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	good_a	sin_n	1,408	5	4.8951	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77236	Several treatises of vvorship & ceremonies, by the Reverend Mr. William Bradshaw, one of the first Fellows of Sydney Colledge in Cambridge; afterward minister of Chattam in Kent, 1601. Known by his learned treatise De justificatione. 1. A consideration of certain positions archiepiscopal. 2. A treatise of divine worship, tending to prove the ceremonies, imposed on the ministers of the Gospel in England, in present controversie, are in their use unlawful. Printed 1604. 3. A treatise of the nature and use of things indifferent. 1605. 4. English Puritanism, containing the main opinions of the ridgedest sort of those called Puritans in the realm of England. 1604. 5. Twelve general arguments, proving the ceremonies unlawful. 1605. 6. A proposition concerning kneeling in the very act of receiving, 1605. 7. A protestation of the Kings supremacy, made in the name of the afflicted ministers, and oposed to the shameful calumniations of the prelates. 1605. 8. A short treatise of the cross in baptism.	Bradshaw, William, 1571-1618.	1660 (1660)	Wing B4161; Thomason E1044_5; ESTC R20875	92,680	129

be denied 2. It is an Embleme of their own NO CEREMONY NO BISHOP Ergo No humane Tradition and Invention no Bishop Ergo The Office of a Bishop is supported by them either only or specially 3. Their Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction is derived from the King else it is a flat denial of his Supremacy Also themselves grant in their last Tables of Discipline That the King hath power to encrease or diminish the Circuit of a Bishopprick That he may make two or more Bishoppricks of one and one Bishopprick to be two or more Yea what should hinder but that he may devide the Bishopprick of London into eight hundred For where God hath not defined the number of Parishes that a Bishop is to raign over it must needs be a thing indifferent In which by their own Doctrines the King hath authority without sin to dispose If therefore the King may as well notwithstanding any thing in the Law of God Give the Keys of the Church to every particular Pastour of a Congregation over his own Congregation as to a Bishop over a Diocess which taketh away the very Essence of an English Bishop He may without sin take away the very Office of the Bishop which consists in having Jurisdiction over many Congregations Also it being not defined by the Word of God but left free what attire Bishops shall wear as also what maintenance they shall have The King having absolute power in things indifferent according to their own Doctrine He may turn them out of their Rochets and Parliament Robes Thrust them out of their Pallaces and put them to their stipends to live upon voluntary devotions of poor Christian People and then a man may easily imagine what the Office of a Bishop would be worth For he that hath authority to prescribe to a Bishop and other Ministers the Forms Rites and Ceremonies of their Divine Service hath also power much more to prescribe moderate and appoint their Apparel Diet and manner of maintenance So that it is clear That the King may without sin disanul the Authorities Dignities and Prerogatives of Bishops Any of which shall be if it be denied proved to be matters of greater indifferency and therefore more appertaining to his Supremacy than the prescribing of Forms of Divine Service and mystical Rites of Religion For let the King take from the Bishop all indifferent things which he may do by their own Doctrine and a Bishop will be no Bishop as shall be proved if it be denied 4. There is no true and sober Christians but will say that the Churches of Scotland France the Low-Countries and other places that renounce such Archbishops and Bishops as ours are as Anticristian and usurping Prelates are true Churches of God which they could not be if the Authority and Prerogatives they claim to themselves were of Christ and not usurped For if it were the Ordinance of Christ Jesus That in every Kingdome that receiveth the Gospel There should be one Archbishop over the whole Kingdome One Bishop over many hundred Pastors in a Kingdome and all they invested with that authority and Jurisdiction Apostolicall which they claim jure Divino to be due unto them and to reside in them by the Ordinance of Christ Certainly that Church that should renounce and disclaim such an Authority ordained in the Church cannot be a true Church but a Synagogue of Sathan For they that should renounce and deny such must needs therein renounce and deny Christ himself Thus the Assumption is cleared The eleventh Argument All Humane Traditions and Rites enjoyned to be performed in Gods worship as necessary to Salvation are unlawfull These Ceremonies in controversie being but Humane Traditions are enjoyned to be performed in Gods worship as necessary to Salvation Ergo These Ceremonies