Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	authority_n	bishop_n	rome_n	2,544	5	6.9850	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A01041	A defence of the lavvful calling of the ministers of reformed churches, against the cavillations of Romanists Whereto is subioined, an epistle to a recusant, for clearing and maintaining some points of the former treatise of defence, challenged by a Roman Elymas Bar-Iesus-it. With a short discovery of the adversarie his dottage in his impertinent and rediculously deceitfull demands. By Patrik Forbes, of Coirse.	Forbes, Patrick, 1564-1635.	1614 (1614)	STC 11146; ESTC S114324	93,515	180

not so fall from truth As if forsooth where all the members are apart bad infected that togither they could make vp a good or sound body Yea as we have alreadie cleared that the argumētation from the church or promises made thereto to ordinarie Pastors in common is vicious and from the ordinarie Pastours al in common to vniversallie each one is much more halting so here even from the whole Pastours vniversallie to the generall counsell it is still faultie For no generall counsel can be brought but that albeit al therein had erred yet numbers of ordinarie Pastours were besides who might have holden the truth O but the Counsels have a special promise of the Lord his presence as which doe represent the whole church and he blesseth his owne ordinance This is still impudently to oppone one the same thing I denie not but the Lorde hath promised that where or whensoever two or three assemble in his name he wil be in the midst of them And I am perswaded that no number how small soever of lawful pastours hauing God and his honour singlie before their eies and proponing and following onely his reveiled will and in Christian love agreeing in one in that disposition humblie heartily in calling to the Lord did ever assemble themselves or shall at any time convene which have not found and shal not find the truth of his promise That no man esteeme me herby to loose a liberty for men to contemne God his ordinance in the assemblies of his Church more then before in the meane of preaching of the worde But I pray you had ever the Lord so limited him selfe that al counsels shal vndoubtedly alwayes so assemble as they may be ever secure of that promise miserable experience in all ages hath taught vs clearlie the contrarie So as the holy ●an Nazienzen did not stick to say that hee never did see any good effect of counsels And Constantin the Emperour in his epstle to the Synode of Tyrus roundly telleth them● that in all the dealings of Bishops hee could see nothing but an overthrow of al religiō So while men ar miscaried with the spirit of contention bitternes pryde avarice ambition and selfe-love they cannot indeed make the promise of God of none effect which alwayes abydeth stedfast but they depryve thēselves of the fruit therof Besides this where voices are numbred not wayed albeit many assemble with good hearts yet oftē major pars vincit meliorē the grater part obtaine against the best Thus Michaia was not only disdainfully checked but also buffeted imprisoned Thus Ier●mie was condemned delivered to the secular power as a man who was worthy of death thus our Lord Iesus was convicted condēned of blasphemy and adiudged to die Neither giveth this a liberty to despyse counsels as which are the Lord his appointment for the rule of his house but it warneth wathchmen in feare trembling to take heed to their ministry not vainlie while they securely follow their owne lustes yet presumptuously to cry out The Temple of the Lord The Tèple of the Lord. The law shall not perish from the Priest nor counsell from the ancient For evē the Lord answereth such men that the law shal perish from the Priest the counsel from the ancient And it is to waken al Christians wysely and carefully to discerne spirites Augustin in few wordes telleth how rightly both to trye and make good vse of counsels Nec ego Nicenam Synodū tibi nec tu mihi Arminensem debes tanqua praejudicaturus obijcere Nec ego hujus authoritate nec tu illius detineris Scripturarū authoritatibus non quo●um●● proprijs sed quae vtris● sunt cōmunes res cum re causa cū causa ratio cūratione certet that is neither ought I to obiect to thee as a preiudice the counsel of Nyce nor thou to obiect to me the counsel of Ariminum Neither am I holdē to the authoritie of the one nor thou to the authoritie of the other let vs debate by authorities of Scriptures Which are common to vs both and not these authorities which are proper to either partie let matter bee set against matter cause against cause and reason plead against reason 17. The Romanists themselves perceaving well how weake incertain a warrant of truth is either the cōmunalty of pastours or the decrees of counsels which as Cadmus his race each al most destroy other they in end leave al other refuge and come to the Bishop of Rome and doe cōfine al verity within his breast who though he be a Devill a Sorcerer a Sodomit a Simoniak a Murtherer an Heretik as was Ioh. 22. who denyed the immortality of the soule finally a despiser both of God and man yet he cannot erre in Cathedra in the chaire Thus as men mated with maintaining an vnequall match for a wrong cause their last defences are feeblest Wherein albeit not onely they be destitut of all warrant either of Scripture or sound Antiquity but that even a great part also of their owne Clergie are ashamed therof yet their Iesuits Seminaries are stil more then extreemly impudent It is inded true that some of the ancient fathers attributed much yea and too much to the church of Rome reverenced greatlie both the iudgement and authority thereof by reason of so many famous Bishops who still in that seat had both holden soundlie the true faith themselfes and had bene great ayders and conforters of others who in diverse parts did stryve and suffer for it And in this men otherwayes learned and holy were not only too liberal but even beyond measure prodigal because whatsoeuer either praise or prerogative they could have on the church of Rome as the course of things then went it made for the credit of their cause Satan even thus subtillie plowing with God his owne heifer for fetting forward the mysterie of iniquitie which mynding simplie but the defence of the good cause in the tyme these good men were not ware of But such an vnbridled blasphemous licence as the Popes since have vsurped taken to them selves and their Canonistes and Parasites have given them these god-fathers never dreamed of As any who readeth their writtes and stories and with iudgement considereth the cases and condition of these tymes will easely perceave and bee never a whit troubled with the hyperbolick and partly evill vnderstood partly false and supposititious praise and priviledges given to that seat Wherewith when any of the Bishops of Rome being too much tickled did presse thereupon to vsurpe intolerably they were thē oftner then once not only resisted but also their ambition freely checked and gravely rebuked As the headines of Vi●●●r repressed by Ireneus Bishop of Ly●●● and Polycrates of Ephesus the act of the counsel of Chalcedon in favour of the Bishop of Constantinople constantlie maintained against all 〈◊〉 his chaffe and the act of the counsel of

