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	church_n	faith_n	2,630	5	5.8125	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91322	Dissertatio de pace, &c. Or, A discourse touching the peace & concord of the Church. Wherein is elegantly and acutely argued, that not so much a bad opinion, as a bad life, excludes a Christian out of the kingdom of heaven; and that the things necessary to be known for the attainment of salvation, are very few and easie: and finally, that those, who pass amongst us under the name of hereticks, are notwithstanding to be tolerated.; Dissertatio de pace. English	Przypkowski, Samuel, 1592-1670.; Biddle, John, 1615-1662,	1653 (1653)	Wing P4133; Thomason E1495_1; ESTC R203302	40,192	82

those things to be true which are false Truly we are very injurious to mortality if we suppose the errors and failings of our minde to be crimes You will say They sin of set purpose and fall not casually but by a voluntary slip But who told you so Or who hath discovered unto you their intimate counsels Certainly not charity which is an enemy to evil surmises but bitterness and malignity of spirit which is apt to make a sinister construction of anothers meaning Although they had no evident proof of their innocency yet in a doubtful matter and such as is known onely to the judge of hearts it became us not to make any sad decree against them How much less can they be condemned when there appeareth nothing that might invite and drive them to so wretched and dangerous malice we should at least here make use of that notable saying of Piso's For what advantage is this done For if they be neither seised with a longing after honours and riches nor with an itch of pleasures nor can have any hopes of earthly solace and if they conform their life to the prescript of that most holy Law where lyeth the incitement to so great improbity as that they should purposely procure to themselves so many troubles together with eternal destruction CHAP. IX An Answer to the Objection about rejecting the Consent of the Church for the Authority of the Scripture onely BUt you will say that they have been so daring as to question a Mystery for so many ages since received by all the Christian world with great applause venerable for its very antiquity and ratified by the authority of so many Holy Fathers and Councels and so are come to the very height of wickedness in attempting to discuss with sacrilegious curiosity such things as ought to be believed The reprehension then is this that they have begun to make a doubt of so certain a thing But what Is it unlawful to busie your wit about a thing of undoubted truth that after a more strict examination you may the sooner impetrate assent from your self Certainly it is a disparagement to the Truth if we suppose her to be afraid of mens judgments For neither is it unbecoming her to plead for herself at the bar of Reason that she may bravely overcome and draw the very judge to her side whereas if she decline the tryal of this court she suffers not a little in the confidence of her cause For though we may not enquire into the truth of the Divine Oracle yet we both may and ought into the true meaning thereof and they are slanderers who say that the Socinians believe not the words of the Scripture because they doubt of the received sense But what if they seem also to have just causes of doubting For they conceive that the Holy Fathers and the consent of so many ages do adde more dignity and veneration then stress to the doctrine of the Trinity How well grounded this conceit is I dispute not However certain it is that they are not the first who have charged the publike authority of the Church and the consent of many Synods and ages with the suspicion of most grievous crimes For since they see the foresaid authority in many other things of great moment not onely accused but also convicted of falshood what so hainous crime have they committed who dare not entrust their faith and opinion of Divine things unto her For of sixteen ages the twelve latter cannot warrant many things to the greatest part of Christians It cannot be denyed that the Socinians going farther then others do also reject the consent of the four former but especially of the third and fourth ages For since the Truth hath found little assurance in humane authority for so many ages of the lowest antiquity they thought that their opinions were to be squared onely by the rule of the holy Scripture Wherein truly they could not erre so greatly but that they had a far greater cause of erring For what could the faith of the Church being once suspected ratifie to them how could they know that the Christian world hath groaned under the darkness of errors no longer then for ten or twelve ages Or that those ancient times had any priviledge above the following ones so that they could not erre They saw them to be men yea such men as were alas defiled for a great part with vices and crimes Nor could they be ignorant of the factions amongst the Nicene Fathers nor of their evident ambition nor of the evil arts of sundry others nor of the shameful errors of men otherwise most holy And though it were to be held that about the three hundredth yeer of Salvation the Church did still retain the primitive Truth yet in so many dissentions and so many adverse Councels they judged that at least the choyce of the truer opinion did pertain to themselves In chusing which they ought not to follow the judgement of the