Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	great_a	know_v	5,049	5	3.5427	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A04417	Christ on his throne. Or, Christs church-government briefly laid downe and how it ought to bee set up in all Christian congregations. Resolved in sundry cases of conscience.	Burton, Henry, 1578-1648, attributed name.	1640 (1640)	STC 14541; ESTC S107732	25,100	92

CHRIST ON HIS THRONE OR Christs Church-government briefly laid downe and how it ought to bee set up in all Christian Congregations Resolved in sundry Cases of Conscience IER. 6. 16. Thus saith the Lord Stand ye in the wayes and see and aske for the old paths where is the good way and walk therein and ye shall finde rest for your soules LVKE 19. 27. But those mine Enemies which would not that I should raigne over them bring them hither and slay them before me Printed in the yeare 1640. THE PREFACE To the Reader IT is an observation as true as antient that such workes of God as are done immediatly by himselfe alone though for their excellent greatnesse farre surpassing not onely mans apprehension but even admiration it selfe yet are done by him without any rubbe or difficulty at all Such was that glorious and magnificall worke of Creation But such workes as God doth by instrumentall meanes as by man the greater they be the greater difficulties they are attended with and meet with many impediments And this is most seene in great and generall Reformations of Churches or States Even Christ himselfe The onely Potentate the Mighty God when hee came to restore and re-erect the Tabernacle of David which was fallen downe to wit his spirituall Temple or Church what opposition did hee meet withall what sweat did it cost him before hee could finish this glorious and wondrous worke In which respect the Antients were wont to say That God with his word alone created the world but it cost the life of his onely begotten sonne to redeeme the world for this was opposed by Devills and men And so it was with the type of Redemption Israels deliverance from Egypt where Gods mighty wonders and plagues upon Egypt found a proud and hard hearted Pharaoh with his blinde Egyptians obstinately resisting to the very last So in the reparation of the Temple in Jerusalem there wanted not most malignant spirits envious men is Tatnai Shether Boznai Tobiah and Sanballat who mocked and accused the Iewes to the King and by force sought to hinder the worke And therefore can wee wonder when in the proceeding of so great a worke of reformation as we see begun in our dayes nothing inferior all circumstances considered to that deliverance from Egypt or to the restauration of religion after Babylons captivity difficulties and impediments both great and many have and doe interpose themselves which when wee see wee should not be discouraged for discouragement in such cases is an argument and consequent of a mind too much relying upon outward meanes which while they prosper they are as a good gale filling the sayles of our hope to attaine the wished Port. But when an adverse winde begins but to whistle a little up we are afflicted and are ready to cast away our hope being left as a ship without an Anchor floating and without a rudder driven with every winde ready to bee split on every rocke or shelfe But in such a case we must as in the first place look up unto God the great master of the winds yea and mover of the mindes of the violent men So herein behold and observe the beaten wayes of the Lord how hee is pleased in all such great works to suffer himselfe and his people to bee opposed And this he doth for speciall reasons as to shew forth the deepe wisdome of his providence in circumventing his adversaries to crosse and thwart them even in those great and good workes which himselfe will have to be done and certainly purposeth to accomplish which he calleth them unto and commandeth them to doe that so he may take them off from trusting in the outward meanes though never so faire and might teach them still and stedfastly to trust in his helpe in his strength in his faithfulnes and not to cease to call upon him and depend on his promise who will certainely save and fully answer the prayers of his people and in the happy issue of the work that his glory may in all shine forth the more clearely when nothing shall be left in man to glory in but that we may give all the honour and praise of the worke to him alone Againe in all such great workes of generall Reformation especially of Religion the difficulties prove to be the greater by how much the vices and corruptions to be purged out as we see in naturall bodies are and have been of longer continuance and such also as have received strength under pretence at least even from the Lawes themselves and by universall consent of the whole State Nor only this but there is also in our natures a kinde of Antipathy against that purity and power of Religion which ought to be the maine end that all true Reformations should aime at And besides all this although the corruptions be so grosse and of so high a nature as they proclaime themselves intollerable grievances no longer to bee borne but doe by a kinde of necessity presse to a Reformation yet there stands so great a gulfe in the way as untill it be removed or so made up as to be made passable it will be found no easie matter to compasse so great a worke Now this gulfe is ignorance and that of a long standing contracted partly through a generall security and sloth and partly through the want of meanes while through the subtilty of the Prelates and cowardise of their inferiors the Light hath been put under a Bushel So as though the sense of our Aegyptian burthens hath at length let us see in a great measure our misery yea and though God in his great mercy hath put into our hands such an opportunity of Reformation even armed with a kinde of necessity to worke it Yet how unresolved are many men of the manner and measure of this Reformation and what God requires at our hands herein Yet can we not be otherwise perswaded but that all good men would joyne together quickly to goe through with this great worke did they but apprehend it to bee as well a matter of Conscience as of grievance For which cause I have in these straits of time thought it one part of my duty which I owe unto Christ and to his Church to propound and briefly to resolve as God hath enabled me some important Cases of Conscience which hoping they may conduce to the furthering of the great businesse now in agitation concerning Religion I have adventured most humbly to recommend unto the serious consideration of this most just sage and grave Senate as to which not only I but all the people of the Land doe owe our best service and for whose happy successe of all their grave Counsels we are all bound daily and that in a more than ordinary manner to solicite as we still doe the throne of Grace that the Spirit of Christ may be abundantly poured forth upon this most Noble Assembly in all wisdome and understanding and in all