wolfe who yet hath the place of an ordinarie Pastour in the Church more then a true Christian to receave the Sacraments from a reprobate being alwayes an ordinarie minister which sacraments yet by the inward cooperation of God are effectuall to the receaver for it is sufficiēt for an outward ordinarie calling that the minister thereof have outward place and power of ordination albeit he be but a hireling and a thiefe and the receaver of outward ordinarie vocation as he hath al gift and grace from God only whose the work is so is he not tied or sworne to the will or appetit of the outward minister but only to the Lord no more then any minister baptizeth in his owne name but in the Lorde his whose badge and cognissance only we take on thereby and not of the minister thereof So as who therevpon would evince me to have made defection frō the church because I impugne the heresie of him who gave me ordination or that finding him to be a wolfe and both giving warning thereof to others and my self shrinking from him that so doing I either had no ordinarie vocation at all or thē had fallen from it I thinke that any of sound and setled senses would advyse to minister to him rather Hellebore for his braine then any other answer 9. Now then albeit our adversaries be more then impudent to deny our ordinarie vocation and it were in vs but childish simplicitie in such evidencie thereof to grant them any apparant advantage and albeit it harmeth nothing our cause that our outward calling hath in a sorte flowed from the Bishop of Rome whose long vsurpation in the church so litle dismayeth vs as rather it confirmeth vs the more Antichrist being so proper a soare of the body of the church as that he can befal none other body thus though no otherwayes yet even by sight of the soare in but not of the body being sufficientlie assured that certainlie the true body was there yet in so cleare and direct an answer and solution of this question given by Christ him selfe I will never yeelde that the want of ordinarie vocation shal be alwayes a relevant exception against truth and the true Preachers thereof 10. But thus say they a doore is opened to all confusion in the house of God while a liberty is left for each man to vsurpe a calling at his pleasure God forbid Yea we are so farre from this disorder and do so farre both reverence and maintaine ordinarie vocation that in a constitute Church holding the foundation albeit otherwayes divers things therein did require reformation if any man of how great giftes soever yet without ordinarie calling should intende him selfe to be a Pastour we would no otherwayes account of him then of a seditious and turbulent spirit who either fanaticklie presuming of graces would vainlie despise order or for some infirmities and defectes would arrogantlie and vncharitablie breake the vnitie of the Church But if corruption hath so farre prevailed that the faithful Citie hath become an ●a●lot and all her silver be turned in drosse if her husbandmen have become murtherers and her builders have become destroyers if from the Prophet even to the Priest every one followeth after lyes if there bee a conspiracie of her Prophets in the mids of her like a roaring Lyon ravening the pray● if her watchmen be al blind know nothing if they be all dum doggs and can not barke if they ly and sleepe and love to sleepe if her Pastours know nothing nor vnder stand and looke wholy to their owne wayes if night be to them for a vision and darknes for a divin●tion In such a case God both heretofore hath and alwayes may send out men extraordinarilie who comming in the way of righteousnes and in evidence of truth and power convincing the ordinarie husbandes to be thieves and the ordinarie builders to bee destroyers even thereby sufficientlie verifie their ministerie to bee from heaven For an evill tree can not bring foorth good fruit nor a good tree bring foorth evill fruit By their fruits ye shal know thē It is deceitfull sophistrie to reason frō the state of a wel constitut church to a church dead in Baall or contrare frō the first generatiō or as I may cal it regeneration and reformation of a Church from deadly confusion to that which in a constitut or well reformed church is to be observed frō a respective necessity to conclud a necessitie absolut he were a ridiculos phificiō who in the cure of a deadly desperat disease would admit nothing but what for maintaining of health in ordinary dyet wer observed Our maister who most precisely fulfilled all righteousnes hath taught vs by his owne exāple that when the ordinary pastours have made the temple of God a house of merchandise the house of prayer a den of thieves that then by extraordinary motion from him the tables of these money-changers ar to be roundlie overturned these thieves to bee whipped to the doores That which is written of the house of God answering for the matter and that which is written of true zeale of the house answering for the manner And who I pray you did ever yet heare or what instance can bee given of anie reformation of a quiet disordered state but by some more at least in some points then an ordinarie fo●me either in the persons reformers or in their manner of doing 11. Our adversaries answere that if such a case as that is in which onely wee make extraordinary calling to have place can not at any time befal the church thē all our reasoning is vaine But so it is that such a case cā never befal the church Erg● the major or first part of the argument is from our owne ground the assumption or minor they proove by that wherewith compendiously forsooth they alwayes in al things defend them selves and summarilie with one stroake overthrow all whatsoever wee bring against them Namely that the church can not erre For hath not the Lord builded her on a rocke so as the gates of hell cannot prevaile against her hath he not promised to be alwayes with her til the consummation of al things and end of the world we grant all these goodly and great promises made to the church we both reioyce glory of them in the Lord know assuredly that he who is faithfull and true holdeth well his height But their conclusion hereupon in their sense hath a wordle of aequivocations For first albeit it be most certain that God never so abandoneth his church as that finally fundamentally she falleth from truth or is miscaried with errour but that still even in most desperat cases shee hath in her both the light and life of God yet hereupon to inferre at all times and in all and every thing such an absolut perfection as is mixed with no degree of errour or infirmity it