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	punishment_n	sin_n	3,729	5	5.7335	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67009	An account of the societies for reformation of manners in London and Westminster and other parts of the kingdom with a persuasive to persons of all ranks, to be zealous and diligent in promoting the execution of the laws agaist prophaneness and debauchery, for the effecting a national reformation / published with the approbation of a considerable number of the lords spiritual and temporal.	Woodward, Josiah, 1660-1712.	1699 (1699)	Wing W3512; ESTC R31843	95,899	198

quis convictus furti esset apud Locrenses effodiebantur ei oculi Contigit autem ut Zaleuci filius furti reus convitiaretur cui quum Locrenses poenam remitterent non tulit id pater sed sibi unum filio alterum voluit erui oculum Legem quandam Tenediis tulit Tennes quâ licebat Adulterum deprehensum securi necare Quum itaque silius ejus esset captus interrogante regem qui coeperat Quid ei faciendum Respondebat Lege utendum quapropter nummo ejus ab una parte securis excusa ab altera facies viri mulieris uno collo juncta If History can tell us of Heathens that could do and suffer so much for the Maintenance of the Laws of their Country shall it be supposed that the Fear of disobliging a Man of Interest that hath a swelling Title one that is I doubt improperly called a Man of Honour who affronts and contemns Religion should keep Christian Magistrates from Executing the Laws of their Country that are made for the Support of Religion and to which they are Sworn And yet as unworthy and unaccountable as such a Behaviour may appear to be even by the Light of Nature it were well if for the Honour of Christian Magistrates nay even of Humane Nature that it could be denied † Pudet haec opprobria nobis dici potuisse non potuisse refelli that many I am unwilling to say most of the Magistrates in the late Reigns lived and died with their Commissions without putting any one of the Laws that our more virtuous Ancestors had left us against Prophaneness and Debauchery in Execution which some of the worthy Magistrates of this Reign making a Conscience of Discharging the Oaths they have taken and the Trust that is reposed in them by their Personal Watchfulnss and Diligence as well as by their giving due Encouragement to those who without having Oaths to oblige them or Rewards to encourage them bring them Informations of the Breaches of those Laws which were grown almost obsolete and useless have to their great Honour so successfully done with such Opposition and Difficulty and not only with greater Clamour from hardned Offenders but with more Reflection from too many others than they might have met with if they had been breaking them in the most impudent manner had been making Attempts to destroy them To prevent therefore for the future the Mischief that this Nation may otherwise fall under as it hath done by the Vnfaithfulness of Magistrates it may deserve Consideration whether it would not be highly advisable that * Cogunt eos qui Magistratu abierint apud Censores edere exprimere quid in Magistratu gesserint Gothofredus de duodecim Tabularum Fragmentis p. 66 67. as we are told the Romans for this reason ordered their Magistrates to give an Account of their Diligence for the Maintenance of the Laws to their † Censorum Officium erat describere facultates cujusque Civis observare singulorum hominum mores vitam tollere quoque omnia quae probitati morum pestem perniciem illatura videbantur Rosinus de Antiquitatibus Romanis fol. 520 Censores mores populi regunto Haec detur cura Censoribus quandoquidem eos in Republica semper volumus esse Cicero de Legibus fol. 340. Censors a chief part of whose Office it was to look to a Reformation of Manners and as our Magistrates are by the late Act of Parliament against Swearing and Cursing required to keep Lists of those Persons that they have convicted of those Offences and to return them to the Sessions our Magistrates should be likewise further obliged to bring in to our Judges of Assize or to the Quarter-Sessions Lists of such as they have convicted upon all the Statutes against Prophaneness and Debauchery which Method will I humbly conceive not only be effectual for the quickening the Diligence of Magistrates but give a just Terror to Offenders and will afford the Government a means of knowing what Magistrates are Unfaithful in their Office and deserve Discountenance and Punishment and on the contrary who they are that most Honourably discharge their Trusts do the greatest Service to their Country and deserve the highest Regard from it * His autem duobus praemiis poena salus Reipublicae quamplurimum continetur And can any unless they are faithful and zealous Ministers of the Gospel be supposed to deserve more Respect than those Magistrates that conscientiously apply themselves to the Suppressing of Vice and Prophaneness and to the Promoting of Religion As the doing of this is I conceive the greatest Benefit of Magistracy and may be supposed as hath been shewn to be a great End for which it was appointed so it can't I think be doubted but God's Blessing may attend his Ordinance the Magistrates zealous and united Endeavours for this purpose so that they may succeed to the Spiritual good of particular Persons as well as to the good of the Publick that as Afflictions are often sent by Him to awaken Men out of their Lethargy in their vicious Courses and in the nature of them tend to that end the legal Corrections of Offenders which may be looked on as Afflictions may with God's Blessing work the same happy Effect upon them and the rather since they are the immediate and sensible Effects of their Sins and of this we are told there hath been so many happy Instances since the beginning of these Transactions as may be sufficient without other Considerations to encourage the Magistrates Diligence But when this fails of the desired Success upon particular Persons yet it is a vast Advantage to the Cause of Religion in general to keep the Multitude by the strict and exemplary Punishment of some Offenders from the publick Commission of such Scandalous Sins as wast the Conscience affront Religion and directly tend to bring it into Contempt that as the Scripture expresses it All Israel may hear and fear Deut. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and do no more any such Wickedness For considering the Original Corruption of our Nature which is generally more depraved by our Education in a degenerate Age that being thus depraved and weakned we find it no very easie work to resist Temptations to Sins to which we have either habituated our selves or have a natural propensity when they are naked and alone and that 't is much more difficult to encounter those Sins when Temptations to them are made stronger by the bad and eminent Examples which are almost every-where to be seen in our Commerce with the World there being but few that we meet with that do not recommend one Vice or other by their Example to our Imitation and which is I think still worse most of those not such as profess themselves Enemies of Religion but that pretend themselves Christians entertain hopes of receiving the Benefits of Religion and attend its Ordinances with Allowance as often as they think it for

