Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	according_a	judge_v	law_n	1,465	5	4.9712	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50959	A treatise of civil power in ecclesiastical causes shewing that it is not lawfull for any power on earth to compell in matters of religion / the author, J.M.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1659 (1659)	Wing M2185; ESTC R13133	23,223	97

kingdoms are maintaind all by force onely and yet disproves not that a Christian common-wealth may defend it self against outward force in the cause of religion as well as in any other though Christ himself coming purposely to dye for us would not be so defended 1 Cor. 1.27 God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty Then surely he hath not chosen the force of this world to subdue conscience and conscientious men who in this world are counted weakest but rather conscience as being weakest to subdue and regulate force his adversarie not his aide or instrument in governing the church 2 Cor. 10.3 4 5 6. for though we walk in the flesh we do not warre after the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mightie through God to the pulling down of strong holds casting down imaginations and everie high thing that exalts it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivitie everie thought to the obedience of Christ and having in a readiness to aveng all disobedience It is evident by the first and second verses of this chapter that the apostle here speaks of that spiritual power by which Christ governs his church how all sufficient it is how powerful to reach the conscience and the inward man with whom it chiefly deals and whom no power els can deal with In comparison of which as it is here thus magnificently describ'd how uneffectual and weak is outward force with all her boistrous tooles to the shame of those Christians and especially those churchmen who to the exercising of church discipline never cease calling on the civil magistrate to interpose his fleshlie force an argument that all true ministerial and spiritual power is dead within them who think the gospel which both began and spread over the whole world for above three hundred years under heathen and persecuting emperors cannot stand or continue supported by the same divine presence and protection to the worlds end much easier under the defensive favor onely of a Christian magistrate unless it be enacted and settled as they call it by the state a statute or a state-religion and understand not that the church it self cannot much less the state settle or impose one tittle of religion upon our obedience implicit but can only recommend or propound it to our free and conscientious examination unless they mean to set the state higher then the church in religion and with a grosse contradiction give to the state in thir settling petition that command of our implicit beleef which they deny in thir setled confession both to the state and to the church Let them cease then to importune and interrupt the magistrate from attending to his own charge in civil and moral things the settling of things just things honest the defence of things religious settled by the churches within themselves and the repressing of thir contraries determinable by the common light of nature which is not to constrain or to repress religion probable by scripture but the violaters and persecuters therof of all which things he hath anough and more then anough to do left yet undon for which the land groans and justice goes to wrack the while let him also forbear force where he hath no right to judge for the conscience is not his province least a worse woe arrive him for worse offending then was denounc'd by our Saviour Matt. 23.23 against the Pharises ye have forc'd the conscience which was not to be forc'd but judgment and mercy ye have not executed this ye should have don and the other let alone And since it is the councel and set purpose of God in the gospel by spiritual means which are counted weak to overcom all power which resists him let them not go about to do that by worldly strength which he hath decreed to do by those means which the world counts weakness least they be again obnoxious to that saying which in another place is also written of the Pharises Luke 7.30 that they frustrated the councel of God The main plea is and urgd with much vehemence to thir imitation that the kings of Iuda as I touchd before and especially Iosia both judgd and us'd force in religion 2 Chr. 34.33 he made all that were present in Israel to serve the Lord thir God an argument if it be well weighed worse then that us'd by the false prophet Shemaia to the high priest that in imitation of Iehojada he ought to put Ieremie in the stocks Ier. 29.24 26 c. for which he receivd his due denouncement from God But to this besides I return a three-fold answer first that the state of religion under the gospel is far differing from what it was under the law then was the state of rigor childhood bondage and works to all which force was not unbefitting now is the state of grace manhood freedom and faith to all which belongs willingness and reason not force the law was then written on tables of stone and to be performd according to the letter willingly or unwillingly the gospel our new covnant upon the heart of every beleever to be interpreted only by the sense of charitie and inward perswasion the law had no distinct government or governors of church and commonwealth but the Priests and Levites judg'd in all causes not ecclesiastical only but civil Deut. 17.8 c. which under the gospel is forbidden to all church-ministers as a thing which Christ thir master in his ministerie disclam'd Luke 12.14 as a thing beneathe them 1 Cor. 6.4 and by many of our statutes as to them who have a peculiar and far differing government of thir own If not why different the governors why not church-ministers in state-affairs as well as state-ministers in church-affairs If church and state shall be made one flesh again as under the law let it be withall considerd that God who then joind them hath now severd them that which he so ordaining was then a lawfull conjunction to such on either side as join again what he hath severd would be nothing now but thir own presumptuous fornication Secondly the kings of Iuda and those magistrates under the law might have recours as I said before to divine inspiration which our magistrates under the gospel have not more then to the same spirit which those whom they force have oft times in greater measure then themselves and so instead of forcing the Christian they force the Holy Ghost and against that wise forewarning of Gamaliel fight against God Thirdly those kings and magistrates us'd force in such things only as were undoubtedly known and forbidden in the law of Moses idolatrie and direct apostacie from that national and strict enjoind worship of God wherof the corporal punishment was by himself expressly set down but magistrates under the gospel our free elective and rational worship are most commonly busiest to force those things which in the gospel are either left free nay somtimes

