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	king_n	pope_n	2,433	5	6.6641	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26854	Richard Baxter his account to his dearly beloved, the inhabitants of Kidderminster, of the causes of his being forbidden by the Bishop of Worcester to preach within his diocess with the Bishop of Worcester's letter in answer thereunto : and some short animadversions upon the said bishops letter.; Account to his dearly beloved, the inhabitants of Kidderminster, of the causes of his being forbidden by the Bishop of Worcester to preach within his diocess	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. Letter to a friend for vindication of himself from Mr. Baxter's calumny.	1662 (1662)	Wing B1179; ESTC R1412	40,242	54

averre that He could not otherwise uphold and maintain it than by preserving the Undue and as some think Antichristian Dignity and Prelation of His inferiour Officers 3. Bishops are so little useful to support the Regal Dignity which is founded upon a distinct Basis of its own that upon enquiry it will be found how none have been greater Enemies to the True and Undoubted Soveraignty of Princes than some Bishops themselves For by their Officious and scarce warrantable intermedling in Civil Affairs by their Absurd and Insignificant distinguishing between Civil and Ecclesiastical Causes of which last they have alwayes made themselves sole Judges they mangle the Kings Authority and as to Church-matters which may be extended as far as they please they leave the King nothing of Supremacy but the Name The Pope of Rome therefore who is the great Father of all such Bishops hath improved this Notion and Distinction so far that in ordine ad spiritualia he hath laboured to subject all Civil Empires unto his sole Jurisdiction So that if the Bishop of Worcester's Rule hold good of Crimine ab uno Disce omnes i. e. That all men who are of a Party may be judged of by the miscarriages of one then I must leave it to You to judge what all those Bishops that are of the Bishop of Worcester's complexion do really drive at by the fatal example of that one Bishops Usurpation For Secondly That Assertion That the Bishop of Worcester and consequently every other Bishop is the sole Pastor of all the Congregations in his Diocesse if it be at all defensible I am sure can be defended only by those Arguments which are commonly alledged to maintain the Popes Supremacy over all Churches whatever For since a Bishop can no otherwise discharge his duty herein than by providing Substitutes what hinders but the Bishop of Rome may as well oversee a million of Churches as the Bishop of Worcester five hundred Since if Deputation be lawful more or less compass and circuit of ground doth not at all alter the case I forbear to urge how contrary this Practise is to the Doctrine of the Apostles both Paul and Peter I hope the Bishop will not take it ill that I do not call them Saints for these Holy men do not need any stile of Honour out of the Popes Kalender When Paul had sent for the Elders of the Church at Ephesus he bids them to feed the Church of God over which not he himself by his sole Authority as Bishop of the Diocesse but the Spirit of God had made them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Overseers or to use the proper stile Bishops And Peter commands his Fellow-Elders for so doth that Apostle condescend to call himself to feed the Flock which was among them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Overseeing or Acting the Bishops not like the Bishop of Worcester as Lording it over Gods Heritage but as Patterns of the Flock From which places we learn not only that those two so much controverted Names of Bishop and Presbyter are without distinction ascribed to the same Persons but likewise that whoever feed the Flock are under Christ whom the Apostle there stiles the Chief-Shepherd the next and immediate Pastors of the Flock And to extend the Pastoral Power beyond the actual care of Feeding is a Notion altogether unscriptural and likewise leaves us no bounds where to fix till we come to center upon some one Universal Pastor who may claim this Power over the whole World by the same parity of reason that a Bishop doth over one Diocesse Thirdly It seems to be a Light and to say no more unseemly trifling with sacred Scripture to affirm that those words of our Saviour concerning such as come not in by the Door and therefore are Thieves and Robbers ought to be understood of such Ministers as preach to Congregations without the Bishops License Which thing the Bishop in great Heat and Earnestnesse as if he had done very well in it tells us more than once that it was the Principal reason why he silenced Mr. Baxter Truly if this practise be justifiable and those who design themselves to preach the Gospel must besides their Ordination procure a License from a Bishop to do that which a Woe is denounced against if they offer to omit Then 1. I see not what Ordination signifies since the Power that then is given no Authority from Man can take away any more than dissolve the Contract of a Marriage much less impeach and hinder the free use of it except for Moral and notoriously vicious Misdemeanours 2. For one Minister of the Gospel for certainly a Bishop is no more to Silence another and that for no better Reason than because his Fellow-Minister is desirous to preach the Gospel without a new License this is an abuse of Dominion which as our Saviour doth no where countenance so the first Ages of the Church were altogether unacquainted with For the Bishops instance of our Saviours putting to silence the Scribes and Pharisees is both Impertinent and False because our Saviour did only silence them by Argument which the Bishop may do when ever he is able but what is that to an Authoritative and Imperious commanding men to be Silent Besides even then when our Saviour was most strict in pronouncing Woes against the Pharisees in that very Chapter he is so far from forbidding the Pharisees to preach that he commands his Disciples both to Hear and to Obey their Doctrine So that since the Bishop will needs have the Presbyterians to be Pharisees let him but allow them the same Liberty of Teaching the People as our Saviour did the other and I believe they will not at least were I a Presbyterian I should not envy his Lordship either his Title or Maintenance how undue and unmeri●●ed soever they ●●oth be And though the Bishop is pleased to say that the Presbyterians preach nothing but Sedition and Treason which is most false as being directly contrary to their declared Principles yet the Pharisees taught something worse and that was Blasphemy Yet our Saviour who sure had more power and withall more care of his Church than the Bishop of Worcester did not go about by Force to prohibit them I wish therefore th●● this bishop and the rest of his Brethren if any are Cholerick and Testy enough to be of his mind would consider that as by silencing their Fellow-Ministers for such frivolous and slight pretences they usurp a Power which Christ never gave so at the last day he will not thank them for the Exercise of it Fourthly How consistent with the Civil Peace for as to Christian Charity the whole thing is but a Letter of defiance against it the Bishops Distinction is about the Act of Indempnity and the so much forgotten Act of Oblivion I hope His Majesty and the Parliament will in due time consider For he is so hardy as to tell us That the

