Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bad_a	good_a	see_v	1,466	5	3.4614	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62609	A sermon preached before the King and Queen at White-Hall, the 27th of October being the day appointed for a publick thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the signal victory at sea, for the preservation of His Majesty's Sacred Person, and for his safe return to his people / by John, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1692 (1692)	Wing T1246; ESTC R17994	15,618	38

Provocation And this in a more Barbarous manner than the most Barbarous Nations ever did carrying Fire and Desolation wheresoever he went and laying wast many and great Cities without necessity and without pity And now behold what a terrible Rebuke the Providence of God hath given to this mighty Monarch in the full Carrier of his Fortune and Fury The consideration whereof brings to my thoughts those Passages in the Prophet concerning old Babylon that standing and perpetual Type of the great Oppressors and Persecutors of Gods true Church and Religion How is the Oppressour ceased the exactour of gold ceased He who smote the People in wrath with a continual stroke he who ruled the Nations in anger is himself persecuted and none hindreth The whole Earth is at rest and is quiet and breaks forth into singing The grave beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming it stirreth up the dead for thee even all the Captains of the Earth it hath raised up from their Thrones all the Kings of the Nations all they shall speak and say unto thee art thou also become weak as we are art thou also become like unto us How art thou fallen from Heaven O Lucifer Son of the morning How art thou cut down to the ground that didst weaken the Nations For thou hast said in thy heart I will ascend into Heaven I will exalt my Throne above the Stars of God I will sit also upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North That is upon Mount Zion for just so the Psalmist describes it Beautiful for situation the joy of the whole Earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the North. Here the King of Babylon threatens to take Jerusalem and to demolish the Temple where the Congregation of Israel met for the Worship of the true God I will also sit upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North Much in the same Style with the threatnings of Modern Babylon I will destroy the Reformation I will extirpate the Northern Heresie And then he goes on I will ascend above the height of the clouds I will be like the most High Yet thou shalt be brought down to the grave to the sides of the pit They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee saying Is this the man that made the earth to tremble that did shake Kingdoms that made the World as a Wilderness and destroyed the Cities thereof and opened not the House of his Prisoners God seems already to have begun this Work in the late glorious Victory at Sea and I hope he will cut it short in righteousness I have sometimes heretofore wondred Why at the destruction of Modern and Mystical Babylon the Scripture should make so express mention of great wailing and lamentation for the loss of Her Ships and Seamen Little imagining thirty years ago that any of the Kingdoms who had given their power to the Beast would ever have arrived to that mighty Naval Force But the Scripture saith nothing in vain Whether and how far Success is an argument of a good Cause I shall not now debate But thus much I think may safely be affirmed That the Providence of God doth sometimes without plain and downright Miracles so visibly shew it self that we cannot without great stupidity and obstinacy refuse to acknowledge it I grant the Cause must first be manifestly just before Success can be made an Argument of Gods favour to it and approbation of it And if the Cause of true Religion and the necessary defence of it against a false and Idolatrous Worship be a good Cause Ours is so And I do not here beg the Question we have abundantly proved it to the confusion of our Adversaries If the vindication of the common Liberties of Mankind against Tyranny and Oppression be a good Cause then Ours is so And this needs not to be proved it is so glaringly evident to all the World And as our Cause is not like theirs so neither hath their Rock been like our Rock our Enemies themselves being Judges And yet as bad an argument as success is of a good Cause I am sorry to say it but I am afraid it is true it is like in the conclusion to prove the best Argument of all other to convince those who have so long pretended conscience against submission to the present Government Meer Success