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	cold_a	heat_n	2,211	5	8.1509	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67445	Some few questions concerning the Oath of allegiance propos'd by a Catholick gentleman in a letter to a person of learning and honour.	Walsh, Peter, 1618?-1688.	1661 (1661)	Wing W641; ESTC R38929	23,740	40

of the Kings of Denmark is absolutely lawful as being an omitted Case and so not at all forbidden Observing that in this whole Controversy the main Bulwark wherein the Defenders of the Popes Prerogative in Temporals fortifie themselves and think to pacify the Civil Powers is a certain famous Distinction whose plain and literal sense I understand well enough but cannot find in it if impartially examin'd a title to make so great an Impression as is pretended I humbly intreat your quick and strong Eye to look a little seriously into the Question and teach me XI What difference there is as to any real effect in Government between acknowledging a direct immediate Power in the Pope to Depose Princes or only an indirect and mediate One IS it not almost all one in it self and altogether all one in mischief whether my eyes be beaten out with a direct stroke of a Tennis-Ball or by Bricol Are not our Laws still equally Penal both to direct and indirect Offenders will any of us allow a slandering tongue than which nothing is more frequent or more intolerable to Caluminate freely on condition his poysonous darts come only glancing and not be level'd point-blank against us Here they perhaps will say I mistake the Case For were only the Exercise of this Power mediate and indirect they would confesse my similitudes had something of Argument but the very Power it self say they is in its Intrinsick nature no more than mediate and indirect which widens much the sides of the distinction nor do any of my Interrogations offer to confute it When I have first declar'd I intend not to meddle with such slender Entityes as Relations metaphysically consider'd I shall betake my thoughts to what I conceive more pertinent to our purpose the Moral Notion and enquire what influence on humane actions a direct Power gives its Posse●or more than an indirect If they answer by the one He can punish his Inferiours as he pleases by the other not I reply That is the notion of an absolute and perfectly arbitrary Government not precisely of a direct Power which not only may sometimes be limited but almost always is has not the Emperour a direct Authority over the German Electors Is not the Pope direct Superiour of the Christian Bishops yet which of them can either One or the Other deprive or punish at his meer pleasure I they say 't is a Power as strongly Commanding as the direct but is not in the same line the ●piritual being of a quite different Order from the Temporal I confesse these are pretty terms to entertain subtile heads and amuze simple ones but to a down-right prudent Examiner I believe they 'l prove of very little serious Signification nay though the Causes be contrary to one anothers if they produce the same effect they make with me the same argument Naturalists say that Cold immediately condenses by directly crushing the Body it incloses whereas Heat first extenuates and then draws away the subtiliz'd parts and after the grosser shrink together of themselves and so condenses too but mediately and indirectly and these are words that sound well enough but when we come to practical application and find that too much Sun as well as Frost so dryes and hardens the Earth that it choaks our seed and kills our flowers what good does our fine distinction what does our Mediately and Indirectly avail us Nor is the Effect only the same whether the Popes power be call'd direct or indirect since each way he really dethrones the Prince but the end to both of his direct-Spiri●ual and indirect-Temporal Authority is the same since He is bound to manage the last only in ordine ad Spiritualia and the first ad Edificationem which two phrases seem to me no ill Synonimas one of another These are some of the reflections that have made me doubt though there may be and I think I see it some Speculative difference between the two manners of Title yet in practise very little if any at all When all this is said and far more which I think not uneasy to do still there remain two grand Objections The Supreme Pastor has engag'd his Authority and our duty obliges us to obey His Commands Our Predecessors have refus'd the Oath and suffer'd for refusing and our honour is concern'd to follow their steps To which with your permission I offer this answer Since by the Popes forbearing the French we evidently see such Prohibitions depend on particular and occasional Considerations not only lyable to be misapprehended by others but to be alter'd in themselves certainly it very ill becomes our Reverence to the Authority of the Pope or respect to the Memory of our Ancestors to fear they would wilfully persist in a discover'd Errour and not change their proceedings when they should see the grounds on which they proceeded were chang'd Nor even then when the Pope's Brief forbad the Oath did there want a just number of Catholicks if my books say true who humbly represented their Motives to his Holinesse why they doubted his Prohibition was not obliging as being grounded on mistaken and incertain Suppositions A privilege permitted to all and most of all to Ecclesiastical Subjects who are not Govern'd by the Sword but the Pastoral Staff either to obey or give good reason why they do not and this without the least suspition of boldly examining their Superiors Commands with the Judgement of Authority but exercising only what the meanest Vassal may Loyally practise towards the greatest Prince their natural Reason and Judgement of Discretion And here I must confesse my self inclin'd to think it very probable that the whole businesse was untruly represented to the Pope for can we doubt but Card. Bellarmine was acquainted with the Informations given to his Holynesse or that they Both agreed not in their sence concerning our Case let us then see what his Eminence says in his Letter to Mr. Blackwell Arch-Priest of the English Clergy where having alleg'd that Antient Instance of mingling together the Images of the Emperors and of the false Gods to entangle the Christians with this Dilemma that either they must bow to Jupiter and Commit Idolatry or not bow to Cesar and be guilty of high Treason He ads Tale aliquid in juramento c. Some such thing me thinks I see in this Oath they offer you which is so fraudulently contriv'd that none can profess their Civil Subjection to the King and Detest all Treason against Him but he must needs perfidiously Renounce the Supremacy of the See Apostolick And again Nam si rem totam c. If you will diligently examine the whole matter you 'l see 't is no small thing which by that Oath is brought into danger but one of the Capital and Fundamental Points of our Faith and Catholick Religion And quite throughout the whole Letter He still supposes the Design of the Framers of this Oath how covertly soever they expresse themselves to be That

