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	true_a	1,534	5	4.9891	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35038	Analepsis, or, Saint Peters bonds abide for rhetorick worketh no release, is evidenced in a serious and sober consideration of Dr. John Gauden's sense and solution of the Solemn League and Covenant : so far as it relates to the government of the church by episcopacy / by Zech. Crofton.	Crofton, Zachary, 1625 or 6-1672.	1660 (1660)	Wing C6984; ESTC R7749	30,761	39

must be confessed Cisterns of Ministerial power and Ecclesiastical authority and immediate successors to the Apostles and so the Bond of Baptisme binds to Gospel-Ministers as the explicite and preceptive institution of Christ whil'st Episcopal order can claim no more but tradition and that very disputable the Prelatical Divines of our Nation would not be thus tyed to the observation of the Lords day nor I to the observation of Easter yet both these especially the first look as like an immediate institution of Christ preceptive and explicite or tacite and exemplary as any order or kinde of Episcopacy he suggesteth to be upheld by the bond of baptisme As to what the Doctor addeth concerning the signal and intolerable injuries offered to the persons of such excellent Bishops as England lately had and still may have and the abatement of the honour of this whole Church and its Ministry c. I wish it may be considered That the Covenant is not levelled against any Real Excellency in the Bishops but an unwarrantable greatness power and authority assumed by them or attributed to them which conferred an unfitting honour on the Church and then the exclusion of it is no injury and the mighty abatement thereof is a positive duty I cannot think but that learning and the due honour of the Church may and will be best encouraged by the vailing of that pompous worldly state and wicked superiority her Governours had obtained the Churches perspicuity seems not to me so necessary that it must needs shine in Lawn Sleeves and succession of Bishops of paternal authority over their brethren nor know I to what Churches save those of Rome who make the Succession of their Bishops the sole and singular Note of the true Church a Supersedeas of such Episcopal order how ancient or venerable soever it be deemed can be so scandalous as is suggested I am sure few of the Reformed Churches see cause so to judge it and then Sir we finde little force in this his complicated Answer Thus Sir I have made bold to consider the Doctors indirect answer and arguments wherein he endeavoureth to shake and subvert the whole fabrick of the Solemn League and Covenant and in them to my judgement there is so little strength of Reason or true Religion that it affords but a poor ground for his insulting and triumphant discharge in page 13. These things being thus premised are sufficient as I conceive to abate the Edge and Rigour of the Covenant and to ravel that cabel and bond of Religious obligation For Sir notwithstanding his supposal asserted in good earnest there is neither Law of God or man requiring imposing or comprobating any such Covenant The Boanergesses will finde cause to thunder out terrour against Covenant-breaking lest Rhetorical flourishes without strength of Reasons should release the consciences of the vulgar from the power of religious bonds It may be Sir we shall finde more strength in the Doctors down-right stroaks His direct answer than in his back-blows His batteries in his indirect answers attempted have bespoken his purpose to break in sunder the Sacred bond of the Covenant His power to effect it in point of Episcopacy must appear in his direct Answer wherein we thank him he looks on the Covenant in the softest sence that can be made as it is a voluntary vow or Religious bond which private men spontaneously took upon themselves c. But yet he suggesteth it was taken by very few not one fourth part of the Nation now living and those few made to take it by the terrors of prison plunder sequestration and the like wracks Unto which before we observe his particular reconciling Answers relating to the special point of Episcopacy I propound to consideration that The paucity of Covenantets will not discharge its obligation be there never so few I hope those few may be free in asserting and must be faithful in adhering to the Covenant in which their confidence may be the greater for that His most Sacred Majesty comes in to make up the number But if the Doctor saw with my eyes he would not suppose the number to be so small if all Tables were as legible as those of the Lords and Commons I believe their number would be found many more than the fourth part of the Nation But can any considerable observer take notice the Covenant was imposed on and submitted unto by all sorts and degrees of men in all Counties Cities and Towns tendred and since testified by their publique subscriptions by the most Ministers in the several Counties unto their individual Congregations and that under the success of War which usually extendeth a Covenant unto all who come under its influence and yet without the supposal of a very great mortality imagine not the fourth part of the Nation to have taken the Covenant The Doctor sure judgeth by such with whom he converseth and I easily believe they are not a fourth part of the Nation yet methinks he himself being to be reckoned into the number might well conjecture them to be more But again Sir the capacity of the Covenanters is more considerable than the number and will make it a question well worth consideration Whether it be not obligatory to the whole Nation When I consider the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled and under that notion and capacity swearing the Covenant as the collective body of the Nation though not near a fourth part in number I am apt to think it looks very like a National Obligation For I know not how they can take pardons if they may not make promises in our names especially when the assent of His Most Sacred Majesty is made so legible by His Royal Subjection to the same Solemn League and Covenant I am much mistaken if the Oath of Zedekiah and the Princes without popular delegates did not binde the people of Israel I hope the Doctor will be more warie than to plunge the whole Kingdome into perjury That there was any such Logick as Prisons Plunder and Sequestrations to enforce the Covenant I am not well-pleased I hope he had more fortitude than to suffer his Reason and Religion to be so captivated he knoweth the will cannot be compelled and I imagine he will not make extortion by force any more than fraude absolve the Obligation and warrant the recession or violation of an Oath he knows that Nature and Scripture do teach the contrary whatever was Cicero's affection to him he knows wherein he commends Pomponius the Tribune as to his extorted Oath nor will a Casuist deny Juramentum metu extorium to bind greater force can besiege none to the making of an Oath nor greater fury from God follow any for breaking the oath so forced than that which befell Zedekiah to the King of Babylon But let us see by what strength of Reason he worketh out release from this voluntary vow that we may be also free-men and it is produced by several suggestions where of The

