Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	call_v	scripture_n	word_n	1,394	5	4.1742	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27606	Evangelical repentance unto salvation not to be repented of upon 2 Cor. 7, 10 ; and as most seasonable, Short considerations on that great context Hebr. 12, 26, \"Yet once more I shake not only Earth, &c.\" : upon the solemn occasion of the late dreadful earthquake in Jamaica and the later monitory motion of the earth in London, and other parts of the nation and beyond the sea ; whereunto is adjoined a discourse on death-bed repentance, on Luc. 22, 39 / by T. Beverly.	Beverley, Thomas.	1693 (1693)	Wing B2148_PARTIAL_CANCELLED; Wing B2140_CANCELLED; ESTC R17858	162,555	326

is Supernaturally and in the same manner to set Bars to or hinder their Motions Ezek. 1.19.20 Now that there are such Supernatural Agents the very Evidences of rational and even sensible Experiments compel the stoutest Gainsayers to confess but as they bid defiance to all Things for the sake of their Atheistic Sentiments Answ 2. He that Knows all his Works from the very Foundation of the World and foresees All Causes and Effects could with the same Ease ballance them for their just Time both as to particular Persons and Nations with their Sins filling up their measure and so that All should roll down to their highest Effects at that time when he will once more shake not only Earth but Heaven also even at that Time of Trouble and Day of Battel and War as it is most Prophetically call'd Job 38.22.23 compar'd with Dan. 12.1 Mat. 24.21 and Revel 16.14 the same Spirit that dictated All Fitting the very Words one to another in these Scriptures Object 2. But still If this be allowed that such natural Causes and Effects are adjusted for the Purposes of Divine Judgment and even for that Dissolution of this present Frame Why at this Time Answ 1. Such a Time according to all Scripture and Reason must be at some Time and why may it not be now so near Answ 2. The very Time since the Coming of Christ first in the Flesh being almost 1700 Years ago was call'd the Fulness of Time what then can be after it but the Ends of the World the Last Day the Last Hour running apace to the Fulness of all Times Gal. 4.4 and Ephes 1.10 Answ 3. Mens Heats in all the Business of this World Buying Selling Planting Building the Little Faith on Earth it is near are no Arguments it is not near for these are foretold to be even at the nearest Approaches of that Day Answ 4. But in sum The Sure Word of Prophecy and Line of Time according to Scripture in full Agreement with History as I have so often affirm'd is my Grand Assurance Object 3. But those Words of our Lord's Marc. 13.32 Of that Day and Hour knoweth none c. contradict any such Calculation making known that Time Answ I affirm upon greatest Evidences of Scripture Reason The Son having all Judgment committed to him and the Spirit resting upon him without measure did know of that Day and of that Hour but in that Par●bolical Speech Christ acknowledges the Supreme Dominion of the Divine Being which is so often said to have the Panto-Cratorate the Almighty Ordination of that Day and the so unfathomable stupendious Process of it As the Revelation or Bringing All Things to pass in order to it is said to be given by God to Jesus Christ to shew to his Servants and the Conduct of them originally in God is given to him even so the Knowledge of the Time and the Administration of that Day Object 5. But the contrary Prevalencies of that French Prince the so great Enemy of the Witnesses who keeps them now from Rising shews That Time is not so near Answ As God gives in all Ages such Dominion and Greatness to some Princes that no Confederacies can withstand it as to Nebuchadnezzar Alexander Caesar Mahomet so hath he given much Greatness to that Monarch but when such Time of those Princes came and so of this Prince that they must have End At that very Time as they so he must end and none shall help it nor any precedent Greatness stay him up Answ 2. An Universal Monarchy is Embarrassed to him He shall never be more than one of the Ten Kings till he or his Successors with the Rest shall hate the Whore As Prophecy so Providence hath Embarrassed him as with a Band of Iron and so far the Confederacy or some other certain Interposal shall prevail till then Answ 3. We are not earnest enough in Prayer we curtail the Time of Humiliation and seeking God especially in that strongest Argument of his Kingdom Oh that this Counsel might be acceptable to the King and to the Counsels of the Nation and the Ministry of all Names that we might by earnestest and loudest Prayers of a Winters Humiliation and seeking him by Fasting and Supplication prepare for a Summers Action and not grutch God the Time Answ 4. He hath had the usual Space allowed to such notorious Enemies of the People of God And give me leave to use it as an Emblem tho not as a Forebode As Divine Providence commanded so great a Leviathan or Whale which he calls King over the Children of Pride from Playing in the Ocean where he had room enough in the