successive Church which had been already justly condemned in many points of fait● but the infallible rule of the holy Scripture For how could the Church warrant unto them the opinion of others when she was not able to make good her own Besides they called to minde the genius of that age and the dispositions of those Fathers concerning whom that great man Justus Lipsius in our age wrote that many did then so put-on Christ by an outward profession that in their minde they did not put-off Plato And therefore they not without cause suspected that in many heads of doctrine plain words were wrested to forrain and Philosphical senses whilst the Fathers did with ingenious comments tack the mysteries of their Philosophy to the word of God that they might not seem to have learned in vain For what should be the cause say they that touching the received explication of the holy Trinity Plato and Trismegistus speak more clearly then the sacred Scripture Or what reason should there be why the Scripture should more timorously and obscurely deliver so holy a Mystery then the foresaid Philosophers These and the like things though they do not acquit them of error yet do they clear them from the imputation of rashness For nothing is more certain then that the doctrine of Christ is not built on so weak a foundation as some constitute in humane authority Now did we heretofore wrest these arms out of the hands of Papists that we our selves might use them against others Certainly it becometh not us either to take their weapons or deliver ours up to them but when we are summoned to the tribunal of the holy Scripture onely we ought not to yield this p●aise to the Adversaries that they should seem to hope better then we concerning the equity and favour of so great a judge CHAP. X. An Answer to three other Objections a Comparison of Calvin 's Doctrine touching Fatal Predestination with the Doctrine of others BUt it will be further objected

his colours Which not belonging unto men who go astray from the common road out of meer ignorance or injury of the times what shall we do to them that make use of this exception Shall they who in these calamitous times in this desolation of the Church being born a great while after the rise of Antichrist and not able fully to dispel the darkness of that long night turn aside into by paths be judged to sin out of perversity of minde Where now is that royal high-way thorow which the godly may pass securely on with an unerring foot to Salvation If it lie in the authority of the Church she hath now for many ages been beset with the snares of Antichrist We wonder that they are afraid of the suspected faith of the Church when they do the same after our example and in so great danger to fear even all the things that are safe is a point of prudence And we still dare to upbraid them with rashness in departing from the common doctrine when they seem to do it out of a just and well-grounded fear But if this way consisteth in the authority of the holy Scripture they do not stray from it whilst they together with us honour those Sacred books with due reverence But you will say that the right and orthodox sense of the Holy Scripture is rather the onely path that is able to bring us to the very citadel of Truth I confess that this way was heretofore worn with the publike going of Christians but now being first hidden with the springing briars of Antichrist and therefore trodden by very few and not as yet discovered by having all the brake cut down and besides called into doubt by so many intervening false paths it hath not as yet recovered the name and nature of a Royal high-way which it had for a long time lost And therefore the greater pardon is due unto such as deviate from the same For neither do they erre through desperate malice of heart who do not always walk therein amidst so many cross-ways and turnings Let any one reckon up to me all the sects of Christian Religion and I will say he is a brave fellow if he omit none In so great a concourse of opinions if they have not chosen the truer who will say that this is rather done out of improbity then out of ignorance For by what argument after so many errors have been introduced ought the Truth to lie open to their view By the unanimous consent of the Church O unanimous consent amidst six hundred different sects You will say that in the doctrine contrary unto them the greatest part are agreed But this is nothing since they have also agreed in very many errors So that we must again seek out a priviledge for the doctrine of the Trinity whereby it came to pass that though men erred in other points yet could they not mistake in this But if we suppose that they ought to examine all opinions by the rule of the Holy Scripture and afterwards to chuse the truer they have done both save that in the latter they have not followed that which indeed was but onely that which they thought to be truer Which certainly is an error and no malice nor can they be said to sin self-condemned in holding such an opinion for which they are ready to lose their life and fortunes For neither doth he condemn himself at least in his conscience who in the midst of cruel tortures hopeth for eternal life from God as the reward of defending the truth Wherefore since we are not certain that they are perverse and self-condemned but well assured that they are not such even from the death which they willingly undergo for their Errors and since such Errors as hath been before