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	person_n	2,832	5	4.9191	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79784	Fiat lux or, a general conduct to a right understanding in the great combustions and broils about religion here in England. Betwixt Papist and Protestant, Presbyterian & independent to the end that moderation and quietnes may at length hapily ensue after so various tumults in the kingdom. / By Mr. JVC. a friend to men of all religions.	J. V. C. (John Vincent Canes), d. 1672.	1661 (1661)	Wing C429; Thomason E2266_1; ESTC R210152	178,951	376

in it nor do we move the plants to their growth and ripenes nor do we know our selves how these or any other things in nature are wrought Thus destitute are we of any rules of providence whereby this world is either set or kept in order that we neither prescribe them nor see them observed or do our selves understand them we are neither called to advise for the ordering of the being of things under us or is our help required for their conserving or our suffrage demanded for the putting a period to their existences And are not we in the mean time goodly rulers and disposers of the world that have neither hand in the making or guiding of it I knew once an innocent that took a fansy in his brain that he was master and disposer of all the burdens that came up in barges and lighters by a river that ran through the town and would constantly be upon the bridg at the hour they were to unload where standing very serious and attentive as soon as he saw the porters to carry forth out of any barge a burden of coal or corn or other provision he still bad them aloud and with autority to take it and carry it that way which he saw them inclined to go and all the day long he was never disobeyed Such masters and governours are we of this world with power to bid a bird to fly or ant to creep or wolf to run or heavens to move even as we see they do and so we are obeyed and no otherwayes nor no otherwayes do we know either what they will or ought to do We do indeed feed upon som creatures we either ensnare or which stand tame to our hands and tirannize over som others subjugating them either by subtilty or force will they nill they to our yoke but this is no more than the beast fish and birds do to one another And as for the ebbing and flowing of those several events and accidents that be proper only unto man as peace and war wealth and poverty arts policy religion and the like what a labyrinth is he in that enters into consideratition of their varieties and causes the ends and motives of them If religion be a thing so necessary to our salvation how is it that our good God left the gentiles for so many hundred years all over the face of the earth to walk after the errours of their mind in the blindnes and darknes of their understanding what had they done before they were born to deserv it and if they be so dealt withal without desert how does Gods justice appear And again if a particular religion be not necessary for example the Christian why did Christ our Lord put those poor harmles men his apostles to so many labours necessities and dangers of death to plant it in the world And how comes it that even this religion now revealed and preacht in the world makes so small progres and brings forth so little fruit among us Why should the Turk and his alcoran cast forth the only true religion out of all his Territories where it did once so gloriously triumph and fructifie Syria Egypt Africa Greece and heresies and schisms out of other places The assurance of our own souls immortality would conduce not a little to the exciting of our dull and drowsy spirits unto a more quick and lively care of our future bliss and so dull we are and doubtfull of all things that it were almost necessary we had it and yet we are God wot so far from that that we even doubt our selves whether we our selves have any thing immortal in us nor is there left an argument in reason to convince us of it Is it not a strang thing that man the most excellent of creatures upon earth should be so left to his own disposition to turn and swarve as he pleases either to right hand or left and by that means to fill the earth with injurious disorders and enormities of sin which might as well have ever remained innocent and peaceable and all other creatures both above and below us go on orderly in their cours prescribed by their maker without any irregularity or deviation Does not every good maister of a hous keep his whole family in order if he can and know how to do it And God wants neither wisdom power or goodnes that he should be either not desirous or ignorant or not able to make all actually good What chain of causes known to man may unriddle these things Are not all things in daily change both to Kingdoms in general and each mans particular person both in matter of fame wealth power and other accidents But how do all these things happen as they do what is the immediate caus efficient what the final where doth the justice appear Histories tell us of little else but warres battles desolations deluges translation of empires the rise and downfall of kingdoms in their power renown and civility alteration of states and lawes succession of deepest barbarisme to most high civility and again of most exquisite civility unto horridest barbarisme mutation of languages pestilences oppression and liberties of people c. By what lawes of the almighty are all these things ordered and what justice infers such heaps of misery upon feeble mankind especially since we see even with our eyes that all invasion which sets afoot the greatest and most oecumenick changes is generally unjust If we do but only consider the horrid turmoils that have been at times in our own countrey by the Romans and Brittons Brittons and Saxes Saxes and Normans Scotch and English the two houses of York and Lancaster nay but the meer troubles of these last twenty years from 1640. to 1660. whereof we have been spectators and sufferers nor will there any pen be able to set down the miseries we have undergone wherein rebellion prevailed over loialty dissimulation over truth tenant over Lord subject over King even to the murdering of that sacred person by a pretended form of justice in the face of the world without any caus exhibited against him but only his own defence against their rebellion and the depriving his loiall subjects of their estates liberties and lives souldiers all the land over hovering daily over our heads like ravens over sick and dying bodies c. What justice what providence appears to us in all these things Are we not as blind as beetles to discern it The iniquity of man we understand well enough but Gods justice in so ordering or permitting it who can discern and yet there is doubtles a reason in heaven for all What distinction appears in this world betwixt the just man and unjust save that uprightnes and honesty for the most part goes to the worst Is it not a mystery that so many innocent souls persons of most exact vertue and good conscience both towards God and man should walk up and down many of them hungry and half starved traduced and

