Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bad_a	good_a	reason_n	1,431	5	5.5448	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67648	Dr. Stillingfleet still against Dr. Stillingfleet, or, The examination of Dr. Stillingfleet against Dr. Stillingfleet examined by J.W.	Warner, John, 1628-1692.	1675 (1675)	Wing W910; ESTC R34719	108,236	297

for asserting Dr. St. to be an Honest man and yet a Knave certainly no prudent person can think that such a one would sufficiently clear himself by saying That he granted him to be an Honest man out of meer kindness but that he affirmed him to be a Knave upon good and solid Reason and that therefore no body could without disingenuity oppose the one Judgment against the other These pittiful shifts of Dr. St. make one exclaim O how unhappy a thing it is to engage in a bad Cause What will not some say rather than unsay themselves and confess their Errours Again either Dr. St. thinks this Concession of his The Roman Church is a true Church to be grounded upon good and solid Reason as really it is or he does not think it such now if he think it such it is not a Judgement of Charity only but of Reason also and consequently he unjustly charges me with disingenuity for opposing a Judgment of meer Charity against a Judgment of Reason since both in his opinion are Judgments of Reason If he does not think this his Concession to be grounded upon Reason how can it be a Judgment of true and real Charity Can it be true Charity to tell us That we are in a true way to Salvation That our Church does not teach us any damnable Errour or any thing destructive to our Eternal Wellfare and yet to tell us all this without any Reason to think it so Such a Charity of this if it must be called so is rather a meer Cheat than Charity Nay since the Dr. has declared himself an implacable Enemy to the Roman Church bespattering her with so many foul Aspersions 't is not credible he would grant her to be a True church did not good and solid Reasons force him thereunto and we have seen above that the very same grounds whereby he pretends to establish the Truth of the Protestant Church evince also the Truth of the Roman Church So that he must either confess That he grants his own Church to be true out of meer Charity without any solid ground for to grant it or he must acknowledge our Church to be a true Church upon good and solid Reasons at least in his Opinion And because Dr. St. and his Associates do so often vapour of their Charity in allowing Roman-Catholicks a possibility of Salvation endeavouring some of them thence to prove That their Religion is better than ours which does not allow so much to Protestants 't will not be amiss to examin the depth of this their Charity and sure if we consider how those who deny our Church to be a true Church are puzzled and to what shifts they are put concerning the continuation of the True Church for so many years before Luther and Calvin their Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and several other points of highest concern objected against them we may prudently believe that when they acknowledge our Church to be a true Church they do it not so much out of any kindness they have for us as for their own proper Interest and Concern Again if that Religion has the greatest Charity and upon that account is to be held for the best Religion that makes the way of Salvation widest the Religion of the Libertines and Latitudinarians who affirm all Religions to be true and sufficient to Salvation whether Christianism Judaism Paganism or Mahometism would be the best of all Religions which certainly Dr. St. will never grant although he burns with so great Charity Moreover leaving both parties Catholicks and Protestants to their proper Tenets 't is greater Charity in Catholicks towards Protestants to tell them they are in the wrong than in Protestants towards Catholicks to tell them they are in the right or in a true way to Salvation For the most that Protestants can effect in Catholicks with this their Concession is to encourage them to go on with more alacrity in the way wherein they are since they see that even their greatest Enemies do grant them to be in a true way to Heaven when as Catholicks by telling Protestants they are in the wrong may bring many of them to the right and save them from Damnation Since they cannot but be much moved seeing that so many Learned men who are ten to one for Protestants do affirm with so great asseveration and constancy producing several solid grounds in proof of what they affirm That protestants are in the wrong way And beyond debate it is far greater Charity to save one from Damnation than only to encourage him to obtain his Salvation So it is greater Charity to tell one whom we know to be out of the way That he is in the wrong than to tell one whom we know to be in the true way That he is in the right Because the one unless he be told of his Errour will probably go on and never come whither he intended when as the other encouraged by our advice will only come sooner to his journey's end whither he would have arrived although we had told him nothing Besides when our Adversaries are pinched with the inferences we deduce from this their Concession they do so mince and clip their Charity that it scarce retains any shew or mark thereof as appears by what Archbishop Lawd Dr. Stillingfleet and others assert in this matter For they say That all Learned men among us are damned if they continue in Communion with the Roman Church Nay the same they affirm of all those who understand the pretended Absurdities they are pleased to oppose against us which in their opinion are so clear and manifest that no body who is not a meer Fool or a Madman and consequently in a condition not capable of Malice may easily understand them That scarce any one is saved amongst us That only an invincible ignorance which is not easily presumed in matters so clear as they will needs have our Errours to be and wherein every one is so much concern'd can excuse us from eternal Damnation That we are all flat Idolaters and as gross as the grossest of the Heathen and by consequence That this Proposition A Roman-Catholick may be saved hath no more truth in it than this An Idolater may be saved Finally that Roman-Catholicks may be saved upon condition they repent of their Errours as also Jews Turks and Pagans may be saved upon the like Condition Now if we compare with these their Assertions concerning Roman Catholicks what we affirm of Protestants in order to their Salvation or Damnation we shall evidently see that there is little or no difference between us and them in relation to this point and that they have no cause to make such Bravadoe's of their Charity towards us For between these two Propositions scarce any one is saved and all are damned there is so scant a difference that there is very little reason to boast thereof Neither do we deny but that some Protestants have an invincible ignorance of the Errours

