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	pope_n	power_n	1,442	5	4.9516	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54023	An answer to that common objection against the Quakers, that they condemn all but themselves with a loving and faithful advertisement to the nation and powers thereof.	Penington, Isaac, 1616-1679.	1660 (1660)	Wing P1151; ESTC R18266	7,180	12

have appeared whether former or later that have not lost their sincerity and true zeal towards God them we own and have unity with so far as they keep or rather are kept thereto If there be any among the Episcopal sort that in truth of heart desire to fear the Lord and look upon the Common-Prayer-Book as an acceptable way of worshipping him we pitty their blindness yet are tender towards them and would not have the simplicity persecuted in them because of this but rather cherished If there be any among the Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Seekers or any other sort that in truth of heart wait upon the Lord in those wayes and do not find a deadness overgrown them but a pure fresh lively zeal towards God with an unfeigned love to his people our hearts are one with this and we cannot fight against this good thing in any of them though in love to them we testifie that their form and way of worship is their present loss and hinderance yet we doubt not but that the Lord in his time will make manifest to such the Light of this age which is the very thing the People of God in many fore-going ages have been praying for But this is our lamentation that forms and wayes of worship abound but the Puritan-Principle the Puritanspirit is lost and drowned in them all and that men are hardened against our testimony not from the remainders of the simplicity in them but because they are erred from the simplicity and fallen in league with another spirit which hath lain lurking in forms of knowledge and worship to tempt aside from the simplicity and to hide the sight of the life and power from the panting soul all this night of the Apostacy Now mark how easie and natural it is to that spirit to enter into a form to cry up a form to set up a form in a Nation City or Country doubtless it had been done in this Nation long ago had not the mighty hand of the Lord withstood it When the evil and unclean spirit is detected and driven out of one form if it doth not get another suddenly to appear in and tempt with it must needs lose many of its Subjects The strumpet or false Church is forced as God discovers her nakedness and lewdness to change her dresses and appearances to new-trick and adorn her bed and then as if she also were changed and were now no longer the same she comes forth again with boldness and tempteth the young man again to come in unto her Prov. 7. 16. And thus she casteth down many wounded yea many strong men have been slain by her vers. 26. who otherwise would have pondered the path of life chap. 5. 6. had they not been ensnared by her flatteries who forsaketh the guide of her youth and forgetteth the Covenant of her God Chap. 2. 17. There is no more certain and ready way to suppress truth and to betray the honesty which is singly searching after it than to present a form of godliness or worship as the proper way of meeting with it for hereby the soul is lulled asleep with a false hope until the freshness of its desire begins to die and its life to wither then the fleshly part easily grows into unity with and zeal for that form wch indeed is of the flesh though it appeared and tempted as if it had been otherwise And how many have gone a great way towards Hell have bin deeply intangled and distressed in the Chambers of death by entring into this strumpets Church or house which they then through the subtilty of her deceit took for the house or Church of God Pro. 7. 27. Consider the thing a little seriously When the evil spirit is driven out of his strong hold of grosse Popery whither should he run but into Episcopacy When he is driven out of Episcopacy whither should he run but into Presbytery When he is driven out of Presbytery whither should he run but into Independency When he is driven but of Independency whither should he run but into Anabaptism When he is driven out of Anabaptism whither should he run but into a way of Seeking And what is his end of running into Episcopacy but to save alive that spirit which was hunted out of Popery and could abide no longer there and so the better and the safer from being discerned to reproach and persecute the other spirit where ever it appeared under nick-names of Puritans Separatists Brownists Round-heads c. And what is his end afterwards of running into Presbytery but to save that alive which was hunted out of Episcopacy and to persecute the former truly zealous Spirit where it should further appear afterwards by means of that form Thus the forms and appearances of things change but the fight is still the same the evil spirit still getting uppermost under a form of godliness and from thence shooting forth its arrowes at those that seek after purity of heart and cannot but testifie against those forms where the impure one lodgeth This then is the sum of our answer in this respect we are not against the true life and power of godliness wherever it hath appeared or yet appears under the vail of any form whatsoever Nay all persons who singly wait upon the Lord in the simplicity and sincerity of their hearts whether under any form or out of forms that matters little to us are very dear unto us in the Lord But we are against all forms Images imitations and appearances which betray the simplicity and sincerity of the heart keep the life in bondage and endanger the loss of the soul And too many such now there are which hold the immortal seed of life in captivity under death over which we cannot but mourn and wait for its breaking off the chains and its rising out of all its graves into its own pure life power and fulness of liberty in the Lord A loving faithful Advertisement to the Nation and Powers thereof O King O Parliament O Nation of England consider before the Decree come forth before the ruine of the Nation with the Powers thereof be irrevocably sealed for the Lord hath a controversie with this Nation and he will plead with thee O England who desirest not nor canst not bear a Government in Righteousness for the suppressing of the evil and encouragement of the good but the good is still suppressed in thee and cannot grow as it ought because of the lust of the Nation against the purity of the life of God and because of the corrupt wils ends and interests of those who still are in Power After King Henry the 8th had renounced and shaken off in part the Popes Authority in this Nation he did not let it fall to the ground as an evil thing but took upon himself the exercise of it assuming to himself the Headship and Government under Christ in all Ecclesiastical causes and matters in his Dominions The same course his