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	faith_n	holy_a	1,679	5	4.7561	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60994	The case of the Quakers relating to oaths stated wherein they are discovered, to oppose propheticall, to pervert evangelicall, to falsifie ecclesiasticall, and to contradict their own doctrine / by J.S.	J. S.	1674 (1674)	Wing S48; ESTC R2531	37,570	48

therefore they are so ready to offer the sacrifice of fools As there are certain forms of words at the using whereof evill spirits by vertue of diabolicall institution present themselves so all forms of invoking God either by Oath or prayer exhibit the divine presence to us of which presence if they had regard the one would not think it nothing to swear nor the other to pray unadvisedly neither of them would be so hasty with their mouths so hasty to utter quicquid in buccam if they did consider they were before God My ranking them together will displease them both but let them wreak their spleen upon Solomon who hath coupled them as brethren in iniquity as alike-guilty of Athiestical prophanesse and hath prescribed the same method of cure for them both if they have wit or grace to apply themselves to the observation of his rules Eccles 5.1 2. And it is as manifest from the Instances of Christ and Saint Paul that more then these sometimes and in some cases proceeds from good from a divine principle from an honest and gracious heart to wit when strong asseverations even by oath are used 1. Reverentially as a solemn invocation of Gods name as the celebration of the highest and most august act of divine worship and adoration that can possiblie be tendred to the divine majesty 2. Deliberately with due consideration and preponderation of the weight of the thing the importance of our Neighbours beleeving it the probability that he will be prevail'd to beleeve us upon the interposition and assurance of the oath c. Et ideo non invenitur jurasse nisi scribens ubi consideratio cautior non habet linguam praecipitem We do not finde saith S. Austin de mend c. 15. that S. Paul did swear but when he was writing because the pen is not so great a blabb as the tongue men are more circumspect of the words that fall from their quill then of them that drop from their lipps 3. Sincerely with a purpose to lay as great an Obligation upon thy self to keep thy promise and swear truly as thy making oath imports to thy neighbour when thy minde and words are both of a colour and the impressions of thy soul correspond with the expressions of thy mouth when thy conscience can tell thee that thou speakest before God in thy heart what thou utterest to thy neighbour in words All these conditions concur'd in our Saviours and S. Pauls asseverations and therefore though they were more then these yet they proceeded not of evill but from a good and honest heart and were all wanting in those Pharisaicall oaths which our Saviour condemns wherein they had neither reverentiall thoughts of God for they conceived they did by those forms swear by God nor weighed the matter and ponderated circumstances but upon every slieght upon no occasion bolted out fruitless oaths nor did they intend to binde themselves to a performance of their word for they accounted themselves as free after such oaths as if they had never made them Such kinde of additions to our yea and nay are of themselves evil and theresore forbidden But the ground and reason of Christs prohibition does not reach the other sort of additions 9. That I may make the two Testaments kisse one another at partting and bring the ends of my discourse together Let it be considered from the prophesies before-quoted That to interpret those Evangolical texts as prohibitions to Christians to swear in any case draws after it these blasphemous consequences 1. That Christ who came to accomplish and seal prophesies to fullfill what was spoken by the mouth of the prophets which have been since the world began did contradict by his precepts and prohibit the accomplishment of those prophesies that foretold that under the Gospel when Gods name should be great in all the earth his elect and chosen servants should swear by the God of truth as an evidence of their conversion to him from idols 2. That S. James was by the Holy Ghost which Christ promised should leade his Apostles-into all truth to forbid that viz. to learn to swear after the way of Gods people the Lord liveth under pain of falling into condemnation or at least into hypocrisy which the Spirit of Christ in the holy Prophets perswades Christians to do under pain of utter destruction in case of neglect and by the promise of being built up in the midsts of Gods people in case they would dilligently learn to swear by his name which the same spirit commends to Christians as a signe of their sincere and cordiall acceptance of the true God for their God 3. That if the Christian Church does not perform homage to the God of truth by swearing as well as blessing in his name If their tongue does not as well swear as their knees bow to him then the Christian people are not the people of the Messias the Messias is not yet come but still to be expected then the blessed Jesus is not that Christ of whom the prophets speak but as the Jews at his arraignment and their posterity blasphemously stile him a deceiver and a counterfeit For by the prophets it was foretold that at his exhibition and vocation of the gentiles to the knowledge of the true God the gentiles called by his name should swear by the God of truth throughout the earth c. Yield but this much to a Jew or Pagan that the Christian law forbids worshipping of God by swearing by his name forbids any other confirmation of what we affirm but yea yea nay nay and you do not only deprive the Christian Cause and Church of one of her strongest bulwarks of one of those demonstrations of the spirit the spirit of prophesy in the holy men of old whereby the Champions of the Christian faith have inrefragably proved against all assailants that Jesus is the prophets Christ viz. because since his calling of us gentiles by his gospell we have worshipt the true God by swearing by his name but also administer to Insidells an unanswerable argument for them to prove that that Jesus whom we Christians worship for the Christ is not indeed the very Christ viz. because he hath forbid that worship to be exhibited which the prophets foretold men should learn to tender the God of truth at the coming of that Christ whom they speak of It is not possible to imagine any thing more unlike or opposite to one another then that Christ and his disciples which the prophets describe are to what this glosse of the Quakers presents Jesus Christ and his disciples to be In the reign of the Prophets Christ Gods chosen ones of the Gentiles are to do him homage to acknowledge their subjection to him dependance on him awe of him and his dreadfull attributes by swearing by his name But in the reign of the Quakers Christ the world indeed may take its own course but they whom God hath called and chosen out of the world are