confident will not be deny'd that it was commanded we need no other Evidence than the Arrest it self of the Parliament of Paris dated 17. Mar. 1626. wherein 't is Order'd That the Priests and Scholars of Clermont and of the other two Houses which the Jesuits have in Paris should within three days subscribe the Censure made by the Faculty of Sorbonne and within two months procure Testimonials of the like Subscription from every Provincial and Rector and from six of the Antients of every College of their Society in France Nor can it be said this Subscription relates only in general to Sautarellus's Book since it particularly approves the whole Censure of Sorbonne whereof one and the first branch is directly and in most expresse terms against the Popes Power to punish Kings Temporally to Depose c. If this be true of which I know not the least reason to doubt IV. Why is it not Lawful for English Catholicks to be Loyal to their Prince as far as the French to Theirs Why is it not tolerable in Lay-men here to disavow what the strictest Religious there openly condemn Strictest I mean in maintaining and extending the Popes Prerogatives and so most pertinent to our Question Shall Humane Motives be allow'd their place with Them who renounce the World and not with those who live in it IF any shall here pretend to distinguish between a simple ●ubscription which only was requir'd of the French Jesuites a down right Oath which is exacted of us I cannot think but they proceed with too much scruple since certainly no sincere and generous honesty will solemnly and deliberately attest under his hand what he will not in due circumstances swear to be true and indeed for Religious Persons who actually still reflect on the presence of God what difference can there be between calling Him in a form of words to witnesse what they say especially with such Solemnity and Deliberation and beleeving him continually in their hearts to witness not only what they say but what they think And now were I demanded a reason why so circumspect and wise a Body should act so differently in the same cause but different Countries I could only return this conjectural Answer that being wary and prudent persons they could not but see the Concerns they hazarded in France by refusing to Subscribe far more important than what they ventur'd at Rome by Subscribing whereas in England all they can forfeit by declining the Oath of Allegiance being themselves but few and without the Engagements of Colleges and Foundations is perhaps of lesse esteem with them than the interest of their Universal Body at Rome whence so many advantages are continually deriv'd to the rest of their Society When I have taken leave to suppose for True That a certain general Rule is to be observ'd notwithstanding an Exception that 's incertain I may easily hope your leave to ask this fifth Question V. If the Precept of Obedience to Kings in Temporals be a certain Catholick Doctrine and the Exception unlesse the Pope depose be incertain whether the Precept does not still Oblige notwithstanding that Exception ANd however such a power may by some be held speculatively probable yet as to any Execution 't is practically no Power at all against one in possession and consequently may be ab ur'd as such he that has only a speculatively probable Commission to take away my life has none at all actually to do it and every one will surely agree that to dispossesse a King is of infinitely more mischievous Consequence than to kill a private Person Witness the horrid miseries that follow'd the Deposition of Henry the fourth by Gregory the seventh the first Pope and first Emperour that ever engag'd so far in that kind of quarrel a quarrel wherein both sides endur'd for a long time unspeakable Calamities both sides striving with all extremity of passion and fury to ruine one another Our Allegiance to Kings and Their Title to our Allegiance being both in their natures antecedent to Baptism For the relation of King and Subject is by Birth and the quality of Christian by Adoption VI. How can the Superinduced spiritual Obligation diminish the Civil when no such Condition is contain'd either in Baptism Catechism or Articles of Faith Especially since we are baptiz'd into the Communion of Believers not of Opiners T IS true both Prince people do by their God-fathers in Baptism renounce the world the flesh the devil but neither of them make any promise to forfeit their Crowns or Estates to the Pope if they break their word Nay even Popes themselves in the primitive times were temporally Subject to the Heathen Emperours both before and after their Conversion And indeed since the Christian Law by the Judgement of all deprives none of their Right if they were Subject before the Princes Conversion they must needs continue so after Nor can I see and in this every Reader is concern'd why the Pope if once admitted to dispense with Subjects Allegiance to their Prince may not discharge the Tenants too from paying Rents to their Landlords and Debters from their Obligations to their Creditors as often as He shall Judge the Interest of Religion to require it Nay by the same reason driven a step or two farther why may not every Bishop in his Diocess and every Curate in his Parish pretend a Right radically inherent in his Dignity to dispose of all our Estates in Order to the good of our Souls and that 't is only either the hard-heartedness of Lay-Magistrates to hinder it from shooting forth into branches or the Wisdome of the Supreme Spiritual Magistrate to reserve the whole fruit to Himself Already by my own reflexions I am fully satisfied that a Dispensation should any such be pretended with the Oath of Allegiance would be no Dispensation with the Duty of Allegiance The Duty being Antecedent to the Oath and Independent of it and only Confirm'd not Created by it and therefore as to this point I find no necessity of giving you any trouble But in the next Question I must humbly bespeak your pardon because I fear my boldness may need it 'T is a Case I never have yet seen well examin'd and therefore more doubtingly propose it The Gravest Assertors of the Popes indirect power to depose Princes warily confine Him to two Cases which they call Heresy and Apostasy And as by Apostate they must necessarily mean One that has been a Catholick and is quite faln away from Christianity So surely by Heretick they should proportionably understand One that has been a Catholick and is in part faln away from the Faith This Consideration I confesse bred in me a scruple I am not able without your help to satisfie How a Protestant Baptiz'd into the Church of England should be held oblig'd to the positive Laws of another Church to which neither himself nor his God-fathers promis'd any Obedience his Baptism indeed confers Grace and adopts him