Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	know_v	lord_n	see_v	3,997	5	3.2299	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81152	Englands plus ultra both of hoped mercies, and of required duties : shewed in a sermon preached to the honourable Houses of Parliament, the Lord Major, Court of Aldermen, and Common-Councell of London, together with the Assembly of Divines, at Christ-Church, April 2, 1646 : being the day of their publike thanksgiving to Almighty God for the great successe of the Parliaments army in the West, especially in Cornwall, under the conduct of his excellency Sr. Thomas Fairfax / by Joseph Caryl, minister of the Gospel at Magnus neer the bridge, London, and a member of the Assembly of Divines.	Caryl, Joseph, 1602-1673.	1646 (1646)	Wing C752; ESTC R43612	28,502	54

yet I will lead him also and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners God doth not usually heal the wounds of judgement till the wounds of sin are healed yet sometimes he doth And what know we but the Lord may once again make a parallel mercy to that promised his ancient people and restore comfort to those hearts Who goe on as this Objection charges frowardly in the way of their hearts Secondly Others may object what so much confidence of a succession of mercies Look to the Church and to the matter of the worship Superstition is gone but prophanenesse stands at the door Prelacy is gone but Anarchy is feared and can we yet be confident Sure to invite to a day of rejoycing when we are in such a condition is but like bidding the sons of Zion to sing one of their songs at the waters of Babylon I acknowledge there is little reason to rejoyce in the light of this world whilest the Gospel is under a cloud that there is very little reason to take warmth at the heat of any Sunne while Christ the Sunne of righteousnesse is eclipsed by the interposition of any sublunary interest whatsoever But must we despond and give all for lost because light hath not supposing that it hath not that free and kinde entertainment which we desire Must we resolve that Christ shall lose his right suppose it so because he hath it not or because he hath it not by the day set in our Kalendar Possibly the Kalendar of Heaven hath a post-date to ours A woe belongs to those who neglect to finish the work of the Lord like them in the Prophet upon this surmise The time is not come the time that the Lords house should be built Yet a woe lies not against those who conscientiously endeavouring to build cannot finish it Christ accounts those his enemies and cals them out to destruction who say We will not have this man to raign over us But they may be in the roll of Christs friends and he may be preparing salvations for them who being seriously upon that design yet fail in advancing his raign If that be not our case I grant there is no reason any mans faith should have life that we shall live But if it be as I believe it is our faith hath reason to hold up in life and strength too that we shall live For we know Christ works by degrees in the hearts of his people Light comes not in all at once In the prophecy of Ezekiel The waters of the Temple were first but to the ancles and then to the knees and then to the loins and then it was a river of waters to swimme in a river that could not be passed over We must give providence leave to go it 's own pace Things are still under consideration The plummet is still in the hand of Zerobbabel and who knows to what perfection the work may be brought in a short time It is not the doing of what comes short of the minde of Christ but a resolving not to do the minde of Christ which makes a people hopelesse When Christ was in the world he was not received presently Did he therefore fire the world presently about their ears and destroy those places which received him not When some perswaded him to doe so he tels them Ye know not of what spirit ye are There 's many a good man who if he knew his own spirit would be asham'd of it Christ is not so fierce as many Christians are It 's true his anger when it burns is infinitely fierce and who can abide it But we know he is patient and he is patient very long even unto those who knowingly abuse him much more toward those who are sincerely seeking after him He is patient to those who abuse him and patient so long that they take occasion cause they have none to scorn and mock him Where is the promise of his comming And Let the Lord hasten his work that we may see it Much more will he be patient towards those who are praying consulting and enquiring though as yet they should not come up to give him the honour due unto his name When the Jewish worship was cast out and the Ceremoniall Law abolished the Apostles themselves being alive and preaching it Christian worship was not received in a day or in a year the Apostles were long working it into the hearts of believers And we may read in the 14 t● Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans how much bearing there was exercised and how much forbearing towards those who were not yet come up to Gospel heights either of their dutie or of their priviledge