Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	call_v	good_a	law_n	1,457	5	4.4596	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43700	A sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons, at St Margaret's Westminster, on Sunday the 19th of October, 1690 being the thanksgiving-day for the wonderful preservation of His Majesties person, &c. / by Charles Hickman.	Hickman, Charles, 1648-1713.	1690 (1690)	Wing H1898; ESTC R11219	12,974	30

for the mysteries of Religion they renounced them all Angels and Spirits and all immaterial substances they look'd upon as a contradiction and would know nothing of And when they had robb'd God of all his Attendants they left his Majesty to shift for it self His Providence also they thrust out of their Creed and the Resurrection too which is the great power of God the only solid foundation of all Religion they wholly rejected as a fiction of Men and made it the subject of their derision and wit And that which gave occasion for all this blasphemy was nothing but the Pharisees another Sect of Men who ran to the quite contrary extream so great pretenders to Religion and that with so ill a grace that they brought Religion it se●f into contempt and by their affected Pride they did the cause of God more harm than all their sanctity could do it good And as Vice is always upon the improvement from them there sprang up a third order of Men who call'd themselves Zealots for the Law as proud as the Pharisees but more fiery than they Crucify him Stone him Cast him out were the Characters whereby they distinguish'd their Religion and their only Arguments to support it and with these Arguments they assaulted one another Lord in how dismal a condition is such a distracted Church Amidst all these Contentions what room is there left for Vertue or what respect can be shew'd to one that is an Israelite indeed To such a condition had these proud contending Parties brought themselves till at last came the Romans with a pride above them all who derided all Religions but their own and admir'd their own they knew not why Only their Conquests gave it credit Universality was their Plea and they despis'd a little peculiar but more especially a divided Church How did they vilifie the Law and prophane the holy Place and tempt the People to blaspheme the Name of God How did they ensnare the weak in Faith and exasperate the strong by imposing upon their worship and setting up Idolatrous Statues in the Temple that by that abomination they might provoke the people to Sedition first and then destroy them for it Something like this and that almost in every particular we our selves have too much reason to remember with how much industry and art our Adversaries endeavour'd to divide us first and then break in upon us with what insolence they invaded our Laws and attempted our Religion and instead of the pure worship of one God as it is here profess'd and practised amongst us they would have set up an absurd Idolatry of Mans contriving a fabulous Divinity of their own finding out and as many Gods as the old Romans themselves pretended to With what fury they drove on their designs and how far they advanc'd towards bringing them to effect we all know too well to stand in need of a Remembrancer and I am loth to sowre the Solemnity of a Thanksgiving-Day by such ungrateful melancholy reflections Let it suffice to say That God has smitten us in his wrath and for our sins has suffer'd our Walls to be brought in danger and this will make us more apprehensive of his favour in that he has at last had mercy on us Which is the second thing propos'd Who it is that builds us up Build thou the Walls of Jerusalem says the Psalmist to shew us that God is the Author of our establishment and that we may know what instruments he employs The sons of strangers shall build them up their Kings shall minister unto thee says my Text. Whensoever God pleases he can make the remotest Persons to contribute and the unlikeliest circumstances to concur for the good of his Church and People though for their transgressions he sometimes suffers their Walls to be broken down yet as long as the foundation stands the stone out of the Wall shall cry Rejoice not against me O my Enemy and the beam out of the timber will answer it Though I fall yet I shall arise again In sundry manners he works out our preservation and sometimes by unexpected means When our dangers are come to the height and there is no humane hopes of redemption left then is the time for him to interpose that we may see the Finger of God in a wonderful deliverance We cannot discover the motions of his hand the overtures of Providence are all miraculous to us 't is enough that we see the revolution though the springs of it are out of sight His way is in the Sea and his paths in the deep Waters and his footsteps are past finding out When Pharaoh would not let his People go nor allow them to serve their God when all their former fidelity and services could not move him and all their solicitations and intreaties made him but more averse his anger did that which his kindness would not do it drove the Children of Israel not into the Red Sea as he thought but the nearest way to the pleasant Land the Sea it self was a Wall unto them but a ruine to the Egyptians and there the unhappy King was lost but the poor passive Israelites were safe and inoffensive still When God sends forth his People naked and disarm'd he himself undertakes for their defence and will not suffer their innocency and obedience to lead them into a snare If thy own Sons must not perform the work the Sons of strangers shall build up thy Walls and the wisdom of God never wants sufficient means to rescue his Church without dishonouring of his Religion Indeed there is nothing but a steady preserving the Principles of Religion that makes any Church worth the contending for These are the Houses the Palaces that make up the City and if they are down to what purpose should we build up the Walls but if these are preserv'd intire the Walls will quickly be repair'd again Strangers themselves will build them up when they see the beauty and advantage of the situation and if we our selves do not depart from our fidelity God never fails to raise up mighty Defenders of our Faith A stedfast adhering to the Principles of Religion is the very thing that invites Converts unto the Church 'T was this that reduc'd the Nations to the belief in Christ and brought the Heathen into his Inheritance not the Eloquence much less the Learning of his Apostles but the constancy of their Faith and the unalterable sincerity of their profession not only the strength of their reasons but the vigour and firmness of their Minds that they would suffer the last extremity rather than depart from the Principles of their Innocency or violate the least punctilio of their Religion 'T was that that baffled the Cruelty of their Tormenters made the Roman Eagle both asham'd and weary of her prey and submit at last to the Christian Dove And give me leave to say for the honour of our Mother Church That when she was so furiously assaulted by the Roman