which he suffered 2 As for Temptations consider 1. The Policy of Satan who first disturbs thy peace by unlawful and vexatious clamours and then perswades thee thou hast no right to it because he hath unjustly rendered it litigious which is as if a vexatious Lawyer should call my Free-hold in question unjustly and then endeavour to perswade me to quit my Title to him because he hath made it disputable 2 Is it reasonable for me to conclude that God is not my friend because the Divel is my enemy Or rather is not the Argument more true on the contrary side because God is my friend therefore Satan will be my enemy What is Temptation but a malicious persecution of the soul by Satan tending either to foil or defile the soul and in both to work its discomfort And shall Satans malice be a ground sufficient for me to dispute Gods love upon If Satan could by temptations render such a dispute rational what child of God should ever sit quiet in the possession of Gods favour or countenance whom he hath either malice or power enough to tempt 3 Is not Christs example in this case of sufficient weight to carry this conclusion in it that no child of God is free from the worst of temptations in this life seeing our Savior himself had the most monstrous black ●uggestions that hell could yeild presented to him such as Idolatry the worst of Idolatryes worshipping the Divel himself Infidelity and distrust of Gods providence and the use of unlawful means for necessary supplies and lastly self-murder though not in the fore-head yet in the bosom and inside of that temptation Cast thy self down c Mat. 43 6 9 4 The way to be free from temptation is not to yeild them the victory in the cause they contest for but to resist them stedfastly in the faith If they weaken thy faith in the Assurance of Gods love they will quickly lay thee on thy back in more fowle failings miscariages When Satan is winnowing then a Saints faith should be most weighty that it may not easily be blown away No temptation ever got the field till faith qui●ted its ground Faith is the Bulwark of all other graces if Satan batter down or blow up that or any way can but make a breach in it he will quickly enter with Legions CHAP. XL. The Case of not hearing Prayers and abilitie to pray as it occasions the like Questionings stated Obj. BUt what if I have long cryed to God and he wil not bear me nor vouchsafe me an answer I am told that God hears not sinners and 't is because I am such that God will not hear me A. Surely God hears sinners in a sense or else hee hears not Saints or which is more absurd Saints are not sinners The truth is God hears not men in a sinful state under the guilt and power of sin but hee hears men guilty of sinfull acts otherwise it were sad with all the best men on earth If thou doubt thou art in a sinfull estate because God hears thee not then I enquire 1. Did God ever hear thee formerly in the dayes of thy peace If he did then either thou werst not a sinner or else God did hear sinners And if he hear thee not now then either Satan must prove that thou art now a sinner otherwise then thou werst then or else if thou be as formerly that is not the cause why God hears thee not now as hee did then because God hears not sinners 2 But the truth is the Argument is fallacious God hears not sinners the Tempter saith and therefore seeing he hears not thee thou art a sinner The consequence is invalid He should have framed it thus God refuseth to hear none but sinners therefore if he hear not thee thou art a sinner But whereas he saith meerly God heareth not sinners This Proposition may be granted and so may this also God hears not some that are not sinners and so it will not follow more that thou art a sinner then that thou art not a sinner from Gods not hearing thee 3 How many Saints have complained of this usage from God That he covers himself with a thick cloud that their prayers cannot passe thorow That he fortifies against them and when they cry and groan hee shutteth out their prayer Lam. 3. 8 44. That he is farre from helping them and from the words of their roaring Psal 22. 2. 4 Gods delayes are not denyals Except we could set down the time how long God may delay the sute of a child of his we can never draw conclusions of enmity from that delay 5 Are the things thou askest necessary to thy being here in grace and hereafter in glory or are they but things additional and convenient In such things as are not necessary to the being of a Christian many times delayes are mercies and denyals more Hasty grants even in very useful and necessary things might lose God much in point of honour and thee in point of patience faith humility c. How much more then in unnecessaries Besides sometimes thy petitions may be improper to thy condition and good things ill applyed and not administred with due respect to the patients particular case may be poyson In such a case denyals are acts of tenderest love and affection No man but accounts it an act of truest love to deny a friend a knife when he is mad Object But now in comes another objector and he may plead thus Indeed were my case such as the last you answered I could from those answers rest satisfied But my condition is yet worse For I cannot pray nor be heard because I cannot pray And I know Gods Spirit is a Spirit of supplication Ans Thou canst not pray Couldst thou ever pray A child of God may be smitten dumb who was able to speak Father plain and tell large stories of his owne condition And in such a case 't is evidence enough that thou hadst once the Spirit of Adoption that thou once couldst pray though now thou canst not 2. Thou canst not pray Nor ever wilt againe as thou hast so long as thou wilt own no relation to God If Satan can make thee question thy relation from thy impotency in this particular hee hath

