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
A41456	A sermon preached at Bishops-Stratford, August 29, MDCLXXVII, before the Right Reverend Father in God, Henry, Lord Bishop of London, &c at his Lordships primary visitation / by Jo. Goodman ...	Goodman, John, 1625 or 6-1690.; Goodman, Godfrey, 1583-1656.	1678 (1678)	Wing G1124; ESTC R48	18,196	42

A SERMON PREACHED at BISHOPS-STORTFORD August 29. MDCLXXVII BEFORE The Right Reverend Father in God HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON c. At his Lordships primary Visitation By JO. GOODMAN D. D. Rector of Hadham LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-Corner 1678. TO The Right Reverend Father in God HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON One of the Lords of His MAJESTIE' 's most Honourable Privy Council My LORD WHen I composed the following Sermon at your Lordship's command I propounded no other thing to my self but the doing service to the Souls of men by inviting them into the Communion of the Church of Christ and the animating and encouraging my Brethren of the Clergy that labour in the same good and holy Work Than which two things I knew nothing more seasonable and necessary for the Age we live in or more compliant with your Lordship's Design in your Visitation And therefore though I had a just Reverence of the Auditory and a due sense of my own Imperfections yet the aforesaid Consideration together with that of your Lordship's Candour would not suffer me much to doubt but that the Sermon would be approved by your Lordship and accepted by all good and wise men that heard it For I called to mind that as the Greeks say of their Goddess 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dea Bona valetudo placatur quâcunque re quis velit ei litare so however weak and sickly Minds like cachectick Bodies may be nice phantastick and captious yet those that are sound and strong are benign and generous and with such every thing that is sober and well-intended is well taken Nevertheless I must acknowledge that when afterwards your Lordship declared your pleasure that I should print my Sermon methought the case was altered for being sensible before how difficult a matter it was to contrive so copious a Subject as I had before me within the limits of an hour's Discourse I was easily aware how much harder it would be in so narrow a compass to satisfie all the scruples and curiosities of those that should not onely have a transient glimpse but a leisurely perusal And besides I was not ignorant how different the condition of a Sermon was when presented in dead letters from it self when inlivened by the voice and passion of a very mean Oratour But after all I considered it was my duty not to dispute but to obey and that your Lordship's Judgment was sufficient for my security And therefore all excuses set aside I here humbly present to your hand what before I preached in your hearing And now my Lord having this opportunity I crave leave not onely to make acknowledgment of my own peculiar Obligations to your Lordship which I doe with a just sense of Duty and Gratitude but to report the Apprehensions of your Clergy in these parts of your Diocese and the great Contentment they take under your Lordship's Government They are greatly comforted by your Zeal for the Protestant Religiom incouraged by your Lordship's vigilant Care of their Interests and Concerns directed in their Studies Ministry and Conversation by your prudent Counsels animated by so great an Example and especially obliged by the Benignity of your Presence and Condescension to them at your Visitation All which they cannot forbear to express such a sense of that they look upon it as a great Blessing of Almighty God in committing this part of his Church to your Lordship's Care and Government For my Lord we cannot doubt but Piety and Devotion will commend it self to all that are serious that Paternal Mildness and Clemency will work upon the ingenuous that well-tempered Severity is the way to reclaim the vicious and that Charity and Generosity will oblige all humane Nature And therefore where there is such a conjunction of real and powerfull Causes we are able easily to calculate happy and signal Effects as that the Church shall recover its native and ancient Glory and the Genius of this great People be marvellously improved Which Successes that it will please the Great and True Oecumenical Bishop to crown your Lordship's Endeavours with is the ardent desire of My LORD Your Lordships most dutifull and obedient Servant J. Goodman Hadham Sept. 7. 1677. A SERMON PREACHED At Bishops-Stortford August 29. 1677. BEFORE The Right Reverend Father in GOD HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON S. MATTHEW XVI 18. Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it AMongst the manifold infirmities of humane Nature there is scarcely any either more Epidemical and common in Experience or more mischievous in its Effects and Consequences than that which the Greeks very elegantly express by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and which I know not how more fitly to render than by calling it an Humour of running from one Extreme to another when men apprehending the evil and unreasonableness of some Opinion or Practice are so far transported with zeal in detestation of it as that passing by the Mean of Truth and Sobriety they rest not till they have fixed upon something else quite contrary thereto though it be every whit as bad as that which they studiously seek to decline As if the utmost distance from what they are confident is false were the onely security that what they embrace is true And perhaps if we well observe we shall find that most of those Evils which have deformed Religion and troubled the Peace of the Church of God have entred at this door For evidence of which amongst very many observations which I have at hand to this purpose I will specifie these two or three which I perswade my self will neither be unacceptable to this Learned Auditory nor remote from the business in hand The first Instance shall be the rise of Arrianism touching which it hath been the opinion of sundry wise men and of the Learned Lord Bacon in particular that that most unhappy Controversie sprang at first from an Antipathy to the Polytheism of the Pagans Some men it seems being highly sensible of the intolerable prostitution of the Divine Majesty when the Honours peculiar to him were communicated with and shared amongst so many petty pretended Deities out of zeal against this evil out-ran the mark and that they might be sure to worship but one God acknowledged but one Person and so whilest they went about to subvert Idolatry denyed the Trinity My second Instance shall be the observation of our Learned Hooker to this effect When some German Divines had strained their form of Presbyterian Government Hooker in Pref. to Eccl. Polit. to a mighty height had railed in the Communion with such strict Cautions and Conditions that the most part of Christians being secluded from it it became more like a private Mass than the solemn Worship of the Church and to carry on this design the better had brought in Lay-elders as a new kind of