is certainly one of the worst Arguments in the World of a good Cause and the most improper to satisfie Conscience And yet we find by experience that in the issue it is the most successful of all other Arguments and do's in a very odd but effectual way satisfie the Consciences of a great many men by shewing them their Interest God has of late visibly made bare his Arm in our behalf though some are still so blind and obstinate that they will not see it Like those of whom the Prophet complains Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but they shall see and be ashamed for their envy at thy People Thus have I represented unto you a mighty Monarch who like a fiery Comet hath hung over Europe for many years and by his malignant influence hath made such terrible havock and devastations in this part of the World Let us now turn our View to the other part of the Text And behold a greater than he is here A Prince of a quite different Character who does understand and know God to be the Lord which doth exercise loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth And who hath made it the great Study and Endeavour of his life to imitate these Divine Perfections as far as the imperfection of humane nature in this mortal state will admit I say a greater than he is here who never said or did an insolent thing but instead of despising his Enemies has upon all occasions encounter'd them with an undaunted Spirit and resolution This is the Man whom God hath honoured to give a Check to this Mighty Man of the Earth and to put a hook into the Nostrils of this great Leviathan who has so long had his pastime in the Seas But we will not insult as He once did in a most unprincely manner over a Man much better than himself wheu he believed Him to have been slain at the Boyne And indeed Death came then as near to him as was possible without killing him But the merciful Providence of God was pleased to step in for his Preservation almost by a Miracle For I do not believe that from the first use of great Guns to that Day any mortal man ever had his shoulder so kindly kiss'd by a Canon bullet But I will not trespass any further upon that which is the great Ornament of all his other Vertues though I have said nothing of Him but what all the World does see and must acknowledge He is as much above being flatter'd as it is beneath an honest and a generous mind to flatter Let us then glory in the Lord and rejoyce in the God of our Salvation Let us now in the presence of all his People pay our most thankful acknowledgments to him who is worthy to be praised even to the Lord God of Israel who alone doth wondrous things Who giveth Victory unto Kings and hath preserved our David his Servant from the hurtful Sword And let us humbly beseech Almighty God that he would long preserve to us the invaluable Blessing of our two Excellent Princes whom the Providence of God hath sent amongst us like two good Angels not to rescue two or three persons but almost a whole Nation out of Sodom By saving us I hope at last from our Vices as well as at first from that Vengeance which was just ready to have been poured down upon us Two Sovereign Princes reigning together and in the same Throne and yet so intirely one as perhaps no Nation no Age can furnish us with a Parallel Two Princes perfectly united in the same Design of promoting the true Religion and the Publick Welfare by reforming our Manners and as far as is possible by repairing the breaches and healing the ●ivisions of a miserably distracted Church and Nation In a Word Two Princes who are contented to sacrifice Themselves and their whole Time to the care of the Publick And for the sake of that to deny themselves almost all sort of ease and pleasure To deny themselves did I say No they have wisely and judiciously chosen the truest and highest Pleasure that this World knows the Pleasure of doing good and being Benefactors to mankind May they have a long and happy Reign over us to make us happy and to lay up in store for Themselves A Happiness without measure and without end in Gods glorious and everlasting Kingdom for his Mercies sake in Jesus Christ to whom with thee O Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory Thanksgiving and Praise both now and for ever Amen FINIS Advertisement THERE is newly Printed and in few days will be publisht Sixteen Discourses on several Texts of Scripture By the late Pious and Learned Henry More D. D. in Octavo Printed for Brab Aylmer in Cornhil 1 Cor. 1. 25. Job 21. 30. Chap. 28. 12. Job 28. 28. Eccl. 9. 11. Job 38. 22 23. Ps 52. 1. Prov. 23. 5. Eccl. 5. 13. Prov. 1. 18. Job 40. 9. Judg. 10. 13. Deut. 32. 20. Jer. 6. 8. Isa 14. Ps 48. 2. Rev. 18. 17. Isa 26. 11.

