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	law_n	person_n	1,451	5	4.8874	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93889	Catholique divinity: or, The most solid and sententious expressions of the primitive doctors of the Church. With other ecclesiastical, and civil authors: dilated upon, and fitted to the explication of the most doctrinal texts of Scripture, in a choice way both for the matter, and the language; and very useful for the pulpit, and these times. / By Dr. Stuart, dean of St. Pauls, afterwards dean of Westminster, and clerk of the closet to the late K. Charles.	Steward, Richard, 1593?-1651.; H. M.	1657 (1657)	Wing S5518; Thomason E1637_1; ESTC R203568	97,102	288

dried up like a Potsherd with immoderate heats and rowling upon his uneasie bed without sleep which cannot bee invited with Musick nothing but the servants of cold death poppy and weariness can tempt ' the eyes to let their curtains down and then they fleep only to taste of death and yet wee weep not here The solemn opportunity for tears wee choose when our friend is faln asleep when hee hath laid his neck upon the lap of his mother and let his head down to bee raised up to Heaven This grief is ill placed and undecent Ne●● me lacbrym is 〈◊〉 nec 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faxit Cur V●lit● vi●●● per ora vi●●●● Ennius SOlemn and appointed mournings are good expressions of our dearness to the departed soul of our friend and of his worth and our value of him and it hath its praise in Nature and in Manners and publick Custome but the praise of it is not in the Gospel that is It hath no proper and direct uses in Religion For if the dead did dye in the Lord then there is joy in him and it is an ill expression of our affection and our charity to weep uncomfortably at the change that hath carried my friend to the state of an huge felicity But if the man did perish in his folly and his sinnes there is indeed cause to mourn but no hopes of being comforted for hee shall never return to light or to hopes of restitution Therefore beware lest thou also come into the same place of torment and let thy grief sit down and rest upon thine own turf and weep till a showre spring from thine eyes to heal the wounds of thy spirit Turn thy sorrow into caution thy grief for him that is dead to thy care for thy self who art alive lest thou dye and fall like one of the fools whose life is worse than death and their death is the consummation of all infelicities The Church in her funerals of the dead used to sing Psalms and to give thanks for the redemption and delivery of the soul from the evill and dangers of mortality And therefore wee have no reason to bee angry when God hears our prayers who call upon him to hasten his coming and to fill up his numbers and to do that which wee pretend to give him thanks for Ne excedat medicina modum Galenus CUt not too deep nor lance too far Nam non medicina ista sed clades est said Germanicus in Tacitus when hee saw a great number of Souldiers put to death for Mutiny Beriere nocentes Sed cum jam soli poterunt super●sse nocentes Spoken by Lucan of Scylla hee let out the corrupt blood but when there was in a manner no other blood left in the whole body of the Commonwealth and this was not to cure but to cut off a Common-wealth And therefore in all punishments let this bee your rule and let the severity of your justice bee regulated by this prudential and merciful Aphorisme Poena ad paucos met us ad omnes perveniat let the clap fright all the Thunderbolt strike but a few For principi non minùs turpia multa supplicia quàm medico funera it is as great a shame for a Magistrate as for a Physitian to have many dye under his hand To save whole multitudes is a work of Gods mercy and that Prince deserves the name of Gods Vicegerent that imitates him in this particular For which reason it was that Scipio when hee put thirty of his Souldiers to death ante suas lachrymas quam ipsorum sanguinem effudit shed his own tears before their blood Si molliora frustra cesserint medicus ferit venam Senec. Et efflatur omne priusquam concutitur idem NOthing is struck with the Thunderbolt which is not blasted before with lightning first to use gentle means before wee take a more severe course For great spirits are for the most part like the Colossus at Tarentum which you may move with your finger but cannot wag if you put your whole strength to it it a ratio est libramenti Plin. Much resembling in this the Pyrrhite stone which may bee gently ground or cut with a sharp tool but if you press it hard or handle it rudely it burneth your fingers So great men may be wrought upon in a civil courteous way but if you think to bring them to goodness by authority and power you will then put them in minde of their own strength raise enemies and opposition where you did expect a compliance and friends and so instead of saving others you will destroy your self Suâ sponte cadentem maturius extinguere vulnere inhumanum est Cice. TO break the bruised reed to trouble