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	time_n	3,239	5	3.7702	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44476	A tract concerning schism and schismatiqves wherein is briefly discovered the originall causes of all schisme / written by a learned and judicious divine ; together with certain animadversions upon some passages thereof.	Hales, John, 1584-1656.; Page, William, 1590-1663.	1642 (1642)	Wing H278; ESTC R2860	21,883	35

A TRACT CONCERNING SCHISME AND SCHISMATIQVES WHEREIN Is briefly discovered the originall causes of all Schisme Written by a Learned and Judicious Divine TOGETHER With certain Animadversions upon some Passages thereof OXFORD Printed by LEONARD LICHFIELD for Edward Forrest 1642. A TRACT CONCERNING SCHISME HEresie and Schisme as they are commonly used are two Theologicall scar crows with which they who uphold a party in Religion vse to fright away such as making enquiry into it are ready to relinquish and oppose it if it appeare either erronious or suspitious for as Plutarch reports of a Painter who having unskilfully painted a Cock chased away all Cocks and Hens that so the imperfection of his Art might not appeare by comparison with Nature so men willing for ends to admit of no fancy but their own endeavour to hinder all enquiry into it by way of comparison of somewhat with it peradventure truer that so the deformity of their own might not appeare but howsoever in the common manage Heresie and Schisme are but ridiculous tearmes yet the things in themselves are of very considerable moment the one offending against Truth the other against Charity and therefore both deadly when they are not by imputation but in deed It is then a matter of no small importance truely to descry the nature of them that so they may feare who are guilty of them and they on the contrary strengthen themselves who through the iniquity of men and times are injuriously charged with them Schisme for of Heresie we shall not now treat except it be by accident and that by occasion of a generall mistake spread through all the writings of the Ancients in which their names are familiarly confounded Schisme I say upon the very sound of the word imports division Division is not but where Communion is or ought to be now Communion is the strength and ground of all Society whether Sacred or Civill whosoever therefore they be that offend against this Common society and friendlinesse of men if it be in civill occasions are guilty of Sedition or Rebellion if it be by reason of Ecclesiasticall difference they are guilty of Schisme So that Schisme is an Ecclesiasticall sedition as Sedition is a lay Schisme yet the great benefit of Communion notwithstanding in regard of divers distempers men are subject to Dissention and Disunion are often necessary For when either false or uncertain Conclusions are obtruded for truth and Acts either unlawfull or ministring just scruple are required of us to be perform'd in these cases consent were conspiracy and open contestation is not faction or Schisme but due Christian animosity For the opening therefore of the nature of Schisme something must be added by way of difference to distinguish it from necessary separation and that is that the cause upon which division is attempted proceed not from Passion or from Distemper or from Ambition or Avatice or such other ends as humane folly is apt to pursue but from well weighed and necessary reasons and that when all other means having been tryed nothing will serve to save us from guilt of Conscience but open separation so that Schisme if we would define it is nothing else but an unnecessary separation of Christians from that part of the visible Church of which they were once members now as in mutinies and civill dissentions there are two attendants in ordinary belonging unto them one the Choyse of an Elector or Guide in place of the Generall or Ordinary Governor to rule and guide the other the appointing of some publique place or Randevous where publike meetings must be celebrated So in Church dissentions and quarrells two appurtenances there are which serve to make Schisme compleat First in the choyce of a Bishop in opposition to the former a thing very frequent amongst the Ancients and which many times was the cause and effect of Schisme Secondly the erecting of a new Church and Oratory for the dividing parts to meet in publiquely For till this be done the Schisme is but yet in the wombe In that late famous Controversy in Holland De Pradestinatione auxiliis as long as the disagreeing parties went no farther then Disputes and Pen-Combats the Schisme was all that while unhatched but as soon as one party swept an old Cloyster and by a pretty Art suddenly made it a Church by putting a new Pulpit in it for the separating party there to meet now what before was a Controversy became a formall Schisme To know no more then this if you take it to be true had been enough to direct how you are to judge and what to think of Schisme and Schismatiques yet because of the Ancients by whom many are more affrighted then hurt much is said and many fearefull doomes are pronounced in this case we will descend a little to consider of Schisme as it were by way of story and that partly farther to open that which we have said in generall by instancing in particulars and partly to disabuse those who reverencing Antiquity more then needs have suffered themselves to be scared with imputation of Schisme above due measure for what the Ancients speake by way of censure of Schisme in generall is most true for they saw and it is no great matter to see so much that unadvised and open fancy to break the knot of union betwixt man and man especially amongst Christians upon whom above all other kind of men the tye of love and communion doth most especially rest was a crime hardly pardonable and that nothing absolves men from the guilt of it but true and unpretended Conscience yet when they came to pronounce of Schisme in particular whether it was because of their own interest or that they saw not the truth or for what other cause God only doth know their judgements many times to speak most gently are justly to be suspected which that you may see we will range all Schisme into two rankes First there is a Schisme in which only one party is the Schismatique for where cause of Schisme is necessary there not he that separates but he that is the cause of separation is the Schismatique Secondly there is a Schisme in which both parties are the Schismatiques for where the occasion of separation is unnecessary neither side can be excused from guilt of Schisme But you will aske who shall be judge what is necessary Indeed it is a question which hath been often made but I think scarcely ever truly answered not because it is a point of great depth or difficulty truly to assoyle it but because the true solution of it carries fire in the taile of it for it bringeth with it a piece of doctrine which is seldome pleasing to Superiors To you for the present this shall suffice If so be you be animo defaecato if you have cleared your selfe from froath and grownes if neither sloath nor feare nor ambition nor any tempting spirit of that nature abuse you for these and such as these are the

