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	rome_n	6,168	5	7.0527	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51089	A modest apology for the suspended bishops with a brief vindication of the address which was signed in their favour by the Grand-Jury of the county of Gloucester, at the last Lent assizes / by a gentleman of the said Grand-Jury.	Gentleman of the said Grand-Jury.	1690 (1690)	Wing M2358; ESTC R38872	21,535	34

and Men were so fully perswaded Nor are the Archives of our Senate destitute of Examples which being nearer ally'd to our Case are beyond Exception Among these that I may omit the dispensation which was lately afforded to the Quakers we have a proper instance in the Reign of the last King Charles when notwithstanding all the Tests Oaths and declaratory Provisions which were in true Prudence enjoyn'd in order to our Security against the encroachments of the Court of Rome and the design of her busie Emissaries Mr. John Huddleston for one approved act of Loyalty was excused the Obligation and discharg'd the Penalties of the Statute And therefore since in this World there is no exact perfection in the greatest Councils the most important Affairs of State being sometimes perform'd in such Rapid and Critical haste that 't is impossible to consult every particular Circumstance we readily acknowledge that if the Convention had among their many other serious and mature Performances copyed out any thing in favour to the Bishops as they would have introduced no new Custom so had we not been at the Labour of an Address I could add more but I choose rather to take up with the Rule prescribed by a great Casuist another learned Prelate of the Church * Bishop Taylors Rule and Exercise of holy Living Ch. p. 3.5.10 who tells us That we must not be too easie in examining the Prudence and Unreasonableness of human Laws for althô we are not bound to believe them all to be the wisest yet if by enquiring into the lawfulness of them or by any other Instrument we find them to fail of that Wisdom with which some others are ordained yet we must never make use of it to disparage the Persons of the Law-giver or to countenance any Mans disobedience I am sure our Holy Fathers the Bishops are of the same Opinion I shall therefore endeavour to apply our Proceedings and our Address to the same Topick The Address in few words was no other then the return of our Thanks to His Majesty for his repeated Assurances to maintain our Religion as by Law Established and for his Gracious Resolution to Grant to all his Subjects except such as in his Princely Wisdom he should distinguish from the rest his Gracious Pardon And we humbly prayed that the like favour might be extended to our Pious Bishops particularly our Diocesan that the incapacity they were then under by not taking the Oaths might no longer disable them from serving Their Majesties in their several Provinces It contain'd great deference to the Kings Royal Person Charity to the distressed Malice against none much less can it be arraign'd as a breach of the Law or deserve the Character that some hot Spirits have fix'd upon it as the product of a Papistical and factious Zeal In the discovery of this Truth I do appeal from the lofty Tribunal of our rash Criticks and bespeak the sober Judgment of the honest and impartial Reader We therefore in the first place own that we gave the public testimony of our Thanks to the King for his support of that Religion in the defence of which Cranmer and the other mitred Martyrs spent their precious Blood to which a Virgin Queen was solemnly espoused and of which our Suffering Bishops have made a good Confession Sure I am the Church of Rome hath the only cause to be sensibly touch'd and tormented at this Reflection nor can I judge but that the moderate Dissenters do in some measure congratulate with us For though many of our home-bred Pharisees did stifly presume that after the Ruine of our Establishment they should flourish under the Popes Influence and gain strange Advantages to the Protestant Faith from their new Patron yet their golden Hopes had put a notorious Cheat upon them Those Temporizers would have obtained no better Lot than what befel the crooked Camel in the Fable who being Heavens Favorite petitioned the Gods for Horns but Jupiter deriding his Pretence croped his Ears and made him ever after bare the Mark of his Presumption in a sanctified Dress The Moral is obvious and needs no Explanation We thought it also not unbecoming the Exercise of our Duty to thank his Majesty for a Pardon he design'd his Subjects yea we did not exclude the trimming Latitudinarians of the last Reign for we suppose their Consciences have sufficiently chastised their evil Extravagance Neither did we except against the other violent and brutish Addressors from whom King James received the like Homage which was paid to Mercury by the Heathen Sleepers viz. a Sacrifice of the Tongues of Beasts We insulted no Faction but calmly considered the Favor of our Prince and since an Amnesty was so seasonably tender'd by him we conceiv'd it would not have been construed in a vile Sense to desire his Majesty to include our Diocesan in the same Grace and to render some of the best Men in the World capable of his Service But in the Progress I now take I must be so just as to satisfie the most plausible Objection that thwarts our Proceeding Our Adversaries contend that for as much as our Case was already concluded by a positive Law a Statute having past a legal Disability and Suspension upon the Bishops the King must not be perswaded to break through the Obligation of an Act of Parliament the Consequence of which would be destructive of our Liberties and again exalt the exploded Idol of Arbitrary Power To this specious Offer we answer in the following Terms First We do observe that our Address was penned in the Session of Parliament and therefore it cannot with reason be supposed we would incur the Displeasure of that August Body In the next Place it is apparent that we design'd to thank his Majesty for no other Pardon than what he himself intended and prepared And was it not proposed by him to the two Houses with an Assurance they would pass it and that it should derive a just Solemnity from their Consent On this Account our Address was the irreprovable Witness of our Sincerity for after the King had discovered his gracious Intentions to them we paid our Tribute of Gratitude to the Royal Favor and desired him to extend the common Priviledge of his Mercy to our pious though suffering Bishops Certainly if this be Criminal or destructive either of Gods Honor or the Liberties of Human Society there is neither Justice on Earth nor Truth in Heaven for Vertue and Vice have lost their Names If our Adversaries are not yet satisfied but in the Burthen of their irreconcileable Animosity against our Prelates still say as I have often heard them maintain that it would have been more agreeable to the Usage of Parliament if one or both the Houses had first prepar'd and passed a Bill in Favor of the Bishops than that such an important Repeal should begin with his Majesty and descend to their Consideration as from the Authority and Force of his Will and