man of Mr. Baxters principles and temper was like enough to make of what should pass betwixt us And it was very well I did so for I find that the Presbyter as well as the Papist will serve themselves as often as they are put to it of their piae fraudet or holy artifices of speaking more or lesse then the truth as it makes more or less for their purpose or advantage as likewise of putting non causam pro causa or a part and a less principal part of the cause for the whole cause For who would not think that knows not Mr. Baxter that when he tells his Disciples of Kidderminster You now know my Crime with reference to the aforesaid assertion and to that only who would not think I say that either there was nothing else objected against him or at least nothing of moment or that could be any just and reasonable cause of my forbidding him to Preach in my Diocess especially when he adds that the Right Reverend Bishop gave him this as a reason for his forbidding him to Preach where if he means that the Bishop gave him this as the only or the principal reason he speaks without truth and against his Conscience for the first and principal reason the Bishop gave him for his forbidding him to preach was as he well knows and as the Dean of Worcester will witness against him His preaching before without License having no Cure of his own to preach to whereunto when he replyed I had promised to give him such a License as the Bishop of London had given him viz. Quàm diu se bene gereret durante beneplacito I rejoyn'd that it was true indeed I had once promised to give him such a License but withal that it was as true that first I had never promised to give him a License if he took it before I gave it him and that for this presumption of his I had now forbidden him to preach any more Secondly That I knew more of him since then I did at that time for first I had been credibly informed that he had abused the Bishop of London's favour in preaching factiously though not in the City yet in the Diocess of London and I named the place to him Secondly that since that promise of mine which cannot be supposed no other then conditional I myself had heard him in a Conference in the Savoy maintaining such a position as was destructive to Legislative power both in God and Man meaning the Assertion before spoken of viz. That the enjoining of things lawfull by lawfull Authority if they might by accident be the cause of sin was sinful which Assertion of his with the horrible consequences of it I told him then at Worcester I had formerly told him of at the Savoy openly and before all the company that was at the Conference whereunto all that he replyed at my second telling him at Worcester was that he had used some distinctions to salve that Assertion from those consequences but what those distinctions were he did not then mention as Dr. Warmstry can witness though in this printed address of his to his friends of Kidderminster he saith he did tell the Bishop in what a limited and restrained sense he and his brethren understood that Assertion which whether they did or no will appear by and by when we shall more nearly examine his printed Narrative as to that particular In the mean time though I said indeed that one that held and was likely to teach such Doctrines was not to be suffered to Preach unto the people yet this was not then alledged by me as the cause or crime for which I had forbidden him to Preach for that as I said before was His presuming to preach without License but only as a reason why I should have thought myself not obliged by the promise I had formerly made him to give him License though he had not otherwise forfeited his claim to that promise by Preaching without or before he had it Lastly He might have remembred another reason I gave him why I could not have made good that promise namely those principles of Treason and Rebellion publickly extant in his books which I had not taken notice of till after the making of that promise and which till he should recant in as publick a manner I thought myself obliged in Conscience not to suffer him to preach in my Diocesse whereunto his Answer was That whatsoever he had said or done in that kind was pardoned by the Act of Indempnity True said I so far as the King can pardon it that is in regard of its corporal punishment here in this world but it is God that must pardon the guilt or obligation to punishment in the world to come which he will not without Repentance and it is the Church that must pardon the scandal which she cannot do neither without an honourable amends made her by publick Confession and Recantation I could tell Mr. Baxter in his ear likewise that in excuse of his Rebellious principles formerly published he said That now the Parliament had declared where the Soveraign power was he should acknowledge it and submit to it as if the King owed his Soveraignty to the declaration of a Parliament which is as false as Rebellious and as dangerous a principle as any of his former however by what hath been said it appears that Mr. Baxter meant to impose upon his credulous friends at Kidderminster upon his unwary Readers by making them believe that was the only cause for which the Bishop forbad him to Preach which was neither the only nor the principal cause why the Bishop did so nor indeed to speak properly any cause of it at all for the only proper cause for which the Bishop forbad him to Preach was His preaching before without the Bishops License the other which he pretends together with the third which he conceals where properly and professedly the Causes why the Bishop would not take off that prohibition or why he would not give him a License to Preach for the future either at Kidderminster or in any other place of his Diocess until he should publickly retract that Position which he had openly asserted at the Conference and should publickly renounce likewise those seditious and rebellious principles which are published in his Books And this is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth of what passed betwixt me and Mr. Baxter at Worcester before I preached at Kidderminster where whether I defamed him or he by saying so hath not grosly defamed me will appear by that which follows wherein that I might neither be deceived myself nor deceive others I have not trusted to my own memory only as Mr. Baxter saith he doth to his but I have consulted with Dr. Gunning and Dr. Pearson two of the three that managed that Conference with Mr. Baxter and his Assistants and have seen that Assertion in the same sense that I object it