in Gods Service It beeing also a strange presumption for any man to think that either he hath authority to prescribe how God should bee worshipped or that God should be pleased with any such will-worship when in stead of being pleased hee saith In vain they worship me teaching for Doctrine the Comments of men For surely with vaine worship God is neither pleased nor honoured Againe seeing we are here fallen upon the consideration or examination of the Service booke let all wise hearted and well instructed schollers in Christs schoole that have learned the art of separating the pretious from the vile but tell me what they think of Apocryphall bookes publiquely read in Churches as if they were the holy Scriptures What of the whole Letanie so stuffed with Tautologies or vain repetitions What of the prayer in the Letanie and of the Collect wherein Bishops or Prelates are prayed for being Antichristian and false Bishops and all other Ministers are prayed for as being the Curates of those Bishops than which what can be a greater reproach and shame to the Ministers of the Church of England What of so many carvings of Scriptures into Epistles and Gospels with their severall Collects for the maintenance and celebration of Saints days called Holydayes What of the lame and incongruous yea senseles translations of those sundry Scriptures with the Psalmes What of prayers at the buriall of the Dead What of Churching of women aliâs Their Purification as some call it and which answers to that under the Law What of Priestly absolution with many more particulars too long here to rehearse And in a word What of so many prayers injoyned to be read enough to blunt the edge of any true devotion and so to tyre out the strongest sided Minister as hee hath neither strength nor time left for Gods Ordinance namely the preaching of the Word And to say the very truth this kind of long Service was devised by the Popes successively to that very end namely to entertaine the people with a blinde devotion and to retaine them in ignorance when now no roome was left for preaching which was by this meanes thrust by the head and sholders out of their Churches And thus what a deale of pretious time is taken up with a long dull and dead forme of prayer which might and ought to be spent to edification of Gods people on the Lords owne Day which should be sanctified not in humane devises but in Gods owne Ordinances to the glory of Him who is the Lord of the day I say againe for I speake nothing definitively as passing myne own private judgement of these things let this wise and grave Senate now assembled for a thorow-reformation and removall of all abuses and grievanand primarily in the matters of God and of Christ maturely judge CASE VII Whether any set forme of a Liturgie or publique Prayer be necessarie to bee used in the publique Worship of God FOr answer Indeed if it bee necessary to have unpreaching Ministers and dumb dogs over the people of the Lord who can nor preach nor pray then it will bee no lesse necessary to have some form of Booke prayers or Liturgy for such to officiate by And for this cause the Prelates have had some reason to hold up their Liturgy to the full as without which there had beene nothing for their Mutes to do in the Church Now though dumbe Priests have need of such a Liturgy yet it doth not follow that therfore able godly Ministers that know how to fit their prayers to all such severall occasions as do continually present themselves which a set prayer in a booke cannot do should be tied to any such precise set forme For otherwise this were to quench the spirit of prayer and to muzzle the mouth of prayer and to stoppe the course of Gods spirit which doth wonderfully improve it self in all those both Ministers and people on whom God hath powred the spirit of grace and supplication and who do by daily exercise grow unto such a habit of prayer and which doth powre it selfe forth in such a life and power as is not possible for any set read prayer to exercise or have For true fervent effectuall prayer is that which is the hearts expression by the Spirit of God As the Apostle saith I will pray with my Spirit and Phil. 19. Prayer is supplied by the Spirit of Jesus Christ This is that prayer which is first in the heart before it come to the mouth and is dictated by Gods spirit before it be uttered with the lippes whereas a read prayer is in the mouth before it can come unto the heart which in prayer is a speaking unadvifedly with the lips before the heart hath first digested and suggested the matter This is an abortive birth which never had a right conception But a godly Minister that is best acquainted with the state of his flocke and of the church of God can accordingly so inlarge and apply his prayer by the supply of Gods spirit as may be most usefull to the Congregation as beeing most occmmodate to their spirits when they finde the matter of the prayer to be that the want whereof they are most sencible of so as there is here a concurrence of the spirits both of the Minister and people which causeth a prayer to bee so much the more effectuall lively powerfull and operative and that not onely with God but in the hearts of all those whose joint praier it is Whereas a read prayer is in comparison a dead and dull formal prayer without any life or power either to prevaile with God or to profit the people as beeing such a prayer as suits only such Readers as are destitute of the spirit of Grace and supplication and of faith and sanctification and therefore such as God regardeth not So as a true Minister of Christ ought not to be tyed with the bonds and lines of a written forme of prayer that must bee read forasmuch as hereby the spirit of prayer in him is bound up and both he and the people of God deprived both of the benefit of such a gift and of that profit also which the prevailing prayer of Christs spirit procures of God Yea not even a set written prayer which the Minister makes saith by heart though he reade it not and though it bee better to say it by heart than to read it out of a booke yet is or can be so lively and powerfull as that prayer which is not tied to a set forme of words From such a prayer as is uttered by heart as we say the memory is more exercised than the understanding and affections within him there beeing now a suspension of that worke of the spirit of supplication and grace which breatheth forth with a lively power in a conceived prayer wherein not the memory so much as the whole mind soule spirit affections have their joint operation But it may be objected That the