Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A31376
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The causes and remedy of the distempers of the times in certain discourses of obedience and disobedience.
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1675
(1675)
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Wing C1537; ESTC R8824
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126,154
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325
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be open to the frequent demands of State-Collectours These and the like or worse seditious murmurings grate those eares which had sometime been delighted with more pleasing language So doth the humourous changling who preferreth himself before all the world yet hath not the wit to love himself aright shew the deceitfulness of his heart that although he sometimes speaketh well there is not a greater stranger to well-meaning There is no time or thing which cometh a miss to him who is resolved to let loose his tongue into any manner of language and of all other the Father of mischeifes hath for these his industrious Sons in the first place instructions to obloquy as the most plain and easie Biting is sutable to a malicious nature and envy taketh occasion to spit venome at any thing which thriveth These evils although in some respect we call them natural are yet but the distempers of nature and the depraver Satan who undermining our reason and taking advantage of our fluctuating opinions by certain diabolical injections sometimes utterly disolveth whatsoever in the whole man is noble and Divine and too too commonly bringeth it almost to despair From him come causeless jealousies fears and discontents they are his work and contrived for mans overthrow But God the Authour of peace and lover of Concord religiously invocated soon cleareth these mists which the Deceiver casteth before our wronged judgment While we adhere to the dictates of his sacred Spirit pride and self love the causes of discontens are removed With which whosoever is filled is apt to be strict in examination of other mens actions and to procure to himself trouble from conceits of disrespect want of love forgetfulness of worth and the like But meekness and pure devotion will work for us better satisfaction and give every one to understand it to be his duty to be thankful to him who giveth abilities rather then to be impatiently disloyal in the love of bewitching discontent and producing its broods of impieties I call it without injury bewitching it being that Harlot which calleth passengers going right in their way saying whoso is simple let him turn aside hither It enticeth none but the ignorant them it bewitcheth to its counsells and wayes Men who cannot hold a stedfast progresse in that good which they have opportunely fallen into cannot but together with their folly manifest a base incontinence delighting in painted harlots and evils disguised under the colour of good They who with their tongues sometime so much magnified the royal cause and seemed exceedingly zealous of the glory of God had even then as is most evident some other ends which they would more willingly pursue some castles which they were building in the air some upon the sands but although discoursing of it they were forgetful of the Rock whence they were hewen and the Heaven to which they should aspire It is an ill token of Love in those who pretending a longing for the Kings return which they could be content to purchase at any rate O the pity that so noble a passion should be so short liv'd and happen to meet with a floating habitation whether of life liberty or estate all temporalities and present blessings together that these should as much as others let loose their tongues to all manner of repining complaints and seditious murmurings that these should by the impurity of their words soyl that glorious garment of Loyalty and break the well accepted bands of sacred allegiance Oh? that they would but discreetly and to their assured safety consider from how blessed an estate they have run in how bad a condition they at present are to what danger what misery they post away Having that upon easie terms which they wished for upon any whence cometh the dislike or what occasioneth the grief The blessing too cheaply obtained is slighted yet the complaint speaketh greivvances and burthens intolerable These ways however they seem right in some eyes yet surely the end thereof is the way of death Undoubtedly the bacâ—slider in heart will be filled with his own ways and he who will not be constant to the entertainment of his prosperity shall by inconstancy weary it and make it forsake him The forementioned wishes and the joyes of the ensuing successe had perseverance crowned them could not have been sufficiently extolled But how are the desires extinguished how is the joy abated how hath darkness seized upon those temples of piety which were sometime bright with the lust of a coelestial fire To see a bad beginning have a good end is very much desireable but to have the former part of life bedecked with ornaments of dignity and the later disfigured with the strange contrariety of base and sorded rags is such an odious evil as maketh the eye which behold'st it almost hate the light by means whereof it had so unwelcome a spectacle Such are these who are either sluggish or false in the best time who upon victory obtained forsake the field and releive the vanquisht enemy For so it is The murmurings of those who deny the King due aid doth give heart and impious succour to the rebel who seeketh nothing but an opportunity to act over his old villanous commissions And thereby do these men punish themselves and the backslider cometh to be filled with his own ways By their clamours they wheâ— the appetites of some who were alway too sharply set upon innovation The murmurers corrupt the circumbient air and still the plague spreadeth further and further whereby his Majesty hath more foes and consequentry more need For besides homebred conspiracies hereby strengthened forreigners make it their pleasure to affront him so that the speedy supplies given their King is each Subjects Profit and Honour because the Kings injuries is the Peoples both damage and shame If I account the labourer worthy of his hire and him who reapeth and inneth my harvest to merit a recompence shall I not much more to him who by his labour care and armes secureth it in the field and garner return a free-will offering the purchase as I may in a soâ—â— speak of my continuing fecundity My reason dictateth no less to me but that it befitteth me Which when some pious assertors of the Peoples true liberties and happiness had well apprehended and desired a general compliance in a matter of such publick benefit and importance how have others who would speak boldly against the Kingdoms welfare in performance of his duty been extolled for their wisdome and care by those who would seem most affectionate to his Majesties just cause and person and also to the Peoples tranquility No man is his own or anothers friend who advisedly multiplieth or in the least uttereth words in commedations of busie and seditious disturbers of other mens good intentions or speaketh language which is sowre with inward disrelishes It was a very religious expression of that wise Senator who said Vniversos affligit Cassiod l. 1â— â—pist 19. qui Regi
