Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	woman_n	word_n	work_n	81	3	4.9223	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91881	John the Baptist, forerunner of Christ Iesvs: or, A necessity for liberty of conscience, as the only meanes under heaven to strengthen children weake in faith; to convince hereticks mis-led in faith; to discover the gospel to all such as yet never heard thereof; and establish peace betweene all states and people throughout the world; according unto which, were both our Saviours commission, and the apostles practice for the propagation of it peaceably: as appeares most evidently by sundry Scriptures digested into chapters, with some observations at the end of every one; most humbly devoted to the use and benefit of all such as are zealously inquisitive after truth; piously disposed to imbrace it, and constantly resolved to practice it in their lives and conversations; to the honour of God, the edifying of their brethren, and their owne salvation unto eternity. The contents of the chapters follow in the next leaf. This is licenced, but not permitted to be entred according to order.	Robinson, Henry, 1605?-1664?	1644 (1644)	Wing R1673; Thomason E9_13; ESTC R15393	119,971	135

was I stoned thrice I suffered shipwrack a night and a day I have been in the deepe in journeying often in peri●s o● waters in perils of robbers in perils by mine own co●ntrimen in perils by the heathen in perils in the city in perils in the wild●n●es in weari●es and 〈◊〉 in watchings often in hunger and thirst in fastings aften in cold and nakednes 2 Cor. 11. from v. 23. to v. ●7 and all this for the propagation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and converting soules to him Paul might have been as worldly politick as another and desirous to save his own skin He had as great a temptation of temporall preferments but he feared no colours still making it his meat and dri●ke in imitation of his Saviour to doe the will of God and finish the worke of him that sent him Joh. 4.34 No carnall respects must cause us ●o deny or so much as be ashamed of our profession but as true Christian souldiers having put on the whole armour of God which is spirituall Ephes 6 11,12 come life come death we must keep our station so exercising our selves as that we may alwayes keep a good conscience both before God and men and 〈…〉 comforted that God is both able and willing very pitifull and of tender 〈◊〉 to deliver reward and save all such as shall endure unto the end Jam 5.11 Psal 34.17 Math. 10.22 So that if such as doe not agree with us about the true sense and meaning of some Scriptures or differ from us in some opinions conc●ive themselves notwithstanding bound in conscience to endeavour the gaining proselites unto their cause here we see they have as full a warrant for it in their own judgements and apprehensions as we our selves can possibly alleadge the very selfe same Scriptures and arguments with us neither can we produce one tittle if they may be the Judges or other indifferent men which hold with neither side why our reasons should more prevaile with them than theirs beare sway with us Wherefore we ought to be so far from prohibiting them in a coercive way from discharging of their conscience as rather to approve and take example thereby to doe the same like those who may now have learnt that it is not in clubs staves or such like carnal projects to vanquish Spirituall wickednesses nothing but the Spirit of truth in a Spirituall way of warfaring can cast out and overcome the spirits of Heresie and Error 4 This precept or command of preaching the Word was imposed upon all the Ministers of Christ in their successive generations upon no lesse necessity or woe to such as disobeyed than unto Paul himselfe and Timothy was required to commit the same things unto others which Paul had said unto him that they might doe the like unto the end of the world every man being obliged and bound to improve his talent to the utmost of his power for building up the mysticall body of Christ untill we come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Sonne of God unto a perfect man unto the measure and stature of the fulnesse of Christ Mat. 25.23.27 Eph. 4.11,12,13 5 Paul as soone as he had his call from God to preach the Gospel waited no attendance upon mans ordinances but suddenly went about his businesse which he could not have done if a Civill Magistrate o● pretending superiour power should have prevented him by a coercive jurisdiction And how can fraile man know but God doth still set apart others from our mothers wombe for his service as well as Paul or how can they tell who they are for the very Disciples of Jesus were afraid of Paul at first and did not know that he was become a Disciple 6 This charging of men to teach the truth only which Timothy was to use appeares to be out verball in that if they obeyed not he himselfe was charged to turne away from them 2 Tim. 3 5. 