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	see_v	think_v	3,978	5	3.8757	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94202	A reviler rebuked, or, Abraham Bonifield's envy, falseness and folly, in his late book, called The cry of the oppressed, etc., laid open in this answer thereunto Written by Oliver Sansom...	Sansom, Oliver, 1636-1710.	1696 (1696)	Wing S685; ESTC R43915	56,159	52

of the Differences which he brought A. H. R. and M. S. to witness that he was hearty and in good earnest for No mention in that Paper of their Repenting Confessing or giving him Satisfaction But in this other which he signed at London he was neither clear nor at all satisfied because neither Repentance manifested nor any Satisfaction given to him But in this as in most things he is not without a reserve For though he did sign that Paper at London yet he intended not in the least to hurt or give away his Cause wound or boggle his Conscience thereby and why Forasmuch as the Crimes wherewith they are charged are of an High and Criminal Nature viz. Spiritual Pride over ruling of Meetings and Lording it over Friends Yet as High and Criminal as he calls these he could but a little before without wounding or boggling his Conscience make an offer of freely forgiving them without any Terms of Repentance or Satisfaction One would think when he was so ready and easie at proposing Forgiveness if he was hearty and in earnest in it he did not in earnest believe they were guilty of such high and criminal Matters as he now represents them His next words open him a little further It is to be noted says he that this my so large if not too large condescention to such their desire was only complied unto by me upon the apprehension or as I thought assurance of Friends being engaged to see that W.L. and J.B. should do the like And a little lower he says I do declare and that in the presence of God that I had never signed that Paper of theirs had I not thought that they looked upon themselves as ingaged and would not have been concerned to have written down to W.L. and J.B. for them to do and perform their part as I had done mine c. This is indeed to be noted but not for his Credit This shews how void of sincerity he was in what he did and that he did not act Conscienciously but politickly with the beguiling Crafts of Men thinking that by his signing that Paper he should have engaged the Friends that met with him to have brought W.L. and J.B. who were innocent under the same Circumstances with him who was guilty But here it seems his Policy failed him and that has made him Rage the more About Three Months after this I observe from p. 23. that G. W. coming to Reading A. B. gave him some now trouble about his old Business and through importunity got him to hear some of his Complaints whereupon G. W. wrote a few Lines as tenderly and favourably for him as could be Yet that did not please him He rejects that as not being impartial nor yet such as with which his Conscience could be satisfied However he drew up a Paper the next Day and delivered it to G. W. instead of his of which he seems so highly conceited that he not only says it might if truly made use of and put in due practice among Friends really tend to a true just and lasting Peace and Amity between both them and him but proposes it likewise as a true and Christian Method to be made use of by and among all Friends every where c. This one would think should be some notable thing or else that he is notably conceited of his own doings It consists of several Heads of which the first is this viz. The best way to lay a Foundation of true and lasting Peace among us is to fix Judgment upon that which is wrong where-ever it is What a Childish Man is this that breaks his own Head by contradicting himself in almost every thing he undertakes When we by appointment of the Quarterly Meeting and with his own consent had heard his Complaints and Charges against W. L. and J. B. and their Defence and thereupon gave Judgment for putting an end to their Differences he because we fixed Judgment upon him who was wrong not only exclaimed against that Judgment unjustly calling it wicked and unjust but cried out most vehemently against us also for giving any Judgment at all saying We were appointed for Reconcilers not Judges and that it was not for a Judgment or Sentence but for Justice and Equity Hearing and Ending of all Differences that it was committed unto us Now all on a sudden he is for fixing Judgment as the best way to lay a Foundation for a true and lasting Peace But then this Judgment must be of his fixing and that not upon what is wrong but upon what he will call wrong For in the following Heads of his Paper he makes himself Judge between himself and those he differs with peremptorily determining that they have been the unpeaceable and unquiet Men and directs that they should he as far disowned as he has been And as for the Judgment of the Seven which is indeed the Judgment of the Quarterly Meeting both as the Seven were appointed by that Meeting and as that Meeting hath Ratified that Judgment by Recording it in their Book among the Acts of the Meeting he declares it to be Vnjust Vnrighteous Partial and Arbitrary in it self and would have it to be revers'd