the grieved spirit to strike the breath out of a mans body who is giving up the ghost is cruelty upon cruelty And therefore it was the complaint of Cyprian against the persecutors of Christians in his time in servis Dei non torquebantur membra sed vulnera they laid stripes upon stripes and inflicted wounds upon sores and tortured not so much the members of Gods servants as their bleeding wounds Tota funeris pompa contemnenda est in nobis non tamen negligenda in nostris Cice. THough the pomp of Funerals concerns not the dead in real and effective purposes nor is it with care to bee provided for within themselves yet it is the duty of the living to see their friends fairly interred For to the dead it is all one whether they bee carried forth upon a Chariot or a wodden Beer whether they rot in the air or in the earth whether they bee devoured by fishes or by worms When Cryton asked Socrates how hee would bee buried hee told him I think I shall escape from you and that you cannot catch mee but so much of mee as you can apprehend use it as you see cause for and bury it but however do it according to the Laws There is nothing in this but opinion and the decency of some to bee served Let thy friend therefore bee interred after the manner of the Country and the Laws of the place and the dignity of the person For so Jacob was buried with great solemnity and Josophs bones were carried into Canaan after they had been embalmed and kept four hundred years and devout men carried St. Stephen to his burial making great lamentation over him And Aelian tells that those who were the most excellent persons were buried in purple and men of an ordinary courage and fortune had their graves only trimmed with branches of Olive and mourning flowers It was noted for piety in the men of Jabesh Gilead that they shewed kindness to their Lord Sanl and buried him and they did it honourably And our blessed Saviour who was temperate in his expence and grave in all the parts of his life and death as age and sobriety it self yet was pleased to admit the cost of Maries oyntment upon his head and feet because shee did it against

with an over-valuing mine own knowledge at home I am so far from fulness as that vanity it self is not more empty Resurrectio à peccato cessatio à peccato non est idem Durand EVery cessation from sin is not a resurrection from sin A man may discontinue a sin intermit the practise of a sin by infirmity of the body or by satiety in the sin or by the absence of that person with whom hee hath used to communicate in that sin But resurrectio est secunda ejus quod interiit statio A resurrection is such an abstinence from the practise of the sin as is grounded upon a repentance and a detestation of the sin and then it is a setling and an establishing of the soul in that state and disposition it is not a sudden and transitive remorse nor only a reparation of that which was ruined and demolished but it is a building up of habits contrary to former habits and customes in actions contrary to that sin that wee have been accustomed to else it is but an intermission not a resurrection but a starting not a waking but an apparition not a living body but a cessation not a peace of conscience Now this resurrection is begun and well advanced in baptismate lachrymarum in the baptisme of true repentant tears But to put off this repentance to the death-bed is a dangerous delay For is any man sure to have it or sure to have a desire to it then It is never impertinent to repeat St. Augustines words in this case Etiam hac animadversione percutitur peccator ut moriens obliviscatur sui quidam viveret oblitus est Dei God begins a dying mans condemnation at this that as hee forgot God in his life so hee shall forget himself at his death Compare thy temporal and thy spiritual state together and consider how they may both stand well at that day If thou have set thy state in order and made a Will before and have nothing to do at last but to adde a Codicil this is soon dispatched at last but if thou leave all till then it may prove a heavy business So if thou have repented before and setled thy self in a religious course before and have nothing to do then but to wrestle with the power of the disease and the agonies of death God shall fight for thee in that weak estate God shall imprint in thee a Cupio dissolvi St. Pauls not only contentedness but desire to bee dissolved and God shall give thee a glorious resurrection yea an ascention into heaven before thy death and thou shalt see thy selfe in possession of his eternal Kingdome before thy bodily eyes bee shut When even thy death-bed shall bee as Elias Chariot to carry thee to heaven and as the bed of the Spouse in the Canticles which was lectus floridus a green and flourishing bed where thou maiest finde by a faithful apprehension that thy sickness hath crowned thee with a Crown of thorns by participation of the sufferings of thy Saviour and that thy patience hath crowned thee with that Crown of glory which the Lord the righteous Judge shall impart