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	know_v	let_v	2,834	5	4.0034	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66656	Eurēka, Eurēka the virtuous woman found, her loss bewailed, and character examined in a sermon preached at Felsted in Essex, April 30, 1678, at the funeral of ... Mary, countess dowager of Warwick, the most illustrious pattern of a sincere piety, and solid goodness his age hath produced : with so large additions as may be stiled the life of that noble lady : to which are annexed some of her ladyships pious and useful meditations / by Anthony Walker.	Walker, Anthony, d. 1692.; Warwick, Mary Boyle Rich, Countess of, 1625-1678. Occasional meditations upon sundry subjects.	1678 (1678)	Wing W301; ESTC R233189	74,039	235

it is everlasting The best Shield against Slanderers is to live so that none may believe them He that revenges an injury acts the part of an Executioner He that pardons it acts the part of a Prince Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions Man is a pile of Dust and puff of Wind. Why are we so fond of that life which begins with a Cry and ends with a Groan But I will not cloy you knowing it is safest to rise with an appetite even when we are entertained at a Banquet 4. Where she had particular kindness or personal interest she would improve the authority of her friendship to gentle but free correption and argue and perswade so strenuously that her Bow like Jonathan's seldom return'd empty and plead the cause of God and their own souls to whom she spake with so winning and insinuating sweetness that 't was hard to resist the Suada shall I say or rather the spirit by which she spake Let me refound and eccho from her lips though alas too faintly how she would with melting charms and powerful strains attempt upon the Friends for whom she had a kindness and whom she longed to rescue COme come my Friend you must be good you shall be good I cannot be so unkind nay so unfaithful to the laws of Friendship as to let you perish and perish in a way you know as well as I leads down to Hell It grieves my very soul to see so good a nature ensnared against the dictates of its own light by bad example custom or somewhat else And if they replyed with excuses she would stop them thus I pray my Friend have patience hear me out I know or guess at least what you would say and I would not have you say it 'T is bad to commit sin but 't is worse to plead for it and defend it None sin so dangerously as those who sin with excuses The Devil then ties a new snare when he gets into our tongues to fasten us to our failings and raises an out-work in our own mouths to secure the Fort he possesses in our hearts I take it for granted all other Holds were slighted easily could you conquer such or such a vice too much by custom prevailing with you Unhappy custom that dares prescribe against God's Law But Friend use no arguments that will not hold water at the day of judgment though hand joyn in hand you know what follows And no example custom number should allure us which cannot excuse us and secure us But this is the mischief of sin liv'd in it bewitches the heart to love it that it cannot leave it Cannot so men love to speak but 't is because they will not that is will use no endeavours to be rid on 't But you must leave it there 's no remedy though it cost you trouble smart and self-denial There 's as much as all this comes to in cutting off a right hand and digging out a right eye I speak to you as to one in whom I have a party to help me plead I mean your conscience and the belief of the Scriptures for if you were one of those on whom you know I use to set my mark I should not give you this trouble nor esteem my self under more than the Laws of general charity to wish you better should hardly venture my little skill to make you so But as for you who still own God's authority and believe his Word and attend his Worship Why should I despair of making one piece of your self agree with the other your practice with your convictions your conversation with your conscience And not to fright you with the Thunder-claps of wrath and vengeance and God's judging you know who listen still to the voice 't is your peculiar eminency to be kind and grateful and because there is a kind of magnetick virtue in those arguments which touch our temper and a string will move it self when another instrument is touched that 's set to the same Key and pitch I shall attack you on that side hoping the strongest excellency of your nature will prove the weakest defensasative for sin and to keep out God You therefore who are so good natured so kind so grateful that you never think you have acquit your self sufficiently to those who have been civil or as you please to call 't obliging Oh how can be so unkind and so ungrateful unto God Almighty the kindest Fiend who is so much before hand with you who hath given you so much and is so ready to forgive you all Oh that you who I dare say would take my word for any thing else would do me the honour to take my word for him who I assure you upon your sincere repentance will be fully reconciled to you in Christ and never so much as obraid your past neglects but heal your back-slidings and love you freely And do not fear that you shall have cause to repent of your repentance No man ever yet was a loser by God