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	faith_n	work_n	1,745	5	6.1448	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54946	An old way of ending new controversies in a sermon preached to the comptroller, and the rest of the gentlemen of the honourable society of the Inner-Temple, on Sunday the 8th of January 1681/2, and at their special desire printed / by Thomas Pittis ...	Pittis, Thomas, 1636-1687.	1682 (1682)	Wing P2315; ESTC R8604	14,972	44

Most High may take up the Lamentation of him that first gave them their Commission To whom shall we speak and give warning that they may hear Behold their Ear is Vncircumcised and they cannot hearken Behold the word of the Lord is to them a reproach they have no delight in it Jer. 6.10 Some indeed are much for the Ear attending to those scandals and reproaches that the envious man will cast upon him whom his malice ruins or his ambition undermines others even in Sacred things reduce devotion all to the Ear and when God principally requires the Heart in Prayer these will give little else but the Ear in Hearing being as partial in their Sacrifices towards God as they are in their Censures towards their Neighbours as if the Decalogue were now abolished and the only Command were Hear O Israel 'T was the error of the Euchites to be always Praying and 't is as great an error to be always Hearing as if the School of our Saviour should not only be enjoyned Biennial silence but be for ever mute Porphyry indeed that great Blaspemer big with malice against the Heavens when checks of Conscience forced him to speak out something of the results of his own Reason teacheth us to Sacrifice our Souls to God in silence with Chast thoughts How Chast men are at those seasons that ought to be attended with Solemnity and Devotion it would be presumption in any to judg but sure I am that they put in practice this sage advice of their Father Porphyry who thus pretend to Worship God in silence As if he that made the Tongue as well as the Ear did not require the one to make Oblations of Prayer and Praise as well as the other to Hear his Word or he that Created the whole man would be contented with a partial Sacrifice And now if any one has Ears to hear let him hear and not only so but retain also what he has heard so will the Exhortation in my Text be embraced Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning Having thus endeavoured to free mankind from such diseases and distempers in Religion I must now crave leave to attempt the recommendation of our duty and persuade men to the diligent attention to that Sacred Word which is able to make us wise unto Salvation and be greedy to receive it when not extended in an adulterated hand For as we cannot hear without a Preacher so he cannot Preach that is not sent Rom. 10.15 Some men are like those large tongued women in Tertullians time Tert. de prae Scrip. Hae. et cap. 41. who though a person of excellent Language was yet forced to inveigh against them that being so liberal of their Speech in Private conjectured they had if not Rhetorick and Reason yet yet words enough to declame in Publick whom the Father reprehends in this Prohibition Tert. de virg velandis cap. 9. Non permittitur mulieri in Ecclesiâ loqui sed nec docere nec tinguere nec offerre nec ullius virilis muneris nedum sacerdotalis officii sortem tibi vindicare or like those that St. Austin complains of in the second Chapter of his first Book of the Trinity that are garruli ratiocinatores elatiores quam capaciores that are pratling Disputants more shrill than rational How many dismal mourning souls whose Education never advanced them to any degree above Mechanism steal away the Priests Office as Neanthus did Orpheus's Harps who thinking to effect the same wonders Orpheus did and make Woods and Trees dance after his melody played so ill that the very Dogs being affrighted at his strange noise tore him all in pieces When we hear therefore we must not throw away our attention upon usurping Schismaticks whose very Preaching is their Crime because without a Sacred and Divine Commission and since giving them Audience is their encouragment it can no less involve such easie Auditors in a snare and guilt And yet since the Text exhibits something that always has been heard it does not only imply our duty of attention but presents us with what we ought to hear and that 's the Gospel what both the Apostles and Disciples were acquainted with from the beginning And since in that Sacred Testimony to our Saviour there are various Truths which make up its Contexture those things are first to be heard and received that are in themselves most Fundamental Primarium dogma de Christi divinitate says Justinian the chief Doctrine of the Divinity of our Saviour without which the Foundation being sunk the whole fabrick must of necessity be demolished For since his Divinity gives merit to his Passion by which his temporal punishment bears proportion to an infinite offence detract from his Deity and you spot his sufferings and then if he be a Lamb with blemish though he be slain he cannot satisfie and so the series of our Salvation becomes disordered and our eternal safety undermined And now perhaps some wise person might take advantage to exhibite or adventure at a Catalogue of Fundamentals and a clamorous Adversary might with as much confidence and triumph demand them but when we receive a particular of Explicits we may then attempt a Catalogue of Fundamentals In the mean time since Faith is the general condition of the Gospel and He that believeth and and is baptised shall be saved Mark. 16.16 Methinks we need disturb our selves no further for Fundamentals than to define what compleats that one thing Faith And though Interest and Opinion have rendered it as different from it self as one mans fancy from another and we have created almost as many varieties of Faith not only as there are Nations in the world but men too multitudes dealing by it as Caligula did by the Image of Jupiter Olympiacus when he took from it its head of Gold and put upon it an head of Brass yet if we will admit the Father of the Faithful to explain the difficulty we shall find that the practice of the Patriarch Abraham who is exhibited as a pattern for Gospel believers will give us a prospect of that Faith which had its being from the beginning And though there are many acts of this ancient Faith presented to our perusal in New Testament Pages yet there are two comprehensive of all the rest to wit Belief and Obedience For when he to whom all things are possible had promised a branch should sprout forth from this dry Root and that he would be his shield and great reward Gen. 15.1 Abraham did not question the word of a Deity who he knew was able to controul the world and alter the power of second Causes according to the pleasure of his own will but stedfastly assented to the truth of what God had promised relying on it with Faith and Expectation And as this Action includes belief of the Promises so the second prescribes obedience to the Commands and it was that work which St. James says justified