Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	king_n	lord_n	people_n	4,953	5	4.9858	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89235	Miscellanea spiritualia: or, Devout essaies: composed by the Honourable Walter Montagu Esq.; Miscellanea spiritualia. Part 1.	Montagu, Walter, 1603?-1677.; Marshall, William, fl. 1617-1650, engraver.	1648 (1648)	Wing M2473; Thomason E519_1; ESTC R202893	256,654	397

chosen of many as it hath relation particularly to this Nation King Harold of Denmark who was the first planter of the Faith of Christ is his Countrey and a Prince whose eminent sanctity deserved the publike testimony of the Church by his admission into the Catalogue of the Saints This devout King in his old age was assayled by the Rebellion of his own Son called Swayn a desperate Enemy of Christianity yet it pleased God to give him Victory against his Father and to Crown the old King with Martyrdome in the Defence of Christs Cause and his own Right for he dyed of his wounds received in the Battel where his impious Son remained Conquerer and King But soon after Gods Vengeance rose up against this Patricide and expulsed him out of his Kingdom and in many changes of Fortune reduced him to take Refuge in England and Scotland for many years At last in many variations of his Unhappinesses it pleased God to change his heart and convert him to Christianity of which afterwards he became a great Champion and a Zealous and God imployed him here in ENGLAND to punish King Ethelred who though his person was not stained with his Mothers bloody hands yet he did rise to the Crown not by a Legitimate Descent in Blood but by an Execrable effusion of his elder Brothers through the wickedness of his Mother so as Swayn of Denmark dispossessed this King and soon after dyed invested of the Crown of England I thought this Example in the various Occurrences of it very apposite to this subject of declaring GODS mysterious Judgements His Justice Mercy and Longanimity which is the Attribute whereby we are so much relieved in all our provocations of his Vengeance These Examples may temper an hasty impatience to censure Causes by the Events and repress in us that Natural forwardness of judging with the JEWS those to be the greatest sinners on whom the Tower of S 〈…〉 doth chance to fall for we know our Saviors decision of such conclusions §. VI. The Conclusion Regulating all humors in this probation THere are many men of such a mould of earth as the stony ground in the Gospel who are quick in their conception of vertue and active in the first impressions of the right and justice of their party and so their actions are forward and eminent in fair seasonable weather but if the heat of disaster beat upon them for want of a w●ll-rooted constancy on the ground of true fortitude they shrink and wither as fast as they did shoot out at first when they first begin to be followers of vertue they should remember what our Savior said to his Disciples Blessed is he who shall not be scandalized at me for in the attendance on goodness in this world we shall often see it suffering and affronted They who will serve under the Militia of the King of kings must take the Covenant of Longanimity in which consists the best part of the honor of a Christian for as our great Master saith If you love but where you are beloved do not the Gentiles do as much so if you are zealous while you are prosperous every unworthy person hath this kinde of honor to shew for his nobility but when you are to endure the test of loving of Enemies that is humbly to embrace all advers accidents and to close with them to wrastle still rather then flye from the Lists where they are triumphing when as the Prophet says Strange lords have dominion over us this is the sincere tryal of honor even in morality in which this perilous perseverance it may be i● but a counsel of perfection but in cases of Divinity I am sure it is a precept as the Apostle saith in the name of our Master If any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him Hence it is that as any defection from a good Cause is odious in Gods sight so too much solicitude and vehemency in relation to a quick issue out of our engagements look unhandsomly in Gods eyes for there is always a great shadowing of Self-love woven with this colour of our zeal to Justice in this impatient appetite of Success Our Savior Christ at his remove from his dearest familiars upon earth in a gentle reprehension to them in this point of earnestness hath left us an order for our dependance quietly upon the common course of his Providence without any inquisitive scruting into the times of such Events as the cause may promise For when they desired to know the time of his restoring their kingdom who were of his own house his answer was a kinde of soft increpation to them and a strong instruction to all times It is not your part to know the times nor the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power This is a prerogative our Soveraign communicates unto none but as he proceeded to comfort again those