Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	action_n	effect_n	necessary_a	1,860	5	7.1073	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49109	The case of persecution, charg'd on the Church of England, consider'd and discharg'd, in order to her justification, and a desired union of Protestant dissenters	Long, Thomas, 1621-1707.	1689 (1689)	Wing L2961; ESTC R6944	61,317	83

called and then preached against it To return then to our Argument If reading the Declaration in our Churches be in the nature of the action in the intention of the command in the opinion of the People an interpretative consent to it I think myself bound in conscience not to read it because I am bound in conscience not to approve it It it against the Constitution of the Church of England which is established by Law and to which I have subscribed and therefore am bound in conscience to teach nothing contrary to it while this Obligation lasts It is to teach an unlimited and universal Toleration which the Parliament in 72 declared illegal and which has been condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages It is to teach my People that they need never come to Church more but have my free leave as they have the King 's to go to a Conventicle or to Mass It is to teach the Dispensing Power which alters what has been formerly thought the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom which we dare not do till we have the Authority of Parliament for it It is to recommend to our People the choice of such Persons to sit in Parliament as shall take away the Test and Penal Laws which most of the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation have declared their Judgments against It is to condemn all those great and worthy Patriots of their Country who forfeited the dearest thing in the World to them next a good Conscience viz. The favour of their Prince and a great many honourable and profitable Employments with it rather than consent to that Proposal of taking away the Test and Penal Laws which they apprehend destructive to the Church of England and the Protestant Religion and he who can in conscience do all this I think need scruple nothing For let us consider further what the effects and consequences of our reading the Declaration are like to be and I think they are matter of Conscience too when they are evident and apparent This will certainly render our Persons and Ministry infinitely contemptible which is against that Apostolick Canon Let no man despise thee Tit. 2.15 That is so to behave himself in his Ministerial Office as not to fall under contempt and therefore this obliges the Conscience not to make our selves ridiculous nor to render our Ministry our Counsels Exhortations Preaching Writing of no effect which is a thousand times worse than being silenced Our Sufferings will Preach more effectually to the People when we cannot Speak to them but he who for Fear or Cowardize or the Love of this World betrays his Church and Religion by undue compliances and will certainly be thought to do so may continue to Preach but to no purpose and when we have rendred our selves ridiculous and contemptible we shall then quickly fall and fall unpitied There is nothing will so effectually tend to the final ruin of the Church of England because our Reading the Declaration will discourage or provoke or misguide all the Friends the Church of England has can we blame any man for not preserving the Laws and the Religion of our Church and Nation when we our selves will venture nothing for it can we blame any man for consenting to Repeal the Test and Penal Laws when we recommend it to them by reading the Declaration have we not reason to expect that the Nobility and Gentry who have already suffered in this Cause when they hear themselves condemned for it in all the Churches of England will think it time to mend such a fault and reconcile themselves to their Prince and if our Church fall this way is there any reason to expect that it should ever rise again These Consequences are almost as evident as Demonstrations and let it be what it will in itself which I foresee will destroy the Church of England and the Protestant Religion and Interest I think I ought to make as much conscience of doing it as of doing the most immoral action in nature To say that these mischievous consequences are not absolutely necessary and therefore do not affect the Conscience because we are not certain they will follow is a very mean Objection Moral Actions indeed have not such necessary consequences as natural causes have necessary effects because no moral causes act necessarily reading the Declaration will not as necessarily destroy the Church of England as Fire burns Wood but if the consequence be plain and evident the most likely thing that can happen if it be unreasonable to expect any other if it be what is plainly intended and designed either I must never have any regard to Moral Consequences of my Actions or if ever they are to be considered they are in this Case Why are the Nobility and Gentry so extreamly averse to the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws Why do they forfeit the King's Favour and their Honourable Stations rather then comply with it If you say that this tends to destroy the Church of England and the Protestant Religion I ask whether this be the necessary consequence of it whether the King cannot keep his Promise to the Church of England if the Test and Penal Laws be Repealed We cannot say but this may be and yet the Nation does not think fit to try it and we commend those Great Men who deny it and if the same Questions were put to us we think we ought in Conscience to deny them our selves and are there not as high probabilities that our Reading the Declaration will promote the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws as that such a Repeal will ruine our Constitution and bring in Popery upon us Is it not as probable that such a compliance in us will disoblige all the Nobility and Gentry who have hitherto been firm to us as that when the Power of the Nation is put into Popish Hands by the Repeal of such Tests and Laws the Priests and Jesuits may find some Salvo for the King's Conscience and perswade him to forget his Promise to the Church of England and if the probable ill consequences of Repealing the Test and Penal Laws be a good reason not to comply with it I cannot see but that the probable ill consequences of Reading the Declaration is as good a reason not to read it The most material Objection is that the Dissenters whom we ought not to provoke will expound our not Reading it to be the effect of a persecuting Spirit Now I wonder men should lay any weight on this who will not allow the most probable consequences of our Actions to have any influence upon Conscience for if we must compare consequences to disoblige all the Nobility and Gentry by Reading it is likely to be much more fatal than to anger the Dissenters and it is more likely and there is much more reason for it that one should be offended than the other For the Dissenters who are wise and considering are sensible of the snare themselves

