Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	church_n	member_n	1,786	5	7.7946	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96882	As you were: or A posture of peace: presenting to your view the broken state of the kingdom, as it now stands, with a good way to rally it to its former happiness. With some remarkable passages of late agitation.	Woodward, Ezekias, 1590-1675.	1647 (1647)	Wing W3479; Thomason E404_9; ESTC R201847	3,554	8

As you were OR A Posture of Peace Presenting to your view the broken state of the Kingdom as it now stands with a good way to rally it to its former happiness With some remarkable Passages of late Agitation Finis Belli Pax. LONDON Printed in the Year 1647. As you were OR A Posture of Peace SOLONS Law against Neutrality in a civil dissention is most unreasonable because in some cases it must engage a man on dishonest or dishonorable action For in that civil broyl between Caesar and Pompey which side should a man have ranged himself unto when both were so pernicious to the Common-wealth that put Cicero to a stand Or in that tripartite division of Ierusalem that ushered in its final desolation where the best was so base that no honest man had the face to own it We have had here in England a most unhappy and unnatural division and for a long time heard of no more but two parties under the names of Cavalier and Round-head the first proper enough and rightly given but the reason of the latter let him render you that first imposed it The flowers of that garland that both sides strove for were the Protestant Religion the Laws of the Land the Kings just rights the Priviledges of Parliament and Liberty of the Subject each pretending they would flourish best in his own Garden But what ever pretences were or however in time quarrels may encrease and one beget another yet sure at first the Helens both strove for was only Church policy wherein Episcopacy met with a Rival that carried her not with Courtship but Rape The Cavalier is dismounted the Roundhead is faln himself into a subdivision of Presbytery and Independency the latter in its full latitude is like a Megallanica a vast unknown tract no man can tell how far it reaches only coasting upon it such discovery is made as finds it a place of priviledg for all Sectaries in the world and how many those are or may be no man can say for certain until the devil hath done brooding If the former be quite defunct as we heat her last Will is made I doubt the latter wil divide again fal into a thousandpieces but now I think on 't we never heard of any strife among the Heathen about any point of Religion their false gods were all good fellows and all false worships do commonly keep good fellowship and that 's the reason now that all Sectaries tug so hard for Toleration The Romans had their Pantheon or Temple of all the gods but the true God is a jealous God Dagon and the Ark cannot stand together And for Presbytery it is but a new name to an old stuff a common cheat in the world when men intend to make it worse And if there were formerly a Church-Tyranny that inslaved us as some cryed out that think their very Garters are Gyves then now as Philip of Macedon said of the Greeks that left his alliance to side with Titus Quintus at the best we have but changed our fetters For what power is challenged by this Presbyterian policy and what Majesty by this new Hierarchy you shal hear by their words and see in their practise For the Church is never governed aright according to their mode until Kings and Queens do subject themselves unto the Church and submit their Scepters and throw down their Crowns before the Church and lick up the dust of the feet of the Church as good kiss the Popes toe and willingly abide the censure of the Church The civil Magistrate is no officer at all in the Church The Presbytery or Eldership is the Church and every Congregation or Church must have a Presbytery and all Kings and Princes must be of some Parish and under some Presbytery And the Gentry must yet expect less then the King be enslaved in their own Lordships by a new way of Parochial Tyranny for if they conform not then they must expect in a short time to see the meanest of their tenants become their masters in judicature and so this prime mistery wil produce that great vanity that Solomon speaks of The servant shal ride and the master go a foot Their practise hath been accordingly as in Scotland where the heat of Presbytery hath prvoed such a Hectique in the body politick thereof that the substance of Kingly power is utterly consumed and nothing left now but the bare bones and very skeleton of a Monarchy Now next let us look upon the Independent and see what we may hope for from them The Sectaries teach that the state universal the body of the Compeople is the earthly Soveraign Lord King and creator If the King Parliament all officers and resides in the state universal and the King Parliament c. are their own meer creatures to be accountable to them and disposed of by them at their pleasure the people may recal