friends he had check'd we have our share in their compensation for he doth impart to us also his Holy Spirit which may assist and consolate us in the perplexities of all Times and Seasons Let us therefore by the residence of this Comforter with us endeavor to correct our Nature in her promptitude and hastiness in our distresses to make Gideons question to the Holy Spirit If the Lord be with us why are all these ills be f●ln us and to conclude Sure the Lord hath left us and delivered us up to our enemies Let us procure rather to make the answer of Eli to Sa 〈…〉 in acceptance of Gods Judgements It is the Lord let him do what seemeth good to him If we remain in this temper we may boldly say with King David The Lord will not be angry for ever he will judge the world in equity and the people in his truth therefore I will hope always and will yet praise him more and more Thus with the Psalmist keeping God at our right hand we shall not be moved or dejected by any sinister Events in a sincere Cause There is a far different superstition in the pertinacy of the Pharisees and the facility of some people for they in a shower of Miracles falling down upon them to anounce to them the time of the change of their Law still called for a Sign from Heaven to authorize that Doctrine and some people are so prone to change their Law as they call Natural Accidents that favor their dispositions Signs from Heaven to warrant their innovations As the first were said to have eyes and not to see so these last may be said to see without eyes for their imaginations seem to them so illuminate as the eye of their Reason is dazled when it looks against them Such fancies commonly love to cast in troubled waters and upon all successful draughts they do as the Prophet saith of them Sacrifice to their own net and offer incense to their drag worshipping in a maner their own Spirit which they have

God for the reversing of such orders in which exigencies we may earnestly press the hastening of Gods time and concurrently attend his will with patience for that is Gods time to which our Prayers have brought God as that price was Gods price to which Abraham brought God for Sodom This I hope will sufficiently explicate the sence of formal and material conformity to Gods Will and so enlighten us in many obscurities and scuples which the tenderness of our Conscience may cast over us as apprehensions of con 〈…〉 against Gods order in our sorrow and resentment of publike or private calamities §. V. The infirmity of our Nature conforted by Examples Holy and Prophane and the acquiescence to Gods Order with constancy perswaded BEcause this tryal of us requireth all the strength of our Grace or our Reason to secure us farther from being dismayed at the proneness of our Nature to slack●● in the confidence of our Cause upon the prosperity of the advers party we may look upon one of the strongest vessels of Gods building and we may finde him in this storm driving upon all his anchors when he confesseth My 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 almost gone and my steps well ●igh stipping away when I saw the peace of sinners they are not in trouble as other men neither are they plagued as others He could have no ease in the inquisition of the reason of this inverted appearance of Justice till as he says he went into the Sanctuary of God So when we finde our selves upon Davids slippery steps we must follow him who leads us to take Sanctuary in Gods universal Providence taking hold of his Altar there his Inscrutable Wisdom and the passions of our Nature will be afraid to violate that holy Refuge in disputing to draw us out of that Sanctuary by their Violences as long as our thoughts rest themselves there and our Reason doth not venture abroad to rove in the inquisition of second causes It was upon the holy ground of this Sanctuary that King David trode when he climbed up the mount Olivet barefoot his steps were then firm and sure even upon all these sharp stones which were under them even those stones which Shimei threw in his way did not give him the least trip he walked upon this ground of The Lord hath ordained him to curse David who shall then say Wherefore hath he done so it may be the Lord will look on my affliction and requite me for this days cursing Here we see King David walks so firmly on Gods Order and Providence as his steps broke in pieces all Shimei's stones they trode upon and he was now no more moved in the diffidence of his cause then he was elated with the right of it when Shimei came to meet him and lay prostrate at his feet to be trode upon He then raised up his enemies person and kept onely his injuries under his feet which were so many steps to raise his eternal Throne and certainly all that Shimei threw at him proved the most precious stones which the Hand of Providence set in the Everlasting Crown of this Blessed King Thus we see the common infirmity even of the most sanctified Natures while they are working upon the stock of their own Reason in Humane occurrences and what a firmness and stability we may