Therefore I say though this Objection should stand a while in the letter of it yet we need not fall in our hopes though we are not where we should be either in worship or in Government yet Christ will bear while we are seeking and enquiring with sincerity that we may Christ will at last break those who wilfully break his bands and cast away his coards from them And all they who in uprightnesse pray and endeavour that his Government may be set up shall be heard and blessed though perhaps not in their own way A third Objection lies thus But there are many errours and strange opinions amongst us Tares grow up and are like to overgrow the wheat sores and sicknesses over-run many mindes Can a people thrive who have such diseases upon them Can the Physitians who behold these distempers offer us any hope that the patient shall live I think no fore-head can deny that there are errours amongst us and some very dangerous destructive and damnable perverting souls and wasting the vitals of religion Errours are not to be sported with Who can love Christ and errour too much lesse plead for and give it patronage Christ is truth And though persons erring may have our charity yet no errour ought to have our love though many who erre may have much of our patience yet there is no errour how small soever should any of our have countenance But to this sad Objection I answer First Possibly there are more errours named then are All is not errour which every one thinks to be errour We know who spake it After the way which they call heresie so worship I the God of my fathers Act. 24. 14. and they were no mean no unlearned men who called that way heresie And I shall never believe all Heresiographers for his sake who put Aerius into his Catalogue for opposing Prelacy There may be an errour in taxing somewith errours But secondly Whatsoever is an errour or an heresie whatsoever is contrary to wholesome Doctrine such opinions are knowable else all rules about dealing with them were vain Whatsoever I say is an errour or heresie let all the penalties which Christ hath charged upon it be executed to the utmost If we favour errour I know not how we can with confidence lift up our eyes to

unanswerable to former mercies When God must work as much for his own name as by his own power when God remembers to work for those who have forgotten his works when God is faithfull to those who have distrusted him how do these considerations of our lownes heighten our mercies and render our deliverances as so many wonders Thus glory comes in to God by our abasement for as in confessing the circumstances of sinne some speciall sinfulnesse of our hearts breaks forth upon every one of them to humble us So in confessing these specialties of Gods works some beam of his Wisdome Justice Power Patience or Goodnesse breaks forth and irradiates all the mercies which we receive from him Therefore be very carefull in making these Rhetoricall declarations let not God have history and naked relations but be diligent in finding and eloquent in describing every even the least passage of his providence The Rabbins have a saying that there is a mountain of sense hanging upon every Apex of the word of God I assure you the least Apex in the works of God may have a mountain of goodnesse and mercy hanging at it did we but search them out There is yet a fifth Declaration of the works of God which I would rather presse and it is more necessary then all these fore-mentioned more necessary then either your Arithmeticall or your Logicall or your Historicall or your Rhetoricall declarations and that is a declaration purely theologicall or a practicall declaration of the works of God Right Honourable and beloved God will bear with us though we should be somewhat out in our Arithmetike and indeed the works of God exceed our Arithmetike they are innumerable God will beare with us though we are not such exact Logicians to methodise his works to give their descriptions definitions kindes differences and properties God will beare with us though we are but mean Historians but flat feeble and languide Orators if yet we come up in this last act and make him a full a hearty a pithy declaration of his works by ours The Lord is better pleased with the language of our hands then with the language of our tongues and we honour God more with the words which our works speak then with the words which our mouths speak I beseech you therefore make this declaration as full as may be Let your feet declare and your fingers speak to the whole Nation yea to all the world what God hath done for us It will be a very sad thing if declarations of the works of God should be made only in sermons or written in books and none found written in our hearts and lives If it should be so mercies will be our burdens as much as judgements have been and the heavier burdens too The Baptist exhorts Matth. 