Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	army_n	great_a	king_n	2,073	5	3.6840	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95370	A sermon preached before Sir P.W. Anno 1681. With additions: to which are annexed three digressional exercitations; I. Concerning the true time of our Saviour's Passover. II. Concerning the prohibition of the Hebrew canon to the ancient Jews. III. Concerning the Jewish Tetragrammaton, and the Pythagorick Tetractys. / By John Turner, late fellow of Christ's College in Cambridge.	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.	1684 (1684)	Wing T3318AB; ESTC R185793	233,498	453

which being equally commanded by God himself were of equall obligation as to their performance with any of the rest of which no such Typicall account can be given And therefore the reason of their Institution can only be this That since every thing must of necessity be done with some Ceremony in some Place or Time or Order or Gesture or Manner and Circumstance or other it pleased God for the avoiding of Confusion and for the preservation of an uniform and orderly way of Worship which would otherwise be exposed to perpetual change disturbance and alteration to adjust and determine the particular circumstances of those indifferent matters because considering the perverseness of some mens minds and the diversity of their several fancies and humours such changes and alterations could never happen without a considerable breach of Charity and Friendship among men which must needs be a wonderfull Obstruction as well to the interest of the Civil State as to all the religious Performances and Duties both as to their devotion in themselves and as to their acceptance with Almighty God If therefore the nature of Mankind be still the same under the Gospel that it was under the Law if the reasons for the necessity of Uniformity be the same now that ever they were in former ages if the method of this Uniformity be not adjusted by God himself under the Gospel as it was under the Law and if this Uniformity cannot be obtained unless the Church be invested with a right and power of prescribing the terms of it than it follows plainly as hath been already observed that the Church must be invested with such a power because else it would want the necessary means of its own unity and preservation which every Society must be supposed by the Laws of nature and reason to be invested with and if the Church be invested with such a power then all its Members are under an indispensable obligation to obey it because that Power which may be lawfully disobey'd is no Power at all And this is sufficient to vindicate the exercise of Ecclesiastical Censures And if you demand further Whether it be lawfull for the civil Sanction to interpose in behalf of the Church to see that its Orders and Injunctions be duly and faithfully executed and obey'd I answer that it is for this plain reason because the Civil Power has a right of exacting all kinds of lawfull Obedience from its subjects and this obedience if it were not Lawfull could not be enjoyned by the Church it self But besides the express provisions of the Law of Moses it self there were also several pretended traditions of Moses from Mount Sinai there were likewise the determinations of their Wise men in controverted cases the Decisions of the Tannaim and the Amoraim and of the Schools of Hillel and of Schammai the two so much celebrated but disagreeing Founders of the Pharisaick Order For which Traditions and Determinations of their famous Masters the Jewes had usually as great if not greater Veneration than for the Law it self and they were at length swell'd into so vast a bulk that like the Missals and the Rituals of the Romish Church at this day which are so full of Ceremonies burthensom in their number frivolous and superstitious in their use they ate out the very life and heart of true Religion as our Saviour himself in several places of his Gospel with no less Justice than severity complains The Heathen World had also their Sacred Offices prescribed by a certain Form as well before as under the Law And the same is the case with the Mahometan and Pagan Idolaters at this day which Ceremonies of theirs though for their number they be intollerable to a devout Soul which cannot suffer it's self to be so far taken off from the more inward and substantial part of Religion though in their nature they be mostly foolish and in their use Superstitious and in their design Idolatrous as being directed to a false object yet as well these as the Jewish Formalities do prove thus much by the common consent of Mankind that an Uniformity in the outward circumstances of Divine Service is necessary to the more due and solemn performance of Religious Worship and to the publique peace and quiet of the World What is the reason that at this day the French Persecution against the reformed Religion and its Professors rages with so much violence and fury thorough all the spatious Territories and Dominions of that mighty Monarch Shall we think it is a Zeal for the Catholique Religion as they are pleased to call it that is for a Fardle of absur'd ridiculous and blasphemous Superstitions that inspires so wise and powerfull a Prince with so mean thoughts of Cruelty and Revenge Shall we think he acts upon a principle of Conscience who has sufficiently discover'd to the world by his insatiable thirst after Empire which cannot be purchas'd without the price of Bloud that he has no other principle of action than that of a boundless appetite of Rule and Greatness Shall he be thought to act upon a principle of Duty and Religion who makes destructive and depopulating Wars without giving a reason and violates the faith of Peace by arbitrary Dependances and unwarrantable Claimes Who conquers more by the peremptory Decrees of his late erected Chambers than by the conduct of his Generals or by the numbers discipline and valour of his Armies What therefore can be the true cause and motive why he that glories in the blessed title of the Most Christian King should yet notwithstanding persecute Christianity it self What else can be the true reason of all this Cruelty and seeming Madness but that he wisely considers that the true way to Empire abroad is by unity and peace at home that a Kingdome divided against it self cannot stand and that these differences of Religion as they have done already in the experience of that Kingdome as well as ours will some time or other prove the occasions of great disorders and commotions in the State And shall we not then make use of the same wisdome for the support of Christianity which is with so much diligence and zeal made use of by others for its Extirpation For Popery is either no Christianity at all or it is Christianity wrapt up and hid in such an heap of Ceremonies and Superstitions that it can hardly be discerned Is it worth our while to contend about Ceremonies when we are losing the Substance to squabble and fall out about indifferent things when our Religion and our Liberty our temporall and eternall Interest lye at stake If the things prescribed be indifferent and consequently lawfull why do we not show that they are so by complying with them If the quarrells raised about indifferent matters do yet notwithstanding rise as high as those which are agitated between the Papists and us about matters of a necessary and unalterable nature why do we not cement and compose these unhappy breaches by

