Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A30834
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The blessed effects of true and saving faith with good counsel, vvholsome advice, and also encouragement to all Friends every where, that suffer for truth and righteousness sake / given forth by a servant of the Lord ... John Banckes.
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Banks, John, 1637-1710.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing B651; ESTC R3552
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9,717
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12
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the Jailer awaked he thought to have killed himself seeing the Doors open supposing the Prisoners had been fled but Paul said Do thy self no harm we are all here and then he came trembling when he perceived what was done and said What shall I do to be Saved and Paul and Silas spoke unto him the Word of the Lord and bid him Believe in the Lord Iesus Christ and he should be Saved and he and all his House Believed Oh! what great Encouragement is here for all faithful honest Hearted Friends though in and under Suffering or that yet may be called thereunto to go on in all faithfulness freely giving up Life and Liberty and all into the Lords hand willing to cast their care and put their Confidence in him who hath all power in his own hand to do and bring to pass whatsoever seems good in his own Eyes Oh! how the Wicked many times in the height of their Wickedness are frustrated and Gods People beyond all expectation preserved and delivered as you your selves have many times been made living Witnesses hold it fast Dear Friends in your Remembrance And you may also see when there is a freely giving up to answer what the Lord requires in the faithful performance of the same thorough the Might of Gods Power Peoples Hearts and Consciences are reached to the causing of them to tremble whereby good desires are begotten and raised What Men shall do to be Saved though before they have been Persecutors and Afflictors of Gods People as you may see by the Goaler afore mentioned and whose care it is thus to walk and shew forth a Godly Conversation and Example in doing or suffering so as to reach to the Witness of God in Peoples Consciences though in the Inner Prison as Paul and Silas was they have not only cause to bless and praise the Holy Name of the Pure God for accompanying them by the Angel of his Presence but also to Sing and make Melody unto him in their Hearts For now Dear Friends and Suffering Brethren though the Lord our God see it good so to come to pass for a tryal of your Faith and Patience to see how you will trust in him in the hour of Temptation and time of Tryal that Man shall be so far permitted to take your Goods and seperate you from your dearest and nearest Relations your Dear Wives and Tender Children and put you in Prison now this is greatly your Joy and Comfort being sensible of the Cause wherefore you suffer Man with all his Power and Strength Fury and Rage cannot seperate you from the pure enjoyment of the presence of the Lord but by it reacheth unto his Dear Suffering Lambs though in a Dungeon which if it were not so above all People we were most Miserable but now above all People we are most Blessed and Happy Blessed and Praised and Magnified for evermore be the Holy Name and great Power of our God by and thorough which he always did and doth carry through all his faithful Children and People for he is for ever worthy of all Praise Honour and Glory unto him alone be it given both now and for ever more Amen And so Dear Friends put on Courage and Boldness in the Name Fear and Power of the Most High as an Armour faithfully to follow your Captain the Lord Jesus Christ that will never leave you nor forsake you except you first leave him who will lead in and through the good and bad report the Fire and the Water the sixt and in the seventh Trouble and Exercise will also be your Preserver and Upholder who upholds all his by his Word and Power I say Dear Friends all in faithfulness follow your Leader whithersoever he goes for as you with diligence follow him he will bring you thorough and bring you forth in his own time 〈◊〉 happy are they that patiently wait till it be though as great a Tryal as ever any of his People suffered Yet I say if you be stedfast in the Faith he will still bring you forth and thorough more bright and more pure Holy and Clean for the fiery Tryal makes so concerning which as the Apostle Peter said Marvel not concerning the Fiery Tryal as though some strange thing had happened for it 's for no other end but that you more and more may shine as the Stars of Heaven in the Firmament of his Power that so a True Living and Faithful Testimony whether in doing or suffering Body or Goods by you all according to your several Measures may be born unto the Truth and for the pure God and his Pure Holy Worship and against all Oppression and Unrighteousness that is upheld in the World that the same may stand remain and be left upon record to after Ages and Generations how faithful ye were to God in your day as a confirmation unto their Faith and as may greatly tend to their Encouragement as those faithful Witnesses that have already finished their course in the Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and are gone to their rest doth greatly tend to strengthen the Faith and encourage all those that yet remain that are travelling on in the same way That so in that same love Pure Life and true tenderness into which at first you were begotten and raised to bear a faithful Testimony for the Lord his Name Truth and Glory though but in little and small things when nothing in that day all keep it in Mind was too near or dear for you to part with that you may all persevere and fiâ—ish in that in which you have begun that that which was known to be the First may carefully be kept unto to be knowa to be the Last the Alpha the Omega the Beginning and the Ending the same to Day Yesterday and forever who is from Everlasting to Everlasting that so the Crown of Life and of Immortal Glory may be set upon your Heads that is laid up in store for all that in faithfulness continue unto the end unto which the Lord God of Life by and through the greatness and strength of his own Power keep and preserve you all Faithful in Life and unto Death and in the end Amen From my Prison-house in Carelâ—le in Cumberland the 17th of the â—th Month 1684. Printed by Iohn Bringhurst in Leaden-Hall