to thee that day In divinis nihil minimum Tertul. IT is a wanton thing for any Church in spiritual matters to play with small errors to tolerate or wink at small abuses as though it should bee alwayes in her power to extinguish them when shee would It is Christs counsel to his Spouse that is the Church Capite vulpes parvulas take us the little Foxes for they destroy the vine though they seem but little and able to do little harm yet they grow bigger and bigger every day and therefore stop errors before they become heresies and erroneous men before they become hereticks Capite sayes Christ take them suffer them not to go on but then it is Capite nobis take us those Foxes take them for us the bargain is between Christ and his Church For it is not Capite vobis take them to your selves and make your selves judges of such doctrinal matters as appertain not to your cognizance nor it is not Cape tibi take him to thy self spy out a recusant or a man otherwise not conformable and take him for thy labour beg him and spoyl him and for his Religion leave him as you found him neither is it Cape sibi take him for his ease that is compound with him easily and continue him in his estate and errors but Cape nobis take him for us so detect him as hee may thereby be reduced to Christ and his Church Neither only this counsel of Christ to his Church but that Commandement of God in Levitious is also appliable to this Non misereberis pauperis in judicio Thou shalt not countenance a poor man in his cause thou shalt not pity a poor man in judgement Though a new opinion may seem a poor opinion able to do little harm though it may seem a pious and profitable opinion and of good use yet in judicio if it stand in judgement and pretend to bee an Article of faith and of that holy obligation matter necessary to salvation Non misereberis thou shalt not spare thou shalt not countenance this opinion upon any collateral respect but bring it to the only trial of Doctrines the Scriptures Neither doth this Counsel of Christs Take us these little Foxes nor this Commandement of God Thou shalt not pitty the poor in judgement determine it self in the Church or in the publick only but extends it self rather contracts it self to every particular soul and conscience Capite Vulpeculas take your little Foxes watch your first inclination to sins for if you give them luck at first if you feed them with the milk and hony of the mercy of God it shall not bee in your power to wean them when you would but they will draw you from one to another extream from a former presumption to a future desparation in Gods mercy So also Non misereberis Thou shalt not pity the poor in judgement Now that thou callest thy self to judgement and thy conscience to an examination thou shalt not pity any sin because it pretends to bee a poor sin either prove so that it cannot much endanger thee nor much incumber thee or poor so as that it threatens thee with poverty with penury with disability to support thy state or maintain thy Family if thou entertain it not Many times I have seen a Suitor that comes in Forma pauperis more trouble a Court and more importune a Judge than greater causes or greater persons and so may such fins as come in Forma pauperis either way that they plead poverty that they can do little harm or threaten poverty if they bee not entertained Those sins are the most dangerous sins which pretend reason why they should bee entertained for sins which are done meerly out of infirmity or out of the surprisal of tentation are in comparison of others done as sins in our

thy mortal heart Are the wounds of thy transgressions so deep that they cannot bee searched or so old that they corrupt and putrifie here is that good Samaritan that will either binde them up or pour in oyl but art thou not yet dead in trespasses are not thy ulcers past cure Are there any seeds of true life remaining is there any motion of repentance in thy soul● will thy pulse of remorse beat a little hast thou but a touch of sorrow a spark of contrition a grain of faith know there is oyl of comfort for him that mourns in Sion Isa 61. 3. not a tear drops from thee in sincerity which is either unpitied or unpreserved God puts it into his bottle On the other side is there a Pharoah in thee a heart unmollified a stone that will not be bruised a flint unmalleable I both mourn for it and leave it But is this heart of stone taken away and is there given thee a heart of flesh is it soft and tender with remorse truly sacrificed to sorrow then know there is balm of Gilead for the broken heart balm that will both refresh and cure it T●●● then which groanest in thy spirit and art drawn out as it were into contrition for thy sins thou which hast washed thy hands in innocency go cheerfully to the Altar of thy God and cry with old Anselm Etsi domine ego commisi unde me damnare potes tu tamen non amifisti unde me salvare potes Qui pectus suum tundit se non corrigit aggravat peccata non tollit August VVHere there is an outward percussion of the breast without