exteriourly Now my intent was by discovering the vast absurdities which wait upon Dr. St.'s Argument whereby he pretends to prove Roman Catholicks guilty of Idolatry to shew the inanity and nullity thereof according to that irrefragable Maxime of Rational Discourses Out of Truth alone neither Falsity nor Absurdity does follow and because perhaps some might not think it any absurdity to grant that Dr. St. is an Idolater and consequently admitting it might stick to his Argument I added that the same Argument of the Dr. had it any force in it would prove the Evangelists and the Holy Ghost to be Idolaters an absurdity so great that no Christian can assent unto and when we argue ab absurdo the greater and more evident the absurdity we infer is the better is the Argument So that my Discourse runs thus Either Dr. St.'s Argument proves the Evangelists and Holy Ghost to be Idolaters or it proves nothing as I have shewen throughout that Appendix But it does not nor cannot prove the Evangelists and the Holy Ghost to be Idolaters For certainly there can be no good proof of a Falsity or Absurdity Therefore his Argument proves nothing When shall we find any thing in the Dr. that looks like a rational Answer to this Charge of Idolatry which lies so heavy upon him out of his own Tenets He saies pag. 37. That God did forbid in the Commandment the worship of him by Images but not the worship of him by our Conceptions although unsuitable to his incomprehensible nature without taking any notice of what I objected to the contrary for pag. 19. I affirmed that the Dr. himself pag. 59. in his Discourse concerning the Roman Idolatry did understand the prohibition contained in the Commandment of all kind of Similitudes or Representations whatsoever whether of a real or imaginary Being For the words of the Law being general all sorts of Representations or Likenesses of God are necessarily comprehended therein Now not only Corporeal Images but also Words and Conceptions are certain Repretations and Resemblances of their objects which Dr. St. never denied Yea Knowledge or Mental Conception is commonly defined a Formal Representation of an Object and it is an ordinary opinion among Philosophers that in obscure and abstract Conceptions the mind frames an Idea of the Object And certainly should one adore his own thoughts and Idea's he would commit Idolatry and transgress this Commandment Wherefore this Commandment does forbid the making any Image or Representation of God whether Spiritual or Corporeal not absolutely but as the Law saies to adore it Since therefore as Dr. St. confesses in his former book and the Reasons now alledged do evince the Law speaks of all kinds of Representations and Resemblances in order to that effect why does he in his Answer to my Book confine the Law only to Corporeal Representations Again if according to the Dictates of Nature as Dr. St. affirms pag. 36. who therefore thinks this commandment to be of an unalterable Nature common to all and not peculiar to the Jews 't is Idolatry to represent God by Corporeal Images or to adore him so represented because Corporeal things represent God in a way far beneath his Greatness which is the reason he produces for the Law it follows evidently that whoever adores God represented unto him in a way beneath his Greatness whether by words Images or gross Imaginations for neither of these waies do represent him in a manner suitable to his Majesty and there are unworthy Conceptions of God as well as unworthy Images is an Idolater which is what I intended to prove against him For in natural Precepts such as this is the Law extends as far as the Reason of the Law and according to the constant Axiome of Logicians Causalis vera infert universalem veram If the Proposition which contains the cause or reason of a thing be true there follows necessarily an universal Truth Wherefore if this Proposition who adores God represented by Corporeal things is an Idolater because he adores him represented in a way inferiour to his Greatness be true as Dr. St. will needs have it to be this Universal must also be true Whoever adores God represented in a way inferiour to his greatness is an Idolater But the Dr. thought it best not to take any notice at all of these things and I find that among many other his rare accomplishments one is that he is excellent in forgetting such things as he knows he cannot answer In the same page he will seem to lay in the dust my whole Discourse with these only words But the mischief is all this subtlety of my Argument is used against the Law-maker and not against me O Irrefragable Answer if such Answers as these wll serve the turn I 'le warrant you the Dr. will never be puzzled Let any one interpret the Law of God never so ridiculously if he be urged with the Absurdities that flow from such an Interpretation his answer may be according to this learned Dr. when he hath nothing else to say That all the Absurdities they pretend to draw from his Interpretation are against the Law-maker and not against him Here occurs unto me what I have lately read in a brief account of the most material passages between the Quakers and the Baptists at the Barbican Meeting London October 9. 1674. pag. 9 10. The Anabaptist press'd the Quaker in this manner the Apostle saith Let Women be silent in the Church Why suffer ye Women to declare The Quaker answered The Woman to be silenced is the Flesh Has the Flesh replies the Anabaptist a Husband Yea saies the Quaker and who is it replyed again the Anabaptist the Quaker promptly answered The Devil But the Anabaptist goes on and urges The Text saith Let a Woman ask her Husband at home must the Flesh be instructed by the Devil in matters of Religion Here the poor Quaker seemed according to this account to be puzzled But had Dr. St. been by him he would have suggested to him this easie answer Alas for thee Thou canst not understand All thy subtlety is against Paul and not against me The debate between us and Dr. St. is concerning the right meaning of Gods Commandment The Dr. saies that thereby are prohibited all Representations of God in a way inferiour to his Greatness and the Adoring of him so Represented And after I had shewn out of undeniable Principles the absurdity of this interpretation can the Dr. think it a sufficient answer to say All this subtlety is against the Law maker and not against him Whenas all the Absurdities I deduce are against Dr. St.'s interpretation of the Law not against the Law it self nor the Law-maker In the pag. 38. he seems to place the difference between Thoughts of God and Corporeal Images of him in order to our present design That the former proceeds from the necessary weakness of our understanding not being able to reach the Greatness of God who therefore has procured