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	good_a	work_n	2,753	5	6.1002	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65556	The Protestant peace-maker, or, A seasonable persuasive to all serious Christians who call themselves Protestants that laying aside calumnies, and all exasperating disputes, they would pursue charity, peace, and union, as the only means (now left us) of safety and reformation of the publick manners : with a postscript, or notes on Mr. Baxter's and some others late writings for peace / by Edward, Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross in Ireland.	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1682 (1682)	Wing W1513; ESTC R38252	74,674	136

Matter of fact be most Obligatory or of the Divinest and most Excellent nature in the World yet if the Affectation of Applause or of the popular Eye and Vogue interpose in its performance it unhallows the Action and deprives us of the Reward This our Lord teacheth as to Alms and Liberality Matth. VI. 2. As to Prayer and Devotion ver 5. As to Fasting and Humiliation ver 16. And by parity of reason 't is true of any other otherwise good works 2. That Liberties or things free be ever used without scandal By Scandal I mean with the Scripture generally the Drawing or Encouraging others to do what they are not in Conscience convinced they may do Which notion we shall do well to take notice of as well for the satisfying and confirming our Consciences against unreasonable scruples and fears as for the guiding our Practice For this being admitted to be the nature of Scandal it is not then every one which is capable of administring matter of Scandal by the use of his Liberty but only such Personages by whose examples others are apt to frame their lives Nor again is it every one that is apt to be scandalized or receive scandal but only the Weak People who understand not duly the rule of life or are not able to distinguish betwixt Duty Liberty and Sin But if it so come to pass that any of us being persons of reputed prudence and piety and so of authority and considerable remark in the world use such freedom in words or deeds before unskilful Judges of things that they clearly are drawn in or likely to be drawn in to do what they doubt lawful or believe unlawful be the matter of fact on our sides never so just or innocent and our hearts never so sincere therein yet we by becoming thus a stumbling-block to others are not only sinners against them but also against their Lord and ours Christ himself For 1 Cor. VIII 12. When ye sin against the Brethren and wound their weak Conscience ye sin against Christ Upon the whole then that any Action be good and warrantable we see it is necessary That the Matter be Right or Lawful That our Intention be truly Honest and both these points to us distinctly known to be so That lastly in our management such Integrity or Harmlesness of Circumstances do concur as that by or in none of them we violate any Law of God And particularly Duties must be performed without Ostentation Liberties used without Scandal And now to sum up our Evidence If good Intention change not the Nature of things but Impiety be impiety still injustice Injustice still and so as to all Acts of Uncharitableness Intemperance Impurity and whatsoever is of like nature none of them all are sanctified by a good intent however real not pretended If to constitute any Cause or Action there be diverse other Material points requisite besides the sincerity of our Intentions any one of which points failing the Cause or Action good according to the nature of the failure partakes of true and proper guilt and all these things are abundantly proved then is it evident that no mans good intention will warrant or justifie either his engaging or proceeding in a bad cause Nay if we will be just to our own Sense and Reason it is further ex abundanti and beyond what we in the beginning propounded conclusible from what has been evinced That good Intentions will not warrant mens ingaging and proceeding even in a good Cause it self under any undue Circumstances It remains now that I bring all home to bear upon the design I laid down in the beginning and that I press upon all sorts practice suitable to the Truths I have asserted I shall only have time for a double Exhortation 1. And the first of them shall be That we all of us again and again consider every Cause which tempts our espousal before we engage our selves or if already without due consideration engaged before we further proceed therein It is not enough that our Intentions in the General be good We have heard they may be generally good when they want maturity of praevious thought and consideration to make them distinctly such Besides there are other points of great moment to be looked after I will not be troublesome in recapitulations I will only put the Case in short to all our Consciences We are haply most of us zealous in our ways and for our own Party But have we to full resolution and satisfaction of Conscience weighed the present state and interest of the Common Christianity Have we stated the Causes upon which we mutually Separate Are they such which we judge in good earnest will bear us out And then do we withdraw from one another no farther nor affect or maintain any greater distance than these Causes will warrant Finally in the whole have we no by and sinister ends no design but sincerely of Conscience and such which we dare carry to and own before God's Tribunal Happy were it for the Christian World would our Divisions endure this Test or had Christian men generally considered or would yet consider these things as they ought But alas even in Religion it self the far greatest part walk at a meer peradventure At least they are carried along with that Current into which their Interest Condition or Genius happens to cast them And being once engaged Vestigia nulla retrorsum almost as few return from their respective Zealotry as from the Grave They rather rush on like the Horse into the Battle and the Similitude holds also farther than it were to be wisht they are rid too often even to their own destruction My Brethren if we have any of us been unhappy in rash and inconsiderate Divisions or in addicting our selves to any so divided Parties yet let us not perpetuate and as far as in us lies eternise our own and the Churches miseries If either our Reason or our Christianity or our own or the Common safety be significant to us Let us gird up the loins of our mind and be sober Let us recollect and summon together our considerative powers and endeavour to judge like Men and Christians Where we are and how we stand And if upon the whole all be clear and Conscience fully satisfied yet let us remember we owe somewhat to the World and the least that can be will be by all honest means to endeavour its quiet And verily he is unworthy of his own quiet at least will not long enjoy it who is not content a little to deny himself of his own fancies for others and the Publick satisfaction To bring this Exhortation a little nearer to our present Circumstances and Condition Let us remember we here are not Law-givers nor are therefore to consider what is our own will and pleasure what we would have Enacted nay not perhaps what is in our judgment fit to be injoyned but what actually is already injoyned and what it is lawful for us