and you shan't be the first you shall not lose your pleasures but exchange them defiling ones for pure and clean and ravishing And let it not seem strange or incredible to you that there should be such things because perhaps you never felt them Alas you have deprived your self unhappily by being uncapable of them New wine must be put into new bottles To say nothing of what the Scriptures speak of a day being in God's courts being better than a thousand and of joys and unspeakable and full of glory of the great peace they have who keep God's law and that nothing shall offend them that wisdoms ways are pleasantness Let my weakness reason out the case with you Do you think that God's Angels which excel in all perfections have no delights because they have no flesh no sense no bodies as men and beasts or have our Souls the Angels in these houses of clay which are God's Images and the price of his Blood no objects no employments which may yield them delight and satisfaction Think not so unworthily of God or meanly of your self have not the stroaks of your own fancy or the intellectual pleasures of your mind sometimes transported you beyond all the charms of your senses when they have chimed all in tune together And cannot God think you who is a spirit and so fit an object for our souls give them as great pleasures as any object of our taste and sight Come come my Friend take my word for 't there is more pleasure in the peace of a good conscience and in well grounded hopes our sins are pardoned and in serving God and expectation of eternal life than in all the pleasures in the world Alas I was once of your mind but I assure you upon my word I have really found more satisfaction in serving God than ever I found in all the good things of the world of which you know I have had my share Try therefore dare to be good resolve

understandings that they are in a spiritual sense what Job said he was in another eyes to the blind and are still teaching young Disciples what they who are old have been taught of God and so train them up in the School of Christianity And yet by imparting their knowledge of God know him not the less themselves but many times the more and by informing them of the pleasures of Religion bring them into the holy path which leads to eternal life yet hinder not their own progress toward Heaven O Lord I most humbly beseech thee let this Meditation provoke me more than ever yet I have done to impart to my Fellow Christians especially my Family under my authority what I know of thee that by my declaring how good a God thou art I may bring many others to know thee not only with a general but an experimental knowledge which will make them say as I do That thou art good and dost good O let me by declaring what thou hast done for my Soul cause others to joyn with me in adoring thee for thy greatness and loving thee for thy goodness that so we may magnifie thy name together And I may be instrumental to impart light to others and be made a burning and a shining Light my self MEDITAT IX Vpon the drawing of the Window-curtains to prevent the Suns putting out the Fire AS soon as I perceived that the shining of the Sun into the Room would put out the Fire I instantly drew the Window-curtains to prevent it Which minds me of the necessity there is that God should sometimes when he sees the Fire of Celestial Love in the hearts of his People in danger of being put out by other flames take that away from us which would take us away from him And if he doth it not by death yet to prevent our cooling in our affections doth as it were by some dark providence draw a Curtain between us and what we doat upon O Lord I beseech thee when thou seest the Fire of thy Love in my heart ready to be put out by any thing be so merciful as to draw what obscuring Curtain thou pleasest to hinder it that my love to thy Divine Majesty may be like the Fire upon the Altar that never went out O let it never be extinguish'd by any earthly object But let my love to thee drown and swallow up all creature-loves O blot our every name from my corrupted heart that hinders the deeper engraving of thy name there and remove me from what and whom thou wilt so thou wilt thereby bring me nearer to thy self Oh though I have sparks for Creatures yet let my greatest blaze blaze towards Heaven Amen MEDITAT X. Vpon a person who had great knowledge and very quick but unsanctified parts THis person who is in this very prophane Age celebrated for a great Wit and is very acceptable to all his companions upon that account does yet make so very ill use of those acute parts God hath been pleased to bestow upon him that he improves them only to make jests and to laugh at all that is either serious or sacred endeavouring as much as in him lies to make all Devotion be turn'd into Ridicule and so abuses all the knowledge that God hath bestowed upon him so contrary to the design for which 't was given him of glorifying his great Creator that he only turns it against him to his own final destruction without repentance using it as a Torch to light himself to Hell thereby O Lord I most humbly beseech thee let this Meditation make me chuse to have a little sanctified knowledge rather than the most raised and quick parts unsanctified and help me to improve those parts thou hast bestowed upon me to thy Honour that I may