Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	line_n	page_n	read_v	7,070	5	11.4609	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84082	Animadversions on a book called, A plea for non-scribers. By Ephraim Elcock.	Elcock, Ephraim.	1651 (1651)	Wing E325; Thomason E636_2; ESTC R206574	62,788	67

most part deserves compassion that never 3. Some men must be answered in their own way It 's a hard thing for him that deales with Jesuites not to contract some-what of their petulancy saith the Prefacer to Ignatius his Conclave Look upon the height of the adverse writing and thou wilt confess that against such a peece Difficile est Satyram non Scribere Reader if thou be candid and ingenuous I need not beg thy pardon for common frailties if thou be not I shall but lose my labour in desiring it Farewel To the worthy Authour of these Animadversions SIR THe reiterated thanks wherein you have expressed a great sense of the small pains which I freely took to make your Animadversions publick doth oblige me to apologize for the long delay of this publication for I think it just that the publick should know that your part of this work was long agoe performed Seeing it is at lest if I mistake not 9. or 10. Moneths since I saw the Manuscript whereby you were delivered of this birth but the want of fit addresses you being unacquainted with the way to appear in publick hath almost stifled this Infant since it had life at lest it comes now into the world almost out of due time For my own part I had without your knowledge accidentally the perusal thereof and although I found as then I told the party who shewed it unto me something more sharp in it then my Genius did affect yet finding it also a piece both judicious accurate and solid as to the matter and also full of learning of good reading and of quickness of spirit as to your manner of handling that matter I thought my self bound in love to the truth and to the publick good to lend it the hand of a Midwife in bringing it to the Presse which could be done but very slowly partly because of the lets which the Stationers and Printers to whom application was made did cast us partly because of other occasions which took me off from minding this design wherein the publick cause is much beholden to you and such as are ingenuous will no lesse acknowledge it then doth Your loving Friend and Servant in Christ J. D. ERRATA PAge 13. line 10. for Josua read Hosea p. 31. l. 21. for is r. as p. 34. l. 28. for tooting r. footing p. 39. l. 2. for Tithes r. Titles l. 27. for either r. neither l. 28. for or r. nor A Preface in answer to Non-scribers Apology IT was a good observation of Seneca's upon the stile of Macenas a great stickler for Augustus his tyranny Haec verba tam imprebè structa tam contra consuetudinem omnium posita ostendunt mores quoque non minus novos pravos singulares fuisse Sen. Epist 114. That the ill structure and uncouth composure of his words argued his manners to be naughtily singular The same observation may be made upon the many battologies of these Advocates for Tyranny but their fastidious vanity is especially visible in the Title of their Book they call Non-scribers which last word was never before this attempt of theirs naturalized English a word it is of as absurd derivation as that Anticomarita concerning which Erasmus was fain to bring in a Synod of Grammarians to know whence it came and what it meant whereof one said it was an Herbe another a Fish a third a woman c. Erasm Colloqu Synod Grammaticorum The elegancy of the●r etymologie together with the perplexedness of the Syntax will require a Synod of themselves to resolve us Non-scribers take it in the best sence are those that write not and had they meant themselves it had been fitter to have called their Book the plea of Non-scribers then for Non-scribers so that it may be thought that they intended it for a plea for them that were illiterate and could not write for themselves The next thing in the front of your Book is their pretence to modesty to the vindicating of which vertue to themselves they make an Essay in these words what we shall say may like the words of wise men Plea c. Pag. 2. though we boast not to be such be heard in secret Yet as if they had forgotten what their Title promiseth load the opinion they are about to impugne and the persons with whom they contend with many condemnatory invectives Ibid. p. 2. 3. before they produce one Argument calling engaging sin Engagers such as are going on in their sin and the Engagement the Helena of the Northern Subscribers What modesty it is to condemn an action opinion or person for sinful before proving them such I care not to let the most impudent judge It hath been ever held to be modesty for a man that entereth into controversie to think humbly of himself at least-wise not to be his own Trumpeter yet these men that before disclaimed boasting of their wisdom Plea c. pag. 7. tell us that they are the peaceable of the Land the very words of her whom the Scripture calls a wise woman and point us to the place least the Reader should doubt of their wisdom 2 Sam. 20.16.19 And in another place they intimate that had we wanted this product of a Parturient Mountain the English Presse had been no lesse injurious to posterity then the Egyptian Midwives had been Plea c. pag. 4. had they obey'd Pharaoh's Edict for strangling the Israelitish males as if what they writ only had masculine strength and the fruits of all others were but faeminine productions of the Scriptures which Garnish their frontispiece the first returns in their book the second makes nothing for them since no Agrippa gave them leave to speak and there is much difference between licensed publick speaking to the satisfaction of a Judge and unlicensed pamphleting to the stirring up of the people Plea c. pag. 2. Yet this their way after some few intimations of their deliberation to that purpose they defend as lawful by four reasons 1. Because it is a weighty case of Conscience 1. Because concerning many and among others themselves and those in relation to them 2. Because difficult to resolve To this we answer that if weighty cases of Conscience because concerning many and difficult of resolution oblige Ministers to give a publick testimony of their opinions it obliges them in all such things and by this shift it will not be lawful for the Magistrate to make any new Law before the Ministers have cast in their verdict at leastwise none is to obey before they have declared If nothing of a religious reduction must be ordained by the Magistrate but what is approved by these Censors what is the Magistrate but the meer Lictor of the Ministers Plea c. pag. 3. 2. Because the Engagement is not left voluntary but ordained under a penalty and they ought to speak before they be adjudged To which we say 1. That this liberty