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	let_v	1,459	5	4.0417	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60227	The life and death of Sir Henry Vane, Kt., or, A short narrative of the main passages of his earthly pilgrimage together with a true account of his purely Christian, peaceable, spiritual, gospel-principles, doctrine, life and way of worshipping God, for which he suffered contradiction and reproach from all sorts of sinners, and at last, a violent death, June 14. Anno, 1662 : to which is added, his last exhortation to his children, the day before his death.	Sikes, George.	1662 (1662)	Wing S3780; ESTC R19959	148,120	164

the tumultuous confusions and insurrections of the workers of iniquity against them they have a steady composure and un-interrupted serenity of mind through an unshaken submission to acquiescence in and conformity to the will of God in all occurrences In the greatest storms the sharpest and most fiery ●ryals that can befal them when they see the flames of man's wrath the floods of Belial or wicked men devouring on all hands and overwhelming all considerations or appearances of true outward peace equity or order they have the inward peace and joy unspeakable and glorious which such strangers cannot intermeddle with or interrupt A perfect calmness and serenity both in spirit and outward deportment may be the Believers portion and ornament in such a season and such circumstances when the vilest of men are exalted and the wicked walk on every side When the world is in the most injurious career against the Saints then doth Christ more intimately imbrace them and more abundantly manifest to their Faith the riches and glory of the world to come Vse 2. for your instruction These things I leave with you as the words of one in my place and circumstances that ought to have weight with you that are young and liable to be misled Learn hence to put value upon the priviledge of believing Saints Be the daughters and children of Abraham and Sarah in all modest chaste and holy conversation Quit the broad way and beaten Road that leadeth to Destruction and be for the narrow path that leadeth unto Life the way everlasting Psal. 139. 24. Let not your care be spent in outward adorning but in adorning the hidden or inner man of your hearts with that which is not corruptible Get the ornament of a me●k and quiet spirit which in the sight of God is of great price With all your getting get divine wisdom and understanding Prov. 4. 7. Be as circumspect and cu●ious as you can in these heavenly ornaments watching alwayes to cast and keep out every thing that defiles that you may possess your vessels in sanctification and honour as becomes the temples of the holy Ghost glorifying God with your bodies and with your spirits which are his After this manner holy women that trusted in God did in old time adorn themselves whose daughters ye are so long as ye do well and you will find no need to be afraid with any amazement For keeping alwayes by this means a good conscience void of offence towards God and towards man when men shall speak evil of you as of evil doers the shame shall be their own It will appear 't is only your chaste and good conversation in Christ they persecute and accuse you for This is the ground of all their malice and reproaches Christ hath chosen you out of the world be ye followers of him out of it in the peculiar distinguishing spirit and conversation of pilgrims and strangers But then know the inhabitants of the earth will hate you Let this common lot and portion of Believers from this world be expected by you and rendred familiar to you that when you come indeed more eminently under the experiences of it you may not look upon it as any new strange or unusual thing that happens to you above all other Believers But when such things come to pass rejoyce in as much as ye are made partakers of Christs sufferings that when his glory shall be revealed ye may be glad also with exceeding joy If ye be reproached for the Name of Christ if ye suffer for Righteousness sake happy are ye for the Spirit of Glory and of God resteth upon you Be ye not therefore afraid of their terrour neither be you troubled but sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts by your stedfastness and boldness It may be ready to startle you to see a Believer thus handled as you see me now to end his mortal dayes by the hands of violence though not without the free and willing surrender of his Life in compliance with the divine hand and determinate cousel of God herein This is the way which the Lord himself the great Captain of our Salvation went before us in Let not this way of the Lord be evil spoken of by you Let not the least prejudice or thought arise in your hearts against it on this occasion but rather let it serve for the increase and strengthning of your Faith as it ought Vse 3. That which hath been said and observed concerning Abraham as to God's taking such peculiar notice of him and making such peculiar discoveries of his secrets to him should serve to instruct inform and mind us of the great benefits and glorious advantages attainable for us by abiding and increasing in the spirit and faith of our father Abraham It will meet with glorious Returns from God The Spirit of Glory will rest upon such as do thus improve the example of Abraham The secrets of the Lord are with them that fear him The Angels of the Lord encamp round about them and deliver them yet not alwayes from a violent death by the hands of men Christ himself would not imploy the Angels in this service though he could have had more than twelve legions of them for his rescue at his desire The followers of Christ then are not altogether delivered from death but from the fear the sting the power of death and so are made to conquer and triumph over death it self and him that hath the power of death by dying as Christ did who was thus heard in what he feared Heb. 5. 