Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	common_a	law_n	matter_n	1,471	5	5.3398	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33212	Eleven sermons preached upon several occasions and a paraphrase and notes upon the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth chapters of St. John : with a discourse of church-unity ... / by William Clagett.	Clagett, William, 1646-1688.	1699 (1699)	Wing C4386; ESTC R24832	142,011	306

art very well able to bear And if another man be in possession of something that is thine detaining thy right from thee and the matter be not considerable then if thou hast no other way to relieve thy self but by Law thou shalt not in such cases as these run presently to Counsel and commence a Suit but bear such lesser Injuries with silence and patience So that a Christian ought not to go to Law for small matters not only when his Right is uncertain but when 't is clear not only where there is no danger of inviting such another Injury as he bears at present but where there is And the words of our Saviour are as plain to that purpose as any thing can be and nothing less can be understood by them The third instance is this And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile go with him twain And under this Instance are contained all little infringments of our Privileges and Immunities which some men are exceedingly tender of and are ever ready to make a great Combustion rather than suffer them to be invaded in the least degree The meaning is That if the Officer that is to press men for publick Carriages should compel thee to go a mile unjustly that is one fourth part above the ordinary Stage that the Law appoints which is but a small matter thou shalt not make a quarrel about it tho thy patience may prove an occasion of his compelling thee the next time to go two miles more than there is reason for So likewise in all matters of this nature If our Freedoms and Immunities are lightly invaded if too much service be required if an Office be put upon a man which is some breach upon his Privilege though he may sustain it without great inconveniencie in these and the like Cases it is the plain Command of our Saviour That we should make no publick Complaint nor prosecute the Person at Law for the maintaining of our Privilege This I take to be a plain and true Account of the meaning of the Instances The manner of our Saviour's Expressions was suitable to the Customs of the Place where he was and to the way of discourse in that time but the Doctrine he delivers is a Rule for all times and places and obliges every one of his Disciples i. e. altogether to remit tolerable and small Injuries whether against Body or Reputation as in the first instance or Estate and Possession as in the second or Freedoms and Privileges as in the third And now I proceed to shew That the limitation of the Rules belongs to the general Prohibition Resist not evil And that 1. Because if our Saviour had meant that no kind of Injuries were to be resisted there had been no need of adding any particular instances of evil that were not to be resisted 2. If the greatest as well as the least Injuries were not to be redrest by course of Law then seeing our Saviour was pleased to tell us under what Injuries in particular he would have us to sit down quietly we cannot imagine but he would have instanced in the greatest for all men are certainly more unwilling to bear a greater than a less wrong If therefore no kind of evil were to be resisted if this had been his meaning he would have said If thine Enemy seek to take away thy Life or to ruin thy Estate or to deprive thee of thy Liberty thou shalt not guard thy self against him by the Laws of thy Countrey and then these instances had certainly shewn that the general Prohibition was to be understood without any limitation at all For this is a true Conclusion I must bear the greatest Injuries without complaint therefore I must bear the less but it cannot be concluded I must bear the less therefore I must submit to the greater Wherefore I say since it had been our Saviour's Intention that we were not to right our selves against any Injury by course of Law the Instances mentioned do not come home to the purpose it is therefore plain that was not his meaning From what hath been said it will now be very easy to represent from our Saviour's Rule what a Christian may and what he ought to do when he is provoked by the rudeness or injured by the malice or any way usurped upon by the Power and Policy of his Neighbour And First of all It is very plain that all private Revenge whether of greater or lesser Wrongs is utterly unlawful And the truth is for men to go about to right themselves any other way after an Injury received than by course of Law that needed not to have been forbidden by our Saviour for it was unlawful before and 't is unjust in every man tho much more unbecoming a Christian than any one else since he is obliged to set an Example of that forgiveness and meekness of spirit as for some Injuries to seek no redress at all no not by Legal Proceedings How strange a thing is it then that the way of personal Revenge should grow into fashion and credit amongst Christians a way of revenge so directly contrary not only to the Law of our Saviour's Religion but to right Reason and the common Principles of Justice For let but this Principle be once admitted let it be published in the World That every man may right himself his own way when he is injured by another and what horrible consequences must it needs produce For when one man has wrong'd and abused another to allow the injured Party to right himself in the way of personal revenge is to provoke the wrong-doer to a new attempt against him and by consequence to prolong and continue the quarrel till it be ended in the destruction either of the one of the other What a woful thing is it that if once an Injury be done and contention be begun between two men to conclude that they must never be reconciled but proceed to mischief each other till one of them be utterly destroyed and yet that is the natural consequence of private Revenge which therefore no man should give the least countenance to that pretends to Reason and Humanity Besides it is in it self an unjust thing to do evil to another because I have received injury from him for a man cannot justly be both a Judge and a party in his own Cause as every man is who presumes to vindicate his own Wrongs he that complains is not to give Sentence and then to execute it but to refer the matter to indifferent Persons or to Common Justice that the Redress may be according to Reason and Law But if he takes Revenge for himself as he is not fit to be a Judge in his own Cause so neither has he any power to be so Whatever evil he determines to inflict upon his Enemy he is unjustly resolved upon and if he succeeds 't is unjustly done for it belonged not to him to punish his Adversary Vengeance is God's only and

