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	sin_n	7,176	5	5.3331	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A00954	The revvard of the faithfull. The labour of the faithfull. The grounds of our faith	Fletcher, Giles, 1588?-1623.	1623 (1623)	STC 11062; ESTC S117621	79,563	446

of Colledges or releeuing of maimed Soldiers or making of good waies such as himselfe neuer walkt in or which now is a rare point of pietie in doing some good to the Church of God by restoring to the right vse vsurped and impropriate tithes or buying them from the dead hands they lie in and laying them vpon Gods Altar that feedes not vnder the Gospel any mort-maines such as were the hands of the Romane Clergie but such as are more free and actiue in the seruice of the Prince Common-wealth then any in the whole bodie politique of double their abilitie and strength And truly the want of doing good in this one kinde is the very blush of our profession most rich men neuer dreaming vpon their death-beds of any such streine of pietie as being long dead in their mindes to the Church before their dead bodies come to rest in it Or releasing of captiues or helping poore Ministers or maintaining in the Vniuersitie poore Schollers or setting vp in their honest Trade new beginners or some other such good and pious vses and so they come all in conclusion to Gods Exchequer Leaue then to slaunder the diuine Prouidence of God in the dispensation of these moueables as wee truely call them by supposing them blessings to the wicked when in their needy superfluity they wāt what they haue or when the religious man is made better by their want by thinking their want to him any punishment at all Be not enuious with Dauid to see the vngodly man prosper a while but if Diues haue a short and small portion in this life as Abraham tels him let him haue it Alas he hath no other Only wait thou vpon the Lord and verily thou shalt haue enough Hauing now endeuored to heale the lame hands of such as are shrunke vp and withered with idlenesse and sloath as our Sauiour himselfe whē he came into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day and found there one with a withered arme begun his Sabbath daies worke with making him stretch it out like the other because it is an ill sight to see one in the Church of God and in his Vineyard stand idle either in doing nothing or doing naught Let vs go on to the following obseruation which is VI. That as God will haue his children though neuer so religious and rich vse the meanes as well as others to obtaine his blessing so that husbandry hath alwayes beene an ancient and honourable meanes of life I Know it is an vsuall quarrell with such persons whose ignorance prophanenesse are quarrell to fal out with Gods Iustice because it hath not made them so rich as other men and because they suppose al their happinesse both in this life and in the other is already so predisposed of by God that there is nothing left for them to do either for enriching thēselues here with the great mē of the world or hereafter for gloryfying thēselues with the felicity of Gods Saints in heauen If God please to enrich them hee can do it they say without their labour as hee did Iob in the euening of his daye And if hee haue ordained them to pouertie all their labour they say can neuer enrich them though they rise early and goe to bed late and eate the bread of carefulnesse For except God build the house the labour of the workeman is but in vaine Psal 127. Againe if they shall be saued let them liue how they will they know God will saue them but if he meanes not to haue them all the meanes they can vse they thinke but idle and so they lie down in the secret decree of God which being imbrested in Gods owne bosome thoughts they cannot possibly diue into and neuer looke to the execution of Gods decree which they may finde in the vse of the meanes in themselues if by them the meanes be wisely applyed and faithfully practised This argument was very ancient and first inuented by heathen men who thought all things ruled by a fatall and stoicall necessitie which was wholly vnalterable and neuer to bee changed by any contrary endeuours or by liuing neuer so religiously well Which reason the wiser sort of men did ordinarily stile 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the idle reason And thus as when they are idle they would haue God do them good so when they are euill they would haue God beare thē harmelesse by making himselfe some cause him some cause of their sinne Thus the Grecian harlot cast her adultery vpon Venus and Iupiter in Euripides but was well schooled for it presently by Hecuba in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Neuer honour your adultery so much as to make the Gods the simple fathers of it no no my sonne Paris was the onely Iupiter and your owne inflamed mind the Venus that brought you to this shame and vs to this misety Neither did simple women onely but the wisest of the heathen Gouernours loade their Gods with their proper crimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sayes great Agamemnon alas It was not he that did them iniurie But Ioue and Fate and the night Furie But Iupiters answer is recorded by the same Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men say their faults are ours when their own wils Beyond their fate are authours of their ills But how God in the cōproduction of an action that is euill for the euill in it does no way casually concurre or by way of efficiency but onely by way of directing ordering limiting the prauitie of it so that the most wicked is beholding to God whom hee foolishly indicts as guiltie for limiting his sinne and so lessening his punishment is a discourse somthing stragling from our purpose who are to enquire the meanes how to obtaine his benefits by our labour and not the manner how hee workes in vs when wee vse his benefits against himselfe and by his goodnesse make our selues the more euill Let vs know then that the wisedome of GOD doth not bring in the end without the appointed meanes he hath fore-determined If the Decree of God haue measured thee out a faire portion in this life he hath set out meanes whereby thou shalt attaine this inheritance eyther by thy kinred and so he blest Isaac or by thy labour and so he blest Iacob or by thy seruice and the fauour of great persons and so hee blest Ioseph or by thy learning and his blessing of thy studies and so hee honoured Daniel God ordinarily neuer breakes off the end from the meanes and therefore if thou thinke GOD will bring about the ende though thou neuer vse the meanes to attaine it thou deceiuest thy selfe For God as in his goodnesse he ordaines the end so in his wisedome he appoints the meanes to bring the end to passe Reason not therefore so simply as to say Whom God will enrich though hee be neuer so carelesse wealth shall be