7. Live then in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit and Faith of our Father Abraham Listen to the Experiences of your Father in this dying hour and season of darkness who can and doth here give a good report of that heavenly and better Country he is now going to the more free and full enjoyment of In the midst of these his dark circumstances his enjoyments and refreshings from the presence of the Lord do more abound than ever I can truly say that as my tribulations for Christ have risen higher and abounded my Consolations have abounded much more My Imprisonment and hard usage from men hath driven me nearer to God and more alienated and disentangled my mind from the snares and cumbrances of this mortal life You have no cause to be ashamed of my Chain or no fear being brought into the like circumstances I now am in so it be on as good an occasi●n for the Name and Cause of Christ and for his Righteousness sake Let this word abide with you whatever befalls you Resolve to fuller any thing from men rather than sin against God yea rejoyce and be exceeding glad when you find it given to you on the behalf of Christ not only to believe in him but to suffer for his Name Stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the Faith of the Gospel and be in nothing terrified by your adversaries but go on in your

the heathen and punishments upon the people even upon both those sorts of enemies that took counsel together against them whether the prophane or but legally religious party Psal. 2. 1 2. Both the Heathen that are no People of God at all and such a People of God as may apostatize become no people again they shall all go to wrack their Kings shall be bound with chains and their Nobles with fetters of iron All this shall be performed by the faith and prayer of Believers in association with the holy Angels Such honour have all his Saints This concluding Battel that is to make a clear riddance of all the wicked tyrannical Monarchies and Powers of this world is else where expressed thus Not by might nor by power but by my spirit saith the Lord of Hosts Zech. 4. 6. But the greatest conquest that can be attained over enemies while t is yet but a suffering season is by Death This Martyr followed his great Master herein Who by Death overcame him that had the power of Death the Devil Heb. 2. 14. He that conquers by killing overcomes but men he that conquers by dying overcomes the Devil His false friends conquered their enemies by killing them he tried another and the surer way of Conquest though mystical to conquer them by being killed by them He has more advantaged a good CAUSE and condemned a bad one done his honest Countrey-men more service and his enemies more disservice by his death as Sampson served the Philistines then before in all his Life though that also were very considerable If death were not the noblest most excellent and certain way of conquest would the great Captaine of our Salvation have led us that way Are we followers of that Captain unless we go the same way he went They that conquer by killing others are still subject to death themselves Yea to be killed by some remainders of those they conquered They that conquer by dying are no longer subject to death 'T is appointed unto man once to die No rage or power of man can take away this Martyrs Life the second time 'T is true Christ himself offered up supplications with strong crying and teares unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared Heb. 5. 7. that is was delivered from the fear of Death before hand and out of the jawes of it after for it was not possible he should be holden of it Act. 2. 