hath commanded us And yet I do not think it difficult to give such an account of the goodness and reasonableness of this Law of our Saviour that when we have considered it we shall find that we have far more reason to thank him than be offended with him for it To which purpose I shall first endeavour more particularly to explain what duty that is which is required of us in these Precepts 1. And in the first place Let us consider what Light is offered to them from that Law of the Jews It hath been said An eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth from whence our Saviour takes occasion to introduce his own Precept But I say unto you Resist not evil From which we shall learn what we are to understand by not resisting The Passage to which our Saviour refers we find in Exod. 21.24 There was a Law That if a Woman with child was hurt by men striving together the Judge should return according to this Rule That life should go for life eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot Which Law of Retaliation was also to take place against the false Witness that he should suffer the same punishment which his Neighbour was in danger of by reason of his Testimony Deut. 19.21 Thine eye shall not pity but life shall go for life eye for eye c. But in Levit. 24.20 The Rule is general If a man cause a blemish in his neighbour as he hath done so shall it be done unto him breach for breach eye for eye tooth for tooth So that this was the Law by which their Courts of Judicature were to proceed in redress of Injuries That he who had injur'd another should suffer as much injury as he had done himself Wherefore when our Saviour does from hence take occasion to say Resist not evil his design was to abridge his Disciples of some liberty that was allowed to the Jews in the matter of impleading their Adversaries in Courts of Judicature For if by these words Resist not evil he had meant only that no private person should upon an injury received proceed immediately to ease himself and redress the wrong by doing the like to the injurious man but stay till the Cause was heard and the Law had decided the Matter he had then forbidden no more than what the Jews knew was unlawful already wherefore it is plain that something is here prohibited which was formerly allowed For says our Saviour But I say unto you Resist not evil But this is not to be understood as if he had prescribed to places of Civil Judicature how to proceed against Offenders that were brought into them but he has still left them to proceed according to their several Laws and Customs For his Kingdom was not of this World he came not to reverse or alter the Forms and Methods of Government but left them upon the same foundation standing as they did before So that although here is an abridgment of some liberty that the private Jew had before yet if after this Prohibition of our Saviour had any of his Disciples demanded Justice according to the Law of Retaliation against an Offender in some case where he ought not to have done it according to his Master's Doctrine yet it had not been only lawful but requisite for the Magistrate to have given Sentence according to Law and the same holds true in all Christian Kingdoms and Commonwealths Thus much concerning the sense of not resisting evil 2. But in the second place Although the Precept seems to be general yet I shall make it plain That 't is not all sorts of Injuries that we are required not to complain of but to sit down tamely and silently under them And that 1. By shewing the nature of those Injuries that are particularly instanced in And 2. By proving from thence that they are only Injuries of that nature which we are not so much as to resist by course of Law 1. Let us consider the nature of those Injuries which are the instances of that evil we are not to resist And 1. It is plain that they are only private Wrongs not direct Offences against the publick good and safety not Contempts of Authority nor the violation of Laws made purposely for the security of Government 2. And these private Wrongs are supposed also to be of a light and supportable nature such as may very well be born by a Wise man without suffering any considerable prejudice while he neglects to prosecute the Offender at Law And that you will see by the following Instances which I come now to explain The first is That of smiting on the cheek Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek c. To smite upon the cheek signifies proverbially that smiting which was intended for a disgrace or a mere affront and this usually was by striking with the Palm of the hand which because it was mostly used by the Greeks towards their Slaves it came to be a Proverbial Expression of using a man scornfully and imperiously and to include any kind of smiting which according to the common interpretation of the word redounded only to the disgrace of him that suffered it not endangering the Life or hurting the Limbs So that the Injuries which our Saviour notes in the first place are those which go no further than the exposing of a man to the laughter of the People who take it for a mean and dishonourable part to put up a meer Affront to bear the lightest Indignity or to be content under any contumelious Words or Actions And his Rule in this case is That we should rather venture the suffering such another Injury than make it a matter of publick Complaint The second instance is this If any man shall sue thee at the law and take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also The Injuries that are intended under this instance are against a man's Estate and Possessions as the former were against his Body and Reputation And here likewise it is plain That the damage sustained by this Injury or the like is very supportable and such as can hardly be felt by a man that enjoys a competent Estate as he is here supposed to do who is not to revenge such a loss For the inner and upper Garment which were tokens of men that were well to pass in the World shews that he would be much to blame to trouble himself or any body else about a loss so inconsiderable to him And our Saviour's meaning in this Instance is That if a Controversy arise between thee and thy Neighbour about some little matter of property where thou art sure the right is on thy side and the Money Goods or Land in dispute is as much thine as the Cloaths on thy back and if by a Suit at Law he orders the matter so as to rob thee of thy right Thou shalt trouble thy self no further but sit down quietly by the loss which thou

