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	work_n	6,191	5	6.9192	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54418	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, at St. Margarets Westminster, Nov. 7 being the fast-day appointed for the plague of pestilence / by Richard Perrinchief.	Perrinchief, Richard, 1623?-1673.	1666 (1666)	Wing P1606; ESTC R18375	21,998	62

in our miseries And therefore if it were not he that smote us why should we turn unto him Why should we forsake a beloved sin to seek a Lord who doth neither good nor evil Whereas God owns the works of natural causes as well as those whose speed and greatness discover his immediate hand The Plague of Locusts was confessed to be as much an effect of his indignation on Egypt as any of the other prodigious Punishments for they desired Moses to intercede for their removal Exod. 10.13 19. yet it is said that an East wind brought them and a West wind carried them away But when God hides himself behind a traverse of immediate Instruments and wraps up his all-disposing hand in a cloud when as the Psalmist saith Psal 97.2 Clouds and darkness are round about him we seldom consider the Righteousness and Judgment which are the habitation of his Throne Thus while God God suffered the Devil to rival him in power so that the Magicians could vie wonders with the servants of the most High Pharaoh concluded the Lord's hand was not in the Plagues he discredited the Credentials of Moses which were his Miracles as the issues of some common art and rejected the Embassie for it is said Exod. 7.23 That he turned and went into his house neither did he set his heart to this also 2. Sometimes though men acknowledge the evil which befalls them was the Lords doing and through a cloud of tears behold the brightness of Gods power yet they render Judgments ineffectual to their amendment by assigning them as vengeances for other mens sins and punishments for the abominations of those who differ from them from whence they conclude Repentance to be the duty of others and there needs no change in themselves The several parties of men do in common miseries as routed Souldiers in a defeat transfer the blame from themselves and lay the cause of an overthrow upon anothers shoulders How often have ye heard every one of those Judgments which have faln upon this Land by men of different Parties charged upon the sins of their contrary Faction This side thinks the Rebellion of the other and the innocent bloud they have shed did cry so loud for vengeance that the Almighty could not rest till he arose to avenge it on the Inhabitants of the earth That side imagines the Luxury profaneness and impieties of their Opposites to wearie the patience of God till he take away our comforts and strip us of all our glories One Sect believes that all the sad Providences under which we groan are but the inseparable concomitants of a war which God now wages against Antichrist whom they think is to be seated among those who are dissenters from them The other is as firmly perswaded that the Schisms Haeresies Blasphemies of the Holy Spirit the neglect of Publick worship the malicious and designed Disbedience to lawful Magistrates the Vncharitableness and Envy of their fellow Subjects which the others are infamous with have justly provoked the God of pure eyes to make his anger smoak against such an infatuated and perverse Generation as this is Thus every Party confines Gods love and hatred by their own measures and are so far in love with what is theirs that they think God doats upon their Cause as much as they do themselves and therefore suppose he calls others only to return their business is to stand still Whereas all and every Party yea the best of men have sins enough to justifie Gods greatest severity his indignation calls for all our tears and his Judgments make no difference In the Pestilence we saw the same pit devour the spotted Carkasses that had before ranged themselves under contrary Perswasions nor was the destroying Angel more tender of one Congregation than another The late Fire preyed upon the stock and dwellings of the Orthodox and Fanatick and the houses of private Meetings together with publick Churches were mingled in the ashes And should our provoked God give us over into our Enemies hands they would spare no Sect that had wherewithall to gratifie their lust and rage Therefore in such Common Judgments we can never do our duty till every one be affected as the conscious Prophet and take up his confession Jon. 1.12 I know that for my sake this tempest this misery is come upon you And could we be so happy to attain to a common repentance and walk by the same rule in turning to the Lord it would remove that other Judgment of our Divisions which is pregnant with many mischiefs for the Apostle assures us Phil. 3.15 If in any thing else ye be otherwise minded God shall reveal this even unto you 3. Some men by their very deliverance from a Judgment through a prodigious folly become impenitent after it accustomed dangers harden the escaped fool oftentimes to a stupidity the ruder Mariners that have weathered out several storms will steal blaspheme and be drunk in the next tempest Dion Cassius tells us That Catiline being accused for the murders and rapines committed on those whom Sylla had proscribed and escaping the condemnation under which others fell for the same crimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dio. Rom. Hist l. 37. did from this grow much worse and by this did at last perish So we often see him that hath come off safe from one Judgment careless to avoid another by the amendment of his life especially if he can any way fancie that he owes his deliverance to some poor Art of his own for then he promises himself that without the austerities of Repentance or making himself any longer a burden to Providence the same Arts or the like shall be his constant refuge And wicked men are alwaies confident in their own counsels The Prophet charges the impenitencie of the scornful men of Jerusalem upon the confidence of their own Arts Isa 28.15 For they said We have made a Covenant with Death and with Hell are we at agreement when the overflowing scourge shall pass through it shall not come nigh us c. Besides this the prospect of some advantages which a deliverance represents takes off all thoughts of repenting in those that are escaped and employs them to gather up the relicks of anothers ruine the spoils of a common wrack to repair the breaches of their own fortunes or encrease their estates So that they conceive a publick Judgment to lose its nature as to them and that it was but a kindness of heaven to advance their private interest and therefore they interpret those loud Calls to repentance to signifie in their sense invitations to eat drink and be merry because they have more goods laid up for them Thus the men of Samaria turned not to him that smote them because they saw an advantage arise from the blow Isa 9. 10. For they said in the pride and stoutness of their hearts The bricks are faln down but we will build with hewn stone the Sycomores are