Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	king_n	lord_n	person_n	2,832	5	4.9191	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92190	Jacobs ladder, or The protectorship of Sion, laid on the shoulders of the Almighty; in a description of the sufficiency of providence, suitable in these times of tentation. With Jacobs wrestling. / By Francis Raworth of Shoreditch.	Raworth, Francis, d. 1665.	1655 (1655)	Wing R373; Thomason E1507_2; ESTC R209489	136,597	367

world but none are able to rear it the King himself will bring it with him Not many know how to set up Christ in their Consciences Many know how rather to pull down Antichrist than to set up Christ And too many know how rather to set up themselves than the Kingdom of Christ in the world Governors must reform if the Providences of God speak truth in explaining the Promises it is high time and Governors must be reformed But I am yet perswaded that some of Nebuchadnezzars Image will stand in all Nations till it have an immediate blow from Heaven Dan. 2.34 Though men do trample under foot the Toes of Clay and break the Legs of Iron and smite on the Belly of Brass yet I am perswaded they will more or less either imbrace the Silver Arms or wear the Golden Head and the Gold the best Government of this old world is part of the Image as well as the Clay Israel was Gods people and though they pulled down the brazen Serpent yet they helped to set up the golden Calf but when we once come to Canaan we shall neither bow down to the Image of brass nor low after the Calf of gold In the mean time Sion is to travel with Prayers and Tears and all regular and righteous endeavors toward a perfect Reformation but I do not yet beleeve that ever we shall see that Man-child untill the appearance of Christ doth Midwive it into the world Omnis Christi anus est crucianus If it should be objected How can the expectation of such glory consist with the Prophecies in Scripture of the tribulations and errors in the last daies I answer 1 Tim. 3.1 In the latter times some shall depart from the Faith and shall speak lies in hypocrisie Sceptici in intellectu Epicurei in affectu c. 2 Tim. 3.1 In the last daies shall come perillous times men shall be lovers of themselves covetous proud unholy Traytors heady lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God I answer By the last daies in the Prophets and Apostles we are to understand the days of the Gospel the time of the messiah from his first to his second comming indifferently and have not all these symptoms of Apostacy been already in the world nay in the primitive times Secondly If by the last days we sometime understand the daies a little while or immediately preceding the second comming of Christ in person the comming of such prophanenesses are no argument against the comfortable appearance of Christ but are made in Scripture fore-runners not formally of his Kingdom ☜ and how seasonably will the Physician appear when the world will be so diseased how sweetly and refreshingly will the light of the Sun of Righteousness be at such a midnight Zech. 14 7. 2 Pet. 2.14 Christ though he brings day with him comes at midnight Matth. 25.6 And if by the latter daies we are to understand as we may the last daies are not the last daies and the last of daies in the world did ever men love others less and themselves more Judas his plague was his bowels gushed out But O Lord our curse is we have no bowels of love at all Is not this a covetous age Many have rich Arras to hang the walls of their Chambers with and have not Canvas to cloath a naked member of Christ withall how many Lazaruses are daily laid at our doors and how few have money in their purses to relieve nay not compassion or hony in their hearts to pitty them what iron hearts have we in this golden and in this gilded age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 golden I mean not in a moral but natural sense as for the love of God whereas we should be lovers of God more than lovers of pleasure we are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God nay lovers of pleasure and not lovers of God unless that by our God we mean our pleasure And as for the rest of the gang of Vices I shall say no more but that we need not go up and down with a Candle and Lanthorn to find proud unholy heady Traytors in the world How long Lord how long ere thou appearest the Judge of thine Enemies the Father of thy Children and the King of thy Subjects Come Lord Jesus come quickly and blessed are all they that love his appearance his appearance in his Spirit in his Cause and in his Person In this prospect of what God will do in the world take these three or four Cautions 1 Limit not God to your means Some indeed have power to help Sion but no heart some have an heart but no power others have power in their hands but no hearts to help Sion Powers Armies cannot work without God but God can work without them Gods work cannot be done by the mighty for ordinarily it is opposed by the Mighty the mighty Pharisee derides Christ the mighty Pilat condemns Christ for the most part all the mighty in the world are against the Almighty of the world What say Monarchs that are prophane If Christ come to reign over us what will become of our honors Say the unrighteous Judges what will become of our Fees and the lazy Shepheards what will become of our Livings Remember Creaturae potius sunt media deferentia quam operantia if all men were willing for God yet the best of men are but men at the most the most of men or all men are but men at the best Men are but Vials and they have no more of Vertue in them than Providence infuseth not a drop more All the Tribute that God requires is to attribute all to him and he is resolved on the glory of all Means are not used by God because they are effectual but means are therefore effectual because God useth them A straw in the hands of Omnipotency proves a Spear and a Spear without an Omnipotent influence turns in a mans hand to a Straw It is not improbable that the nigher Christ comes to his Throne the meaner the instruments of his advancement may be ☞ Who art thou O Mountain before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain There are many Mountains against Sion visible and invisible Mountains but Jacob the worm shall thresh Mountains Parturiunt montes generatur ridiculus mus strange as we say a Cat may look on a King so a worm may crawle on a Mountain one Mountain is able to crush a million of Worms but if Sion be trampled on in Christs day she will turn again and one worm shall thresh a million of Mountains Providence can turn Mountains into Mole-hils and the proud politick Hills of the World into Hell God doth such things by such inconsiderable means That no flesh might glory in his presence 1 Cor. 1.31 If any creature will glory as if the Apostle had said let it glory behind the Lords back which it cannot do God will face down all the glory and glorying of the