7 This subjection to the house of Stephanas could be no other than voluntarie nor signifie any thing else than reverence and honour to such as laboured in the vineyard of the Lord giving heed to what they said and he are it willingly receive it respectfully and apply it to our selves making such use of it as God intended but to imagine that this subjection were called for by the Apostle as unto those which have a coercive power and jurisdiction were incongruous because it cannot be equally performed unto an houshold nor possibly to every person thereof according to this Scripture besides the women children and servants which are part of the family and might all assist in some respect of edifying or administring to the Saints were incapable of such authority whether for sex yeares or condition in relation to the master of the family but might give just cause unto the Brethren to reverence and be subject to the whole houshold in the Lord Jesus 8 It is granted that many of Pauls Epistles and other workes may be lost but unlesse we keepe close unto the word of God which is conveyed unto us we must necessarily run into an inextricable laborinth on the other side for every man will pretend to be his owne interpreter and well hee may at least accept of no other than he himselfe approves of since it is his owne businesse which he ought to understand best and concernes his owne soule whereof who himself must give account Rom. 14.12 and so of those other places Let all things b● done decently and in order 1 Cor. 14.40 and the rest will I set in order when I come C. 11 34. Though it be not specified perhaps how Paul ordered afterwards that which was there resting yet certaine it is that being acted by the same s●…rit it could not vary much lesse contradict that po●tion of holy Scripture which is revealed and the most secure way for u● i● not to exceed in ordering any thi●g substantially 〈◊〉 from what we finde expressed already for if wee grant liberty for exceeding it will be lawfull to all alike since each man can best judge and must have the ordering of his owne conscience which he neither may nor can submit unto anothers 't is very fond to thinke that we may take this freedome to our selves of adding as if we wanted cleere evidence sufficient for setling such a government and order as God requires for even the same Paul said that he rejoyced beholding the Colossians order C. 2 5. which must have beene after that passage to the Corinthians if they be well ranked in our printed Bibles but whether it were so or no the matter is not much 't is sufficient for us that the Colossians order was compleat He tells Timothy These things write I unto thee hoping to come unto thee shortly but if I tarry that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thy selfe in the house of God 1 Tim. 3.14,15 To the Romans he sayes the word is nigh thee even

Observations on CHAP. III. IF our Saviour will not breake a brused reed what thinke we of they that make a profession of tormenting the broken hearted and use violence to tender consciences If Christ whilest he was on earth preaching of his owne Gospel declares that he was not to judge such as did not beleeve it what is man that he dares torment and judge the people before the time Matth. 8.29 If Gods word must doe it and that in the last day whence are these Consistories Inquisition houses High Commission Courts with all their humane Ordinances and Canons which anticipate or antidate Gods judgements Who art then O man that judgest another whom God that is able to make him stand will hold up Rom 14.4 as if he should say some are so prejudged who yet shall stand as if set up on purpose to shew the depth of Gods power and counsells in condemning the rashnesse of such other forward judgements Our Saviour told his Disciples saying As my Father hath sent me so send I you Joh. 20.21 and if you will heare how he was sent he sayes of himselfe I am not sent save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel Matth. 15.24 And I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance Mark 2.17 The Son of man is not come to destroy mens lives but to save them Luke 9.56 He hath sent me to heale the broken hearted C. 4.18 And according hereunto we finde so many sweet qualifications of a Bishop recommended by Paul to Timothy and Titus which had they beene well reflected on in our choice of Ministers we should not have had so many pious people driven out of the Country they ought not to be soone angry no strikers gentle apt to teach patient meek instructing even those that doe oppose each where of is so opposite to persecution and all so sweetly sympathising and combining as were they found in Ministers being according to Gods avouched Ordinance they could not choose but miraculously conduce to the propagation of the Gospel It sayes indefinitely they must instruct such as oppose how dare we then give over instructing so long as they are willing to heare it nay they must yet goe somewhat further in season and out of season 2 Tim. 4. ● and with such long suffering as may recover Paul from the fire of persecuting others Jude 23. and receive a good theefe from the crosse Luke 23.43 But how necessary and considerable this meeknesse is for instructing all opposers we may clearly learne by way of a similitude from such as have seen how little execution the fiercest Canon shot point blanke can doe against mud-walls or wool-sacks And since besides the spotlesse example of our Saviour we finde the Apostles were contented to keepe themselves to the foolishnesse of the Gospel and only shake the dust from off their feet against such as rejected the Gospel shall