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	king_n	power_n	2,049	5	5.0457	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48723	The churches peace asserted upon a civil account as it was (great part of it) deliver'd in a sermon before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor in Guild-Hall-Chappel July 4 / by Ad. Littleton, presbyter.	Littleton, Adam, 1627-1694.	1669 (1669)	Wing L2560; ESTC R37938	36,810	50

been inlightned since and changed their mind they must know too that that power which gives men in publick place leave to act may upon publick inconvenience suspend their acting and if then they do act 't is an unjustifiable disobedience Nor is it with them as it was with Saint Paul Wo be unto me if I preach not the Gospel he had another kind of Call but for these there 's a Wo belongs to them if they do 'T is otherwise too now the Church is setled under Christian Magistrates and govern'd by Christian Laws then at that time when it was to be planted under the Government of Heathen Emperours The Church now with all her subordinations and dependencies in all her jurisdictions and powers owns the King her Supreme She challenges nothing to her self but what the favour of her Prince and the Laws of the land have allow'd her Thus Bishops as to the execution of their Office are sent by the King as Supreme and act in their Courts by the Kings power as Civil Courts do the King deputing arch-Arch-Bishops and Bishops to be Judges under him in causes Spiritual and in his name to govern the Ecclesiastical State as he makes Lord Keepers Chief Iustices and other Iudges of the Land For had the Church any power in it self in Civil affairs besides what the Laws give her I dare say there 's ne're a Bishop in England but would speedily redress those scandals and grievances possibly brought into their Courts by Lay-Officers which people so much clamour against But now what can they do they are ty'd up by Law All of us that are of the Clergy own the Civil Power pay the same obedience to the Laws as any of you do and in First-fruits Tenths and Subsidies make as chargable acknowledgments as any of the populacy I know 't is said though what need of such a pompous costly Religion of a Church with so great an allowance of means This ample Revenue exhausts and weakens the State smaller stipends would serve turn very well But can any one with any shew of ingenuity fairly reason against the encouragements of Learning and the rewards of desert Let it be consider'd that several of this Order had they gone another way might with submission I speak it have sate in your Seats and been clad with your Purple After all our pains and time and strength and charges too spent in studies do not think that what the Law allows us we have by doing nothing for it These things are propos'd publickly as the Acquists of Industry and may be got and injoy'd as legally as any of your Estates And is it not fit do you think a National Church wherein the honour and reputation of Religion is to be kept up should be secur'd from poverty and that contempt which always accompanies meanness It were to be wish'd that as Kings are to be the Nursing Fathers of the Church so Princes and the Sons of Nobles would fit themselves for her dignities that they might bear up the honour of Religion with their personal attendence It has been so heretofore when the two great Offices were united in the same person Melchisedek King of Salem and Priest of the living God and they were kept pretty near in the persons of Moses and Aaron brethren and the Priest elder brother to the Prince And hence the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kohen whence we have King signifies indifferently Prince and Priest whereupon the Apostle Rom. 13. calls the King in Ecclesiastical terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Minister say we for both 't is Gods Liturgie-maker and Gods Deacon to shew too that a Christian Magistrate as such has power to order religious affairs in the Service of God This I say has been and 't were well if it could be so with us however must the Church alone be held up by a precarious dependence Is it not this that makes Religion a Prostitute to the humors of the people when men of mean spirits and parts shall out of fear comply for a paltry livelihood to preach things that may please and others of ambitious minds and voluble tongues to serve an interest shall lead the people to their own hurt But some will say what would you have men do that are not otherwise considered since there is that unequal distribution of Church-favours that some go away with all and others get little or nothing Judge in your own case whether this be a reasonable ground of quarrel Shall the inequality of Estates amongst you make the meaner Citizens quarrel the Government of the City because they have not all the wealth of Aldermen Shall I or any of my brethren and companions because we have not that place and esteem in the Church as we out of the pride of our own hearts may think we deserve go in a sullen arrogance and set up for our selves in a distinct interest from the Church and flye in the face of our Mother and put undutiful affronts upon her for not being so kind as we would have her No. Gen. 49. 6. O my soul come not thou into such mens secret unto their private assemblies mine honour be not thou united Let them for me be divided in Iacob and scattered in Israel that in their anger and self-will practise such things To go on I know it has been seriously discoursed and p●inted too that the largeness of the Church-revenue in any Nation impoverishes the State sets the people behind-hand and puts them out of a thriving condition and no less then demonstration offered that if it were retrenched Trade would flourish Manufactures and growths receive wonderful improvements and the people generally grow rich apace But to Answer that Author those Common-wealths he speaks of and ours are not alike in the constitution and nature of the Government and God forbid they ever should But it may be ones wonder why our people cannot now with much more case make those improvements since the Church keeps little in her own hands and for the most part lets easie penny-worths nor can it be any reason that the Church drains the peoples money since if the Church had not what she has some body else would in the Churches right nor would the people be much the better How our Neighbour-States order their Church affairs I suppose ought to be no precedent of Policy to us though they to keep up a National Religion by which those they admit into publick trust are brought to test and for the securing publick peace amidst the differences of Religion maintain a standing Army Further why our dissenters should not upon their own bottoms be comprehended within the legal settlement of the Church they themselves give a very just occasion for the very best Party amongst them have such Principles of Policy and Government as are utterly inconsistent and incompatible not only with any other Form but with Monarchy it self as hath been clearly evidenced