never fight against thee with thy own weapons but may bring some Glory to thee by them O be pleased to give me Light in my Head and Fire in my Heart even that Fire from Heaven by which I may inflame others with true zeal for thy Glory that using those weak parts for thee thou hast vouchsafed to me I may by the little knowledge I have be lighted to the Regions of Bliss whilst otheres with their greater knowledge devoid of Grace go down to utter darkness MEDITAT XI Vpon seeing a Silk-worm spin THis Silk-worm hath for a long time entertained my Eyes with observing how busily it was employed in spinning its curious Threads of Silk and that when it had made it's purse of Silk into which it has confin'd it self if the Looker to it does not wind off what it has spun rather than it will keep that weight of Silk upon its Back it will make a way to get from under it by eating a hole at the top of it and so flings it off Which minds me of those very vain persons that are puffed up with their being adorned with fine Cloaths which is being proud of putting on of that which the Silk-worm puts off This may be useful to caution me against loving and delighting in fine Silks When I do consider that all the finest and best mingled ones that can be put on to adorn me with are all spun by a poor Worm and that to be proud of Fine Cloaths is to be so of that which is the monument of our Sin for if Adam had not sinned we should have had no need of cloathing to have hid our shame And that even Pearls which are by many purchased at so dear a rate that they may adorn themselves with them are but the sickness of the Fish and that Crimson with which crown'd Heads are often cloathed is dyed with the blood of a Fish and that even Gold and Silver for which many persons venture their immortal part is digged out of the entrails of the earth And 't is in the inspired Volume told us that He that loves Silver shall not be satisfied with Silver Nor is all the Gold that is in all the Mines in the whole world worth one immortal Soul O Lord I do most humbly implore that thou wouldst by these considerations of the inconsiderableness that is in all these glittering adornments which poor deluded proud persons look on with eyes of admiration Humble me exceedingly for having in my youth been too guilty of this sin of too much loving and delighting in fine Cloaths being then too much taken up with the adorning of my vile body and too little so with adorning of my better part O Lord make me for the time to come to watch against this sin which did so easily beset me and let me never more lift up my Soul to this tinsel and pagentery vanity but make me study to be like the King's Daughter all glorious within And though thou my God has told us that those that wear gay Apparel are in King's Houses and that in thy inspired Volume the Virtuous Woman is said to have all her Houshold cloathed with scarlet and that her own

to be so throughly and if you do not find it much better than I have told you never take my word or trust me more Thus and much more powerfully would her zeal for their good cause her to argue with her Friends that she might by holy violence attract them and allure them to be good and happy 5. She was of an extensive charity and would make people good by believing them to be so and by this engagement make them ashamed to deceive her hopes and disappoint her expectation 6. She had a tender conscientious care to provide good Ministers and to encourage them would augment their maintenance where 't was small Leez Braintree and Foulness c. may be her witnesses in this and indeed she was the heartiest and truest Friend I ever knew to such and do despair ever to know her like in this respect 7. She had a great care of the Souls of her Servants and if she had any ambition in her 't was in this to be the Mistress of a religious Family This appeared amongst others in these particulars 1. In exacting their attendance on God's publick Worship and reverent behaviour there Her Eye surveyed her Chappel and none could be absent but she would miss them 2. In personal instruction and familiar perswading of them I appeal to the consciences of all that serv'd her what one of them hath she not on some occasion dealt with to do them good 3. In preparing them for and perswading them to the frequent partieipation of the Lord 's most holy Supper 4. In scattering good Books in all the common Rooms and places of attendance that those that waited might not lose their time but well employ it and have a bait laid of some practical useful Book and fitted to their capacity which might catch and take them 5. In making it the Foot-step to preferment for she used to make the hundredth and first Psalm the Rule of her Oeconomicks and though she treated all her servants as Friends yet they were her Favourites which most signally feared God And she was not a first Table Christian only we need not draw her Picture with a side-face to hide the disfigurement of either side both her hands wrought in the work of God she did not claudicare but walk'd in his ways with both her Feet She had learn'd S. John's Lesson That he who loves God must love his Brother also 1. She was exactly righteous 2. She was prodigiously charitable 1. She was exactly just in word and deed She never forfeited her Title to the privilege of Peerage to be