Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	lord_n	love_n	love_v	2,989	5	6.7075	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29932	Dwelling with God, the interest and duty of believers in opposition to the complemental, heartless, and reserved religion of the hypocrite / opened in eight sermons by John Bryan ...	Bryan, John, d. 1676.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1670 (1670)	Wing B5243; ESTC R31994	149,472	465

they that have goodly Houses with superfluity how they may yet have more wealth and honour The mind of Man being like the Hors-leech which hath two Daughters crying give give the two Forks in the Tongue of that blood-sucker setting forth the two passions in the mind of Man the one a burning desire of getting beyond measure the other an unquietness through sense of want when more than enough is gotten and like those four things that are never satisfyed the Grave a barren Womb the Earth that is not filled with Water and the Fire and they that are building are apt to be in earnest expectation that they shall be well and warm in those new Nests I think this one consideration needful to be suggested to them all namely what power God's grace useth to have in all them that dwell in him to take off their hearts from minding earthly things in that manner they used to do before they were in God namely though not to forsake the World quite and give over worldly business and spend their whole time in private Devotions nor having found this House and Treasure to cast away their wordly Goods For Religion bindeth Men and Women to be good Husbands to seek to preserve and encrease their estates that God hath given them yet to make them willing to part with Houses and Lands and whatsoever is dearest to them in the World if they cannot hold them with Gods favour To lose all things and count them but dung in comparison of it This made God's people in the Ten Tribes to leave their dwellings and possessions and to come to Hierusalem where God was purely worshipped This made Moses to leave Pharaoh's Court and to joyn himself to God's afflicted despised Church and to moderate their affections to use them with more sobriety and indifferency It being all one to them whether they had little or much I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content I know both how to be abased and how to abound every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry both to abound and suffer need Yea so to take up their hearts as to be more careless and forgetful of these things than they were formerly For they having found a better House and a better Treasure There their hearts must needs be most if not altogether Nor can the heart be divided between the love of God and the World But one of them will and must have all No Man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot serve God and Mammon Love not the World neither the things that are in the World If any Man love the World the love of the Father is not in him THE FIFTH SERMON THe second Sort of Spiritual duties incumbent upon you who have assurance that the Lord is your Habitation is in reference to Persons 1. Those who were the efficient cause of this your superlative Happiness both principle and instrumental The principle are the three sacred Persons of the glorious Deity the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost 1. Admire the goodness of God in electing you to this happiness Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath chosen us in Him before the Foundation of the World and in conferring upon you by the grace of Adoption the right of inheriting his Light here and hereafter Giving thanks unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God 2. The love of God the Son which passeth knowledge who purchased for us this dwelling place with the price of his blood The blood of God Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich When he was in the possession of a perfect Happiness and Glory in his Divine Nature that he might bring you into the same possession He took upon him your Nature with all its miseries wants and obligements to gain you the Treasures of God's Grace Righteousness and Eternal Life in Him here and with Him hereafter He would be without a House where to lay his head and without any civil propriety of Earthly Goods and without any peace or rest in the World that you might have a resting place in God and a spiritual right to all this and actual enjoyment of as much as needs and is good for you 3. The powerful Operation of the Holy Ghost in imprinting upon your Souls those Divine Graces which are certain signs and tokens of your real interest in and present possession of this super-coelestial Mansion and witnessing with your spirits that you are truly Gods Children and being such shall abide in the House for ever for so Sons do To provoke and quicken you the more to thanksgiving for this inestimiable happiness Consider how infinitely you are bound to these Three Persons above innumerable others whom God the Father did not choose to have their dwelling in him and whom the Holy Ghost never wrought upon to accept this as he hath upon you There are who would perswade you otherwise that is that God the Father hath in his decree of Election done no more for you than he hath for other Men whom he from Eternity choose to be partakers of his happiness conditionally that is if they would as you have done accept it offered to them as it was to you because he fore-saw that you would receive Christ into your hearts by faith he therfore determined to receive you into himself to make you eternally happy because he fore-saw others would not he therefore passed them by and rejected them and decreed to damn them for he loves all Men equally desires and wills the Conversion and Salvation of every Man alike unfeignedly and earnestly that God the Son manifested in the World who came in the World to save sinners dyed for all without difference intended to give himself a ransom for all and every one equally that the efficacy of the Holy Ghost and his Cooperation accompanying the Word calling Men out of the state of nature into the state of Grace is only by moral perswasion and that it is in the power of every Mans free-will to accept or reject this grace These are plausible but pernicious Errors against which I shall bring a few Scriptures to antidote and fortifie your judgments and establish them in the contrary truths 1. Touching the Decrees of God the Father's predestination the Scripture makes it absolute definite and irrevocable So as the number of the Elect can neither be increased or diminished The Foundation of the Lord standeth sure