and utterly exterminated see his Paper in p. 24. So that for ought I see that which he calls the best way to lay a Foundation of true and lasting Peace among us is to let one of the differing Parties be Judge over the rest and let him determine what is wrong and fix Judgment upon that But how far this would be from being a Foundation of true and lasting Peace there is none I hope besides himself of so little Judgment as not to see That which follows next in A. B's Book is Observations both General and Particular upon that Paper which we Seven who were appointed by the Quarterly Meeting drew up as our Sense or Judgment upon the Differences which Observations take up some eight Pages or more of his Book and are filled with Railing Reviling Bitter Expressions Unchristian Language and such Envious Reflections without any solid Matter or fair Reasoning but a continual Justifying himself by meerly saying so without Proof or Demonstration that I do not think any Sober Man can Read them without great dislike therefore I do not hold it worth my while to refute each particular which he hath written in those Observations of his his own Work therein sufficiently refuting it self Yet that the Reader may see that I have cause to speak of them as I do I will give him one Instance by which he may judge of the rest It is in p. 28. and in his second Observation where having set down these words in our Paper relating to himself viz. Therefore our tender Advice is again renewed to beseech him in Bowels of Love to wait in humility and quietness upon the Lord that in his me●k and lowly Spirit he may come to be Reconciled to his Brethren c. On this soft and gentle

Complaint of any Grievances relating to them He cannot dares not say they did what then had he to do to exhibit a Complaint of Grievances relating to the Monthly Meeting without the Order Direction or Appointment of the Monthly Meeting Nay without the Consent or Privity of the Monthly Meeting If he had not been a very Busie Body he might one would think have given the Monthly Meeting leave to have made their own Complaint of Grievances relating to them if they had any So that this is so far from being a Reason for him that it is a Reason against him weighty enough of it self to have justified the Quarterly Meeting for not reading his Complaint openly in the Meeting A. B's second Reason is Because every Member is equally concerned to exercise the Sense and Vnderstanding that God has given them This I grant but when a Controversie is brought to a Meeting and that Meeting agree to commit the Hearing and Determining thereof to a Select Number surely then no Member of that said Meeting ought further to concern himself in that matter without the Concurrence of the whole Meeting To manifest yet farther the Vnfairness of this Man observe that in p. 3. he says I never left my Case wholly unto them viz. the Seven c. or satisfied at all nor any further nor otherwise neither than as constrained and forced to what I did When as all the Friends then present know that he agreed with the Meeting in it And his excepting against one for the Meeting named eight at first is an ARgument that he consented to the Meetings Choice in the other Seven But that which puts it out of all doubt is that about half a year after at the Quarterly Meteting at Reading he offered to the Meeting to refer and leave his Cause to the Hearing and Determination of these same Seven Friends whom the Meeting had chosen before and that no delay might be occasioned by the absence of one of them he himself named another Friend and desired he might be added to the Six in the room of him that was absent which plainly shews he approwed the Choice and accordingly he went on to exhibit and make out his Charges before them Yet he hath another setch which looks with rather a worse face than the former for when he said I never left my Case wholly unto them viz. the Seven c. he adds To subject or stand to their Award any otherwise than only conditional and with this proviso if managed impartially and to satisfaction p. 3. and p. 5. He says Seeing a Publick Hearing of it could not be obtained I condescended to the aso esaid provided it was done impartially and to satifaction And in p. 6. speaking of his having condescended to refer the matter unto the aforesaid for an Hearing Ending c. he adds yet not without a conditional Reserve Now doth not this manifest great want of Sinoerity in him to pretend and make a shew of giving up his Cause and leaving it to Friends to hear and end and yet at the same time have a conditional reserve in his Mind a secret Proviso to let himself loose by Doth this agree with his writing himself Thine in the Truth that is plain Innocent and void of the beguiling Crafts of men Surely one would think he writ that Craftily that he might the more easily beguile those that are indeed Plain and Innocent Now pray mark what this private Condition this Mental Reservation this secret Proviso was he gives it in these words viz. If managed impartially and to satisfaction p. 3. Provided it was done impartially and to satisfaction p. 5. Who was to judge whether it was done impartially but himself And for whose satisfaction did he provide but his own Was not this an abominable