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	pope_n	3,804	5	6.4362	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89754	Considerations tending to remove the present differences, and to settle vnity, peace, and piety for the present and future. Written from the Sommer Islands by R. Norvvood. And sent over to further the reconciliation of his native country.	Norwood, Richard, 1590?-1675.	1646 (1646)	Wing N1378; Thomason E366_5; ESTC R201257	8,470	12

rests and is feared wil be between those called Independents and Presbyterians and especially between the Ministers on either side the people for the most part opposing each other for their sakes And they I mean the Ministers opposing each other for that which cannot appear to belong to either of them namely for an Ecclesiastical Magistracy over the Church which even themselues condemn in the two former Governments namely Papall and Episcopal 20. We shal conclude It is surely to be lamented that such Ministers in England as ever since the Reformation til of late would have thought it sufficient if themselves might have been freed from the dominion of the Bishops are now not content with that except themselves may exercise the like dominion over their brethren and that by a law more unalterable than that of the Medes and Persians namely jure divino which the Bishops never durst challenge til of late and which in them was a principall cause of stirring up the present troubles and in these is a principall cause of the continuance of them whilst covering the mistery by some of them intended with specious shews and plausible pretences they draw the common people and many otherwise truely religious to their parsee Oh that there were such a minde in them as heretofore and that they would in tonder compassion of the distracted estate of the Kingdome content themselves with such authority as heretofore in the most happy and stourishing times of this Church and Commonwealth namely with preaching the Word and administring the Sacraments at leastwise for a time til they could make it appear to the Honorable Parlament some other power to belong unto them and what that is and how limited And in the mean time such offices and officers to be set in the Commonwealth and in every particular Congregation as were men of courage fearing God and hating covetonsnesse that might curb profanesse and cherish piety peace and true Religion And the Ministers to have their classes or meetings for the ordaining and regulating of Ministers as other societies have according to the Word of God and the approbation of the Honorable Parlament Then might we hope to see peace again restored in our dear native Country and true Religion settled with more power and purity then heretofore For the ambition of some Clergymen in this very point yet often I confesse obtaining the suffrages of pious and learned Christians in their times hath been the principal cause of errors and discords in the Church whilst the Pope would have such a Power jure divino by vertue whereof he did subjugate all other Powers and of that nature it is wheresoever it is granted to subjugate in time all other powers Of late the Bishops would challenge such a power jure divino but could not have nor hold it so long as to subjugate other powers Now Ministers would have such a power jure divino and some as absolute and Independent as any of the former when no such power of Ruling belongs to any of them jure divino but only a Prophetical power of ruling the mind and conscience by the Word of God All other coercive and magisterial power no ways belonging to Ministers jure divino but to those in place of Magistracy I say if Ministers would lay down this claim to an Eccleslastical Magistracy and content themselves as formerly with their ministerial and propheticall authority at leastwise for a time till they could make it evidently to appear such other power to belong unto them and how limited the occasion of the present differences would be taken away and unity peace and piety might be settled amongst us which is the scope here intended and ought to bee the endeavor of every faithful Christian FINIS

of those Elders Officers or Rulers whose power or authority extends no farther then that Congregation the chiefe honor belongs to the Minister which also may be more or lesse according to the gifts which God hath endued him with all 17. Against what hath been before said it may be objected that Magistrates do often to good purpose joyn a Prophetical or perswasive power with their Magisterial or coercive power laboring to bring men to a right order and obedience by reasons humane and divine without constraint Why then may not Ministers join a magisterial and coercive with their ministerial or prophetical Answ The Prophetical power as we have said is more noble more general hath lesse contraryty to any thing works mord directly and immediately upon the more noble part of man the soul and so doth much advance and further the final scope and end of the Magistrates office without any contrarity to it Moses said would God al the Lords people were Prophets he would not say would they were all Magistrates for that would have bred contrarity confusion which the other would not and therefore is more generally to be used by all Magistrates and others The Magisterial power is not so wherewith if a Minister be invested it doth somthing take him off from his proper office which is more noble Besides it doth something