that great oppression of Tythes and the same day and hour I was to go to Prison were the Spoilers carrying away my Goods for no greater Crime then Worshipping and Serving the Lord my God and oh the Ioy Gladness and Rejoycing that was in my Heart and Soul that same hour and moment of time being I was truly sinsible of the cause wherefore I suffered the same being born up in my Understanding my Joy was unutterable on this wise and under this consideration That the Lord my God should not only count me worthy to believe in his Name but also to suffer for the same and in that that Christ Iesus the Son of the Fathers love suffered all to save and redeem my Soul and therefore should not I willingly offer up all I had and did enjoy in answer to what God through Christ his Son had done for me yea surely I said in my Heart I le offer up all freely I speak to his Praise and Glory and the great Encouragement of all faithful willing Sufferers whose Suffering on this wise will never be wearysome nor tedious unto you no murmuring nor complaining will take place or have room in any such a Heart as to say or think How shall I live Or how shall my Wife and Children be maintained Or my Business carryed on not to be void of an honest care in those things yet not to murmur because of the Suffering What! is not God Almighty All-sufficient for the Soul And must not he be relied upon through Christ his Son our Lord for the Salvation thereof And is not he that is all-sufficient for the Soul sufficient for the Body also yea assuredly by living experience can my Soul say and is not the Earth the Lord's and the fulness thereof And cannot he take and give according to his Good Will and Pleasure Let all remember the Patience of Iob in his still retaining his Integrity in his deep Affliction and Suffering both in Goods and Body whose Wife gave him bad Counsel in saying Wilt thou alwayes retain thine Integrity Curse God and Die but he refused it and reproved her and suffered the loss of all his Thousands of Sheep and Camels and Hundreds of Oxen all his Children and Servants yet the Lord restored him double so that it 's said The latter end of Iob was far more Happy and Blessed than the Beginning Oh! that the care of all called to suffer may be to refuse all Evil Counsel given either by Wife or Husband Kinsfolk or Relations that would perswade any to require the Lord Evil for Good and desert their Testimony in Suffering as such that would give Counsel on this wise Oh! this is but a small matter and the other is but a little thing thou mayest do it well enough or suffer another to do it fâ—r 〈◊〉 Oh! nay saith the honest-hearted and true to God I must 〈◊〉 be faithful in the little and then my Lord and Master will make me Ruler over more and that which I cannot for Conscience do my self I cannot suffer â—â—y coâ—nivingly to do it for me for this is great Hypocrisie and Dissimulation Oh! what Encouragement hath all the Faithful in Suffering to trust the Lord with all they have and do enjoy rightly to consider and mind the Patience of Iob the Faithfulness of Daniel and the Faith Courage and Nobility of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego Daniel could not but open his Window and Pray to his God though a Decree made to the contrary to cast him into the Den of Lyons the Angel of whose Presence shut their Mouths and preserved Daniel the Servant of the Living God as the King was made to call him when he saw his Faithfulness Oh! the great Encouragement that all the Faithful have in Suffering for the Kings and Rulers of the Earth with many People are made to confess We are the People of God indeed when they see us to stand faithful in our Testimony as Nebuchadnezzer was made to call the three Servants of the Lord before named Come forth ye Servants of the Most High God although before as many now will threatned that If they would not fall down and Worship the Image he had set up they should be cast into the Fiery Furnace seven times hotter then ever and who is that God that shall be able to deliver out of my Hand said he yet as the Lord had then so he hath a way now to deliver all whose Trust and Confidence is in him beyond the expectation of the Wickedest and Cruellest of Men notwithstanding their Fury and Decrees made in their Wills for Shadrach Meshach and Abednego said Be it known unto thee O King we will not serve thy Gods for our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the Burning Fiery Furnace and if not we are not careful to answer thee in this matter And so because they could not bow to the Kings Image at the sounding of several sorts of Instruments of Musick they were bound and cast into the Burning Fire with their Coats Hosen and Hatts and the Flame of the Furnace was so great that those Men that cast them in were slain thereby but not so much as one Hair of the Head of the three Faithful Servants of the Lord singed nor the smell of Fire found on their Cloaths Oh! what great Encouragement is here for all that in any measure know God to believe and trust in him in Suffering whether in Body or Goods though never so deep for hereby it 's evident and plain that the Lords always had and hath a true regard to his People who by the Angel of â—is Presence and Arm of his great Power the more need they stood and stand of him so accordingly he appears and works their Deliverance according to that saying The Rod of the Wicked shall not always ly upon the back of the Righteous and not only so but brings Plagues and Judgments upon the Heads of the Persecutors and Afflictors of his faithful Ones One Hair of whose Head saith Christ shall not fall to the ground without your Fathers Providence And although Herod the King the troubler of the Church then killed Iames and because it pleased the Iews he took Peter also and put him in Prison intending to bring him forth to the People with Wicked intents no doubt but the same Night before he so intended although Peter lay bound in Prison with two Chaines betwixt two Soldiers an Angel from God came upon him and loosed his Chains and caused the Iron-gate to open of its own accord and Paul and Silas they were put in the Inward Prison after they had been beat and sore abused and their Feet fastened in the Stocks mark in the Inner Prison where they Prayed and sang Praises unto God at Midnight and such was the wonderful Appearance of the great Power of the Mighty God that caused the Prison Doors to open that it 's said The Foundations of the Prison were shaken and when