and opportunity hence it comes to pass that odia religionum acerbissima those heats and animosities which are grounded upon the cause of Religion are the most dangerous and irreconcileable by reason Conscience is ingaged in the quarrel whose tenderness of apprehension is worse then the jealousies of love or power which will admit of no rival cannot indure any competitor Thus it was betwixt the Iews and Samaritans that did upon the score of their Religions so abominate one the other that they would not so much as eat and drink together or buy and sell or converse in the ordinary civilities of Good morrow or Good even So nice and squeamish distasted conscience is out of fear of partaking with others sins and fancying it can never be at distance enough from what it conceives a dislike to Nor is that a sufficient Salvo to keep up Vnity amongst us that we agree in Fundamentals I wish we all did that and that we differ only in some things of smaller allay the more to blame they that fall out about such things and to the hazard of publick Peace make endless differences and quarrels about things indifferent I must commend the generous Charity of some that profess to love all that have faith in Christ Iesus whatever their Form be and I am of their mind that our Charity is not to be confin'd to a Party but to be extended to the whole Community the Body of the Church But then 't is a gross mistake to think the Church it self in its establishments a Party in these our divisions who is to be lookt on what S. Paul says of Ierusalem here as the common Mother of us all and herein lies the main of our Charity to seek and secure the Churches peace in endeavouring to appease divisions and to reconcile her disobedient Children This I say is right Catholick Charity As to those persons who are seduced and live in errour the greatest Charity can be shewed to them is to reclaim them or at least if that may not be for our brethren and companions sakes to keep them quiet For to see the humor of Schism after it has once broke off from the Church how restless a thing it is and how quarrel is apt to beget quarrel till it have brought all into confusion The Sects we have amongst us do no more disagree from the Church then they do from one another 't is Ephraim against Manasses and Manasses against Ephraim as well as both against Iudah And though they all agreed time was too well against the Church as a common Enemy and whilst her ruine was contriving held together yet no sooner had they obtained that which was the common design of them all but they fell out among themselves about their particular ends and when they had pulled down that which they maliciously termed Babylon the English Ierusalem their language was so divided that they could none of them build up a Babel of their own For the same Arguments which the Presbyterian Party had fiercely used against the Bishops were by the Independents unanswerably managed against themselves and then there succeeded more subdivisions the Baptized Churches got up and bore sway the Fift-Monarchy-men made a bustle for the Rule then at last arose the Quakers a spreading Party and feared by all the rest What should I speak for Free-willers Ranters Bedel's Followers and Naylor's crew it shames me thus to discover the nakedness of my Country but it grieves me more to think these pretences are still on foot and most of the Parties still owning themselves in their distinctions who though in the general as Sects and equally obnoxious to the Laws do by a kind of Syncretism unite yet had any one of them power in their hand would be far enough from looking on the rest that dissent from them as Brethren and Companions or shewing that savour to any of them all as the Church of England does now to them all together And so the case stood with their Fore-fathers at Frankfort Amsterdam c. where in opposition to our Liturgie and Discipline setting up purer Forms of their own they could not agree but were so zealous in their divisions though it highly concern'd them for credit of their new-found way and comfort of their exile to have held together till at last the Son excommunicated the Father and one Brother the other So giddy and lost a thing Conscience is when 't is once stept aside and gone out of its way I could wish the moderate and sober men amongst them would consider this that if God should in his just Judgment to the Nation give them an opportunity of another tryal they may easily if not blinded with self-conceit fore-see the event and in publick ruines read afore-hand their own disappointments But they say they have no such designs they are quiet and peaceable men desire only to seek and to serve God but that some of unquiet fierce Spirits amongst us will not let them alone they intend no disturbance to the Government but the Government disturbs them in their religious Exercises and Meetings The same Plea will serve for the worst of Malefactors that if the Law would let them alone they an● very quiet men but pray who breaks the peace he that looks after the execution of the Laws or he that disobeys them he that disobeys certainly is the Aggressor I cannot say but Ishmael and his Mother were hardly dealt with and did suffer a kind of persecution and yet the Apostle tells us that Ishmaels self was the Persecutor for but mocking of Isaac but this were it sport or contempt reflecting on the Heir of the Family the Son of a Princess who in the Allegory is Ierusalem here is interpreted Persecution while the turning out of Ishmael is own'd as just punishment And in like manner 't is the Sects persecute the Church by derisions and contempts not the Church that persecutes them But if they are so well inclin'd to Peace why then do they not do what they acknowledge may lawfully be done and submit in those things where their Conscience may give them leave i.e. in such things as God in his Word has not forbidden The Magistrate has bid them come to their Parish-Church bid men of my Order renounce the Covenant God hath no where commanded to the contrary Why should not they come why should not we renounce There can be no scruple in the case for in things where God himself has given no order we are to obey the Magistrate not only for Fear but for Conscience sake We read that our Saviour himself kept the Feast of the Dedication though no where appointed by God himself no where mention'd in the Old Testament an Apochryphal Feast and taught daily in the Temple and in their Synagogues and that some of his Apostles after the Ceremonies were dead and buried came up to the Temple still at the hour of Prayer to set us an example that in such things