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	matter_n	see_v	3,060	5	3.1155	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62059	A sermon preached at St. Paul's Covent-Garden upon Sunday the second of December, 1694 Being the day appointed by Their Majesties for a publick thanksgiving for the preservation of His Majesty from the dangers to which his royal person was exposed during his late expedition; and for his safe return to his people, and for the success of his forces by sea and land. Publish'd at the request of the parishioners. By John Swynfen, chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of Bradford, and lecturer at St. Magnus Church at the Bridge Foot. Imprimatur. Decemb. 14. 1694. C. Alston.	Swynfen, John, 1662-1728.	1695 (1695)	Wing S6289A; ESTC R221876	14,007	33

false so that I mean not as I say that I am neither guilty of Lying or Perjury That 't is Lawful for a Servant not having Wages answerable to his Labour to cheat his Master provided he can do it without his privity That one Act of Faith and Love is sufficient for a man's whole Life And that Natural Attrition is enough in the Duty of Repentance We hold not the Fertile Doctrines of Equivocations good Intents keeping no Faith with Hereticks and that we may do evil that good may come of it In short we have no Jesuits Morals no Doctrines of Probability nor any Point maintained but what is purely Religious Christian and Sacred So that upon comparing the Principles of our Religion with those of the Romish when one will appear suited to the strict Rules of the Gospel the others are only raised up to serve the ends of Secular Policy upon the Ruines of Morality Society and common Honesty And indeed in this respect the badness of their Cause may be to our good and the great Preservative to keep us from Ruine God Almighty perhaps sees that he will not as we say mend the matter by exalting them upon the Ruine of us nay the Exchange will be to his own disadvantage and though he may gratifie his just Resentments by cutting off so wicked a People yet that may seem to derogate from his Wisdom and Holiness when it tends to the Establishment of a much worse 4. When the utter Ruine of a People would involve other Churches and Countries that are perhaps more Innocent in the same Miseries then doth God's Holy Name seem concern'd to deliver them therefrom especially when a very considerable part of the World will be damag'd and it may be that too where the purer Parts of the Church of Christ are For here not only the Innocent will suffer for the Guilty but Strangers miscarry for the faults of those whom they had no concern withal nay greater Desolation will be caused in the Church of God than is perhaps consistent either with his Providence over or tender respect to it And this we may suppose another Foundation of that Deliverance which we now commemorate Not to Remark the Civil Broils which our Ruine must necessarily produce in other Countries what can we think would become of the Protestant Interest throughout Europe upon our miscarriage We may well suppose that the Common Champion for the Catholick Cause will use his utmost Endeavours to make it as Universal as his Empire becomes his Conquests being but imperfect unless they make as great an Alteration in Religion as Government And besides the utter Ruine of the purer Parts of the Visible Church what Rapine Blood and Misery will needs be necessary in order to it The Cruelties shewed to his own Subjects are but a faint Essay of those Inhumane Barbarities that will be necessary in other Countries What overthrowing Laws destroying Constitutions Violating all the Bounds of Humanity and Justice How will Fire and Earth be mixed together No difference put betwixt Sacred and Profane And such a Confusion wrought in the best Parts of the World as will but too sadly represent the first rude indigested Chaos or the last great general Conflagration These things the Wisdom of Almighty God may perhaps fore-see will be the Consequences of our Ruine and his Justice and Goodness seem concerned to prevent them Hence hath his Almighty Arm appeared already in a very great measure to disappoint our Enemies and to deliver us The kindness he bears to the Publick Peace and Good of the World will not suffer him to permit that which would draw such general Evils after it and the Common Interest of Protestantism receiving its Fate from our Success or Miscarriage stept in as an Advocate for our Preservation These are some of those many Instances that might be produced wherein God's Holy Name may be concerned to deliver even a very sinful People from great Calamities From whence it appears that no one can hence collect that the Impunity of such bad People doth at all argue that he either bears them any Respect or that he is backward in inflicting those Punishments upon them which they deserve Alas 't is only out of pity to his Holy Name that they are preserved and that because greater dishonour would redound to him by destroying than by saving them I shall conclude this Head when I have added that we must not either think that we are less beholding to God for our Deliverance because it might not be wrought for our sakes but for the sake of God's own Name or presume that we may yet sin with safety seeing 't will always be as much to the Interest of God's Name to preserve us For as to the former 't is well known that we for our sins sufficiently merited Destruction and that if strict Justice had had its current there would have been no escaping it So that whatever Motives God might have on his part there could be none on ours And yet even on his part though other considerations might concur yet we all know that Mercy alone hath the most considerable ascendant over Justice in hindring its Execution Or suppose it hath not why should a Benefit be less valued because in giving it the Donor hath some respect to his own Commodity as well as to his to whom 't is given All that we are to look to is at the Benefit we enjoy by the good turn another doth us and the proportion of our Obligation is wholly taken from hence and not from any collateral end he might propose to himself in doing of it And I think no Malefactor looks upon himself less obliged to the Government in saving his Life though it doth at the same time design to employ him in the Wars And then for the other namely our presuming to sin because it will be as much as it hitherto has the Interest of God's Name to preserve us from Ruine This is I say as unreasonable as the other and that not only because of the Ingratitude of it as being an high Abuse of his Goodness and turning his Grace into wantonness but likewise for another which is in this case a much weightier Reason and that is The uncertainty of the Rule in general For tho' God Almighty in all his Actions doth consult the Honour of his Name yet you must note that he knows how more effectually to promote this sometime by destroying than by saving a wicked People in as much as in all such Eminent Acts of Justice he highly declares his Resentments of Sin doth Justice upon Malefactors and thereby makes himself feared in the World and tho' in such Punishments all the forementioned Instances in which God's Holy Name seems concerned for their prevention may happen and yet are taken no notice of yet he knows how to recompence himself for these by an hundred other things that he can cause to happen Thus he at last dealt with these