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	king_n	lord_n	4,716	5	3.8323	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50298	The rending church-member regularly call'd back to Christ and to his church, or, A sober answer to certain questions of a company of discontented and covenant-deserting brethren in which are laid down clear grounds of solid conviction ... / by Marmaduke Matthews ...	Matthews, Marmaduke, 1606-1683?	1659 (1659)	Wing M1325; ESTC R32419	20,458	55

THE RENDING CHURCH-MEMBER Regularly call'd Back TO CHRIST and to his CHURCH OR A Sober Answer to certain Questions of a Company of discontented and Covenant-deserting Brethren IN Which are laid down clear Grounds of solid conviction That whosoever doth wilfully neglect either to come to Christ and his true Combinational Church or to continue with both is not as yet in a capacity to observe any one of ten remarkable Gospel-Rules or to partake of any one of ten precious Promises Published I. For the awakning of sleepy sinners II. For the witholding of tottering Saints III. For the winning of wretched backsliders By Marmaduke Matthews lately a Teaching-Elder of the Church of Maldon in New-England JER 8 5. Wherefore is this people sliden back with perpetual backsliding c. JOH 6.66 67. From that time many of his Disciples went back and walkt no more with him and Jesus said Will ye also go away c. JER 6.8 Be thou instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee c. London Printed by A. M. for Simon Miller at the Star i● Pa●ls Church-yard 1659. THE PREFACE TO THE Religious READER T Is an undeniable Truth that experience which is commonly called the Mistresse of Fooles as well as the Axiomes and Maximes of Philosophers doth make it manifest that the corruption of the best whether of Persons or things Saints or Angels is not the best but the worst corruption And that there may be the greatest abuse of that which might be of the greatest use As the sweetest Wines through neglect of well-looking to doth become the sourest Vineger so through the wiles of Satan the wickednesse of sinners and the weaknesse of the Saints the very grace of God is oft turn'd to wantonnesse And every one of the Gospel Priviledges and gracious Ordinances of Congregational Churches do produce divers uncomfortable and unchristian contentions among inconsiderate and ill-catechized Professors of Godliness As the cause and occasion of the Composing of this present reconciling Treatise doth clearly declare 'T is remarkeable that the very first rise and reason of those Church-divisions that threaten Church-desolation is without dispute the raw and unripe entrance or rather the rude and rash rushing of Church-observers into Church-estate before they have been asham'd of sorrowfull for and separated from their Personal and Parental abominations little considering or laying to heart that such a sensible condition is loudly call'd for at their hands and that from him who is the Churches Head as a necessary antecedent-qualification to a compleat Church-Communion as 't is made known Ezek. 43.10 11. Shew this House to the House of Israel that they may be ashamed of their wickednesse And if they be ashamed shew them the form of the House And Chap. 44.7 9. Ye have brought into my Sanctuary strangers uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh to pollute my House And verse the 19th Thus said the Lord uncircumcised in heart or uncircumcised in flesh shall not enter into my Sanctuary Next to this unwise and unwarrantable entrance unto Church fellowship 't is not difficult for to discern that inconsiderate and uncircumspect combining and covenanting with a Church of Saints to watch one over another and to walk one with another by Gospel-Rule doth become in the conclusion a cruel snare to the souls and consciences of such Combiners who by reason of the remote distance of their several dwellings being too many members very many miles from their publique Meeting house do impose upon themselves an utter impossibility of keeping that Covenant which they had bound their souls for to keep in coming ordinarily to Publique worship on Lords Daies in one place according to the Pattern in 1 Cor. 14.23 When the whole Church are come together in one place c. Certainly they cannot come together without notorious inconveniency every Sabboth day in one place at morning Sacrifice and evening Incense I mean at forenoon and afternoon Instituted worship who are so farre from co-habiting in one Corporation that they have not their abode in one County And by necessary consequence they must fall headlongly on one of the fierce hornes of this fearfull Dilemma Either to be wanting in publique or to be wronging in private If they carefully observe their watch and keep their Covenant with their fellow-members abroad then they must carelesly and cruelly neglect their watch and break their Covenant with their own Families at home When Professors are found thus to fail both in their Ingresse to and Progresse in Church-fellowship 't is no wonder at all if their Egresse therefrom be answerable namely injurious and scandalous to Brethren within and to Neighbours without by their hatefull and horrible rejection of the heavenly Oracles from being the Rule Square and Touchstone of their language lives and actions As strong fences are made to restrain the extravagant wanderings of bruitish Annimals so the Sacred Scriptures are appointed to curb and bridle the wild and wanton wits and spirits of the unruly reasonable creatures When the Children of disobedience make bold to tread these fences down who knows where or when they will stay or stand When violent Torrents bear away and break down the withstanding banks and dammes who can tell at what time or place they will make a stoppe When spiritual Passengers venture to spread the sailes of their affections to the wind of their own wills canne they expect to Anchor any where this side the brink of the bottomelesse pit For the preventing of the Shipwrack of whose Faith and good Conscience and for the further provoking of praying Persons to Petition that God would perswade Japhet to dwell in the Tents of Shem and cause the two sticks of Joseph and Judah to become one in the hand of David our King that they speaking a pure language and leading a pious life may be in a capacity to serve the Lord with own shoulder and own consent is his aimes in these endeavoures who would be among those few that follow the Lord fully and is unfeignedly thy fellow-servant MARMADUKE MATTHEWS From my Study in Swansey the 12th instant of the 10th Moneth 1658. Dearely Beloved Dissenting Brethren Grace Truth and Peace be manifested more and more to you in you and by you and may God the Giver thereof be pleased to say Amen T Is so that perceiving you at least some of you to be in some good measure inform'd by him who teacheth his obedient Hearers to profit how to argue a point in Controversie according to Gods Sacred Oracles I oft did and do through grace find my heart stirr'd up to be praising the Lord and to be petitioning for you knowing that to discourse Argumetatively is such a commendable course as I both approve of very much and practice not a little because I observe it to be a thing of good report amongst the eminentest of the Saints long before there were any Records of humane Learning in the world as it plainly appeares by what