believed upon the honour of her word which was as sacred as any oath and as good security as many bonds No inconvenience to her self would make her recoil or flinch from the obligations she had brought her self under by her own mouth yea she had such an abhorrence of a dishonourable recess from express or but intimated promises that it would render her esteem of such persons exceeding cheap and mean who by little arts and shifts would loose and free themselves from their engagements and disappoint the expectations they had raised in others to save their charges accounting their money spared a very poor and base redemption of their reputation She abhorred a lye and us'd modestly to give this testimony of her self You know I dare not I will not lie And her Lord knew this so well that though he were positive enough yet would never persist if there happened any contest against whatever she affirmed peremptorily And a lye was the foulest blemish any could stain themselves with in conversing with her and the most unpardonable fault a servant could contract to whom she us'd to say Tell me the truth and I can forgive you any thing I shall take liberty on this occasion to add a passage which may be useful on a double account 1. To let her Honourable Friends know she forgot them not though her purposes were prevented 2. How she feared the shaddow of a lye About a Month before she died she was though then in as perfect health as I have known her determined to alter her will And whereas she had before given many honourable Legacies in money to persons of great Quality she said she would alter them all for this reason because they were rich and money they needed not but she would give it in something they might keep as kind memorials of her and when she had set down all their names in a Paper she also bethought her self what would be most acceptable to every of them For said she that renders a gift most agreeable when it suits the fancy of the party to whom it is designed And then surveying her own store she fixed on what to give to most of them but not finding her self actually provided of what she might bequeath to all she resolved to leave all to a Codicil to be annexed to her Will and expresly said I am now God willing going to London when I have finished my Will and then I will by discourse find out undiscerned what will be most pleasing to every one of them and will provide accordingly Yet when the draught of her Will was made she would put into the Will its self for the Right Honourable the Countess of Scarsdale her beloved Sister-in-law who was one of that number to which in her former Will she had given a Legacy in money a set of silver Sconces which adorned her own Chamber And when I asked her Ladyship why she would not leave her to the Codicil among the rest she was pleased to give this reason Because said she she is the only person living to whom I ever intimated being in my will and I would not die and have it found otherwise and so be under the suspicion of having told a lie or dying with a lye in my mouth She had learn'd S. Paul's Lesson to perfection To speak evil of no man and where she could not speak well the worst injury she would do was to be silent and say nothing unless it were to some single Friend of whose Taciturnity she was secure by experience Nor would she invidiously diminish the just praises of any who deserved them Nay would rather study to extenuate their other failings by presenting the light side to hide the dark one And would commend them for one good quality or action to cover many bad ones and would say yet I must do them this right they are so or so for all this And she was no less accurately just in deed than word she had learn'd to do as well as to say she not only gave goodly words but good performances And because the due discharge of the duties of our Relations is one of the most signal evidences of Righteousness and the greatest ornament of our Profession of Religion I shall touch briefly how she used to acquit her self in that respect as a Wife to her Husband living as an Executrix to his Will and a

fragments and broken meat but with liberal provision purposely made for them She was a great pitier yea a great lover of the poor and she built a convenient house on purpose for them at her London-Seat as they had one at Leez to shelter them from rain and heat while they received their dole and when she was at London with her Family had in her absence whilst no house was kept at Leez a kind of house kept for their sakes alone That is twice a week good Beef and Bread provided for the poor of four adjacent Parishes and hath taken order in her Will to have the same continued three months after her decease and by the same Will hath given an hundred pounds to be distributed to the Poor of Braintree Felsted Little-Leez and Much-Waltham at or shortly after her Funeral And though it cannot reasonably be expected from one who had no Lands of Inheritance to leave charitable foundations Yet I may without Hyperbole say that every year she lived after she came to be Mistress of the Estate she gave as much in charity as would have purchased Lands sufficient to have endowed an Alms-house or Free-school And that pious and liberal foundation of Rochford Alms-house which though founded legally by a Patent granted under the Broad Seal for