pursuit of his Prey to come and strand himself and dye on the Shore of Scot●and the Twin Island of our Great Britain even so he will shortly work his Signs and Wonders in Heaven and Earth that he may abase such Tyrannick Leviathans walking in Pride For the Time is near and All however it seems otherwise shall be ready A King shall Reign in Righteousness and Persons compar'd to the Basest Vilest shall no more be called Most Christian most Serene Magnificent Beneficent But there shall be a Breaking out of the Glory of the Gospel The Tongue of the Stammerers shall speak plain The Lame shall leap as an Hart. The Ears of the Deaf shall hear The Esay 29. c. 32 c. 35. Eyes of the Blind shall see out of obscurity The very Ears of the Deaf shall hear the Words of that Book of Prophocy which the Learned will not now meddle with because say they It is Sealed nor the Vnlearned because they are not Learned Abundance of Converts shall be brought in Foolish Virgins shall be made Wise and not Err in the way called the way of Holiness and no ravenous Beast shall be there any more for ever Let us then to sum up all Seek him who made the Seven Stars and Orion Amos 5.8 who makes the Day dark with Night and yet turns the shadow of Death into Morning who calls for the Waters of the Sea commands them out and pours them on the face of the Earth who rends the Rocks with his mighty Winds and shakes the Earth out of its place 1 Sam. chap. 2. and Thunders down with his Fire upon the wicked 1 Kings 19.11 and comes himself in the Still Voice of his Kingdom And hereof he hath given notice as he saw good with dread of Wrath on Jamaica as an Emblem of the Day of Judgment on the World of Vngodly which as it should stir up the Remnant that are there escaped even as our Selves to deep Repentance so it should excite us to all Acts of Mercy to them and Prayers for them To us he hath sent as it were the Still Voice to let us know he is coming himself to which the Earth mov'd it self in token of Obeisance FINIS THE GENERAL INEFFICACY AND INSINCERITY Of a Late Or Death-Bed Repentance WITH Earnestest Dissuasives from committing our

solid Floor and Pavement to move upon such a Bed to rest upon Upon this Earth is the whole Vegetative Nature both nourished and supported as in a Nursery even from the Cedar in Lebanon to the Hysop that grows in the Wall Hereon have all the Great Buildings the Palaces Castles Towers multiplied into Cities and Towns their Foundations Now seeing all these have their Order their Quiet their Safety by the steddiness of the Earth whenever it is moved there is an immediate Shatter Confusion Disorder Desolation an Amaze a Horror upon all Creatures of Sense and especially of Reason an Affrightment and Terror upon Nature it self because hereby the great Laws and Sanctions of Creation and Providence are violated For concerning the Earth God spake and it was done he commanded and it stood fast Psal 33.9 3. The Earth is stuff'd with variety of Matter Humours and Vapors in its Bowels Fire Water Vapor Air Minerals Sulphur Piceous Matter Now it self is so made as to lye close and to lye still every clod of Earth compacts it self and would lye in as little room as it can It is heavy and sluggish and unapt to move whereas all the rest of its Inmates are for Motion and Action some of them of very earnest and vigorous Motion and for Propagation and Enlargement of themselves The Earth will not move but on some great violence and force so when those working and active Parts find they are fettered and imprisoned and cramp'd they grow furious and outragious and rend and tear every thing to make and force their way and all on the sudden and at once very often for being either gather'd together in great Caverns and Hollows of the Earth their Room grows too strait and little and so they are forc'd to transplant themselves or having as one may say very often a Spirit of Contradiction one to another they fall into Feuds and Wars one with another and they that are overcome and fall under the Mastery of others are forc'd and driven and made to fly out with great violence and the very same thing may fall out in divers lesser Veins and Tubular Passages or Pipes in the Earth where though the Stores of these Vapors or Mineral Spirits are lesser yet if it be in many of them together the Contest may be very great and the Fury very discomposing to the Earth Thus there are within the Earth those Bombs and Mortars those Cannon and Ordnance those Battering Rams and Engines those Mines oft sprung and natural Gun-powder and fiery Bullets those lesser Screwed Guns all which are the Ammunition of Nature or rather of the God of Nature Thus when they are discharg'd and let off it is with great Noise Dread and Astonishment and oftentimes Destruction to the Inhabitants of the Earth Who almost hath not heard of Aetna and Vesuvius and other the Mountains spouting Fire in several Parts of the World And as there are such constant known and open Eruptions in Nature so are there secret sudden and extemporary ones And thus in the Heavens over us there are like Contests and Collisions