and re-assume their power question them and set others in their place That the Lords and Peers of the Land are but painted puppets and Dagons that our superstition and ignorance their own craft and impudence have erected no natural issue of Laws but the Mushromes of Prerogative the wens of Just Government sons of conquest and usurpation not of choice and election intruded upon us by power not constituted by consent not made by the people from whom all power place and office that is just in this Kingdom ought only to arise That they are a clog to publick proceedings obstructing good promoting evil things their pestilent Pamphlets are full of such railings whereby ye may see their endeavors to alter and overthrow the very fundamentals of the Government of this Kingdom Nay they ascend higher and are not afraid to utter desperate speeches against sacred Majesty it self not fit to be repeated And then for the Church what out-cries there are to down with all Government Maintenance and Ministry and then the freer up with that great Diana of Toleration they boldly assert It is the wil and command of God that since the comming of his son the Lord Iesus a permission of the most Paganish Iewish Turkish or Antichristian Consciences and worships be granted to all men in all Countries and Nations And now what hopes can we conceive of these two to set King or Kingdom in a lasting peace that are so opposite not only one to another standing upon punctilios not considerable with the loss of the meanest man but also to monarchy true liberty Whereunto Anarchy Tyranny are enemies alike But stay who are yonder so serious in discourse One of them is the noble Irenaeus I le draw as near as I can unperceaved and listen if I can hear any comfortable hopes of a good accommodation Irenaeus Gentlemen I cannot without a bleeding heart consider that after all these miseries of so redious a war there should be so little relenting and so much bitterness amongst us as I perceive by your discourses there is The abuses in the state were hope are wel reformed and that gratious grant of a trienniall Parliament is an impregnable rampire against all future assaults of your publick Rights and Liberties Troubles in the Common-wealth do commonly arise from dissensions in the Church and dissensions in the Church do commonly arise from the pride and covetousness of Church-men Who if they could be as lowly and meek as their great master was may quickly end this Controversy of Church-Government that now is like to blow up a new flame The being or purity of Religion is no way concerned in it It was once in the hands of Bishops many of them men of admirable piety and learning and if that gross mixture of Ceremonies were laid aside and that sweeping tayl cut off that unnecessary and pernicious rable that followed their heels there it might happyly have continued Now it is in the hands of the Presbytery of men for their pious and indefatigable labours as wel deserving of the Church as any and if men would but rightly conceive it as it is nothing but the old Government and discipline in new hands that perhaps endeavor to give a better account of it I see no reason why any but loose livers need to except against it their rigid censures so commonly accounted being nothing but what our own Church in the old Liturgy enjoyned and every Minister ought to have practised A third party whom they call Independent do refuse to admit any external policy or power at all in the Church but indeed would pluck it from others to take it to themselves the strif is for nothing but rule The only remedy wil be to command every man to his own place again the Common-wealth being newly rack't and every member out of joynt And as in the body natural the insolence of some humours encroaching on the bounds of the rest cause great distempers so in this body politique pride and covetousness of men not content with their own places or portions is the only cause of these distractions Let every Member then do his proper office the Magistrate with the sword the Minister in the word the Merchant in his trade every man mind his own business And because the people dote stil so much upon the old form of Church Government and discipline if it were restored again to the first hands and pristine state with such cautions and limitations as may consist with publick safety it may prove an excellent Cement to close all again But above all if his sacred Majesty the head of this great body were seated again with his great Councel of Parliament by whose influence we all receive our civil life and motion then though we are many Members yet we should all move as one man again and all mind the same thing even peace and love And then if we mean in peace to live Let all strive who shal most forgive That by so doing all may move Each other to a mutual love Which if we do our foes wil be Our freinds and both be safe and free From what is fear'd and live together A mutual strength to one another Whose factions if they long endure Wil prove a plague without a cure FINIS