finde when we lay all our thoughts up to rest in the bosom of the Divine Providence taking this advice in all advers Events Yea when thou shalt say he considereth not be judged before him and expect him And as it is observed in the motions of the Heavens that as the Orbs are nearer the first mover so they go the faster in the common diurnal motion the slower in their own peculiar which is opposite to the other so we may truly say the nearer our mindes are raised to an adherence to the first Divine moving order our Reason shall go the quicker in a consenting motion to all the common occurrences of Providence and shall move the gentlier in the retrograde motion of her own Orb of Nature and consequently the disquiets of our Nature shall move less in their passionate oppositions to all sinister Events and we shal be the less frighted when with the Apostles we are going into the cloud remembring the reproach God maketh to tottering confiders Am I onely a God at near hand and not the same at distance If ever we could have hoped to have been informed of the reason of the present advantages allowed to the wicked it should have been when the Prophet Jeremy one sanctified even in his Mothers womb did so earnestly ask God this question with a conjuration upon his Justice saying Lord thou ar● just when I argue with thee yet let me talk with thee of thy Judgements Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal treacherously And yet God affords him no answer to this desire but leaves him in such a suspense and perplexity as in an holy confusion he challengeth even God of having misinformed him in his Judgements upon sinners which were so long deferred So we can look for no satisfaction in this point greater then that answer which God makes to Daniel when he asked What sha 〈…〉 ●e the end of these things Go thy ways Daniel for the words are closed and sealed up till the time of the end Wherefore in all the distractions and subversions of Kingdoms pri 〈…〉 Ruines and Confusions we must recur to Daniels conclusion Blessed be the Name of the Lord wisdom and power are h●● he removes and constitutes KINGS and Kingdoms By this precedent as near as our giddy Nature will admit we must seek to fix our mindes upon that incomprehensible course of Gods Providence which changeth all things without any mutation in it self and the nearer we come to this con●ixure unto that stability the less obnoxious we shall be to the estuations of joys and fears or the anxiety of wonder in all contingencies For the chief motive of the disquiet of our minde is the imperfect broken view we have in this life of the chain and coherence of second causes we see several links lying scattered and parted without the rings which make the connexion that is we see daily mutations of all conditions from good to bad and interchangeably from advers to prosperous estates but we discern no reason that linketh and accordeth these variations with our judgements making a coherence satisfactory to our understandings in this distributive part of Gods Justice This half-sight of the form of things excites wonder in us which is broken knowledge when our understanding meets objects of strange effects divided from their apparent causes for if we could see at once this chain of Providence set together all events hanging linked to their final reasons our wonder would presently cease As we may suppose if the Prophet Daniel had lived to see actually the accomplishment of his Visions

while others had wondred at Alexanders enterprise upon the Monarchy of the World and all the strange occurrences that did effect that work he would have been little moved at those Events And when cursed Antiochus destroy'd Jerusalem and set up Idols upon the altar of the Temple and abolished all form of true Religion when venerable Mathathias and the glorious Maccabees had reason to rend their garments and to be astonished at the desolation of Gods people Daniel would not have been perplexed and amazed in all this confusion as having had a prenotion of this and the rest of the chain of Providence which made the coherence of this action In the like maner in all other prodigious Events which coupled the successions of the other designs of God upon the world whereof Daniel had a prevision he could not be confused at that whereat others who looked but upon the broken pieces of the chain were justly astonished But if Daniel had survived the issues of all his Revelations and had come to those Times of which he was desirous to know the sequences and determinations and was refused that illumination and told They were sealed Mysteries and not to be opened to him if then he had seen the destruction of Gods people and the violation of all things sacred by the inhumanity of Gods enemies he would then have been posed to have given a reason of these disorders and must have resorted to Davids answer to himself Such knowledge is too wonderful for me it is too high I cannot attain to it Some satisfactory rest may be derived from the experiments and acquaintance with such cases but still