Juggle and Abuse for him to pretend to give up his Case to Friends and leave it to them to Hear and Determine and yet keep a secret Reserve in his Mind that if he was not satisfied with the end they made he would not stand to their Determination This among Men of the lowest Pretences either to Religion or Common Honesty is not counted Honest He had better have told the Meeting at first he would leave it to them or such as they should choose to end it if they ended it to his satisfaction otherwise he would Appeal from them for so it seems he did intend from the first as he intimates p. 5. I condesended to the aforesaid provided it was done impartially and to satisfaction else did intend says he to refer it by Appeal to the Yearly Meeting And as he intended not to stand to our Determination unless it were to his satisfaction so it seems as if he had intended also before we medled with it not to be satisfied with what we should do in it For in the Paper he had drawn up before we came to enquire into it and which when we came he read to us as his Reasons for refusing to let us meddle with it he says Seeing there was such an irregular step made in the very beginning by which he means the Meeting 's not letting him read his Complaint in the open Meeting we cannot reasonably expect these few can either go on well or end it so as it ought to be to satisfaction And so much had he possessed his Mind with that or at least pretended so that when we came first to Reading about it he would not open the matter to us nor yield that we should at all meddle with it Now I desire the Reader to observe and consider the Nature Temper and Spirit of this Man how prone he is to Contention and Quarreling and what contrivances he has and what Provision he makes to continue and perpetuate Discord and Strife by excepting against the proper ways and means for ending it For Experience shews it too seldom happens when Differences fall out between Person and Person that such an end can be made thereof by the most Judicious and Indifferent Persons that can be chosen as will prove to the satisfaction of both sides Now if the Persons differing after they have left or referred their Difference to others to end shall be at liberty on either side to fly off and refuse the Determination made because they don't like it or it is not to their satisfaction what end can be made of Differences Surely this contrivance of his doth not proceed from the Peaceable Spirit of Christ but from that Spirit which loves Dissention and Discord and would not willingly ever be without it and therefore seeks by all the ways it can to encrease it and keep it up A. Bonifield hath another Exception against us and that I think snews his Folly as much as the former doth his Falseness He is angry that we gave any Judgment at all alledging that we were appointed for Reconcilers not Judges but to hear and end all Differences betwixt them so he has it in his Title

would have done it in the Name of the Monthly Meeting which W. L. not Jo. Buy for Jo. Buy was not present at that Meeting as appears by the Monthly Meeting 's Book objected against desiring that if they would needs be medling in that Matter it might not be done as the Act of the Meeting but as their own Act many of the Meeting being dissatisfied with it and objecting against it And surely in a Case of that Importance for it was A. B. says to desire them to open the Doors freely or upon refusal to offer them all their Money wherein the whole Meeting must have been concerned it had been but reasonable to have had the Consent and Agreement of the Meeting before it had been undertaken at least before it had been made or declared to be the Act of the Meeting I observe he says here that when it was so made viz. in his Sense the Act of the Meeting and so Recorded though no such Record appears in the said Book they still denied it to be the Act of the Meeting And well they might for there is no such Record thereof in the Book The Second Article of his Charge against W. L. and J. B. is Their passing a rash and unchristian Sentence so he calls it upon him as being a Man of a wrong Spirit and that they saw and discerned him to be so As also their comparing him to those they counted open Apostates one run out from Truth Brother to Bugg and like to Rogers and Story c. If they judged him a Man of a wrong Spirit he hath saved them the labour of proving it having too evidently proved it himself since by the wring Work he hath imployed himself in and the wrong Fruits he hath brought forth of Envy Strife Hatred Contention Railing Backbiting Slandering Lying and the like which shews their Judgment in the Case was neither rash nor unchristian but sound and christian and their sight and discerning therein was true and right And if they compared him to open Apostates such as Bugg or Rogers he hath made the Comparison good by appearing as he hath now done an open Enemy in Print as those before-named had done before whom he once counted and called open Apostates as well as W. L. and A. B. And what they accounted him then may well be guessed by what one of them viz. T. Curtis called him who meeting him on the way did as A. B. himself related it thus accost him viz. Canker go thy way Canker But now he