Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	effect_n	good_a	reason_n	2,537	5	5.2979	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A18021	Achitophel, or, The picture of a wicked politician Diuided into three parts.	Carpenter, Nathanael, 1589-1628?	1629 (1629)	STC 4669; ESTC S107539	48,330	72

between Christian and worldly policie The one counsailes vs to make vp the breach of our sinnes by a sincere repentance the other to enlarge it with greater villany Binde not two sinner together for in one thou shalt not scape vnpunished saith the wisest of Kings But these Politicians holding themselues wiser than the wisest hold repentance base and perseuerance in sinne generous Nobler they suppose it to aduenture forward with danger than retire backe with shame as though they meant to shew themselues industriously resolute to sell their part in heauen and purchase their owne damnation But these we must leaue a while to their owne resolutions perhaps we shall find them againe with Achitophel hanging on the gallowes whose second and last counsaile offers it selfe in the next place to our examination 8 Hitherto hath Achitophels care bin to strengthen the faction both to secure himselfe and vnite the hearts of Israel more firmely to Absolon their leader His second Direction concernes the speeding of the execution Let me now choose out quoth Achitophel twelue thousand men and I will arise and pursue after Dauid this night and I will come vpon him while he is wearie and weake-handed and make him affraid and all the people which are with him shall flie and I will smite the King onely and I will bring back all the people vnto thee The man whom thou seekest is as if all returned So all the people shall be in peace In which politicke aduice of Achitophels three remarkeable circumstances offer themselues to our obseruation which by reason of the scantling of time and your wronged patience I shall be constrained rather to touch than handle In the first place his desire was to haue as well as his Head in the conspiracie so his Hand in the execution perhaps because hee hated Dauid hee was ambitious to shew himselfe the executioner of his owne reuenge and Dauids ruine perhaps out of vaine-glorie that he might seeme as able to act as wise to proiect a mischiefe perhaps out of an officious flattery to engage Absolons thankfulnesse by a do●…ble seruice But that which seemes to mee most probable was his extreame iealousie not daring to trust so young an experience with a matter of so great moment Absolons youth seemed perchance too shallow to entertaine the depth of his directions his bloud too neare to out-face the frowns of a fathers anger or the awe of filiall duety could not be supposed a fit actor in Dauids Tragedie The hardest Iron at the first touch of the Load stone is restored to its first temper and conceiues a Magneticke inclination And why might not Dauids fiery assault or gracious countenance in his rebellious sonne Absolon enforce nature to return vnto herselfe and kindle in him the sparkes of filiall duty and obedience Here may a man reade the state and condition of wicked po●…icie exposed to a thousand dangers and subiect to a thousand i●…alousies Well may such men as Damocles at Dionysius Table feed their hopes with the choisest dainties yet Gods fearfull iudgements as a sword pendulous ouer their heads is alwaies ready to threaten a destruction 'T is not then a good but an euill conscience which makes men cowards Onely hee who wants guilt wants feare and nothing but a cleare conscience can challenge true mother-hood in a couragious resolution The second point we obserue in Achitophels counsaile was a stratagem of Diuersion His quarrell was not against the people but Dauid his purpose to preserue the Kingdome but destroy the King and therefore thought it not so meete to hew out his passage to Dauids ouerthrowe through the bloud of the subiects as by the Kings forfeit to purchase them to Absolons obedience His first care was to strike at the roote it selfe well knowing the branches would fall of their owne accord and the peoples alleageance once dead in Dauid would soone quicken againe in Absolon The strength of Israel is shut vp in the Princes palace and the same power which conquers the one is soone master of the other This counsaile seemes to partake as well of good as bad with the death of one to redeem the life of many in the rigorous lawes of hostility seemes not a duety but a great courtesie But to sell a King to buy a kingdome and stake one Prince for many subiects is lesse than courtesie and more than cruelty Neither was this course affected by Achitophel to spare the liues of innocents or auoide a greater mischiefe