your Ejection if it be so Why am I thus That you may be sure your cause is good and your heart sincere in that which you suffer for 3. If you had a doubting Conscience indeed against which it is unlawful and damnable to act and not a meer scruple against which Men may act yet you may finde cause enough why God should cast you out of his House and out of your own For you honour'd God in neither as you might have done And therefore ought to acknowledge with David Righteous art thou O God and just in thy Judgments I know O Lord that thy Judgments are right and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me 4. When you have humbled your Souls and made your peace with God by repenting of your neglect to husband time and talent while a price was in your hand Resolve to bear with humility and patience the Indignation of the Lord because you have sinned against him until he plead your cause and execute Judgment for you and believe that he will bring you forth again to the Light and you shall behold his righteousness i. e. his deliverance the effect of his faithfulness and love towards you and of his just severity against your and his enemies who intended not to execute his judgments for your sins whatever their pretence was and bless God that you are still permitted to live in the Land of your Nativity And that there are any who are willing to receive you into their Houses as Laban did Jacob when he was compelled to leave his Fathers House and Jethro Moses and the Shulamite Elisha and Lydia Paul And that none can drive you out of your divine habitation nor shall be ever able to separate you from his love in Jesus Christ wherein you lodge 3. To you that have convenient Houses and a competency of means to live upon Be perswaded to think your condition better than if you had fairer buildings and more abundant income and revenues Agar thought a mean estate best as appeares by his Prayer against riches as well as poverty Give me neither poverty nor riches feed me with food convenient for me As much as I shall need from Day to Day So we are taught to pray by our Saviour Give us this Day our Daily Bread The word signifies such a kind or quality as is fitting for our sustenance or beeing So much as is needful to be added thereto and no more Such a measure of goods of body and fortune so Men use to speak as is necessary comprehended by the Apostle under Food and Rayment This was all that Jacob desired of God If God will give me Bread to eat and Rayment to put on If the Query be What may be counted needful Answ 1. That which Nature requireth enough only to hold Life and Soul together from Hand to Mouth as they say 2. That which is meet for the state wherein God hath set us 3. That which is requisite for the charge committed to us 4. That which is apparently needful for the time to come If any provide not for his own especially those of his own House he hath denyed the faith and is worse than an Infidel No Mans desire must go beyond this Labour not to be rich Superfluity coveted is very dangerous They that will be Rich fall into Temptation and a Snare and into many foolish and hurtful Lusts which drown Men in destruction and perdition A moderate estate hath little danger and trouble much ease and comfort a plentiful one little or nothing of these much of those and therefore thank God that it is with you as it is nor do you or can you want plenty abiding in God for in him there is all fulness and enjoying him you possess all things yea you would do so if you had nothing as was said 4. To you who dwell in earthly Houses and have all earthly good things in abundance I have this word of exhortation Let your hearts be lift up with thankful acknowledgment of God's goodness in giving besides himself these outward blessings richly to enjoy When others nothing inferiour to you in grace and goodness are glad to dwell in poor Cottages and to feed on scraps yea to beg their Bread Who am I O Lord God and what is my House that thou hast brought me hitherto Thou preparest a Table before me thou anointest my Head with Oyle my Cup runneth over I am not worthy of all the Mercies and of all the truth which thou hast shewed unto thy Servant for with my Staff I passed over this Jordan and now I am become two Bands But let not your hearts be lifted up with pride because of your abundance Charge them that are rich in this World that they be not high-minded Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God Lest when thou hast eaten and art full and hast built goodly Houses and dwelt therein and when thy Herds and thy Flocks multiply and thy Silver and thy Gold is multiplyed and all that thou hast is multiplyed then thy Heart be lifted up See God in your fair edifices and sumptuous Furniture and large Revenues esteeming them as a beam of the bright Sun-shine of his favour you being enabled by his Grace to make them instrumental for his glory in the refreshing the bowels of his Saints and so to enjoy the good of them as to avoid the snare To use them not as hindrances but helps to a better life Consider withall how easie and quickly all you have may be brought to nothing Job this Morning the greatest Man for wealth of all the Men of the East and by Night was brought to poverty to a Proverb and therefore look upon all as transitory keeping your affections loose and all off from them And if they make themselves Wings and flie away as an Eagle towards Heaven let it trouble you as little as the sight of a Flock of Foul out of your Ground flying thitherward would do and rejoyce that with Mary You have chosen that good part that shall not be taken from you 5. To you who having dwelt in fair and goodly Houses which the Fire consumed are in your thought and purpose if not actually building as or more fair and goodly to dwell in in the same places where the former stood or else-where be exhorted 1. To bless the Lord your everlasting Habitation which preserved yours and all the Persons of your Families and so much of the movable Goods in your Houses and Shops from that raging Element That you have still wherewith to subsist comfortably and are in a condition of Rebuilding Acknowledge it to be of the Lord's Mercies that your selves and all yours Persons and things were not consumed That so many lives and so much substance is given to you for a Prey 2. To take heed to your selves that none of these evils no degree of them which are