hath altered his Tone and doth not call them open Apostates but those that others counted as open Apostates And it was time for him indeed to change his Note now that he is not only fallen in with that Party who have owned those Apostates and spread their Books but is also fallen into the same sort of Work which those open Apostates were in long ago But by comparing the time when he says W. L. and J. B. called him a Man of a wrong Spirit which he says was on the 22d and 24th of the 4th Month 1690. with the time of his Exnibiting these Charges against them which was on the 26th of the 6th Month 1690. it seems as if he drew up those Charges against them meerly to be Revenged on them for calling him a Man of a wrong Spirit His third Article is against W. L. only and that for refusing him the sight of the Monthly Meeting Book This may easily be Answered because W. L. had no Order from the Meeting so to do Nor is it proper for any Member of a Meeting to whose keeping the Book is intrusted to let any other Member especially one known to be Contentious to have it without the Meeting 's Consent neither can any other Member say as A.B. doth that he hath as much Right and Property to have it as the Person to whom by the Meeting it is committed And whereas he saith the said Book was at no time denied him by the Meeting he might as well have said at no time granted him by the Meeting But when he adds Or through any Dissatisfaction of other Friends belonging to it he stretches too far as it is well known to most of the Meeting His fourth Article is against W. L. and J. B. jointly falsly Charging them with Endeavouring to Dismember him Tying up his Tongue c. This is an Ambiguous way of speaking which he wickedly uses to beguile his Reader into a belief as if some act of Violence had been offered or threatened to him But this I shall have occasion to speak to hereafter where he insists more largely on it therefore pass it by here His fifth Article is Their disorderly breaking up and leaving of Monthly Meetings before the Business had been near done and when Matters have been just under Debate among us For which he gives several instances one of the 26th of the 6th Month 1690. when he laid these Charges against them before the Monthly Meeting for which he refers to his Paper of Complaint But that Paper of Complaint gives no account of any such disorderly or indirect breaking up of that Meeting that I observe but it says some Hours were spent in Conference about that Matter Yet I think if Friends should hold and continue their Meetings as long as such a Make-bait would hold them in Debate they would find that much more disorderly than to break up their Meetings in seasonable time whether such Cavillers are satisfied or no. He gives another instance also of a pretended disorderly breaking up of a Meeting in the 5th Month 1691. which appears no more than the former But it appears by this that he has varied altered or added to his Charges since he gave them to the Monthly Meeting and these which he has now published are not directly the same which he brought to the Monthly Meeting for how could he instance the 5th Month 1691. in a Charge exhibited in the 6th Month 1690. Eleven Months before His sixth Article is Their encouraging and promoting at least if net first projecting as he conceives several Papers drawn up and signed against him This is very idle and silly He grounds their projecting as he calls it of those Papers but upon his own Conception but for their incouraging and promoting them he offers not so much as that as little worth as that is But if they had incouraged the signing of those Papers yet so long as those Papers contain nothing but what is true what Evil had they done in that His seventh Article is Their causing of great Disorders and Distractions in our publick Meetings for Worship by breaking up and dissolving them in the time of his Testimony and Prayer If any Disorder was occasioned thereby he was the Cause thereof by imposing upon the Meeting his Testimony as he calls it and Prayer which Friends had no Unity with but desired him to forbear seeing him to be of a wrong Spirit and of a

all may know that he is not changed from what he was but is still and remains in the like Spirit of Malice and Bitterness as is common frequent and inherent he says to my nature Now I observe how he over-shoots himself through his ill will to me and runs himself upon a Rock before he is aware For if as he says I am not changed from what I was but the Spirit of Malice and Bitterness is inherent to my nature then I was always so heretofore and he must know it heretofore and yet who more forward in pretence and shew of Love Friendship and Unity with me than he till of late years since for my gently reproving him for his contentious quarrelling he hath turned against me and set himself to abuse and defame me Many lines of this nature are in his Book which containing nothing but meer Clamour I pass it over as unworthy of any notice The occasion he here takes for his particular Cavils at me is from my returning him a former Book of his which he had sent me and which I had written something on It was a Book of Queries and one part of the Title of it was Plain and Honest Dealing When I had read