Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	heart_n	zeal_n	zion_n	13	3	9.9007	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62960	An exhortation unto reformation amplified, by a discourse concerning the parts and progress of that work, according to the word of God, delivered in a sermon preached in the audience of the General Assembly of the Massachusets colony, at Boston in New-England, May 27, 1674, being the day of election there / by Samvel Torrey ...	Torrey, Samuel, 1632-1707.; Mather, Increase, 1639-1723.	1674 (1674)	Wing T1916; ESTC R13732	47,259	54

Now we must set to the Work 1. With one heart No hope of Reformation without Vnion Division hath been one great cause of our-defection and will be a total obstruction unto Reformation if it continue we must unite our hearts our hands our strength O if ever we would unite let it be in and unto the Work of Reformation 2. Set unto it with all your hearts and with all your souls Our very hearts and souls must be engaged unto it and in it we must set to it in good earnest as unto a work that must be done we are now brought unto this Dilemma either a timely speedy thorough Reformation or else there will be a general and total defection either Repent and do the first works or otherwise I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy Candlestick out of its place except thou repent is the voice of Christ unto these Churches O that we understood and seriously and solemnly considered that we are a lost and undone people without Reformation that we are a helpless hopeless people without Reformation that nothing will recover us from our defection and prevent our destruction by the execution of impending Judgements but onely Reformation O then we should stand trembling before God under the apprehension of the instant urgent necessity of Reformation as Ezra 10.9 And all the people sate in the street of the house of God trembling because of this matter ver 12. Then all the Congregation answered and said with a loud voice As thou hast said so must we do Observe they cried out passionately affectionately So must we do q.d. we are a lost undone people there is no hope no help for us without Reformation and then they set to the Work in good earnest O that we could make Reformation our main work and business without delay 3. We must set to it with a right and full understanding of the whole work of Reformation in the parts and progress of it We have been ready to return by way of retortion unto this great Exhortation as that people Mal. 3.7 Even from the dayes of your fathers ye are gone away from mine Ordinances and have not kept them Return unto me and I will return unto you saith the Lord but ye said Wherein shall we return So 8 13. Though they were guilty of a very great and general defection yet they understood not the Work of Reformation Truly so it is our great unhappiness that we do no better know wherein the Work of Reformation consisteth yea that some of the great things of our peace do seem to be even Judicially or in Judgement hidden from our eyes Luk. 19.42 Deut. 29.4 Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear unto this day and that was the reason that their defection was continued Psal 95.10 Fourty years long was I grieved with this Generation and said It is a people that do erre in their heart and they have not known my wayes Vnto whom I sware c. They were incurable in their defection because they understood not the Work of Reformation It is observable in all these seven Epistles unto the Churches Christ calls for an understanding attention Let him that hath an ear to hear hear c. There is much wisdome and prudence requisite unto the Work of Reformation Hos 14.9 Who is wise he shall understand these things prudent he shall know them for the wayes of the Lord are right and the just shall walk in them O! a want of this wisdome and prudence is one great hinderance we do not we will not understand the way and work of Reformation 4. We must set unto the Work in a way of full and sincere subjection unto Order and carry on the Work according to Rules of Order Breach of Order neglect of Order Non subjection unto Order Disorder and Confusion it hath been one great Cause yea it is a great part of our defection and if ever we do hope or intend to make thorough work in Reformation we must recover Order the Beauty the Harmony the Peace and Tranquility the Regularity the Purity and Simplicity the Power and Efficacy Life and Spirit of Order Gospel-order the Order which Christ hath set and appointed in his Church Although we may have never so good dispositions intentions resolutions and desires unto the Work of Reformation yet if we pursue it not in due Order it will all come to nothing 1 Chron. 