Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	authority_n	jurisdiction_n	power_n	1,683	5	4.9363	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54843	The law and equity of the gospel, or, The goodness of our Lord as a legislator delivered first from the pulpit in two plain sermons, and now repeated from the press with others tending to the same end ... by Thomas Pierce ...	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1686 (1686)	Wing P2185; ESTC R38205	304,742	736

Reck'ning how his Talent of Authority has been employ'd and what Good he has done with his Jurisdiction What poor Orphans he has righted what Widows Causes he has pleaded what injur'd Innocence he has protected what Vertuous Persons he has incouraged with Rewards what vile Offenders he has discountenanced and punish't what Great mens oppressions he has resisted what Rising Mutinies and Rebellions He has indeavoured to repress For a man's Honour and Authority his Power and Greatness as well as Wealth are things of which he must give Accompt Thô for a King to be accomptable to any Tribunal upon Earth implies indeed a Contradiction yet Kings Themselves do stand accomptable to God even for their high Privilege of unaccomptableness to Men. And therefore the Greater any man is he is to humble himself the more and then as it follows in the Text he will find favour of the Lord. This is the use we are to make of the Third Qualification of our Inquirer and These especially are the Reasons inducing to it But now the Case in my Text is one of the strangest we ever heard of For would we not think it exceeding strange if the chief Magistrate of a City forgetting the Mace that is born before him should run to meet the poorest Cottager and throw himself down upon his Knees too and lifting up his trembling Hands should intreat him so humbly as to call him Master and so earnestly intreat him as to call him Good Master 'T is true that Christ was no Cottager because according to his Manhood He was very much poorer as having not where to lay his Head Yet the Man in my Text who had Great Possessions and was a Ruler in the pride and glory of his Youth too did thus come running after Christ and kneeled down to him thô in the Form of a Servant and call'd him Master thô born of Mary Spouse to Ioseph the Carpenter As if through That Veil of the Carpenter's Son he had had an Eye of Faith to see The Wisdom of the Father The Son of That Almighty Architect who indeed was The Builder of All the World Heb. 11. 10. This Jewish Convert without a Name hath somewhat more strange and more remarkable in his Conversion than The Iailour of Philippi who was but frighted into his wits and sought for Salvation in that Fright only and rather in the negative than positive sense of that word For That which He sought directly was a Deliverance out of his Dangers Not an Inheritance of Aeternity but only an Escape from the Wrath to come So that the Quaerist we are upon is more Didactical than the former as affording us many more and more Noble Lessons Three whereof we have had already And Three if well minded are enough for One Lecture as if slighted they are too many And therefore the Prospect of Life Aeternal which is a very great Deep enough to exercise the freshest and the most vigorous of our Thoughts is the fitter to be reserved for another Opportunity THE Excellent Nature OF THE INQUIRY MARK X. 17. And when he was gone forth into the way there came one Running and kneeled to him and asked him Good Master what shall I do that I may Inherit Aeternal Life § 1. HAving done with the Person who here Inquires and dismiss't the Three Lessons arising thence together with the Reasons on which those Lessons were chiefly Grounded I am in order to proceed to the second General observation The excellent Nature of his Inquiry which was not carnal and temporal but wholly spiritual and eternal He did not ask as an ordinary Youth what he should do that he might compass the greatest measure of Sensuality nor as an ordinary Worldling or man of Wealth what he should do that he might purchase the greatest Treasure of Gold and Silver nor as an ordinary Ruler what he should do that he might climb to the highest Honour upon Earth But casting These Things as it were behind his Back or treading them down under his Feet he was intent upon Inquiring as no ordinary Christian even before Christianity had got its Name what he should do to get an interest and share in Heaven How much soever he did abound in the things that are seen which are temporal He wholly directed his Ambition to the things that are not seen which are Eternal As the faster he ran to salute his Master by so much the better he was in Breath so the Lower he kneeled down he lifted his Thoughts so much the Higher Being mounted on the wings of an holy Zeal His Soul had now taken a nobler Flight than to Pearch upon any thing on this side Heaven As if he had lost the consideration of all his Secular Concernments such as Houses and Lands Goods and good Name Wife and Children if he had any and other things here below All the subject of his Inquiry was what he should do that he might be sav'd not only saved in the negative but in the positive sense of that word Not only so as to be rescued from a Bottomless Lake of Fire and Brimstone But also so as to be drown'd or swallowed up in a Boundless Ocean of Bliss and Glory Nothing would satisfie him but Life and no other Life than one Eternal Good Master what shall I do that I may Inherit Eternal Life § 2. From him therefore let us learn how to regulate our Ambitions and where to fasten our wild Desires We ought to tread upon the Glories of such a World as This is which besides that 't is a perishing and fading World is also the Instrument of Satan whereby to betray us to our Destruction and level the Gaspings of our Souls at Things Invisible and Future Things expressed to us in Scripture by a City having Foundations Heb. 11. 10. and by a Kingdom which cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. and here in this Text by Aeternal Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was St. Paul's Precept to his Colossians Set and settle your affections on things above And that for this Reason because your Christ is there sitting at the right hand of God Set them not upon the Earth For Iesus Christ is not here but is long since Risen as the Angel once said to his weak Disciples And if we are risen together with Christ let 's make it appear that we are Risen by our seeking those things that are above Since we were born out of due time to injoy the wish of St. Austin by seeing our Saviour in the Flesh let us look for him where he is and at least behold him in the Spirit Since I say we were not living when Christ was Conversant upon Earth Let us redeem the whole Time by a Ghostly Conversation with Christ in Heaven He who desires in Curiosity to see the Pope or the King of Spain and all the Rarities to be met with throughout their Countries will inquire as he is going which is the ready way thither and

