Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A81042
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An epistle to Friends, for union and edification of the Church of God in Christ Jesus. By his servant, John Crook.
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Crook, John, 1617-1699
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1698
(1698)
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Wing C7209; ESTC R171614
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7,559
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17
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AN Epistle to Friends FOR Vnion and Edification Of the Church of God in Christ Jesus By his Servant John Crook 1 Cor. 1.10 Now I beseech you Brethren by the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye all speak one thing and that there be no dissentions among you but that ye be knit together in one mind and in one judgment Dear Friends and Brethren c. I Salute you all in that first Love wherewith God loved us and we so dearly loved one another In my old Age I cannot forget those times and seasons of comfortable Refreshments we have enjoyed together in the holy Spirit of our heavenly Father Praised be his blessed Name for ever That which is in my Heart to you in this Epistle is to remind you of that free love of God that visited us in our low Estate when we were cast out as it were into the open Field void of all Shelter as in a weary Land quite tired and weary of every thing Then was made known to us the hiding place from the Storms c. which we found to be as a Rock in that weary wayless Wilderness State and Condition My Dear Friends you that know and can witness what I write what remains but that we love Him that first loved Vs and one another in him The former will appear by our keeping his Commandments and the latter by our diligent and tender watchfulness one over another for our preservation in the same love unto the end Remembring that all miscarriages both towards God and towards one another arise and spring commonly from the decay of Love this procured that dreadful threatning to Ephesus of having her Golden Candelstick removed because she had left her first Love c. I doubt not but there are those yet left among us that can remember that esteem and good Perswasion that many People had of the Truth and of those that profess'd it at the beginning because we loved one another and therefore many concluded we were the Disciples of Christ and it may be observed that because Peter knew Man's Heart is not more ready to deceive him in any thing than concerning true and unfeigned Love he prefers not his own knowledge of his Heart but appeals to Christ's knowledge of it viz Lord thou knowest I love thee And because true love to the Brethren is such an excellent Grace and Vertue the Primitive Christians counted it a sign of their Regeneration saying we know we are passed from Death to Life because we love the Brethren But seeing there is an hypocritical fawning that looks like Love the Apostle sharply reproves that in saying Let your Love be without Dissimulation Therefore as God's free love in Christ Jesus was the cause of our gathering to be a People at the Beginning who were not a People but gathered us as it were out of all sorts of Professions of Religion to be a People to his Praise and did according to his promise Jer. 3.15 16. Raise up Pastors according to his own Heart that fed us with Divine Wisdom and Understanding which was in some measure the fulfilling of that Prophecy So that we pursued after the substance which is Christ Jesus and left the Shadows Ceremonies and Figures as ending in him the Substance of which Figures the Ark of the Covenant under the old Law was chief as Jeremiah Prophetically speaking of the Gospel times saying In those dars saith the Lord they shall say no more the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord neither shall it come upon the Heart as the Margent hath it neither shall they go after it c. Now Dear Friends seeing we began in the Substance which was the appearance of Christ Jesus in Spirit and Power Let all watch and be careful that they turn not aside lest by hearkening to the Fleshly Wisdom and Carnal Reasonings any of you fall back again into the Naturals where the Shadows pass for Substances and so become bewildered again and at a greater loss than you were in before for then it may be said It had been better for you that you had never known the way of Truth viz. better not only because it will be harder to return again than before your first Convincement but also the Fiery Furnace through which such must pass will be hotter because the state the Backslider is fallen into is aggravated by his being once Enlightened which renders that condition near unto impossibility of returning according to Heb. 6.5 6. This I speak as a warning to all concern'd that they which stand or think they stand may take heed lest they fall for blessed is the Man that feareth always because he that casteth away true fear will restrain Prayer and the restraining Prayer will discover the Irreligious and Careless and the Hypocrite doth not truly discern Prayer though he makes long Prayers Therefore Dear Friends as you would persevere unto the end in your Spiritual Union with God and Communion one with another and as you would have such as should be saved added to the Church and that the number of them may be increased through the World untill the Kingdoms thereof become the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ's which must be accomplished and the Mistery of God finished Rev. 10.7 compared with 11.15 I say as you desire the accomplishment of all these things in their season what manner of People ought you to be in all Godliness of Conversation Which brancheth out it self into all particulars of Religion and the duties thereof as Children to Parents Subjects to their Governors Wives to Husbands Servants to Masters and the Younger to the Elder c. as the Apostle writes to Titus which Exhortation would be to no purpose did not the Grace of God appear to them all therefore he saith For the Grace of God appears to all c. whereby the Apostle exalts the Soveraignty of Grace for the performance of all these Duties saying in a certain place The Vnity of the Spirit is kept in the bond of Peace for Peace must be kept in all the States and Conditions God hath placed People in Peace and Love being the Bond that will preserve in the Unity both with God and one with another The Children of God are bound together as it were in the bundle of Life and as they continue so bound the Gates of Hell can never prevail against them but if any separate from that bundle of Life and Unity in the Spirit they are soon broke Therefore I exhort all to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and then will you abide in the new Covenant that is ordered in all things and sure as the last Words of David testifie in the 2 Sam 23.5 For altho' the great Covenant is between the Father and his Son Christ Jesus yet that Covenant is derived from the Father to all his Children in Christ Jesus so that every Particular according to their measure can say with holy David