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	let_v	3,168	5	4.0636	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59820	A discourse concerning the object of religious worship, or, A Scripture proof of the unlawfulness of giving any religious worship to any other being besides the one supreme God part I.	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1685 (1685)	Wing S3292; ESTC R28138	52,543	82

because we can expect no blessings from God but by vertue of that Covenant which he purchast and sealed with his Blood But now a Mediator of pure intercession without regard to any atonement made for sin or any Covenant of redemption such as Saints and Angels and the blessed Virgin are made by the Church of Rome is a mighty reproach to the Divine Nature and perfections It cloaths God with the passions and infirmities of earthly Princes represents him as extreamly fond of some of his Creatures and very regardless of others as if his kindness to some favourite Saint were a more powerful motive to him to do good than his own love to goodness as if he knew not when nor to whom to shew mercy without their direction or counsel or would not do it without their importunity as if some of his Creatures had as much the ascendant over him as some favourites have over their Princes who can with a words speaking have any thing of them and extort favours from them even against their wills and inclinations No man can think there is any need of such Intercessors and Mediators with God who believes him to be infinitely wise and to be infinitely good to know when it is fit to hear and to answer and to be always ready to do what his own wisdom judges fit to be done There can be no place for such intercessions and intreaties to an infinitely perfect Being for they always suppose some great weakness or defect in him who wants them for even a wise and a good man wants no Mediators to perswade him to do that good which is fit to be done The Objection against this is very obvious and the Answer I think is as easie The Objection is this If God be so good that he needs not such Prayers and Intercessions to move him to do good Why do we pray for our selves Why do we pray for one another Why do we desire the Prayers of good men here on earth Why is it a greater reproach to the Divine Perfections to beg the Prayers of St. Paul or St. Peter now they are in Heaven than to have begged their Prayers while they had been on Earth To this I Answer When we pray for our selves I suppose we do not pray as Mediators but as Supplicants and nothing can be more reasonable than that those who want mercy or any other blessing should ask for it It is certainly no reproach to the Divine goodness that God makes Prayer the condition of our receiving which is a very easie condition and very necessary to maintain a constant sense and reverence of God and a constant dependance on him And when we pray for one another on earth we are as meer supplicants as when we pray for our selves and to pray as supplicants is a very different thing from praying as Advocates as Mediators as Patrons The vertue of the first consists only in the power and efficacy of Prayer the second in the favour and interest of the person This the Church of Rome her self owns when she allows no Mediators and Advocates but Saints in Heaven which is a sign she makes a vast difference between the prayers of Saints on earth and Saints in Heaven There are great and wise reasons why God should command and encourage our mutual prayers for each other while we are on earth for this is the noblest exercise of universal love and charity which is a necessary qualification to render our prayers acceptable to God this preserves the unity of the body of Christ which requires a sympathy and fellow-feeling of each others sufferings this is the foundation of publick worship when we meet together to pray with and for each other to our common Father and it gives a great reputation to vertue and Religion in this world when God hears the prayers of good men for the wicked and removes or diverts those judgments which they were afraid of this becomes the wisdom of God and is no blemish to his goodness to dispence his mercies and favours in such a manner as may best serve the great ends of Religion in this world God does not command us to pray for our selves or others because he wants our importunities and solicitations to do good but because it serves the publick ends of Religion and Government and is that natural homage and worship which Creatures owe to their great Creator and Benefactor and Soveraign Lord. But to imagine that God needs Advocates and Mediators to solicite our cause for us in the Court of Heaven where none of these ends can be served by it this is a plain impeachment of his wisdom and goodness as if he wanted great importunities to do good and were more moved by a partial kindness and respect to some powerful favourites than by the care of his Creatures or his love to goodness Erom hence it evidently appears how inconsequent that reasoning is from our begging the prayers of good men on earth to prove the lawfulness of our praying to the Saints in Heaven to pray and interceed for us the first makes them our fellow supplicants the second makes them our Mediators and Intercessors and how little the Church of Rome gains by that distinction between a Mediator of Redemption and Mediators of pure Intercession for though they pray to Saints and Angels only as Mediators of Intercession yet this is a real reproach to the nature and government of God a Mediator of Redemption is very consistent with the Divine glory and perfections a Mediator of pure intercession is not And the sum of all is this That it is so far from advancing the Divine glory to worship Saints and Angels together with God that it is a real reproach and dishonour to him and therefore this can be no Law nor Institution of our Saviour who came not to abrogate the Divine Laws but to fulfil and perfect them Some think there is no danger of dishonouring God by that honour they give to Saints and Angels because they honour them as Gods Friends and Favourites as those whom God has honoured and advanced to great glory and therefore whatever honour they do to them rebounds back again on God and this may be true while we give no honour to Saints and Angels but what is consistent with the Divine glory but when the very nature of that honour and worship we pay to them is a diminution of Gods glory and a reproach to his infinite perfections as I have made it appear the worship of Saints and Angels is surely it cannot be for Gods glory to advance his Creatures by lessening himself SECT VII 2. LEt us now consider whether the worship of Saints and Angels together with God be a more perfect state of Religion than the worship of God alone with respect to our selves whether it puts us into a more perfect and excellent state It does indeed mightily gratifie the superstition of mankind to have a multitude of Advocates and

