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
A65034	A vindication of the late reverend and learned John Owen D.D. by a friendly scrutiny into the merits, and manner of Mr. Rich. Baxters opposition to twelve arguments concerning worship by the lyturgy, said to be Dr. Owens / by a hearty friend to all good men, and of the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.	Hearty friend to all good men.	1684 (1684)	Wing V511; ESTC R38395	31,983	42

but in few hands before your concerning your self with them But as to that part of the information which looks like the prevailing motive that they were such as would frustrate all you had written if they were not answered Either you believed it or not If you did not credit it it would have proved but brutum fulmen and wrought no farther effects by you But if you did believe it I know not who can excuse your so easy credulity of that which was not only improbable but as near as can well be imagined to impossible Improbable if you have given a right and due Character of the Arguments to work any such great effects against your Arguments which you do not seem to suspect of any feeble parts at least such as may indanger their main Cause by whatever force assaulted I must here necessarily transcribe your Character of the 12 Arguments you take Dr. Owen to task for In your Preface toward the end It 's true that aboundance of good people fear and distast Communion in the Lyturgy What wonder when such reasonings as these 12 Arguments which how gross soever people have not the skill to answer persuade them it is false Worship and heinous sin Dear Sir I fear that those people who have not the skill to answer the 12 Arguments will be found to want skill enough to discover the strength of yours And I confess 't is matter of lamentation that on all sides Peoples Opinions are mostly and most strongly I will not say guided but mastered by their affections and 't is beyond all our power to cure the disorder though the best way I know is so far to lay aside all the very appearances of enmity and bitterness and to be clothed with so much love meekness and all that 's lovely that we may win their hearts and then it will not be hard to influence their heads Ad modum recipientis recipiatur But I have not said the worst you say of the 12 Arguments in contempt You add Postscript p. 6. The 12 Arguments I understand are likest to prevail most by the honour of Dr. Owens name more then by any strength that is in them I was willing as long as I could to believe that they were not his they being as frivolous and fallacious as any of the rest and one Error managed with above fourty mistakes Here Sir you render them very feeble things but for Dr. Owens name and yet you have contributed the strength of Dr. Owens name to them in Print which you had far better have left out upon more scores than one But how long were you willing to believe they were not his Not long to be sure for it was a very little while betwixt your receipt of the Arguments and Printing them and intitling Dr. O. to them How frivolous the Arguments are in your account may be best understood by the Comparison as frivolous as any of the rest Among the rest were Mr. Warners of which you say in the next words foregoing Mr. Warner hath since Printed a farther Accusation with the same charge of Idolatry and false worship against the manner of Worship not instituted and said so little that I will not write for him that cannot himself confute him In short Sir I know not Mr. Warner nor his writings but those you speak of are so feeble that he who cannot confute them himself shall have no help from you which in sense is they are so easily confuted that he that hath any degree of understanding or that is capable of information may confute Mr. Warners Arguments if he will and consequently the Doctors being never a jot more invincible if you can but get over his name O for Moderation This over-doing passionate work spoils all Well Sir I suppose you will allow me that the 12 Arguments considered nakedly were not the danger you feared Yet I must not forget that I said it was next impossible take them as armed as you can make or imagine them that they should do such mischief as your informer affected you with the apprehensions of viz. To frustrate all that you had written We will suppose it meant of all the tracts bound up with this Dear Sir could you imagine that those Scripts would visit as many hands as your Prints or that all that had your Prints and might receive any good by them would certainly meet with these 12 Arguments and be conquered by them I beseech you Sir be not so easily persuaded by such hot-headed heedless reporters as to make their reports that carry precipitancy weakness and contradiction in their Fore-heads the occasions of such distastful and J fear worse tasks as this The other motive to expose them is the Doctors name being so prevalent But I pray Sir who gave them that name Truly some few private Persons privately but Mr. B. upon the publick Theatre with a Noverint Vniversi But Sir you Printed them with the Antidote both to the thing the Poyson and the Vehicle the Doctors name that did so powerfully insinuate it But Sir what is this but opposing your name to the Doctors Your name thrust in voluntarily some say violently to his drag'd upon the Stage after his Decease against his will Seriously Sir though I have heard many of your Friends who would rather be partial for you than unjust speak of this matter I never heard one of them attempt an excuse for your concerning Dr. Owens name in your Print And some will not stick to say do you or I what we can to the contrary that this is but the working of an old Spleen against the Doctor and taking very ungentily this advantage But Sir I am confident whatever the deceitfulness of sin may do you would abhor the appearance of such an evil I have not overlookt what you have said as well to justify your self from all prejudice against or designs upon the Doctors name as also that you have said to render it a strength to Weakness and Errour and a prejudice against Truth and Argument And indeed in many things you speak very honourably of him But Reverend Sir whereas you say It is so far from your design to wrong the name of Doctor Owen by this defence If you have done or it be the tendency of your work to do it though the design be far from it that will not be a just compensation Now Sir I remember where you your self have hinted an excellent advantage to have avoided much of what is now so distasted You say in your Letter to the unknown Author That the Doctor owned the ill Principle which you now confute viz. against all Publick Worship by Liturgy and against mans power to command any more than Christ hath done in the order and manner of Worship and Church Government and this to be seen in his Preface to his Original of Churches his vindication of the Nonconformists c. And you add also That for the many healing peaceable passages in

