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	pope_n	time_n	1,451	5	3.5707	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61161	Observations on Monsieur de Sorbier's Voyage into England written to Dr. Wren, professor of astronomy in Oxford / by Thomas Sprat ...	Sprat, Thomas, 1635-1713.; Wren, Christopher, Sir, 1632-1723.	1665 (1665)	Wing S5035; ESTC R348	49,808	304

Notwithstanding all which impudent Disgraces there remains this one comfort to the Church of England that the same man who now vilifies Her so basely had once as mean thoughts of the God-Head of Her blessed Founder Himself But it is easie to conjecture at the Cause of this his harsh Usage of our Church He had but lately Apostatiz'd from the Reformed Religion in France he was but just enter'd into the Romish Communion And he suspected that there might be some doubts still remaining on mens minds of the Reality of his Conversion which might turn to the prejudice not onely of his Spiritual but of his Temporal Estate he had given himself out for a great Philosopher and he understood well enough that few Philosophers are thought to alter their minds that have once been Protestants He was therefore resolv'd to give an Unquestionable proof of his Establishment in the Faith by reviling the Church of England And in performing this I confess Sir he has Counterfeited the Zealot very well he has prosecuted Us with all the Violence and Bigottry which commonly accompanies new Converts But yet I beleive this will hardly do his business Even in this very Book he gives Evidence enough that Calvinism and Heresie are not wholy rooted out of his Heart He grosly abuses the most devoted Children of the Church of Rome the English Roman Catholiques He complains of them that they have no mind to disturb the Peace of their Country tomards the restoration of their Religion which is indeed spoken to their Honour though he intends it to their Shame He says that they are not so zealous in their Way as forein Papists the quite contrary to which is true he makes as if they never saw the True Mass perform'd he affirms that they are all born in Servitude and debases so many Antient Rich and Honourable Families to the condition and the minds of Slaves In all these Speeches he does not express any certain mark of a True Proselyte But above all he has set down such a determination of his Faith that if he had made it in Italy or Spain he had undoubtedly fallen into the Inquisition He boldly pronounces that Transubstantiation Purgatory the Merit of Works Invocation of Saints the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome the authority of Councils and the Infallibility of the Pope are none of them Fundamental Doctrines What greater Apology could be made for the Church of England which he has so much defam'd seeing these are the onely shameful Causes for which we dissented from Rome But I leave him to be corrected by the Pope's Sentence for these Heresies which perhaps the Holy Father has reason to think do more shake the Holy Chair then the five points of Iansenius that he condemn'd which Monsieur de Sorbiere says did raise a dispute about a matter of Nothing From our Religion Let us follow him of our Government And here Sir I was at first a little at a stand how to deal with him But I have heard of the Magnanimous resolution of the late Duke of Buckingham who would never permit any Apology to be written for him And I consider that it is almost as great an arrogance for one obscure Writer to undertake to defend the Actions of Great Princes as it is for another to defame them I will not therefore inlarge my Speech in the praises of the present happiness of England or in paying all the acknowledgements which are due to our Sovereign for the blessings of His Reign That is a Subject ficter for a more elaborate Volum then a single Letter and for a far more elegant Pen then mine I will onely here shew the Vanity of our Historiographers groundless suggestions And as an Introduction to what he says concerning the Political condition of this Nation I will first observe how he deals with some others of the cheif Crown'd Heads in Europe You will perhaps Sir be very hardly induc'd to beleive that he can be guilty of disrespect to Monarchy or Sovereign Princes when you behold him so Panegyrically given towards that Government as to take the pains to go five or six thousand miles to find out a Race of Kings to commend For he here speaks very zealously in praise of the most vertuous and most religious Kings of China This Sir I cannot but applaud in him and to shew how much this one testimony of his good manners has wrought with me I will not be harsh upon him in this place I will not call in question the credit of his Intelligence from the farthest East which you see is so false about a Country that lies only seven Leagues distant from his own Nay I will not so much as inquire whether ever he met with any Chinese Madam Fiennes to give him this Information I will graunt that the Kings of China have been great Menders of Bridges and Planters of Orchards But I will only now softly put him in mind that while his Pen did overflow with sweet words upon the Kings of China he has handled the Kings of Sweden and Denmark more cruelly then Dionysius the Tyrant would have done when he was a King much less when he was a Schole-Master Of the two last Kings of Sweden he affirms that their Glory is almost wholy vanish'd and that all moderate men must needs read the Desolations which they caus'd with Horror You see Sir what an excellent occasion he has here given me of Triumphing over him You know very well how many great and irresistable arguments this matter might suggest to me what might not be said of that Victorious Nation how copious might I be in extolling the indefatigable Industry the Conduct the Good Fortune the Generosity of those Kings What Passions might here be rais'd in appealing to all Mankind and in aggravating the common misery of all Great Commanders of Armies if it shall be permitted to every small Pamphleteer to invade their Lives and to arraign their Ashes when he pleases But there is no need of going so powerfully to work or of imploying against him any of the Lofty and Tragical Forces of Eloquence It will suffice if I recall to his Memory the Title in which he boasts so much I will only ask him how the Historiographer of France can assert the Wars of Gustavus Adolphus to have been horrible Divastations without casting some share of the Dishonor on the Crown of France it self For if we will believe all the French Writers of that time there was a strict Confederacy and a real Union of Interests between those Two mighty Monarchs I give him leave to use the Fame of the Kings of Sweden as he pleases Let them in his account pass for Theives and Oppressors They deserve so to be us'd for they were mortal Enemies to that belov'd Country with whose Mu●ick and Latin and Dancing he was before so much ravish'd I only bid him look back on the relation which Lewis