3. Bring forth fruit meet for repentance I exhort bring forth fruit meet for mercies for victories bring forth fruit meet for dayes of thanksgiving And give me leave a little to drive this point more home and to fasten in more distinctly upon your spirits First I would bespeak the whole Kingdom of England O England becarefull to make this practicall declaration of the works of God God appears as unbending his bowe and putting his arrowes up to his quiver as sheathing his sword and repenting of those evils of punishment which he determined against thee make hast to declare this work of the Lord by repenting of thy evils of sinne and by turning to God in duty from whom thou hast departed and whom thou hast provoked by thine iniquity God hath given the Armies of thy enemies into thine hand and he hath caused their strong holds to submit O England declare this work of the Lord by preparing a new war against those Armies of outragious lusts which encamp in all places and fight against the soul by planting batteries against the strong holds of foolish customs and vain practices received by tradition from our forefathers The Lord hath broken the yoke of thy oppressours and taken their burthens from off thy shoulders O England declare this work of the Lord by thy willingnes to put thy neck under whatsoever is the yoke of Jesus Christ and thy shoulders to his burthen God hath much purged and still preserves the Ordinances of his worship he still continues the Gospel to thee and many faithfull Ministers to dispence it O England declare this work of the Lord by prizing pure worship by improving the Gospel and honouring the dispensers of it by saying how beautifull are the feet of these who bring thee the glad tidings of everlasting peace God hath shewed that he worketh freely he hath wrought beyond all obligations O England declare this work of the Lord Be faithfull seeing thou art under so many obligations perform cheerfully and sincerely all the Vows and Covenants which are upon thee to the utmost of thy power and opportunities Lastly God hath shewed himself a friend to thy friends and an enemy to thy enemies O England declare this work of the Lord. Do not thou by unkindnes or hard usage sadd the hearts of any of Christs friends or by thy flatteries and unworthy complyances give his enemies occasion of rejoycing Let the Honourable Houses of Parliament be perswaded to make This declaration of the works of the Lord. He shines upon your counsels and hath exalted you in them Declare this work of the Lord by exalting and setting up his name in all your counsels make it appear to all the world that you are so far which possibly may have been the jealousie of some from not admitting Christ petitioning at your doors that you are daily petitioning him to command in your hearts and over all your waies God by works of wonder hath maintained your priviledges your honours and your houses declare these works of the Lord by maintaining the honour and priviledges of his house and by the advancement of his service God hath done justice and judgement in the land to admiration he hath wrought terrible things in righteousnes declare this work of the Lord by the exactnes of your justice by your streamings out of righteousnes towards all the people of this land and by cloathing your selves with judgement Let it be as hangings about your walls as a crown and a diadem upon your heads break the teeth of oppressours be eyes to the blinde ears to the deaf feet to the lame Fathers to the poor and the cause which ye know not search ye out And whatsoever ye doe in the cause of God or of his people doe it with all your might for the Lord hath wrought with all his might in your cause Let this renowned City be exhorted carefully to make this declaration God hath been as a wall as a wall of fire as a place of broad rivers as gates of brasse and barrs of iron to this City to keep out the enemy O declare this work of the Lord by letting your Heart-gates stand open continually to truth and

grow thus vigorous and turn experiences into confidences Because ye are not dead but alive believe that ye shall not die but live I would not invite you to build Castles in the air nor would I nurse up presumptuous thoughts in any I know that Babylon shall be as confident as confidence it self immediately before her destruction Revel 18. 7. I sit a Queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow and yet all her sorrows shall then come upon her I know the people of God may over-act their faith and be confident without cause as the Prophet speaks Jer. 2. 37. The Lord hath rejected thy confidences and thou shalt not prosper in them But though I would not yea I dare not be over-bold or presuming yet I would not have any distrustfull or unbelieving God is a Rock and his work is perfect We are sure he hath begun a work why should we not believe he will bring it unto perfection It may be some abroad will object as Rabshakeh once did against Hezekiah and the Jews 2 King 18. 