forbids it and therefore since God has forbid the worship of any Being but himself and therefore of the most excellent Saints and Angels by an express Law and it no-where appears where or when or in what manner this Law was repealed a hundred such arguments as these cannot prove it lawful to worship Saints and Angels against an express Law not to do it Though we should grant that God if he pleased might allow us to worship Saints and Angels as the Church of Rome does without any deminution of his own Glory which is the most that all their arguments can pretend to prove yet it does not hence follow that we may worship them when God by an express Law has declared that he will not allow it No arguments nor consequences can prove that God allows us to do that which by an express Law he has forbid us to do No reason can prove that to be Gods will which he has publickly declared in his Law to be against his will 4. That no reason or arguments can absolve us from our obedience to an express Law till it be as expresly repealed appears from this that our obligation to obedience does not depend meerly upon the reason of the Law but upon the authority of the Law-giver and therefore though the reason of the Law should cease yet while it is inforced by the same authority it obliges still Thus I am sure it is in humane Laws and it is very fitting it should be so meer reason cannot make a Law for then every thing which is reasonable would be a necessary duty that which is reasonable may be fit matter for a Law but it is the authority of the Law-giver which makes the Law and the same authority which at first made it a Law continues it to be a Law while the authority lasts though the particular reason for which it was enacted into a Law may cease So that though the Church of Rome could prove that there is no reason now against the worship of Saints and Angels that all those reasons for which God forbad the Jews to worship any one but himself were now ceased yet till the Law be repealed too it is utterly unlawful to worship any Being besides the Supreme God and yet this is the most that all their reasonings come to that there is not the same reason for this Law under the State of the Gospel that there was under the Jewish Oeconomy They suppose that God forbad the Jews to worship any one but himself because they were in great danger of falling into Pagan Idolatries and worshipping the Gods of the Aegyptians and other Neighbour-Nations and that this was the case also of the Christian Church at the first planting of the Gospel but now there is no danger of worshipping false Gods we may very securely worship the Friends and Favourites of God They suppose that all the ancient Patriarchs who lived before the Resurrection of Christ were not received into Heaven and therefore not being in a state of Bliss and Glory themselves were not yet capable of Divine Honours could neither know our Prayers nor intercede for us But now at last some eminent Saints and Martyrs ascend directly into Heaven and are the beati advanced to such a state of Happiness and Glory that they are fit objects of Religious Worship and are so powerful in the Court of Heaven that God denies them nothing which they ask and so tender and compassionate to us that they readily undertake our Cause and intercede for us and therefore it is very good and profitable now to invoke their aid and assistance by solemn and devout Prayers Now though the learnedst men among them are put to miserable shifts to prove the least part of all this yet let us for argument-sake suppose all this to be true that things are mightily changed since the making of this Law and that there is not the same reason now to confine all Religious Worship to God alone that there was in the time of Moses what follows from hence that therefore we may now worship Saints and Angels notwithstanding this Law which forbids it by no means unless they can prove that the Law is repealed too as well as the reason ceased Here is the authority of the Law-giver still though we should suppose that we had lost the reason of the Law till the Law is as expresly repealed as it was given it is Gods Will still and that is reason enough to bind the Law upon us though other reasons fail The reason if we speak of such reasons as these which the Church of Rome assigns for it is a different case if we speak of eternal and necessary reason which is nothing else but the eternal immutable nature and will of God which is an eternal Law did not make the Law and the change of the reason cannot repeal it And since we see that God has not repealed this Law we rather ought to conclude that we are mistaken in the reasons for which God made this Law or that there are other reasons which we know not of for which he continues it we may indeed reasonably suppose that God will repeal a Law when the reason for which it was given ceases though earthly Princes may not always do so but still the Law binds till it be repealed and it is more reasonable to conclude that the reason of the Law continues while we see God does not repeal it than first to perswade our selves that the reason of the Law is changed and thence infer the repeal and abrogation of the Law when we see no such thing done 5. That these arguments which the Roman Doctors urge to justifie their worship of Saints and Angels are of no force to repeal that Law which forbids the worship of any other Being besides the Supreme God appears from this that they had no force in them to prevent the making of this Law and therefore much less can they repeal it now it is made The reasons which they use had the same force then which they have now and if notwithstanding all these reasons God thought fit to forbid the worship of all Created Beings it is ridiculous to imagine that these reasons should supersede the obligation of that Law which is made in contradiction to all such reasonings as to shew this brie●ly They prove that we may pray to Saints and Angels to pray for us because we may desire good men on earth to pray for us Now suppose we could not assign the difference between praying to Saints in Heaven and desiring the prayers of Saints on earth yet I would desire to know whether good men did not pray for one another and desire each others prayers before and after God gave this Law on Mount Sinai which forbids the Religious worship and invocation of any other Being but himself if good men did in all ages pray for one another and desire one anothers prayers and God allowed and approved