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	think_v	4,338	5	3.9369	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26958	A moral prognostication I. what shall befall the churches on Earth, till their concord, by the restitution of their primitive purity, simplicity, and charity, II. how that restitution is like to be made, (if ever) and what shall befall them thence-forth unto the end, in that golden-age of love / written by Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1680 (1680)	Wing B1311; ESTC R5743	36,590	70

Wordly Ends. 90. And the young and indifferent sort of People in all Countrys that were engaged in neither part being but strangers to Religion and to the differences will be ready to judge of the Cause by the Persons and seeing so many of the Dignified Advanced Clergy and the more sensual sort of the People on one side and so many Men of strict lives on the other that suffer also for their Religion and hearing too that it is some Name of Preciseness that they are Reproached by will think them to be the better side And so the title of the Godly will grow by degrees to be almost Appropriated to their Party and the Title of Prophane and Persecuters to the other 91. All this while the Nonconforming Ministers will be somewhat differently affected according to the different degrees of their Judiciousness Experience and Self-denyal Some of them will think these Passions of the People needful to check the Fierceness of the Afflicters which doth but Exasperate it And therefore will let them alone though they will not encourage them Some of the younger or more injudicious hot-brain'd sort will put them on and make them believe that all Communion with any Conforming Ministers or their Parish-Churches is unlawful and their forms of Worship are Sinful and Anti-christian and that they are all Temporizers and Betrayers of Truth and Purity that Communicate or Assemble with them The judicious and experienced and most patient and self-denying sort will themselves abstain from all that is Sin and as far as it is in their choice and power will joyn with the Churches that Worship God most agreeably to his Word and Will But so as that they will not be loud in their Complaints nor busy to draw Men to their Opinions in Controvertible Points nor will unchurch and condemn all the Churches that have something which they dislike as Sinful nor will Renounce the Communion of all faulty Churches lest they Renounce the Communion of all in the World and Teach all others to Renounce theirs But they will sometimes Communicate with the more faulty Churches to shew that they unchurch them not so they be not forced in it to any Sin Though usually they will prefer the purest yea ordinarily they will joyn with the more faulty when they can have no better or when the publike good requireth it They will never prefer the Interest of their Nonconforming Party before the Interest of Christianity or the Publike good They will so defend lesser Truths as not to neglect or disadvantage the greater which all are agreed in They will so preserve their own Innocency as not to stir up other Mens Passions nor to make factions or divisions by their difference They will so dislike the pride and worldliness of others and their injuries against God and Godliness as not to speak Evil of Dignities nor to Cherish in the Peoples Minds any Dishonourable injurious thoughts of their Kings or any in Authority over them They will Labour to allay the passions of the people and to rebuke their censorious and too sharp Language and to keep up all due Charity to those by whom they Suffer but especially Loyalty to their Kings and Rulers and Peaceableness as to their Countrys They will teach them to distinguish between the Cruel that are Masters of the Game and all the rest that have no hand in it and at least not to separate from all the rest for the sake of a few If they will go as far as Martin in Sulpitius Severus to avoid all Communion with Ithacius and Idacius and the Councils of Bishops that Prosecuted the Priscillianists to the scandal of Godliness it self yet not for their sakes to avoid all others that never consented to it nor with Gildas to say of all the bad Ministers that he was not Eximius Christianus that would call them Ministers or Pastors rather than Traitors They will perswade the People to discern between Good and Evil and not to run into Extreams nor to dislike all that their Afflicters hold or use nor to call things lawful by the name of Sin and Anti-christianity nor to suffer their Passions to blind their Judgments to make superstitiously New Sin and Duties in opposition to their Adversaries Nor to disgrace their Understandings and the Truth by Errours Factions Revilings or Miscarriages nor to run into Sects nor to divide Christs House and Kingdom while they pretend to be his Zealous Servants They will perswade the People to Patience and Moderation and Peace and to Speak Evil of no Man nor by Word or Deed to Revenge themselves Much less to resist the Authority that is set over them by God but to imitate their Saviour and quietly Suffer and being reviled not to revile again but to Love their Enemies and Bless their Cursers 92. The soberer sort of the People will be Ruled by these Counsels and will do much to quiet the rest But the Heretical part with their own Passions will Exasperate many Novices and Injudicious Persons to account this Course and