2 Cor. 10. of which anon and think weakly that the church of God cannot long subsist but in a bodilie fear for want of other prooff will needs wrest that place of S. Paul Rom. 13. to set up civil inquisition and give power to the magistrate both of civil judgment and punishment in causes ecclesiastical But let us see with what strength of argument Let every soul be subject to the higher powers First how prove they that the apostle means other powers then such as they to whom he writes were then under who medld not at all in ecclesiastical causes unless as tyrants and persecuters and from them I hope they will not derive either the right of magistrates to judge in spiritual things or the dutie of such our obedience How prove they next that he intitles them here to spiritual causes from whom he witheld as much as in him lay the judging of civil 1 Cor. 6.1 c. If he himself appeald to Cesar it was to judge his innocence not his religion For rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil then are they not a terror to conscience which is the rule or judge of good works grounded on the scripture But heresie they say is reck'nd among evil works Gal. 5.20 as if all evil works were to be punishd by the magistrate wherof this place thir own citation reck'ns up besides heresie a sufficient number to confute them uncleanness wantonness enmitie strife emulations animosities contentions envyings all which are far more manifest to be judgd by him then heresie as they define it and yet I suppose they will not subject these evil works nor many more such like to his cognisance and punishment Wilt thou then not be affraid of the power do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same This shews that religious matters are not here meant wherin from the power here spoken of they could have no praise For he is the minister of God to thee for good true but in that office and to that end and by those means which in this place must be cleerly found if from this place they intend to argue And how for thy good by forcing oppressing and insnaring thy conscience Many are the ministers of God and thir offices no less different then many none more different then state and church-government Who seeks to govern both must needs be worse then any lord prelat or church-pluralist for he in his own facultie and profession the other not in his own and for the most part not throughly understood makes himself supream lord or pope of the church as far as his civil jurisdiction stretches and all the ministers of God therin his ministers or his curates rather in the function onely not in the government while he himself assumes to rule by civil power things to be rul'd only by spiritual when as this very chapter v. 6 appointing him his peculiar office which requires utmost attendance forbids him this worse then church-plurality from that full and waightie charge wherin alone he is the minister of God attending continually on this very thing To little purpose will they here instance Moses who did all by immediate divine direction no nor yet Asa Iehosaphat or Iosia who both might when they pleasd receive answer from God and had a commonwealth by him deliverd them incorporated with a national church exercis'd more in bodily then in spiritual worship so as that the church might be calld a commonwealth and the whole commonwealth a church nothing of which can be said of Christianitie deliverd without the help of magistrates yea in the midst of thir opposition how little then with any reference to them or mention of them save onely of our obedience to thir civil laws as they countnance good and deterr evil which is the proper work of the magistrate following in the same verse and shews distinctly wherin he is the minister of God a revenger to execute wrath on him that doth evil But we must first know who it is that doth evil the heretic they say among the first Let it be known then certainly who is a heretic and that he who holds opinions in religion professdly from tradition or his own inventions and not from Scipture but rather against it is the only heretic and yet though such not alwaies punishable by the magistrate unless he do evil against a a civil Law properly so calld hath been already prov'd without need of repetition But if thou do that which is evil be affraid To do by scripture and the gospel according to conscience is not to do evil if we therof ought not to be affraid he ought not by his judging to give cause causes therfore of Religion are not here meant For he beareth not the sword in vain Yes altogether in vain if it smite he knows not what if that for heresie which not the church it self much less he can determine absolutely to be so if truth for error being himself so often fallible he bears the sword not in vain only but unjustly and to evil Be subject not only for wrath but for conscience sake how for conscience sake against conscience By all these reasons it appeers planely that the apostle in this place gives no judgment or coercive power to magistrates neither to those then nor these now in matters of religion and exhorts us no otherwise then he exhorted those Romans It hath now twice befaln me to assert through Gods assistance this most wrested and vexd place of scripture heretofore against Salmasius and regal tyranie over the state now against Erastus and state-tyranie over the church If from such uncertain or rather such improbable grounds as these they endue magistracie with spiritual judgment they may as well invest him in the same spiritual kinde with power of utmost punishment excommunication and then turn spiritual into corporal as no worse authors did then Chrysostom Ierom and Austin whom Erasmus and others in thir notes on the New Testament have cited to interpret that cutting off which S. Paul wishd to them who had brought back the Galatians to circumcision no less then the amercement of thir whole virilitie and Grotius addes that this concising punishment of circumcisers became a penal law therupon among the Visigothes a dangerous example of beginning in the spirit to end so in the flesh wheras that cutting off much likelier seems meant a cutting off from the church not unusually so termd in scripture and a zealous imprecation not a command But I have mentiond this passage to shew how absurd they often prove who have not learnd to distinguish rightly between civil power and ecclesiastical How many persecutions then imprisonments banishments penalties and stripes how much bloodshed have the forcers of conscience to answer for and protestants rather then papists For the papist judging by his principles punishes them who beleeve not as the church beleevs though against the scripture but the protestant