proved do not subvert eternal salvation it seemeth that they ought not to be segregated from the communion of the Church if they will testifie their love towards the Lord Jesus by obeying his commandments CHAP. XII What Hereticks are to be excommunicated what not and a fuller Apologie for those who in our Age pass for Hereticks BY this reckoning will some say How few Hereticks must be excommunicated who will not invent plausible pretences for his pravity There is no doctrine so absurd and pestilent which being palliated with that cloke of error may not creep into the Church To which I answer that there is no cause why we should be solicitous lest we should have no occasion to use this rigid law of excommunication Would the Church had even at this day no voluntary rebels against the Divine Majesty But neither in the times of the Apostles were there men wanting who subverted either our faith in God or the hope of immortality or the piety and love that is enjoyned us and such as did not by deductions and consequences but with open face as they say vent blasphemies and impieties Whose endeavour and impiety is not so obscure but that it is apparent that they were conscious to themselves of their pravity and fraud As if any one should deny the resurrection of the dead who seeth not that such a man after he hath viewed the clear and certain sentence of the Holy Scripture will be convicted in himself although he may perhaps dissemble it There is the same reason in the patron of some manifest vice All which being manifest for so are the works of the flesh and manifestly forbidden such a man hath no starting-hole in the ambiguity or obscurity of the Sacred Scripture unless he disbelieve the same and so overthrow all Religion Whosoever therefore bring into the Church such doctrines as do in their own nature subvert our Salvation and Faith they are deservedly commanded to depart together with the former not onely lest they should hurt others but also because they themselves as hath been shewn are of incorrigible malice and perversity and consequently self condemned For a Chirurgian doth not presently fear or cut-off an infected part because it may with its contagion hurt the rest of the body but would first have that very part cured of the infection which if it doth not succeed he then cuts it off as incurable But those doctrines that stand not within the boundaries of necessity to salvation are such that an errour in them especially in this disturbed state of things cannot be taxed of wilful pravity nor can it either damn its author or exclude him from the bosome of the Church But some one will here object Shall we brand with this spiritual censure the obstinate maintainer of none even the greatest error if so be it overthrow not our Salvation But there are many things which though in their own nature they take not from us our Salvation yet do they by degrees so undermine and weaken the same that afterwards it falleth down of its own accord And do you like it that such diseases should be cherished in the Church To which I answer that I would

premised deliberation what fault of theirs will it be when they are mistaken Therefore they shall either be punished guiltless for the fault of others or if they perish guilty their onely offence will be this namely that they are somewhat dull which is ridiculous For let us suppose what often cometh to pass that there are certain simple men of an innocent life and who according to the power of their mortality live piously and devoutly let us also suppose what often falleth out that there are learned and ingenious men but overwhelmed with sins and trespasses In both perhaps God may finde just cause of punishment but he setteth not so high an estimate on wits as to deal more severely with better men onely for their rudeness then with the worst of men and such as by their very ingratitude for his gifts provoke his vengeance But he should deal more severely with better men were a certain and infallible way to Salvation quite shut up to them for the dulness of their wit and onely an uncertain and slippery one depending on anothers wit or piety left them And if on the contrary wicked men so they be ingenious have always if they please a priviledge to go thorow the right and saying path But you will say God is bound to none and when he findeth in both a cause of just severity though not equal he may according to his own good pleasure prosecute his right in those and pardon these their greater sins I answer What God may do is not here so much questioned as what he will and is wont to do And therefore though we should grant that he may do this yet would it not as yet appear that he will and is wont to do so For God may do many things towards men without impeachment to his justice which otherwise his wonted mercy seemeth not to permit But would not a respect of persons be by this means apparently ascribed unto God if before him learned men should be in a better condition then simple ones And yet notwithstanding he is wont to reveal his mysteries not to the wise of this world but to the simple and ignorant as the face of the Primitive Church witnesseth which had very few learned men which very thing evinceth the condition of simple men in point of Religion to be if not better yet at least equal to that of the learned I am sorry to dwell longer on a thing so evident For these things cannot be obscure to any one but him who being puffed up with a vain confidence