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
A59336	The present state of England in relation to popery manifesting the absolute impossibility of introducing popery and arbitrary power into this kingdom : being a full confutation of all fears and apprehensions of the imagined dangers from thence, and particularly of a certain pamphlet, entituled, The character of a popish successor / by E. Settle.	Settle, Elkanah, 1648-1724.	1684 (1684)	Wing S2711; ESTC R35168	63,695	38

many venturous and bold Champions amongst them in so Meritorious a Cause But alas every Heroe is not a Sampson There are no doubt those of them that would spare neither pains nor study to propagate their own Religion though never so indirectly those possibly that would have it in their Power if they could come handsomely by it to use their Heretick Adversaries with as little Mercy as HE did his Philistian Enemies but alas not with his Hardiness too as like Him to pull down that Roof upon their Heads to their own inevitable Destruction only to have the pleasure of crushing some of VS with them We read I confess that pro Aris Focis men will venture far Yes truly for their Religion and Estates together they will do so But in the Popish Case where the Founding of the One will be the Destruction of the Other where the Setting up of their Religion will be the Forfeiting not only their Estates but Heads too 't is more than a hundred to one betwixt these two so directly opposite Interests but that the keeping of their Skin and Bones warm on the one side may make their Zeal a little the cooler on the other For let me tell you where the Erecting of the Altar will at long run make the Builders the Sacrifice in all humane probability that Popish Temple will go but slowly up whose Stones are to be dug out of so fatal a Quarry 'T is very remarkable in Queen Mary's Reign when by the Majority of her Parliament the Protestant Religion then but in its Minority was abolish't and the Romish Government and Papal Supremacy Re-establish't and indeed the Grandure of Rome even to Haeretici comburendi maintain'd Yet that Parliament that had it absolutely in their power to gratifie the Pope's utmost Wishes refused the returning his Church-Lands again Nay the Parliament were so averse to the thought of such a Restitution that they had never been wrought up to the restoring of the very Supremacy it self and of making of all those favourable Acts towards the re-installing of Popery again but by much pains used as Burnet in his Abridgement pag. 268 says by the policy of Bishop Gardiner to ensure the Kingdom from the Fear of coming under such Tyranny from Rome as their Ancestors had groaned under and likewise from the Loss of the Abbey-Lands Insomuch that Gardiner promised them for Removal of all such Jealousie that all the old Laws against Provisions should continue in Force and to shew them that Legates should exercise no dangerous Authority in England he made Pool take out a License under the Great Seal for his Legantine Power and for the other Viz. the Abbey-Lands he promised both an Act of Parliament and Convocation confirming them and undertook that the Pope himself should ratifie the Alienation of the Church-Lands which History tells us was accordingly done Nevertheless as this Papal Dispensation came very unwillingly from Rome being only a Forced Compliance and Temporizing with the English Obstinacy in that point The Queen her self restored all the Church-Lands in her Possession and proceeded so far as to the Re-building of several Religious Houses declaring to her Treasurer and some of her other Officers that she thought her self bound in Conscience to restore all the Church-Lands as being unlawfully acquired and not to be held without a Sin as Baker in his Chronicle tells us Nay the Pope himself set out a Bull excommunicating all that kept any Lands belonging to Abbeys or Churches which gave such an Alarm to the Nation that Gardiner was forced to pacifie them by telling them that Bull was intended only to the people of Germany and not England However the Pope continued his high Resentments against the Undutifulness of England that he could not forbear telling the Queen's Ambassadours Abridg. pag. 221. That it was beyond his power to confirm Sacriledge and all were obliged under the pain of Damnation to restore to the last Farthing every thing that belong'd to the Church he said likewise that he would send over a Collectour to gather the Peter-pence for they could not expect that St. Peter would open Heaven to them so long as they denied him his Rights upon Earth Yet all this made so little Impression on the Commons of England that whatever Conscience might dictate their Priests insinuate their Popish Successour Solicite or their