24. This disciple of his prayed for the same thing and he did experience and say Death shrunke from him not he from it He had experienced the good hand of God in delivering him from Deaths of● and when the season was come he found that Death it self would prove the greatest deliverance that he ever had in all his life So he experienced the delivering hand of God from Death oft and by Dea●h once which was the accomplishment of all his former deliverances He did look Death in the face with a true chearful boldness not in a transport or dissembled courage as is usual but in a fixed composure and full vigor of all his natural senses To be thus delivered from the fear of Death is more then to be delivered from Death So to be delivered from all inordinate love of our natural Life and the concerns thereof is a greater mercy then to be gratified with a confluence of all worldly desirables All the Crowns and Scepters of this world are short of this frame of mind crucified to things seen Alexander put so great a value upon a shadow of this in Diogenes that he said Were he not Alexander he would be Diogenes The Conqueror accounted a deadness to the whole scene of outward Vanities the best condition next to the having all at command Had he not been partial he might have reckoned it better He soon after lost his world and himself together in a drunken fit at Babylon the common Rendevouz for bruitish pomp under three of the four worldly Monarchies Assyrian Persian and Greek The love of this world is enmity to God and breeds in us the fear of man that can deprive us of what we love and the fear of man brings a snare will keep us from witnessing a good confession as Christ did If we fear them that can kill the Body we shall never be bold in a good cause before wicked Judges This Patriot feared not Death and therefore did as boldly fully and clearly assert his Countries Rights and Liberties at their Bar as he had before for many years together on all occasions in the Parliament House His stedfastness in the Faith in the Covenant his constancy for the publick Interest rendered him very unsolicitous as to his own personal concerns or Life And what must all this be tearmed by his enemies This steadiness and boldness of spirit in asserting the Cause of God and these Nations to the Death which is highly esteemed of God and all good men is by his bruitish adversaries called an impudent defence of his Treason He was well steeled and made of God with Ieremy as an iron pillar and brazen walles against any impudence or treason that others could affront him with under a face of autho●ity He evidently preferred the Lives and Liberties of all the knowing honest-hearted people in the Nation to his own He was couragious therefore in the defence of them What thought his enemies of this Ready they were to charge him with such deportment in his Trial and on the Scaffold towards them and the king as Iob was truly charged with by Elihu against God Iob 34.37 He addeth rebellion to his sin he clappeth his hands amongst us and multiplieth his words against the King What were the words can any tell They multiplied their words against God the Laws of England and him He resisted them unto blood This was the highest demonstration of his sincerity that was possible to be given and the greatest victory over all his enemies that was possible to be obteined Cromwels victories are swallowed up of Death he has swallowed up Death it self into victory and is gone in the Charet of salvation to receive his Crown from the hands of Christ 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. which no man by any treachery or force can ever take from him He let fall his mantle left his body behind him that he had worn nine and forty years and is gone to keep his everlasting Jubile in Gods ●●est 'T is all DAY with him now no night or sorrow more no prisons or death He is gone from a pl●ce where so much as the righteousness of man can't be endured He is gone to a place where the righteousness of God is the universal ga●be of all the inhabitants He is gone to that better City the New-Ierusalem He had served his generation in his mortal Body done his work and was glad to fall a sleep and go look for his reward some where else You see what this ingrateful world has

Treason and that post factum too in this case he that did things most rational and justifiable by unrepealed or unrepealable Laws yesterday may be condemned by a Law made post factum and executed too morrow By this meanes Judges may be put into a most unhappy capacity of justifying the wicked and condemning the righteous under colour of Parliamentary authority in both which things they are an abomination to the Lord Prov. 17. 15. Count Gundamore observed it to be no uneasie thing to procure a Parliament that would gratify a self-interested party and abuse the People A corrupt sort of Gentry that have many Tenants and Dependants who to please their Landlords would betray their Country and Religion too could easily procure themselves to be chosen saies he for the County And for Corporations whose Burgesses fill the far greater number of Seats in that House their obligations for some enlargement of their Charters by Royal Grant rendred them compliant in their choice He farther observed That the King as sole Iudge of Chivalry created new Lords that could in voting out number the antient Barons by Tenure who purchased the ratification of the antient fundamental Rights and Liberties of England specified in Magna Charta with their Swords in Henry the Third's time All these things put together he reckoned Prerogative to have such a ruling influence in the election and constitution of English Parliaments that notwithstanding their great same abroad they served for little other use than to empty the Peoples purses Yet as fearing what an English Parliament may come to do in time one chief service he boasts of to his Countrymen was the working a dislike