remorse of the inward man there is rather an aggravation of sin than a release That subtle fallacy of the eye pointing towards heaven that base hypocrisie of the knee kissing the earth that seeming austerity of thy hand martyring thy breast gains from God neither applause nor blessing but the curse of the Pharisee whose example would have chid thee to such an outside of devotion Is then thy repentance disguised Hath it a touch of dissimulation in it Is not thy old corruption clean disgorged but must thou again to thy former vomit Hypocrite thy Altar is without fire thine Incense without smoak it shall never touch the nostrils of the Almighty thy prayers in his ears sound like brass and tinckle like an ill-tuned cymbal all this formality of zeal is but a disease of the lip Give mee thy heart my son saith God Prov. 23. I will have that or nothing and that clean too washed both from deceit and guilt Those blanchings and guildings and garnishings of external zeal are as odious in the eye of God as those of body in a true Christian This gloss this paint of demureness speaks but our whoredomes in Religion and the integrity of that man is open both to censure and suspicion that is exposed either to the practice of it or the approbation A villain is a villain howsoever his garb or habit speak him otherwise and an hypocrite is no less though sleeked over with an external sanctity and dressed in the affectations of a preciser cut Let us bee truly that what wee seem to bee and not seem what wee are not let there bee doors and casements in our breasts that men may see the loyalty betwixt our heart and tongue and how our thoughts whisper to our tongue and how our tongue speaks them to the world Away with those meteors and false-fires of Religion which not onely by-paths us in a blinded zeal but mis-leads others in our steps of error Let us then put off the old man in our pride vain-glory envy malice hatred and that foul disease of the times hypocrisie and let us put on the new man in sincerity faith repentance sobriety brotherly-kindness and what without it disparages the tongue both of men and Angels charity That so at length wee may receive that everlasting benediction Come yee children in herit the Kingdome prepared for you from the beginning of the world Bonum causatur ex integra causa malum autem ex singularib us defectibus Tho. Aquin. GOd expects perfection perfection of parts where man expects acceptance Now as unto that which is good so unto that which is perfect there must bee an intire concurrence of all requisites The defect or want of any one thing required may cause an imperfection but to the constitution of perfection there must bee a meeting of all things required It will appear in the cause specified Lev. 22 21. The sacrifices of Beeves or of Sheep there mentioned must bee perfect Now if the beast had wanted but any one part an eye an ear an horn an hoof any one of these defects had caused an imperfection and the sacrifice had been imperfect and so no acceptance of it But now to have made it perfect to bee accepted it must have all and every one of the parts every member of the body in its number and proportion Now the equity holds in all duties of worship To what end is our worship if not accepted if wee will have it accepted wee must have it perfect there must bee all these things in it that God requires Now God requires in worship not onely that wee use his Ordinance but his Order as outward so inward Now when there is this perfection that God requires then may a blessing and acceptance bee expected But if that Order that spiritual Order which God calls for bee wanting if wanting in any one part of it there the duty is imperfect there no acceptance can bee looked for but rather a breach Wee may see it exemplified in the Law of the Peace-offerings Levit. 7. First see the Ordinance of God vers 11 12 13. There is the substance of the sacrifice prescribed then the Order is that they bee eaten in due time vers 16. It shall bee eaten the same day that hee offers his sacrifice that the flesh bee clean vers 19. And the flesh that touches any unclean thing shall not bee eaten That the persons that do eat it must bee clean vers 19. And as for the flesh all that bee clean shall eat thereof that is all that eat thereof must bee clean as appears by that which follows vers 20. So then as here is the Ordinance prescribed so the Order of eating that they may bee eaten purely that pure things bee eaten that they bee eaten of pure persons there Peace-offerings thus eaten were accepted because here was perfection from the concurrence and integrity of the causes constituring perfection But now if any one of these things were missing in point of order it made them imperfect and so unacceptable If not purely in regard of time though p●re flesh and eaten by pure persons yet no blessing no acceptance but a breach vers 18. It shall not bee accepted it shall bee an abomination and the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity If not pure flesh eaten though