falling and clapping of Clouds Thunders Lightnings fiery Meteors and flaming Balls and these often corresponding and as it were holding Intelligence with the same in Earth And these are certainly often Causes one of another by the Tone or Link of Air being broken and the Elastic Force or Spring of it flying this way and that way as lately in Jamaica according to the most prudent Accounts from thence Every thing then must needs be torn and havock'd as those Motions hurry this way or that way Persons Animal Creatures and Things at such times And as these are in the World of Nature so are they in the Political World when Nations or People are too full for their Place and transplant themselves by forcing into other Nations when Wars those great Disputes of Nations arise when People or Armies fall into Mutiny these are Political Earthquakes and when Men are oppressed in Religion by domineering Superstition and Laws of Vniformity and imposing on the Consciences and Faith of Men There are Religious Earthquakes The Psalmist puts them altogether Psal 65.7 8. Which setteth fast the Mountains being girded with Power which stillest the noise of the Seas the noise of their Waves and the multitude of the People This God does in Mercy when he keeps all quiet but there are Times when all these being in Hubbub and Mutiny the Mountains shake and roar together with the Seas and Waves and the Multitude of People in their Strivings who are therein emphatically called the Mobile that They that dwell in the uttermost Parts are afraid of these Tokens thus from one end of Nations or even of the World to another there arise dreadful Fears at the Tokens of God unhinging the World called therefore Prodigies and Portents For what Interest God hath in these shall be spoken in the next Particular I only observe further There are in the Little World by the wrestling of contrary Humours in the Bodies of Men such Spoutings of Fire as in Fevers such Deluges of Water as in Dropsies such Earthquakes in violent Diseases such sulphureous Vapors in horrid Melancholies or Fits or in the Arteries and Sinews as in Gouts and Rheumatisms in those Arthritical Pains in the strait and close Tubes of the Body such Swimmings of the Head as resemble what hath been spoken of in the outer World but above all in Consciences 4. Let all these things be trac'd as much as they can to their natural Causes yet Scripture ascribes all to God Psal 148.8 Fire Hail Snow Vapor all fulfil his Word He worketh his Signs and Wonders among the Armies of Heaven and the Inhabitants of the Earth and none can stay his hand for all the Inhabitants of the Earth are reputed as nothing in such a Case Dan. 4.35 except he pleases to stay it himself or can say to him What dost thou As if they should say What dost thou mean who hast made Heaven and Earth and preservest it to put it into these Disorders But he gives no Account of his matters in these Things And seeing he holds all natural Causes in his hand and ballances them every moment what is it to say All these Things have their proper Causes but to say in true sense that God does all These for all Nature is indeed Miracle constant and as we say in ordinary But God indeed does in more lofty Style and Elegancies and Eloquences of Language assume to himself the Government of these affrightful Motions in Heaven or Earth Thunders Lightnings Earthquakes throughout Scripture as if they were immediately done by his own hand as if he took this Globe of Earth and Sea which he hath Hung upon nothing and shook it out of its place or as if he immediately shot off his great Pieces either in the Bowels of the Earth or in the Skies or sprung a Mine in the Earth And it must needs be so if

of Spirits what appalements of Mind and strong working of Thoughts must there needs be Much more if the Soul have any sense of its approach to the infinite Holiness of God at whose rebuke the Pillars of Heaven tremble whose presence astonishes the purer Spirits of Angels and beats down the Souls of good Men to the Dust as of Moses Heb. 12.21 Isai 6.5 Job 42.6 Dan. 10.8 Job Isaiah c. in his interviews with them How much more of those that have never thought of God and now must come near his Seat Nothing so composes the Soul to this amazing change of Condition and Converse as long continued Treaties with God through Christ when though Men change their place they do not change their company Job 24.17 Job 38.15 Others when this great light strikes them are in the very terrors of the shadow of death and shaken out of their place out of all the Security and quiet Sensuality they lived in Let us now take the estimate or avail of these things to true Repentance and we shall find when the Soul lies thus uncovered to the things of Eternity it hath natural Reasons for all it may seem to do like return to God and so that all argue nothing of the true Grace of God but if a Man were again in his former State he would be the very same he was For first as one thing strikes upon another with a natural Effect Light upon the Eye Sound upon the Ear so Eternal Things upon the Immortal Spirit when