Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
cause_n begin_v great_a time_n 1,599 5 3.2122 3 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A38980 An Examination of the case of the suspended bishops in answer to the Apology for them. 1690 (1690) Wing E3726; ESTC R21500 16,321 37

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

AN Examination OF THE CASE OF THE Suspended Bishops In Answer to the APOLOGY for them LONDON Printed for Roger Alwin 1690. An Examination of the CASE of the Suspended Bishops THere is no folly incident to the Sons of Men but has had some one Pen or other to write either in its Praise or at least Vindication And it 's natural for Men to imitate their fore-father Adam in sowing Fig-Leaf Aprons to cover their Nakedness Thence it is I am nothing surpris'd to see so preposterous so ridiculous and so illegal an Action as was the Address of the Grand Jury of Glocester at the last Lent Assizes in favour of the Suspended Bishops endeavour'd to be vindicated especially by one who had the unhappiness to be one of the Addressers himself Yet one might have thought Men of any Discretion or Sense should have rather ventur'd to put a favourable Construction on this piece of Folly in Conversation among People of the Country where it was transacted than to expose themselves of new again to the World by an Apology little better upon the matter than the Address it self It has been the unhappiness of Men of our Profession I mean the Clergy whereof I have the honour to be one that the World has in all Ages tax'd them with something of willfulness and positiveness of humour beyond the rest of Mankind And this silly impertinent Apology does certainly add to the Calumny if it be one For tho' a certain Gentleman of the Crand Jury of Glocester has had the good Nature to Father this expos'd Brat yet we know that it was a Club of our own Profession that have had the Honour of bringing it to the World as they had that of framing the Address apologised for and inciting the Grand Jury to sign it If the church were at the point of Ruin for want of the Suspended Bishops the exercise of their Offices If the Succession of our Hierarchy derived to this Day without interruption were thereby in hazard of being broken off If there were no where in England to be found Men capable to handle down to our Posterity the Doctrine of the Gospel but they then it had been not only pardonable but in some sense necessary to use all possible means and even those out of the ordinary Road in order to their re-establishment But however Great however Learned these Suspended Bishops may be we are hopeful there are no such Miseries impending upon our Church through their Suspension as the fear of them should oblige us to break through Laws and Acts of Parliament meerly for their sakes which is the thing the Grand Jury of Glocester by their Address would have the King to do I cannot but regret that these Reverend Persons who had the Honour to give a noble Testimony of their Constancy and Zeal for the Liberties of our Church and Country in the last Reign should have been so unhappy as to occasion such a Schism and so many Offences in this We justly hop'd at the first dawning of this late happy Revolution That instead of proving Stumbling-Blocks to a great part of the Nation by casting all the Dust upon our Deliverance was in their Power in refusing to acknowledge it as such They would rather have continued in their first Zeal than to have left it so soon without every acquainting the World why they did so In this we have a bright Testimony of the weakness of Humane Nature and of the Possibility of the Stars of the first magnitude their suffering an Eclipse in the midst of their Carreer of Light God forbid that in making Reflections upon this Pamphlet I add to the ill Circumstances these Reverend Bishops are in from the harsh Censures of the most of Protestants both at home and abroad and I confess my self to be of the Humour of Constantine who us'd to say If he found a Bishop in the Act of Adultry he would throw his Mantle over him But no body will think the respect I owe them as being my ghostly Fathers should forbid a Refutation of a Paper that at the bottom is Levell'd against the King and both Houses of Parliament that Suspended them and at all the rest of the Reverend Bishops and other Clergy who took the Oaths to their Majesties in Obedience to the Act of Parliament For without all question so hearty and so zealous an appearance for them who have refus'd the Oaths must be more than a tacit Reflection upon others that did so To come to the Pamphlet it self I shall only touch at the Passages of it which seem to have any weight even in the Opinion of the Author or rather Authors themselves For the canting strain and a thousand Expressions foreign to the Affair are neither worthy of any body 's reading nor answer The Title it self is Comprehensible enough and tho' the Gentleman that Fathers the Pamphlet would seem to be only or most concern'd to vindicate his own and his Neighbours their Address yet he shuffles in both in the Title page and all along the Pamphlet it self an Apology for the Suspended Bishops At first sight of this specious Title I believe other People were as much mistaken as I For I immediatley thought I had fallen upon some mighty Treasure hidden to this moment from all Mankind but the Suspended Bishops themselves I imagin'd that in this Paper we was to expect an account of all those profound Reasons which determin'd the Bishops against taking the Oaths And which Reasons the World had been in so long expectation of But alas the poor Gentlemen in stead of really vindicating the Bishops as his Title bears leaves them in a thousand times worse Case than he found them For if he had been prevail'd with not to appear thus in print invita Minerva we might have still continu'd in an awful expectation of those thundring Arguments for refusing the Oaths which these Fathers have thought fit hitherto to lock up in their own Breast Whereas on the contrary by so ridiculous and nonsensical an Apology he has given occasion to the World to think more harshly of the Cause he undertakes and to ascribe his Friends their stiffness rather to a piece of groundless sullenness than to any perswasion from Reason This Thought will be the rather natural to those who reads the Apology That all the Country about knows it was the great product of the united Brains of those sort of Men tho' they took the Oaths themselves who are indeed far greater Enemies to the present Settlement than those who refus'd them In his Dedication he begins with a Reflection on all those of a contrary Opinion to his calling them a restless Faction and at the same time he begs the question for himself in calling the Cause he vindicates Truth and Charity alas the Gentleman does not consider that the People he calls a restless Faction as being an Enemy to his Address is the whole Noble-men Clergy Gentlemen and Commons of England