presumption great prudence at Sea But the true reason of these things lies much deeper in the secret Providence of Almighty God who when he pleaseth can so govern and over-rule both the understandings and the wills of men as shall best serve his own wise purpose and design And as the highest pitch of human Wisdom is very imperfect in it self so is it much more so in comparison with the Divine knowledg and wisdom Compar'd with this it is mere folly and less than the understanding and wisdom of a child to that of the wisest man The foolishness of God says St. Paul is wiser than men that is the least grain of Divine wisdom is infinitely beyond all the wisdom of men But in opposition to the wisdom of God the wisdom of men is less than nothing and vanity Let men design things never so prudently and make them never so sure even to the Popish and French degree of infallibility let them reckon upon it as a Blow that cannot fail Yet after all the counsel of the Lord that shall stand and he will do all his pleasure for there is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord. And now we may ask the Question which Job does Where shall wisdom be found and where is the place of understanding And we must answer it as he does It is not to be found in the land of the living unless it be that one infallible Point of Wisdom to which God directs every man and of which every man is capable viz. Religion and the fear of God Unto man he said Behold the fear of the Lord that is wisdom and to depart from evil is understanding Secondly When knowledg and wisdom are with great difficulty in any competent measure attain'd how easily are they lost By a disease by a blow upon the head by a sudden and violent passion which may disorder the strongest Brain and confound the clearest Understanding in a moment Nay even the excess of knowledg and wisdom especially if attended with pride as too often it is is very dangerous and does many times border upon distraction and run into madness Like an Athletick constitution and perfect state of health which is observ'd by Physicians to verge upon some dangerous disease and to be a forerunner of it And when a man's understanding is once craz'd and shatter'd how are the finest notions and thoughts of the wisest man blunder'd and broken perplex'd and entangled like a puzzl'd lump of silk so that the man cannot draw out a thought to any length but is forc'd to break it off and to begin at another end Upon all which and many more accounts Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom which is so very imperfect so hard to be attain'd and yet so easie to be lost 2. Neither let the mighty man glory in his might Which whether it be meant of natural strength of body or of military force and power how weak and imperfect is it and how frequently foil'd by an unequal strength If we understand it of the natural strength of mens bodies how little reason is there to glory in that in which so many of the Creatures below us do by so many degrees excell us In that which may so many ways be lost by sickness by a maime and by many other external accidents and which however will decay of it self and by age sink into infirmity and weakness And how little reason is there to glory in that which is so frequently foil'd by an unequal strength of which Goliah is a famous Instance When he defied the Host of Israel and would needs have the matter decided by single Combate God inspired David to accept the Challenge who tho he was no wise comparable to him in strength and would have been nothing in his hands in close fight yet God directed him to assail him at a distance by a weapon that was too hard for him a stone out of a sling which struck the Giant in the forehead and brought his unweildy bulk down to the earth Or if by might we understand military force and power how little likewise is that to be gloried in considering the uncertain events of War and how very often and remarkably the Providence of God doth interpose to cast the Victory on the unlikely Side It is Solomon's observation that such are the interpositions of Divine Providence in human Affairs that Event of things is many times not at all answerable to the power and probability of second Causes I returned says he and saw under the Sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battel to the strong And one way among many others whereby the Providence of God doth often interpose to decide the events of War is by a remarkable change of the Seasons and Weather in favour of one Side As by sending great Snows or violent Rains to hinder the early motion and march of a powerful Army to the disappointment or prejudice of some great Design By remarkable Winds and Storms at Sea to prevent the conjunction of a powerful Fleet and by governing all these for a long time together so visibly to the advantage of one Side as utterly to defeat the well laid design of the other Of all which by the great mercy and goodness of God to us we have had the happy experience in all our late signal Deliverances and Victories And here I cannot but take notice of a passage to this purpose in the Book of Job Which may deserve our more attentive regard and consideration because I take this Book to be incomparably the most ancient of all other and much elder than Moses And yet it is written with as lively a sense of the Providence of God and as noble Figures and flights of Eloquence as perhaps any Book extant in the world The Passage I mean is where God to convince Job of his ignorance in the secrets of Nature and Providence poseth him with many hard Questions and with this amongst the rest Hast thou entred into the treasures of the Snow hast thou seen the treasures of the Haile which I have reserv'd against the time of trouble against the Day of Battel and War The meaning of which is that the Providence of God doth sometimes interpose to determine the events of War by governing the Seasons and the Weather and by making the Snows and Rains the Winds and Storms to fulfil his word and to execute his pleasure Of this we have a remarkable Instance in the defeat of Sifera's mighty Army against whom in the Song of Deborah the Stars are said to have fought in their courses The expression is Poetical but the plain meaning of it is that by mighty Rains which the common Opinion did ascribe to a special influence of the Planets the River of Kishon near which Sisera's Army lay was by sudden Rains so raised and swoln as to drown the greatest part of that huge Host