Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	apostle_n	church_n	word_n	1,489	5	3.9514	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33458	Notes upon Mr. Dryden's poems in four letters / by M. Clifford .... ; to which are annexed some Reflections upon the Hind and panther, by another hand.	Clifford, M. (Martin), d. 1677.; Brown, Thomas, 1663-1704. Reflections on the Hind and panther.	1687 (1687)	Wing C4706; ESTC R1883	19,057	36

alass 't is her fear all and another way of crying the Hawk Mercy and to the end that the Hawk finding nothing but Feathers to strike at she may so perhaps shelter her Body It is very fit indeed you should have a Guide and a Keeper too but Men in their Wits do believe that God made Man a reasonable Creature who feels as much Pleasure when he can give himself a good Account of his Actions as one that sees does perceive in comparison to a blind Man who is led about and therefore they think that the same merciful God would not contrive his Religion to be dark nor place it beyond the reach of their Faculties when he designed it to perfect their Natures and to raise them to the utmost heights they are capable of Fourthly the next Charge is Novelty and Schism thus expressed p. 66. We can point out each Period of the Time When they began and who begat the Crime Can Calculate how long the Eclipse endur'd Who interpos'd what Digits were obscur'd Mr. Bayes you must know was always good at Eclipses as when he made the Sun Moon and Earth act one in a Dance But I must say that this is a new way of writing Controversie to run us down with Whimsies instead of true Reasoning as He hath been used to astonish the Spectators in the Play-House with Scenes Clothes and Dances instead of giving Mankind a Picture of themselves and thereby making Virtue belov'd Vice abhor'd and the little Irregularities of Men's Tempers call'd Humours exposed to Laughter But seeing He is so exact at the Calculation of Time I would have him inform us how old these following Doctrines are Transubstantiation Purgatory the Merit of Works Invocation of Saints the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome the Authority of the Councils and the Infallibility of the Pope these being the chief Causes for which we dissent from Rome Surely in the beginning these things were not so For according to our Account Infallibility goes no higher than the Scholars of Marcus in Irenaeus or the Gnosticks in Epiphanius Purgatory comes from Origen or at the furthest from Tertullian who had it from Montanus The Denial of Marriage to the Priesthood is derived from Pope Calixtus Transubstantiation is from the Lateran Council The Half-Communion is no older than the time of Aquinas Praying in an unknown Tongue may be fetcht as far as from Gregory the Great St. Austin denies the Invocation of Saints departed to have been in his Days and the Supremacy of the Pope began in Boniface the Third Against Transubstantiation Aquinas argues Oper. Tom. 12. as a novel and an impossible thing for one Body to be locally in more places than one and in all at once The witholding the Cup from the Laity is against our Saviours Institution who hath commanded all Men to drink of this Cup Matth. 26. 27. From the beginning the Holy Scriptures were perused by the People witness the Traditores in the Persecution of Dioclesian who were called so from their delivering up of their Bibles which before they were forced to the contrary they made daily use of therefore the Hebrew Text was read Weekly to the Iews and the New Testament was written in Greek because that Tongue was most known to the Eastern World and to pray in an unknown Tongue is against the plain Sense of the 14th Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians Priests also were permitted to have Wives both in the Old and New Testaments and many of the Blessed Apostles were Married Men And St. Paul asserts his Liberty to carry a Wife along with him as well as Cephas These and many more Corruptions which I could mention in point of Practice and Doctrine too awaken'd the Christian World to look out for a Reformation to enquire for the old paths and to walk therein and to reform what was amiss by what had been the Belief and Practice of the Christian Church from the beginning In this Search are discovered the Rise and Progress of all the new-invented Doctrines in the Church of Rome by what Degrees her several Errours have been brought in For to go no further back than the Council of Trent we find new Articles of Faith such as the Sacrifice of the Mass the Doctrine of Purgatory the Invocation of Saints the Worship of Images and the like were enjoyned under the Pain of Damnation And in the Canon of the Fourth Session of that Council Unwritten Traditions are decreed to be of equal Authority with the Scriptures Upon this our first Reformers consulted the Scriptures and the Primitive Fathers of the Church that they might see how things stood from the beginning and only separated from them who had parted with the old and the true Religion Therefore it is in vain for Mr. Bayes to scorn or to complain of us for leaving the Church of Rome unless He can convince us that we have forsaken the Word of God the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles the uncorrupted Primitive Church the Four First General Councils or the Antient Creeds This is old Standard Faith Mr. Bayes and these the first plantations of the Truth of the Gospel from the Profession whereof we are no Schismaticks for Schism must needs be theirs who give the cause of Separation not theirs who do but separate when the Cause is given and we have departed from Rome for this Reason because she hath in many Instances departed from the Faith of Christ Nay had not the Pope affected a Supremacy over all other Churches besides his own we never had cast off a Yoak which had never been put on our Necks and so it is plain that the Vsurper did make the Schism It is indeed a Glorious Design to reconcile all Churches to one Doctrine and Communion but then it must not be done by such Tyranny as the Popes have practised to fetter Men streighter under the Bondage of fictitious Articles of Faith but Unity from this kind of Force is rather to be prayed against than wish'd for God only in his own time and by the inscrutable Methods of his Providence is able to range his whole Church scattered over the Face of the Earth into primitive Unity and Christian Order In the mean time Mr. Bayes should lay aside his Projects of Pillories Rods Gibbets and Inquisitions to make us acquiesce in his Judgment whatever be our private Opinion In some parts of his allegorical Poem one would verily believe that the Poet himself was turned into a Wolfe for his Speech is all howling yelling and barking that you would imagin He would presently pull out the Throats and suck the Bloud of all the Protestant Sheep who are always ready to suffer rather than commit that Errour against their Consciences which must render them Hypocrites to God and Knaves amongst Men. Therefore notwithstanding Mr. Bayes hath thought fit to pass over from one perswasion of Religion to another yet he might forbear to spit thrice at every