19. Thus saith the great King the King of Assyria What confidence is this wherein thou trustest Thou presumest thou shalt be deliver'd from the invasion of Senacherib What is this confidence saith Rabshakeh tell me thy strength Possibly thou wilt say but they are but vain words I have counsell and strength for the warre Or if thou hast not strength of thy own yet thou hast friends and confederates to assist thee I wonder where Tell me Now on whom dost thou trust that thou rebellest against me If thou wilt not discover the lock wherein thy strength lies then I will doe it for thee Now behold thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed even upon Egypt on which if a man lean it will go into a mans hand and pierce it So is Pharaoh King of Egypt unto all that trust on him Thus he sleights his confidences in men And because he knew Hezekiah and the Jews had a reserve when the arm of flesh was broken therefore hetakes them off from that too vers 22. But if ye say unto me We trust in the Lord our God Is not that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away and hath said to Judah and Jerusalem ye shall worship before this Altar in Jerusalem As if he had said Doe ye build your confidence in God when ye have done God such a disservice as this the defacing and demolishing of his Altars Are ye so audacious as to believe that God will help you when you have thus dishonoured him Can you expect his aid should be the reward of your sacriledge Be ashamed of these hopes make not your God a protectour of your impieties Some I say from abroad may thinke to cut the sinews of our confidence by such an argument What is your confidence to prevail or that the Parliament should prosper Are not they the men who have pull'd down Altars and abolish'd Prelacy Have not they turned out the old Liturgy and dash'd the Ceremonies Have not they done these things by their authority and shall they live To such Objecters I say our confidence gathers life from this Objection These Right Honourable are splendida peccata shining sins indeed and holy impieties If these be your faults they are glorious ones and we may fatten our faith by such doubts cast in from these without We may rather build upon it that you shall prosper because God hath enobled your spirits to doe such things as these even as Hezekiah prospered in those works which yet the railing Rabshakeh supposed his certain ruine There are other Objections against this confidence which are more weighty and sad I will name but three First What so confident that we shall live and yet the Kingdome so abound with sinne When there is so much life in sinne shall such a people live Live and prosper I acknowledge that when we consider the sins and profanenesses the wickednesses and blasphemies which are in the Nation we have just cause in reference to them not only to rejoyce with trembling but to tremble without rejoycing These may give us cause to fear that all the troubles we have hitherto had are but the beginning of our sorrows And that the Lord in stead of turning back our captivity should turn us back into captivity We may have cause to fear that even the great and solemn meeting of this day upon as I may so call it this mountain of our present felicity should be but like Moses his going up to Mount Nebo or the top of Pisgah in the later end of the book of Deuteronomy from thence to view the Land of Canaan which himself should never enter into The Lord may make this happy spectacle but as a short view a transient glimpse of those glories and comforts of those blessings and mercies which peace and union in a setled estate bring forth to a Nation and the word might go out against us all even against Moses and Aaron Magistrates and Ministers even against those who have been most faithfull in the carrying on of this great service and most industrious even against those who have shed most tears and have laid up most prayers even against those who have sweat most or bled most Ye shall all die on this side Jordan Your sins shall consume your carcases in this wildernesse this is acknowledged and what ever the issue be let God be glorified But the Lord doth not account as man accounteth neither are his thoughts as mans thoughts Take but two instances The one Psal 106. 6 7. where the unbelief and provocations of the people of Israel are reported We have sinned with our fathers we have committed iniquity we have done wickedly Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt they remembred not the multitude of thy mercies but provoked him at the Sea even at the red Sea Yet he comes in with a non obstante at the 8. verse Neverthelesse he saved them for his Names sake that he might make his mighty power to be known If God will save for his names sake what people is there whom he may not save The other Scripture is Isa 57. 17. For the iniquity of his covetousnesse was I wroth and smote him I hid me and was wroth What did this smiting effect It follows He went on frowardly in the way of his heart he went on sinning while God was smiting what could any one expect now but that the Lord who smote him before should at the next blow destroy him Yet hear O miracle of mercy I have seen his waies vers 18. What waies repenting waies reforming waies holy waies No his waies the waies of his own froward heart And what will God doe Doth he say I will strike him down in his waies I will kill him in his waies No I have seen his waies and will heal him I will heal the former wounds instead of making new wounds There is more mercy