Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	die_v	sin_n	7,620	5	5.8816	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35017	The Scotch Presbyterian eloquence, or, The foolishness of their teaching discovered from their books, sermons and prayers and some remarks on Mr. Rule's late Vindication of the kirk	Curate, Jacob.; Calder, Robert, 1658-1723.	1692 (1692)	Wing C6961; ESTC R10498	97,496	122

did suffer any thing For these others were settled in Churches by an Indulgence granted by the King Against which Indulgence all the Sufferers like true Presbyterians gave their Testimony calling it a meer brat of Erastianism What Government could tolerate such Ministers as John Deckson whom I named before who in a Sermon Preached by him in the Parish of Gallashiels declar'd That it was all one to Sacrifice to Devils as to pay Cess to King Charles The Author of the Review of the History of Indulgence one of the Sober sort of Presbyterians tells Page 610. the same of a Preacher of his Acquaintance I shall say no more of their Sentiments concerning Government but only referr the Readers to their Printed Acts of General Assemblies and to those Covenants which themselves have Printed often Subscribed and Sworn and which are now again for the benefit of Strangers published in that Excellent Vindication of King Charles II. his Happy Government in Scotland by Sir George Mac Kenze in which it's Evident that they plainly renounce Monarchy and all Power but that of the Covenanted Kirk As to their Disposition to live peaceably I appeal not only to their Principles vented in these Covenants and Acts of their general Assemblies but also to the many private Murthers and open Rebellions which they have been guilty of under every Reign since their first entry into Britain Even in our own Days since 1666 they have raised no less than Three formidable Rebellions besides many lesser Insurrections and Tumults wherein many Christians have suffered With what Violence did they flee to Arms and persecute all who were not of their Party upon the occasion of the late Revolution when if it had not been for their indiscreet and fiery Zeal this Kingdom might have been happily united to England But what ever Advantage such an Union might have brought to the Church and State yet because it seemed to have no good Aspect to the covenanted cause therefore the motion of it though offered was industriously stifled and that Opportunity which we can hardly hope to recover quite lost Nay under the present Government for which they in the beginning pretended to be so zealous 't is well known over all the Kingdom that they were last Year contriving by force without any regard to Authority to have the Solemn League renewed and imposed after the old manner upon all Men Women and Children and in order to this good end many Thousands of them at Field meetings in the West conveened after their ordinary way with Bibles and Musquets Psalm-Books and rusty Swords and subscrbed a new Association for raising of Men Horse and Arms to advance the Old Cause repurge the holy Kirk and make a thorow Reformation in the Land But I shall take occasion by and by to give you some later and more evident Instances of their Neglect and Contempt of their present Governors In the next place survey them in their Learning and you shall find that it lies only in the study of some Anti-Arminian Metaphysicks and in the practical Divinity they pretend to draw from the Heads of Election and Reprobation whereby they preach Men out of their Wits and very often into Despair and Self-murder It 's generally known that Joseph Brodie Preacher in Forress in the time of the late Presbytery did in the presence of a very Learned and Eminent Person take occasion in the Pulpit to speak of a poor Man who was then in such a desperate Condition that it was judg'd necessary to bind up his Hands lest otherwise he should cut his own Throat as he continually threatned of this desperate Wretch the pious Preacher above-named pronounced thus Sirs this is the best Man in my Parish would to God ye were all like him he does truely fear Reprobation which most of you are not aware of There is a common printed Pamphlet compos'd and publish'd by a Presbyterian Preacher concerning one Bessie Clarkson a Woman that lived at Lanark who was three Years in despair or to speak in their Cant under Exercise Whosoever reads that Pamphlet will find that the poor Woman's Distemper proceeded only form their indiscreet Preaching representing God as a sower severe and unmerciful Being It is known in the Shire of Teviotdale that Mr. William Veach murder'd the Bodies as well as Souls of two or three Persons with one Sermon For preaching in the Town of Jedburgh to a great Congregation he said There are Tow thousand of you here to day but I am sure Fourscore of you will not he saved upon which Three of his ignorant Hearers being in Despair dispatched themselves soon after And lately in Edenburgh Mr. James Kirkton the Everlasting Comedian of their Party one of their famous Preachers in that City praying publickly for a poor Woman much troubled in Spirit said A wholesome Disease good Lord a wholesome Disease Lord for the Soul Alas said he few in the Land are troubled with this Disease Lord grant that she may have many fellows in this Disease Not only do they make their People distracted with such desperate Doctrine as this but moreover they incourage them in direct Impieties Mr. Selkirk preaching at Musselburgh expressed himself thus God seed no Sin in his Chosen Now Sirs be you guilty of Murder Adultery Bestiality or any other gross Sin if you be of the Election of Grace there is no fear of you for God sees no Sin in his Chosen covenanted People And this is consonant to an expression of Mr. Samuel Rutherford's printed Letters Hellfulls of Sins cannot separate is from Christ In the Parish of Mr. Macmath Minister of Leswade some of those who were lately the most active in persecuting and driving him form his Residence even after he had the Privy Councils Protection and a Guard assign'd him for his Defence have since suffer'd violent deaths two of them prevented the Hangman's pains by becoming their own Murtherers When the Earl of Lauderdale and Sir George Mackenzie dyed last year much about one time the party who pretend to unriddle all the most secret Causes of God's Providence called their Deaths a visible Judgment for their being Enemies to the good Cause altho' it be well known that both these honourable Persons dyed of a natural Death in a good age being both of them worn out with their great diligence in their King and Country's Service perhaps indeed their days were shortened by seeing such Firebrands able again to force themselves into the Church as had before ruin'd both it and the State and were the Scandal of Christianity as well as Disgrace of their Nation But when these abovenamed Self-Murtherers of the Parish of Leswade had divided Judas's death betwixt them the one hanging himself the other ripping up his own Belly till all his Bowels gushed out The Presbyterian Preacher in that Parish holding forth next Sunday was so ready of Invention as to find Arguments from thence for the Confirmation of the good Cause Ab Sirs says