there is nothing between to intercept the stroke Further 1 John 2.16 when the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life are as a Scene removed and a Play at an end and instead of them another World drawing near just as Men defeated in all their attempts for Riches and Honours and beaten off from them to a private Life call all these things Cheats not out of true Reason but because they cannot reach them on the other side they praise Retirement and a Cloyster not that they like it but because they must live so which begets some kind of Contentedness so to live Thus and no otherwise do many Dying Men call all this World Vanity and profess an high Esteem for all things pertaining to that to come Cause 3. There is yet a more pressing Account of the most notable motions that were ever found in any of their Repentances viz. The awakenings of Conscience usual at this time because of the Sense of a Judgment while common Experience tells Men It is appointed to all Men once to die Heb. 9.27 and sinking Nature gives notice This is the time Conscience lifts up to the next thing After that the Judgment Now no Man sees Judgment a Judgment Omniscient Omnipresent Eternal without great shakes of Soul especially that hath done nothing seriously to agree with the adversary in the way Luk. 12.18 Conscience then rising up with the Awe of a Tribunal upon it stirs up all the Powers to fly from the Wrath that is to come by desires of Pardon and Resolutions of Amendment The very hearing of Judgment made such a one as Foelix tremble Acts 24.25 When Judgment seems to us at the other end of Heaven all is quiet but when Death brings us to the very seat of it how loud may be the cries for Mercy The bewailing the former evils of Life Now Men pour out their Complaints for the want of God the misimprovement of former time Now they make large offers of a strict and severe Mortification and Devotion to Religion Now they would give the thousand Rams the ten thousand Rivers of Oyl their first born for their Trasgression the fruit of their Body for the sin of their Soul Mic. 6.6 7. And yet all but the Eye opened to see the flaming Sword of Justice that makes even a Balaam wish to die the death of the Righteous Num. 22.32 cap. 23.10 and to have a latter End Sober Just Religious The very Suspition of a Judgment inclines Men thus far universally almost that hardly any choose to die in a Rant in a Madness but had rather by virtue and Religion be consigned over to another World and have their Eyes closed by Mercy and Grace in Christ They would see the Salvation of God and so depart in Peace Object 1. But it may be objected Seeing these granted to rise from true Conviction and not to be Dissimulation or counterfeit Pretence Why may not they have the worth of true Repentance Answ 1. To answer this Let me consider pure Conviction and enlightned Apprehension and the Affections begotten of them are no Argument of true Goodness where the Light hath not a benign and free Operation upon the Judgment an Allurement upon the Will an Indearment upon the Affections to turn them to a full Delight and Satisfaction in God and Holiness and to a dislike and abhorrence of Sin For else the Devils who believe and tremble Jam. 2.19 must be thought Converts For who have clearer sight of things than they Balaam whose Eyes were opened and spoke so great things of God and his People must be concluded a good Man Esau and Judas who had so sad apprehensions of Sin Matth. 27.4 Heb. 12.7 Dan. 4.17 and 6.26 Luk. 6.20 Acts 24.25 and their loss by it must be affirmed to be Penitents Nebucadnezar's and Darius his acknowledgments of God must be taken for true Grace Herod his hearing John Baptist gladly Felix his trembling at Paul's Discourse may be thought Evidences of true Repentance Object 2. But Secondly it may be supposed because these very Convictions and Affections are not universal but we see multitudes go out of the World without them carrying little better than a decent and civil Respect to Religion that therefore there is something of God something Heroick in them that have them Answ 2. This indeed may be no other than the wise and good Government of God over the World whereby he takes care there should be Testimonies of himself and the Goodness of his ways that Atheism and Wickedness may not carry it as if all were their own as if there were an unexceptionable Concurrence on their side against God and Holiness For as he receives witness from the constant gracious and religious Lives of good Men so he constrains some of them that have lived contrary to him all their lives to give him glory at last for the good of others though without saving benefit to themselves Which he may justly do and without any injury to them Seeing all the Service every Creature can do to him is infinitely due he may make use of that which is his own so far as he pleases And because what the word God puts in their mouths Num. 23.5 Matth. 12.35 is not their own not arising out of the good treasure of their hearts as appears in Balaam therefore their everlasting Condition is not determined by it but