for when they had all under their feet that might any waies oppose or binder their design yet could they never bring to pass any of the spetious things they made pretens of the great welfar of our Kingdom settlement of a pure religion liberty of conscience and freedom of the subject unto all which their actions were so contrary all these twenty years together that man could not discern by their doings that they did so much as mean any such thing whether it were that they did indeed never sincerely intend or were not able to compas or by severall concurrencies of affairs were diverted and jusled from that end unto waies utterly opposite both to our good and their own too I was ever of opinion all the while that the account of Religion as the case stands needed not of all other things so highly to incens us one against another unto such injurious outrages as past amongst us and found in my heart several times to put pen to paper and utter my minde but I was retarded by the two reasons of my own small ability and my Countries indisposition at that time to such discours But now people seem more calmly disposed and my self somwhat bettered by reading more books of Quakers Anabaptists Presbyterians and by the society of these and severall others Wel-willers Seekers Atheists Philosophers The books of Roman Catholicks I had perused and digested a forehand our Protestant Religion I understood long ago being born and bred in that way So that an exact knowledg of all I am to speak together with my long observing experience will I hope somwhat supply my other wants One thing incourages me not a little to this enterprize which is that I have frequently observed that it is not alwaies a muchnes either of eloquence learning or wisdom that strikes a stroke in asswaging differences or makes a right understanding between parties but such a hidden caus somtims in the words and gestures of persons as we may rather call it chance than any thing else I have my self pacified neighbours even in their hottest dissentions when others of greater wisdom and acquaintance have prevailed less So that I have thereupon concluded that these kind of feudes against charity may have in them somwhat of the property of the tarantulaes stingings which be cured not by the best musick but the fittest Another thing I must adde that I never yet heard of any that so much as endeavoured to allay our religious distempers by the generall lights I go upon without which notwithstanding every one will remain so fixed in his own way that little good can be wrought as by daily experience we finde it true The Prince of all to picks in the alaying of these kind of combustions is that of Virgil Sed motos praestat componere fluctus Controversies be written on this side and that invective defiances made on all sides without end confutations of Sects bitter enough every where objections and replies endles some for Papists some against them some against our Protestants some for them some by Presbyterians some by Anabaptists some by Quakers against all some by all sorts against the Quakers But all these kind of disputes be so far from quenching that they adde still more fewel to the fire and make it both to flame more vehement and last longer and spread farther whiles every one remains so inveigled and addicted to his own way that he execrates all the rest and cannot let fall a good word for any or acknowledge a truth in them but Popery the devill of Popery we are so transported with the hatred of it that we could tear it in pieces with our teeth My dislike therfore of such mistakes and ungrounded rancour and the love I bear to a right understanding urge me to attempt what I see in this way no others go about a mitigation of groundles but dangerous animosities I had the very same good purpos when I wrote the Reclaimed Papist but Satan hindered me in that and I am resolved now once again for the good of my Countrey which I dearly love to try if I can compas it another way But I am finally inflamed to this work by a sight of his Majesties most gracious Speech together with the Lord Chancellors unto the two houses of Parliament upon their adjournment in September 1660. where one may evidently see our Sovereigns most earnest and even groaning desire of a moderate and prudent comportment in this Land one of us towards another according to the dictamen of our Christianity and right reason in these matters of Religion together with a promis of his utmost endeavours to our generall satisfaction if we in the interim could but have charity one towards another till he may understand how to please us all Could wisdom and goodnes it self desire ought of us that might either be more facil or rationall or more pleasing than that we should be good to our selves And who would not endeavour to his power what he sees so great a Prince desires as a thing necessary to the welfar of our Land which for want of this moderation hath been lately so miserably harassed and undone My Lord Chancellors words upon his Majesties suggestion are these There are two other particulars which I am commanded to mention which were both mentioned and commended unto you by his Majesty in his declaration from Breda the one for confirmation of sales or other recompens for purchases the other for the composing of those differences and distempers in Religion which have too much disturbed the peace of the Kingdom Two very weighty particulars c. For the first his Majesty hath not been without much thought c. the other of Religion is a sad argument indeed It is a consideration that must make every religious heart to bleed to see religion which should be the strongest obligation and ciment to affection and brotherly kindnes and compassion made now by the pervers wranglings of passionate and froward men the ground of all animosity hatred malice and revenge And this unruly and unmanly passion which no question but the divine nature exceedingly abhorres somtimes and I fear too frequently transports those who are in the right as those who are in the wrong c. These be the learned Chancellors words set down more at large in the last § of my book so grave discreet and patheticall that if they were seriously pondered as they deserv might suffice to put us to a stand even in the highest carreer of our most uncharitable animosities upon Religions account How many waies does the honourable Oratour turn himself to move us to our own welfar how wisely does he select his to picks how sweetly unites how vigorously presses ab essentialibus ab effectibus à contrariis ab inconvenientibus à dissimilibus c. to this effect Religion is the ciment of affection must or can that be the ground of malice Surely that is an evil passion by what