Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	witness_v	word_n	world_n	103	3	4.0733	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86299	The parable of the tares expounded & applyed, in ten sermons preached before his late Majesty King Charles the second monarch of Great Britain. / By Peter Heylin, D.D. To which are added three other sermons of the same author.	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.	1659 (1659)	Wing H1729; Thomason E987_1	253,775	424

hath it The Wolf and other enemies of the flock know this well enough and indeed labour all they can to destroy these Mastives Which when they could not do by violence they treated with the sheep as the Fable hath it to deliver them up into their hands but mark what followed thereupon Oves presidio Canum destitutas laniant the doggs being gone they fell upon the sheep and worried them and brought them to a swift destruction Lastly He hath supplied his Church from time to time with faithful Pastors for the defence and custody thereof from the common enemy such as have evermore exposed their persons to apparent dangers their good names to the calumnies of malicious tongues their fortunes many times to apparent ruine all for the safety of the flock for the defence of Christs and the Churches cause Witness those many sufferings of the Apostles as St. Paul describes them reviled yet blessing persecuted yet still suffering defamed and yet intreating and in a word ut mundi purgamenta facti accounted as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things to this very day And more then so in perils of waters in perils of robbers in perils by their own Countreymen in perils by the Heathen in perils in the City in perils in the Wilderness in perils by Sea in perils amongst false Brethren And to make up the total summe of their afflictions in stripes above measure in prisons more frequent in deaths oft The Devil knew how much the safety of the Flock depended on the care and vigilancy of the Shepherd and therefore he aims most at them Percutiam Pastorem dispergam gregem is the best Text in his Divinity This he hath practised in all times and ag●s upon the Prophets the Apostles Prelates Pastors the Shepherds of all ages many of all places some but upon none more visibly then our Saviour Christ who was not only il Pastor fido the faithful Shepherd whose eyes do neither sleep nor slumber that so his sheep might feed in safety on the Hills and Mountains but Pastor ille bonus the good Shepherd too even that good Shepherd of my Text. Not onely willing to expose his person to contempt a●d scorn as many of his followers since have done but also to lay down his● life to save his sheep which never any did in this world but he And so I come unto the eminent piety of our Saviour in the discharge of this imployment being not only ille Pastor that Shepherd but ille bonus Pastor that good Shepherd also my last particular and now in order to be handled Ego sum Pastor ille bonus I am the good Shepherd And first this goodness of the Lord though indivisible in it self hath been divided by the Schoolmen with good propriety both of words and meaning into two kindes or species The first they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Original the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exemplified Illa in Deo existens haec in creatur is expressa the first existing solely on the Lord our God the other copied out and manifested in his creatures That which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or original we may define to be an everlasting and unalterable quality in Almighty God qua modis omnibus summè bonus est whereby he is supremely and entirely good In which regard Plato hath said of God that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good only in and of himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only saving good as others of the Heathen call'd him And he that knew him best our most gracious Saviour hath given this to us for a Maxime That there is none good but onely God So good that the most blessed Vision of the Almighty is the most excellent good the summum bonum which any of the Saints or Angels can aspire unto Philosophers may wrangle and dispute amongst themselves of mans chief felicity and may ascribe it if they please to pleasure or riches or as the wiser sort have done to the works of vertue But we that are the sheep of our Saviours Pasture look for this summum bonum only in the Lord our God and there we shall be sure to finde it The other kind of goodness call'd by the Schoolmen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or exemplified is that which God hath mani●ested on his creatures and imparted to them This they divide again into general and special that being extended unto all his Creatures this more particularly restrained to his chosen servants This generall goodness clearly manifested in the Creation of the World quid enim aliud est Mundus quam Deus explicatus said the old Philosopher and in preserving of the same created cloathing the Lillies and feeding the young Ravens when they call upon him making his Sun to shine as well upon the sinner as the righteous person and in a word opening his hand and filling all things living with his plentiousness In which respect David most truly tells us of him repleta est terra bonitate Domini the Earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. But that which most especially doth concern this business is his special goodness restrained unto his chosen servants to such as fear his name and observe his precepts The Lord is good to Israel saith the royal Psalmist his qui recto sunt corde even unto all such as are of a clean heart And the Book of Lamentations The Lord is good to them that wait for him to the soul that seeks him This goodness is manifested declared in delivering them from evil the evil both of sin and punishment and in accumulating on them his most sacred blessings both of grace and glory For if an earthly Father as our Saviour urgeth though full of evil in himself knoweth how to provide good things for his natural Children how much more shall our Father which is in Heaven bestow good things on those whom he hath adopted This is enough to make us sensible of Gods goodness to us And yet the way by which this goodness is procured for us is far more admirable the Lord not sparing his own Sonne but delivering him up for us all that with him he might also freely give us all things as St. Paul instructs us This is indeed the highest point of heavenly goodness And very hard it is to say whether deserve more of our admiration either that God the Father should appoint it so or God the Sonne considered in our flesh should act the Tragedy I shall no longer wonder at the strange Command which God once layd upon our Father Abraham Abraham take now thy Sonne thine only Sonne Isaac whom thou lovest and offer him for a burnt Offering to the Lord thy God Here finde we God the Father really performing what he imposed on Abraham tentandi causa only for triall of his faith and his obedience Nor shall I much admire at the zeal