Lowliness of Mary made her the Mother of our Lord so she was much the more lowly for That Advancement And so The Ruler in the Gospel who is ennobl'd by Three Evangelists thô nam'd by neither the fuller he was of worldly Greatness the more he saw it did concern him to make himself little before The Majesty of Christ from whom he was to seek for an higher Birth and Extraction such as by which he might have claim to an Inheritance of Aeternity which is not competent to any who is not of an immortal Race nor can he be of such a Race unless by being first Regenerate and Born of God and to be qualified for That he must humble himself as a little Child apt to learn and to obey meekly submitting unto the Rod and even kissing the Hand that holds it Look of what temper an earthly Father is wont to find his little Child a Child that trembles at every Threat and is easily kept in awe by an angry Look of the very same Temper ought Himself also to be in respect of His Father who is in Heaven But now besides the single Reason which has been given by Siracides There are other Reasons assignable why the greater any man is he is to humble himself the more He must be humbler being a Master than whilst he was yet but his Master's Man Still the lower for being High And because to some Persons This may seem an harsh Paradox or at least an hard Saying I shall attempt to make it easy by Three Degrees First 't is observable in Historians and Moral Writers that such as are rais'd out of the Dust are apt to prove the most ingrateful and cruel Tyrants They commonly take down the stairs by which Themselves were taken up and like a man climbing upon a Ladder love to be treading under their feet the chiefest means of their Advancement Asperius nihil est humili cum surgit ad altum The Fire out of the Bramble affects to devour the lofty Cedar Thence it was that Pausanias murder'd King Philip to be talk't of And 't was Phocas his Sensuality of a pitiful common Souldier to set his foot upon the Neck of the Great Emperour Mauritius So Charles the First of These Realms of whom the World was not worthy was not only sent to Heaven by some of the vilest of all his Subjects But particularly by some Himself had rais'd out of the Mire And if these things are so that They are aptest to be debauch't by their worldly Greatness whose Greatness steams out of a Dunghill as every man's does if he be traced far enough back it follows then that they have need of the greater Care and must be ply'd with the stricter Caveats the Greater they are to humble themselves so much the more because they are Then in the greatest Danger For the greater any one is by so much the greater are his Temptations and to be safe from That Artillery he stands in need of being armed with greater Meekness The more St. Paul was advanced by his Abundance of Revelations the more he was buffeted by Satan and by Himself too For he did Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beat his Body black and blue as the word imports that by Those profitable Severities He might bring it into Subjection Again the Greater any man is the more Humility does become him It sits upon him so much the better with the more loveliness and congruity It is not only the more his Duty but Honour and Ornament to be humble 'T is a Vertue which should flow from a Man of Grandeur with such a kind of Peculiarity as Munificence ought to do from a man of Wealth For He who is flat upon the Ground can no more prove that he is humble than He who lives upon Almes that he is liberally-minded We know the Taller any man is by so much the lower he has to stoop whereas the Lowliness of a Dwarf is not his Vertue but Stature only We need not go far to find an Instance for go we whither we will it will find out us How many are there who do not scorn to beg their Bread from door to door not because they are humble but shameless Creatures who were they honourable and potent would quickly shew themselves proud and oppressive too Vices made almost invisible in the necessitous sort of men not for want of a Being but of competent Materials to set them forth The weaponless Serpent Epidaurus though much more harmless may yet be as malitious as any other nor is 't a commendable Innocence which only proceeds from a want of Teeth How many are there within our knowledge whose Backs are cloath'd in course Russet whilst yet their Bloody-minded Insides are lin'd with Scarlet And when a person of such a Frame shall be reduced by some Extremity to beg an Halfpenny through a Grate which is wont to be said of the Great General Bellizarius That is only his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his lowness of Fortune not his lowliness of Mind It 's true indeed an humiliation may help dispose him for an Humility just as any Sinners Attrition may lead the way to Contrition but sure I am that the Gymnosophists who were tormented by Antiochus were no whit the meeker for being humbled They who think themselves humble because they see themselves low and not for any other more solid reason do not know their own Hearts which are commonly so hidden from human Eyes as hardly ever to be discern'd till they are placed upon a Mountain Let that Mountain be what it will whether of Riches or Renown or of worldly Greatness Almost all that were sick came to Christ for a Cure And as They at least thought with good devotion But in that they did not all return to thank him they shew'd the Principle of their coming to have been nothing but their Convenience Had the Votary in my Text been very poor and contemptible had he been every body's Servant by being in every body's Debt or miserably haunted with some Disease he had not done a strange Thing in seeking Christ upon his Knees But that being extremely Rich and a Ruler too and in the Bravery of his Youth he should consider Christ so much and himself so little This was an evidence of his generous and noble Meekness And Therefore the greater thou art my son lessen thy self so much the more And do it for a Third Reason which ought at least to be as prevalent as Both the former For the Greater any man is the greater Accompt he is to give to his one Great Master which is in Heaven that is to a Master with whom there is not Respect of Persons In the Day when God shall judge the Secrets of men by Iesus Christ He who now sits in State and Jurisdiction upon the Bench shall stand at God's just and impartial Bar. He shall be called to a Reck'ning a dreadful