Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	wonderful_a	work_n	world_n	95	3	3.9734	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55143	A sermon preached at the funeral of Mr. Jos. Glanvil late rector of Bath, and chaplain in ordinary to His Majesty, who dyed at his rectory of Bath, the fourth of November, 1680, and was buried there the ninth of the same month / by Jos. Pleydell ...	Pleydell, Josiah, d. 1707.	1681 (1681)	Wing P2569; ESTC R17110	10,677	28

will disappoint our expectation by their transcendency as much as in all other fruitions their emptiness is wont to do So that Eternity though but a circumstance which does only superinduce a kind of extremity or perfection to what it is conjoyn'd with and may as well be drawn in to enhanse our misery for what more than this makes the condition of the damn'd so horribly dreadful whereby they are excluded from all hope the very seed and lowest degree of felicity Yet is it so necessary to what we are speaking of as that without it those joys of Heaven though otherwise absolute and infinite would suffer a contradiction and become imperfect And that not only for the future but the present by introducing such passions as must needs debase and allay the highest delights So that by being thus secur'd in the possession of our happiness we receive thereby an unspeakable addition to it II. Proceed we next to shew you the Security and Evidence upon which this happiness is promis'd and asserted and whether it bear any proportion to our duty and the Rewards of it for so we are allow'd to call them though not upon the account of merit yet by reason of their necessary connexion with dependance upon and that kind such a one as 't is of proportion they bear to each other There is a two-fold evidence God Almighty has given us for the strengthning of our hope and confirming of our faith in the belief and expectation of the other World The first moral grounded upon the testimony of the Spirit the other I call natural and is grounded in the things themselves 1. The first evidence of our future bliss is the testimony of the Spirit express in the Text Yea saith the Spirit But then we must have a care of what kind of Testimony of the Spirit we understand it for understand it as 't is vulgarly taken for some act or operation wrought in and upon us besides the Enthusiasm of it fain would I be satisfy'd what validity can there be in such a testimony as it self needs something else to confirm it for so this testimony of the Spirit is to be tryed by its concordance and agreement to the word of God nor do I know any other way to distinguish it from a motion or suggestion of the Devil 's besides And though to err thus in this single instance may not be very pernicious for I am not mighty solicitous how it was wrought so there be a firm perswasion in us of this truth yet in other cases I know how dangerous it is nor is it safe in this for it leaves a passage open and unguarded to down-right Atheism By the testimony of the Spirit therefore I understand the word of God or the Scriptures as made known and prov'd to us to deriv'd from this Divine Spirit which we may call the outward testimony thereof for though St. Iohn knew this by the other way as most certainly all others did who received any Revelation yet never was any other than the person himself assur'd that way Nor do I make degrees of more or less certainty in the way or manner of the Spirit 's revealing a thing for the Apostles were as well assur'd of the infallibility of their doctrine before they wrought any miracles as we are by them but we were not nor could be so But this notwithstanding in respect of us we must admit of such degrees for no body I hope will be so blasphemous to equal such private dictates they have in their own breast to the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures So then I make this to be the moral evidence of future happiness God hath said it in his word And this I call a moral certainty not in opposition to divine and infallible as they are sometimes contradistinguish'd but only to natural for we can desire no greater evidence we cannot have a higher confirmation of any truth than the veracity of Heaven to attest it I do not know any proposition that carries greater self-evidence than this That God ought to be believ'd in what he says and therefore though we may question the truth of the Revelation 't is impossible to do so of any thing we acknowledge to be so revealed So that the stress of this point lyes upon that great and necessary praecognitum in our Religion namely the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures Upon which postulate if we proceed there is as great certainty of the truth of this proposition That good men shall enjoy eternal happiness after this life as if we should again hear that Daughter of voice and God himself should sensibly attest it 2. But there is another ground or evidence of our future happiness which I call natural because it depends upon that Intrinsick Relation and consent there is between goodness and it the difference between them being only in degree like the dawning of the Morning to the lustre of the Noon For what is it to be happy but to be united to God and what does unite us to God but Love and what is the love of God but Religion And if you remove but all inward imperfections and all outward impediments there remains no difference at all So that Virtue and Piety do not only dispose