its confirmation by the Ancestors of that Family of which she bore the Title was by the death of the Founder not endowed yet as all her predecessors had done She always paid the Alms-people their full designed Allowance and ordered by her last Will it should be so done for a year after her decease And I must here take leave to add to their great honour and the satisfaction of all that relate to that Family that those Right Honourable and worthy persons to whom the estate descends have agreed to continue the same plentiful allowance And if I were worthy to advise them I would earnestly perswade them to make Legal Settlement and endow it with Lands to the value of what they resolve to allow before they make the division of the Estate But methinks I hear it asked what had she no Spots no Scars no real nor imputed Blemishes how could she live in such an Age and not be corrupted or at least traduced neither scorched by the fire of infection nor blackned by the smoak of revengeful detraction for obraiding the guilty by her innocency This overdoing is undoing if you would make us believe she had no faults we shall sooner believe you have no truth And that all you have said hath more of Romance and what you fancy than Narrative of what she was or did I confess 't is next to a miracle to consider both how divine Grace enlarged her heart and established her goings and restrained the tongues of others from reproaching or shewing dislike of that in her for which they deride and hate not to say persecute others But I must implore that candour while I embalm her memory with the sweet Oyntment of her own good name you granted to her vertues which acquired it and made it so fragrant I therefore solemnly protest I have spoke the truth though the truth in love as I am allowed and requir'd Eph. 4.15 and have not knowingly disguised or falsified nor dipt my pen in flattering colours But since you are so inquisitive and seem to deny me the just and civil freedom to draw a veil of silence over her imperfections and your curiosity will be peeping under that sacred Pall which should secure and shroud the worst of men from being pryed into and the Vault and Grave that place of darkness and forgetfulness which should bury all defects and render them invisible must be ransack'd Draw back the Curtains let in the light survey its secretest recesses nor She nor I in her behalf fear the most piercing Eagle-eye or Scent Nor that I deny her to have been a Sinner while I adore that Grace that made her a Saint or that she was a Woman while I proclaim her a Terrestrial Angel But these three things I say and will adhere to First That she was not notoriously defective in any Grace or Vertue but as eminent in all as most have been for any single one She was not only aliquid in omnibus but omnis in singulis she did abound in every grace Which St. Gregory Naz. admires in Gorgonia and St. Jerom in Nepotian Ita in singulis virtutibus eminebat quasi caeteras non haberet Secondly She was never stained with any scandalous deformity another rare mercy For though she did humanum pati slip now and then or stumble if you will she fell not much less lay or wallowed to defile her Garments which I testifie not only from my own observation but her own Pen. After God had thus savingly I hope wrought upon me I went on constantly comfortably in my Christian course though I had many doubts and fears to contend with And did truly obey that Precept of working out my Salvation with fear and trembling yet God was pleased to carry me still onward And though I too often broke my good resolutions I never renounced them and though I too often tript in my Journey to Heaven yet I never forsook my purpose of going thither Thirdly Her very defects and failings were such as others might be proud of her Weeds would have been Flowers and her Thistles appeared Roses in another Garden For I never heard her blamed for more than two faults by the most curious observers and inspectors of her disposition or behaviour 1. Excess of Charity 2. Defect of Anger or what was reduceable to those two two goodly faults But even these admit Apology more easily than they need it 1. What was reputed the culpable excess of her Charity was her credulous easiness to believe most people good or at least better than they were I confess she did bend a little to this right hand error but if it were a bad effect it proceeded from a good cause For as 't is observed that as they who are conscious to themselves of some great evils scarce can esteem any less nocent than themselves so they that have clear and innocent hearts are ready to judge the like of others Charity thinketh no evil and she used this good opinion of others as an instrument to make them what she was so willing to signifie she thought them And though she would never despair of any man while she found them under the Awe of Gods Authority and Word for even those may receive some nourishment who eat against Stomach and the Seive under the Pump may be cleansed though it hold no water yet if she observed a person to scorn or deride the Scriptures despise Gods Ordinances and turn all that was sacred into ridicule She used as her Phrase was to set her mark upon that man And I must further add She was neither so often nor so much mistaken in her judgment of persons as some supposed she was