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	matter_n	nature_n	2,049	5	5.3756	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30892	The anarchy of the Ranters and other libertines, the hierarchy of the Romanists, and other pretended churches, equally refused and refuted in a two-fold apology for the church and people of God called in derision Quakers : wherein they are vindicated from those that accuse them of disorder and confusion on the one hand, and from such as calumniate them with tyranny and imposition on the other ... / by Robert Barclay.	Barclay, Robert, 1648-1690.	1676 (1676)	Wing B718; ESTC R10444	60,765	91

should suffer all manner of Irregularities and Abominations that they might have the more to say against us but the Solid and Real Reasons we have for our Way herein will sufficiently plead for us in the Hearts of all Sober Men and moreover the Testimony of God's Spirit in our Hearts doth abundantly confirm us both against the Folly of the one and the Envy of the other Fourthly There being nothing more needful then to preserve Men and Women in Righteousness after they are brought into it and also nothing more certain then that the great Enemy of Man's Soul seeks daily how he may draw back again and catch those who have in some measure escaped his Snares and known Deliverance from them therefore do we also meet together that we may receive an opportunity to understand if any have fallen under his Temptations that we may restore them again if possible or otherwise separate them from us Surely if we did not so we might be justly blamed as such among whom it were lawful to commit any Evil unreproved indeed this were to be guilty of that Libertinism which some have falsly accused us of and which hath been our Care all along as become the People of God to avoid therefore have we sought always to keep the House clean by faithfully reproving and removing according to the Nature of the Offence and the Scandal following thereupon private things privately publick things publickly We desire not to propagate Hurt and defile Peoples Minds with telling them such things as tend not to edifie yet do we not so cover over or smooth over any Wickedness as not to deal roundly with the Persons guilty and causing them to take away the Scandal in their acknowledgment before all to whose Knowledge it hath come yet judge we not our selves obliged to tell that in Gath or publish that in the Streets of Askelon which makes the Daughters of the Vncircumcised rejoyce or strengthen Atheists and Ranters in their Obduredness who feed more upon the Failings of the Saints then to imitate their true Repentance and therefore where we find an Unfeigned Returning to the Lord we desire not to remember that which the Lord hath forgotten nor yet to throw Offences in the Way of the weak that they may stumble upon them And therefore I conclude that our Care as to these Things also is most needful and a Part of that Order and Government which the Church of Christ never was nor can be without as doth abundantly appear by divers Scriptures heretofore mentioned SECTION Sixth How far this Government doth extend in Matters Spiritual and purely conscientious THUS far I have considered the Order and Government of the Church as it respects outward things and its Authority in condemning or removing such things which in themselves are Evil as being those which none will readily justifie the Necessity of which things is such that few but will acknowledge the Care and Order in these Cases to be commendable and expedient Now I come to consider things of another kind which either verily are or are supposed to be Matters of Conscience or at least wherein People may lay claim to Conscience in the acting or forbearing of them in which the great Question is How far in such Cases the Church may give positive Orders or Rules How far her Authority reacheth or may be supposed to be binding and ought to be submitted to For the better clearing and Examination of which it will be fit to consider First Whether the Church of Christ have Power in any Cases that are Matters of Conscience to give a positive Sentence and Decision which may be obligatory upon Believers Secondly If so in what Cases and Respects she may so do Thirdly Wherein consisteth the Freedom and Liberty of Conscience which may be exercised by the Members of the true Church diversly without judging one another And Lastly In whom the Power decisive is in Case of Controversie or Contention in such Matters which will also lead us to observe the vast Difference betwixt us and the Papists and others in this particular As to the First Whether the Church of Christ have Power in any Cases that are Matters of Conscience to give a positive Sentence and Decision which may be obligattry upon Believers I answer affirmatively she hath and shall prove it from divers Instances both from Scripture and Reason for first all Principles and Articles of Faith which are held doctrinally are in Respect to these that believe them matters of Conscience We know the Papists do out of Conscience such as are zealous among them adore worship and pray to Angels Saints and Images yea and to the Eucharist as judging it to be really Christ Jesus so do others place Conscience in things that are absolutely wrong Now I say we being gathered together into the Belief of certain Principles and Doctrines without any Constraint or worldly Respect but by the meer Force of Truth upon our Understanding and its Power and Influence upon our Hearts these Pri●●●●●es and Doctrines and the Practices necssarily depending upon them are as it were the Terms that have drawn us together and the Bond by which we became centered into one Body and Fellowship and distinguished from others Now if any one or more so engaged with us should arise to teach any other Doctrine or Doctrines contrary to these which were the Ground of our being One who can deny but the Body hath Power in such a Case to declare this is not according to the Truth we profess and therefore we pronounce such and such Doctrines to be wrong with which we cannot have Unity nor yet any more Spiritual Fellowship with those as hold them and so such cut themselves off from being Members by dissolving the very Bond by which they were linked to the Body Now this cannot be accounted Tyranny and Oppression no more then in a Civil Society if one of the Society shall contradict one or more of the fundamental Articles upon which the Society was contracted it can be reckon'd a breach or iniquity in the whole Society to declare that such Contradictors have done wrong and forfeited their Right in that Society in case by the original constitution the Nature of the Contradiction implys such a Forfeiture as usually it is and will no doubt hold in Religious Matters as if a Body be gathered into one Fellowship by the Belief of certain Principles he that comes to believe otherwayes naturally scattereth himself for that the Cause that gathered him is taken away and so those that abide constant in declaring the thing to be so as it is and in looking upon him and witnessing of him to others if need be to be such as he has made himself do him no Injury I shall make the Supposition in the general and let every People make the Application to themselves abstracting from us and then let Conscience and Reason in every impartial Reader declare whether or not it doth

