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	world_n	3,255	5	4.3685	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66900	Pulpit-conceptions, popular-deceptions, or, The grand debate resumed, in the point of prayer wherein it appears that those free prayers so earnestly contended for have no advantage above the prescribed liturgie in publick administrations : being an answer to the Presbyterian papers presented to the most reverend the ls. bishops at the Savoy upon that subject.	Womock, Laurence, 1612-1685.	1662 (1662)	Wing W3347; ESTC R25192	47,855	72

God himself to whom he is dedicated as Chrysostome and Theophylact In 1 ad Tim. 2. ad haec verba Obsecro primum omnium fieri obsecrationes c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. have it I shall take notice but of one mistake more and that is of making God a Liar If we contradict what God hath said St John tells us we make God a liar 1 Joh. 1. 10. but we doe not so when we impose upon him what he said not though this likewise be a very high indignity and abominable The Preacher shall shut up this part of our discourse and he will determine the point for us Eccles 5. 1 2. Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God and be more ready to hear then to give the sacrifice of fools for they consider not that they doe evil nor the distance betwixt themselves and his Majesty whom they do adore for he is in heaven and they on earth And now we hope it doth appear that as yet we have no reason to repent us of these desires Indeed if you can make it good as you pretend in your next words that to avoid a lesser evil we bring a far greater upon the Churches we shall have cause enough to repent of our desires But what is that greater evil Why even such as is like to strip these Nations of the glory in which they have excelled the rest of the world even a Learned able holy Ministry and a people sincere and serious and understanding in the matters of their Salvation But stay do all these glorious things flow immediately from your Liberty of venting your Conceptions of Prayer in the Pulpit suitable to the variety of Subjects and Occasions and are there none Learned able and holy amongst the Clergie none sincere serious and understanding amongst the Laity but such as are addicted to the Liberty you plead for You must needs if you have any modesty in you blush at such an assertion But because you boast so much of your Gifts and attribute that Glory wherein you presume your own Party doth excell the rest of the world to nothing else but your Inspirations or abilities for occasional prayers I shall introduce an adversary as well to us as you to vie with you in this kind and having committed you together shall leave it to the judgment of the Reader to pronounce sentence and award the prize First then that Person acknowledging both that there are Inspirations Sancta Sophia in the Preface §. 31. and that we are obliged to correspond unto them and reckoning you and your Confederates among the frantick Spirits of this Age which made pretended Inspirations or we may call them by your own name Extemporary Conceptions of prayers suitable to the variety of subjects and occasions the cause and ground of all our late Miseries He sets down what course is to be taken to prevent such mischiefs in these words We should saith he inform those unhappy souls how to dispose themselves so as to be out of danger of Diabolical illusions and to be in a capacity of receiving Inspirations truly Divine As likewise with what Caution and Prudence but withall what Fidelity they ought to comply with them But especially we ought to demonstrate and inculcate this fundamental verity That the general and most certain Precepts of Humility Obedience Unity and Peace must never receive any prejudice by any pretended Inspirations or Illuminations since those which are truly from God do establish and encrease all these vertues yea that the External Order Authority and Subordination established by God in his Church by which alone it becomes one Body and not a monstrous heap of unlike unproportionable members fighting and devouring one another must be the Rule by which to examine and judge to pronounce sentence for or against all manner of Inspirations Having laid down this his fundamental Rule he proceeds a little after to compare their Inspirations with yours in several §. 33 c. particulars And in the first place saith he here the only proper Disposition towards the receiving of supernatural Irradiations from God's holy Spirit is an abstraction of life a sequestration from all businesses that concern others and an attendance to God alone in the depth of the Spirit Whereas their Lights come never more frequently then when either being alone they yield to discontented unquiet passions and murmurings a-about the behaviour and actions of others or when in close Meetings and Conspiracies they vent such passions by Invectives against the Governours of the Church or State Secondly The Lights here desired and prayed for are such as do expell all images of Creatures and do calm all manner of Passions to the end that the Soul being in a vacuity may be more capable of receiving and entertaining God in the pure fund of the Spirit Whereas their Lights fill them with all tumults disquieting Images and Phantasms concerning the supposed miscarriages of all others but themselves and not onely heighten their Passions but urge them to most terrible desolating effects Thirdly The Prayer here acknowledged to be the most effectual Instrument to procure Divine Light is a pure recollected intime Prayer of the Spirit Whereas the Prayer that they glory in is onely an acquired ability and sleight to talk earnestly to God before others and oft thereby to communicate their passions and discontents to their Brethren Fourthly Here are no new Speculative Verities or Revelations of Mysteries pretended no private new-found-out interpretations of Scriptures bragg'd of Whereas among them every day produces a new Fancy which must gather new Company Fifthly Here the establish'd Order of God's Church and the Unity essential thereto is not prejudiced yea the Inspirations expected and obtained by pure internal Prayer do more firmly and unalterably fix souls under this Obedience and to this Order and Unity insomuch as whatsoever pretended Lights do endanger the dissolving of Unity or do cross Lawful Authority or shall be rejected by it they are presently suspected and extinguished Whereas those mens Lights teach them nothing so much as to contemn and oppose all external Authority and to dissipate Unity dispersing the Body of Christianity into innumerable Sects and Conventicles Sixthly Our Lights teach us to attend only to God and our own Souls and never to interess our selves in any care or imployment about others till evidently God's Inspirations force us and external Authority obligeth us thereto Whereas their Lights render them incapable of Solitude and thrust them abroad to be Reformers of others being themselves impatient of all Reformation and Contradiction Seventhly Our Lights make us to fear and avoid all Supereminence and Judicature all sensual pleasures defires of wealth Honour c. Whereas their Lights engage them violently and deeply in all these carnal and secular waies and for the attaining of these