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	order_n	1,432	5	5.7981	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65264	A fuller answer to Elimas the sorcerer or to the most material part (of a feign'd memoriall) toward the discovery of the Popish Plot, with modest reflections upon a pretended declaration (of the late Dutchess) for charging her religion : prelates ... in a letter addressed to Mr. Thomas Jones by Richard Watson ... / published by Monsieur Maimburg ...	Watson, Richard, 1612-1685.	1683 (1683)	Wing W1090; ESTC R34094	54,514	31

Pen and Fancy will be such as to eat or penetrate into every cleft of it and not onely break it into shivers but multiply them into heapes of Sand which being washed away by the Spring-tyde of his ingenious approaches and irresistible force of his argumentative assaults their building must needs fall and be carryed into an Abyss or Ocean which they can never fathome or sound the depth of Archbishop Cranmer in his Answer to Smith's Preface speakes not home enough to their purpose where he sayth Truth it is indeed that the Church doth never wholly erre for ever in most darkness God shineth unto his elect and in the midst of all iniquity he governeth them so with his holy word and spirit that the gates of Hell prevaile not against them This Church is the piller of truth because it resteth upon God's word which is the true and sure foundation and will not suffer it to erre and fall Pag. 405. 406. It is the invisible Church his Grace meanes for of the outward and visible he absolutely denies it and this proves I confess rather the perpetuity then infallibility of the Church Bishop Field recollects several acceptions of the Church Book 4. Ch. 2. First as it comprehendeth the whole number of believers that are and have been since Christ appeared in the flesh which Church he sayes is absolutely free from all errour and ignorance of Divine things that are to be known by revelation The second acception is as it comprehendeth only all those believers that are and have been since the Apostles time which in things that are of necessity to be expresly known by all that will be saved that it should erre is impossible And further thinkes it as impossible that any errour whatsoever should be found in all the Pastours and Guides of the Church thus generally taken Touching the Church as it comprehendeth onely the believers that now are in the world he sayes In things necessary to be known and believed expresly and distinctly it never is ignorant much less doth it erre yea in things that are not absolutely necessary to be known and believed expresly and distinctly it never is ignorant much less doth it erre yea in things that are not absolutely necessary to be so known and believed we constantly believe that this Church can never erre nor doubt pertinaciously c. But because I doubt whether our Princess made reflexion upon the Church in such a diffusive sense and supposing that she wanted such an Oracle of Infallibility as to which there could be access for imediate resolve of scruples and doubts upon all occasions which I fear had her H. lived longer to make triall would have been as much missing in the Roman Church as in ours I must lay aside many other excellent Writers upon this point I have before me or at hand and take up one so learned and Orthodox as the best and him the rather because he useth not to be so nice in uttering his mind freely and learnedly and yet making it consistent with the Article of our Church though in appearance point blanck contradictory to what he resolutely concludes it is Bishop Mountagu I mean who in his Appeal where he justifies what he had said in his answer to the Gagger his Position is this The Church Representative true and lawfull never yet erred in Fundamentals and therefore I see no cause but to vouch The Church Representative can not erre The Church Representative is a Generall Councel not titularly so as the Conventicle of Trent but plenarily true generall and lawfull Points Fundamentall be such as are immediate unto faith Let any man living shew me sayes he any historicall mistakings misreportings where when in what any Generall Councell according to true acception or Church Representative hath so erred in the resolution and decission of that Councell for in the debating of doubts questions propositions the case is otherwise and not the same I conceive and acknowledge but four Councells of this kind that of Nice of Constantinople of Ephesus of Chalcedon The Church of England may seem to have been of a contrary mind in her determinations For Artic. 21. we read thus Generall Councels when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the spirit and word of God they may erre and sometime have erred even in things pertaining unto God Which decision of the Article is not home to this purpose as he particularly proves and hath the approbation of the Reverend Dr. Francis White afterward Bishop of Ely that he found nothing therein in that and his whole Book but what is agreeable to the Publick Faith Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England of whose Doctrine the said 21 Article is a noted part But because the Bishop leaves this Infallibility at above a thousand yeares distance viz the last Generall Councel of Chalcedon attributing no such thing to any the pretended Generall Councels since it is necessary I go seek a supplement somewhere else for the guidance of doubting persons who may be at loss what to think the state of the Church hath been in so long an intervall and if they take Posterity into their care what it may be in a much longer yet to come before such another Generall Councel meet now the Latine Church seemes to be finally settled upon the Lees of the Decisions in the Councel of Trent Among those many I have turned over I find not where to furnish my self better then from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that most glorious Martyr now a resplendent starr of magnitude among the Saints above in his famed Book commended by that Royall Martyr not long before he drank of the same Cup that bloudy Brook in the way to his celestiall Crown Archbishop Laud's Conference with Mr. Fisher the Iesuite where his Grace sayes Whether a Generall Councel may erre or not is a Question of great consequence in the Church of Christ To say It can not erre leaves the Church not onely without remedy against an errour once determined but also without sense that it may need a remedy and so without care to seek it To say It can erre seemes to expose the members of the Church to an uncertainty and wavering in the Faith to make unquiet spirits not onely to disrespect former Councels of the Church but also to slight and contemn whatsoever it may now determine I said the Determination of a Generall Councel erring was to stand in force and to have External Obedience at least yielded to it till Evidence of Scripture or a Demonstration to the Contrary made the Errour appear and until thereupon another Councel of equal Authority did reverse it Pag. 146. 147. In the following Considerations is added with submission to our Mother the Church of England and to the Mother of us all the Universall Catholick Church of Christ That the Assistance of the H. Ghost is