true impediments why both that and other questions of the like danger are not truly answered if all this be and yet you know not how to frame your resolution and settle your selfe for that doubt I will say no more of you then was said of Papias S. Iohns own schollar your abilities are not so good as I presumed ANIMADVERSION THIS tract I must confesse is handsomly and acutely penned and many things in it well worthy our observation Yet because I greatly honour antiquity and highly reverence the holy Fathers of the Church I must crave pardon if I deale plainly and roundly with the Author thereof who in some passages as I conceive doth two much neglect antiquity and indeed all authority For first in that he saith the Fathers generally mistake in confounding these names of Heresies and Schisme they doe not mistake them but commonly distinguish them or it is no great matter if they doe they are so neerly linked together that they are seldome seperated you shall hardly find any one guilty of Schisme but he doth easily and very often fall into Heresie Schisme say you is an unnecessary seperation of Christians from that part of the visible Church of which they were once members But as you will put the question afterwards who shall be judge what is necessary and you are loath to assoile this question because the solution thereof carryeth fire in the taile of it for it bringeth with it a peice of doctrine seldome pleasing to superiors Is this doctrine let me aske you good or bad If good then it should then I hope it will be pleasing to superiours If bad then should it displease superiours and inferiours too But the truth is the doctrine is most pernicious to government and therefore to all sorts of people to wit in plaine termes it is this that every one must judge for himself with this proviso so he be animo defaecato And I pray who shall judge of this Even your selfe also So that if you be perswaded that you are animo defaecato and if you thinke you have cleared your selfe from the froath and grownes of feare sloath and ambition then it must needs be so whereas the heart of man being deceitfull above all things there is nothing more usuall then for a man to deceive himselfe and think he is thus and thus when he is nothing so And seeing the best of us all have faces enough in us why may not superiors have as few of these dreggs in them as inferiors and so as well able at the least to judge a right as they And you may talke what you will of being clear from the froath of ambition I know not what greater pride and ambition there can be then thus to pull downe all authority and jurisdiction and erect a tribunall in euery mans brest And yet he that goeth about it will think him selfe to be animo defaecato And you may well say it carrieth fire in the taile of it For thus to trample under foot all power and authority by making every one his own judge must needs raise a great combustion and a strange confusion in the world Secondly you cannot endure that they should be truly Hereticks and Schismaticks which were anciently so esteemed For say you men are more affrighted then hurt by the Auncients and that many reverence antiquity more then need and after tell us in plain tearmes that when they came to pronounce of Schismes in particular whether it were because of their own interests or that they saw not the truth or for what other cause God only doth know their judgements many times to speak most gently are justly to be suspected Where I will not goe about to defend all the particular tenents of every Father for questionlesse being men they had their passions and perturbations as well as wee so that take them singly wee shall find in many of them such private conceits of their owne which cannot be so well excused Yet for all this when all or most of them agree together in any point we are not to question or doubt of the truth of it according to that ancient and hitherto well approved rule of Vincentius Lirinensis Whatsoever all of them or most of them in one and the same sense shall plainly frequently and constantly deliver and confirme let that be esteemed as a ratified certaine and undoubted truth So then though one or two of them may be mistaken yet that all or the greatest part should agree together in a falsehood I cannot easily believe And therefore I cannot think that the current of the Fathers should thus be mistaken and that they should generally account them for Hereticks and Schismaticks which were not so indeed I shall not so much suspect their judgements as his that thinks so But all this I perceive is that there might be some opinions favoured now which were commonly condemned by them as we shall see afterward TRACT But to goe on with what I intended and from that that diverted me that you may the better judge of the nature of Schismes by their occasions you shall find that all Schismes have crept into the Church by one of these three waies either upon matter of fact or upon matter of opinion or point of ambition for the first I call that matter of fact when something is required to be done by us which either we know or strongly suspect to be unlawfull so the first notable Schisme of which we read in the Church contained in it matter of fact for it being upon error taken for necessary that an Easter must be kept and upon worse then error if I may so speak for it was no lesse then a point of Iudaisme forced upon the Church upon worse then error I say thought further necessary that the ground of the time for keeping of that Feast must be the rule left by Moses to the Iewes there arose a stout Question whether we were to celebrate with the Iewes on the fourteenth Moon or the Sunday following This matter though most unnecessary most vaine yet caused as great a combustion as ever was in the Church the West separating and refusing Communion with the East for many years together In this fantasticall hurry I cannot see but all the world were Schismatiques neither can any thing excuse them from that imputation excepting only this that we charitably suppose that all parties did what they did out of Conseience a thing which befell them through the ignorance of their guides for I will not say through their malice and that through the just judgement of God because through sloath and blind obedience men examined not the things which they were taught but like beasts of burthen patiently couched downe and indifferently underwent whatsoever their Superiours laid upon them by the way by this we may plainly see the danger of our appeale to Antiquity for resolution in controverted points of Faith and how small reliefe we are to expect from thence