Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	civil_a	judge_n	law_n	2,710	5	5.1476	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53909	The study of quietness explained, recommended, and directed in a sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, at the Guild-Hall chappel, March 16, 1683/4, and now published, as the heads were, elsewhere, more enlarged upon, in several discourses.	Pearson, Richard, d. 1734.	1684 (1684)	Wing P1017; ESTC R6934	38,545	70

perhaps have not been more plain with their Party than my self neither For several Ministers even since the Discovery of the Phanatical Conspiracy have been Desperately threatned and it is well known how one Reverend Divine was not long since knock't down in the open Streets and Miserably Bruised and Battered to the no small hazard of his Life notwithstanding the Endeavours of several good People to rescue him and all this at the same time expresly signified by the Ruffian himself to have been done for no other cause but only his Loyalty and that he had shewn himself against the Designs of the Dissenters Now if this sort of Men can afford to shew themselves such fell Creatures even whilst the Law and Civil Power is against them and their hands are pretty well tyed up then Judge I pray what absolute Tigers and Dragons they must needs prove were they but once loose and had all as they desire under their own Dominion what could we else expect but to be all flea'd alive and to be torn by them like the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews into a hundred pieces And yet a man cannot open his mouth to give good People warning nor speak the least word of the horrid Practices or Principles of these men but presently some or other of their Favourers are ready to stand up for them and slander it under the odious Name of that which is indeed their general Character of all such charitable Reproofs down right Railing and Reviling And What say some should we go to Church for We should go thither to profit but truly we cannot benefit at all by such kind of Preaching Can they not so indeed I am heartily sorry to hear it But what is the reason that they cannot benefit I doubt the fault will be no bodies but their own and I fear they 'll hardly ever believe themselves to benefit by any Preaching but only such as really tends if possible to make them worse than they are already by still more confirming them in their wretched Errours and Iniquities But I would fain know what such men mean by their not benefitting If they were but rightly sensible of their own meaning I am perswaded they can understand nothing else by it but that they are not at all pleased with what they hear And it is very grievous to them to be told of or to think of amending their Faults As for my own part I am not conscious to my self that in what has been now said I have delivered any thing but the Words of Truth and Soberness And if Truth plain Scripture and Reason will not go down with them I know not how to help it they are not indeed so much offended with Vs in these Cases as in effect with Christ himself and the Doctrine of his Apostles And there is no other Remedy but they must e'en go seek out for some other Gospel that will better agree with their corrupt Lusts that they may profit by the hearing of it for as for that of our blessed Saviour whilst they resolve to continue thus affected it will never be able to do the feat for them But if such men do indeed believe the Scripture and are willing equally to be guided by it as their Rule in all things coming to these places with an honest teachable heart ready to forsake their Errours and to do their Duty whensoever they shall be made sensible thereof then I can assure them that such kind of Preaching will highly both please and profit them far more perhaps than all the Sermons put together which ever they heard in Conventicles their whole life-time By which I fear they have profited hitherto only backward and the wrong way whilst this kind of Preaching if practised will indeed benefit them even to the saving of their Souls which are now so imminently hazarded by their woful Disobedience and horrid Contempt of the Laws both of God and Man But again as some will object is this the way to bring in Dissenters to be thus continually inveighing against them Nay is it not rather the ready way to drive those out again who are already a comming in In answer to which I shall First consider how the Generality of those who have yet made any Approaches at all have hitherto shewed themselves a coming in to us Some 't is true have come hither and received the Holy Sacrament with us but as themselves have given too just Occasion to fear meerly to serve a Turn or to qualifie them for some Place in which they might have an Opportunity of doing the Church and State so much the more Mischief for they have received no more nor scarce ever came to Church again for a whole twelve Month afterwards Others again awakened by the fear of Legal Penalties have received here in the Morning and as I am credibly informed in the Afternoon in a Conventicle as if they meant presently there to undo again what they had here done or designed to make that which should be the Bond of Christian Charity serve only more to confirm them in their Schism and most sinful Separation And their deceitful Guides I find have furnished them with that more than Jesuitical Distinction of a Legal and a Necessary Receiving The first of which with us stands for just nothing but meerly to satisfie the Law whilst the second with them is that only which is to be accounted real and effectual Others there are who come hither usually when Divine Service is either quite or almost done and then sitting too all the remainder of it as if they scorned so much as to seem to joyn with us therein and we have not wanted Instances of running out again in a fury before the Sermon was at an end In short too many of them for I charge not all have hitherto so lamely and awkwardly joyned with us and after such a manner as would tempt one to think they studied to have us believe that they only play'd the Hypocrites in so doing Nor let any one say this is an unwarrantable judging of other men's Hearts for we may safely and without breach of Charity judge of men's hearts from the tenor of their Actions and Behaviour And besides some of them have been so very silly and altogether shameless as openly to declare and profess that they would come to Church only once a Month or so to avoid the Lash of the Law not out of any sense of Duty Whereas by the way let me tell such that they may find this will not be enough to satisfie the Law neither any more than it ought to satisfie their Conscience This now has been for the generality the main of their coming in which I have been yet able to take notice of But suppose that now at length they were indeed disposed in more good earnest to joyn with us why should such Discourses of Peace and Quietness of Loyalty and Obedience and plainly to mind them wherein they have