Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	according_a	act_n	act_v	270	4	7.5641	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66422	A sermon preach'd before the King at Whitehall, on January 30, 1696 by John Lord Bishop of Chichester ...	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1697 (1697)	Wing W2729; ESTC R7460	12,789	33

wickedly Killed and that ye are not Idolaters and Persecutors as they and say If we had been in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets but you will so far outdo them that ye will Kill and Crucify those whom I shall send and reject the last tender of Divine Mercy and thereby bring upon your selves ruin as inexpressible as irreversible For think of all the Blood of Pious and Just Men that has been shed through all Ages of the World think of that of Abel and of Zacharias and all that ye can think of and yet the case will hold no comparison with what ye will do in Persecuting Killing and Crucifying the Prophets and Wise Men that shall be sent to you and also Him that sends them And if the Blood of Abel cried for vengeance and that of Zacharias was required of your Progenitors Then what will not fall upon this Generation It will be such as was not from the beginning of the creation It will be such as if all the Blood of the Prophets and of Righteous Men from Abel downward to that of Zacharias were required of you Behold I send unto you prophets and wise men c. that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth verily these things shall come upon this generation In Discoursing upon which Argument I shall shew I. That it often happens to the Best of Men to be Opposed and Persecuted and Despitefully used in this World II. That this is consistent with the Providence of God and his Government of the World III. That in the sequel God doth right to his Providence and to their Piety and Virtue by extraordinary Events I. It often happens to the best of Men to be Opposed and Evil-Treated I shall not go about to prove that which is matter of Fact and has been the constant Observation of all Ages more or less We need not go farther for the confirmation of it than the Instances of the Text Abel and Zacharias and the rest of the Righteous Men upon Record Or than the sad Instance which this Day sets before us when a Person as Eminent for his Piety as his Character and Dignity was treated as if he had been the Off-scouring of all things and was as many of the Righteous Men of Old Persecuted and Slain And the Causes are as observable as the Fact and of which there are as many as there are Prejudices and Misunderstandings contrary Passions and Interests As long as there are Ambition and Pride Envy and Malice Covetousness on one hand or expensive Vices on another As long as there are contrary Habits which are the Principles that rule in all Mankind there will be Enmities and Oppositions and if Virtue and Religion and the Best of Men are against Persons in these Circumstances they will then retaliate the Injury and be against Virtue and Religion and the best of Men. For then it is not what the thing is in it self but what it is as to them and it often is not because it is Religion or Virtue or the Best of Men that they thus Despitefully use them but because they are opposite to their Interest or their Inclination or sometimes are to their Reproach Then it is that the Pharisees are for condemning our Saviour when they thought that the Romans would come and take away both their place and nation And especially is this of the more fatal and pernicious consequence if this Spirit be edged on by a false and mistaken Zeal and Religion is pretended to by some to face an evil design and is believed by others to be concerned in it and is in danger to suffer For then this doth as they will have it justify and establish the Contention and make it to be necessary Then they think it laudable and meritorious even to kill when in their Opinion it is to do God service It is then a Cause fit to venture their own life in and a Cause that will oblige them to take away that of another Nay it will even serve to break through the Laws of Nature it self and will have them to put those to Death whom Nature would otherwise teach to Preserve and with the hazard of their own Life to save from it Thus it was foretold by our Saviour The brother shall deliver up the brother to death and the father the child c. By these and the like means the Best of Men too often fall under the heavy hand of Violence and Oppression and if we were then to judge of them by the usage they meet with they must have been the worst of Mankind A case which hath tempted some to question and others to deny a Providence But this without reason if there be nothing in these Proceedings and Events but what is consistent with the Divine Oversight and Government of the World II. Which is the next thing to be Discoursed of The Providence of God is seen in Preserving all things in the same State and Order as at the first establishment And as he ordinarily leaves Natural Causes and necessary Agents to act according to their proper Nature and to keep to the Law and the Season at the first appointed and prescribed so he generally leaves voluntary and intelligent Beings to follow their own Inclinations and to Chuse and Resolve and Act as they shall see meet And if it happens that such Agents proceed upon wrong Principles or mistaken Measures it is no more than if in meer Natural Causes there are some Preternatural Accidents happen through the concourse of different parts of Matter together And if sometimes Good Men are left to their own Precipitance as Josiah when he was not to be disswaded from Attacking Pharaoh-Necho and Wicked Men are left to their own Perverseness and Obstinacy as Pharaoh or to their Pride as the Haughty Assyrian and they perish in it This in the Voluntary World is no more extraordinary than when there is Seed-time and Harvest in the Natural World that is that each acts according to the Nature they are of and the Condition they are in And it is no imputation upon Providence if in this way Good Men or the Best of Men fall sometimes into hard Circumstances when Causes are left to their own tendency and are as it were in their own Power For Nature is but Nature and to keep Nature in its course is an Act of Providence to keep Stated and Permanent Beings in their Station and Order and Transient in a continued Succession and Voluntary in their own Power and Liberty is a special Fruit of the Divine Providence But I confess if there were no more and that Providence were a meer Supervisor it would not be the Providence worthy of so Divine a Power nor so worthy of that Veneration we owe to it There is therefore a more noble part of it behind and that is That