Infallibility was not inseparably annexed to him he was found blameable in a certain Matter Gal. 2. 11. notwithstanding his Sentence was positively received in many particulars So also the Apostle Paul argues from his gathering of the Churches of Corinth and Galatia that they ought to be Followers of him and positively concludes in divers Things and upon this Supposition exhort the Churches both he and Peter in many Passages heretofore mentioned which I will not to avoid Repetition again rehearse To obey the Elders that watch for them to hold such in Reputation and to submit themselves to them that have addicted themselves to the Mi●istry of the Saints 1 Cor. 16. 15 16. Also we see how the Lord makes use of John his beloved Disciple to inform and reprove the seven Churches of Asia and no doubt John the rest by the usual Computation being at that Time all removed was then the most noted and famous Elder alive and indeed I mind not where under the Gospel Christ hath used any other Method but that he alwayes in revealing his Will hath made use of such as he himself had before appointed Elders and Officers in his Church though it be far from us to limit the Lord so as to exclude any from this Priviledge nor yet on the other Hand will the Possibility hereof be a sufficient Warrant to allow every obscure Member to stand up and offer to rule judge and condemn the whole Body nor yet is it without Cause that such an one's Message is jealoused and called in Question unless it have very great Evidence and be bottomed upon some very weighty and solid Cause and Foundation And God doth so furnish those whom he raises up in a singular Manner of which as I said I mind no Instance in the New Testament and in the old we see though it was strange that little David should oppose himself to the great Goliah yet he had before that killed both the Lyon and the Bear which was no less improbable and which of all is most observable was before that Time by the Appointment of God and the Hand of the Prophet anointed King of Israel compare the 16th and 17th chap. of the 1st of Samuel Now as to the Third That any particular Persons de Facto or effectually giving out a positive Judgment is no Incroaching nor Imposing upon their Brethren's Conscience is necessarily included in what is said before upon which for further Probation there will only need this short Reflection that for any Member or Members in Obedience to the Lord to give forth a positive Judgment in the Church of Christ is their proper Place and Office they being called to it and so for them to exercise that Place in the Body which the Head moves them to is not to usurp Authority over their Fellow Members as on the other Hand to submit and obey it being the Place of some so to do is not a renouncing a being led by the Spirit seeing the Spirit leads them so to do and not to obey in Case the Judgment be according to Truth and the Spirit lead to it is no doubt both offensive and sinful and that all this may be supposed in the Church of Christ without Absurdity and so establish the above mentioned Propositions will appear by a short review of the former Passages If that Peter and James their giving a positive Judgment in the Case of Difference in divers particul●rs did not infer them to be Imposers so neither will any so doing now being led to it by the same Authority every one may easily make the Application and on the contrary if for any to have stood up and resisted their Judgment pretending an unclearness or so and thereby held up the Difference after their Sentence breaking the Peace and Unity of the Church Things being concluded with an It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us I say if such would have given just Cause of Offence and have been cut off as Despisers of Dignities of old will not the like Case now occurring the same Conclusion holds Now whether those Propositions do not hold upon the Principles before laid down and proved I leave to every Judicious and Impartiall Reader to judge Moreover we see how positive the Apostle Paul is in many particulars throughout all his Epistles insomuch as he saith 2 Thes. ult 14. If any Man obey not our Word by this Epistle note that Man and have no Company with him that he may be ashamed And in many more Places before mentioned where he commands them both to obey him and several others who were appointed no doubt by the Spirit of God to be Rulers among them and yet who will say that either the Apostle did more then he ought in commanding or they less then they were obliged to in submitting and yet neither were to do any thing contrary or more then the Spirit of God in themselves led them to or allowed them in and if the Church of God bear any Parity or Proportion now in these Dayes with what it did of old as I know no Reason why it should not the same things may now be supposed to take Effect that did then and also be lawfully done upon the like Occasion proceeding from the same Spirit and established upon the same Basis and Foundation and thus much as to that Part to shew in whom the Power of Decision is which being seriously and impartialy considered is sufficient to clear us from the Tyranny either of Popery or any other of that Nature with those that are not either wilfully blind or very ignorant of Popish Principles may observe but seeing to manifest that Difference was one of those things proposed to be considered of I shall now come to say something of it in its proper Place SECTION Eighth How this Government altogether differeth from the Oppressing and Persecuting Principallity of the Church of Rome and o●her Antichristian Assemblies WHatever Way we understand the Popish Principles in this Matter whether of those that are most devoted to the Sea of Rome as the King of Spain's Dominions the Princes of Italy the Jesuites and Generallity of all those called Religious Orders who hold that Papa in Cathedra non potest errare licet absque Concilio that is that the Pope in his Chair cannot err though without a Council or of those that are less devoted who plead this Infallibility in the Pope and Council lawfully convened who yet by the more zealous are reckoned petty Schismaticks I say whatever Way we take them all those that do profess themselves Members of the Romish Church and are so far such as to understand their own Principles do unquestionably acknowledge First That no General Council can be lawfully called without the Bishop of Rome as Christ's Vicar and Peter's Successor call it Secondly That either he himself or some from him as his Legates must be there present and alwayes preceed Thirdly That the Members having Vote are