but that he found it an easier way to conquer Dauid and reduce the people vnder the yoake of Absolons iurisdiction The good which politicians vse to pretend commonly swels in shew but shrinkes in substance as the Ocean they would seeme to flow in their kindnesses and embrace vs with twining armes as the waues the continent but seeking to lay hold on them we find them commonly to ebbe into nothing and snatch backe their owne with some aduantage If they chance to be authors of any good it serues only to flatter opinion and deceiue simplicity not that they loue good but that they may be the better armed to worke mischiefe To commit euill for a good end seemes to beare a better pretence before men than excuse before God but to suffer or act some good for an euill end is the height of mans wickednesse and the Diuels institution The third and last circumstance in this Achitophels counsaile was by a suddaine and vnexpected assault to take the best aduantage of his owne strength and Dauids weaknesse I will saith he suddenly fall on Dauid while he is wearie and weake-handed and the people shall flie To ioyne with mens misfortunes and adde to misery serues rather basenesse of the man than confidence of the cause and to second Gods afflictions with our owne reuenge is a marke of Gods instrument but the Diuels seruant The apprehension of an apt opportunity is of it selfe I confesse a matter indifferent as well to good as wicked policie Yet hasty and vnexpected actions commonly carry with them a greater suspicion of guilt than discretion as that which seekes to preuent a tryall and feares discouery Time the father of truth would questionlesse haue betrayed Absolons cause to common examination and reduced the discontented Commons to their first temper Dauid might haue giuen satisfaction allegeance haue reuiued in his subiects hearts Necessity which perhaps begat the effects of ill gouernment might haue vrged the causes and reason which at the first seemed to fawne on their discontent might afterwards be taught to correct her errors and suppresse their insolence All this Achitophel knew right wel and therfore chose rather to take aduantage of the peoples sudden passion than their maturer iudgements as one who had good cause to shunne a legall ●…ury where he could promise himselfe no other than losse in the fatall verdict Hitherto beloued haue we traced the foote-steps of our grand traytour Achitophel through all his politicke counsailes and

vnnaturall rebellions Your expectation I know though almost tyred hath long ere this runne to the place of execution and proclaimed his comming But your wronged patience and my want of time hath enforced mee to repriue him till another Session COmmon censure hath stampt it for a currant Prouerbe That it is better for a man to bee fortunate than wise For worldly wisedome though she seeme alwaies to fawne on fortune yet can neuer command and seldome entreate her ser●…ice It hath been thought the pride and priuiledge of that power which we call Fortune to bestow her best fauours where she findes least worth to crowne folly and crosse wisedome to make fooles happy and the wise vnfortunate As a Queen she is supposed to shew her greatest Maiesty in Mans weaknesse to pity sloath and enuie industry as most iealous lest mans wit or endeauours should challenge any part in her prerogatiue But he that knowes wisely to arbitrate betwixt the clouds of Pagan ignorance and the cleare Sun-shine of Christianite betwixt Poeticke fancies and Propheticall visions shall finde vulgar opinion only mistaken in the name ascribing that transcendent power of disposing worldly actions to a Deitie which they called Fortune which Christian knowledge might have taught them more properly to haue termed Prouidence And howsoeuer they haue bounded her large Empire beyond their owne reason yet Christianity hath trauelled much farther and yet can prescribe no limits as that which transcends into an infinite and out-reacheth the eye of all discouerie And though no place hath beene found so base in the Theater of Nature or Ciuill actions wherein Prouidence cannot shew the abundant Trophees of her magnificence Yet there desires she to triumph most where to men she seemes to haue least power Her chiefest glory is to set vp her Ensignes on the gates of mans pride and tread on the necke of worldly policy No maruell then that in the great politician Achitophel in whom neither loyalty could command restraint or perswade duety whom neither vndoubted valour could checke or danger terrifie onely Prouidence could challenge a iurisdiction His politicke obseruation of Absolons disposition and rare endowments designing him out as a fit subiect for his treason