progeny The Devil sowed in man the first seeds of Lust and lust conceiving brought forth sin God had no hand therein at all more then in executing justice for the sinne committed and imposing death upon the sinner Therefore let no man say when he is tempted I was tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with evill neither tempteth he any man but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed So the Apostle hath resolved it And well it is that it is so resolved by the Apostle otherwise one might happily have met with some who not considering that whatsoever God made was good and that the Seed he soweth is also good would take upon them to make him guilty of all the sinne and mischief which lewd men commit Florinus taught so once in the primitive times one of the Scholars of Montanus and the Cataphrygians Thereupon Irenaeus published a Discourse with this Inscription 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God was not the Authour of sinne And he gave this Inscription to it as the Story tells us because Florinus with great violence and earnestnesse had taught the contrary opinion It seemes Florinus was an Heretick of no common aimes and would not satisfie himself with these vulgar follies which had been taken up before him but was resolved ponere os in coelum to strike at Heaven and plant his battery against the very Throne of Almighty God And therefore it is said of him by Irenaeus that he had spread abroad those blasphemous tenets which never any of the former Hereticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had once dared to broach Yet bold and venturous though he were we do not finde that he became the head of any faction in the Church or that his followers if he had any ever attained unto the height of their Masters impudence Some therefore of the ensuing Hereticks who in their hearts had entertained the same opinions did in their writings recommend them to the world in a different habit for they had cloaked and clothed this blasphemy with the more plausible and specious titles of destiny and of the Starres the most inevitable decrees of the one and unresistible influence of the other necessitating men unto those foule actions which they had committed Thus are we told of Bardesanes Quòd fato conversationes hominum ascriberet that he ascribed all things to the power of fate And thus it is affirmed of Priscillianus fatalibus astris homines alliga●os esse that men were governed by the Starres which last St. Austin hath affirmed also of one Colarbas save that he gave this power and influence to the Planets only But these if pondered as they ought differ but little if at all from the impiety of Florinus before remembred only they were expressed and published in a better Language and seemed to savour somewhat of the Philosopher for if the Lord had passed such an unevitable and irreversible Law of Fate that these and these men should be guilty of those foul transgressions which they so frequently committed it were all one in the true sense and meaning of it as if he were proclaimed the Author of those sins which they had committed and then why might not every man take unto himself the excuse and plea of Agamemnon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was not I that did it but the Gods and Destiny or if the Lord had given so irrefistible a power unto the Starres as to inforce men to be wickedly and lewdly given what differs this from making God the Author of those vicious actions to which by them we are inforced and then why might not every man return his sins upon the Lord and say as did some such in St. Austines time accusandum potiùs authorem syderum quàm commissorem scelerum which granted we might passe an Index Expurgatorius on the holy Creed and quite raze out the 7th Article that viz. of our Saviours comming unto judgement for how could God condemn his creatures to unquenchable flames in case the sins by them committed were not so properly and truly theirs as his in them or punish them for that whereof he is Author or unto which he doth inforce them So excellently true is that which Fulgentius tells us Deus non est eorum ultor quorum est autor But were Florinus and those other Hereticks in the former times the only men that broached these Doctrines and have these latter dayes think we been free from so great impiety certainly I could wish they were though I dare not hope it finding the same blasphemous follies charged upon the Libertines a late brood of Sectaries These taught as did Florinus in the dayes of old Quicquid ego et tu facimus Deus efficit nam in nobis est and so made God the Author of those wicked actions which themselves committed The founders of the Sect Coppinus and Quintinus Flemmings both and these Prateolus affirms for certain to be the Progenie of Calvin and other leading men of the Protestant Churches Bellarmine somewhat more remissely Omnino probabile esteos ex Calvinianis promanasse and makes it only probable that it might be so but neither rightly for Staphylus reckoning up the Sects that sprung from Luther however that in other things he flies out too farre yet makes no mention of these fellows Paraus on the other side in his corrections on the Cardinal assures us that they both were Papists acquaints us with the place of their nativity and the proceedings had against them Calvin who writ a tract against them makes one Franciscus Poquinus a Franciscan Frier a principal stickler in the cause And we may adde ex abundanti that the said Sect did take beginning Anno 529. when Calvin yet was very young and of no credit in the world no not amongst those very men who have since admired him and made his word the touchstone of all Orthodox Doctrine So that for the reviving of this Heresie in these latter Ages so farre forth as it is delivered positively and in expresse termes which was the blasphemy of Florinus we are beholding for it to the Church of Rome or some that had been members of it how willingly soever they would charge it on the Protestant Doctors Yet true it is for magna veritas praevalebit that some and those of no small name in these forraign Churches which think themselves a pattern unto all the rest have given too just a ground for so great a scandall And well it were they had observed that caution in their publick writings which Caesar looked for from his Wife and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they had been as free from the suspicion as the crime it selfe for howsoever they affirm it not in termes exprest which was the desperate boldness of Florinus yet can it hardly be denyed that they came too near it to a tantamont by way of necessary consequence and