the Book I found it to be so far from Plain and Honest that I struck out those two words and in their places wrote two others more agreable to the Matter and Substance of the Book viz. False and Treacherous I writ also something on the Book and something on a Paper fixed to it as my Sense both of him and it and having so done sent the Book back to him again In all which I conceive I did him no wrong with respect either to the matter I writ or manner of doing it As for the matter he doth but nibble and carp at some words and passages in it and that how idly shall be shewn anon but doth not undertake to Answer it As to the manner of my doing it which he seems to wrangle about I think I did him no wrong For he having not lent but given the Book to me it was my own and at my own dispose to use as I pleased to add or blot out what I would and make what Alterations I saw meet And when I had so done it was in my choice either to keep or give it away and I chose to give it him again and accordingly did send it him I intended to have Published what I had Written and sent to him with his Book but considering the Subject treated of there does vary from this I think fit to forbear at this time and if occasion offers and way be made there possibly may be a full Answer to it hereafter so for the present I shall proceed to go through with my Answer to this Book Now to manifest the Folly as well as Malice of this Cavilling Man he hath picked two passages out of those two Papers of mine he mentioned p. 33. neither of which he was willing to undertake to Answer and having most dishonestly wrested them to a ridiculous as well as a wrong Sense he fills two pages 34. and 35. with empty noise and clamour in a confused manner and nonsensical heap of words one of the passages he takes out of the latter part of my before-mentioned Paper fixed to his former Book wherein I justly blamed him for his abusive wresting those words which he says J. B. spoke to Friends concerning him viz. That if they could not bind or tie his Tongue they would their own which I told him could import no more in any tollerable Sense or Construction than to this effect that if they could not prevail with him to be quiet and cease contending with and disturbing them yet they would let him alone and not strive with him The other passage he takes out of that which I wrote upon the Book it self where having shewed him the dangerous state he was in by entertaining hatred against W. L. and J. B. which he had evidently manifested by his endeavouring to slay their Christian-Reputation and so was by the Apostle judged to be a Murderer He that hateth his Brother is a Murderer 1 Joh. 3.15 I asked him thus For how couldst thou devise to do them so much mischief and not hazzard corporal Punishment as to expose them as thou hast done Here because I quoted this Scripture he insinuates as if I intended Murdering of the Body when my meaning was no other than as in the very line before slaying their Christian Reputation Yet by a strange sort of perverse abusing and wresting of words he hath inferred from this that I would have Bodily punishment inflicted upon him for writing his Books And from this and the former Expression used he says by J. B. of tying his Tongue which had in it no more either of danger or hardship to him than to themselves for the words it seems were If we cannot tye his Tongue let us tye our own that is if we cannot persuade him to hold his Tongue and not interrupt us Let us hold our Tongues and not answer him I say from these two Expressions he hath run himself into such a fright as if he began to feel either the Whip or the Fire already so true of him is that which the Psalmist saith of the workers of Iniquity They were in great fear where no cause of fear was Psal 53.5 Hereupon he cries out p. 34. of me for scaring or affrighting him with Corporal or Bodily Punishment And in p. 49. he very gravely if there can be gravity in so great folly says thus And it might not I believe be amiss if but or the Truths sake that some ancient and grave Friends would be and were so concerned as to examine and know of O.S. what manner and degree of Punishment it is to be or must be that my Body is to suffer or to be punished withal for the great mischiefs c. And towards the bottom of the same page he mentions again my using such scaring threats of Corporal Punishment or Punishments upon his Body 'T is well he is so apprehensive of Bodily Punishment that the fear of that may deter him from attempting that which might subject him to it But it is strange to see how upon these meer and willful Perversions he runs out in a noise of Words against Persecution setting forth not only the heinousness thereof but the hideousness thereof and representing to himself and his Reader no less than most cruel Sufferings and exquisite Tortures yea and in the end death it self And before that binding of Head Tongue Hands Feet the use and cruelty of the Gag and whatever else he could think of to heighten his affrighted fancy the Coat and Hat of fearful and affrighting painted Devils Hell and Hell-fire put upon them c. And all this noise and out-cry he makes for nothing or without any cause or ground given him but meerly from an evil mind and desire in