there was no Post nor Pillar in the Town exempt from the pasting up of the Titles of his Plays Insomuch that the Foot-boys for want of skill in Reading do now as we hear often bring away by mistake the Title of a new Book against the Church of England instead of taking down the Play for the Afternoon yet if he did it well or handsomly he might deserve some Pardon but alas how ridiculously doth he appear in Print for any Religion who hath made it his business to laugh at all How can he stand up for any mode of Worship who hath been accustomed to bite and spit his Venom against the very Name thereof Wherefore I cannot but wish our Adversaries Joy in their New-converted Hero Mr. Bayes whose Principle it is to fight single with whole Armies and this one quality he prefers before all the moral Vertues put together The Roman Catholicks may talk what they will of their Bellarmin and Perrone their Hector and Achilles and I know not who but I desire them all to shew one such Champion for the Cause as this Drawcansir For he is the Man that kills whole Nations at once who as he never wrote any thing that any one can imagin has ever been the practise of the World so in his late endeavours to pen Controversie you shall hardly find one word to the purpose He is that accomplished Person who loves Reasoning so much in Verse and hath got a knack of writing it smoothly The Subject he treats of in this Poem did in his Opinion require more than ordinary Spirit and Flame therefore he supposed it to be too great for Prose for he is too proud to creep servilly after sense so that in his Verse he soares high above the reach of it to do this there is no need of Brain 't is but scanning right the labour is in the Finger not in the Head However if Mr. Bayes would be pleased to abate a little of the exuberancy of his Fancy and Wit to dispense with his Ornaments and Superfluencies of Invention and Satyr a Man might consider whether he should submit to his Argument but take away the Railing and no Argument remains so that one may beat the Bush a whole day and after so much labour only spring a Butterfly or start an Hedg-hog For all this is it not great pity to see a Man in the flower of his Romantick Conceptions in the full vigour of his Studies on Love and Honour to fall into such a distraction as to walk through the Thorns and Briars of Controversie unless his Confessor hath commanded it as a Penance for some past sins that a Man who hath read Don Quixot for the greatest part of his Life should pretend to interpret the Bible or trace the Footsteps of Tradition even in the darkest Ages But hold we have a Battel just coming in and now Mr. Bayes speaks as big as if Ten Thousand Men were really engaged at the same time he sings in his Verse and puts himself into a Warlike posture so that our Ears are at once entertained with Musick and good Language and our Eye is also surprised with the Garb and Accoutrements of a Controversial War Notwithstanding methinks this blustring Wight is hardly strong and wise enough to demonstrate two such untoward Points as Transubstantiation and Infallibility I fancy he is as able to Square the Circle His Brains indeed have been a long time used to Chimera's the Raptures and Visions of Poetry gaudy Scenes unaccountable flights of Non-sense and big Absurdities consequently he may have a good head for the believing of Legends But let us see how he proves his several Positions which for brevity and distinction sake I must denominate after this manner and in this order 1. Transubstantiation 2. Reformation 3. Infallibility 4. Novelty and Schism 5. The passive Church First Transubstantiation he says we must admit Because Man is to believe Beyond what Sense and Reason can conceive Thus Mr. Bayes hath subdued his Understanding and laying aside his Sense and Reason is become a zealous Bigot for the Roman Faith But God Almighty is pleased to deal with us as Rational Creatures therefore no Doctrine that comes from him is contrary to our Reason neither are our Faculties to be renounced for the sake of it without the use whereof we should not be able to know any thing that relates to the Worship of God or our own Duty Nay in the very planting of the Christian Faith by Miracles Appeals are always made to the Reason and Sense of the Standers by We may therefore very well suspect that some Cheat is to be put upon us when they would have us receive a Doctrine of the Council of Trent without Sense and Reason Thus to subdue the Understanding to the Belief of Fictions is to suppose that God doth not expect that we should make use of the Soul which he hath given us in all its Adorations to pay him a Rational Service But Mr. Bayes hath not yet left off to expose Religion for to feign monstrous Opinions and then fly to Omnipotence to make them out is the most unjustifiable Attempt and the highest Blasphemy that can be thought on But our Poet is the same Mr. Bayes still as He was when he served the Stage He did ever scorn to imitate Nature and was altogether given to elevate and surprize so now he would banish Sense and Reason out of Religion to which he was never a Friend but above all his way of managing Controversies is peculiar 't is indeed Elevating Charming Rhiming and every thing but Thinking and Sense as for Instance p. 15. The Smith Divine as with a careless Beat Struck out the mute Creation at a Heat There 's a Rant for you That 's a Flight of Fancy at its full Range without any Check and Controul of Sense and Reason Hence it is that he hath been always wont to shew such hideous monstrous things in his Plays that every Man of Wit began to nauseate his swelling Stuff so now he labours to do the same thing in Divinity insomuch that his new Church will find it necessary to spue him out Secondly Reformation he rallies at as the Brat of an old obscene and furious Lyon that is Henry the 8th's Lust This is indeed a blustring Verse and a bold Stroke at the Memory of That King for thus our Hero will snub even Kings baffle Armies and do what He will without any regard to good Manners or Justice Nay he shall win you above a Dozen Battles by this sort of Impudence one after another But now among Friends was there ever any thing spoken so falsly so maliciously so ignorantly He has Face enough to say or unsay any thing and 't is his Priviledge what the School-Divines deny to be even within the Power of the Almighty To make Contradictions true that an honest necessary and well-grounded Reformation from gross Errors imposed as matters of Faith should be