Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	church_n	day_n	time_n	2,357	5	3.6533	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56697	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and the aldermen of the City of London at Guild-Hall Chappel, Octob. 31, 1680 being the XXI Sunday after Trinity / by Symon Patrick ...	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1680 (1680)	Wing P842; ESTC R13508	19,534	54

one with another For where envying and strife is iii. Jam. 16. there is confusion and every evil work The Devil gets in at this breach above all others and tempts men to the most dangerous sins and most spiritual wickednesses Which prove not only the ruin of particular souls but of whole Societies and Churches and therefore the causes of such divisions ought most carefully to be avoided if we would stand fast like men and be strong in the evil day This is a point to be now most diligently studied because it is of great necessity to this Church and at this time When we had need be all prepared to maintain at least the Truth which we profess but cannot in all likelyhood secure unless we strengthen our selves by being knit together most heartily and firmly in such Brotherly affection that though there be too many Dissenters God knows who cannot or will not conform to the publick Laws yet the peace be preserved and not the least thing done to disturb the settlement of this Church Which whatsoever defects any man may think it hath is so well constituted that as there is little hope to see a better so if it be disturbed we shall find to our cost that we have changed for one infinitely worse though it be one of our own making and devising Let us consider that if the Apostles and others thought themselves obliged to propagate the Truth it self in a peaceable manner even the most necessary and essential Truths of the Gospel of Christ which they Preached without any disturbance to the publick Government much more ought we to be very careful not to unsettle a Christian Church well established nor to make a rupture in it about those things which are now controverted Which might be better handled and to more advantage and hope of convincing one another if we did live in Unity and in the same Communion notwithstanding our differences than when we separate and divide one from another For then we begin to look upon each other as Enemies and are not so apt to be moved by those Arguments which might be very effectual if we continued knit together in the same Society But if this cannot be yet whatsoever different perswasions we have about Rites and Ceremonies and such like things I am sure it is every mans interest to be thus far a peaceable Dissenter as to comply with the publick order so far as he is able with a safe Conscience and where he cannot comply to be quiet not to make a stir by contradiction and opposition but merely to omit what he cannot do Not reviling the Publick Establishment nor indeavour to bring it into contempt and to overthrow it For whosoever spends his zeal that way and takes himself for a man of spirit doth but abuse himself and the Gospel in giving the name of courage to hardness of heart and calling that resolution which is mere insensibility of Gods Holy Laws about Humility Meekness Patience Peaceableness long-suffering and such like Vertues Which great things did we lay to heart we should be more quiet and not make a quarrel about the small matters which now divide us but rather bear with what is well settled and not impious than go about to mend it by fierce oppositions Which commonly produce bitter strife and contention and that is followed by worse disorders which the Apostles to avoid connived at many things among the Jewish Christians which they by no means approved of but desired to see reformed And after men have done all they can if they be not able to endure some things peaceably which they do not like they must seek for another kind of world than this and for more perfect Creatures than Men. There will be defects in all humane constitutions there will be variety of apprehensions even in those things which God himself hath declared after never so many changes we shall be as far from settlement as ever if we will not be quiet till all things be according to our mind And therefore I take it to be much better as a wise man resolved many years ago to be driven on shore by a storm though in a crazy vessel than in a stronger to be still upon a tempestuous sea in the power of the winds and in danger of Shipwracks As for us who have consented to be governed by the Laws of this Church and have submitted to its orders there needs not many words sure to perswade us to lay aside all our enmities though never so small at such a time as this together with all jealousies suspicions and evil surmises much more all evil-speakings and whatsoever is contrary to that love which ought to be between us We ought not now especially to be so much as cold towards one another because of any differences that may happen to be in our opinions or which we fancy to be between us but embrace each other with a fervent Charity as those who are linkt together by the same common faith and ingaged in the same common cause and must stand or fall together But in the prosecution of this weighty point I have been transported so far that I have left but little time for the remaining which I must therefore pass over the more briefly IV. The next is the Shield of Faith v. 16. which the Apostle saith we must above all things guard our selves withal That is we must continually represent to our minds by a strong and lively Faith the great rewards which Christ hath promised to his valiant followers These we must ever carry before our eyes as a Souldier did his shield that by an actual present sense of them we may beat off all assaults either from pleasure or from pain which are made upon us to move us from our duty For either of them may be understood by the fiery darts of the wicked which the Apostle here speaks of the motions to inordinate pleasure being sometimes no less hot and violent than the grief and pain which we feel by sore persecutions which are more peculiarly called in the Holy Scriptures by the name of the Fiery Trial. As those work very fiercely upon fear so do pleasures upon desire and by this Faith we shall be able to vanquish both Witness the Confessors and Martyrs who having first overcome themselves could not be moved from their stedfastness when they saw a real Fire before them into which they were threatned to be thrown if they did not recant the profession of Christianity This Shield of Faith was their security they being fully perswaded that Christ our Lord who is greater than all Kings having all power in Heaven and Earth would raise them from the dead to an immortal and more glorious life if they did not to gain or save the best thing in this world break any of his Sacred Laws For this Faith was so potent that it wrought in them a lively hope which is the next thing V. And take the Helmet