Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	lord_n	people_n	sin_n	3,287	5	4.6566	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37433	The poor man's plea to all the proclamations, declarations, acts of Parliament, &c. which have been or shall be made or publish'd for a reformation of manners and suppressing immorality in the nation.	Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.	1698 (1698)	Wing D841; ESTC R26079	12,740	33

Conversing and their common Behaviour among their Servants and Neighbours 1. The Gentry They are the Original of the Modes and Customs and Manners of their Neighbours and their Examples in the Countries especially are very moving There are three several Vices which have the principal Management of the greatest part of Mankind viz. Drunkenness Swearing and Whoring all of them very ill becoming a Gentlemen however Custom may have made them Modish Where none of these Three are in a House there is certainly something of a Plantation of God in the Family for they are such Epidemick Distempers that hardly Human Nature is entirely free from them 1. Drunkenness that brutish Vice a Sin so sordid and so much a Force upon Nature that had God Almighty enjoyn'd it a Duty I believe many a man would have ventur'd the loss of Heaven rather than have perform'd it The Pleasure of it seems to be so secretly hid that wild Heathen Nations know nothing of the matter 't is only discover'd by the wise people of these Northern Countries who are grown Proficients in Vice Philosophers in Wickedness who can extract a Pleasure to themselves in losing their Understanding and make themselves sick at heart for their Diversion If the History of this well bred Vice was to be written 't would plainly appear that it begun among the Gentry and from them was handed down to the poorer sort who still love to be like their Betters After the Restitution of King Charles the Second when drinking the King's Health became the distinction between a Cavalier and a Roundhead Drunkenness began its Reign and it has Reign'd almost Forty Years The Gentry caress'd this Beastly Vice at such a Rate that no Companion no Servant was thought proper unless he could bear a Quantity of Wine And to this day 't is added to the Character of a Man as an additional Title when you would speak well of him He is an honest drunken Fellow as if his Drunkenness was a Recommendation of his Honesty From the practice of this nasty Faculty our Gentlemen have arriv'd to the teaching of it and that it might be effectually preservd to the next Age have very early instructed the Youth in it Nay so far has Custom prevail'd that the Top of a Gentleman's Entertainment has been to make his Friend drunk and the Friend is so much reconcil'd to it that he takes that for the effect of his Kindness which he ought as much to be affronted at as if he had kick'd him down Stairs Thus 't is become a Science and but that the Instruction proves so easy and the Youth too apt to learn possibly we might have had a Colledge erected for it before now The further perfection of this Vice among the Gentry will appear in two things that 't is become the Subject of their Glory and the way of expressing their Joy for any publick Blessing Iack said a Gentleman of very high Quality when after the Debate in the House of Lords King William was voted into the vacant Throne Iack says he God damn ye Jack go home to your Lady and tell her we have got a Protestant King and Queen and go and make a Bonfire as big as a House and bid the Bntler make ye all drunk ye Dog Here was Sacrificing to the Devil for a Thanksgiving to God Other Vices are committed as Vices and men act them in private and are willing to hide them but Drunkenness they are so fond of that they will glory in it boast of it and endeavour to promote it as much as possible in others 'T is a Triumph to a Champion of the Bottle to repeat how many Quarts of Wine he has drank at a sitting and how he made such and such honest Fellows drunk Men Lye and Forswear and hide it and are asham'd of it as indeed they have reason to do But Drunkenness and Whoring are Accomplishments People value themselves upon repeat them with pleasure and affect a sort of Vanity in the History are content all the World should be Witnesses of their Intemperance have made the Crime a Badge of Honour to their Breeding and introduce the practice as a Fashion And whoever gives himself the trouble to reflect on the Custom of our Gentlemen in their Families encouraging and promoting this Vice of Drunkenness among the poor Commons will not think it a Scandal upon the Gentry of England if we say That the Mode of drinking as 't is now practised had its Original from the Practice of the Country Gentlemen and they again from the Court. It may be objected and God forbid it should not That there are a great many of our Nobility and Gentlemen who are Men of Honour and Men of Morals and therefore this Charge is not universal To which we answer 'T is universal for all that because those very Gentlemen though they are negatively clear as to the Commission of the Crimes we speak of yet are positively guilty in not executing that Power the Law has put into their hands with an Impartial Vigor For where was that Gentleman or Justice of the Peace ever yet found who executed the Terms of the Law upon a Drunken Swearing Lewd Gentleman his Neighbour but the Quality of the Person has been a License to the open Exercise of the worst Crimes as if there were any Baronets Knights or Squires in the next World who because of those little step Custom had raised them on higher than their Neighbours should be exempted from the Divine Judicature or that as Captain Vrats said who was Hang'd for Murth'ring Esquire ●hynn God would show them some respect as they were Gentlemen If there were any reason why a Rich Man should be permitted in the publick Exercise of Open Immoralities and not the Poor Man something might be said But if there be any difference it lies the other way for the Vices of a Poor Man affect only himself but the Rich Man's Wickedness affects all the Neighbourhood gives offence to the Sober encourages and hardens the Lewd and quite overthrows the weak Resolutions of such as are but indifferently fix'd in their Virtue and Morality If my own Watch goes false it deceives me and none else but if the Town Clock goes false it deceives the whole Parish The Gentry are the Leaders of the Mob if they are Lewd and Drunken the others strive to imitate them if they Discourage Vice and Intemperance the other will not be so forward in it nor so fond of it To think then to effect a Reformation by Punishing the Poor while the Rich seem to Enjoy a Charter for wickedness is like taking away the Effect that the Cause may cease We find some People very fond of Monopolizing a Vice they would have all of it to themselves they must as my Lord Rochester said of himself Sin like a Lord little sneaking Sins won't serve turn but they must be Lewd at a rate above the Common Size to let the World see