15.13 because we sought him not in the due Order Surely there is no case so difficult among us but there is a regular and easie way to an issue if we will acknowledge and apply and follow up Rules of Order in the due improvement of them if we would be set down by Order be ruled and governed by Order but if we will slight neglect reject contemn and despise Order we can expect nothing but Disorder and Confusion and shall be in great danger thereby to run and rush desperately into our own ruine It was the great Expedient which the Apostle proposeth for the Reformation of that distracted Church of Corinth Let all things be done decently and in order 1 Cor. 14.33 40. So 1 Cor. 11.34 5. We must set our selves to the work with a fervent love unto and zeal for the work it self The Cause of God the Kingdome of Christ the Prosperity of these Churches so much concerned in it this is the onely true Principle and Spirit of Reformation O that our first New-England Zeal and Love might be revived and raised under a full clear discovery of the Spiritual Beauty and Glory of that Work and of that Cause that we may labour in it in the heart height and strength of that Zeal and Love This will indeed Spirit the Work and Spirit us unto it It is a sign that there is a glorious work of Reformation near when Gods people do love the stones and favour the dust of Zion Psal 102.14 6. We must labour in it under a sense of our own utter insufficiency to Reform renouncing all our own carnal Confidences and disclaiming our own wisdomes and wills wherein we have too long laboured in vain trust our own hearts no further no longer which have so much so often deceived us but bemoan our selves before God as a hopeless and helpless people as Ephraim did Jer. 31.18 and the Church Jer. 3.22 23 Behold we come unto thee for thou art the Lord our God Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills or from the multitude of mountains for shame hath devoured the labours of our hands from our youth We lie dwon in our shame and confusion covereth us then God will work for us Deut. 32.36 For the Lord shall judge his people and repent himself for his servants when he seeth that their power is gone and there is none shut up or lest So Jer. 30.15 17. Why criest thou for thine affliction thy sorrow is incurable for I

must also improve and exercise our Liberty in way of Love Peace Union and Communion unto mutual edification and comfort By love serving one another Gal. 5.3 O this is the onely sweet and comfortable life of Christian Liberty It is a very sinful shameful abuse of Christian Liberty to make it an occasion to the flesh to make it subservient to Libertinism to Licentiousness to carnal Reason and Policy to worldly Designs and Ends to the lusts of the flesh the lusts of men in fomenting Divisions Contentions and of making it a cloak of maliciousness 1 Pet. 2.16 Surely it is a great part of our work of Reformation to Reform these Abuses of our Christian Liberty VVe are People highly Priviledged with Christian Liberty and advantaged to the exercise of it O that we better understood it and improved it Let us alwayes remember to keep our Liberty wholly subservient unto our Religion and not set up Liberty above Religion if so we shall lose both our Religion and our Liberty together 6 Labour unto the promotion and progress of the work of Reformation by recovery of your first Love Peace and Vnion O the loss of our first Love Peace and Union hath hitherto been an irreparable loss an incurable wound concerning which we may take up our Lamentation and say Jer. 8.20 21 22. The harvest is past the summer is ended and we are not healed for the hurt of my people I am hurt I am black astonishment hath taken hold upon me Is there no Balm in Gilead is there no Physician there why then is not the hurt of the daughter of my people recovered O are our Divisions become judicial and so incurable If so our state is truly lamentable as Jer. 16.5 Thus saith the Lord Enter not into the house of mourning neither go to lament nor bemoan them for I have taken away my peace from this people saith the Lord even loving kindness and mercies If it should be so well might the hearts and hopes of all our faithful Leaders fail whose labours have hither unto much failed Surely then the recovery of our first Love Peace and Union is a chief part of the work of Reformation and will be found a very hard and difficult part of the work In order hereunto 1. We must remember from whence we are fallen O let the remembrance of the sweetness and blessedness of our first Love Peace and Union convince and humble us under the sin of our Envyings Strifes Debates Divisions Contentions and Emulations c. It was the sad state of the Church of Corinth that although they were lamentably distressed and distracted with Divisions yet they were not sensible of the sin of them but were puffed up and did glory one against another O that it were nothing so with us truly so long as it is so there will be no hope of healing O that we were convinced of the sin of our Division and the multitude of sins that are begotten by it that we might mourn penitentially and bemoan our selves before God with brokenness of heart and earnestly beseech him to pardon and to purge away all that sin and to grant us reforming grace Truly untill we are thus convinced and humbled there will be no Reformation 2. We must labour to recover our first