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	good_a	great_a	1,387	5	2.5396	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50959	A treatise of civil power in ecclesiastical causes shewing that it is not lawfull for any power on earth to compell in matters of religion / the author, J.M.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1659 (1659)	Wing M2185; ESTC R13133	23,223	97

us but the illumination of the Holy Spirit so interpreting that scripture as warrantable only to our selves and to such whose consciences we can so perswade can have no other ground in matters of religion but only from the scriptures And these being not possible to be understood without this divine illumination which no man can know at all times to be in himself much less to be at any time for certain in any other it follows cleerly that no man or body of men in these times can be the infallible judges or determiners in matters of religion to any other mens consciences but thir own And therfore those Beroeans are commended Act. 17.11 who after the preaching even of S. Paul searchd the scriptures daily whether those things were so Nor did they more then what God himself in many places commands us by the same apostle to search to try to judge of these things our selves And gives us reason also Gal. 6.4 5. let every man prove his own work and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another for every man shall bear his own burden If then we count it so ignorant and irreligious in the papist to think himself dischargd in Gods account beleeving only as the church beleevs how much greater condemnation will it be to the protestant his condemner to think himself justified beleeving only as the state beleevs With good cause therfore it is the general consent of all sound protestant writers that neither traditions councels nor canons of any visibie church much less edicts of any magistrate or civil session but the scripture only can be the final judge or rule in matters of religion and that only in the conscience of every Christian to himself Which protestation made by the first publick reformers of our religion against the imperial edicts of Charls the fifth imposing church-traditions without scripture gave first beginning to the name of Protestant and with that name hath ever bin receivd this doctrine which preferrs the scripture before the church and acknowledges none but the Scripture sole interpreter of it self to the conscience For if the church be not sufficient to be implicitly beleevd as we hold it is not what can there els be nam'd of more autoritie then the church but the conscience then which God only is greater 1 Ioh. 3.20 But if any man shall pretend that the scripture judges to his conscience for other men he makes himself greater not only then the church but also then the scripture then the consciences of other men a presumption too high for any mortal since every true Christian able to give a reason of his faith hath the word of God before him the promisd Holy Spirit and the minde of Christ within him 1 Cor. 2.16 a much better and safer guide of conscience which as far as concerns himself he may far more certainly know then any outward rule impos'd upon him by others whom he inwardly neither knows nor can know at least knows nothing of them more sure then this one thing that they cannot be his judges in religion 1 Cor. 2.15 the spiritual man judgeth all things but he himself is judgd of no man Chiefly for this cause do all true protestants account the pope antichrist for that he assumes to himself this infallibilitie over both the conscience and the scripture siting in the temple of God as it were opposite to God and exalting himself above all that is called god or is worshipd 2 Thess. 2.4 That is to say not only above all judges and magistrates who though they be calld gods are far beneath infallible but also above God himself by giving law both to the scripture to the conscience and to the spirit it self of God within us When as we finde Iames 4.12 there is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy who art thou that judgest another That Christ is the only lawgiver of his church and that it is here meant in religious matters no well grounded Christian will deny Thus also S. Paul Rom. 14.4 who art thou that judgest the servant of another to his own Lord he standeth or falleth but he shall stand for God is able to make him stand As therfore of one beyond expression bold and presumptuous both these apostles demand who art thou that presum'st to impose other law or judgment in religion then the only lawgiver and judge Christ who only can save and can destroy gives to the conscience And the forecited place to the Thessalonians by compar'd effects resolvs us that be he or they who or wherever they be or can be they are of far less autoritie then the church whom in these things as protestants they receive not and yet no less antichrist in this main point of antichristianism no less a pope or popedom then he at Rome if not much more by setting up supream interpreters of scripture either those doctors whom they follow or which is far worse themselves as a civil papacie assuming unaccountable supremacie to themselves not in civil only but ecclesiastical causes Seeing then that in matters of religion as hath been prov'd none can judge or determin here on earth no not church-governors themselves against the consciences of other beleevers my inference is or rather not mine but our Saviours own that in those matters they neither can command nor use constraint lest they run rashly on a pernicious consequence forewarnd in that parable Mat. 13. from the 26 to the 31 verse least while ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with them Let both grow together until the harvest and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers Gather ye together first the tares c. whereby he declares that this work neither his own ministers nor any els can discerningly anough or judgingly perform without his own immediat direction in his own fit season and that they ought till then not to attempt it Which is further confirmd 2 Cor. 1.24 not that we have dominion over your faith but are helpers of your joy If apostles had no dominion or constraining power over faith or conscience much less have ordinary ministers 1 Pet. 5.2 3. feed the flock of God not by constraint c. neither as being lords over Gods heritage But some will object that this overthrows all church-discipline all censure of errors if no man can determin My answer is that what they hear is plane scripture which forbids not church-sentence or determining but as it ends in violence upon the conscience unconvinc'd Let who so will interpret or determin so it be according to true church-discipline which is exercis'd on them only who have willingly joind themselves in that covnant of union and proceeds only to a separation from the rest proceeds never to any corporal inforcement or forfeture of monie which in spiritual things are the two arms of Antichrist not of the true church the one being an inquisition the other no