of himself and his knowledge hath quite evaporated and breathed-out all charity and mildness of Christian forbearance And therefore such as erre are oftentimes by us accused of wickedness not that they themselvs erre grievously but because they think us to erre grievously Our pride may seek what pretences she pleaseth yet doth she for the most part plead her own cause a great part of those that erre are damned anathematized not so much for their own ignorance as for their dissent from us CHAP. VII That there is not in this life a perfect knowledge of God and of Divine Mysteries but in the other life and that Faith Hope and Charity are sufficient to Salvation IF in the business of our Salvation a difference were made between the very work of our felicity and such means as tend thereunto we should esteem fewer things as necessary to be known and a far easier course might be taken to repair concord in the Church Whereas now whilst we confound the means with the end it cometh to pass that in a preposterous order we will have that which was first in the intention to be also first in the execution when notwithstanding the means do in their nature so follow the end as to go before it in time What is it to which the desire of the noblest mindes aspireth Even the pleasure of Eternal Joy which mans minde cannot so much as conceive without the exact knowledge of God But that contemplation happy even to envie awaiteth us in the heavens nor can the narrowness of our earthly temper in this frailty comprehend it As therefore he would be ridiculous who should hope for the fruit of soverain happiness in this life so are we also seised with a very foolish humour whilst in this Inne of our mortality we require of all the suiters for heaven a perfit knowledge of Gods nature which is not a taste or hansel of our felicity but the very top and complement thereof If the capacity of our understanding doth as hath been said in vain attempt to comprehend this fully on the earth it is fit that we together with the Apostle 1 Cor. 13. knowing and prophesying in part expect the perfection that is to come But with what spaces shall we circumscribe that wandering and imperfit knowledge It is the safest way to set those limits thereunto which the very nature of the New Covenant hath appointed Namely that we chiefly and necessarily inculcate on all onely that knowledge of God and Christ without which those things cannot consist which are required of us by vertue of the New Covenant Of which sort are a firm confidence placed in God and his Christ together with a hope of his promises and perfit charity All these things are easily consistent with those mistakes about the subtil search into the nature of God and Christ Moreover the greatest difficulty in such dissentions is for the most part wont to arise about the state of our Saviour before he repaired the lapsed condition of men Howbeit if we make a true estimate of the matter although this mystery of his Eternity be true and altogether Divine yet doth it not properly belong to us to whom he hath presented and revealed himself a Mediator in a humane nature and condition onely So that they are altogether worthy of excuse who see and look upon him onely in that part wherein he shewed himself to mankinde For as they lose not the rewards of a Covenant who do not exactly know and comprehend his nature with whom and by the entermise of whom they enter into league so that they know both so far forth as the reason of the Covenant and common utility requireth so neither seem they exclusible from heaven who in the knowledge of God and Christ the Mediator want nothing to the reason and observance of the New Covenant although they rise not up to the sublimer contemplation of both Especially since the greatest part of them who at this day recede from the common sense of the Church in so great a matter are not out of any rashness so perswaded touching the Son of God but rather out of a pious fear lest they should detract from the Father somewhat of his honor Wherein if they unwittingly offend against the Son out of love to the Father so that improbity mingle not it self with their error it seemeth very credible that the Son will for the

have these distempers cured without wounds and cauteries especially because the Truth unless it be oppressed by force or scorned by men who are blinde with the love of vices is never wont to be supplanted by those pernicious errors yea this daughter and foster-childe of time always growing stronger with very age doth with the beams of her light dissolve and melt all the waxen arguments of falshood unless one of those twain before mentioned doth hinder both which ought to be banished from the true Church of Christ For since by force or the allurement of our affections as well falshood as truth may be promoted if yet truth may be so promoted but by a free dispute in mutual love onely truth and falshood sometimes putteth on the vizo● of Truth it is a safer course to keep this way onely in the Church which having shut-out error lyeth open to truth then whilst we endeavour by all means to insinuate truth into men to leave and prepare an entrance for falshood And therefore to cashiere the lighter errors for the Objection speaketh not of the lightest the care and vigilancie of the Pastors is sufficient who will finde that the love due to erring persons will no whit retard them in pulling up false opinions according to their ability However should it