and prepare us for Heaven and Salvation but we thereby receive and experience the very beginnings and anticipations of it And though in respect of the mutability of our will and affections toward God and goodness in this world we cannot be infallibly assur'd of it as to our own particulars because every alteration in the one produceth a like answerable effect as to the other Yet in the general we may even from hence be very well assur'd hereof because there is nothing more requir'd to the compleating of our essential happiness than an advance and progression in the same vertuous tract And however it looks in a Divine if we will speak rationally to the thing we must allow the love and hatred of God to be the true natural causes of our salvation and damnation even of their very eternity it being naturally impossible to be other than happy while we love God and contrariwise if we hate him and this is the only instant cause of its continuation through all the durations of Eternity And to remove your astonishment see how in this lower world many stupendous and admirable works are daily produc'd which were mean and unnoted while they lay hid and contain'd in the seminal beginnings after the same wonderful manner by divers minute gradations does this divine Creature grow up from its first formation in our trembling and unstable desires to the stature and perfection of Everlasting Glory And yet there remains less doubt if we take in the Consideration of the Divine nature How else will you vindicate the Justice of God in all the odd and confused occurrences of this World Where 's your infinite goodness and bounty that suffers its servants always to

be neglected what will become of an almighty and omniscient Justice if sinners are never call'd to an accompt Or one or t'other cannot be III. 'T is true indeed the compleating of this bliss which brings us to our next head is neither promis'd nor to be had in this life 'T is at Death these rewards become due and payable Dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo supremáque funera possit It has been the constant method of Divine providence to cause the most excellent things to follow and arise from the most uncouth and unlikely Thus in the Creation order springs from confusion and the Light is made to attend the darkness Contrary to the methods observ'd by Nature where the causes are ever more worthy than their effects from their first beginning downward Now as he is pleas'd to transcend and deviate from the tracts and capacities of natural Agents thereby to assert his Prerogative and render his omnipotency more conspicuous to the world So is he no less delighted to use the same recesses in displaying his Grace evermore ushering in his mercies with the Black Rod thereby inhansing and endearing our subsequent refreshments And though the goodness of those celestial inhabitants and the happiness of their condition need neither foyl nor artifice to render that or their acknowledgements of the Divine favour greater Yet however if we consider these things as a reward and incouragement of our obedience the proceeding thus is but regular and necessary that we should do our work before we receive our wages and finish our undertaking before we demand satisfaction Earnest and Security Heaven has vouchsaf'd us but to deposite the whole in hand this were not to encourage but bribe our Obedience This were to destroy Morality and turn Vertue into Nature Nor yet is the Divine goodness less communicable in this life but we are not so capable of receiving it For look as in Nature neither the single excellency of the Object or the Agent alone is sufficient to produce any notable effect but both are requir'd So likewise in Religion all the effects of the divine grace and bounty though that be free and infinite are limited and determin'd by our capacities and reception So that while our Appetites those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are call'd in Scripture that are to be the receptacles of all this Glory are either replenish'd with the vain and sinful objects of this Life or are straitned and contracted by the weakness and imperfection of this dull and lumpish matter they must be rid of the one and devested of the other and then we should be instantly happy You have seen the happiness of the Christian man there are indeed encouragements of another nature namely earthly blessings and temporal rewards our whole present interest unless it happen to interfere at any time with the other Religion has descended to the securing of these too and that not only by moral designation but by a proper and natural efficiency so that we cannot better prosecute our present interest than by the methods of Religion And by this gracious and happy complication of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together they are made to become helpful and assisting to each other serving reciprocally as a means or motive either to other But this encouragement is neither proper nor adequate to Christianity since it may be as well pursu'd by natural as by divine rules better perhaps by diabolical arts than either nothing experimentally so inriching men as sordidness oppression and other violences and frauds The Devil in all likelihood giving the fairest prospect and most likely possession of the Kingdoms and glory of this world But they are things I have shewn you of a nature infinitely more sublime that Christianity propounds to its observers