Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bring_v	effect_n	sin_n	2,000	5	5.1557	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46905	Nature inverted, or, Judgement turned into gall delivered in a sermon at the Cathedral Church of St. Peter in York, upon Monday the 18th of July, 1670, being the summer assize held before the Right Honourable Baron Turner and Baron Littleton, the Right Worshipfull Sr. Philip Monckton, Knight, being then High-sheriff of Yorkshire / by James Johnson ...	Johnson, James, 1639 or 40-1704.	1670 (1670)	Wing J778; ESTC R3847	13,194	25

General in the unsuccessfulness of their affairs and undertakings wherein their labours should be as fruitless and endeavours as successless as a horse or oxe's running or plowing upon a craggy rock According to that threatning in Deut. They should be cursed in the city and in the field in their basket and in their store in their going out and in their coming in Quicquid calcaverint spina fiet Nihil eorum as Mercer quae acturi sunt sit illis successurum ut si quis per rupes equum concitet aut aret in rupe bobus quod frustrà sine fructu fecerit Or else 2. A particular judgement by destruction from their enemies either the Assyrians as S. Cyril or other Adversaries as Arias Montanus thinks who as 't is in the preceding verse should smite the great house with breaches viz. their Kings and Princes Judges and Nobles or as some understand it the Priests and Levites or as others extend it the whole ten Tribes of Israel and the little house with clefts viz. the lower and inferiour rank of people as Albert. Mag. or the laity among the Israelites as Lyra or the two Tribes of Judah and Benjamin as Drusius and Grotius the destruction of the Great House according to the latter of these being referred to the time of Salmanassar as that of the little one is to the army of Sennacherib And now though the Israelites might boast of their power and strength by reason of Jeroboam their Prince who had gotten great victories and enlarged the Territories of their Kingdom yet as 't is v. 13. they rejoyced in a thing of nought for the courage and strength and success of their enemies should be such that they should besiege their gates beat down their strong holds and lay their palaces in the dust The City in which they might hope to take sanctuary should be delivered with all that was therein the city or hill of Zion wherein they were at ease or the mountain of Samaria wherein they trusted and the rocks in which they placed their confidence should be so brought down and as it were levelled by their enemies that even in a literal sense horses might run or oxen plow there Which effects would not seem strange to them if they did but consider their sins the cause thereof which were more strange and monstrous Thus when Judgement and Righteousness the two bulwarks of a Nation are thrown down when men change the order and nature of Justice and equity into that which is most opposite and contrary thereto 't is no wonder if God for their punishment change the very order of nature and to make his judgements wonderfull as is threatned Deut. 28. cause through a multitude of enemies even horses to run upon a rock and men to plow there with oxen 7. Others judge the words to be a complaint of the Prophets unsuccessfulness in his reproofs which were frustrated by them They were become so degenerate in their principles so depraved in their practises so stupified in their minds and so hardned in their hearts that his words were but as thrown against a rock or as water spilt upon the ground rebuking of them was as if one did sing a song to a deaf man so that instead of reprehending them he is ready to reprove himself for that mispense of labour that was cast upon those who were so desperately corrupted that they turned all the good presented to or bestowed upon them into evil so that his endeavours herein were as successless as a horses running upon the rocks and as ineffectual as ones plowing there with oxen 8. Lastly Others look upon the words as a charge drawn up against them for their grand injustice and cruelty in that they had overturned all law and right and were become such monsters therein as if they had changed the very order of law and nature They had so corrupted all judgement overthrown all right undermined all law● that thereby as the Psalmist speaks all the foundations of the earth were out of course for they did not onely privately swallow up the needy and make the poor of the land to fail endeavouring to buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes making also the Ephah small and the shekel great and falsifying the balances by deceit but they did publickly afflict the just they took a bribe and turned aside the poor in the gate the place of open and publick judicature from their right They turned judgement into wormwood and left off righteousness in the earth or as the Prophet here expresses it they turned judgement into gall and the fruits of righteousness into hemlock they made that which in it self is sweet and pleasant as nauseous and distastfull to God as gall and hemlock are to the tasts of men In which charge drawn up against them may be considered 1. The specification of their Sin 2. The nature and quality of it 1. The Specification of it The Prophet thinks it not sufficient to tell them onely they are sinners but charges that sin upon them for which they are most notorious Discourses at large and in general seldom make impression upon any in particular generalia non pungunt Such a reproof is like the flourishing or brandishing of a sword in the air none is pierced or wounded by it a close and particular application is requisite for conviction as in the course of the law general accusations will ground no actions for if a man be accused 't is not sufficient to say he is a malefactour but he must be charged with particulars so the Prophet according to that method when he arraigns these sinners here he frames an indictment against them of notorious and personal offences Men generally take great exceptions against this kind of dealing especially they that are in power and authority such as those against whom the Prophet here draws up his accusation which notwithstanding is not stifled by any awe of their power or suppressed by any fear of their greatness If they be great he is the messenger of one that 's greater and therefore if they be bold in sining it well becomes him to be so in reproving Those that are advanced above the ordinary pitch of men in the world think the addition of their outward fortune which is often all the worth they have to boast of must exempt and priviledge them from the rebukes which come from those that in any secular respect are below them accounting it a diminution of their greatness to be taxed with any crime as though the reproof of their sin were a greater dishonour than the commission of it It is the folly of men that they had rather be flattered in their vices than reproved for them especially if they be so notorious as the world takes notice of them These magistrates here could happily have been content that the Prophet had inveighed against some other sin wherein they had not