them serviceable to His Majesty and useful in their Generations Sure I am this was the true Design of our Grand-Jury's Petition and this was the plain and naked Sense of the dangerous Paper that has been so violently proclaim'd against by some Men who love to be thought great at Court where they would mis-represent all the rest of Mankind and themselves also did not the eloven Foot discover their deformity And now having briefly vindicated the Title of our Address and the Errand upon which we dispatch'd it I shall drop some words and those but a few in answer to that other immodest Calumny which stiled us a factious Party And here as I am not permitted to be a compotent Judge in the Case so neither will I allow the Testimony of our Opponents to the Truth of what they maintain but we will appeal to an Authentic Umpirage and be determin'd by it Tertullian a most learn'd Civilian in the Opinion of the best Masters hath left these words to Meditation * Tertul. Apol advers Gentes cap. 39. Illis nomen Factionis accommodatum est qui in odium bonorum proborum conspirant qui adversus sanguinem innocentium conclamant They merit says he the name of a Faction who conspire in Malice against good and just Men and with loud outcrys demand their Blood Which description is very apt and significant and to it agrees the Grammatical Interpretation which Scaliger gives us of the same word who writes that a Faction is busied circa inimica studia By these settled and approved Rules we may salvo jure conjecture that much wickedness conceived in the Cabanet of the Cabal and as profest Iniquity in the Actions of their Party afford fit Ingredients to make up the Character Corah and his Company Achitophel and his Convention Caiaphas with his Sanhedrim were in this Sense Factious and Turbulent Men otherwise Moses David and the Holy Jesus would be robbed of the Authority that is due to their Innocence If our Adversaries then will declare us liable to the same Imputation they must first prove that our appearance in the Bishops Cause was a design'd Conspiracy against Righteousness and Peace and if they dare confront us with this Libellous Assertion I will say they have hardned not only their Consciences but also their Tongues against the Impressions of Truth Certainly these busie Criticks ought in good Manners to pay a better Respect if not to our Persons yet to the Quality of our Office for we held no Club distinct from the appointments of Custom but we met together to consult the Peace of our Country and to prepare Matters for the solemn Proceedings of Justice and for the regular Execution of the Laws And if we are accounted a Faction for freely speaking the Sense of our Neighbours and for doing our other Duty in the Kings Service the Authority of the Government is called in question and we may esteem the honourable Judge to have been the Ringleader of our Sect. If the Clamarous Gentlemen are not yet satisfied in the present Notion with which I endeavour to correct the bitterness of their Judgments or if they desire to be more fully inform'd what the Nature and Tyranny of a Faction is I will for their further Improvement direct them to an exact and perfect Mirror in which perhaps they may see their own faces I suppose they remember the days of old when the pretended Saints holding their solemn Councils at * This Expression is borrowed from Mr. Milton who lost his Eyes in his Zeal for those times Pandaemonium the High Capitol of the Usurper and his Peers studied the Ruine of the best of Kings and plotted the dismal and black Tragedy which was acted in our Church These were inimica studia in odium bonorum proborum innocentium Then was the Use and Exercise of the Miter suspended the Bonnet was advanc'd over the Crown and Scepters was subjected to the Flail The Liberaries of the Holy Vsher and other Learned Men were ransackt by base Plagiaries and our most celebrated Scholars were reduc'd to such Streights that they lived according to Dr. Prideaux's Language upon their Books and their Hangings being necessitated to expose them to an uncomfortable huxstry for their Support Our Bishops were Imprison'd Sequestred Banish'd and the name Malignant that as one observes is attributed but once in the whole Bible to the Devil was affix'd by accursed Hypocrites on the suffering Party In their Mint were our present and past Calamities coyned they stamped Wrinckles on our Brow and tryed us like Gold in the Furnace of Affliction Those precious Sons of Sion for in that Name they gloryed perfected a Reformation according to Mr. Sedgwick's Scheme who in a fast Sermon before the Commons assured them that they ought in the performance to expect * Zion's delive Anno 1642. p. 11. Earth-quakes Church-quakes and Kingdom-quakes To conclude thô the furious Priests perswaded the People against Organs in the Church yet they had their own peculiar Music even of that Hellish Composure which * Habet mundus Organasua sed quae infernè reddunt sonitum inamabilem Quid enim loquitur ira fides ulciscere spolia ejice occide Quid sonet Ambitionis nervus dilata ditionem nec Juris jurandi aut pietatis sit ratio quoties agitur de imperio Quid erepit Auaritiae chorda vides nemini bene esse nisi qui plurimum possides per fas nefasque congere rape serva c. Haec nimirum est mundi Musica Sic pessomam barn oriam reddit Livoris Obtrectationis Chorda c. his modis aebrii lymphatique sic belligeramur tumultuamur ambimus rapimus irascimur mordemus invicem ac mordemur Erasm Epist ad Adrian Pontif. Praefix Arnob. Comment in Psalm Erasmus on a like sorrowful occasion describes to us that entertain'd the Age with the dire infernal Sound of War Rapine Ambition Avarice Perjury Tumult and Blood This was a Faction in terrible earnest and I hope the Spawn of that Party will no longer torment us with their own Title lest we spare neither Paint nor Labour to describe them more fully to the World FINIS