Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	king_n	kingdom_n	4,596	5	5.5955	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56983	Enchiridion miscellaneum spare houres improv'd in meditations divine, contemplative, practical, moral, ethical, oeconomical, political : from the pietie and learning of Fr. Quarles & Ar. Warwick, Gents. : by it they being dead, yet speak (Heb. XI. 4).	Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644.; Warwick, Arthur, 1604?-1633. Spare minutes, or, Resolved meditations and premeditated resolutions.	1677 (1677)	Wing Q94; ESTC R6261	74,920	244

flower thrives to its goodnes and glory This is also my case when I endeavour to plant grace in the fertill soyl of a good wit For luxurious nature thrusts up with it either stinging wrath or stinking wantonnes or drowzie sloath or some other vices which robb my plant of its desired flourishing But these being first pluckt up the good with produceth in its time the faire flower of vertue I will not there fore thinck the best wits as they are wits fittest to make the best men but as they are the best purged best wits The ground of their goodnes is not the goodnes of their wits ground but the good weeding and clensing it I must first eschew the evill ere I can doe good supplant vices ere I can implant virtue CHAP. XXVIII AS it is never too soon to be good so is it never too late to amend I will therefore neither neglect the time present nor despair of the time past If I had been sooner good I might perhaps have been better If I am longer bad I shall I am sure be wors That I have stayed long time idle in the marketplace deserves reprehension but if I am late sent into the vineyard I have encouragement to worke I will give onto this last as unto thee CHAP. XXIX WHen I see the Husbandman wel contented with the cold of frost and snow in the Winter because though it chilleth the ground yet it killeth the charlock though it check the wheat somewhat in growing yet it choaketh the weeds from growing at all Why should I bee moved at the winter of affliction Why vexed at the quaking fit of a quartan ague Why offended at the cold change of affection in my Summer-friends If as they seem bitter to my mind or body they prove healthfull to my bettered soul If my wants kill my wantonnes my poverty check my pride my disrespected sleighting quell my ambition and vaine-glory and every weed of vice being thus choaked by afflictions winter my soul may grow fruitfull for heavens harvest let my winter be bitter so that I be gathered with the good corn at reaping time into the Lords barn CHAP. XXX AS oft as I heare the Robin-red-brest chaunt it as cheerefully in September the beginning of Winter as in March the approach of the Summer why should not wee think I give as cheerefull entertainement to the hoary-frosty hayres of our ages winter as to the Prim-roses of our youth's spring Why not to the declining sunn in adversity as like Persians to the rising sunn of prosperity I am sent to the Ant to learn industry to the Dove to learn innocency to the Serpent to learn wisedom And why not to this bird to learn equanimity and patience and to keepe the same tenour of my minds quietnes as well at the approach of calamities winter as of the spring of happines And since the Romans constancy is so commended who changed not his countenance with his changed fortunes Why should not I with a Christian resolution hold a steddy course in all weathers and though I be forced with cros-winds to shift my sails and catch at side-winds yet skil fully to steer and keep on my cours by the Cape of good hope till I arive at the haven of eternall happines CHAP. XXXI THe same water which being liquid is penetrated with an hors-haire will beare the hors himselfe when it is hard frozen I muse not then that those precepts and threats of God's judgements enter not into the hardned hearts of some old men frozen by the practice of sinn which pierce and penetrate deep into the tender hearts and melting consciences of yonger folks thawed with the warmth of God's feare Hence see I the cause why the sword of the Word so sharp that it serveth in some to divide the joynts and marrow in others glaunceth or reboundeth without dint or wound from their cristall frozen and adamantin hearts I cannot promise my selfs to be free from sinn I were then no man but I will purpose in my self to be free from hardnes of heart by costum and continuance in sinn I may err in my way I will not persist goe on in my errours till I cannot returne againe into my way I may stumble I may fall but I will not lye still when I am fallen CHAP. XXXII WHen I see two game-cocks at first sight without premeditated malice fight desperatly and furiously the one to maintain the injury offered the other to