observe that this Catalogue of Slanders is equally made up of those which the most furious of the Romanists on the one side and the most Fanatick amongst the Non-conformists on the other are wont to Revile us withall So that in repeating them he does at once act both the Parts which he had before plaid in the World at several times that of a violent Calvinist and a Iesuitical Papist And first it is false that our English Reformation began upon a shamefull occasion or from the extravagance of a private passion I know he has the famous story of Henry's Divorce to oppose against what I say But I am not startled at that no more then at the Fable of our Bishops Consecration at the Naggs-head Tavern or of the Kentish-mens having long Tayls for the murder of Thomas Becket Such frivolous Arguments as these might have served well enough in the Mouths of the Moncks two hundred years agoe But they will not pass so easily in a Philosophical and Inquisitive Age. In breif therefore Sir it is evident that King Henry the Eighth did never intend to proceed to a much greater distance from the Roman See then the Gallican Church maintains at this day There is no man of our Church that looks upon his breach with the Pope to have been a Reformation We onely esteem it to be of the nature of those Quarrels which many Princes in the most Catholick Countries have manag'd against the Holy Chair The Reformation to which we stand is of a latter date The Primitive Reformers amongst us beheld the Reason of men tamely subjected to one mans Command and the Sovereign Powers of all Christendom still expos'd to be check'd and destroy'd by the Resolutions of his private Will Upon this they arose to perform two of the greatest Works in the World at once to deliver the minds of Christians from Tyranny and the Dignity of the Throne from Spiritual Bondage Whatever was the accidental this was the Real Cause of our first Reformation and of their separation from us not ours from them And this was an event which must needs have come to pass near the time in which it did though King Henry had never forsaken his Wife Let him therefore know that our Doctrine as much spoyl'd as it is in his opinion was establish'd by Christ and his Apostles and that the Ceremonies of our Worship were not set up by faction or by popular Fury but by the deliberate Counsels of Wisemen and by the authority of that power which bears the immediate Image of God This Sir I have said in Vindication of our Church not so much to satisfie this idle Dreamer upon Parnassus as out of the love which I bear to many well-meaning Catholiques amongst us who have this Argument sometimes in their mouths of whom I know very many whose wishes for the happiness of their Country and for its freedom from forein Usurpations are as honourable as any Englishmens living As for Sorbier's part it had been a sufficient Reply to him that I can name a man who has indeed separated from the Religion wherein he was born for a shamefull cause which is known to all the World He declares that the people of England have an universal aversion from the establish'd Worship But here I cannot say that of him for which he commends Doctor Wallis that He is one of the best Accountants in the World This positive Computation he never was in any capacity to make he never saw any of the middle or the remoter parts of our Nation where Non-conformity is but very sparingly spread He never convers'd with the vast Body of Gentry and Yeomanry that live Country lives who are generally uninfected It is London alone on which he must rely for this calculation And yet even in this too I dare openly assure him that the farr greater number is for the Rights of the Church then against them But I advise Monsieur de Sorbiere that before he thinks himself able to make an exact judgment of the Number of our Religious Sects he would first correct all his errours in Arithmetick which are to be found in this Book about the most obvious things in reckoning of which it was enough to have onely had the understanding of the least childe that he ever taught I will onely produce one in this place Have we not reason to rely upon his opinion of the difference of the parties in the whole Kingdom when in the least number that can be he has mistaken half For he says that the double-bottom'd Vessel has two Masts in the Front when every Sculler on the Thames knows it has but One. He affirms that the Government of our Bishops is nothing else but the shaddow and the corruption of a True Hierarchy And he gives this excellent Reason for it because here the Spiritual submits to the Temporal This very Argument I will turn upon himself It is therefore the True the Sound the Apostolical Episcopacy because it does yield to the Temporal Power which else could be nothing but a shaddow It is the glory of the Church of England that it never resisted Authority nor ingag'd in Rebellion which is a praise that makes much to its advantage in the minds of all those who have read of the dismal effects of the Scotch Covenant and the holy League He says that our King did put himself on the most dangerous Enterprise that could be attempted when he restored Episcopacy And yet he confesses that our other Sects are inconsistent with any Government but a Common-wealth What dreadfull danger could be imagin'd in a Monarchs destroying that which must needs fall of it self in a Monarchy But to shew how much he was mistaken It is evident that upon his Majesty's most glorious Return the Church soon recover'd all its rights of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of sitting in Parliament and even all its Lands which had been long held by Armed Usurpers without any other Opposition then what was made by General Vennor and his forty men who it seems did run the greatest hazard of the two He declares that there is so great a distance between our Bishops and our inferior Clergy that these dare not speak to nor stand cover'd before them This Sir you and I can prove to be a manifest Untruth by several Instances But however what course can we take to please this grave Censurer of our Civility He here dislikes the respects that we shew to our cheif Churchmen and in another place He condemns the familiar behaviour of our common Soldiers towards their Officers He abuses the Clergy-men for standing bare to those Reverend and Aged Persons and the Red-Coats for keeping on their Hatts in the presence of their Captains How sufficient a Judge is he of good manners that would bring the rude Customs of a Camp into the Church and the Punctilio's of Observance and Courtship into an Army But he accuses us of a greater