Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	evil_a	good_a	see_v	2,875	5	3.5208	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47648	A sermon preached at the assizes held at Lincoln, March the 6th, 1691/2 before the right honourale [sic] Sir John Holt, Kt., lord chief justice of England / by Walter Leightonhouse ... ; printed at the earnest request of the gentlemen of the country.	Leightonhouse, Walter, 1656-1701.	1692 (1692)	Wing L1032B; ESTC R202676	13,243	31

at a false Verdict in the behalf of the Defendant for all the Riches of Licinius or Achoemenes For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness and his eyes behold the thing that is upright yea his eyes are always open to the righteous and his Hands always ready to deal to every man according to the fruit of his doings Jer. 17.10 But then Secondly as God is just so he is merciful likewise yea his mercy is over all his works And although in this Earthly Magistrates have not power to act according to the measures of the Almighty because he hath an absolute Dominion over the Creature and may do what he will with his own whereas Earthly Judges are oblig'd to pass Sentence Secundum allegata probata yet Mercy being the Triumphant Attribute of Heaven 't is fit that they who personate God in his Justice should in some measure tread in the steps of his Compassion too tho they cannot make so deep an impression And in order to this I shall only desire them to consider That God doth not at all times inflict an equal Punishment upon two Persons tho guilty of the Breach of the same Law but hath Recourse to a Geometrical Proportion and either increases or abates his Inflictions as it suits to his Justice intermixed with his Mercy and directed by his Wisdom as for instance This Man was hurried on by a violent strength of Temptation That willfully run himself into the same Sin This Sin has grown to a Habit in that Person but 't is the first time and that by surprise that ever this man sinned in that nature That Man broke through all the strong Enclosure of God's assisting Grace This Person was laid open to the Temptation This was but a babe in Christ That has been fed with the strong meat of the Gospel This Persons Bashfulness led him to sin in the dark That had a whores Forhead and committed his Iniquity at Noon-day Here tho the Sin be the same in several Persons yet these Circumstances will engage God to exert his Mercy more largely towards one than towards the other Thus does he make way to his anger or as we read it in the vulgar Latin Librat viam ad iram suam He weighs the way to his Indignation considers each Punctilio of the fault and catches at every Circumstance which will open a Door to the poor Offender For altho he does not respect Persons yet he will not destroy the Righteous with the Wicked The Righteous who altho Sinners yet are comparitively Righteous with the wicked who are habitually or wilfully such And as God observes a measure in criminal so does he likewise in judicial Proceedings He will not encourage those who contend for Smoke for a Trifle tho their Cause be just so much as he will those whose all lies at stake i. e. God would not did he sit in our Courts of Judicature give Light for so large damage to a Boutifeu or a common Barretter as he would to an oppressed Widow or a defrauded Orphan for he always has a favour to the peaceable but the Turbulent and Contentious his Soul is not with them He especially shews Mercy to those who are not able to do themselves Justice and will relieve the oppressed innocent out of his hands who is too strong for him These are briefly the Rules This the Method which God Almighty follows in the Exercise of his Justice and his Merty To which I might add several weighty Reasons to move you to go and do likewise but your known Integrity and great Wisdom will be a sufficient bar for my not doing so especially since I may and that most justly too accost you in the same words that the Widow of Tekoah did King David That as an Angel of God so are you my Lord to discern between good and bad 2 Sam. 14.17 And therefore 't would be the greatest breach of Charity in the World to think you would act against Knowledg since you have never yet given one instance either of your Injustice or Incompassion However be pleas'd to give me leave to speak to you in the words of one of the first Fathers and Martyrs of the Primitive Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Mart God hath given you his own Honour his own Place his own Name therefore do you judg the People as he himself would judg them Which is our first Observation deducible from our first Particular That if Judges personate God then they ought to act as they are convinc'd he would do were he in their stead as they are in his Secondly If they personate God then we ought to honour and pay a Civil Regard to them And here I shall not Treat of that Respect which is due to them when off the Bench for that every one will yield that understands the Measures of Civility and those that do not their Scarlet and their Trophies their Coaches and