we be excusable that undervalue and slight the simplicity of Gods Ordinances will we be wiser than God himselfe or have wee a stock of superogation to returne unto God more then we owe him or he requireth of us But to argue with such in the sphere of Politicks wherein they thinke themselves so active is it not the highest indiscretion to make our selves more worke then needs and has not God continually declared himselfe that obedience is better than sacrifice 1 Sam. 15.22 When Elisha had bid Naaman wash himselfe seven times in the River Jordan and his flesh should returne whole again Naaman thinking this an unlikely way because easie forbore to make triall of it untill his servants said What if the Prophet had bid thee doe some great thing wouldest thou not have done it how much rather when he saith only Wash and be cleane 2 King 5.10,11,12,13 May not God in like manner justly reprehend and even with much justice confound these hotspurs of Persecution who when our Saviour orders them only to exhort with long suffering reprove rebuke and shake off the dust as a witnes against such as will not receive the Gospel decline these wayes of God and betake themselves to their own inventions of imprisoning fining banishing and putting to death will not God say who hath required these things at your hands Esa 1.12 and because they have not been faithfull in a little cast them with the unprofitable servant into utter darknes Matth. 25.30 When Paul had provoked the Jewes to imbrace the Gospel by all faire meanes and they resisted it he conceived his Commission and trust was discharged taking himselfe to be cleere from their blood Act. 18.6 whereas we thinke nothing will cleere us in such cases unlesse we shed their blood for though a miraculous power wore ceased which I nothing doubt whether it be otherwise ceased than on our part through want of faith in us to exercise it yet this is not ground sufficient for us to flie unto the Civill power there must be both a lawfull calling to it and an expresse warrant towards whom to use it I know the Prophesie of Esaiah is much stood upon that Kings and Queenes shall be nursing Fathers and nursing mothers unto the Church Isa 49.23 but the meaning thereof is by subjecting themselves to the Churches Spirituall Power not by giving power to any to suppresse the visible Church as appeareth by the context it is by granting the Church a libertie of profession not by imposing on them a ●…aldome of Conscience by favouring and countenancing all such as follow after Godlines not by pretending to know it better then the Church it self and so woorry lambs in stead of wolves In the 10. of John our blessed Saviour gives us many properties both of good and bad Shepherds saying of himselfe I am the good Shepherd and the good Shepherd layeth down his life for his sheep ver 1 1. Now if we doe but take a little notice of this supereminent character of a good Shepherd in laying down his life we cannot chuse but see the Persecuter must necessarily be the worst of Shepheards and principally contradistinguished from the best in this that he takes away the lives of his sheepe Had this case been brought before the wise King Salomon he would as certainly have declared such persecuters who continually perplex and hunt the sheep to be hirelings and no true shepherds as he did that woman to be the feigned mother who cryed out for dividing of the child 1 King 3.25.26.27 The Israelites by the Law of Moses were forbid to vexe a stranger because they were once strangers in Egypt Exod. 22.21 And wives are commanded to be subject to their husbands that if any obey not the Word they also may without the Word be won by the conversation of their wives 1 Pet. 3.1 And for the s●me cause Paul requires us to give no offence neither to Jew nor Gentile nor to the Church of God 1 Cor. 10.32 and Peter bids us have our conversation honest amongst the Gentiles

that whereas they speake against us as evill doers they may by our good works which they shall behold glorifie God in the day of visitation 1 Pet. 2.12 Thus are all Christians call'd upon to be courteous gentle meeke long suffering ready to give a reason to every one that asks and all other good works which may make their conversation acceptable and winning But how it should be possible for the conversation of Persecuters to become pleasing or lesse than hatefull and driving men from God will oppose that arch enemy of mankind to make appeare for justifying of his instruments at the dreadfull day of judgement when amongst other hideous stories shall be ripped up full many not unlike to that which is reported of certaine Americans who amongst millions being condemned to death by persecuting Spaniards and pressed upon by the silly Popish Priests that they would suddenly bethinke themselves now they were in the midst of slames ready to expire the last and leave this world asked where the Spaniards went after death that they might desire to goe rather any where else then thither Now as this is no good way of preaching much lesse of winning all Nations so it is granted by all Christians that the Jewes in their posterity shall infallibly be converted unto the acknowledgement of the Gospel but if all the world else had been Christian and all Christians held for persecuting of them the whole Nation