Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	able_a	account_n	account_v	13	3	7.0182	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36252	A reply to Mr. Baxter's pretended confutation of a book entituled, Separation of churches from episcopal government, &c. proved schismatical to which are added, three letters written to him in the year 1673, concerning the possibility of discipline under a diocesan-government ... / by Henry Dodwell ...	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1681 (1681)	Wing D1817; ESTC R3354	153,974	372

probably more orthodox than now we find them I could very heartily have wished that the Opinions wherein we differ had not been of that nature as to separate Communion For this I look upon as the onely Circumstance that can make such differences grievous to a pious person For as for those others which exasperate many that Dissenters are not so wise as to discern the truth or so fortunate in avoiding prejudices or lighting on faithful Informations in a time when they are capable of receiving them or that they are not so submissive as themselves expect to that Pope which Luther has long since observed in every mans heart c. They are reasons either sinful or at least unsufficient to excuse the sin of uncharitableness upon such an account But as they are considering them as tempered with that piety and moderation which may expiate their others malignities that they are alleaged rather as Apologies for your selves than as Obligations on others rather to excuse your deformity in not assisting at our Altars than erecting others in opposition to them that you are still inquisitive and desirous of further information and ready to lay down your mistakes when you are convinced that they are such that still you preserve a peaceable mind and embrace our Communion it self in voto though perhaps not actually these are so valuable Considerations even before God as well as Man for excusing from the guilt of error as that whatever I may think of your Opinions I hope it shall not hinder me from a cordial respect and veneration of your person § II AS I do very much esteem the good opinion of so great a Lover of peace and piety as your self and should have been sorry to have given any just occasion of offence to you so I am not a little glad that upon a view of the particulars mentioned in your Letter I find my self to be so very innocent For as for my Preface the main designs driven on in it are that disrespect to the Clergie is shewn to have been an Introductory to the Atheism of the Age we live in that the conformable Clergie that is such as would answer the design of the Church not onely as to their exteriour demeanour in publick solomen Assemblies but also as to the qualifications of their persons and the conduct of their whole lives could not prove either trifling in their Preaching or scandalous in their Examples and therefore that the Church is not responsible for their misdemeanours where they prove otherwise and that the Laity are in their proportion obliged to the same duties with the Clergie and therefore may make use of the Advice there prescribed or to touch at the errors of our modern School-Divinity are touched and to make some proposals for their reformation In these things I can see no occasion of offence but rather some Preservatives against it The onely thing I suppose you aim at is my taxing some Opinions of Nonconformists and that with as little personal reflection as I was able which I conceived prejudicial to Church Authority which Opinions because you seem to disown I do not see how you should apprehend your self as particularly concerned in what is there said especially there being nothing in the discourse whereby you could conclude either your self or any of your moderate temper to have been intended I assure you I intended none but such as were guilty and with being so I charged none particularly But that not onely the old Puritans and Separatists of Queen Elizabeth's times c. but also very many of ours now are guilty of them is too notorious to suppose you ignorant of it I could heartily wish that the number of better principled and more peaceable Dissenters were greater than I fear it is Nor do I see that what is there said can make it unuseful even to the persons truly concerned that value truth more than any however beloved party Seeing it may let them see the evil consequence of their principles and their influence on that Atheism and Prophanness which I am confident themselves do most cordially detest which I conceived to be more likely to prevail with them than any other Arguments as being more suited to their pious disposition Or supposing that my fears were indeed groundless of the Introduction of prophanness by the contempt of Government or of contempt of Government by their disobedience to it yet might it at least warn them from confining on such dangerous consequences or from coming to them unawares by an abuse of principles generally true but obnoxious to particular inconveniences when unwarily managed I mean it may put them in mind of the greater Momentousness of good Government and of Peace than of many other differences and consequently of the great Engagements incumbent on them for their preservation Whence they would further find themselves obliged so to oppose the particular abusive Constitutions of Governours as not to bring their Government it self into contempt nor to suggest unanswerable Apologies to factious persons for the future when they are unwilling to be obedient These are abuses which your self I believe would wish redressed in the causes of our Church-divisions But if that part of my Discourse could not be useful yet could it not be prejudicial to them nothing being urged either invectively or imperiously and therefore no harm being done if I should prove utterly mistaken § III THAT you should marvel how reviving Discipline could by me be expected from the constitution of our present Ecclesiastical Government does seem no less marvellous to me especially as to the Exception you make against it For if it were impossible to maintain Discipline under a Government so far Monarchical as to appropriate the decretory power of the Government of many to a single person though the execution be intrusted to many then it would follow that the Secular Discipline under a Secular Monarch of any extent were impossible also to be observed Your same reasons will proceed as strongly here as where you apply them For it is every way as impossible for any such Prince to have a particular cognizance of every particular cause much more of every particular person in his Dominions as for a Bishop in his Diocese As therefore it appears by experience I shall instance a Scripture-example because I know that will be liable to least exception that David in an extent more vast and a people more numerous than that of the largest Diocese 120 miles in length and 60 miles in breadth and rather better in David's days where were accounted 1300000 Men fit for war besides Artificers and such others not coming under that account was yet able to give a good account of his Government without particular inspection into all causes or communication of his power to numerous co-ordinate Presbyteries So I do not see why it may not hold as well for a possibility of Discipline under an Ecclesiastical Monarch of a much narrower extent