by Covenant excluded Fabrik be not a transgression of the Law and plunging the Nation into perjury which how consistent it is with the honour of King or Kingdom let wise men judge The Doctors fourth fifth and eighth Suggestions do relate unto the good of Episcopacie concerning which he supposeth a good which I must confess I am not clear to admit as for that good in this which is common to all Governments viz. the Principles and proportions of Order The good nesse of Eplscopacy denied Subordination and Government we shall not deny it only conceive it is not here pleadable for it may he continued in the Government which shall be established but as to that of good in it by Scriptural Precepts and Patterns in the Jewish Church Apostolique constitution and Primitive use of Ecclesiastical custome and holy mens general approbation and universal imitation it is under dispute and not yet obvious and so not of force to conclude for it and as to Englands experience of the much good done by it since the Reformation it is very obscure whil'st the best of benefit imaginable to have been reaped by it hath been to preserve the Reformation in the state and degree in which King Edward the sixth and Queen Elizabeth left it for wherein hath Episcopacie promoted it nay rather wherein hath not Episcopacie by its silencing and suspending zealous Ministers excommunicating imprisoning banishing and stigmatizing pious Christians for no fault at all save endeavonring it retarded the progress and perfection of the Reformation nay hath not Episcopacie by its turning our Chancels into railes insancta sanctorums our Communion-tables into adored Altars our glass windows into popish pictures and changing our common and est ablished Liturgy into a more compleat conformity to the Popish Mass-book for form of administration Order of worship Rites and Ceremonies brought the Reformation into a most palpable and apparent Retrogradation and hath not then your Doctor cause to tell us it were extream folly and madness prophaneness and blasphemy to cry it down as evill and engage in Covenant against it as such truly Sir to all his supposed good whereby it is so beneficial in his eye to the being compleat and regular being of any Church and none more than England I shall only oppose that one evill for which were there in it no more it deserveth to be decried and extirpated by the Covenant and that evill I find so inherent to Episcopacy that this very moderate man cannot divide them viz. the not only degrading all ordinary Pastors and Ministers in the sight of the people making their Ministery greatly ineffectual but also divesting them of all authority and superiority over the people preferring the people to and above them as their equals and superiousr whereby all their administrations whil'st in black Coats are represented to be meer Cyphors to which the Bishops Lawn sleeves must be the only figure significant Sir can it be less than duty to extirpate that which doth engross to its self and so enervate in others all Gospel Ministery if Cephas and Apollo be not Ministers of Jesus Christ as well as Paul the Apostle I see no cause to chide the Corinthians for their Schisme but passing his Hypothesis let us try the strength of his Propositions by which he would bind the Covenanter to his Episcopacy and they sound very strangely in my ears 1. A Covenant can bind no man in conscience against any thing that is in its nature good or not Morally evil for this were to bind a mans self and others beyond Gods eternal righteousness this is unto me a lesson of new Divinity Oaths may bind against good indiffe ent for Sir be pleased to note that the good he speaks of is natural not moral much less Theological good it is a good which is not in it self necessary but may be necessary in its time and place so that it is a plain Adiaphoron a thing indifferent that to bind men to what is morally evil is a Covenant of hell I can easily be convinced but that to bind them against what is allowed of God as good and lawful but not duty necessary untill circumstanced with time and place shou'd be so is sure but one Doctors opinion I did ever conceive Adiaphorous to be subject to the Magistrates command and a mans own Covenant and so distinct from Divine prescription the eating of flesh is in its nature good and not morally evil the Apostle is apt to Covenant with a weak brother never to eat flesh is this to bind himself beyond Gods eternal bonds of righteousness or in a Covenant with hell I mistake such Casuists as I have read if they conclude not the contrary 2. No man may vow or Covenant much lesse keep any such Covenant as he hath taken intentionally against the evil corruption or abuse of any thing Oaths against evil hindring the use of some good do binde so as to involve the good and usefulness of it and to condemn that to destruction and extirpation Truly Sir I must confess not only judicial such as is his instance of the Jndge of all the earth in his righteous destribution towards Sodom and so impertinent to his case but also rational and Religious discrimination of objects is good and necessary but that a Covenant involving good and usefulness whil'st it is intended against evil and abuse is therefore void and not to be kept I cannot believe I have read Juramentum non esse illicitum aut obligandi vim non amittere praecise ab hoc Sanderson de juramen to praelect 3. Sect. 12. quod videtur esse impeditivum majeris boni an oath is not therefore void because it hinders a greater that is more than simple good I shall willingly wish men may not be so transported as to swear against a good when it can be separated from the evil nor yet to discharge the Oath because the good which might have been divided is involved It is a mans duty to distinguish between the Superstructures of men and foundation of Christ and his Apostles of which order his Episcopacy doth not yet appear And it is a mans liberty to restrain himself from the thing that is in its own nature good and useful when attended with plain and positive nay accidental evil I knew a man passing through an old rotten house got a knock on his pate and in his passion sware he would pull it down and burn it every stick his work-men advised him to use some of the materials good and useful in his new Fabrick the good man is conscious of his Oath though rash and unadvised Will the Doctor please to resolve his conscience Or again Hezekiah observes the brazen serpent the sometimes means and now Memorial of Israels remedy and type of the Redeemer abused to Idolatry sweareth he will destroy it and accordingly executes his Oath Suppose it at that time as it had its good to be as useful as