darken it for being clothed with magisterial power it makes him rather a Legal then Evangelical Minister becaus his Magisterial power is far more obvious to the apprehensions of men then his Prophetical which by this means is not apprehended or very darkly and confusedly as the ey being fixed upon some object very visible sees not other things or if it do it is very obscurely and confusedly Besides it makes him of a spirit more Legal lesse Evangelical Therefore our Savior himself in the execution of his Prophetical office laid aside all Magisterial power which he would not have done if it had been profitable So did the Apostles so the Prophets of Old ordinarily and so our Savior seems expresly to command his Apostles and all Ministers in one place where he saith The Lords of the Gentiles bear rule over them and those which are great exercise authority c. but it shal not be so among you c. whereby he prohibits all Ministers from the exercise of Magisterial power as if he should say those which wil be great in the Ministery of the Gospel must be without all Magisterial authority He saith the Lords of the Gentiles becaus the Magistracy of the Iews was void being under the Romans And so sheweth whosoever wil be great in the Ministry must exercise no authority as Magistrates do He is to preach convince c. with all authority that is with all prophetical authority but to have no Magisterial or Coercive authority And so he saith Whosoever wil be great among you let him be your servant whosoever wil be chief among you let him be your servant now who is further from Magisterial power then a servant Even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve where he proposeth as elswher his own example that he had exercised no Magisterial power And it hath been generally observed in England that when Magisterial power hath been conferred upon Ministers by making them Bishops they were the worse Ministers ever after 18. This Ecclesiastical Magistracy of Clergymen the Church hath had experience of in every kind As in an Independent way in a Presbyterial way in an Episcopal or prelatical way and in the way of an universal Bishop or Pope For whilst the Churches were few and they for the most part separate in place or far dis-joined one from another being under no Christian Magistracy the Government may seem to have been something like that which at present is called Independent But the Churches growing more numerous and neerly conjoyned they found it necessary for peace and unity they should be Governed by the consent of the Presbytery assembled in some such way as is now called the Presbyterian Government But afterwards finding many controversies scisms and strong oppositions amongst these and their followers for their sakes they thought it necessary to set Bishops over them afterwards finding much disagreement among these Bishops and an aptnesse in them to engage States and Kingdomes in their quarrels to the stirring up of sedition and great disturbance they yeelded to admit of an universal Bishop over them all And by this ladder hath the Pope ascended to set himself above all humane powers the first step of which ladder or rather the basis or foundation on which it stands seems to be this that there is an Ecclesiastical Magistracy over the Church belonging to the Clergymen and that jure divino which being granted the rest wil follow and can hardly be avoyded And this in every of these kinds of Government hath always grown prejudicial to the Church and Civil State hence have sprung the principal errors in the Church which almost all make for the ambition and covetousnesse of the Clergy an evident sign that they have been the chief authors and promoters of them this appears in the Church of Rome c. which former times endeavored to redresse by altering the Government from one form to another but all in vain because they were all founded and all of them retained this false principle And if the world should continue so long as to make the like experience of them all again though they should be ordered with as much care and circumspection as might be yet doubtless they would prove as bad as before nay I am perswaded worse seeing we find not the ancient Independents or those which were likest to them did ever when they were at the worst hold any tenents or use any practise so dangerous as these which the Independents of these times do boldly and in a turbulent way bring in now upon their first rising where shal we find more pride more uncharitablenesse they wil vilifie and unchristian the best Christian if he stand in their way and seem not to regard the ruinating of Churches and Commonwealths so they may set up themselves no though it be the wombe that bare them and the paps which they have sucked What may we expect of them if they should be authorized and continued 19. But the universal Bishop being by his foul train of Errors in tract of time brought in discovered to be the Antichrist and his Government Antichristian is now through Gods mercy exploded The Bishops also the principal stirrers up of those grievous troubles and dangers which are stil upon us themselves and their government is cast off as Antichristian for this cause especially because they began of late to assume to themselves an unlimited and Independent power Jure divino or an Independent Ecclesiasticall Magistracy and by that power brought inu sundry Errors endangering Religion and the Commonwealth So that now the great opposition