revenge the injury received by the first blow and to maintain this quarrell not onely dye the pit with their blood but die in the pit with their mutuall bloudy wounds me thinks I see the succes of those duëllers of our time which being ambitious of Achilles his praise Pelidis juvenes cedere nescij desperatly and furiously adventure their lives here and endanger their souls hereafter onely for the vain terms of fals honour I will not say but that being flesh and blood I may be careles of my flesh and blood to revenge injurious indignities offered me yet since as a tenant my soul must answer her Land lord for reparations of the house she dwels in and I have no warrant of God or man for such revenge I will not kill my own soul to kill an other mans body I will not pull the house of my body on my souls head in a fury that God may make them both fuell for the fury of hell fire CHAP. XXXIII When I view the heavens declaring the glory of God and the firmament shewing his handy work and consider that each little numbred star even of the sixth magnitude containeth the earths dimension 18. times in bignes by Astronomers conclusions I easily descend to consider the great difference of earthly mens glory and that weight of glory afforded the Saints in heaven For what a poor ambition is it to be the best man in a City What 's a City to a Shire What a Shire to the whole Island What this Island to the Continent of Europe What Europe to the whole Earth What that Earth to a Star What that Starr to Heaven and that to the Heaven of Heavens And so by a retrogradation how little How nothing is this poor glory J find many which say hoc nihil est aliquid J find in my selfe cause to say hoc aliquid nihil est Jf J needs will bee somebody by my ambition J will bee ambitious to bee ranged with the Saints in Heaven rather then ranked with the Kings on earth since the least in the Kingdome of Heaven is greater then they CHAP. XXXIV I Saw once a Jerfalcon let fly at an Heron and observed with what clamour the Heron entertain'd the sight and approach of the Hawk and with what winding shifts he strove to get above her labouring even by bemuting his enemies feathers to make her slaggwinged and so escape but when at last they must needs come to a necessitated encounter resuming couroge out of necessity hee turned face against her and striking the Hawk thorough the gorge with his bill fell downe dead together wihth is dead enemie This fight seemed to me the event of a great sute i● Law where one trusting to his cause potency more then his causes equity endeavours to disinherit his stubbor● neighbour by colourable titles to hi● land Here may you heare the clamorous obloquies of the wronged and se● the many turnings and winding Meanders in the Law sought out to get above his adversary And lastly when the issue must come to tryall oftentimes in the grapple they both sink to beggery by the Law whiles lawfully they seek to get a-above each other Hence warned against potent enemies I will alway pray Lord make me not a prey unto their teeth and against an equal or inferiour I will not borrow the lawes extream right to doe him extream wrong nor fall to law with any body till I fall by law to be nobody I will not doe that to have my will which will undoe my selfe of what I have by my willfullnes CHAP. XXXV THe Psalmist doth not slander the slanderers when in a good description of their bad natures he saith their throat is an open sepulcher c. the poyson of Asps is under their lips For what more loathsome stench and noisom smells can a new opened sepulcher belch out then these venomous open throated slanderers And well may their lips contain the poyson of Asps of which Lucan saith in nulla plus est serpente venent when a few words of theirs shall like a Witches spell charme and strike dead a mans deerest reputation I will therefore indeavour to make my actions of that vertu that as an antidote of Mithridates his best confection they may repell the worst infection those Serpents shall spit at me And albeit I cannot bee free from their assaults from which none is freed yet I will not with Cleopatra set those Asps so neer my heart that they may stop my vitall spirits with their poyson And since I must pas thorough this Africa of monsters and harmefull beasts I will carefully feare and shunn the worst of tame beasts the flatterer and of wild beast the slanderer CHAP. XXXVI MEditation is a busie search in the store-house of fantasie for some Idea's of matters to be cast in the moulds of resolution into some forms of words or actions In which search when I have used my greatest diligence I find this in the conclusion that to meditate on the Best is the best of Meditations and a resolution to make a good end is a good end of my resolutions FINES