Attendance will attract them to do so But I shall insist on that part of Regard which is due to them as Vice Gods in order to the promoting Justice and the advancement of Truth and Judgment And herein every man ought to consider whether if God were in Peron upon the Bench he would dare to give that Almighty Being the trouble of deciding that Cause in which he knew in Point of Justice a Verdict ought to brought against him Would a Defendant put in a Plea which would appear evidently unjust in the Eye of that Judg who seeth all things Or would a Witness attest that which his Conscience told him was an untruth were he to Swear in the visible Presence of that God who hath enjoyn'd him not to bare false Witness against his Neighbour Would an Advocate call good Evil or evil Good would he by a sly Suggestion endeavour to enervate the Sinews of the Law did he really see God in the Court or would he say to his Client thy Cause is Right when he knew nothing could make it so but Favour or a Fee a sophistical Pleader or a corrupt Judg Would he dare to pick the Clients Pocket by subtle delays and falshood or supplant and undermine the Truth to obtain either Interest or Reputation to himself These things would not be done if God were in Court in some visible Schechinah and therefore Whoever is guilty of any of these fallacious Quirks is as really peccant as if God stood as Judg before him For since we cvnnot see him Face to Face and live 't is a Mercy that he is pleas'd to consult our Interest and Security so far as to Commissionate one to Act in his stead and therefore if we be guilty of any of these collusive Tricks and disingenious Behaviour we may suppose that he will reason with us in those Words of our Saviour in another Case In as much as you did it unto one of these you did it unto me Math. 25.40 In that you have gone about to stop the Current of Justice

and to turn judgment into wormwood Amos 5.7 by glossing over a bad Cause with the Paint of Insincerity an Falshood in that you have given in a false Testimony against your Neighbour or brought in a false Verdict against the innocent and oppressed in that you have not to the best of your knowledg laid all things naked and open before my Deputy but have through the Cloud of your Impiety darken'd his Understanding and his Knowledg you have as much as in you lay endeavour'd to cheat and delude the judge of all the Earth and have in effect in open Court boldly proclaim'd How doth God know can he judg through the dark Cloud Job 22.13 Tush he seeth not is there knowledg in the most High Which leads me to the Second thing considerable viz. That as Judges personate God so he is a constant Eye Witness of all their Proceedings Take heed what you do for you judg not for man but for the Lord who is with you in the judgment I am not ignorant that many Learned Commentators have interpreted these words is with you in the judgment in a twofold Acceptation First That he is with them to take notice of and eye all their Proceedings Secondly to assist them or as the Prophet speaks Isa 28.5 6. To be a Spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment But I shall for Brevity sake confine my self at this time to speak to these words only in the former Sense that being most suitable to strike all that are concern'd in this publick Solemnity into an awful Reverence of that great Judg of Heaven and Earth by reason of his immediate Presence in the midst of them It was wholsom Advice that one gave to his lewd Friend That he should have the Picture of his grave and serious Father in the Room where he was wont to celebrate his Debauches imagining that the severe Eye of the good old Man tho but in Effigie would give check to the wanton Sallies of the intemperate Youth And to the same purpose Seneca advised Lucilius to fix the Idea of some grave Person a Cato or a Laelius before him Epist 11. as a very convincing Method to restrain him from Vanity and Excess To which I might add that of Zeno who being ask'd by his Friends how they might keep themselves in a regular and due Order when he was gone he made this reply Si me presentem semper putetis by imagining me to be always present as a beholder of your Actions But we who live under the Dispensation of the Gospel have no need of such Foreign Exhortation as these we have a more sure word of Prophecy which does direct us to level our Thoughts and fix our Apprehensions upon an Object infinitely surmounting those in prophane Story We are taught that God is a constant Spectator of all our Actions that we are in the Eye of our Friend our Father and our Judge that we can go no whether from his presence Ps 139.7 8. but that all things are naked and open before that great God with whom we have to do Heb. 4.12 13. And that no man let his attempts be never so earnest can hide himself or his Actions in secret places that this Lord shall not see them Jer. 23.24 And indeed these Thoughts are so riveted in the mind of every Christian that nothing but a dark Cloud of Impiety can obscure our belief of it An upright Judg is fully convinced that God sees the