Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	believe_v	faith_n	work_v	1,455	5	7.4037	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34014	Charity commended, or, A catholick Christian soberly instructed by J.C.	Collop, John.	1667 (1667)	Wing C5391; ESTC R16883	68,489	162

God grant I may for futurity learn to doe something rather then hear others talk about nothing which if they bring not into the premunire with the fool in the Psalmist who said in his heart there was no God yet I have said in my heart with the Psalmist all men are lyars and every one deceiveth his neighbour I must believe as in Epiphanius time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pietie or impiety must onely distinguish Orthodox or Pseudodox we glory and are inflated with the names of Churches while we lose the power of godlinesse soul of Religion and prerogative of Christians Christs Legacy Charity Sect 31. Faith may lay a Foundation but wee may hope in vain for that building which is made without hands if charity here laies not her hand to make a superstruction those Babel-builders who think to reach Heaven by another way produce nothing but confusion of languages impenitent confidence will shipwrack in an Ocean of infirmity when penitent despair which expected to bee ingulph'd into an Abysse of miseries wasted with gales of sighes and Seas of tears may arrive at a Port of everlasting security the Scripture saies Heaven is taken by violence but 't is a strange phancy the world takes up that it may be taken with impudence fronti nulla ●ides may admit a double sence though a Judas may veil impiety with kisses yet if a timely repentance prevents not he may break in two and discover his black soul naked I cannot believe that Faith justifies works justifie or both yet we are justified by faith by works by both the conditions not causes of our justification and the conditions not perform'd it is impossible without this righteousnesse to see God I will not say Christ cannot save though the Scripture saies Christ could do no miracles in his own Country not because hee was less potent but they were more incapable where impenitence keeps the door mercy cannot enter it is not materiall whose Communion they boast of or disclaim who have fellowship with the unfruitf●ll works of darknesse since Idolaters drunkards liers Adulterers no dogs and unclean person shall enter into the City of God or be partaker of the benefits of his holy Church Sect 33. Of all graces the Apostle makes the greatest of charity and the world least of that charity which antidates Christs presence here in his members and outdates the other graces in futurity when faith and hope shall bee swallowed up in an abysse of ravishing realties that which was but a Lamp here will be then a star inlightned by the Sun of righteousnesse a Lamp here with the oyl of faith and light of good works converting sinners from the darker waies of iniquity shall shine like the stars in glory hereafter and not such who compass Sea and Land to make a Proselyte and make him worse then themselves who tith mint and annise boggle at trifling formalities and forget the greater mysteries of salvation Sect 34. Self-interest opens the floodgates of dissention to drown the humble vallies of peace men esteem opinions because their own all adore the Chimaera's of their own private brains call light darknesse and darknesse light presume they have the most glorious stars for their Conductors when they are onely ignes fatui which misguide to a precipice of flames Gods fire gave light and burned Hells fire burns without light who leave the light of truth heat of charity to live in flames of contention deserve that fire without light even the best Apostles dissented knowledge nor piety can amputate all differences but wisdom and charity must prevent their prejudices Sect 35. Not every light and aery error in disputable Doctrine and points of curious speculation can be a just cause of separation in that admirable body of Christ his Church or of one member from another He gave his naturall body to be torn on the crosse that his mysticall should be one and as Saint Austin he is no partaker of divine charitie that is enemy to this unity All these divisions are disguises of charity and vizards of factions a pageantry of pompous folly or preposterously inflated knowledg● and though they mask in the names of Papists Protestants Reformists sub-Reformists A●omist Familist Brownist c. the Church of God can have no musick to set out such discords My name is Christian and my sirname is Catholick by the one I am known from Infidells by the other from hereticks and schismatick● the name of Catholick congregates what is homogeneous and dissipates what is heterogeneous both in the Court of heaven and in the Court of the Church He cannot put on the garments of Christ who rends and divides his Church Catholick is every where the same that which is trusted to thee not that● which invented by thee which thou hast received not imagined a matter not of wit but doctrine in which thou art not to be Author but a retainer not to lead but follow that which the whole Church holds not instituted by Councells but retained is rightly believ'd Apostolicall tradition such as the Creed Sacraments c. The antient consent of holy Fathers is not in all questions of Divine Law but onely in the rule of Faith by us with exact study to be sifted out and followed there are some things in which the best defenders of the rule Salva fidei compage agree not but one thinks better and truer then another Every error denies not Christ the foundation or makes Christ deny it and thrust it from the foundation not every error in those things which are of faith is either infidelity or heresie if men differ it is no more then they have done ever pious men even in differences may preserve charity intire ●concord which is the effect of charity est un●o voluntatum non opinionum Some Churches build after the Italian fashion with a flat top others with wide windowes to let in the air and catch the applause of the world some build Babel-like and will have their head reach Heaven and if their confusion of languages impeded not might be near allyed others of the Synagogue fashion will admit nothing but round and limit Heaven in their narrow conventicles it could bee wish'd that all would bee what the Apostle exhores of one mind but it is not to be hoped wh●ile the Church is triumphant over humane fragilities which here hang thick and close about her the want of peace and unity even where Religion is pretended proceeds from men and humours rather then things and errors to be found in them Episcopacy squares with Monarchy Presbyterie with Aristocracy independency with Democracy men made Religion lackey to self-interest and State policy the great Turk walking in his Garden with a Bashaw who wonder'd hee would suffer the Christians distracted in Sects to orespread his Empire asked how he liked his Garden answering it was admirable for the variety reply'd