Counsel aforesaid to be but the effect of Luke-wa●mness and Carnal Compliance with Sin and a halting between two Opinions and a Participation in the Sin of Persecutors and Malignant Enemies of Godliness And they will believe that whoever joyneth with the Parish Churches in their way is guilty of Encouraging them in Sin and of false Worship 93. Hereupon they will defame the Non conforming Ministers last described as Men of no Zeal neither Flesh nor Fish and perhaps as Men that would Save their Skin and shift themselves out of Sufferings and betray the Truth And when such Ministers acquaint them with their unsound Principles and Passions they will say of them that they speak bitterly of the Godly and joyn with the Persecutors in reproaching them 94. And they will carry about among themselves many false Reports and Slanders against them Partly because Passion taketh off Charity and Tenderness of Conscience and partly because an Opinionative Modal and Siding Religiousness hath ever more Followers and a quicker Zeal than true Holiness And partly because they will think that humane converse obligeth them to believe the Reports which those that are accounted good Men utter And partly because that they will think that the upholding of their Cause which they think is Gods doth need the Suppression of these Mens Credit and Reputation that are against it 95. But the greater part of the honest Non-conformist Ministers will dislike the headiness and rashness of the Novices and the Sectaries and will approve of the aforesaid moderate Wayes But their opportunities and dispositions of Expressing it will be various Some of them will do it freely whatever be thought of it And some of them that have impatient Auditors will think that it is no duty to attempt that which will not be endured and that it is better to do what good they can than none And some will think that seeing the Worldly Clergy forbid them to

seriously Religious and the House of Christ will be filled with Guests 42. Hereupon the Scandalous and Flagitious Lives of Common Protestants will be much cured For the Number of the Flagitious will grow small and Crimes will be under common Disgrace Besides that they will be punished by the Magistrate So that gross Sin will be a Marvail 43. The Books of plain Doctrine and holy Living with the Pacificatory Treatises of Reconcilers will then be most in Esteem and Use which now are so Dis-relished by turbulent discontented siding Persons And abundance of Controversal-Writings about Church-Government Liturgies Ceremonies and many other Matters will be forgotten and cast aside as useless Things For the Swords shall be made into Plow-Shares and Pruning-Hooks 44. The happy Example of that happy Prince and Country that shall begin and first accomplish this Work will be Famous through all the Protestant-Churches and will enflame such Desires of Imitation in them all and be such a ready Direction in the way that it will greatly expedite their answerable Reformation And the Famous Felicity of that Prince in the Reformation and Concord of his Subjects will kindle in the Hearts of other Protestant-Princes and States an Earnest Desire of the same Felicity And so as upon the Invention of Printing and of Guns the World was presently possessed of Guns and of Printed-Books that never before attained any such thing So here they that see the Happyness of one Kingdom brought about and see how it was done will have Matter enough before their Eyes both to excite their Desires and guide their Endeavours in the Means to bring all this to pass 45. The Protestant Kingdoms and States being thus Reformed and United in themselves will be enflamed with an earnest desire of the good of all other Churches and of all the World And therefore as Divines have held something called General Councils for the Union of all those Churches so these Princes will by their Agents hold Assemblies for maintaining Correspondency to the carrying on of the common good of the World by the Advantage of their United Counsels and Strength And then no Enemy can stand long before them For they that Love and serve them Zealously at home will venture their Lives for them Zealously abroad if there be Cause 46. The excellent and successful use of the Magistrates Government of the Churches in their Dominions will quite shame all the usurping claims of the Pope and General Councels and their mungrel Ecclesiastick Courts and all the train of Artifices and Offices by which their Government of the World is managed And the World and especially Princes will plainly see how much they were abused by their Usurpations and that there is no need of Pope or Cardinal nor any of those Officers or Acts at all But that these are the meer Contrivances of Carnal Policy to keep up an Earthly Kingdom under the name of the Catholick Church And also the Purity and Unity of the Reformed Churches where the vulgar have more Religion and Union than their Monasteries will dazzle the Eyes of the Popish Princes States and People And when they see better and especially the happiness of the Princes they will forsake the Usurper that had Captivated them by fraud and will assume their freedom and felicity And so the Roman Church-Kingdom will fall 47. The deluded Mahometans seeing the Unity and Glory of Christendom as they were before kept from Christ by the Wicked Lives and the Divisions of Christians thinking that we are far worse than they