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	good_a	king_n	1,792	5	3.4864	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34735	The counter-plot, or, The close conspiracy of atheism and schism opened and so defeated and the doctrine and duty of evangelical obedience or Christian loyalty thereby asserted / by a real member of this most envy'd as most admired, because, best reformed Protestant Church of England.	Real member of this most envy'd, as, most admired, because, best reformed Protestant Church of England.	1680 (1680)	Wing C6522; ESTC R10658	41,680	44

ne ipsa delet iniquitas as St. Aust speaks that Law written in mens hearts which sin it self could not blot out This was that Law to which a penalty was annext in case of Transgression to be taken upon the verdict or testimony of Conscience i. e. that reflection the Soul makes Conscience what and the judgment which by that reflection it passes upon it self according to Law without which Law as there could be no guilt so without guilt there could be no Conscience Therefore if the Law makes not distinctively good or evil we can neither do well or ill or have either comfort or regret in the sense of one or other Conscience can never act without respect to a Law and to the Maker and Judge of that Law Its reflexion would be an useless and idle thing if all other things were indifferent because the sense of guilt would be incompossible with the praeclusion of Law and therefore every mans experience as it feels the one so it proves the other Witness the perplexity that haunts the Soul of the most cautious and closest sinner Witness the lashes that the Monarch feels from the hand of Conscience though freed from the touch of any other patiturque suos mens conscia manes Witness the fears and horrors of dying men who are then most afraid of this when they are nighest out of the reach of all other punishment But besides the testimony of Conscience we have the universal consent of Mankind there having never yet been any Nation so barbarous that believed every thing naturally alike or that had not some Principles and Practices too of Morality And indeed were it not thus were not good and evil made such by nature distinctly and antecedently to humane Laws these Laws could signifie nothing for were there no antecedent obligation to obey those Laws Rebellion would presently be as lawful as obedience is necessary Vain names of Oaths of Allegiance or Promises of Fidelity if it be not first a duty in it self to keep ones word I wonder who would then be a Subject that could hope to better himself by being otherwise Besides were it not thus how should humane Laws bind as we see they do in those places where Revelation has not yet been if the Obligation of Conscience to Obedience in such places be not resolv'd into the Law of Nature enjoyning Obedience as due to Governours Yea precluding the Law of Nature I speak now with becoming reverence how could God himself bind us to obedience by any Positive Law for unless it be first my duty to believe God because of his Veracity I am after the clearest Revelation left at my liberty to believe whether the Law be from God or no and if I should be so kind as to believe him yet if nothing be good or bad in it self then to despise the authority of God cannot be evil and therefore I may chuse as an indifferent thing whether I will obey him or not Yea why may not men if they please invert the very frame of all moral things and turn Vice into the place of Virtue So absurd as we have seen is this false and dangerous Hypothesis so directly thwart to the first Principles of Reason and to the common sence of mankind so plainly effective and introductive of all the evil and misery that can be done or suffer'd in the world that if it could be reasonably believed that the Author a man I doubt not eminently Learned should not be aware of what so follows thereupon it might also be charitably hop't that he would have denyed himself upon the first sight of such mischievous consequents were it not that we see many other and some not unlearned men who while they abhor the Principles in terms yet embrace those inferences which must needs come from them in course Tell the Schismatick there is no God oh Abominable that 't is abominable and the Atheist shall feel his arm but tell him Kings are not or obedience due to them is not Gods and you may shake his hand Suum euique tribuaere Tell him there is a natural or original Law of justice c. out upon these Atheists he 'l say so too tell him right reason is that instrument by which we discern this Law to be given to our natures still he 's content but tell him that therefore Obedience is both rational and natural and he begins to start what do you mean Sir Tell him that therefore it is due to man as Governour i. e. as the Ordinance of God you amaze him what though he be a Papist where by the way we cannot but acknowledge this same though Modern Papist or Infidel c. to be so much the more considerable as it carries with it an Emphasis of the loudest and harshest sound Papist in our English Reformed Translation being in a manner the same reading with Infidel or Mahometan but whilst I think it the severest I may also suspect it for the unjustest too as being a supposition however made at first God knows not I yet since that time manifestly as enviously urg'd and improved by some to such a popular height that it now seems more than probable they had rather suppose it though false than truly not suppose it and that they would not quit their advantage or exchange the pleasure of fixing the guilt and odium for my comfort in or my hope of the improbability of that imputation Their busie floating upon the top or surface of common fame will not let them sink to the depth and bottom of such humble reflexions as supposing what they suppose would certainly help us more and become us better for whether is more Evangelical think we the language of Ashdod or the speech of Canaan that roaring clamour he is Popishly affected and shall never Reign c. or that still remorseful voice righteous art thou O Lord and thy judgments are true and as we sin'd by thrusting out as we did a Protestant King and Nursing Father so shouldst thou punish us by bringing in the contrary yet still righteous art thou O Lord c. But besides that we may be jealous of this jealousie as seeing no more sufficient ground than we think they have good cause for it and that we are not to suspect rashly without such ground or tumultuously and irreverently with it methinks we have this good reason against it that it got no higher than a Supposition there where we doubt not it would if it could have been lifted up to an Assertion and I know some very near the subject of this praedicate that know no more of it than I do and I now thank God that thus I do not know it and thence may infer my duty not to believe it my duty I say and the rather because I believe verily such a Supposition can hardly be well made of any man or Christian without making another of the ignorance or unsincerity of the same man