continuing vicissitudes in all our preservations but more abundantly in the Preserver Good deeds are his work and cause neither fear nor shame they leave no stench behind them when they go out nay they go not out at all for memory retriveth them They are grateful both to our selves and others and live still in both Whatever betideth us without they preserve peace within and at last restore it without too However in the mean time to their Authours they give vacation and make his life a continued Holy-day Never was the remembrance of a good action a grief to any the most wicked man It appeareth in a sinful person like a gloworme in the way in a cold night it shineth although it giveth no heat the sight is pleasing although it assord no light But a truly practiced piety maketh it all day within and enliveneth us with a celestial fire It frustrateth the malice of fortune and out liveth death so that it neither feeleth the one nor feareth the other It forestaleth misfortune by a preoccupation of the memory which it employeth in contenting representatives It weareth out trouble and conveyeth us past death whilest living by an assurance that we shall live beyond it When we are in our Graves that although unburied goeth with us still it being the onely peaceable possession of both living and dead So they whose virtues have been approved by durance and have escaped through the surges of temptations unwracked have the greatest titles both to fame and felicity and when they are pleased to reflect upon them can redouble them make them instead of a past misery a present benefit ALL this joy our memory worketh for us and this in consideration of God's mercy But his justice shall do as much and his Providence too in the government of all things When we call to mind the revolutions of things past in the World and the varieties which go to the composure of it we look up to that Wisdom which hath contrived and directed them to their several ends with a just admiration of his sage disposals with as just a condemnation of those feigned fopperies of Chance and Fate We may then find and know that all things happen by his sacred permission and will which as it delighted us in the sufferance so much more now in freer dispensation of sweets resembling the celestial Of all changes we may in much measure see and recount the reasons the books of divine Providence being open unto us We may among other things innumerable see there recorded the prosperity of the wicked and their confusion and admire God's wisdome who setteth them in slippery places to cast them down headlong to destruction The just are alway under the tuition of his fatherly eye although in all worldly sense cast out of his favour the wicked even in his prosperity is but heaping up the incendiary coals of his own destruction and ruine Although he look like one of Pharoahs more proveable herd fat and fair it is but to fall into an unsatiable gulph Providence is best commended at last Happy he whose care for the present did never put stop to the hope of his future well being for the righteous shall see the vengeance and rejoyce nay he shall also delight himself in the abundance of peace The fore knowledge of God's providence proveth Memories darling and Hope not frustrated though dead by fruition is revived by recollection WHO should relate this to the World but we whose Hope have increased by improbabilities and have outlived themselves Our seed committed to the earth and lying out their winter under variety of afflicting weather have met with their spring that after the confirmation of their roots the tops may have their flourishing and ripening seasons We who have half an age lived under the oppression of continued usurpations may now at length when our Sun is by divine providence mounted to an higher both degree and strength shoot forth into a timely viridity and through his seasonable and powerful operations of heat may be preserved and perfected for the divine husbandmans both glory and delight We have not onely out-lived our durance but its imposers too and through God's blessing our confidence and deeds shall in future ages have a pleasing and odoriferous acceptance when their names shall stink in the nostrils of all men yea even their own very instruments and adherents Each man shall eat the fruit of his own labour and his deeds likewise shall follow him Of which harvest none can be bereaft for every man's transacted life pleadeth for him his merit and claimeth his due in despight of whatsoever obstructions As God is not mocked we are not deceived But they who in our dayes so willfully deceived themselves by endeavouring to mock God which way can they now as they were wont cry up the truth of their Religion and the reality of their intentions by the successeful event of their actions their own arguments heretofore framed in a self defence were all of them wont to prove their self confutation this onely excepted Time and Providence those neer freinds to truth-seeking Reason have also divested them of this fraudulent pall and made naked to their shame the very secreâ—s of their diabolical practises God never ordered the course of worldly happiness so directly towards the righteous man's habitation as that it never deviated neither is wickedness in the acting alwaies unfortunate God doth not alwaies signe his pleasure with his immediate finger either suddenly advancing the right or depressing the wrong It was a commendable siction of Jupiter in the distribution of his blessings commanding an equality to good and evil Which gave a semblance as if he should favour corruption and vicâ— as much as virtue and honesty But hâ— knew if Virtue should be able to engrosâ— to her self the whole stone of the common blessings of wealth and worldly content she would be more courted and wooâ—ed for the train she beareth after her theâ— for the proper esteem due to her wortâ— and beauty We daily see that villany may be successeful Theives may oppreâ—â— honest travellers or an avaritioâ—s eye may by power and deceit out-reach a well meaning neighbour But God alloweth neither of the theft of the one or the rapine of the other Observe therefore the end of such they shall be taken in the snare of Gods wrath and fourfold Restauration will not satisfie And besides the the end of the persons consider their purchases from the known truth of that vulgar observation that ill acquirements are no inheritance We can now fight them with their own weapons Either they were mistaken in their cause or else prosperity in this life is not entailed to virtuous deeds They who so impudently or rather blasphemously boasted that God attested their actions and the justice of their cause by so many signal victories and permitting them from time to time to prosper in the world are now silent as to this vaunt Although they conspired