Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	punishment_n	sin_n	sin_v	1,923	5	9.5821	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35166	The cynosura, or, A saving star that leads to eternity discovered amidst the celestial orbs of David's Psalms, by way of paraphrase upon the Miserere.	Cross, Nicholas, 1616-1698.	1670 (1670)	Wing C7252; ESTC R21599	203,002	466

by the Heavens examine what Splendour hath issued from your Actions by which your Subjects might steer the course of their lives and be guided free from Shipwrack to the Haven of eternal rest For if they lose themselves on the Sands of misbelief or dashed upon the Rock of Vanity unlawful pleasures and the like for want of your directing beams their ruine will be laid to your charge and were it permitted you to hear the sad complaints and dire invectives those perished Souls do vomit forth against their Leaders who have deceived and tilled them on into misery it would certainly have influence upon you and oblige you to a greater circumspection in your wayes and manner of life If you own Nobility and Honour which the Mountains personate remember you are the Object of many inferiour eyes you are looked upon with respect and indeed as the Glass which should convey unto them the true representation of their Prince For he being but one and consequently not so communicable it is your parts who are dispersed through Kingdoms to supply what he cannot do to shew by your Justice Piety Devotion Charity and other Christian vertues that the practice of them can onely maintain your greatness and is the Foundation of all your hopes in another life which Principles lively set forth in your actions cannot but fix your dependants in a strange passion towards goodness and ground them in a Belief that it ought to be the ultimate scope of all their endeavours and enterprizes in this world Nor are those of the meaner rank hinted at by the Valleys exempt from all obligation in this kind There is not a Master of a family but is as it were a Sovereign to those who depend on him He ought to be the first at every pious duty to see his little flock fed with all necessary instructions in order to what Christianity obliges them to know and believe to carry a watchful Eye over them that he may know their faults to correct their vertues to reward and encourage if they fail in this they may say with David I have sinned against thee alone Though there be none under their roof can be a competent Judge yet this will not render them innocent and this our holy Penitent confesses who in this expression acknowledges the excellency and multitude of God's favours in being a King and consequently the highest ingratitude on his part towards the Author of them The Application By this clause we are further taught that if at any time we fail in our duty the principal motive of that ressentment must be in that it is displeasing to God whose onely frown we apprehend For when we trespass against our Neighbour the evil is in reference to God who forbids it whence every sinner may justly say I have sinned against thee alone So that we ought not to regard our temporal but eternal Penalties due to sin for that concerns our Soul which alone is the source of all our transgressions Wherefore our chief solicitude ought to be for its preservation Wherein we are to imitate St. Mary Magdalen who pressed in her spiritual necessity had a personal recourse to her dear Saviour but when concerned in the loss of her Brothers life she contented her self to dispatch away a letter by a servant insinuating by this the distinction she made between a soul and Body I wish we might all in this follow her Example that is espouse the Souls interest as the main concern Since in relation only to that we are to pronounce tibi soli peccavi I have sinned against thee alone CHAP. X. Vt justificiens in Sermonibus tuis vincas cum judicaris That thou mayest be justified in thy words and overcome when thou art judged OUr holy penitent tells us in this clause why he brought his guiltiness as King upon the Stage because by it the petitioned will be justified in his words which are these that he will never reject a truly repenting heart and he thinks they were never put more home to the Test than in his Person for who can despair after his admission into favour who had broken all the chains and tyes of duty wherein a Creature is linked and obliged by a most loving and liberal Creatour Besides the pardon of his ingratitude will serve as a fence against the rash judgements of the impious who are apt to lay severity to God's charge upon the reprobation of a sinner this makes our penitent to add that thou mayest overcome when thou and judged that is when his case shall be alledged it will stop and silence any blasphemous Tongue I believe also he reflected on the promise made by God that out of his line● should issue forth the hope of Israel the Redeemer of mankind and lest his sin might divert the streams of God's mercy and frustrate his succeeding stemms of that glorious off-spring he minds him first of his promise to receive with open arms the most enormous if repenting Soul nextt his Foundation laid he would insinuate since by an act of mercy he was again planted in the Region of grace his hopes now are that the promises made by Heaven to him and his posterity might stand good that their accomplishment would be a confirmation to him of a plenary indulgence and a pledge that his punishment should not reach to so heavy a Confiscation in order to his temporal satisfaction But you must know when he sayes that thou mayest be justified c. This particle that imports not the efficient cause of the precedent verse to wit he had sinned against God alone to the end God may be justifyed as if the motive of God's justification gave rise to his sin No no it means only this that the eminency of his condition rendered him guilty of the highest ingratitude and since the torrent of God's mercy had born this clear away the publication of this pardon must needs exalt the divine goodness and testify to the World there is no iniquity so monstrous which may not if we will be overcome by his mercy whence he is justified in his words never to be a stranger to those who return with Repentance unto him How many times hath God been irritated by Man's ingratitude nay so touched to the quick as to declare he repented to have made him that is if God were capable of defect or change this exorbitancy in man might well deserve such a repentance have we not seen a Pharaoh prodigiously unmoved insensible as a statue at the sight of miracles which confounded all his inchanters and false Gods yet had not this unbelieving Prince hardned his own heart God had reserved one greater wonder to work in his behalf that is upon his sumission to receive him unto mercy what can be thought of more indulgent than his amarous care and conduct of his people through the desart and yet even when he was prescribing a Law and Rule for the observance of their Duties they frame