Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bishop_n	church_n	judgement_n	1,426	5	5.8624	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63267	Popery, the grand apostasie being the substance of certain sermons preached on 2 Thes. 2, v.1 to 12 on occasion of the discovery of that desparate plot of the papists against the King, kingdom and the Protestant religion / by John Troughton ...	Troughton, John, 1637?-1681.	1680 (1680)	Wing T2315; ESTC R23765	68,596	168

and serve him that thereby they also may be advanced and domineer in their places by this means also they are made unnatural resolute and cruel to prosecute the Popes designs like the Turks Janizaries being kept from those relations which sweeten mens tempers and excite natural affection also having no wives and children to provide for they may more desperately ventuere their lives and their estates for the service of their Church Their Friars make a shew of great devotion renouncing the world begging alms of the people going in mean habit bare-footed some of them yet they get all they can from the people for Masses and prayers their Abbots many are Lords live splendidly in England they had above a third part of the land and that the best as was made appear to King Henry 8th but these wholly are at the Popes devotion of these he can raise Armies from them he can exact vast sums of money he can make strong parties in any Nation against their Prince he can turn people which way he pleases In a word his unmarried Clergy and Regulars make him a Monarch they are his Populus virorum intirely at his devotion having no posterity nor personal concerns to care for For if his Clergy had wives and children they must love them provide for them dispose of them in marriage and so be neighbourly oblige the people please their Princes and Governours contract affinities and so they would be concerned in the safety peace prosperity of the Nations and places they live in and would not be at the Popes beck on at his call upon all occasions Thus we see the whole design of Popery issueth in this That men should take their religion from the Pope and his Clergy that so they may rule as sole Lords both in spirituals and temporals We are next to enquire what it was that letted or hindred Antichrists appearing for a time He that letteth will lett c. The Apostle saith this mystery of iniquity was working in his time therefore it could not be the religion of Mahomet which was not heard of till about the year of our Lord 622. Much less Heathenism or Judaism which were then the establisht religions of the world nor yet the general opposition of the body of the wicked against the godly which the Rhemists would have understood by mystical Babylon Rhem. on Rev. 17. for this is alwaies manifest the seed of the serpent doth always oppose the seed of the woman but the Apostle saw an aspiring spirit in the Bishops and Church of Rome which he knew would in time bring the whole Church under their yoak this was occasioned by Rome's being the Metropolis of the world and the seat of the Empire which as it drew all civil affairs and supreme Jurisdiction to that place so did it insensibly draw the admiration respect and causes of all Churches to the guides of that Church which the following Bishops challenged as their due and so gave occasion for the conception of the Man of sin Victor the 14 Bishop of Rome about the year 170. excommunicated all the Eastern Churches for not keeping Easter on the same day that he did Soon after him Cornelius and Stephen successively took upon them with great pride to determine causes belonging to the Churches of A. frick while Cyprian was Bishop of Carthage of which he complains in his Epistles to them Pope Sylvester by his Legats in the Council of Nice an 325. obtained power over all those regions called Suburbicariae which were subject to the Praefect of Rome and from that time the Bishops of Rome boldly challenged the primacie of all Churches and drew all causes and appeals to themselves though not without opposition from the Bishops in Augustines time The Council of Sardica having made a Canon that all doctrines should be tried by the Bishop of Rome meaning it only for that time when Rome was a bulwork against the Arians several Roman Bishops Celestine Boniface and Innocent the first thrust this Canon into the Council of Nice and pretended that by authority of that venerable Council the Tryal of all doctrines and causes was given to them and when the Bishops of Constantinople challenged a parity with the Bishops of Rome because that City was made new Rome and the Seat of the Empire in the East Pope Leo's Legates protested against it in the Council of Chalcedon Ann. 450. Thus the ambition of Rome discovered it self apace but it could not yet attain its end because somewhat still hindred and this was the Roman Empire which divers antient Fathers witness to have been the Apostles meaning by him that letteth saying that he did not expresly mention the Empire lest he should give offence by speaking of the fall of that Empire which they presumed should last for ever insomuch that Roma aeterna eternal Rome was always written upon the Statue of a woman that represented that City and Aeternitas Vestrûm your eternity was a presumptuous title of some of the Emperours they add that the Primitive Church used to pray for the continuance of the Roman Empire for this reason amongst others that the coming and persecutions of Antichrist might thereby he deferred and Hierome who lived to see the Empire decay apace and the City taken by Alarick the Goth said thereupon Qui detinet fit de medio non intelligimus Antichristum adesse He that letteth is taken out of the way and do we not understand that Antichrist must be at hand The Rhemists would fain avoid this interpretation though they make nonsense of the place In Locum but the Papists generally acknowledge the Empire to be that which letted the discovery of Antichrist and Bellarmine would prove that Antichrist is not yet come because there is still a Roman Emperour viz. the Emperour of Germany who hath the titles of Roman Caesar Augustus but he hath the empty title only and is the Popes Vassal receiving his Crown from him swearing fealty to him and is by him appointed Defensor Ecclesiae not to rule the Empire but defend the Church of Rome That the Empire of Rome is here intended is manifest by this because that held the supreme dominion and therefore the Bishops could not obtain it till the Empire was abolisht the Heathen Emperours oppressed and destroyed the whole Church and in particular the Bishops and Church of Rome who were nearest to them and the Christian Emperours not only kept the civil power in their own hands but also called and presided in Councils approved and confirmed the elections of all Bishops and those of Rome more especially and removed those Bishops whom they liked not at their pleasure till this jurisdiction was abrogated the Pope could not get into his hands the supremacie either in Ecclesiastical or civil matters The event also expounds the Text for by those degrees the Empire declined the Bishop of Rome ascended the throne as it followeth in the Text v. 8. Then