must have been long since cut off by the Magistrates sword for blaspheming of Christ Jesus and thereby have falsified so many cleere Prophecies throughout the Law and Gospel for their conversion This is so evident that the Pope himselfe the Grand Inquisitor throughout his Civill Dominions both in Italie and France permits the Jewes to live and enjoy exact proprie●ie of goods freedome of persons and as great a liberty of Conscience in worshipping God after their own way as they themselves desire Severall other free Princes in Italie Germanie as also the Vnited Provinces vouchsafe them so large protection that we may well agree with Peter Martyr loc com class 2. c. 4. how God hath set a kind of mark upon the Jewes as he did on Cain that though they had been never so obstinate and rebellious yet he would not have them put to death but rather live that Christians cut out of the wild Olive tree by nature and grafted into the good by this hard-heartednes of theirs might take example and be so much more watchfull of continuing in Gods goodnes lest He also cut them off againe Rom. 11.22.24 so that as Paul saith Rom. 11.12 if the fulnesse of the Jewes be the riches of the world and the diminishing of them the rickes of the Gentiles how much more the permitting them still to live a continuall warning-piece and remembrancer whilst they persist in obstinacie and how most of all will their fulnes at conversion be a greater cause of joy unto the Gentiles and as it were another life from death ver 15. If these and such other reasons as are alleadged will not prevaile to suffer them and other tares untill the harvest we had need seeke out some other warrant than any extant in our Bibles or find some better glosse to excuse us at the day of tryall than any which hither to have been produced And since Paul foretold us that the conversion of the Jewes will be such joy and riches unto the Gentiles Rom. 11.12.15 I humbly crave leave to propound it as a Querie which may justly inject no little scruple into the mindes of Christian States Whether all the Gentiles shall fare well alike in the Jewes returning or such only and they proportionably to what they have contributed thereunto by permitting them to live amongst them and furthering their conversion by a godly conversation with all other meanes prescribed by our Saviour and his Apostles for alluring them unto the Gospel In the Acts 2.41 we find it said That they which gladly received the Word were baptized and according unto that example it will follow that such as doe not gladly receive it should not be baptized much lesse enjoyned to come and participate in the Communion of the body and blood of Christ according to certain orders in that behalfe whether they be fit or willing this is to offer violence unto the soules of such and no better than forcing doggs and swine to eat the childrens bread against their stomacks rather than they will be beaten for refusing But with what appearance of reason can it be imagined that since our Saviour gave unto his Church a liberty to use miraculous power he did not also order them upon just occasion to use the Civill power if such had been his pleasure as meere men they might likelier prevaile with men in whose hands the Civill Power was for their assistance and God was able to give them power over both alike had it been Gods will the means for executing Civill Power must have been as subject to them as was that of miracles But since he was totally silent concerning their imploying of the Civill power it is an undeniable argument that God never meant they should usurpe it Since then Christ is the God of Peace Rom. 16.20 nay he is our Peace it selfe Ephes 2.14 He came not to send sword or war otherwise then heresies and the like woe betides them that bring whether heresies or wars Christ brought us Peace Luc. 2.14 and his Word is the Gospel of Peace Rom. 10.15 God hath called us unto Peace 1 Cor. 7.15 We are commanded to follow after the things which make for peace Rom. 14.19 and that if it be possible we should live peaceably with all men Rom. 12.18 Having seen and heard of the firings of so many famous Cities the devastation of so many spacious and fruitfull Countries the ravishing of so many Virgins and the inundation of so much Christian blood let us at last in the feare of God endeavour to be the sonnes of Peace beati pacifici the blessed peace-makers in full assurance that it doth no where appeare that God ever sanctified the Sword to cut out a passage for the Gospel nor that it was ever propagated by War otherwise then in judgement to them that disturbed the proceedings thereof in Peace We find our Saviour and his Apostles did first instruct the Jewes in the duties and mysteries of the Gospel before they declared voyd the duties of the Law or exhorted them to suspend observance thereunto nay we see expresly that they permitted them to conforme unto many Ceremonies of the Law even after the Gospel had been tendred to them some yeares together Act. 21. v. 22. 27. for Paul was above 3 yeares after his conversion before he went to Jerusalem Gal. 1.18 at which time the Apostle James and the Elders of Jerusalem advised Paul and he accordingly conformed himselfe to certaine Jewish Ceremonies to take away offence from the weaker brethren of the Jewes as in