are unlawfull THe Proposition is freely granted of all our Adversaries hitherto If any hereafter by reason of some difficulties the cause may be thrust into by granting the same shall be so desperate as to deny the same we shall be ready to make it good at any time The assumption is thus proved Whatsoever Humane Tradition Ceremony or Action that may without sin or inconvenience to any part of the Worship of God be omitted in the same and yet notwithstanding are injoyned and urged as more necessary than those Actions that are by the Word of God necessary to Salvation I say such humane Ceremonies and Traditions are injoined as necessary to Salvation But these Ceremonies are such as may without any sin or any inconvenience to any part of the Worship of God be omitted in the same and yet notwithstanding are enjoyned as more necessary for Christians to do than those Actions that are necessary to Salvation by the Word of God Ergo These Ceremonies in controversie are injoyned c. as necessary to Salvation He hath no blood of shame running in his veins that will deny the Proposition The Assumption hath two parts The first is this That these Ceremonies are such as may without sin or any inconvenience to any part of the worship of God be omitted This is evident For 1. if they could not be omitted without sin in Divine Worship they were Divine and not Humane Ordinances For example Though to go clothed to the Congregation be a Civil action yet because it is a sin for any to go naked to the Congregation It is a Divine Ordinance That men should go clothed thither And in this case as in any other case of sin a man ought rather never Worship God publickly than to go naked to the Congregation For the omission of a Good Action is no sin when it cannot be done but by committing of a sin 2. Divine Worship consisting in Prayer the Sacraments and the Word no wit of man can shew wherein the bare omission of any one of these Ceremonies is inconvenient to any one of these parts for what inconvenience can a man that is not drunk with the dreggs and lees of Popish Superstition finde it to publick Prayer to be said in the Congregation without a Priests Surplice The omission of ordinary pawses and Accents points and stopps the suppressing of the voice or a loud hooping and hallowing out of the words or an undistinct sounding of them were such actions as common reason will teach are inconvenient for Prayer and so inconvenient that a man ought never to pray publickly in the Congregation as the voyce thereof that should by Canon be tied thereto And the Magistrate though there were no Canon to the contrary ought to turn such out of the Ministry that should omit such matters in prayer But for a Minister to pray without a Surplice can be in reason no more inconvenient than for him to pray without Book without a pair of spectacles upon his nose And there may be as good reason given to prove it convenient for a man that saith a thing without Book to put on a pair of Spectacles as there can be to prove it convenient for him

shall abuse it upon the Supream Majesty himself 18. If the King subjecting himself to spiritual Guides and Governours shall afterwards refuse to be guided and governed by them according to the Word of God and living in notorious sin without Repentance shall wilfully contemn and despise all their holy and religious Censures that then these Governours are to refuse to administer the holy things of God unto him and to leave him to himself and to the secret Judgement of God wholly to resign and give over that spiritual charge and tuition over him which by calling from God and the King they did undertake And more then this they may not do And after all this We hold that he yet still retaineth and ought to retain intirely and solidly all that aforesaid supream power and Authority over the Churches of this Dominion in as ample a manner as if he were the most Christian Prince in the World 19. We acknowledge King JAMES to be our onely lawful Sovereign and unto him to be due all the aforesaid Supremacy and we renounce and abjure all Opinions Doctrines Practises whatsoever repugnant or contrary to the same as Anabaptistical and Antichristian and wish they may be severely punished 20. We never refused Obedience to any Lawes or Commandements of the King or State whatsoever but onely to such as we have proved or are ready to prove if we might be heard with indifferency to be contrary to the Word of God And we are ready to take our Solemn Oathes before the Throne of Justice that the onely cause of our refusal of Obedience to those Canons of the Prelates for which we are at present so extreamly afflicted is meere Conscience and a fear to sin against God And that if by due form of reasoning we may be convinced in our Consciences of the contrary we are as willing as any Subjects in the Realm to Obey and Conform 21. We refuse Obedience onely to such Canons as require the performance of