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	england_n	king_n	3,792	5	4.0738	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61334	An apology for the laws ecclesiastical established that command our publick exercise in religion and a serious enquiry whether penalties be reasonably determined against recusancy / by William Starkey ...	Starkey, William, 1620 or 21-1684.	1675 (1675)	Wing S5293; ESTC R34597	99,432	218

these wilful Omissions would be accounted an unholy thing and so was doing despight to the Spirit of Grace and so throw away the probable means to get the helpful assistance of the Spirit of Grace which was ready to attend upon them that were frequently busied in those holy Ministrations For the Blood of the Covenant did sanctifie them as a visible Society of the Faithful to Religious exercises which if they fell away from they sinned wilfully and must look for a subsequent punishment And now I humbly beg of my well-meaning Country-men that separate and withdraw themselves from us that they would considerately receive these things with the same spirit that I have written them without gall of bitterness or desire of Revenge and with meekness and holy fear Be not wise in your own eyes think soberly of your selves and your waies Be not high-minded but fear Be not without fear to add sin unto sin weigh not things with a false Ballance put not light for darkness nor darkness for light good for evil c. This will bring woe and abomination This the way while you clamour against others Superstition to be guilty of the same you condemn while wilfully you stand upon your mistaken Perswasion I know not how far you may flatter your selves with the Opinion you have assumed to your selves and gained from others of your Sanctity yet upon right deliberation you must conclude with me While you wilfully omit or refuse to conform to the Preceptive Rules of Piety prescribed you are guilty of transgressing the greatest and most comprehensive Commandement And if thou beest involved in those Circumstances that usually attend and aggravate these sins if thou sinnest yet openly voluntarily perfidiously and impenitently thou wilt render thy self guilty of a most notorious Crime and without repentance and amendment thou wilt hasten thy own misery and contributest to thy power to bring speedy and inevitable ruine upon the most flourishing Church and Kingdom in the World And this puts me upon the fourth Section SECT IV. Recusancy is a dangerous sin and hurtful Disobedience IT is a great part of wisdom to ponder the way of our feet And now because considering the issue and end of our Actions will keep us from doing amiss give me leave mildly to represent upon an impartial survey the dreadful consequences of this sin those cursed effects it certainly brings upon all Orders of men throughout the whole Nation The injury it offers to King and Parliament and all thy Governours both Civil and Ecclesiastical while thou declarest manifestly thou suspectest their goodness doubtest of their wisdom despisest their Authority and to thy utmost by thy wilful Recusancy intimatest to others That they have rashly and inconsiderately imposed Commands that are unlawful and unwarrantable and by this evil Example misguidest thy Neighbour into a dangerous Disobedience For when other sins of Commission reach to the injury of a person or Family or two this sin of wilful Omission is extensively hurtful to all sorts of Men in the Society and disturbs the publick peace of all that are among us These 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are dreadful and detestable not only because making Divisions they certainly turn themselves out of Church-membership that are guilty of them but when these men run into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and separate into Sects and Factions and in their Meetings make it their business to deprave or defame the Divine Service and Vniformity prescribed by Religious Governours These things must highly aggravate their Crime and sadly increase our misery and this we sensibly perceive by too woful experience It is no pleasure to me to see what I heartily bewail the deplorable estate we are in at this time in this poor distracted Nation by that wilful Recusancy and sinful Separation that by our tameness and connivance we have suffered unhappily to thrive and spread among us When every person and party that hath deserted the Communion of our Church covers the deformity of this Errour with a Cloak of pretended Conscience and proudly and unyieldingly idolizeth his mistaken Judgment and limits his affection to his own Party of the same Perswasion and betrays his disaffections to those of sound Judgments by venting his opposition wrathfully with bitter Invectives against them And those Parts and Endowments men should use in closing and healing our Breaches they misemploy in widening them Every one is wiser in his own eyes than his Ruler or Teacher and pertinaciously defends his own Fancy and justifies unyeildingly his own Perswasion Diversity of misled Judgments and pretended Consciences have caused an alienation of Affections and hence wrath and bitterness hath broke out into contemptuous Carriages Sections and provoking Expressions That in Church matters our several Factions shew nothing but Ataxy and distraction And in matters of State from mens wilful disobedience to lawful Commands an inclination is discovered to tend to Sedition and Rebellion The religious Ruler and faithful Minister must needs be grieved and disquieted to see our Reformed Profession so much blasphemed the Gospel and its Faith so much disgraced and despised and the Name of Christ and his Cause so much dishonoured And what honest heart that loves the King and Church of England but must be sad and bemoan it That Peace and Love which are the cement and glory of any Church and Nation should by these our Divisions be seen to wax faint and languish and be even expiring in the midst of us And let any now that thinks most lightly of the Divisions and stands most for Liberty tell me if he can and instance in any one Order of men that is not injured by them For the King and the Parliament are rendred Vile and their Authority contemptible while their greatest and best Laws about the Publick exercise of Religion are neglected and despised The Protestant of England that is truly Religious must be offended and grieved to see his Neighbour by his wilful Separation continue in an open and heinous sin By this thy Relations Equals and Inferiours must be injured in all probability while thou seducest the poor and weak by thy evil Example and makest them to think meanly and dishonourably of our established Liturgy the most necessary and the most Religious Constitution that is visibly extant in the World By this especially hath come the Universal decay of true Christian Piety and epidemical disesteem and aversness from the publick Worship of God From this as from a Fountain hath that deluge of Sins flowed forth that hath overspread and overwhelmed this unhappy Nation We cannot deny but that almost every where we discover sinful prejudices superstition blindness of heart Rash judging and censuring both of holy Persons and sound Doctrines Pride vain-glory and hypocrisie Envy hatred malice and uncharitableness We cannot deny but Seditions and privy Conspiracies false Doctrine and Heresie hardness of Heart and contempt of Gods Word and Commandements are too manifestly to be seen in the midst