wearied with their ill carriage And in the times of the Prophets there were usually false Prophets seducing the people 2 Pet. 2.1 Our Saviour foretold false Christs and false Prophets should arise soon after his days Mat. 24.24 And his Apostles that there should be false teachers in the Church privily bringing in damnable Heresies even denying the Lord that bought them and that many should follow their pernicious ways 2 Pet. 2.1 2. The Primitive times as they were most happy in Zeal and affection in the sound and Orthodox professours so they were as unhappy in the manifold errors Sects divisions that did disturb them as any of these latter Ages Augustin hath given us a Catalogue of 80. Heresies that troubled the Church in those days August Lib. de Haer. ad Quod vult Deus and yet he saith he omitted many and named but the principal It appears by their Epistles that the Apostles had no sooner planted Churches but the weeds of errors and opinions did straight ways spring up amongst them and this chiefly by these three means here mentioned 1. By pretence of the spirit When God did afford his spirit in extraordinary gifts and revelations to his Prophets and Apostles there never wanted men who pretended to the same spirit and the like revelations for their own devices most of them wilfully feigning some artificially and some by diabolical means procuring revelations and Enthusiasms and some weakly mistaking their own fancies and strong perswasions for dictates and inspirations of the Holy Ghost 1 Joh. 4.1 2. Believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they are of God for many false prophets are gone out into the world such as pretended to the spirit and that to the subversion of the greatest truths in the Gospel even to deny the person and coming of Jesus Christ as Simon Magus and his followers therefore he subjoyneth this mark v. 2 3. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God and every spirit that confesseth that he is not come is not of God The same direction is given 1 Cor. 12.2 3. I give you to understand that no man speaking by the spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed Such it seems there were that preten ding to the spirit the Apostles had rejected and reviled Jesus Christ 2. By pretence of a word or oral tradition They that could not pretend the spirit speaking in themselves pretended the judgment and sayings of Christ and his Apostles when absent for their own opinions sometimes forging their sayings sometimes mistaking the meaning of them affixing their own sence to them Thus a tradition was received as coming from the mouth of Christ that the beloved Disciple should not die Joh. 21.22 23. and is yet believed in the Greek Church who shew a place near Ephesus where they say that Apostle when old commanded himself to be buried alive where by some estuation or bubling of the earth they conclude he still breatheth St. Paul was often troubled by the Judaizing Christians who would have kept up the ceremonial law pretending the authority and practice of Peter and other Apostles that lived among the Jews which he refuteth at large Gal. 2. And it appeareth by almost all Pauls Epistles that this tradition was importunately urged and scattered through all the Churches by that sort of men even when the Apostles and Church of Jerusalem had declared that they never commanded such doctrine to be preached Acts 25.24 3. Thirdly By the pretence of Scripture our Epistle in the text And this either by pretence of forged Scripture or false and forced interpretations of the true Canonical writings Of the former sort were the writings of the false Prophets among the Jews and those fabulous Legends of Tobit Judith Susannah c. which were never received by the Jewish Church And such were the many suppositious writings in the primitive times as the Gospel of Peter Andrew Thomas Nicodemus and almost of all the Apostles the Gospel and Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans the Liturgie of James and the like mentioned by Eusebius and other writers Of the latter sort the Apostle speaketh 2 Pet. 3.15 16. That there were many unlearned and unstable Christians who did wrest some hard places in Pauls Epistles and the other Scriptures to their own destruction of this kind is this in the text as some suppose Cartwr in Locum that this opinion of Christs coming to judgment was rashly collected by some from those words in the former Epistle to the Thes ch 4. v. 15. We that are alive and remain unto the coming of our Lord shall not prevent those that are asleep hence they thought that the Apostle supposed that at least some of them who were then alive might live to the coming of Christ Though it seems that all these three means of pretended revelations traditions and Scriptures were used for this doctrine These arts have been all along used to disturb the Church and to pervert souls The Gnosticks Montanus and Manes pretended their inspired revelations Cont. Haer. De praeser and many others in latter ages Irenaeus and Tertullian tell us that many of the Hereticks of their days pretended traditions from one Apostle or other for their doctrine and practice as also others had their Apocryphal Scriptures or Canonical texts misapplied to maintain their errors The Papists make great use of all three of these pretences to establish their grossest errors The doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the bread of the worship of Saints and of religious Orders and Images is mainly built upon Revelations dreams and apparitions Lindanus ingenuously confessed that all those doctrines and practices wherein the Protestants do oppose them and dissent from them are to be proved by traditions of the Apostles not from the Scripture Their doctrines of Purgatory invocation of Angels equivocations and dissemblings are proved by the book of Tobit Judith Susan c. The Apostles Canons increased from 50 to 85 in the last age do them great services in the matters of their discipline and sometimes they wrest Scriptures for their purpose but they have been so baffled and shamed out of this since the Bible hath been common and studied by Protestants that they have forsaken this hold and the Jesuites think the poor secular Priests have betrayed their cause by undertaking to dispute for it out of the Scriptures These troubles by errors arise from the weakness of some who have more zeal than judgment and usually desire new things 2 Pet. 3.16 2 Tim. 4.3 People unlearned and unstable and that have itching ears from pride and conceit in others who that they may seem wiser than their brethren will be wise above or against what is written some teach perverse things to draw disciples after them some for secular interest There was no other reason why the Popes of Rome imbraced the worship of images transubstantiation and some such doctrines but because