such Acts and Rites of Religion as are rejected and abandoned of all other Reformed Churches as Superstitious Disorders Such as are special Mysteries of the Romish Antichristian Idolatry Such as have been controverted in the Church ever since the last breaking forth of the Light of the Gospel out of the cloud of Popery in Luthers time Such as all Protestant Writers and Defenders of our Faith beyond the Seas and most of our own Country men have either in general or particular condemned as vain idle and unprofitable Such as all the Faithful and Painful Pastors of this Realm and in a manner all States and degrees of the same would be content were removed and swept out of the Church and for which few or none are zealous but the Prelates and their Adherents 22. We deny no Authority to the King in matters Ecclesiastical but onely that which Christ Jesus the onely Head of the Church hath directly and precisely appropriated unto himself and hath denyed to communicate to any other creature or creatures in the World For we hold That Christ alone is the Doctor of the Church in matters of Religon and that the Word of Christ which he hath given unto his Church is of absolute perfection containing in it all parts of the true Religion both for Substance and Ceremony and a perfect direction in all Ecclesiastical matters whatsoever Unto and from which it is not lawful for any Man or Angel to add or detract 23. We are so far from making claim of any supremacy unto our selves and those Ecclesiastical Officers which we desire that we exclude from our selves and them as that of which we are utterly uncapable all Princely and Lordly state pompe and power whatsoever holding it a sin for any whosoever to exercise no not by commission from the Magistrate any Authority over the Body Goods Lives Liberty of any Man whosoever for any crime or offence whatsoever So that any one of the basest and most inferiour civil officers in a Kingdom hath and ought to have in our Judgement more Authority and Power over men then any or all the Ecclesiastical Officers in the same Kingdom or in the whole World Yea we hold that the highest Ecclesiastical Officer in the Church ought to be as subject unto the basest civil officers in the Kingdom as the meanest Subject in the Kingdom And that they ought not by virtue of their office to challenge any freedom or immunity at all from any Civil Subjection whatsoever belonging to any common Subject 24. We confine and bound all Ecclesiastical power within the limits onely of one particular Congregation holding that the greatest Ecclesiastical power ought not to stretch beyond the same And that it is an arrogating of Princely Supremacy for any Ecclesiastical person or Persons whosoever to take upon themselves Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over many Churches much more over whole Kingdomes and Provinces of Christians 25. We hold it utterly unlawful for any one Minister to take upon himself or accept of a sole Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over so much as one Congregation And therefore we hold that some of the sufficientest and most honest and godly men in the Congregation ought to be chosen by the Heads of Families to be adjoyned in Commission as assistants to the Minister in the spiritual Regiment of the souls of that Congregation of which he is the pastor 26. We hold that these Ecclesiastical Officers being so chosen by the Church or Congregation are to exercise over the said Congregation only a Spiritual Iurisdiction and power consisting in a carefull oversight of the outward behaviour of the Members of their Church That it be not scandalous offensive and unbeseeming Christians And if any Member shall be delinquent they are brotherly to admonish him shewing him the nature of his crime by the word of God And if after two or three admonitions he shew no tokens of sorrow and penitencie then are they to deny unto him the pledges and seales of the Church to wit the Sacraments If this cannot humble him but that he continue obstinate in that sin then they are by the mouth of the Minister in Congregation the whole Church consenting freely thereto denounce him to be no Member of the Kingdom of Heaven and so forbear to have any further charge over him untill God shall work the grace of Repentance in him in this manner they are to proceed against all apparent and Evident crimes only as Murder Adultery Theft Blasphemie Ribaldery Lying Slandering Profanation of the Sabothes contempt of Divine Worship Disobedience to the Civil Magistrate c. Neither ought the extreamest of the Ecclesiastical Censures any whit hinder the course of justice that the Civil Magistrate is to exercise against the same crimes for if a Traytor himself should be penitent the Church ought to forgive him and lovingly to imbrace him as a Son but the Magistrate ought to execute him if he should be obstinate in that crime As the Magistrate ought to cut him off