Pope himself endeavour so powerful was Interest above Conscience and all other Motives whatever that several of the Commons in Parliament lay'd their hands on their Swords and declared that they would not part with their Estates but defend them And every Motion that way was always carryed in the Negative Abridg. of the Reform B. 3. pag. 309 Now pray for once let us compare Cases If the Papists in her Reign with the highest Papal Dominion and Soveraignty in their own Hands under an Establish't Roman Church against both their Priests and their Prince nay a Prince too with her Hereticks under her Feet and her Religion in the very Saddle could refuse both their Pope and their popish Successour so Just and so Sacred a Right and so important to his Church's Interest and that too when with all Safety round them they might have confirm'd their Oblation even by the strongest Bonds of Law so on the other side how shall it be suppos'd that the more prodigal Papists in our Age in the quite contrary extream shall gratifie the unjust Demands of a more Impotent popish Successour under the lowest Ebb of Popery against all Law or Pretence of Law whatever by launching out into the most notorious .075 Violation of all the highest sanctions of Right and Justice and the most openfaced Tyranny and most impudent Barbarity in the world and all forsooth for the Establishing of Popery and all God wot too little for the Work and this too to the running themselves into unavoidable Iayls and Halters and not only to the ruining of their Estates but to the cutting off of the Lives of Themselves and even the very RACE of Papists under the next immediate Crown'd-Head that succeeds Besides as boldly as the Roman Zealots stand up for the Interest and Dignity of Mother-Church and the Grandure and Dominion of their Peter's Successour not only the Papists but the very Priests themselves are not so overcouragious in this Cause as the World suspects them For Instance in Henry the Eighth's Reign the whole Clergy of England by a State-surprize upon them were found guilty of a Premunire by submitting to Cardinal Woolsy's legantine-Legantine-power as derived only from the Pope's Authority and thereby expresly against the Statute of PROVISOES an old dormient Law made several King's Reigns before though rarely or never put in Force by reason of the Remissness of the Government and the Supiness of the Nation and Kings Submission to Rome and therefore unwarily transgrest by the Clergy now By vertue however of which they had forfeited their Goods and Chattels to the King and their

not Angels from Heaven could Cure or Dispel I shall therefore go one step further and to dissipate all Storms or Clouds whatever from Romewards impending plainly and absolutely convince them that whatever Scruples may yet remain unsatisfyed at this present day there is not the least Prospect or Idea of any such Threatning Successour in the present Royal Line of England For though that Illustrious Prince whom the Malice of Antimonarchal and Associating Traytors and the Insolence of a Pack of Seditious and Confederate Commons like the old Sons of Earth have levell'd their spightful though feeble Vengeance at though that great Injur'd Prince I say through the false Mirrour of those Anarchical Boutefeus has been villaniously rendred almost the only Object of the greatest part of the popular Jealousies as the intended Vnderminer of our Laws Religion and Liberties I shall unanswerably demonstrate the utter Impossibility of that glorious Prince's ever being that Man or debasing himself so much as to entertain the least Thought that way be his Religion what ever it will For supposing he were really a Convert to the Romish Perswasion what Pillar is that Prince likely to make to the Romish Cause For if he be that Convert either the Pope believes a popish Heir of England Capable of setting up the Romish Religion or not capable of doing it If capable as that 's the present Point Then undoubtedly which is but a reasonable Conclusion he has left no Pains nor Industry unmanaged to Advance or Advantage the Popish Interest by such a Convert as an Heir of the English Crown And if so the only Policy or indeed the only possible Means of favouring the least Romish Hopes whatever had been to have used the utmost Papal Authority for enjoyning and perswading him not only to have kept himself wholly undiscoverd but likewise wholly unsuspected to the Kingdom by any Abscenting from our Communion or any other Imaginary Symtome of such a Conversion For as all the greatest of Inconveniencies and Misfortunes have attended the whole popish Party upon the meer Supposition of such a Conversion and that only founded on the foremention'd Occasion of Suspition Witness the removing all Papists