The rewards of our Religion exceeding as well the capacities of our Nature as all those other things To the attainment whereof as all vicious practices are extremely contrary so have all the others Philosophick transactions been miserably vain Some weak and glimmering light the Heathen had of these things which it is not certain whether they collected from some fragments of tradition or extracted from the principles of natural reason but which way ever it came it was so weak and imperfect as serv'd to shadow not help to discover but eclipse the transcendent excellency of that State till as the Great Apostle of the Gentiles saith Life and Immortality were brought to light by the Gospel And indeed without this all other proposals were unsuitable to its professors and disproportionate to the difficulty and severities of Religion Cicero saith None ought to be deem'd a vertuous or a just man that will be allur'd affrighted from his duty by any advantage or disadvantage whatever But who trow ye would abide both these upon no other consideration than barely to have acted according to the sentiments of right Reason or in hope to acquire an insignificant fame of Vertue of which they could have no knowledge or remembrance after death And for this cause I judge the Stoicks more absurd in their morals than the Epicureans considering the principles that is upon which they built For 't is the premise and not the inference of theirs that 's so urg'd by the Apostle Let us eat and drink 1 Cor. 15. 32. But now the Christian Religion propunds such overtures to our Obedience and Patience as may justly and reasonably encourage us thereunto IV. For a Conclusion let us take in the Importance of that Phrase of dying in the Lord which relates primarily to Martyrdome but must also be extended to as many as live and dye in the faith of the Holy Jesus The result of all is this That we would so consider this happiness as every of our great interest that we forfeit not our propriety therein by a vicious and sinful life There 's nothing else can render it hazardous or doubtful but that which indeed in the very nature of the thing renders it impossible Let us not repeat Esau's folly sell our birth-right for a trifle and for the sake of some pitiful lust proscribe our selves out of our celestial inheritance Neither let us contemn our happiness for being feasible Were wilful poverty and certain Martyrdome part of our duty and inseparable appendages of our Religion there is tentation enough in the proposals to make us conflict with the greatest difficulties and overcome them When Christianity was thus attended and had nothing else to recommend it self to the world besides the reasonableness of its injunctions with what holy violence did those blessed Saints storm Heaven and with a strange eagerness pursue Martyrdome But now as if the fervour of our Devotion were only kindled and maintain'd by Antiperistasis Now I say the Impediments are remov'd and Religion is become a part of our Civil obedience and made necessary to our secular interests and guarded with a great many other temporal Phylacteries men are yet more hardly wrought upon to be Religious the consideration of a single lust shall be able to weigh down all And if any would seem to have a greater zeal for it than ordinary as if they were in love with the troubles of Religion and not the thing they suffer their heat to spend it self in little piques and contentions and about things of none or ill moment in maintaining of parties and opposing their Superiours and not in Devotion Obedience Charity Humility and the like as they ought In short Christians let the thoughts of this blessedness excite our affections Heaven-ward and quicken our endeavours Let it animate us against all difficulties and buoy us up above all adversities Let it cheer us in our duty quiet us in affliction and comfort us in death That so living unto Christ we may at last dye in him and in the end be for ever blessed And now to accommodate all to our present case It has pleas'd God to take away this extraordinary man for such considering all things we must needs allow him and because 't was somewewhat early I think of Dr. Hammond's notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text the sooner the better the better for him no doubt I had once thought to have given you his Character but I am not asham'd to tell you I found me not able to do it worthy of him And calling to mind a saying of one of the Roman Historians I soon desisted from any further attempt of it who when he was reckoning up some of the great men of that age Virgil and Ovid Livie and Salust and going to commend them stops and concludes thus But of men of Eminency as their admiration is great so is their censure full of difficulty As to those Relations that are more nearly interessed in this solemnity I would beseech them to remember that all Indecency and excess of Grief for our deceased friends must needs reflect upon the memory of the dead or the discretion of the survivers God enable them to bear it And supply this loss to them by his Grace and Providence Let me say and to the Church of England by increasing the number of such men of no worse Learning Integrity and Courage that are able and dare defend her against the encroachments of Popery and Fanaticisme Now to God only wise be Glory through Iesus Christ for ever Amen FINIS 1 Ep. c. 2. v. 9. 2 Ep. ch 12. v. 4. Joh. 17. 3. Phil. 1. 23. 1 Tim. 1. 10.