seconded by his craftie and irreligious counsell of abusing Dauids Concubines through which in my former Sermon in this place I vshered forth your attention had hitherto passed currant and found in euent as much as it promised in expectation Absolon had hitherto expressed himselfe no worse a learner than he a teacher that the world might well doubt whether the one were more happy to proiect or the other to put in practice Nothing now seemes remaining behinde but to strike the last stroke and giue the fatall on-set Dauids ouerthrowe and Absolons aduancement together appeare in sight and his long and tedious ambition as it were within a league arriued at the port of victory Let not Absolon play the truant in his last lesson and within a few houres the voice of Israel shall salute him King But the change of a good Master oftentimes makes a non proficient Scholler Achitophels precepts must be corrected by Chusay his second Tutor Two eyes are presumed to discerne more than one and the rugged and vneuen knots in our first inuention ought to be filed by the second Though Achitophel in counsell be a Politician yet Absolon in ambition is a King and therefore ought to arrogate to himselfe as well the honour of the Conquest as of the Scepters Too much it might seeme for Achitophel to haue both too little for Absolon to haue no hand at all in this Kingly proiect If Absolon dare not trust his owne aduice yet let him shew his liberty of consent Wisedome consists as much in choice as in inuention neither seemes it the least of Absolons prerogatiue amid diuers counsellors to declare himselfe a King Achitophel shall be suffered to speak his minde as an assistant not to determine causes as a Iudge and therefore must pardon Absolon if approuing him in all the rest he in this one dissent But oftentimes he that can best act can worst pen his owne part And therefore no maruell if Absolon vsurping the office of Achitophel beganne to faile in his last act But to leaue Absolon to his head-strong will wee must here search more neerely into the neglect of Achitophels counsell which being the second part in the former subdiuision of my Text offers it selfe as a subiect for this dayes exercise And when Achitophel saw that his counsell was not followed c. 2 Achitophels counsell thus defeated as you haue heard offers it selfe to our enquiry vnder the obseruation of the causes and their concomitant circumstances The causes preceding the fact we may obserue to bee twofold either Primarie or Secondary The primary we finde to be no other than Almighty God from whom all other inferiour agents deriue their strength and action Where Nature begins and Reason ends there must we place that omnipotent and eternal power as the centre from which all operations first spring and the boundlesse circumference into which all discourses runne Betwixt this Eternall and Inferiour Agents as the distance knowes no proportion so Reason could neuer finde resistance or opposition and easie was it for that omnipotent prouidence to whom Achitophels counsels were from all eternitie discouered to decree as well the means as the end of his defeate For as in the vast frame of nature bodies compared one with the other seeme Heterogeneall consisting of diuers and opposite operations yet as so many wheeles in an artificiall engine are by the same hand directed to the same common vse so the actions and counsels of men howsoeuer casually they seeme to meete and iustle one the other are notwithstanding preordained by the same Infinite counsell to cooperate to the same vniuersall end Whence will naturally arise this obseruation That howsoeuer men may propose to themselues it is onely in the power of Almighty God to dispose A proposition better knowne as a Prouerbe among men than acknowledged in their practice Had yet the great Polititians of this world as much Logicke to iudge as cunning to contriue their owne plots they would questionlesse out of the combination of second causes without respect vnto the first rather suspect a fallacie than promise a demonstration Had they as much acquaintance with Gods Word as their owne wicked and prophane Axiomes they would haue heard the Lord often threatning in holy Scriptures to stagger the counsell of the wicked and turne the wisedome of the wisest into folly Had they rather desired to be instructed than flattered by experience they would haue found of their profession in steed of a few crowned happy by euent tenne thousand miscarry in the meanes A good successe like a slye Parasite rather soothes than commends our actions and like a coy Mistresse prostitutes her selfe to mens neglect but frownes on their ambition But these are popular arguments subiect almost