consideration and I suppose not excepted against And the Oath of Canonical Obedience which binding expresly only In licitis honestis I wonder men make such a clamour of and the Oath against Simony are administred only to such who are instituted into Livings So that upon the whole a man would think the business of Swearing should never hinder any Loyal Subj●ct from Conformity being that Swearing properly so called is not required to Conformity And then Secondly as to Subscribing and Declaring those who pretend they more scruple these than they do the performing the things they thereby engage to would either without them perform those things that is observe the Liturgy and Ceremonies constantly or only when they saw fit and as they pleased If the Later this would be much worse than plain Nonconformity Magis ingenuè Peribomius If the former when they shall have proved that it is much more to declare a thing lawful and promise either to do it or submit to the Penalty for not doing it than it is without any such promise ordinarily to practice it when I say they shall have proved this by any consent they shall be accounted Conformists upon such practice without any Subscription or Declaration Nay further I dare engage let any of them come into our Churches put on the Surplice read Prayers orderly go up and Preach they shall have leave so to do though they never Subscribe or Declare and for their so doing they shall suffer no Penalty And till they will prove the one or do the other I must conceive Subscribing and Declaring is reasonable For seeing they have to do these things how shall we know they will do them except they tell us so beforehand and that 's Declaring or else write so and that 's Subscribing This abatement therefore was not to be expected and so not to be proposed 6. I add hereto Mr. Baxter does not propound to do what yet he says he can in Conscience do and what he judges lawful no neither does he or his Brethren ordinarily practice so much as far as I can hear 1. He very honestly tells us pag. 8 9. he can Communicate with our Parish Churches in the Churches Prayers and hear the Ministers where he lives if they be but tolerable in the Sacred Office Nay he is exceedingly moved against the Separation as well by the Arguments of many of the famous old Nonconformists as by four excellent Considerations he there subjoins 2. It appears by what he discourses at large from pag. 14. to 20. and pag. 139. sub fin 240. and in divers other places that he does not at all judge it unlawful but many times very expedient to forbear their preaching in the time of the Publick Prayers and Sermons of the Church on Lords days Whether these two be his and their practice we leave it to themselves we hope it is only I do not find he propounds to do this as a Mean of Peace 3. He says he himself never scrupled Kneeling at the receiving the Lords Supper pag. 155. 4. I have heard also that in his Five Disputations pag. 409. he hath these words speaking upon a Supposal that one certain habit were enjoyned Ministers in their Ministration The thing in it self being therefore lawful I would obey him i. e. The Magistrate and use that Garment if I could not be dispensed with yea though secondarily the Whiteness be to signifie Purity and so it be made a Teaching Sign yet would I obey Now it would appear hence that he does not think the Surplice unlawful Yet do I not expect he should propound either of these two last in general whatever himself in particular might think good to do for reconciling himself to our Church because he intimates Better men than himself scruple them However this very matter I may justly mention as the Seventh and Last Defect I will take notice of in his Proposals that we can build upon little or nothing in them as Conclusive to the Body of the Dissenters Because What are his thoughts to Two thousand that are Absent or not consulted Third Part of Plea pag. 195. I have thus dealt very faithfully with Mr. Baxter and his Writings as to the matter of Peace and I hope he will approve himself so wise and good a man as not to take with the left what is given him with the right hand but if he think fit to write more on this Subject that he will study rather the closing Wounds than making or widening them He complains himself he has had but bad success in solliciting the Cause of Peace I will therefore adventure to take my leave of him in recommending to him what I am of the mind he may do to much better purpose and what were I in his Circumstances I should if not judge my self bound unto yet accept as the best Works with which I could close my Labours First Whereas he intimates pag. 71. that he has wrote above Seventy Books wherein his Doctrine and Religion are visible were I their Author lest People should take all that to be my Doctrine and Religion which is visible in them I would immediately with what care I could run them over and conscientiously retract either under some general heads or in particular as the case and my leisure would permit whatever I should judge had been said amiss or less sound Mr. Baxter well knows how great a mans Works in the Usual Editions begin with his Books of Retractations and Confessions Secondly Whereas it is apparent Mr. Baxter has been intangled miserably in the Calamities of the times and perhaps contracted thence such Circumstances as render it highly unexpedient for him as he conceives to speak in his present Condition as he would or might have done if never so intangled I would were I as he at least in conceipt disembarass my self and sit down and considering the present state of the Church what is imposed what are the pretences of those who oppose what a fair Gaim these oppositions put into the hands of the Common Enemy considering I say and comprehending as near as I could the whole I would freely present to the World my calm and uninteressed thoughts and give a candid and impartial Account what I could in Conscience do and what in prudence I would do were I to begin the World again in order to the fair and successful Exercise of any Ministry I humbly beg his pardon if I think he never can do the Christian Church and himself a greater Service than two such Works of these would amount to and so from my heart I commend him to the Grace of God I should now reflect on some others upon the same Subject and I am sorry that I can truly say I have met with some who taking up Mr. Baxter's Principles out-going him acting only like those who cast abroad Firebrands and Arrows and Death I will not name them nor their Books for neither does it conduce to Peace