if not articulate complaints and much astonishing us whose attendance in our stations drew us within notice of it there being as it were an absolute desertion of her little Oratory which before whether her H. were there or not us'd to be well frequented by a comfortable Audience that assisted at our Mattins and Even-Song which beside that it pleased God gave countenance to the Chaplain in the performance of his Offices at the houres appointed I calling to mind the strictness of her Commands formerly and the steadiness of her personall example in time of Health found it necessary for her R. H. to have knowledge of it in some seasonable intervall of her griefs assuring my self her Goodness would not take amiss such a dutifull and devout expression of a religious desire she should be daily prayed for by us when in that weak condition she could not present her self before the little Altar she had erected to pray there with us This I did with that caution as became me in the present circumstances and committed the care of it to a discreet Lady of her Chamber who was seldome absent from her Bed-side desiring her in the summe of all to say plainly That the Chaplain was in this streight without her H. suddenly found some expedient either to set open the doores of her Oratory and read Common-prayer to the painted Wain-Scot or keep 'em shut and read none at all whereof what sence the Court and City would have must be left at adventure The very next day when I went into the Privy-Chamber at the wonted hour I saw no cause at all either of complaint or enquiry after her H. pleasure and new Order it being appointed before my coming that the Reading-Desk and Books should be made ready and when the Bed-Chamber door should be opened our Common-Prayer should be read at the very entrance thereinto whither assembled not only a considerable number without the door and within such Ladies as were either in immediate attendance or others priviledged to be there but her H. personally as she lay in bed found I hope some comfort and benefit by our Prayers read in her hearing wherein I doubt not but at that time she joyned in Communion with us or else would have ordered it otherwise This course for ought I remember continued while her infirme condition could comply with it throughout my time After my dismission what Method therein was observed my Reverend Successor in that employment can best report But this on all hands I believe will easily be yielded That her Highnesses Sickness more and more every day prevailing and consequently the strength of Nature as much decaying little abatement in that anxiety she had of mind and little better satisfaction of doubts and scruples or settlement in Religion considering her sad condition can reasonably be supposed Whether in this deplorable state she might send for her Spirituall Physician the Ecclesiastick Person mentioned by her or some other I can with assurance neither affirm nor deny nor will I doubt more if he came of her Highnesses patient attention and submission to all he said at a time when she wanted somewhat to allay or charm the tumult of her Spirits then I do of what a Learned and well Practised Civilian has sometime told me That many Testaments are brought in Court truly Signed by the Testators in a dying condition but upon no other account of will or consent then to be rid of their importunate Kindred Allies or Friends that they may be free to dispose their Soules to a calm and serene departure out of this unquiet World And whether the good Father were sent for or no very well known it is how the Ecclesiastikes of that Communion use not to be over-modest as opportunity may serve in offering their Assistance to exspiring persons of what Church or of what Quality soever where they may have admission Which puts me in mind of what happened many years since at Bruges in Flanders about the Decease of my Noble Patron the Lord Hopton who on his last fatal day being taken speechless somewhat early in the morning and so continuing to the great grief and disappointment of his few Domestiques then about him In the afternoon the Reverend Mother or Lady Prioress of the English Nunnery sent a Message in great haste to me that I must needs attend her immediately at the Grate as if she had praepared some speciall Cordiall for our good Lord whom she and all her Votaries respected highly that would not only recover his Lordships Speech but renew his Age or protract his life some years longer when I went to know her pleasure the good Lady told me somewhat to this purpose That understanding my Lords condition she could not be at rest untill she had finished the great Devotion her whole Monastery had for his Lordship by recommending two grave Franciscan Fryars to do their last religious Office for him in their way i. e. according to the Rituall of the Roman Church Whereat I was so much surprized that I had almost forgot the sedate temper I came to her in being more prone upon that her motion either to smile or be angry then to lament the loss I every hour apprehended might befall me and my fellow-servants in a Forreign Countrey by our Lord's Decease At length being somewhat recomposed I minded her Reverence of what she knew very well the free converse my Lord had often in time of Health with their Fathers and Fryars of any Order declining no discourse on any points in controversy they could mention to him in a Calm and Christian way how acceptable it had been on both sides though neither Party could convince the other and how incongruous it would be after all the aforesaid frankness and plain-dealing now to give his Lordship the trouble of a faint dispute if he could have us'd his Tongue but now he could not how false I must needs prove to him and to my trust in permitting such religious Offices to be practised upon him at the point of Death which he approved not of toward any other person when in perfect health and vigour of understanding Whereupon the over-courteous Lady whether satisfied or no acquiesced and retired as I returned to my languishing good Lord to perform my last duty at his Bed-side as his Chaplain according to the Form or Permission of our Britannike Church Whereas had I taken other measures it most certainly would have been reported That the Lord Hopton if but by reason of that very ancient Ceremony their extream Unction without a word spoken had died so good a Roman Catholique as the best and his surviving Chaplain or Director in Mr. Iones's sense had been no other than a Papist in Masquerade and for his treachery to so noble and so good a Protestant had deserved no less then present death by his Martial Sentence But I proceed To make good my word and produce my second particular upon better credit then