Glory If God did not willingly suffer sin to be of necessity sin could not be The Lord fulfils his own good purposes by the wicked purposes of others man practiseth sin and God punisheth sin with sin so as God is neither to be blamed or man excused Deus non vult malum vult hoc ipsum fieri malum God hard●ned Pharaohs heart but says the Text Pharaoh first hardned his own heart When man hardens his own heart morally t is just with God to harden it judicially Let Pharaoh alone says God let him take his pleasure and pastime and when he hath hardned his heart by Malice I will harden it in Justice I will set a seal to his ruin They shall be given over to beleeve l●es 2 Thes 2.11 A dreadful woe against sinners in these daies of Gospel light as if the Lord should have said Sinners I have proffered you my Love I have proffered you my Sons blood I have proffered you the Truths of Salvation I have said this is my way De iis qui faciunt quae non vul● Deus facit ipse quae vult and it is your wisdom to walk in it now because you have refused to bear my yoke and to entertain the Gospel there shall come false Prophe●s and say Heaven is but a fable and Hel-fire was but a politick invention to keep men in awe and you shall beleeve them There shall come some like Angels of light though they are Devils incarnate and they shall with a seeming Mortification cry down real Mortification and with a plausible conver●ation preach down preaching and tell you that a strict life and repentance are out of date and required onely to scare men from their freedom and you shall beleeve all this Jer. 4 10. Rom. 11.8 God now sends us as the Jews of old a spirit of slumber And Because we will not be given up to Tru●h God gives us over to Error It is one thing to have Error and it is another thing to be given over to Error which is not onely to have and hold but to be had and held of Error He that will be un●ust let him be unjust still As the Judge at Athens gave condemned Malefactors poisonous Hemlock to drink for punishment of their misdeeds so God as a just Judge punisheth our former barrenness and impenitency under the means of Grace with giving of hundreds over to the noysom Opinions and monstrous Blasphemies of this age It is well for Gods Jacobs that the God of Jacob stands at the top of the Ladder Tolle maliciam fratrum Josephi simul p●ri●et dispensationem Dei or else the Gospel would no longer stand but fall God knows how to bring Glory out of all this Disgrace What more heinous act than the treachery of Judas and yet take away the treachery of Judas and you take away the Cross of Christ take away the Cross of Christ and you take away our Salvation Secondly The Ladder of Providence God is visible in all Afflictions Personal and publick First In Personal Afflictions and that 1 In Death Job 14.5 Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass That hand that stirs up our feathers casteth us down on our Bed The Laws of Nature say to Death Death go to the wrinkled face to the dry bones to the dry Brests meddle not with this young Man touch not this beautiful woman But Death is in Commission from Providence and must observe its commands It is appointed for all men once to die that is once Gods Decrees for the mortality of man are not made at random but in particular and they are irreversible Zenacherib shall not be slain in the field nor by the Angel of the Lord which smote a great part of his Army but at home in his own City and in the Temple of his Idol and by the hands of his Sons that sprang from his loyns Sisera shall not die in an Army nor by the hands of a man a Bow shall not be bent nor a Sword drawn against him the Lord hath reserved him to a tent Tulisti Domine patrem quem ipse dederas non con●ristor quod recipisti ago gratias quod dedisti to a ten-penny-nail to be driven into his head by the hands of a feeble woman The Tyrants of the world have their names already in the immortal Bill of mortality and their days are determined by the fatal line of Providence So long shall Pharaoh oppress the Israelites and no longer So high shall Nimrod build his Babel and no higher So far shall Nero and his moral Successors prosper in their persecutions and no further Death knocks as often at the door of the young man as of the old there are as many young skuls as it is observed in Golgotha as old The Sithe of mortality mows down the Lillies of the Crowns as well as the grass of the field our last day stands the rest run ●stat sua cuique dies The bullets flye in the wars at the direction not of Chance but of Providence Providence says to the Cannon strike such an Officer such a Souldier wound him onely kill him outright Some men I confess are accessary to their ruin and as we say die before their time that is their time indeed which according to the visible face of Nature they might have lived but not before Gods time God hath the four keys of the Clouds the Womb the Heart and of Death hanging onely at his own girdle Mans spirit is the candle of the Lord Pro. 21.27 He puts out some candles as soon as they are lighted others when they are half wasted and he suffers others to consume by old age to a snuff Providence hath turned up a Glass for every man and man can neither stay the sands of his Glass a minute from running nor turn it up when it is once out When Gods servants have done their work Providence lets them go to bed Oh how sweet it is to behold Christ in every Cross and God on every Ladder 2 Providence is visible in Afflictions Saints are appointed to afflictions as a mark is appointed to be shot at by the Arrow on purpose 1 Thes 1.3 God shoots not at random but at a mark he does not draw his Bow at a venture as he who slew Ahab 1 King 22.34 or shoot at the whole host of mankind let the arrow light where it will but he singles out the particular person and sends every Arrow on a special Errand The wicked mans sight is bounded by second causes and he cannot see beyond the Horizon of the creatures We Jonah the fourth quarrel with the worm that smites the goard but see not how God sends the worm Such a man owed me a spight and now he is even with me as if God were a Cypher and either were nothing or did nothing Job saw God on this Ladder Job 1. who says not the Lord hath given and the Chaldeans have taken away