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	great_a	king_n	3,018	5	3.5536	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66416	A sermon preached upon the fifth of November, 1678. By a Protestant divine	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1678 (1678)	Wing W2723; ESTC R214125	17,281	35

whose whole design it is to defeat him in the good that he would do for mankind doth perpetually labour to put a stop to whatever may be offered toward the delivering of the Souls of men out of his snare How doth he triumph in being the god of this World and in the success that he hath upon poor and miserable mortals most of whom he hath in all ages made his tributaries and vassals and by whom he was so generally served and obeyed that it was but in a spot of the earth that God was truly worshipped a Country not above 200 miles in length and 80 in breadth So Psal 147. 19 20 He sheweth his word unto Jacob his statutes and his judgments unto Israel He hath not dealt so with any nation and as for his judgments they have not known them Whatever good men might be scattered through the World and however Religion might be preserved in some particular Families and Tribes of other nations as it was in that of Job and his friends yet there was no intire nation that kept up the Religion of the only true God besides that of the Jews When mankind had basely degenerated and the state of the World grew worse and worse God chose out the people of Israel for his peculiar service and as for other ends so to be an instrument of winning others over to the same practice This people he separated from the rest of the World and by his dealings with them in dividing the Seas piercing the Rocks destroying the nations for them and preserving them when threatned with the greatest dangers so that no violence could hurt them nor power disposses them nor any thing destroy them but their sins by these and the like ways he made them conspicuous to the Nations far and near and pu● such upon enquiring whence all this should proceed and so at length they might be won to own the same God and put themselves under his protection So Deut. 4. 6 Keep therefore and do them my statutes for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of all the nations which shall hear all these statutes and say surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people So Vers 32. 33 34. and Chap. 26. 18 19. And when God had so visibly separated a people to himself from all the World and that by such eminent tokens of his presence with them he had made them and himself known to the World it was no wonder that the Devil set himself with all his might to prevent this growing-danger that threatned his Kingdom and to provide that his dominions which he had kept hitherto intire to himself might not be invaded and what he had usurped might not be wrested out of his hands Nothing should in such a case be wanting on his part that either his wit could invent or his power perform and so without doubt he did stir up enemies to assault vex and destroy them And he that did thus bestir himself in the first settlement of a National Church cannot be thought to have forgot himself or to neglect his cause so far as not to use an industry great and sufficient in proportion to the danger that was approaching when no less a design was set on foot than of bringing the whole world into the same condition and making al● mankind to adore the King of kings and Lord of lords in the same way When this design was laid and such a power appeared in its behalf as threw him out of his Empire in a shameful way and tore up the foundations of it we may suppose that he would bend all his forces that way and that all his Crew would take up Arms to oppose whatever was like to procure the total overthrow of that Empire he had so long injoyed Then the gates of Hell all the power and policy of it would combine against the Church which Christ established so much to the prejudice of the Devils dominion It 's said Revel 12. 12 13. Wo to the inhabiters of the earth and of the Sea for the Devil is come down unto you having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short time And when the Dragon saw that he was castout unto the earth he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man-child He that prided himself before in the extent of his dominions and numbers of his Subjects being deprived of that Supremacy breaks forth into the greatest rage against all the deserters of his government and seeks to destroy those whom he could not retain and keep firm to him And this is one cause why the Church of God meets with opposition and persecution as the Devil is concerned in the quarrel and doth instigate bad men to manage and to carry it on Secondly It proceeds from the restless tempe●… of wicked men whose minds are set upon mischief and that do catch at all opportunities for it It is said of such Prov. 1. 16 that their feet run to evil and make haste to shed blood And Chap. 4. 16 17. They sleep not except they have done mischief and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence Wherefore they are fitly compared to the troubled Sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt Isaiah 57. 20. When sin hath erected its Empire and come to be predominant it then becomes an interest and the heart of man which of it self is perpetually in motion will then being made a party move strongly in its desires and designs that way which by such a depraved temper it is directed to It 's always then prepared for action and as it is habitually disposed so being awakened by the least occasion it presently is all on fire and engages in the quarrel It will then appear in the Cause of Sin and fight its battels and whatever doth obstruct and oppose it shall be looked upon and dealt with as an Enemy This doth all sin more or less wherever it is But there are some sinners that from their own natural temper or their manner of life are more unquiet than others and whom it 's necessary for the peace and safety of the world to find out some employment for as they say it is for a Spirit when it is raised by the power of charms and witchcraft and to watch over them or else they will be perpetually hatching and doing of mischief Such especially are they that ●ive in Cloysters and Frieries that having no set and fixed employments to take up their minds are listning to all news greedy of understanding the state of affairs prying into every ones concerns busying themselves in finding out what others think design or do and therefore it is that there is no part of their office which they are so diligent in and expert at as that of hearing confessions This they can abide by all the day when they have