so now they will be brought to admire and honour the Christian Name and fear the Power of the Christian Princes And one part of them will turn Christians and the rest even the Turkish Power the Christians force by the Power of God will easily break And so the Eastern Churches will be delivered and reformed and the Mahometans come into the Faith of Christ 48. The poor scattered Jews also when they see the Glory and Concord of Christians will be convinced that Christ is indeed the true Messias And being Converted perhaps shall by the Christian Powers be some of them Re-established in their own Land But not to their antient peculiarity or policy and Law 49. And then the Christian Zeal will work to the Conversion of the poor Idolatrous Heathen World And part of them will yield to Reason and Faith and the rest by just victories be subdued And so the Kingdoms of the World will become the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ And the Gospel shall be Preached in all the World 50. And when the Kingdom of Grace is perfected and hath had its time the Kingdom of Glory shall appear upon the Glorious appearing of Christ our King and the Dead shall Arise and they that have overcome shall Reign with Christ and sit with him upon the Throne even as he overcame and is set down with the Father on his Throne Amen Even so come Lord Jesus John 17. 20 21 22 23 24. Neither Pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their word that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the World may believe that thou hast sent me And the Glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be One even as we are One I in them and Thou in Me that they may be made perfect in One and that the World may know that thou hast sent Me and hast Loved them as thou hast Loved Me Father I will that they also whom thou hast given Me be with Me where I am that they may behold My Glory which thou hast given Me. Object But if this World should ever become so happy it would be more amiable and so be a greater snare to our Affections and make us willing to stay from Heaven Answer No Amiableness or Pleasantness stealeth the Heart from God or keepeth it from Heaven but that which hideth the Glory and Goodness of God and Heaven from our Minds or corrupteth and diverteth the will and affections by some inconsistency or contrarity But the spiritual excellency of the Reformed Concordant Church on Earth will so much more clearly Represent Heaven to our conceptions and give our Hearts so pleasant a foretast of it that above all things it will Excite our desires of that fuller Glory and call us most Powerfully to a Heavenly Mind and Life As the first-fruits and earnest do make us desire the Harvest and the full Possession And as now those that Live in the most Heavenly Society and under the most Excellent helps and means have usually more Heavenly Minds and Lives than they that in more tempting and distracting Company never enjoy such Heavenly beams Consectary ALL the Romish-Dreams of Church-Union arise from Ignorance of the true State and Interest of the Church and the true and necessary Terms of Union And all the Plots also of the Moderating Papists that Talk of a Political Church-Catholick having a Visible Constitutive or Governing-Head whether Monarchial the Pope or Aristocratical or Democratical the Patriarchs or a General-Council And that Talk of Universal Laws of this Church made by such a Universal-Head besides the Universal Laws of Christ And falsly feign the Councils called General in a Particular Empire called or ruled by one Emperour only in his own Dominions to have been Universal as to all the Catholick Churches on Earth And that feign these Councils to have been Infallible which so often erred and crost each other And that set the World upon the undeterminable Controversie Which were true General Councils and How many we must Receive and Conform to Whether only Four or Six or Eight and till what Age. And that would perswade the Christian World that what-ever diversity of Canons Customs or Church-Laws or Ceremonies are allowed among them it must all be done or held by this same Authority of the Pope or Council or Both to which though Forreign Kings and Bishops must all be subject and from which they must receive their Christianity and by which all their Reformations must be tryed And that none must be taken as Catholicks nor any Churches tolerated that hold not such a Factious Union under such an Usurping Head Personal or Collective But as Tertullian speaketh rather than endure such Wiser and Better Societies Solitudinem facerent vocarent Pacem And as a Worldy Clergy whose Church and Kingdom is only of and in this World would banish from it all save a Lifeless-Image which hath any Kin to Heaven and suffer none to Live in this World among them but themselves I say all this is 1. From Ignorance of the True Nature of the Christian Religion Church-State and Terms of Unity and Concord which I have lately opened in a Book Entituled The true and only Terms of the Concord of all the Churches 2. And from Contention about Ambiguous Words and Self-Conceitedness in their Controversies ignorantly thence raised which I have sought to End in a Book called Catholick Theology 3. And from vicious Passions and Partiality which I have sought to Heal in a Book called The Cure of Church-Divisions All written long since the Writing of this Foregoing Prognostication FINIS