puto verisimile arbitramur till he came in with a scio And though I know not as much as Gregory this I may presume to know the place in Saint Paul wracked so often to confesse a purgatory may be applyable to it being a building of hay and stubble and have the charity to believe the foundation laid in Christ faith in him and love of him the ground-work though in the superstructure may be some light aery phantasms stubble and straw which in the day of tryall shall vanish yet he shall be saved so as by fire through or out of fire drosse vanishes but gold shall abide the fiery tryall in the day of the Lord. Sect. 27. Rogula fidei una omnino est sola illa immobilis irreformabilis according to Tertullian and if your Occham is to be credited nec tota Ecclesia nec concilium generale nec summus Pont●fex potest facere articulūqui non fuit articulus c. Therefore if any thing be fundamentall after the Church defines it must be fundamentall before for deductions are not prime and native principles nor superstructures foundations that which is a foundation to all cannot vary to different Christians in regard of it selfe for then it could not be a common rule to any nor could the souls of men acquiesce on a tottering foundation a trice foundation as common to all must be firm unto all in which sense the articles of Christian Faith are fundamentall and not what men please to define for as Irenaeus quum enim una eadem fides sit neque is qui multum de ipsà dicere potest plus quam oportet dicit nec qui parum ipsam minuit if every thing defin'd by the Church be fundamentall in the faith the Churches definition would be the Church-foundation and so by consequence the the Church could lay her own foundation and the Church have an absolute and perfect being before her foundation laid If the too preposterous zeal of the Roman Church since she grew to her in controlable greatnesse had not rashly determined those things to be matter of belief which for many centuries pass'd onely for pious opinions Christendom might have serv'd God in an holy fire of zeal and spirituall fervency which now sacrifices myriads of souls to Belial in the flames of contention what a sight is it to see writers committed together by the ears for trifling ceremonies and beggarly distinctions tanquam pro aris focis incens'd none are affrighted at their noises and loud brayings under Asses skins scioli and smatterers in Divinity onely busie in the skirts and outsides of learning and yet will admit no salvation but by a compliance with their vertiginous pates wise men should know as the body hath certain diseases that are with lesse evill tolerated then remov'd as to cure a Leprosie with the blood of a child so it is better a triviall error should dilate it self then children of the Church should perish while some error may be disseminated with lesse inconvenience then discover'd the use which wise men should make of other mens lapses is to avoid a precipice and the advantage pious men should make of these great flaws in Christianity is not to joyn with them that make them nor to help to dislocate these main bones in the body which disjoynted cannot be set Sect 28. The uncharitable dealings of Christians with Christians cannot induce me to bee uncharitable to any I must believe with St. Hierom Haeretici fiunt non quod Scripturas contemnunt sed quod non intelligunt it is ignorance and not the contempt is the cause of most if not all of our separations The Sheba's of separation all the Trumpeters of sedition may alarm the rabble that brainless horse to battel to trample down order and break the rankes discipline with a separate your selves from Idols curse you Meroz curse you bitterly What society hath light with darknesse Come out of Babylon my people with a hundred such places of Scripture rack'd and by an invention witty in cruelty tortur'd to confesse something may patronize their black designes wringing blood even out of the Gospell of peace Which have as little relation to Christian societies as a Lo here is Christ Lo there go not out after them rack'd so frequently to confesse them Antichrists who correspond not to the whimzies of every phanatique denoting such as Judas Theudas Arthronges and Barchosba Impostors who pretended to be Messiasses sent for the delivery of the Jews out of the hands of the Romans and if it was possible would deceive the Elect the Jewish Christians which are forewarn'd but as the Calvinists it is impossible for them to be deceived who are the Elect and as the Romanist who are in their Church the treasury of all truth cannot be deceived But if the Elect can scarce be saved what shall become of the ungodly if the Christian Jew who washed with Christs blood speaks better things then that of Abels what will become of them against whom it cries worse then that did against Cain while they themselves could cry Let it be upon us and ours if the Elect as the Papist the Catholick with all his indulgengencies masses rosaries and abstinences can scarce be saved what will become of those who are out of the Communicative line of Gods mercy his Ark City our holy Apostolick and Catholick Church If the Elect as Fiduciaries they that can believe they shall bee saved can scarce believe it so strongly but that an intervening scruple of an obstreperous Conscience may damn them what will become of a Papist who believes in a God of wood a God of bread who saies wee can have no assurance since by faith we are saved thus the stream of life is made the puddle of phanatick interpretations while all like the Tyrant who fitted wretches to his bed hack maim and mutilate or stretch and tenter the Scripture to adequate them to inhumane purposes and Heaven it selfe must admit no room beyond the capacities of their empty noddles Vain fuellers fit onely to feed the flames of contention out of whose embers are even rais'd combusti Sect. 29 Though Heaven gates be narrow I cannot believe them so strait as most sects would make them should I not believe one lie with the Fiduciary or many with the Pontifician not easily induc'd to believe heaven the purchase of fonder imaginations Charity would perswade me it is even a receptacle to those whose uncharitable opinions have mutually condemned and secluded each the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The practice of our lives not tongues must make us Christians wee must be rather so by entring into imitation of Celestiall virtues then curious inquiries May we flourish in verity which is the root in humility which is the flower and well doing which is the fruit of the tree of life Sect. 30. Those aëry mysteries which have unhinged so many Cardinall heads shall not extend my Pericranium