he nothing has befallen these Men but what God had from Eternity decreed and I can tell you Sirs why he decreed it indeed it was even because they had gone sometimes to hear the Graceless Curates Ah Sirs ye may see in this Judgment the danger of that Sin beware of hearing Curates Sirs you see it 's a dangerous thing Sirs but I 'll tell you more yet anent this Sirs this is a plain proof that the Gospel has non been preached in this Parish these twenty eight Years for in all that time you have no heard so much as of one that had a tender Conscience like these men but now when we begin again to preach the Gospel it 's so powerful that it awakes mens Consciences and pricks them so at the Heart that they cannot bear it nor live under it And now I leave the World to Judge whether this sort of Learning and manner of Preaching doth not stand in diametrical opposition to all Religion and Reason and does not in its Tenure and Effects appear to be indeed the Doctrine of Devils and another Gospel and yet by it our Rabble Reformation has been wrought All true and solid Learning particularly Antiquity is decryed by them because in it there is no vestige no not so much as any shadow of Presbytery to be found to preach Peace and Righteousness tho' that be the design of the Gospel yet since it does not answer the Ends of the Covenant it must be condemn'd as temporizing time-serving and the pleasing of men more than God who they are sure can never be pleas'd but in their Covenanted way Morality with them is but old out-dated heathenish Virtue and therefore such a Book as The whole Duty of Man is look'd upon with wonderful contempt by them Frazer of Bray one of the greatest among them professes downright that there is no Gospel nor any relish of it in that Book and that Aristotle's Ethicks have as much true Divinity as that Book hath And John Vetch of Woolstruthers says That that Book is too much upon Moral Duty A certain Lady of their Stamp getting it once into her hands and hearing that it was a Moral Book done by an Episcopal Divine she made a Burnt Offering of it out of her great Zeal against Episcopacy and Morality Mr. Macquire one of their celebrated Professors and Preachers in his Preface to Brown's Book entituled Christ the Truth Way and Life calls the people that are taken up with the whole Duty of Man or any such Books a Moralizing or rather says he a Muddizing Generation The most of their Sermons are Nonsensick Raptures the abuse of Mystick Divinity in canting and compounded Vocables oft-times stuffed with impertinent and base Similes and always with homely course and ridiculous Expressions very unsuitable to the Gravity and Solemnity that becomes Divinity They are for the most part upon Believe Believe and mistaking Faith for a meer Recumbency they value no Works but such as tend to propagate Presbytery When they speak of Christ they represent him as a Gallant Courting and Kissing by their Fulsome Amorous Discourses on the mysterious Parables of the Canticles and making Christ and his Gospel to be their own Kirk Government they have quite debased Divinity and debauched the Morals of the People This is evident not only from their manner of Preaching but also from their way of Writing most of their Books whereof some Instances shall be given in the next Section Some of them have an odd way of acting in the Pulpit personating Discourses often by way of Dialogue betwixt them and the Devil Such ways were of old familiar to the Monks as appears from Monsieur Claude in his Second part of the Defence of the Reformation Chap. 10. where he vindicates Luther from an aspersion cast upon him by the Church of Rome For say the Papists Luther professeth in his Writings that he had a Conference with the Devil concerning the Mass and that the Devil accused him for being an Idolater To which Luther answers That he was then in Ignorance and that he obey'd his Superiours Hence the Papists conclude that Luther was the Devil's Scholar But Monsieur Claude lets them see that Luther spoke in a Monkish Stile and that the Stile of the Convent did represent conflicts betwixt the Flesh and Spirit as personal exploits with the Devil To prove this he instances St. Dominick who says That he saw the Devil one Night in his Iron Hands carry a Paper to him which he read by the light of a Lamp and told it was a Catalogue of his sins and the sins of his Brethren upon which St. Dominick commanded him to leave the Paper with him which was done accordingly and afterwards he and his Brethren found cause to correct something in their Lives All that is said for this is that it is a Romantick Stile proper to the Monks and all that is meant thereby is this that the Devil could lay such and sins to their charge their Consciences did smite them therefore they corrected what they found amiss But such a Stile did create wrong Ideas in the Litteral Interpreters of such Narrations And it is like some of our Reformers reading Books of this nature either thought such Apparisions real or that they affected the Stile for it its reported of Mr. Robert Bruce one of our Scotch Reformers that having studied the Civil Law and going one day to the Colledge of Justice to pass his Tryals in order to commence Advocate he said that he saw a great Gulph in the Close or Court of the Parliament-House like the mouth of Hell and this diverted his entrance into the House upon which he gave over the Study of the Law and applyed himself to Theology Whether the thing was litterally true or whether the man had a disturbed Imagination as good men may have or whether he affected the Stile of the Convent and meant thus much buy it That the imployment of a Jurist was dangerous and apt to lead men into such Temptations as he feared might be too strong for him I know not which to conclude but this I am sure of That one Mr. Thomas Hogg a very popular Presbyterian Preacher in the North asked a person of great Learning in a Religious Conference whether or not he had seen the Devil It was answered him That he had never seen him in any visible apperance Then I assure you saith Mr. Hogg that you can never be happy till you see him in that manner that is until you have both a personal Converse and Combat with him I know nothing more apt to create a more Religious Madness in poor well-meaning people that this sort of Divinity in which our Presbyterians have quite out-done the senseless old Monks Their Principles and Doctrine being as ye have heard opposite to Morality it will not be thought strange that the height of Pride and Rusticitie should appear in their Conversation The common Civilities due to