Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	anger_n	angry_a	just_a	1,601	5	7.4510	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60331	Christian practice described by way of essay upon the life of our Saviour by Stephen Skynner ...	Skynner, Stephen.	1693 (1693)	Wing S3946; ESTC R1647	46,475	162

the Romanists object against us That our Religion is barren and unfruitful in such good works as these Though I think we may safely enough defie them to make good their Charge when a Reverend Author in King James the First 's time has given us a particular Account of Charities bestowed upon Colleges Hospitals Free-Schools and the like Pious Uses within the compass of Sixty Years since the Reformation amounting to a Million of Money That which he challenges any Age of Popery to parallel in this Kingdom And I think this Age has given sufficient Evidence to stop the mouths of our Adversaries of the respect they bear to this great Duty of Religion in those Liberal Contributions they have made of late to Distressed Strangers as well as in every other Instance of Charity Which also ought the more to be taken notice of for that it is done in a free generous way from the voluntary motions and inclinations of the Benefactors alone not grudgingly or of necessity as it frequently happened in former times when people were frighted into Charity by their Confessors sorely against their wills only to make composition for Pardon of their sins May our light still so shine before men that others seeing our good works may glorifie our Father which is in heaven 26. There is nothing that tends to the ease and benefit of mankind that seems beneath our Saviour's Care And therefore besides these greater Duties that we owe to our Neighbour he insists upon others that may seem of lesser moment though they are of no small comfort to those among whom we converse Such particularly is that of not being Angry with our Brother rashly or without a cause For indeed there is nothing that destroys the Blessings of Society more than this Vice of Anger Prov. 21.19 what Solomon says of an angry woman being certainly as true of an angry man It is better to live in a wilderness than where such be Besides that the Consequences of this Vice are oftentimes very mischievous and fatal Anger being a Passion of a very bloody and desperate nature whereever it is suffered to grow to a head it knows no rules or bounds The two Sons of Zebedee would have destroyed a whole City in a mad Fit of this Passion had Christ been as ready to furnish them with Instruments of Revenge as they were to call for them And we have multitudes of Instances in every Age of peoples murdering their Dearest Friends and doing other things in their Anger which have proved Wounds to their Reputations and their Minds never to be cured in this World Wherefore our Saviour presses the Duty of not being Angry under as great obligations as any other Duty of Religion for he tells us That no less a danger attends the breach of it than that of the Judgment Mat. 5.22 and of Hell-Fire And to shew of how great esteem it is in God's sight he represents it as such without which God will accept no Sacrifice from us 24. Leave thy gift at the Altar therefore he says go thy way first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift Not that our Saviour would make his Disciples hereby such poor passive creatures as to hinder them from expressing their Resentments with shews of Anger upon just occasions For by commanding us not to be angry with our Brother without a cause he plainly insinuates that in some cases a man may have just cause of being angry And we find therefore that he himself looked upon the Pharisees with anger at the hardness of their hearts Mark 3.5 and that by the Privilege of his Prophetick Office he called Herod Fox in way of Indignation Luke 13.32 when the Message was brought that Herod had a design to kill him Wherefore it is only some Excesses and Irregularities of this Passion that our Saviour reproves when he condemns Anger as a Vice As when it breaks out upon trivial occasions when it is disproportioned to its cause when it swells to immoderate heights when it rankles and breeds bad Blood in us every of which are things not only so mischievous in their consequences but so unseemly in themselves besides that if Christ had not forbid them our own Consciences would have done it And there is nothing of a Wise or Brave man therefore but though he may be taken sometimes in such Indecencies is ashamed of himself afterwards Whilst the Blood indeed is up and the mouth swells with big words a man appears to himself very Great and he Lords it with no small Pride and Tyranny over those who are bound in Duty or Interest not to oppose him But he that stands by and considers the poor grounds upon which this deal a-do is often made is so far from admiring the Greatness of the man's Soul that he does but pity his Weakness all the while They are the shallowest streams that are generally most Noisy and most subject to overflow And a man therefore that values his Reputation would keep a strict hand over himself about this Passion tho he had no other obligation to restrain him 27. Censoriousness is another Vice opposite to the Duties of Love which may seem of lesser moment to our Neighbour's good though it cause none of the least uneasinesses to him This our Saviour frequently reflects upon the Pharisees for who it may seem reckoned it a greater piece of Holiness to Judge other peoples Faults than to Correct their own And all their Discourse therefore ran upon this subject and they could not so much as Pray to God but they must tell him of their Neighbours Faults and thank him that they were not as other men Luke 18.11 not as this Publican It was much the worse to be sure that their Censoriousness was generally attended with Pride and Uncharitable Aggravations though it had been bad enough had it been only a supercilious reproving their Neighbours continually for lesser faults which for the most part they had no other ground to condemn than that they were not according to their own Pedantick ways of walking For this is what our Saviour means by their beholding the mote in their brothers eye Mat. 7.1 3. which gave occasion to his Precept of not judging And indeed this must render Converse so very uneasie to men and consequently Religion so uncomfortable a thing when upon every appearance of evil they must be disciplined and Schooled by their Friends that it is more to be feared they should be hardned against all Reproof than to be hoped they should amend by it which is the greatest dis-service we can do either to Religion or our Neighbour's Soul No question but to reprove people with Candor and Discretion is an excellent Duty in it self and there is no office of Love more worthy the name of true Friendship But to perform this aright requires more of Temper and Prudence than the Vulgar are generally Masters of And that men