the new birth The longer we are before we get the debt discharged and the book cancelled the heavier will the account appear when we come to reckon all the arrearages of so many years actual sinnes to the grand debt of original guilt when we shall see the Accompt multiplyed into millions by interest upon interest from custome and obstinacy and delight in sinne Friends we are utterly mistaken and doe miserably beguile our selves when because we are loath to damp the joys and comforts of youth by so unwelcome a trouble as that of conviction and humiliation for sinne we resist the Spirit and think it more for our advantage to put off such thoughts to old age It is as if a debtour that owes divers thousands should think it more for his ease to look over his Accompts and reckon with his Creditor when the debt is encreased by the interest of thirty ar forty years and the addition of new summes Ah! poor man if thy conscience book be so overcharged that thou darest not look into it at fifteen or twenty years old how black and dismal will it look at fifty or sixty years When moreover it will be the greatest trouble of thy Spirit over and above all thy other sinns that thou hast not returned sooner when thou shalt question whether God will receive one returning so late under the weight of so many aggravated sinns 'T is an hard matter for those that have rejected the Spirits motions in youth and given their lusts a full swinge against the checks of their consciences to take any comfort or build to themselves any ground●d assurance of Gods love thoug● they be really converted in age when there are such actual sins lie at the bottome of the heart as they are a●raid to con●esse to God and ashamed to make known to a Minister of the Gospel or Christian friends but rather choose to let the wounds fester and heat and rage within then to open them O how many black consciences in convinced elder sinners which for shame of confession they covered with a vaile of formality and hypocrisie go without noise to hell and are never reall till the day of Judgement and how many are by such sinners themselves out of anguish of spirit read over with roaring and horror upon their death-beds which might have been free from those oppressing burthens had they endeavoured earlier to relieve them If the fetters of the Spirit of Bondage be so terrible that thou shunnest them now how sad a thing will it be to bear them in that age when the grassehopper is a burthen Eccles 12. 5. CHAP. XVI Converts examined whether soundly or unsoundly wrought upon THis also informs us how necessary a work of the Ministers of the Gospel it is to awaken the conscience of men O the madnesse of most hearers in England Let a faithful preacher rip open their bosomes and discover their sinnes and lay the Law to their consciences and the axe to the roote of their deceitfull consciences how many gall'd hearers will fling and kick against his doctrin how many that cannot endure to be handled so sinfully tender are their consciences will fly from his ministery They cannot endure to hear him he preacheth so much damnation c. Alas poor souls had you rather be damned indeed then hear of damnation that you may be warned to fly from it whiles it is time Do you love to sleepe your selves into hell that ye are angry at them that pinch you for awakening your consciences discovering your danger The gnat in Virgil was requited but ill by the shepherd when he killed him for stinging him out of his sleep at that very instant when a serpent was about to sting him to death But just such usage have Gods Ministers from this generation Obj. Yea but they be Saints and such doctrine doth not belong to them it is unproper for them to hear Answ 1. Oh that the persons that call themselves so would give Gods Ministers sufficient cause to think them such Certainly I am not to believe every mans estate to be so good as he pretend or it may be himselfe thinks it to be The Physician will not believe every patient that tells him he is well and nothing ayles him He knowes it is a signe the disease is most dangerous when the patient feels it not I am sure this is no signe of Saintship not to be able to bear a reproof nay not to hear a convincing sermon Nay it gives suspicion that they are not sound but rotten that cannot endure to have their consciences handled If such persons be Saints I know not who be sinners if they be sound and sincere I know not who are hypocrites Sure it was a note of Davids sincerity to yield up himselfe to the Lord to search and try him Ps 139. 23. to invite the righteous to smite him not stroke him and account it a precious balme that should not break his head Psal 141. 5. Believe it there is no more certain signe of an hypocrite in the World then to pick and choose truths this he must have preached and that he must not You know who say preach to us pleasing things Is 30. 16. 2. There is no truth but one way or other belongs to every Saint either in relation to his past present or future condition Law truths concern him either in way of direction as the duties thereof or by way of inducement to thankfulnesse consolation humiliation dutifulnesse as its curse and terrours Many Gospel-truths are not suitable to a mans present condition as the doctrine of afflictions temptations c. sometimes but shall they be therefore thrown away may there not come a time of use and should not Saints lay up such things in their heart ought not the heart of a Saint to be a treasury of things old as well as new And may it not be of use if you are past these throwes to remember you of the days of old to shew you your former debts when you can shew the discharge will not this occasion a thankfull acknowledgment of Gods goodnesse and Christs love c. when the heart shall say This was my case I once felt those sorrows lay under those chains of the Spirit but the Lord hath delivered me I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living 3. Suppose it no way belongs to thee as thy condition is now yet it may belong to others that are now in the condition wherein thou once wast If the Minister were bound to confine his discourse to those of thy condition and growth onely what would become of the work of conversion upon others A Minister is not only a nurse or a waterer but a father and a planter also He must preach for conversion that Christs body may be compleat in members as well as for edification that those members may be compleat in graces and comforts Obj. But this kind of preaching may occasion the