between the King and the Lower House so that saies he the King will never endure a Parliament more by his good will but rather want than receive conditional relief from them Some free minds he said there were amongst the People that laboured to preserve their just Liberties from Soveraign invasion calling out for the due course of their Common Law but other Time servers cryed the Laws down Prerogative up to shelter their own arbitrary domination in preying on the Subject and are hated by the oppressed Commons for their pains All this kind of discouraging practice that tended to enfeeble emasculate and dis-spirit the English Nation he tells the Spanish Council he forwarded to the utmost He further declared how he had under-wrought the admirable Engine Sir Walter Rawleigh and overthrown his Voyage which threatened danger to them that upon his disgraceful return by him caused he had pursued him to Execution had not his Commission for stay in England bin at its period but he had left a sure Agent behind him that saw it done Thus saies he by punishing him for his daring attempt upon us I laboured to quench the Valour of the English Nation that none might be so bold as to venture upon the like again All those English Papists that were of the Spanish Faction thorowly Iesuited were ready saies he to be my bloodhounds to hunt him or any such to death They hate the Prosperity Valour Worth and Wit of their own Nation in respect of our Catholick Cause He also had perswaded King Iames to let his Fleet remain unman'd and unvictualled least his Master should be jealous of some intendments to his prejudice and so break off the Spanish Match Now therefore said he is a fit opportunity to Invade England never the like They might probably have made better work of it at that season than in 88 but that other cross blows prevented them as the apprehending of Barnevelt and the detection of their Catholick design in these parts of Europe towards the reducing all the Kingdomes of the World Protestant Popish Mahumetane or what ever else into subjection to the Spanish King as the natural Head Lord and Soveraign over all by the Popes free donation and appointment on condition that he bring him into the exercise of his Headship in Spirituals as fast as he gets his own in Temporals Thus they pleased themselves in their own Imaginations to divide the World between them but the World will not be so served These things with many other in Gundamores Narrative came to light amongst us by Sir Robert Cotton as 't is said that great Treasurer of learned and pertinent rarities By these observations practises of the politick Spaniard it may appear his Reason pitched on the same conclusion with Solomon Pro. 11. 14. That in the multitude of Counsellours there is safety and that for any State to refer matters too much to the single understanding and will of some one person may expose all to forreign invasion and ruine Can it then appear unreasonable in any State specially when there is no single person in possession to offer such a proposal to free debate amongst the Peoples Trustees whether or no it be convenient to admit a single person to the Legislative or executive power over them The Romans nipp'd Tyranny in the bud executed their Founder and first King Romulus to preserve their Foundations the Laws which he neglected They banished proud Tarquin their seventh and last on the same account Whatever any may think they have to say against those two popular actions there may seem not to be the Jeast colour of reason to alledge against one that had no hand or consent in the execution of the one or expulsion of the other this Sufferers Case to offer such a proposal to the People or Senate Whether some other form of Government might not be more conducible to the publick Interest Such Questions were propounded and debated amongst those old Romanes They did use their just natural Liberty as men in considering what might most make for publick safety the main end for which there are any such things as Governments or Governours at all and concluded upon two yearly Consuls that were limitted by many Senators as they also afterwards by popular Tribun's and sometimes a Dictator till all were swallowed up again into an Emperour The successe was this Their Dominion while under Kings extended about fifteen miles from Rome Under Consuls their territories were enlarged to about fifteen thousand miles compass Under some of their bruitish and Tyrannical Emperors they lost ground again faster than ever they got it The Lacedemonian Ephori and such like popular Superintendents in other Greek Common-wealths that were authorized to curb restrain depose their Kings and something more in case of such exorbitances and misgovernment as deserved it who knows not 'T was ordinary amongst them not onely to change their Governours but Government also If one race of Kings be lawfully deposed they are not wronged by change of Government and who else can be 'T is so natural and fundamental a Right in People to have use such a Liberty that we may do wel to consider whether they have any right to give it out of their hands unless it be lawful to contradict the Law of