Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	wonder_n	wonder_v	work_n	29	3	4.8240	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52861	The nature & causes of hardness of heart, together with the remedies against it discovered in a sermon, preached first before the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn, and afterwards before the University in Great St. Maries Church in Cambridge / by Robert Neville ...	Neville, Robert, 1640 or 1-1694.	1683 (1683)	Wing N522; ESTC R7881	10,589	26

12th verse and with a small retinue flying from his Son Absalom his Guards about him being then so small and inconsiderable that Shimei thought he might safely vomit out his rancour and fury against him In all which and the like actions God derogates nothing from his Justice these Occasions which God Presents being in themselves harmless though wicked men abuse them And this may suffice for the Second thing I was to shew you namely How and When God without any impeachment to his Justice may be said to Harden the Heart I Proceed now to shew you THIRDLY What are the Properties of a Hard Heart and the FIRST Property of a Hard Heart is this that it doth not yield to any means of grace For First It cannot be prevailed upon by the word of God which is a Powerful Agent the Preacher that speaks to obdurate Sinners speaks to Rocks rather than Men the Earth will sooner tremble than they Illis Robur Aes triplex circa pectus Their Hearts are so guarded with the Armour of Obduration that the Word of God though it be a two-edged Sword cannot enter into them Though God hath ordained a Function of men by whom he does beseech them though he arms their Messages and Doctrines with such Terrors as makes the very Devils tremble and joyns his holy Spirit too sends him in tongues of Fire that he also may preach to them and fright them with more flame yet Hardned Sinners break these Strengths and vanquish all the Arts and Strivings of the Almighty and though Gods Ambassadours flash Hell fire against their Vices in torrents of Scripture threatnings and Comminations they concern themselves no more than they would at the story of a new eruption of Aetna or Vesuvius their Hearts are turned into Stone into pure Mine and Quarry and thereupon such as Preach to them may be said to be damnati ad Metalla that old Roman Punishment condemned like slaves to dig in these Mines and Quarries So that as Cato Censorius paved the Courts of Judicature with sharp stones that men might not delight in Law-suits So the Courts of the Lords House are often paved with Hard Hearts that the Preacher might be discouraged from Preaching There is so much Ice in mens hearts there hath been so long a winter in their affections which are chill and dull to all goodness that the word of God which is said to be * Jerem. 23.29 A FIRE cannot thaw or melt them And as a hard heart cannot be prevailed upon by the word of God So neither Secondly Will it be wrought upon by Gods good Spirit for though it cannot hinder the grace of God from shining upon it yet it may and often does hinder the workings and Operations of that grace and receives the grace of God in vain and * Heb. 10.29 DOES DESPIGHT TO THE SPIRIT OF GRACE and abuses and * Jude 4. TURNS THE GRACE OF GOD INTO WANTONNESS It was strange that Christ when he was upon Earth Converted so few the Evangelist wonder'd at it John 12.37 THOUGH HE HAD DONE SO MANY MIRACLES AMONG THEM YET THEY BELIEVED NOT IN HIM BUT he satisfies the wonder and gives the reason of it out of the Prophet Isaiah THEREFORE THEY COULD NOT BELIEVE BECAUSE THEIR HEARTS WERE HARDNED Their Hardness was the cause of their small progress in believing Engravers upon stone cannot rid much work they that Point and Polish Diamonds use much grinding to wear away a little unevenness And then Thirdly The hard heart will not be wrought upon by the mercy of God God's Mercy to Pharaoh hardned his Heart * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 HE HARDNED HIM BY HIS MERCY AND FORBEARANCE BY RESPITING HIS PUNISHMENT saith St. Basil The Hardned Sinner shrowds his Sins under the wings of Gods mercy He makes Gods mercy his Protection in Sin Accustomed dangers escaped harden the Sinner oftentimes to a Stupidity The ruder Marriners that have weathered out several storms will steal blaspheme and be drunk in the next tempest And Dion Cassius tells us that Catiline being accused for the murders and rapines committed on those whom Sylla had proscribed and escaping the condemnation under which others fell for the same Crimes * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 DID FROM THIS GROW MUCH WORSE The Hardned Sinner COMMITS the Attributes of God and as it were raises a Contest and Dispute between them and to all declarations of his future Justice he opposes that God is mercifull that satisfied with his own rectitude he descends not to mark mens follies and thus he baffles Gods Veracity with his Clemency and makes his long-suffering wear out the sense of his Justice How far such foolish Collections as these will prevail to harden mens hearts the Wise man tell us Eccles. 8.11 BECAUSE SENTENCE AGAINST AN EVIL WORK IS NOT SPEEDILY EXECUTED THEREFORE THE HEARTS OF THE SONS OF MEN ARE FULLY SET IN THEM TO DO EVIL Such is the hard-hearted Sinners misery that God cannot look friendly upon him but by his too much presuming upon it he ruines and undoes himself Heavens shining and smileing hurts him more than its lowring the longer the Hardned Sinner looks upon the Sun of Gods mercy he gathers the more spots and impairs the beavty of his Soul God is forced to be a tyrant to obdurate Sinners He must be always whipping and scourging them and till they are mollified and bettered by stripes He cannot in mercy remove his rod His taking away his plagues from them would be a greater Plague to them And then Fourthly A Hard Heart cannot sometimes be wrought upon by Gods Judgments As Gods mercy cannot draw it so his Judgments cannot drive it from Sin It is an insensate unrelenting Anvil to the heaviest Strokes of the Divine Vengeance It does like the Roman Emperour Caligula 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thunder back against God and shoot up a sin a provocation against Heaven for every arrow of Judgment shot down from Heaven It undervalues Gods Power Hector's and Braves his Omnipotence it continues to affront God to his face after all his Judgments as if he had wasted all his thunderbolts emptied his Quiver and broke his Sword in the last encounter and were like those poor Animals who lose their sting in the first wound they give He that should have seen the Tragical iniquity we read of in the City of Lyons which was so visited with the Pestilence that the Dead without a Figure buried their Dead falling down one upon another each being at once both a Carkass and a Grave He I say that should have seen this and observ'd withal that the Souldiers daily issued out of the Cittadel and deflowred Virgins even whilst they were giving up the ghost defiled Matrons even already dead COMMITTING with the dust warming the grave with sinful heats and coupling with the Plague and Death would certainly have been amazed to see men so hardned in sin as to Suffer and Sin together And thus