Spirit of Love Peace and Union pray earnestly unto God to pour his Spirit upon us a Spirit of Love to pour out abundance of the grace of Love to create Love Peace and Union for us and to take away the Spirit of Division which we are so deeply corrupted withall 3. We must labour to recover our first New-England Interest that is that Interest upon which this People and these Churches were first founded as to their Religious Constitution which is God and Religion this is the onely uniting Interest our very hearts and Souls will cleave and unite most intirely in Love with Peace and Union in our God and our Religion this Interest will make a people of one heart and of one Soul Jer. 32.39 They shall be my people and I will be their God and I will give them one heart and one way to fear me Observe when a people do cleave close to God and his Covenant and so unto Religion they have one heart and one way that is sweet and perfect Unity and Amity O this is our great mischief and misery and the very original of our defection that we have much forsaken our proper New-England Interest we have committed these two great evils Jer. 2.13 Forsaken our God and hewn out Cisterns We have been changing of our main Fundamental Interest we have been deserting our own Religious Interest espousing another viz. a Worldly Interest we are turning from God after the World the World is becoming the main Interest of N. E. and we are becoming a worldly people a people of a worldly Spirit Principles Practises I do not mean onely nor so much in seeking and prosecuting the things of the World although that be enough to denominate us notoriously Worldly but our turning our very Religion it self into a Worldly Interest by making of it the subject of Carnal Confidences resting trusting and boasting in it and also by making of it the subject of Carnal Contentions and so setting Religion against it self and the Professors of it one against another and so making of it subservient unto worldly designs yea unto worldly lusts and thereby making it in our Profession and Practise of it a meer Worldly Religion yea too many do too much make their professed Confidence in God himself a worldly Interest subservient to their worldly lusts as they Mic. 3.11 Yet will they lean upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord in the midst of us none evil can come unto us When a worldly Spirit worldly Principles worldly Wisdome and Counsels do sway and preponderate in all matters both Civil and Religious then a people are fully and throughly setled upon a Worldly Interest and are truly become a Worldly people And then comes all kinde of Dissentions Contentions Emulations Strifes Debate c. for the World is alwayes a dividing Interest and all our Divisions are carnal and worldly 1 Cor. 3.3 Jam. 4.3 Whatever pretences of a Religious Zeal the Fomentors of Division may make it is a Worldly Spirit that foments all Divisions and it is utterly impossible that ever a worldly spirited people should unite upon sure grounds of Union or that any people should ever unite at all in a worldly Interest And therefore if we can relinquish our worldly Interest and retrive our own onely true and proper Interest which is our God and Religion set and settle our hearts again upon God and Religion this would heal all our Divisions and reform all As a change of Interest hath been the great Cause of our general defection so a change of Interest again would consummate our Reformation It is the Prescription which God gives unto that Backsliding

Rule and Government of Christ powerfully Administred would soon Reform all O that Discipline might be restored unto the full and effectual exercise of it in the Spirit and Power of it unto all the saving Ends of it in these Churches it would work a great Reformation And O that this poor Generation which is committed Chiefly to the Charge of this Ministry may be generally cared for in all the Churches They are the Generation which you are called to labour with and for amongst whom you hope to have the fruit of your Labours in the Work of the Ministry and whom you are to stand in Judgement with and to give an account of in the day of Account O what Account will be given of them if many or the generality of them should perish under the neglect of the due exercise of the Ministerial Power of Christ towards them in any of the Churches Most of all the Work of Reformation dependeth upon the faithful and successful Labours of this Ministry in the work of Conversion the travail of your Souls in that work your travailing with Souls in that work of Conversion Here lyes the stress and the life and spirit of the Work of Reformation without which all Essayes Endeavours and Labour therein and thereunto will be utterly vain and void If God make this Ministry a Converting Ministry the Work of Reformation will be again revived but if God suffer it to be a Judicial Ministry a Ministry sent in Judgement to make the heart of this people fat then there will be no hope the Generation will grow sick at heart under Spiritual Plagues and Judgements