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	religion_n	1,637	5	5.7823	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30433	A sermon preached at Bow-Church, before the court of aldermen, on March 12, 1689/90 being the fast-day appointed by Their Majesties / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1690 (1690)	Wing B5891; ESTC R21653	22,754	42

Body of which Christ is the Head and by this Union the same Spirit of Love and Charity will be spread over the whole Body so that we will rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep Since then the present state of things and the Commands of Authority our common Interests as well as our Christian Charity do all concur to engage us first of all to weep for our sins and then to look over our Countrey and this the City of our Solemnities and mourn over them let us go over the several branches of the moving and emphatical words of our Saviour and apply them as far as the parallel goes to the present state of things in which let us consider 1. The Importance of this redoubling the word thou even thou 2. The Importance of these words at least in this thy day 3. What are the things that concern the peace of a Nation and how they may be known And 4thly what are the happy effects of a Nation 's knowing them This tho not expressed yet is implied in the wish in which the period is laid without being regularly closed I have not read the last words of this Verse neither will I speak to them for they might seem to carry too dismal a sound with them yet I hope all that hear me will so seriously reflect on them that by their so doing they may come not to belong to us For though perhaps in the present unhappy posture in which we are it is but too true that now they are hid from our eyes yet if we will seriously attend to those things of which I am to treat then we shall be delivered from so heavy a Sentence as is imported in them To return 1. If thou even thou the words carry plainly a weight in them which to comprehend aright we must consider the state in which Ierusalem was at that time and that with respect to both the good and bad of it It was the Capital of that Nation that God had chosen out of all the Families of the Earth to be his own Inheritance it was the place where his Name was called upon and to which the Worship of God was appropriated It was now so enriched by Herod who having heaped up Treasures like another Solomon had laid them out in the rebuilding the Temple which in a course of 46 years was carried on to so vast a Magnificence that it was become indeed one of the Wonders of the World It was also so well fortified and had within it such a number of Inhabitants who had such a violent love to their Countrey and so much zeal for it that one might have thought they were in no danger of being besieged but that they were strong enough to have gone out and fought any Enemy that could have gone against them and that no Siege could have signified any thing but to have ruined the Army that should have attempted it so that by this thou even thou in one view we may understand a City dedicated to God and under his Protection a City well fortified full of Wealth and full of People and yet to such a City it was necessary to know the things that belonged to their peace Here before we go farther Reflections offer themselves to us in abundance This our City has been under signal Characters of the Protection of God it has been preserved from violent Concussions and from the hand of an Enemy when all the rest of the Nation has had their turns in the Accidents of War It is true two signal strokes from Heaven that came one after another a wasting Pestilence and a devouring Fire that seemed to threaten it with ruine shewed that God corrected them tho he would not deliver them over to the will of their Enemies The quick recovery of the City carries the marks of a particular car of Heaven and the haste that has been made to raise up so many of these holy and beautiful Houses in which God is worshipped may be reckoned among the Glories and the Defences of this place It s vast Wealth the increase of the Inhabitants the prodigious extent of it and the zeal with which all seem to be heated for preserving the Honour of the City bring us so near a Parallel to Ierusalem that in this thou even thou we may find the Characters of a City hitherto highly blessed of God and full of the Good things of this life yet in the midst of all this Wealth and Abundance there is great need of preparing for a Storm 2dly If we consider the state of Ierusalem with relation to Religion the Iews who had shewed so violent an Inclination to Idolatry before they were carried Captives to Babylon were there so absolutely cured of that that ever after they expressed the strictest Zeal possible against every step towards Idolatry or the least appearance of it We see how they resisted the Kings of Syria in their Attempts for profaning the Temple and defiling their Worship and not long after our Saviour's death when Caligula ordered his Statue to be set up in the Temple they were all in so great a commotion upon it that an Embassy was sent to him to shew that they could not bear any thing that looked like a departure from the God of their Fathers which was urged by Philo that went on the Embassy in terms full of zeal that expressed a firm resolution of suffering every thing rather than endure such an affront to be done to their Religion To this Zeal against Idolatry they added a most punctual observation of all the Rituals of their Religion and not satisfied with those which Moses had appointed they had added many new ones which they reckoned the setting a hedge about the Law securing the observance of the commanded Rites by those which according to the Tradition of the Elders had been for some Ages observed among them so here was a City that was both free from Idolatry and exact in obeying the Laws of God that yet is warned of a great danger in these words Thou even thou I do not know whether our conformity to them as to these particulars goes so high or is so Universal yet something like it we have Great Zeal has appeared against the Idolatry of the Church of Rome with a constancy in the Matters of Religion that has amazed all the World the steps made towards that alarmed the Nation and this City in particular and it appeared that you could not bear those who called themselves the Church of God but that are the Synagogue of Satan You have shewed also such firmness to the Church of England and to the Established Religion as not to bear any thing that declined from it either to the right hand or to the left Yet after all this we may have cause to apprehend the Wrath of God notwithstanding it all if our Religion goes no farther than the cleansing the outside or the tything the mint