Censores morum up starts Erastus and provoked by this Extreme runs a risk and falls into another as bad for not content to disprove that new form of Discipline and especially to degrade that novel Office he proceeds to the denial of all Church-Censure and Ecclesiastical Government As if from such time as the Civil State became Christian the Rights of the Church were escheated to the Prince or State And thus as that Judicious person modestly expresses it the Truth was divided between the contending parties but overseen and outran by both But the last Instance I will now make use of comes more home to my present business When the Church of Rome arrogating to it self an Infallibility and asserting to the Pope an universal Pastorship had under these pretences notoriously usurped upon all Christendome there were not wanting those who seeing through this cheat and desirous to reform all bent things so far towards the other Extreme that they endangered the breaking of all in pieces For whereas the Roman Church had claimed and exercised an exorbitant power of making and imposing what Articles of Faith she pleased These were so far from that as that they would scarcely allow the Church authority to define matters of Order and Decorum Because the Governours in the Roman Communion were arrived at too great a height the Bishops becoming like the Ephori among the Spartans able to check and controll Sovereign Princes therefore to avoid this danger all shall be levelled to a Plebeian Parity Before the interest of the Church was so great as that it drew under one pretence or other almost all Causes from the Civil Tribunals to Ecclesiastical cognisance but now to prevent this for the future all Jurisdiction shall be taken from it In short the Church was thought to be too rich before Religio peperer at Divitias filia devoraverat matrem now therefore the onely way to revive the Primitive Purity is to reduce the Primitive Poverty And so upon the whole matter from an abhorrence of the Incroachments and Exorbitancies of the Roman Church there arose a danger whether there should be any Church at all Now considering with my self how to obviate these and several other mischiefs of like nature and to doe the best service I can to this Solemnity I have made choice of these words of our Saviour for my subject Thou art Peter and upon c. Wherein I observe these three things 1. A Resolution or Decree of our Saviour he will build him a Church 2. The Foundation of this Structure Upon this Rock will I c. 3. His Prediction of the Success and Duration of this Building The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it I design to open these three things with the greatest plainness and perspicuity I can because of the importance and usefulness of the matter and yet with as much brevity as is possible for I consider I speak to wise men PART I. Touching the First to avoid all impertinence that which I conceive our Saviour means when he saith he will build him a Church is no more nor less than this that he will incorporate all those that profess his Name and Religion into a Society And that he will not content himself to have Disciples and Followers dividedly straggling after him how numerous soever they may be but he will have them united into a Body formed into a regular Society make up a Divine Polity having Unity Order and Government amongst themselves That as there are several forms of Civil Society of Humane Institution so our Saviour would by his Divine Authority institute a Religious Society by the name of a Church whereof He himself would be the Head and which should be ruled and governed by Laws and Officers peculiar to it self Or as in the Old Testament the whole Nation of the Jews though distinguished otherwise by their respective Tribes and Families made up one People and Church of Israel so should all Nations upon Earth and every individual person that was a Christian conspire and make up together one Christian Church For the more distinct and satisfactory apprehension whereof let us consider that every regular Society requires these four things namely 1. A Body 2. An Head 3. Union 4. Order and Government and all these conspicuously concurre to the making up the Church or such a Society as we have described 1. For the Body of the Christian Church that consists of all those who from time to time in all Ages and Countreys are inrolled in Albo Christianorum and have given up their names to Christ or are Christians by profession So the Apostle 1 Cor. 12. 27. Now are ye the Body of Christ and Members in particular that is the whole number of Christians Vid. Theophyl in loc makes up the mystical Body of Christ every individual person being a particular Member thereof And then he addes vers 28. God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondly Prophets c. By which it is evident that he speaks of the whole Church as one for he supposes the Apostles to be Officers of the whole Christian Church which could not be if every little parcel of Christians convened together made up a Church in the notion the Apostle intends and consequently therefore the whole number of Christians as I said must make up the one Church or Body of Christ To this purpose those that are curious observers of the propriety of phrase in the Greek tongue do note that at Athens from whose Assemblies this name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was first taken when onely the Heads or chief Magistrates were assembled they called this distinctly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when the Colluvies ex agris or whole Rabble of People was called together this they termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was onely used when the whole Body of Citizens within the Pale or Liberties of the City were assembled 2. Christ Jesus is undoubtedly the Head and Supreme of this Body He is the Founder of this Order he gave command for the forming this Society prescribes Laws and affords protection to it Eph. 5. 23. He is the Head of the Church and the Saviour of the Body And herein that which Divines call the Mediatorian Kingdom of our Saviour properly consists namely that not onely in respect of his Divine Nature he hath a Sovereignty over the world but especially that as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God incarnate he is Sovereign of the Church and hath power of Legislation authority to constitute Officers under him jus vitae necis hath all Judgment committed to him can sentence to life or to utter destruction Whether de facto he hath appointed any Lieutenant or Vicar-general under him over the whole Church as some pretend will not be necessary now to inquire and besides will be sufficiently clear in the Negative by what I shall say by and by 3. It is not sufficient to an orderly