under a savour of death by this Ministry and so die in their sins A Judicial Ministry hath alwayes been the fatall Cause of the finall Ruine of such a people as Isa 6.10 Mat. 13.13 14. Joh. 12.40 Rom. 9.32 And therefore how are all such who have the Charge of Souls in such a dangerous time amongst a declining people concerned to Labour to Pray to Preach to be instant in season out of season in private in publick to spend their Souls to bend the strength of their Ministerial Labours unto the Conversion of Souls How did the Prophets of old labour in like ease with a declining people and dolefully lament the loss of their labour so Isaiah Isa 49.4 Jeremiah Jer. 6.10 yea our Lord Jesus Christ himself Mat. 23.37 O Jerusalem how often would I have gathered thy Children Truly it is a most doleful discouragement to the present Ministry in many Congregations to see so many Souls fatting hearts hardning immortal Souls dying and perishing under their hand Care and Charge but yet they must labour and Agonize in Prayer unto God for a dispensation of Converting grace by their Ministry that the Work of Conversion and so the Work of Reformation may be revived for if not it is much to be feared that the Sun will quickly go down over the Prophets I allude unto Mic. 3.6 I mean that our day of grace will expire and the Sun set upon these Churches by the departure of the Ministrv and so our house be left unto us desolate as Mat. 23.38 39. The Prosperity of these Churches dependeth much upon the success of the Labours of this present Ministry and therefore the hopes desires and prayers of all the faithful people of God in these Churches are That you may alwayes remain as Stars in the right hand of Jesus Christ fixed in your Orb full of Light Regular in all your Motions Powerfull in all your Influences shining in all your Appearances with the Splendor and Lustre of his Spirit and Grace in whose hand you are And that there may be no such Wandering Stars spoken of Jude v. 13. whose Erratick Motions should disturb the Coelestial Order and Harmony of our Ecclesiastical Heaven III. I propose this Exhortation also unto All the People of the Land who are present and O that whole New-England might be moved with this word of Exhortation Repent and do the first works O that the heart of this people might be moved as the heart of one man unto the Work of Reformation● It is a general work our defection it is general and therefore our Reformation it must be also general Of old the Work of Reformation it was alwayes wrought by all the people as you may reade 2 Kings 23.3 2 Chron. 29.36 34.30 the Text saith there All small and great So Ezra 109. Neh. 8.1 All the the people as one man every one that is able to do any thing must bear his part in the Work of Reformation Every one hath a particular work of Reformation in and for himself to Reform himself his own heart and his own life if every one could Reform one it would be a great and general Reformation Every one that hath a Soul to save or hath any care of his Salvation is concerned in this Work of Reformation of what degree rank or order whatsoever every one must labour in his own person in his proper place by the utmost improvement of his power interest and influence to help forward the work every one must set his hand and heart unto the Work of Reformation in Families Towns Churches throughout the Country The Work of Reformation it must run through all our hearts and wayes in every Station and Relation in every Calling and Imployment through all matters both Civil and Religious in all our converse with God and man There is not one here present in the Congregation but is concerned in this Work of Reformation 1. Let every one be admonished and warned to take heed of hindering the Work of Reformation They are the most dangerous and desperate Enemies unto New-England and unto these Churches who do hinder Reformation so do all Profane persons by their sins of Profaneness whose work it is more and more to corrupt the Generation and to fill and pollute the Land with their Abominations So also do all Worldly and Self-seeking persons by sinking the Interest of Religion and raising a Worldly Interest and so building up their own Self-interests upon the ruines of the Publick So also do all Factious Seditious and Contentious persons who make it their design and work to foment Divisions and to uphold dividing Parties and Interests unto the shaking of very Foundations So also do all corrupt Worshippers and corrupters of the Worship of God In a word so do all Carnal Formal Hypocritical Professors And so do all the Capital leading sinners of the Times and of the Generation These are all publick Enemies unto these Churches more dangerous and destructive Enemies unto this great Work of the Lord then Sanballat and Tobiah and the rest of old were unto the Building of the City or the Temple Wo to those by whom Offences come who are Leaders in our great and general Defection and hinderers of the Work of Reformation As for such who turn aside unto their crooked wayes the Lord shall lead them forth