said to bring Nebuchadnezzar against them Jer. 25. 9. So that a Church and people may come thus to suffer through Gods wise and powerful ordination as they by their sins have provoked him to anger and when it hath done this work and served this end and that by it they are brought to repentance the same hand that brought it on will carry it off 2. I shall proceed to the second general which is to observe the ways in which they shew this enmity or the course which they take for the destruction of the Church and that is deep consultation and joynt endeavour They take crafty counsel and are confederate And this is the most likely way to accomplish a design when it is cunningly contrived and closely prosecuted For all the action in the world without good consultation may be baffled and disappointed and the shrewdest consultation without vigorous action will come to nothing but when both these do meet it hath the fairest hopes of success And this the Adversaries of the Church are not wanting in who do too often surmount in both those that have the best cause and whose greatest interest it is to defend it But there are particular ways which such do take As 1. Slandering their adversaries and raising false reports of them They are then dealt with as the primitive Christians were by their persecutors who were dressed up in the skins of such Creatures as would the more exasperate and invite the wild beasts to which they were exposed to tear and devour them they shall be represented as Hypocrites and Deceivers as Hereticks and Infidels as pernicious and dangerous So it was with the Christians of old who were said to be Atheists and contemners of all Religion and guilty of the foulest crimes as Sacriledge Sedition Incest and Murder and it is no wonder when thus represented that some of the best of the Heathenish Emperers made Laws and Edicts against them and followed them with severe persecutions as Trajan Adrian and Antoninus till they were made to understand better by their Apologists And so it happens often in the World that Religion for want of being understood and the Religious for want of being truly known are evil intreated by them that mean well But as such by mistake and misreport may become Enemies to what is good thinking it to be evil so bad men are willing to have it so and do therefore take all occasions to asperse Religion that they may expose that and those that are better than themselves to obloquy and reproach for by how much the more they can cast dirt upon them by so much the more do they think themselves vindicated And this is no small artifice of the Church of Rome in the foul dealing which they shew to those that will not own its authority and submit to its unlimited Jurisdiction they will take Hell it self for calumnies and say any thing that will serve to disgrace them They will dress them up as the poor people that are condemned for Heresie by the Inquisition in Sanbenito's and Coats painted over with Owls and Devils to make them ridiculous or worse and to take the people off from condoling their misfortune they will describe their adversaries in Characters of blood and soot and what not to set the people on with fury and render them implacable Thus we find they did by Luther whom they will needs have to dye just when he had entertained his Friends with merry conceits and had been entertained at a plentiful Supper and that immediately his Soul was carried away by Devils when the truth is that after he had been long troubled with a pain in his breast and was brought by it under great weakness he was in continual expectation of death though he ceased not to Preach as he had any intermission and the night that he died though weak yet set down with his Friends discoursing about the state in Heaven and whether we shall then know one another and then retiring according to his custom to private Prayer he found that his pain increased and perceiving after some hours that his end drew near he exhorted his Friends and declared his perseverance in the Faith and praying with great fervency concluded that and his life together with Father into thy hands I commit my spirit thou hast redeemed me O God of truth So they tell us that Calvin was given to gluttony and Epicurism and was branded for Sodomy at Noviodunum where he was born whereas he was a man of great abstinence never eating any thing for Ten years before his death till evening and is cleared of the latter by Jacob le Vasseur Dean of Noviodunum in his Book which he published of the Annals of that Church in 1633. Thus would they make our Religion and all that profess it look miscreantly in the eyes of the world that they might fall on us without mercy and worry us with some reputation 2. By dividing the Church and setting one part of it against the other It 's the policy of the Church of Rome that though they have more and greater divisions amongst them as about the seat of infallibility it self which is a fundamental principle with them than we yet that there is a superiour power to crush them and though they cannot be reconciled and put to an end yet that that puts them to silence and so they are kept from doing mischief But where persons have a free liberty and few or no restraints laid upon them they are tempted to break into parties and those parties are apt to break one against the other by which means they are often made a prey to the common Adversary And I pray God this be not the event of this state with us I am sure there hath not been wanting endeavour on their part to effect it endeavour I say to make and aggravate and perpetuate differences that so all might lie at their mercy How do they sort with all persons strike into all Societies take upon themselves the guise of all parties that they may bring each to war against other and fight the battels of Rome whilst they fight one with the other and all may fall a Sacrifice to its fury 3. By downright force that when other means do fail or that they are weary of expecting what will be the issue of them they do without more ado run to their Arms and bring the Cause to a decision in open Field In open Field say I I wish that were all nay they will assassinate and massacre blow up or burn or do any thing that either treachery or cruelty can teach them This is too true a Character of the Church of Rome That ever since it first drew the sword in the time of Hildebrand never knew what it was to sheath it again but that hath prosecuted it's Cause by force of Arms to this day It 's that which hath claimed a Jurisdiction over Princes and a power to depose and