Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bishop_n	emperor_n	king_n	1,415	5	4.0101	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33212	Eleven sermons preached upon several occasions and a paraphrase and notes upon the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth chapters of St. John : with a discourse of church-unity ... / by William Clagett.	Clagett, William, 1646-1688.	1699 (1699)	Wing C4386; ESTC R24832	142,011	306

commandments of God are ever with me We see by experience that men arrive to great skill in the business which they have in liking and esteem because they frequently exercise themselves in it and daily employ their thoughts about it Now that veneration of Divine Truth that value of Christian Knowledge which is implied in a sincere intent to do the will of God is incomparably greater and more operative and effectual than that which is founded either upon desire of praise or preferment or the mere pleasure of speculation only Therefore that esteem which the good man hath for Divine Truth will enforce a more frequent and attentive meditation thereupon and that assiduity will procure a better understanding of it and this again more delight and pleasure in it and if such proficiency and such satisfaction do thus whet one another and if they are not caused but by a great value and esteem of Divine truth then the good man who values it most has a singular advantage in his study and search after it 4. Every prevailing Lust and Passion is in it self an impediment to the knowledge of the Truth For instance the affection of the praise of men is that which frequently perverts a right judgment of things it was our Saviour's own Expostulation with the Jews How can ye believe that receive honour one of another and seek not that honour which cometh of God John 5.44 One would wonder what a strange delusion the Pride of the Pharisees kept them under the Delusion was so great that they could not judge whether they believed or disbelieved what they read in Moses for our Saviour tells them v. 46. Had ye believed Moses ye would also have believed me for he wrote of me Could we or could they themselves have thought that they who trusted in Moses that they who were the great Teachers of the Law of Moses that they who rejected Jesus because they thought his Doctrine overthrew the Law of Moses should be mistaken in their own belief of Moses and yet he adds v. 47. If ye believe not his writings how shall ye believe my words By which we may learn these things 1. If vain glory had not infatuated these men if the conceit of their own wisdom had not kept them from doubting of what they once thought if they had been humble enough to permit the Writings of Moses to convince them they must needs have read there that Jesus was the Christ 2. If one sin be predominant in a man's heart as Pride he may be so deluded by it as not to believe that to be in the Scripture which is plainly there and this too in a matter of great importance and concernment as the case now mentioned plainly shews 3. Much more will the judgments of men be perverted by several Lusts and Vices in conjunction with one another if to Pride and Ambition Covetousness and Envy and Revengefulness be added the fatal influence whereof upon the Understanding is so plainly discernable in the gross mistakes of those men that are engaged to serve a by-Cause and to maintain a Party against all the World Did we not know it by experience we should think it incredible that in these circumstances men of learning and subtilty should not be able to judge of the strength or weakness of Arguments of the true or false interpretation of Scripture of the pertinent or impertinent application of it even where the case is so plain that it requires neither subtilty nor learning to make a judgment of it Could any disinterested man believe that from the saying of Saint John in the conclusion of his Revelation If any man shall add unto the words of the prophecy of this book God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in it that from this Saying the unlawfulness of all Human Forms and Constitutions in Divine Worship might be inferr'd that is to say Because a Curse is threatned to any that shall attempt to corrupt the Bible by making any alteration in the Revelation of St. John therefore nothing is to be done in God's Worship which is not positively required in the Word of God And yet by such applications of Scripture as this the pretence hath been carried on by men of name and authority in the World Would it ever have come into a mans head to suspect that the Power of the Roman Bishop to depose Kings and Emperors might be argued from those words of our Lord to Peter Feed my sheep If Ambition and Covetousness and the serving of a Cause had not interven'd he would think the Sheep of Christ were to be fed with wholsome Doctrine and to be instructed in the duties of Patience and Constancy under Persecution and not with those inhuman Principles which turn them into Wolves and it is plain enough that without any wit and with infinitely greater probability the quite contrary conclusion may be several ways inferred from these words the quite contrary I say to what they of the Church of Rome would infer from them I shall not stand to expose their arguing from those words Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church in behalf of the universal Supremacy of the Roman Bishops and that because of the allusion of Petrus to Petra which if it would hold good for St. Peter's being the Rock how it will serve to make Boniface or Clement the Rock too would be hard to say or if it did that Rock implies Universal Supremacy would not suddenly have been thought of if it had not been to serve a Cause there would be a little more colour in those words and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven were it not plain That when the Keys were given to him as they were not till after the Resurrection of Christ they were given to all the other Apostles as fully and effectually as to him But suppose that had been said of Peter which St. Paul said of himself that the care of all the Churches was upon him which is a Saying more likely to conclude an Universal Pastorship from than the other how many learned Treatises may we think had been written upon it before now But for all that if any man should in earnest offer that place to prove that St. Paul was Christ's Vicar-General on Earth he would be answered no other way than by contempt So foully are the understandings of men overruled by their affections after they have wedded a Cause and resolved to go through with it and to maintain it right or wrong but that which is still worse is this that where the Spirit of Faction prevails and worldly Interest is carried on under the pretext of Religion the understandings of men are frequently disabled from judging right between good and evil otherwise how were it possible for men to believe that Hypocrisy and Lying and Perjury and Murder and Treason are in some cases not only excuseable but laudable that they