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	speak_v	word_n	1,386	5	3.9429	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A15418	Limbo-mastix: that is, A canuise of Limbus Patrum shewing by euident places of Scripture, inuincible reasons, and pregnant testimonies of some ancient writers, that Christ descended not in soule to Hell, to deliuer the Fathers from thence. Containing also a briefe replie to so much of a pamphlet lately published, intituled, An answere to certaine obiections against the descension &c. as lookes that way, and is personally directed against some writers of our Church.	Willet, Andrew, 1562-1621.	1604 (1604)	STC 25692; ESTC S120030	49,797	70

LIMBO-MASTIX That is A Canuise of Limbus Patrum shewing by euident places of Scripture inuincible reasons and pregnant testimonies of some ancient writers that Christ descended not in soule to Hell to deliuer the Fathers from thence Containing also a briefe replie to so much of a Pamphlet lately published intituled An answere to certaine obiections against the descension c. as lookes that way and is personally directed against some writers of our Church PHILIP 3. 15. Let vs as many as be perfect be thus minded and if ye be otherwise minded God shall reueale euen the same vnto you Augustin de Trinitat lib. 1. c. 3. Siquid erraueris Deus tibi reuelabit siue per occultas inspirationes admonitiones siue per manifesta eloquia siue per fraternas sermocinationes If thou hast any where erred God shall reueale it vnto thee either by secret inspiration and admonition or by manifest Scripture or brotherly conference LONDON Printed for Thomas Man 1604. TO THE MOST HONORABLE SENATE OF THE LORDS SPIRITVALL AND Temporal Knights Burgesses assembled in the high Court of Parliament grace mercie and peace from the Lord Iesus RIght Honourable Lords and ye right Worshipfull Knights and Gentlemen I feared at the first to present this short treatise to your view remembring what sometime I had read in Hierom I am afraide least in doing my dutie I bee thought to be ambitious while I pretend to write should intend to seeke great mens fauour But the Apostles words did more imbolden mee than the others could draw mee back We cannot but speak the things that we haue seene and heard So neither could I containe my selfe hearing of that honourable resolution which is in you all to further the cause of the Church of Christ and true religion but to reioyce in this common ioy and among other welwillers of Sion to testifie our inward ioy and outward thankfulnes to God and you all for the same It is written that the Israelites gathering themselues together against the children of iniquitie the men of Gibeah assembled before the Lord as one man Such a Christian consent hath well appeared in this sacred assemblie to promote Gods glorie and his truth The saying was wont to be The greater part hath ouercome the better but the contrarie is now wel seene and that rule which Plinius Cecilius was wont to prescribe vnto his schoole that hee had worst spoken which had the greatest applause beginneth now to faile in this great Consistorie where the best motions we doubt not but shall haue the greatest applause I know not whereunto better to liken this Christian harmonie than vnto the Seraphims that cried one to another Holy holy holy Lord of hosts and to that heauenly song wherein both the vpper ranke of those foure glorious creatures and the nether order of the foure and twentie Elders consented to giue glorie and honour vnto God that I may say truly in his words That in this reuerent assemblie wee haue a patterne of the heauenlie companie Now we see performed that worthie saying of his excellent Maiestie A godly King findeth as his heart wisheth godly estates concurring with him For as God hath endued his princely hart with a liuely feeling and inward touch of true religion as hee saith It was fit that hee which was superiour in power should not be inferiour in deuotion So your Honours are wee trust those godly states which will be readie to concurre with his Maiestie in establishing of godly lawes Among the rest of the Parliaments in this land one was called the good Parliament another the Parliament that wrought wonders But wee doe all hope that this honourable Session shall rather deserue to be so called That Parliament was of all other the most glorious which in the beginning of worthie Queene Elizabeths raigne restored religion how can this be inferiour which endeuoureth to establish and make better both Church and religion One saith well It is one thing to seeke what thou hast lost another to keepe that thou hast This Church may count her self more happie in holding and encreasing that she hath than when shee was forced to recouer that which she had lost Well may we now say vnto this noble companie as the Prophet to and of Sion Glorious things are spoken of thee O Citie of God We cannot but reioyce to heare of your Honors Christian consultation for the propagating of the Gospell in planting euery where of good pastors that the people may be brought from the darknesse of their ignorance to the light of knowledge that they be no longer children in vnderstanding 1. Cor. 14. 20 and as babes and sucklings in religion Ambrose herein thus pleasantly alludeth vpon these words Woe to them that giue sucke Lot vs make haste to weane our little ones when Isaak was weaned Abraham made a feast the child not weaned was in the night by the drowsie mother ouerlaid Your Honors then do right well to prouide good nurses to weane the people from their ignorance that they be no longer ouerlaid with drowsie and negligent pastors and that such bee not excluded from nursing which haue store of milke in the breasts and seeke in peace and a good conscience to nourish the people of God But because the nurse cannot giue milke that is not first fed her selfe most prudent and christian is that other care to prouide for the maintenance of good pastors which as wee hope will be by our Reuerent Fathers in their graue Synode deuised so we trust it shall by your Honourable fauours be furthered for the Apostle saith The mouth of the oxe is not to be musled And Origene well agreeth Nisi dederit oleum populus extinguetur lucerna in templo If the people minister not oyle the lampe goeth out in the temple Now among other graue matters of deliberation if it were not too great boldnes giue me leaue I beseech you to interpose my petition Saint Paul saith in a case not much vnlike Set vp them which are least esteemed in the Church and I trust you will not despise my simple motion euen the least of the seruants of Christ. Valerius saith well to this point We know the noise of geese is contemned according to the saying a goose among Swannes yet by the chattring of geese the citie of Rome was saued from burning May it therefore please you to heare a foole speak vnto wise men That whereas men haue of late daies taken vnto themselues great libertie in Sermons Lectures writings to set abroach strange vncouth doctrines exorbitant from the current doctrine among Protestants it might please this honourable Court that one vniformitie of doctrine may be taught and held and seeing there are many vnsound doctrines which because they are omitted are not opposite to the articles of religion established that either it might seem pleasing to his Maiestie and you

