Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	apostle_n	speak_v	word_n	1,386	5	3.9429	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52918	Vox clamantis, or, A cry to Protestant dissenters calling them from some unwarrantable ways, with which they are vulgarly, and perhaps too truly charged, viz. from all unnecessary medling in matters of state, from too deep engagement of themselves in this present world, and too great conformity to it : from thinking too highly of themselves for their separation-sake only : from fanaticism, properly so called, in their prayers, sermons, books, &c. : and seriously exhorting them to the minding of the great concerns of heaven, to fruitfulness in well-doing, to sobriety, and the use of reason in all religious matters / by N.N. a Protestant and declared dissenter from the Church of England, as far as that church dissents from Christian liberty, to holiness and charity, and no further.	N. N., Protestant and declared dissenter from the Church of England.	1683 (1683)	Wing N63; ESTC R5934	64,696	84

taught by you and so should you not disdain to hearken to them Secondly This would shew you to be of honest ingenuous minds and of those that love the Truth and would much convince the insulting adversary of your uprightness and sincerity What hurt or disgrace is it to retract or to let them know that in some things you may not have been so wise and wary but that you may and will amend Look over seriously and see whether some particular notions of yours may not betray you and make you to speak write and preach not so manly rationally and demonstratively as you might and ought but things looking too like Phanaticism as they think and would be glad to find Certainly the Christian Religion does not unman men but makes them more perfect it makes good Christians to be the wisest as well as the best of men You are not to think that because your own Hearers who out of a good opinion of your worth and Piety may be somewhat too credulous and take all at the best that therefore others will do so too They that Preach and Write about Religion and Divinity should regard those that are contrary and that may be perhaps wicked but witty of Parts but little Piety of Learning and liberal Education but not much Charity and so not like to take every thing by the right handle not to take the best meaning and interpretation the thing will-bear And though men prophanely and scurrilously call you Phanaticks yet give them neither just cause nor occasion for it in speaking and preacking of the word of God and Religion All should mind to do as the Apostle advises Timothy in 2 Tim. 2.15 Study to shew thy self approved to God a workman that needs not to be ashamed i. e. Not ashamed that men any men should hear him rightly dividing the word of Truth For my part I should and I think you ought above all things to dread Popularity and to be most afraid when you see men many men your People and Hearers to take and drink all down examining nothing and all this only out of the good opinion they have of you their Teachers though others in the mean time and for the same matter deride and scorn you Oh! how happy would it be if men Christian men would once come to this excellent Spirit i. e. To consider and judge of things of all things even things of Religion as they are in themselves in their own nature and so receive and imbrace them and be able either to receive or reject out of a free judgment And neither to accept things for the sake of men and that good opinion they have of them nor to reject any thing because they like not the men that write or speak it or because they are not of their Party or Opinion Till this be Christians will never excel nor be wise unto Salvation nor credit Religion I confess the men that object this against you to your reproach are most unfit to do it partly First For that ill temper of Spirit in which they do it it seems to be neither out of Piety nor Charity nor out of an intent to do you any good or in any thing to amend you besides many of them are I say not all plainly men of an ungodly spirit so far from taking that way of Charity Meekness Simplicity which the Gospel of our Lord requires that they put all their trust of overcoming their adversaries in their prophane Jesting Joaking turning Religion into ridicule Deriding Jeering Scoffing at all men of a contrary Party without making a difference handling the matter in difference in a Prophane Poetical Comical strain and drollery and not after that serious manner and with that deep sense nor with that Charity which those things require so that their writing and talk of this kind suites more to the Play-house than to the Church not caring what they say so they can either find or create matters to disgrace their Adversaries with This Jocular strain of theirs with a pleasure in handling matters and answers in the like kind seems to have taken too much hold on some of you in the imitation of them to the no little disgrace and discredit of the most holy and pure Truth and simplicity of Jesus Some of you also delight too much to please the People and tickle their Ears with such like stuff with Jesting and Joaking at your opposites with girds and sarcastical hints against them telling your familiars with too much delight their faults and not seriously nor charitably pitying them nor wishing their good and betterment Thus if we may believe them you incourage and maintain others to draw the Saw of contention and to carry on the Cause in difference at such a rate which if you better consider of it appears not to be Christian nor will you find peace in it at last it no way agreeing with the gravity and seriousness of a Christian nor with the dread and weighty concerns of Religion and mens Salvation Secondly Another account upon which I judge them very unfit to object against or retort upon you Is first because I find some of the main matters they make faulty and draw particular absurdities from in your Prayers and Preaching in some opinions are common to themselves with you Such I find to be the opinions and differences about the five controverted points concerning Election and Reprobation What they will needs call Calvinism you call the contrary Arminianism The consequence and matters drawn from those they still make matters of scorn and wherewith to expose you as is plain and manifest in most of their late Writings and Books especially those made by their Divines They take in the worst and most obnoxious parts and consequences of your opinions though there be both Godly and Learned men on both sides on purpose thinking thereby to disgrace the Non-conforming Brethren which is a most disingenuous way of proceeding Secondly Because those notions and opinions called Calvinianism and Contra-Remonstrant are the plain sense of the Articles of the Church of England or else we have lost all our senses and all men else as well as we till some few of late will needs fancy otherwise Thirdly Because there are still many and have been more in times past of the most Learned if not the most Pious and Zealous of the Church of England that have imbraced held and strenuously defended those opinions Now to screw absurdities out of these notions and opinions to take hold on these ungrateful things and the consequences of them that are most obnoxious to cavil and censure when in the mean time the best and ablest of their own Party are of the same mind and have spoken the same things and full as absurd if they will have it so as any as it were easie to point to Books and Authors of this kind I say to do this upon these terms is most disingenuous and unworthy men and Christians Finally