manner of the Sufferings of those Primitive Christians with the Afflictions and Patience of our Modern Sects we shall find these to be more like pettish and froward Children who fancy Bugbears to themselves and by groundless fears and crying disquiet themselves and others then like those Heroick Christians that indured the most exquisite Torments with invincible patience praying for their Persecutors The Stoicks behaved themselves with a much more imitable fortitude Tormenta a me abesse velim sed si sustinenda suerint ut me fortiter animose honeste geram optabo And thus Seneca Placebit ei ignis per quem fides collucebit He would rather embrace the Fire than betray his Fidelity Whereas our Complainers do by intolerable provocations draw down punishments on themselves and instead of induring them with a Christian patience seek to avenge themselves on the Inflictors How unreasonable the Complaints of such men are will appear if we consider first what their Sufferings have been as to the matter and causes of them Nulli dictum est nega Deum incende Testamentum Idolis Sacrifica It was never said to any of them Deny your God or dye by the hands of an Executioner burn your Bibles or we will burn you Sacrifice to our Idols or we will Sacrifice you Sola fuerunt ad pacem hortamenta ut Deus Christus ejus in unitate coleretur as St. Augustine speaks of the Donatists They were only exhorted to Worship God and his Son Jesus Christ in a peaceable Communion with their Christian Brethren and to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace wherefore he advised them to consider Prius quid secerint deinde quod patiuntur First what they had done and then what they did suffer So shall I desire those that think themselves grieved to consider by what actions and provocations of theirs the Penal Laws that are now in force were procured for Ex malis moribus bonae leges it was the seditious practices of ungovernable Men that gave birth to those Statutes which as the Preamble to those that were made in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth declares were made to retain her Majesty's Subjects in due Obedience That there is a necessity of some Penal Laws for the restraint of Evil-doers is the mature judgment of all Mankind for without such every Government would soon run into confusion and therefore every of the complaining Parties have made such Laws and inforced them with more severe Sanctions than those against whom they complain That the making of such Laws belongs to the Supreme Magistrate according to the National Constitution is also unquestionable and it would be ridiculous and bring Authority to contempt to make them and not execute them upon such as render themselves obnoxious by their disorderly behaviour St. Augustine in his 48th Epistle says That it was once his judgment that there was no need of Coercive Laws in matters of Religion lest we should have dissembling Catholicks instead of open Hereticks And therefore he thought that none should be compelled to the Unity of Christ but on second thoughts he altered his opinion and wrote a Tract de Correctione Donatistarum which is extant among his Retractations l. 2. wherein he asserts the necessity of Penal Laws which he grounds on his own experience instancing in the City of Hippo whereof he was Bishop which notwithstanding all his Learning and Endeavours was over-run by the Donatists which set up separate Congregations but by the execution of some Penal Laws was so reduced to Unity as if there had never been any Schism among them for as he observes they being first awed by fear were afterward convinced by truth which they could not hear from their false Teachers And in his 48th Epistle he appeals to them Quis nostram non laudat leges ab Imperatoribus adversus Pagana Sacrificia illius quippe impietatis Capitale supplicium est i. e. Who of us doth not commend the Imperial Edicts against Heathenish Sacrifices although the punishment be capital And in his 50th Epistle he affirms the Laws of the Emperours against those Donatists were a greater act of Charity to their Souls and Bodies as well as Piety towards God than the Indulgence of Julian which was such an occasion of Impiety and Cruelty as had almost destroyed Christianity by permitting Divisions among them wherefore he desires them to consider Quid potias eligatis utrum correcti vivere in pace an in malitia perseverantes falsi martyris nomine vera supplicia sustinere contra Petil. l. 2. which were most eligible either by correction to live in peace or to persevere in malice and draw just punishments on themselves being deceived with a false opinion of Martyrdom and Persecution For as he truly says Non persequitur phreneticum Medicus sed sphreneticus medicum When men that are diseased grow frantick and so ungovernable that they seek to infect and abuse others they that bind them to a better behaviour do the office of a Physitian not a Persecutor and so the Donatists did rather persecute the Laws than the Laws them Leges puniendo non possunt quod ipsi saeviendo potuerunt Epist 170. Nor can any reason be given why such Laws and Penalties should not extend to such as live in the Communion of the Church or separating from it pretend Conscience for their Disobedience for then all sorts of Wickedness might go unpunished seeing that some men have pleaded Conscience as a pretext for the greatest Villanies Now seeing it pleased the Supreme Authority of the Nation having had long experience of the Loyalty and peaceableness of such as lived in Communion with the Established Church to make the Conformity of the Subjects to the publick Doctrine and Worship a Test of their Obedience and Loyalty to the King and having also observed by many Years experience that such as moved Sedition in the State had first raised Division in or made Separation from the Church it pleased them to enact several Laws and Sanctions for an Uniformity in the Worship of God as a means to preserve the publick peace of the State which Laws being the Senatus consulta the effects of the Supreme Authority in Parliaments wherein every Subject by himself or his Representative is supposed to have this Vote they cannot be accounted the Constitutions of the Church any more than the Plebiscita or the Agreement of the People confirmed by the King on the Advice and Counsel of his Parliament and those Laws which on such solemn deliberation and general consent were established cannot rationally be annulled as long as the causes which made the enacting of them necessary are continued And doubtless as the Papists will acknowledge the necessity of them to suppress Heresies and Schisms seeing there is no Nation where their Religion is established where there are not more severe Laws and Sanctions made to suppress such Mischiefs so all other Dissenters will approve of the execution of