of dis-uniting Protestants and yet at the same time uncharitably representing the best Defenders of the Reformation under the odious and invidious Characters of Papists or Popishly affected by questioning the Jurisdiction of the Bishops in temporal causes that by that means they may weaken their Ecclesiastical Power by striking at the King through the sides of his loyal and well-affected Clergy and by doing all this and a great deal more out of a dissembled Zeal for Unity and Peace and out of a passionate Concern for the Honour and Safety of the King and Church they doe abundantly more mischief than either the Dissenters themselves or they who are the most unmanageable and indiscreet in the expressions of a bitter and unchristian Animosity against them because these as being prejudiced and profess'd Parties will not be heard so equally on both sides Secondly a second Cause though indeed in the order of causality it may well enough deserve the first place of the Continuance of such an unnatural Separation among us notwithstanding there is so little or rather nothing at all to be said in justification of so prejudicial and so unwarrantable a Practice is the Necessity or Revenge of those who at the happy revolution of his Majesty's return like the rising of the Sun with healing in his wings to heal the Sores of three divided Kingdoms being ejected in great numbers out of those Livings and Benefices of which they were then possessed being unable to digg unless it were in the Vineyard and being ashamed to begg being desirous to reak their Revenge upon the Government which had ejected them onely for that reason because it could not trust them and because they would not obey it being tainted with the Leaven of the good old Cause being soundly seasoned with Democratical and Demagogical Principles of which it is very hard for a thorough Common-wealth's man especially when he is no Philosopher to rid himself being in some small hopes as drowning men are when they catch at a Reed of reaping a new Harvest out of the Church lands and out of the Spoils of the Crown being encouraged and abetted by men of like Principles and Practices and Circumstances with themselves by good old Officers that had been in Commission by Proprietours that had lost those Tenements and Hereditaments that never were their own by inconsiderate Women that are naturally fond of Saintship and Persecution by Men that were Bigots to a Party or Dependents upon an Interest that wanted a Wife or would oblige a Chapman or insinuate themselves into a Last Will and Testament by the Womens caressing their Husbands and the Husbands persuading their Wives by causes that cannot be justifi'd and causes that must not be named the black Fraternity of the short robe were at length so far emboldened as notwithstanding the Severity of those wholesome Laws whose edge was rebated by the fatal Clemency of a too Gracious Prince towards men that ought not to be trusted and cannot be obliged to own and justifie a Separation which is now grown to that excessive height that the Contention is no longer about Liberty but Dominion they break the Laws openly without regard to Justice or to Shame and to propagate a Succession of Law-breakers like themselves they have ordained an Under-wood of Non-conforming Shrubs who will in time grow up to be Cedars of Rebellion and come by the Priesthood much by the same right and title that Oliver came by the Protectourship or Trincalo by his Dukedom So that it is now with the Dissenters as it was the Israelites in Jeroboam's time they have their separate Assemblies and their distinct Altars their Priests not of the Levitical or Aaronical Tribe much less of the more perfect Melchisedecian Order but of the dreggs and refuse of the People and Calves in abundance the Idols of the Faction as far as from Dan to Bethel But Thirdly a third Cause of that dangerous Non-conformity which prevails among us is a certain sort of Opiniatrity or Affectation or Newfangleness which in all Ages usually possesses the ordinary sort of People by which they are alwaies apt to quarrel and find fault with the present Establishment let it be never so wholesome and if it were not for this Cause the other two Causes which I have mentioned would want a subject upon which to work but certainly if men would seriously consider with themselves how dangerous all Innovations in the general are and how destructive oftentimes to the publick Peace how little most of them are like to get by Innovation and how much they may lose how small and inconsiderable how unreasonable and unwarrantable the present Differences are how necessary it is there should be some Establishment and how impossible that any should please all and that this is but to perpetuate quarrels by the nicety of some and the design of others from one generation to another without any measure moderation or end to the inexpressible and unconceivable disturbance of the World they would not then think it worth their while to lose the Quiet of their own minds their Charity for others and the good opinion of others for them to crumble into Sects and Parties to embroil us in infinite and inextricable Difficulties at home and to expose us to the unavoidable Dangers of a foreign yoak and a foreign Religion from abroad onely to gratifie the Designs of proud or discontented or necessitous men to feed Contempt and Ignorance themselves and to cloath Want of loyalty learning good nature and good manners It is true indeed that the Wisdome of this World is Foolishness with God and that the Wisdome of God is Foolishness with this World and that they are opposite the one to the other but then by the Wisdome of this World is meant that Carnal Mind that hath a greater consideration for a Temporal Interest than for the Interest of Truth and Vertue for the Commands of God or the precepts of the Gospel but that men that have little or no Learning of their own and yet are unassisted by those extraordinary helps of Utterance and Supernatural Illumination with which the Apostolical times were furnished men that are so far from understanding what Reason is that they decry it men that are steered wholly by considerations of Interest by impulses of Passion by an habit of Prejudice and a principle of Revenge that these of all others should be thought the fittest to Instruct the People and to have the care and conduct of such precious things as are the Souls of men committed to their Charge that these should be thought worthy to be the instruments of our Confusion who have neither the wit nor the honesty to make us Happy who design us no Good and can do us none if they did design it is a thing which I am very confident will find no manner of countenance from Scripture and is utterly unable to plead the least shadow of a Grant or Commission from above An