to haue those articles augmented explaned and enlarged or els that it be lawfull for none to defend or maintaine those doctrines wherein the professors of the Gospell in England consent with other reformed Churches and dissent from that of Rome and which are both by our domesticall and forren writers among the Protestants maintained against the common aduersarie And further that concerning al such points no inuectiues be vsed of one against another in preaching or writing that as the Apostle saith we proceed all by one rule that we may minde one thing And this shall bee true friendship and concord indeede as he well saith which not worldly profit or bodily presence or cunning flatterie but the feare of God and the loue of the Scriptures doth knit together Pardon my boldnesse Honorable Patrons who out of the simplicitie of my desire to the peace of the Church haue presumed thus to moue I know you can consider that champions many times are stronger than their abettors and the weaker doth stirre him vp to fight that is stronger as Hierom well saith I am but a weake man that haue moued this God shall make your Honours strong to performe this and more for the good of his Church and glory of his name to whom bee praise for euer THE PREFACE TO THE TREATISE FOLLOWING THree speciall places are alledged by Bellarmine to proue the descent of Christ into hell where he imagineth the soules of the godly to haue been before his comming for this is his position That the soules before Christs death were not in heauen but in hell vnder the earth and therefore Christ which descended to the place of soules went down to hell vnder the earth These places are the first Act. 2. 27. Thou wilt not leaue my soule in hell the second 1. Pet. 3. 19. 20 In the which spirit hee went and preached to the spirits in prison the third Ephes. 4. 9. He that ascended is hee that descended first into the lower parts of the earth These places by Bellarmine first vrged to prooue the locall descent of Christs soule into hell to deliuer and set at libertie the Patriarks haue been seconded of late in a certaine Pamphlet much of that argument In the which though the author doe pretend onely to reuiue the opinion of Christs souledescent into hell which is the priuate opinion of some learned men of our Church yet in diuers places of the booke he rubbeth vpon Limbus Patrum as may be euident to the reader in these three first pag. 9. S. Peter mentioneth sorrowes which were loosed at Christs resurrection which could not be in the sepulcher where his bodie lay dead and sencelesse Here hee denieth that these sorrowes which Christ loosed are to be referred to the death of his bodie but pag. 12. he directly by his death vnderstandeth hell Hence it followeth that if Christ loosed the sorrowes of hell and I thinke hee is not so absurd to thinke that he loosed them for himselfe who was neuer in the sorrowes of hell after his death then it will follow that he loosed them for others and for whom els but for them which were there detained The second place is pag. 36 where he striueth mightily that the place in S. Peter must not bee read the spirits which are in prison but which were whereupon it followeth that they were in hell but are not to whom Christ preached or els he striueth about words his opinion then seemeth to be this that some soules were in hell at Christs comming thither which now are not The third place which I note is pag. 52 where he hath these words In that Christ personally descended into hell it doth more amplifie and set foorth his goodnes toward mankinde than his only comming downe into the world for so much as the more vile and loathsome the dungeon is the greater is the loue of that Prince who to enfranchise and set at libertie his captiues there enthralled disdaineth not to enter into it in his owne person Now who els can bee imagined to bee set at libertie in hell but the Fathers in Limbo Patrum For out of the nethermost hell of the damned of each side it is confessed none can be deliuered Perceiuing then how cunningly the Answerer doth seeke to winde in an old Popish error setting his face one way and going another and as Hierom saith out of Plautus To hold a stone in one hand and reach bread with the other I thought good to vncase this masking Mummer and to pull off his vizard not preiudicing hereby by this speedie replie the more mature and deliberate answere of those learned men that are by him taxed But before I enter into any particular defence foure things I would premonish this secret Censor of first that if he be a professor of the Gospell of Christ what came in his minde to ioyne with the common aduersarie in disgracing the defence of the Gospell by one vndertaken in his Synopsis may I not say vnto him with the Prophet Wouldest thou helpe the wicked and loue them that hate the Lord I may very fitly applie against him that saying of Hierom You that professe your selfe a Protestant lay aside the weapons of Papists or vncase your selfe that we may know you to bee an aduersarie that you may receiue the wounds of the Papists Secondly it had bin much more commendable if the Answerer had bent his force against the common aduersarie There are lately diuers Popish bookes come ouer which might haue set him on work what profit can it bee to him the field being pitched against the Papists to pick quarrels with his fellow souldiers He might haue thought of Abrahams reason Let there be no strife betweene thee and mee for wee are brethren But this is no straunge thing for a man euen among his brethren companions often to find an aduersarie as Origen well noteth vpon these words of our Sauiour Mat. 26. 23. He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish shall betray mee This is the vse of many that they lie in waite for those with whom they haue eaten bread and salt yea with whom they haue bin together at the same table of the bodie and blood of Christ. Thirdly it is against the rule of charitie to bring mens priuate acts into publike view and to proclame openly what is written secretly Our blessed Sauiours rule is If thy brother trespasse against thee goe and tell him his fault betweene thee and him alone Matth. 18. 15. In my iudgement then the Replier had small cause to confute in print a priuate letter written to a Gentleman It had bin a better course priuately to haue conferred with him than publikely to haue censured him Ecclesiasticus saith If thou hast heard a word let it die with thee for it will not burst thee Hieroms counsel here had bin good Other matters which you desire to know let vs conferre of