the reason of that order which is so preposterous to our conceptions will remain in the smoke of the Temple wherein we may see God is present but not how he worketh in it The order of Gods administration rests in the Temple described in the Revelation which is filled with smoke from the Majesty of God and none can enter into it until all be consumnate One that shall study the Story of the World in one Age or Century shall finde Iniquity and Violence prevailing it may be many years over all Piety and Justice and insequence of time shall come to reade the prosperers and presumers in their powers destroy'd and extirpated by some exemplary vengeance then for some time may meet with vertue and godliness flourishing so as to protect all their Vot●ries and then as he goes on it may be he will meet with a storm blasting and withering all the fruits of innocence he saw before so flourishing Thus alternatively through the whole age he shall commonly finde an interchangeable variation from the happy to the persecuted state of goodness And although in the period of that portion of time he chance to finde the most notorious impieties of it punished and revenged in such sort as that particular may give him some sensible satisfaction of Gods Justice yet he shall finde in no age the audict so perfectly made up between Impiety and Punishment as he shall not still remain perplexed in the account of Gods reckonings with the world They who shall live to see or reade the full Account of this present Age will certainly finde at the end of it the Fractions and Divisions ●urnm'd up nearer the true Account of Gods Justice then it appears now in all these scattered orderless figures which seem to have little reference to Equity but still the end of this Age will leave some confused parcels of Injustice which are referred to the succession of time to make up and rectifie And in this kinde of sequence and relation Times will turn and rowl over to one another the last bringing still somewhat imperfect to the next it flows into until Time it self shall be drowned in eternity so that while we see as Solomon tells us All things happen alike to him that offers Sacrifice and him that breaks down Altars he gives us this excellent caution not to be tempted to say there is no Providence If thou seest the violent perverting Justice and Judgement in a Province marvel not at the matter for he that is higher then the highest regardeth and there be higher then they This is a cordial the Holy Spirit hath confected for us to take in the strongest fits of Humane vicissitudes to keep us from fair●ing in the unsuccessful state of a righteous cause I shall onely give one or two Historical instances of many which all Times afford in this Argument The first is so memorable and adequate in all circumstances for our instruction as no times can match a better and no sort of Christians can reject it as president This is the case of St. Lewis King of France a person so holy as if the most sanctified voyces of his Time had been to elect a King they would probably have chosen him This great and holy King starning with the zeal of repossessing Christians of the Holy Land which is a figure of their Birthright the heavenly Jerusalem kindled most of the Christian Princes with the same ardor which carryed many of their persons upon the place for the atchievement of this blessed Design The beginning of this Enterprize was prosperous in the recovery of many possessions from the Infidels and restitution of the Worship of Christ into them But soon after Gods secret Judgements strook this Army with an evident mark of his present displeasure and by a pestilent sickness consumed most of his Forces insomuch as he was reduced to a dishonorable Treaty with Gods Enemies and forced to return with a total defeature of his Design Under which rough hand of God his sanctity in Syria like one of their Palm-trees grew the higher by the weight of adversity it was charged with and after a perilous return into France in his old age his zeal burning still the brighter in all the darkness of his Successes he made a second Expedition with three of his Children upon the same Enterprize and landing in Africa his Army was again seized by the destroying Angel and one of his Sons strool first and presently he himself was arrested by the same hand and executed in his sentence of Mortality though truly delivered out of his prison and translated to that higher Crown which he had conquered in all his defeats This was the unhappy Event according to the stile of the world which that pious King and unquestionable Cause left the world to opine upon of which we cannot give a better vote then he himself did in his sickness out of the Wise-mans mouth Who can conceive the ways of God 〈◊〉 more then a Tempest which no eye can see for most of his works are hidden Who can declare the works of his Justice or who can stand under them for his covenant is afar off and the tryal of all is in the end There is another notorious president I have met with in the Ecclesiastical Story which I have