Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	affliction_n	lord_n	sin_n	1,503	5	4.9511	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26983	A petition for peace with the reformation of the liturgy, as it was presented to the right reverend bishops, by the divines appointed by His Majesties commission to treat with them about the alteration of it.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1661 (1661)	Wing B1343; ESTC R39870	94,803	106

and your Father and to my God and your God And lest you should say that hee will not own those little ones that whether for Truths sake or for their infirmities do bear disgraceful titles in the world Remember that at the day of udgement hee will say Inasmuch as you did it not or did it to one of the least of these my Brethren you did it not or did it unto mee Mat. 25. 40. 45. If his Elect cry to him day and night though hee bear long hee will avenge them and that speedily Luke 18. 7 8. Bear with us while wee add this terrible passage which wee once before made mention of Mat. 18. 5 6. Who so shall receive one such little childe in my name receiveth mee but whose shall offend one of these little ones that beleeve in mee it were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his neck and that hee were drowned in the depth of the Sea Undoubtedly if you consider duly by such passages how Christ will take it to have his servants not onely notvisited not-relieved but to bee afflicted not onely in body but in soul with that great affliction to be cast out of the Ministry or Church for an unavoidable dissent in things indifferent you will never joyn with those that shall stretch forth a hand against them for such a cause as this If yet the old pretence be made that they suffer as Schismaticks and disobedient wee must say again if any shall make men disobedient by imposing things unnecessary which they know are by learned pious peaceable men esteemed sins against the Lord and then shall thus heavily afflict them for the disobedience which they may easily cure by the forbearance of those impositions let not our souls come into their secret nor our honour be united to their Assembly If they shall smite or cast out a supposed Schismatick and Christ shall finde an able holy peaceable Minister or other Christian wounded or mourning out of doors let us not be found among the Actors nor stand among them in the day of their accounts when tribulation shall be recompenced to the Troublers of beleevers 2 Thes 1. 6. 14. Wee beseech you also to consider that men have not their understandings at their own command much less can they be commanded by others if they were never so willing to beleeve all that is imposed on them to bee lawful they cannot therefore beleeve it because they would the intellect being not free And to dissemble and say and swear and do the things which they beleeve not is such an aggravated hypocrisie being in the matters of God and joyned with perfidiousness as wee may suppose cannot render them acceptable to any that have not renounced Religion and Humanity much less should they bee constrained to it And when it is known that mens judgements are against the things imposed and that penalties are no means adapted to the informing and changing of the judgement but to force men to do the things they know wee conceive they should not bee used and so used in the case of things indifferent where they are not necessary to the common good and where the sufferers have never had sufficient means to change their judgements If it be said that it is their own sault that their judgements are not changed and that the means have been sufficient Wee answer That it is their fault is the point in question which the Sword can easilier take for granted than the Tongue or Pen can prove But if it be so it is their fault as it is that they are the Sons of Adam partakers of the common corruption of humane nature and as it is their fault that they are not all of the highest form in the School of Christ above the common ignorance and frailties of beleevers and that they are not all the most judicious Divines of the most subtile wits and had not the same education and society to advance your opinions and represent things to their understandings just as they are represented unto yours And if men must be cast out of the Church or Ministry because they are not wiser than such learned men as the Pastors of the most of the Reformed Churches and as Hildersham Bar●e Parker Ames Dod Ball Nichols and many such others as have here taken this conformity to be a sin how few alas how very few will there be left And if it be said that men do willingly keep out the light We must say that few men are obstinate against the opinions that tend to their ease and advancement in the world and to save them from being vi●ified as Schismaticks and undone and when men profess before the Lord that they do impartially study and pray for knowledge and would gladly know the will of God at the dearest rate wee must again say that those men must prove that they know the dissentors hearts better than they are known to themselves that expect to be beleeved by charitable Christians when they charge them with wilful ignorance or obstinate resisting of the truth 15. And wee crave leave to ask whether you do not your selves in some things mistake or may not do so for ought you know and whether your understandings are not still imperfect and all men differ not in some opinions or other And if you may mistake in any thing may it not be in as great things as these can it be expected that wee should all be past erring about the smallest Ceremonies and Circumstances of worship And then should not the consciousness of your own infirmity provoke you rather to compassionate humane frailty than to cast out your Brethren for as small failings as your own 16. And wee further offer to your consideration whether this be doing as you would be done by would you be cast out for every fault that is as bad as this and doth this shew that you love your neighbours as your selves Put your selves in their case and suppose that you had studied conferred and prayed and done your best to know whether God would have you to be Re-ordained to use these Forms or Ceremonies or Subscriptions or not and having done all you think that God would be displeased if you should use them would you then be used your selves as your dissenting Brethren are now used or are like to bee love them as your selves and wee will crave no further favour for them 17. But nothing more affecteth us than to think of the Lamentable divisions that have been caused and are still like to bee whilest things unnecessary are so imposed And on the contrary how blessed an unity and peace wee might injoy if these occasions of division were removed and wee might but have leave to serve God as his Apostles did As in Doctrinals ten thousand will sooner agree in an Explicite belief of the Creed than an hundred in an Explicite belief of all that Ockam or Scotus have determined So in the matters of Government and