that of loving their enemies 44. and doing good to them that hated them Such lastly Mat. 16.24 is that of taking up their cross and forsaking father and mother life and estate for the Gospel For I think there is no greater Argument of the Perfection of any Precept than the Difficulty of it as is evidently implied in that Saying of our Saviour's to the young man Mat. 19.21 If thou wilt be perfect go sell that thou hast and give it to the poor And I am sure there are no Precepts in the Gospel more difficult than these and therefore had our Saviour thought his Disciples unfit to bear any Doctrines of a Practical nature no question but he would have concealed these as soon as any others being the most likely to discourage his Disciples from following him Besides that no greater Perfection can be supposed than those Sayings of our Saviour's to his Disciples do expresly enjoin That they should be holy as God is holy Mat. 5.48 and perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect Wherefore also that Passage of St. John must necessarily be interpreted to refer only to some extraordinary matters which concerned the Oeconomy of Christ's Church in those times Such was the calling in of the Gentiles a matter that the Apostles were so hardly brought to believe that it required a special Revelation from God to ascertain it to them Such also was the Abolishing the Ceremonial Law of Moses which occasioned such violent Contests for a long time in the Church These indeed were things that we may suppose the Apostles ill able to bear at the time our Saviour spoke as being possessed with strong Prejudices against them from their youth up And it might well require an extraordinary Effusion of the Spirit to guide them into such Truths which after all they could scarce be persuaded to believe This Interpretation is the rather to be received because our Saviour tells his Disciples in the foregoing Chapter John 15.15 that he had made known unto them all things that he had heard of his Father it being very hard to reconcile this with the other place if by all things here is not to be meant all things necessary to Salvation 33. A Third and last Objection that I shall mention against this Discourse may be drawn from those places of Scripture wherein the ways of Salvation are represented as very difficult and hard to be found particularly that Saying of our Saviour's where he exhorts his Disciples to strive to enter in at the strait gate Mat. 7.13 14. because narrow is the way that leadeth to life and few there be that find it This seeming contrary to what is intimated all along in this Discourse the main drift of which has been to make Religion appear easie and natural to men Now to answer this Objection our chief business will be to reconcile this Saying of our Saviour's with that other of his where he declares his yoak to be easie and his burden light this last making no less for every thing I have said than the other does against it And it will be no hard matter to do this by considering That Christ's Yoke is indeed easie in it self the Precepts of his Religion are no other than such as men assisted by God's Grace may even with Comfort and Pleasure perform But as the easiest Yoak may become hard by fretting and striving against it so Christ's Religion is made difficult to men through Prejudices and evil Habits which put them upon endeavours of shaking it off the better to satisfie some unruly Passions and Lusts which gain the dominion over them And this is that alone which straitens the Gate to Heaven this makes the way thither seem rough and melancholy and desolate a very Wilderness to many that tread therein Otherwise far be it from God to delight himself in seeing men struggling with difficulties which he himself has made He that courts and importunes us to come to Happiness so earnestly as he does what an odd Notion of him must it imply to make the means of attaining this hard as if he designed it on purpose that few might arrive at it No there are no Difficulties in the way to Heaven but what we make to our selves by our own gross fault Without this the Road to Heaven would be as void of Briars and Thorns as Heaven it self is The ways of wisdom being ways of pleasantness as Solomon speaks and all her paths are peace But then the Difficulties which men have brought upon themselves in the ways of Godliness through their own Corruptions are certainly none of the least And these are such as the greatest Pretenders to Perfection may find abundant cause to be sensible of tho they aim at nothing higher than what is prescribed in this Discourse For even to be Just and Righteous in our Dealings Chaste in our Actions and Thoughts Humble and Charitable in our Conversations if we consult Experience and not the nature of the things themselves are not such easie Duties but that many who reckon themselves great Proficients in Grace are found notoriously to fail in them At least there are few it 's to be feared that make a Conscience of these or any other Duties so far as they ought in reason to do And therefore considering the Hypocrisy of the world on one hand and the too gross Immorality of it on the other it were well if there were not too great grounds for that Saying of our Saviour That narrow is the way to life and few there be that find it Though still it is to be hoped the Few there mentioned are no inconsiderable Number only as opposed to the vast Company of Jews Turks Infidels and Prophane persons who proudly despise the Means of Salvation which Christ has offered to them And for those who have a Saviour to trust in and a Merciful God to fly to who make allowances for the common Infirmities of Human Nature we trust that a wide Gate of Salvation may be opened to such as long as with Faith and Sincerity they endeavour to walk in the way of God's Commands and pretend not to act the Cripple before him 34. Wherefore in short the Sum of this Discourse is That the Religion of Christ according to his Precepts and Example and we need no better Rule to judge of it by is a most admirably Wise Gracious and Manlike Religion such as accomplishes Human Nature in the highest degrees it is capable of in this life imposing nothing mean or servile upon us Such as looks upon Ceremonies only as things indifferent neither refusing what is Decent or commanded by just Authority nor yet encouraging Vain or Superstitious Observancies Such as commends a Sober and a Rational Piety to us a Piety that consists not in high Notions or wild Expressions of Zeal but in Worshipping and Serving God with Diligence and Sincerity Such as takes off from the Exorbitancies of our Passions and