themselves for fathering their mistakes on God I shall a little comment on this Text which would better have become the Observator than Mr. Baxter who will say as much for him and those he calls Innocents and Crucify all alike as under one Condemnation And surely some of these things were so far from being commonly known that they must stand on your only legs for their credit or none at all that I know of You blame them because they blame not themselves for these things and yet tell the world they have blamed themselves and how you can equal their worst Adversaries in a scornful virulent spreading it on their faces Worthy Sir I pray bear with a truth which I hope your piety will make some good use of though it must be now in the after-part I know not any man alive who was less fit to throw these or any other reslections on the Doctor I speak it not in respect of your Abilities which I value and honour but in respect of the want of that good understanding betwixt you while the Dr. lived which was commonly noised I say not where the fault lay I should have been glad to have been a means to cure or conceal it But take things as they are and it will be next a Miracle if this work of yours be not imputed to some ill Original and then 't is like to do little of that good you really intend by it And I think you did not well weigh those words p. 2. of your Preface when you wrote them soil And the Author that I deal with necessitateth me to recite the late fruits of Separation c. Dear Sir do you not tell the world here who and what you had in your Eye You say not here the matter of the Arguments put you on such a necessity but the Author you deal with The Author whom you will have to be no other than the late Reverend Learned and Pious Dr. Owen No doubt but Arguments be they what they will must have an Author But if they had been ascribed to some other Author as your words import there had been no such necessity on you to recite the late fruits of Separation and what follows Some of the pretended Errours considered as they are fixed in a Numerical Order and ascribed to D.O. THis is a Task Sir that must be done with great Caution not only with regard to your Answers or your Person but the subject which puts the hilt in the hand of him that writes in its Countenance but the point to him who shall be so daring as to offend against it But I hope I shall do nothing lyable to exception for I shall not undertake any thing against the Lyturgy or Communion thereby only fairly consider how far you have justly fixed those Errours on the Author of the Arguments which you call Dr. Owens Now Sir I shall not take it for granted that your Edition in Print is exactly a true Copy of the Autograph nor will or can you your self assirm with any ground how far it is metamorphosed by that time it arrived to your hands therefore I shall think it reasonable to put the best constructions that equity will allow on the disadvantaged side Only I must tell my Reader my Order that he may know which is which The Author of the Arguments words are in the common letter with these notes at the left hand of the line Mr. Baxters in a different letter and mine in the common letter except now and then a special word Position It is not lawful for us to go to and joyn in publick Worship by the Common-Prayer because that Worship itself according to the rule of the Gospel is not lawful You answer 1. I shall use the same method that he hath used and first give you my Positions and then the supposed matter of fact and then consider his Arguments Posit It is not only lawful but a duty for those that cannot have better publick Worship without more hurt than benefit and are near a competent Parish Minister to go to and joyn in publick Worship performed according to the Lyturgy and in Sacramental Communion And for those that can have better to joyn sometimes with such Parish Churches when their forbearance scandalously seemeth to signify that they take such communion for unlawful and would so tempt others to the same accusation and uncharitable Separation The History of the matter of Fact must be premised for the right deciding of the cause which is as followeth I shall first say somewhat of the Authors Position and then of yours The Authors Position as you Print it consists of a Position and also the reason or ground of it And I find the reason exceeding the limits of what was to be proved which makes it look not like Dr. Owens But to take it as it is the Position if it is not lawful for us to go and joyn in publick Worship by the Common-Prayer He doth not say it is unlawful for any and for ought you know this us whom he concerned in it might be a very few to whom this Manuscript was imparted and they might be under such Circumstances as your own resolutions oft in print would discharge from that Worship as a Duty But you may reply that the reason of the Position gives no countenance to such a restriction And I say so too but seeing they agree no better in your Edition what must be done in the case But to have recourse first to the Errata ay to the Author too but as you have ordered the matter non sunt inventi is a good return for the Author was but is not and the Errata never was nor could be And therefore in my Opinion if the Position be of a better Countenance than the ground of it let us take that but if the Reason be of a righter make than the Position let us take that for the Authors The reason as large as it is is expresly inclusive of the Common-Prayer only And therefore considering that all the Arguments are according to the Authors profession subservient to this Position and the ground of it and otherwise are exuberant or impertient I conclude you had not sufficient reason to say as you do p. 2. of your Postscript That Dr. O. or the Author saith that all Lyturgies usuch are such false Worship and not the English only no nor to say that it was his meaning But farther I conceive the Author may not yea doth not mean by these words because that Worship itself is not lawful that it is simply unlawful which must render it so at all times and to all Persons under what circumstances soever but that taken with all its modes as well as matter and the manner severity and universality of its imposing it is so Beside it is not said that according to the rule of the Gospel it is unlawful but according to the rule of the Gospel it is not lawful which