gave them into the hand of the Heathen and upon their Repentance many a time did he deliver them But all would not do they provoked him more and more till Ten Tribes were quite cast away and the other Two sent into Captivity for Seventy years After this indeed they were cured of Idolatry but they presently fell to corrupt the Moral part of Religion and to make the Temple a Sanctuary for ill Manners How can we forbear deploring the wretched folly and unteachableness of man and admiring the infinite Patience of God! At length God sent his Son into the World to bring in the Everlasting Gospel the clear knowledge of God's Will the certain assurance of a life to come and the Doctrine of the Cross to constitute a Society of Believers to unite them by Sacraments and to establish the Faith upon Miracles and Divine Demonstrations This dispensation did indeed produce mighty Effects and so many Heroical Examples of Virtue and Piety in every one of the three first Ages of the Church that perhaps the whole World for about 4000 years before was not in all that time able to shew an equality to any one of those Ages But by degrees the Purity and Virtue of the Christian Communion abated and though the Church has in the worst times brought forth some Sons and Daughters unto God some genuine Children unto our Heavenly Father yet alas for human Nature Christendom has been a Stage of as gross Hypocrisy as scandalous Errors and as great Sins and Miseries arising from those Sins as ever any part of the Heathen World was Time wears off the sense of extraordinary things and we grow to be but indifferently affected with the noble Works that God has done in the days of our Fathers and by our stupidity we constrain Providence to awaken us to consideration by new warnings and to revive that sense of Duty which is so apt to decay while we are let alone All which things being considered we are bound to bless and praise the Infinite Goodness of God who has not left us without a Testimony of himself both in the Light of Nature and the particular Revelations of his Word and the Footsteps of his continued and unwearied Providence over us For if notwithstanding all this if notwithstanding plain Instructions convincing Examples clear Warnings and undeniable Testimonies Mankind is still so apt to forget God and to run into all miscarriages then how insupportable had the Lusts and Vices of the World been if there had been no Revelation no Providence no Faith or Religion no fear of God at all if he had left Mankind to themselves without his checks and restraints his controul and government undoubtedly the Earth had not been able to bear the violence of its Inhabitants our Reason and Free-will had made us but the more dangerous Brutes to one another and the Societies of Mankind had been long since dissolved The sum of what hath been said is this That good and evil are the same in all Ages of the World that the liberty of humane nature and the passions of humane nature are the same too and therefore the causes of good and evil are the same in respect of man That mankind is very apt to forget former instructions and to need the like warnings that their Forefathers had which therefore God in his Wisdom and Goodness repeats unto them So that since we are of the same mould with those that have been before us and with those that are to come after us and there is the same wise providence over all it follows that the like variety of events must still come about again and that which hath been is now and that which is to be already hath been Amongst other good uses that may be made of such Considerations as these this certainly is one That we should always dispose our selves to receive our portion in this World be it better or be it worse with as much moderation and equality of temper as we can If thou art prosperous and thy Affairs succeed according to thy desires do not for this cherish Pride and Self-conceit and vain Opinions of thy self as if thou only were fit to be regarded others have been as fortunate as thy self and yet examples of this World's inconstancy and perhaps too they thought as highly of themselves and were as meanly thought of Art thou in Adversity this also has been a common case and therefore do not repine at Providence evil men have been punished for their sins and good men tried by afflictions We as well as others before us carry the causes and seeds of much trouble in our frame and constitution and we cannot prevent a great deal of evil that comes by the free-will of others nor hinder the operations of Providence which governs all And therefore we should not suffer our Affections violently to run after any of the desirable things of this World but take the World as it is and then make the best on 't according to the wise man's advice in this Chapter who speaking of the turns and vicissitudes of things I know says he there is no good in them but for a man to rejoyce and to do good in his life that is that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labour that no man should deny himself a supply of his reasonable needs and desires whilst he has wherewithal and that upon no pretence whatsoever he should excuse himself from doing good to others whilst it is in his power For this is all the good of this life that is our portion under the Sun to use present comforts wisely and charitably to do good to our selves and others to take reasonable pleasure in the Gifts of God and to admit all reasonable comfort under adversity say and in a word to take in good part our mixture of good and evil as it falls out but at no hand to expect more from the world than it will yield and to lay a greater stress upon it than it has been ever able to bear This undoubtedly is one design of the Wise man in this Book to shew the vanity of this world and thereby to lessen our fondness of it and yet to teach us us how to make a wise and good use of the comforts it affords remembring all along that the greatest good of all is to fear God and keep his Commandments And so I proceed to the second particular That God requireth that which is past that is as 't is exprest in the foregoing verse That men should fear before him for therefore does God in the variety of his Providences bring about the same things because 't is the same end which he designs from first to last viz. to teach us the fear of God and to bring us to Religion and Virtue This he hath required from the beginning of the world and will do so to the end of it and therefore no wonder that from first to