whatever from all Offices of Trust in the whole Kingdom from all Seats either in State Administration or Parliaments by the present Protestant TEST wholly created upon that Suspition by Force of which there is not the least Admission of a Papist into any Place of Power in the Government except by taking of the Protestant Sacrament and entring into a Solemn Oath against the popish Religion and subscribing to a Recorded Abjuration even of the greatest and most Essential Articles of their Faith as Superstitious and Idolatrous and so by the most impudent premeditated Perjury and setting the notorious Brand upon themselves of that sordid and scandalous Renuntiation of their very Religion which the poorest Soul'd Pagan that ever worship't but Garlick and Onions would blush at Besides all this weeding out of the popish Party from all Authority and Power being no small Blow to their Interest under so weak a Number of that Perswasion in England There is not any one Calamity that for these seven last years has befall'n the whole popish Party that is not truly owing almost wholly to this Suspition And therefore as all the Ill Consequences or worse attending them are really no more than the Pope and all his Counsellors could in common Reason expect from a Nation so extravagantly jealous of Popery whil'st woful Experience might have remembranced him bow dangerous and destructive even a less Shadow of popish Inclinations had been nothing was more indispensable I mean for the popish Interest in a popish Heir than all means of avoiding such Suspition nay possibly even for his own secure Access to the Throne 'T is true some ridiculous People have foolishly objected That the Deserting of our Communion was for the Advantage of their Cause it being as it were setting up the Standard of Popery to call all Hearts and Hands together whereas otherwise the Romanists had been kept in Ignorance of the Champion God had raised for their Deliverance and thereby might have neglected the glorious Opportunity that offered it self Now in the Name of Dulness if any such Deliverance were imaginable or any Succour to the Romish Cause whatever either sooner or later could be expected from such a Convert or lastly if the Conscience or unsullyed Glory of that Heroick Prince were possible to be wrought upon to stoop to so ignoble a Design as any unwarrantable popish Assistance Why must the Papists be kept in Ignorance of his being one of them if he were so without some kind of publick Declaration when 't is notoriously known to all the sensible part of Mankind what Advantages of Intelligence and Correspondence the Papists have above all Religions in the World when their Jesuites are by the very Duty of their Order the greatest Spyes upon Christendom whil'st the privatest Affairs and Secrets of Families Courts and Kingdoms through all Europe from hand to hand and from Superiour to Superiour of them are convey'd to the Pope himself So that take the whole Matter together with this Advantage of Communication even under Confession it self on the one side and the foremention'd Dangers from a National Jealousie on the other as I said before whatever Discovery might have been requisite to their own Party the highest Policy of Rome had been to have concealed the very Suspition of it from the Protestants more especially if they had had any such Thing as a King-killing Plot in hand or the least part of the Salamanca Conspiracy upon the Anvil For then they might have made use of Ruffians or Screw'd Gunners and as Dugdale swears have laid the King's Murder upon the Presbyterians or any other of the scatter'd Churches with ten times more ease and have hastened the Mounting a popish Successour with more Facility into the Royal Seat And therefore as nothing can be a plainer or greater Ob●tacle to all popish Designs whatever than this Conduct in the present Heir of England if he be a Romanist and they had an Expectation of any considerable Advantage to their Religion from his being one undoubtedly there has been no Oratory wanting to induce him to so necessary and so Venial a Disguise as being the most important Prop of their Cause But maugre all the Necessity of such a Compliance and all the Romish Interest depending thereupon notwithstanding the papal Power of a Dispensation in that Case and all the Arts that may have been used to that purpose nothing is more visible than his Indisposition and Aversion to so dishonourable a Condiscension as playing the Hypocrite how dispensable soever in that Church or how advantagious soever to his own Circumstances Now I appeal to all Mankind what least Apparition of popish Danger or what humane possibility of that very Princes ever being that so much dreaded Romish Instrument for Arbitrary popish Tyranny