were 't is said for that Reason forewarned of their Misery before the Romans invaded them and that after the Romans quitted their Country there succeeded a great Licentiousness very many after their embracing the Christian Religion turning Idolaters before the Saxons Invasion of them a poor People but it seems of more honest Manners that came from the Northern Parts of Germany and that before their next sad Catastrophe by the Normans Conquest of this Nation Piety and all good Literature were grown out of fashion that the Clergy could scarce read Divine Service that the Gentry were given up to Luxury and a dissolute Life and the Meaner sort spent what they had in Rioting Drunkenness and other Vices by which means saith the Historian Duke William had so great Advantage and gained the Conquest of them from whence our English Writers conclude the Saxon History almost in the same Words and to this effect If these say they speaking of their Sins were in all probability the Causes of God's Judgments on our Ancestours surely every one in this corrupt Age ought to take care to avoid them lest the same Judgments fall upon them And lastly to add no more are not the formerly famous Asian and Greek Churches if not some of the Protestant in several Parts of the World which are miserably oppressed and brought almost to Desolation within a few Years past particularly that of France of whose dreadfull Misery we have so many living Testimonies now among us lookt on as sad Instances to confirm us in the Opinion of Ages That Religion and Virtue are the only firm Foundation for the Prosperity of any Nation and Irreligion the most fatal Evil to it That where there is a general Corruption of Manners things tend to a Dissolution and Ruine as well by Natural consequences with the Permission of God as by his righteous Judgments and that therefore it is not to be expected that the crying Sins of a Nation will always escape Punishment unless prevented by Repentance for the same Causes produce the same Effects Virtue and Vice do not change their Nature and there is no variableness with our God whose Justice is immutable Did not our Fathers thus and did not our God bring all Neh. 13. 18. this Evil upon us and upon this City says the Prophet And therefore if after all that our Fathers have told us of these things and what some of us have moreover seen with our own Eyes I mean the late terrible Civil Wars which I hope none will believe for our Piety and Virtue broke out and lasted so long among us within some of our Memories and which was soon after succeeded with a dreadfull Fire and Plague in this City and the Misery that is since that fallen upon our Fellow-Christians in France in Hungary and the Palatinate we make no better use of what we have seen and heard and of the various Providences we have been under than to oppose the design of them by continuing impenitent have we not great Reason to fear that God may rescue his Gospel from our prophane Outrages our impious Violations and give it to some other Nation that may bring forth better Fruits of it or in some other way agreeable to his infinite Wisdom and Justice punish Lev. 26. 18. us yet seven times more for our Sins Or as Ezra expresses it on another like Occasion And after all that is come upon us for our Evil deeds Ezra 9. 13. and for our great Trespass seeing that Thou our God hast punished us less than our Iniquities deserve and hast given us such Deliverance as this Should we again break thy Commandments and Ver. 14. join in Affinity with the People of these Abominations wouldst not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping The Almighty God cannot want Power to effect our Ruine If we reckon our selves secure by our present Peace from a late powerfull Enemy which I shall not here inquire into the Reasons of He can raise up new ones to us And if we have no Enemies from abroad He can suffer us to become our own greatest Enemies to fall into Confusion and Ruine by our Unchristian Quarrels and senseless Divisions at Home which are too many and too high to make this appear to thinking Men a foreign Supposition or an unnecessary Warning If he stops the Influences of Heaven or le ts loose the Elements upon us we perish A Pestilence or a Deluge an Earthquake or a Dearth might soon destroy us And if a general Relaxation of Manners a Corruption in most if not all Orders and Parties if a visible Contempt of the sincere Practice of Religion and bare-fac'd insolent and unrestrained Wickedness if a monstrous Debauchery in Principles as well as Practice if Contentions and Divisions without reason and without end and almost without Example if high Ingratitude to God for many and great Mercies and a deep Insensibility under imminent danger of Judgments are sad Indications of a Nation 's Degeneracy and Guilt it cannot I think be denied but that this was too near the dismal Case of England in Relation to Religion when the Endeavours of Reformation which I have given an Account of began among us about Eight Years since how much soever we may dislike the Representation of it and to speak plainly continues very much so still and therefore though God may give a People a longer or shorter time of Tryal as seems fit to his infinite Wisdom He may defer the Execution of his Wrath till the Iniquities of a People Gen. 15. 16. are at the full which the longer it is delayed the severer it may be when it comes And though it is not for us rashly to say when a Nation hath filled up the Measure of its Sins and much less to presume to know the Extent of infinite Patience and Forbearance yet it may I think be said in this Case with Reverence that considering the great Advantages and Blessings we have so long enjoyed and what shameful Returns we have made to God for them there seems not much if any thing more to be wanting to make this Nation as guilty as most under Heaven if not to be ripe for Judgment than the Discountenance and Unsuccessfulness of pious and regular Endeavours for the Reforming us and nothing I think can be reasonably supposed sufficient to remove our Guilt than some considerable and remarkable Reformation and perhaps carried through all Ranks and Orders of Men through all Parts of the Kingdom such a one as may be in some measure proportioned to the Leprosie of Vice and Prophaneness that seems to have almost over-spread us But if we do truly repent of all our Abominations and turn from our wicked ways if we lay aside our unnecessary Strifes and our unchristian Contentions with one another which we have so long felt the dismal Effects of if we express our Zeal and unite