intention of his Heart and an uncorrupt Pleader is the very same A faithful Witness knows that the Almighty is in the Court and an impartial Jury does so too In short The good man sets the Lord always before him Ps 16.8 and does really think that God stands by and sees all the Passages of his Life And therefore I shall be so charitable as to believe that you all agree in the Assertion and shall insist no longer upon the proof of it least by so doing I should seem to bring the Integrity of some of you into question Proceed I therefore to draw only one practical Observation from this second Proposition and so I shall conclude Doth God eye all your Proceedings Then I pray you consider to what purpose it is to varnish over a bad Cause with the Fucus of Oratory or the Paint of specious Pretences What signifies the being brib'd in the dark or suborn'd in a corner To what purpose is the smothering your Falshood from the eye of Men when it is seen and view'd by that great God who knoweth all the hearts of the children of men 1 Kings 8.39 and the secrets thereof Ps 44.21 It is an ingenious Comparison and very well suits this Case which is put by a modern Writer Suppose says he that you beheld the Almighty Dr. Scott 's Christian Life part 1. being fitting upon a Cloud in some visible Form with a Thunder-Bolt in his Hand and from thence looking down upon you curiously observing how you demean your selves and closely pursuing you with his awful Eye through all your dark Retreats and Privacies would not the Thought of any Action that is displeasing to him be ready to strike you into Trembling and Horror could you imagine your selves to be any where secure in your Wickedness while you saw your selves uncovered to his Allseeing Eye to which your Closets lie as open as your Halls and your Hearts as the Highways To which he adds farther If I were throughly assured that the King were listning behind the Curtain and heard every Word that is spoken in the Room I should doubtless be as much afraid of talking Treason against him tho I saw him not as if he stood just before me And so if God be in your Court in an invisible manner and you are not able to see him through that thick Curtain of Matter which is drawn between you and his spiritual Essence yet you may be well assured that he is behind it is listning to what you say and prying into what you do keeps intelligence with your Thoughts and is intimately acquainted with all your Pleadings your Evidence and your Awards and therefore you ought to be every jot as cautious of all your Proceedings as if you saw him standing by you to record every Thought every Word and every Action that there passes and to enter into his Debt-Books every Item of your Guilt against the great Day of Account Justice is every Mans Birth-right and a Man can with no more Equity bereave me of it than he can take away my Life my Liberty or Estate and therefore he that either doth so himself or by false Witness or the like occasions others to do so is not only unfaithful to his Trust but is indeed a Felon and an Usurper robbing me of that to which I have not only a Claim by Nature but by the Laws of the Realm too and therefore must expect to have a very severe Sentence passed upon him when he gives up his Accounts to that God who was an Eye-witness of his Failures To conclude I remember 't is recorded of Henry IV. that so great was his Wisdom so considerable his depth of Knowledg that 't was said that he that would corrupt his Council must first begin with the King And blessed be God we may as truly say that our Laws are so exactly contrived our Courts so well filled with Men of Politie and profound Parts that he that would pervert Judgment must begin with the Bench for it is scarce possible to imagine that Injustice can be so closely managed either upon the account of Witness Jury or Advocate as that a Cause shall suffer without the Knowledg of the Judge who like Solomon will in all probability find out the Fallacy under the most close Disguise And therefore give me leave my Lord to add that if you be not wanting to your self and to us we may be assured that Justice will run down like a mighty Torrent and that there will be no complaining in our Streets Let me take the Freedom therefore once more to remind you that you must one day appear at the Bar of that great God whom you personate and who is a Judge among Gods Hear therefore the word of the Lord c. Thus saith the Lord execute ye judgment and righteousness and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor do no wrong do no violence to the stranger neither shed innocent blood in this place Jer. 22.1 c. Ezek. 42.27 but defend the poor and fatherless do justice to the afflicted and needy and rid them out of the hand of the wicked and in all your Proceedings both Judicial and Criminal Take heed what you do for ye judge not for man but for the Lord who is with you in the judgment wherefore let the fear of the Lord be upon you take heed and do it for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God nor respect of persons nor taking of gifts FINIS