never so much be granted that in the infancie of the Church and in her following growth these errors which outwardly appear somewhat light but inwardly contain very much were not tolerated yet will it not be evinced from thence that they ought not at this day to be tolerated in the old-age of the Church For they deceive and are deceived who model our times by the pattern of that flourishing age The crazie health of the Church cannot be restored with the same remedies Many things stifle a disease in the birth which when it is grown up do foment it When the Church was found and lusty in the prime flower of her age and whilst the colledge of the Apostles was yet living even violent remedies were to be used towards her because of her vigour Whereas now being spent with diseases and old age and become feeble she doth in a maner sink under the weight of her prevailing sickness and is never in more danger then when she falleth into the hands of cruel Physicians Heretofore her former vigor did admit the opening of a vein and taking away of blood but now after her strength hath been exhausted with so many maladies if there be any vital juyce remaining it cannot be let out but the very life and spirit will issue forth together Believe me ye that talk of nothing but launcets and cauteries will with your unseasonable Physick kill the Church if ye let out that little blood which is remaining in this nick of time when she seemeth to be almost a dying Whatsoever remedies have been invented for the health and conservation of the Church as this is touching the punishment of Hereticks should then as prudence teacheth be omitted when they bring more hurt and danger then profit For why desire we that the people of God should like a lump of mouldring stuff be further crumbled into infinite pieces What end of Schisms will there be if a promiscuous dissent be sufficient to make a rent Why take we pleasure to behold not the coat onely as a Great man wrote but the very body of Christ whereof he is the head to be cut and torn in pieces But let the respect of profit take place let us see whether it be lawful for us at this time to chase those erring persons from the communion of Christs Church For there is a wide difference between them and those hereticks that were contemporary with the Apostles For suppose them who now-a-days erre in matters of faith to make their appearance before the reverend consistory of the Apostles and their associates suppose them to be often convicted and admonished and nevertheless to persist obstinate though in the least error who would not detest their malice Certainly a very slight error would now be transmuted into the nature of a wicked crime And why so Because they durst resist the holy Spirit speaking by the Apostles and when they had no cause to question the doctrine and faith of that most sacred Councel unless they would withal question the whole Christian Religion yet did not give credence thereunto nor obey it and nevertheless would be accounted Christians What madness what wickedness what perversness was it when by this very incredulity they do sufficiently testifie that they were not Christians as who denyed belief to the Apostles and their associates and yet under a pretence of Christianity did pester the Church with deceit and lyes Besides the malice of such men was in the beginning far more manifest in that a blemish may sooner be discovered in a clean body then in one that is spotted And therefore it was an easie matter to espie and punish the wickedness of such men as did turn aside out of the common road that never had been called in question But now though we have a very strong perswasion concerning the certainty of our faith yet who hath herein given us caution or security that we cannot erre What Councel can we at this day imagine so uncorrupt as that of the Apostles or the Primitive Church And yet how many Proscriptions may you behold in this age how many Decrees whereby men for the slightest matters exclude one another out of heaven and the Church I speak not these things as if I thought any question were to be made concerning the soundness of the Orthodox Opinion but to make it plain first that we ought more timorously then the Apostles heretofore to condemn such as are tardy in this behalf and secondly that we should not in lighter matters be over-confident of our knowledge and perswasion and finally that even in weightyer things provided they do not subvert our faith in the Lord Jesus and the obedience of his commandments we may and are bound to tolerate the weakness of such as erre For what matters it for me certainly to know that I hold the saving doctrine in these points if this be not manifest to all Christians or if I cannot always very clearly demonstrate the fame to him that erreth Have not all a far juster cause of questioning the true opinion now-a-days then heretofore in the time of the Apostles And suitably a man may very easily slip in such things through imprudence which heretofore could not be done without the intervening of extreme impiety Nor is there need of malice for continuance in error where prejudice is sufficient and a suspicion of error firmly imprinted in the minde against the patrons of the true opinion Which certainly may easily seise even on an honest heart especially because every sect of Christians instil into their partisans at the first a hatred and abhorrencie of others from their very cradle sow in their hearts their own