Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bring_v	church_n	great_a	1,628	5	2.8346	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59578	Separation convicted of profanation, oppression, persecution, [brace] rebellion, self-destruction, and antichristianism being a further evidence of the mischief of separation, as asserted by the most learned and pious Dr. Edw. Stillingfleet, Dean of St. Pauls / by Lewes Sharpe, rector of Moreton-Hampstead in Devon.	Sharpe, Lewes.	1681 (1681)	Wing S3006A; ESTC R37382	32,652	45

a preference of their own thoughts and devices before Gods Institutions and Injunctions which is called in the holy Text Rebellion Isai 65.2 and the making of the commandments of God of none effect Mat. 15.6 Mark 7.13 There is nothing more plain and more easie to be understood in all the Bible than That the body of Christ is one and that all Christians are baptized into this one body 1 Cor. 12.12 13. and therefore though many are yet one body in Christ and members one of another Rom. 12.4 5. so that if one member suffer all the members suffer with it 1 Cor. 12.26 From which neer relation and sympathy they are obliged to the dearest love Rom. 12.10 and are to live in the exercise of it as the evidence of their neer relation to Christ John 34.35 and the bond of perfectness among themselves Col. 3.14 And that this be not weaken'd or interrupted they are commanded not to forsake the assembling of themselves together Heb. 10.25 and to give no of fence to the Church of God 1 Cor. 10.32 nor to any member of it Rom. 14.13 And if offences come as through Satans subtilty and the malignity of fleshly lusts they must needs do Luke 17.1 though wo to them by whom they come Mat. 18.7 their Christian Faith which worketh by love Gal. 5.6 must so moderate their passions that they must not easily be provoked but bear all things that are tolerable yea must cover a multitude of sins and suffer long 1 Cor. 13.5 7. and ought to be so far from rejoycing in iniquity and having advantages of dislike and separation that they must account it their Glorie to pass by offences Prov. 29.11 follow after peace and the things that make for it Heb. 12.14 Rom. 14.10 and do as much as in them lies do all that is possible to be done to live in peace Rom. 12.18 that is no condition of a peaceable Communion is to be refused but such as is morally impossible cannot be submitted unto without sin This is plainly the minde of God That we must never forsake the Communion of that Church unto which we are united so long as we can keep our innocency in it Nothing but the sinfulness of a Communion can justifie or warrant a Separation When we cannot continue in Communion without either the acknowledgement of some errour for a Truth or the practice of some sin for a Duty we may separate but for no other provocation The requiring of doubtful or suspected practices as some speak as the condition of Communion can be no warrantable ground of Separation because Engagements to a Separation must be equally certain as Engagements to a Communion They are certainly very badly advised and disposed who prefer their doubts and scruples before their known dutie and the Churches honour and safetie Sect. 44. And I must tell you too there may be real corruptions in a Church and yet no ground for a Separation from it because we may communicate with it in Gods Ordinances without partaking with it in its Corruptions for that may be tolerated which is not imposed practised by some which is disowned by others and required from none And in all lawful things condescention and yieldance is infinitely more commendable than selfwilledness and stubborn frowardness If therefore a Brother much more a Mother will have you go a mile with her in a way of condescention and yieldance to such things as you conceive inconvenient and burthensome you must to maintain peace and love go with her twain Mat. 5.41 The Philosopher calls a good man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Cube or Square implying that a good man is not like a Spherical Figure which is able to meet the plainest thing onely in a point but like a Cubical Figure which meets with plain things in whole broad-sides and hath a notable aptitude for Unity and compliance I am sure St. Paul was such an one and he is worthy to be a president to us all Who became as a Gentile to the Gentiles that he might gain the Gentiles and as a Jew to the Jews that he might gain the Jews yea though he were a free man yet he made himself a servant to all and was made all things to all men that he might gain some 1 Cor. 9.19 20 21 22. And certainly he was never baptized with the Spirit of Christ who will not do more for the unitie and Peace of that Societie to which he belongs than to please an ill-natured humour and that will not smother his private judgment and relinquish his private liberties and his more publick conveniences too rather than by a peremptory publication of the one and a stiff maintainance of the other disturb the quiet of Gods Church Sect. 45. Now it being generally acknowledged by most of the Separatists That the Church of England at least that our Parochial Churches are true Churches and that they may without the dangerous hazard of their Salvation communicate with them in their religious Administrations they cannot separate from them without exalting their own Imaginations above Gods Prescriptions and preferring the gratification of an Humour before the pleasing of God which is a grand rebellion against him Sect. 46. Fourthly Separation is an act of great stubbornness and contumacy 't is a sin excused justified and pleaded for which is the adding of rebellion to sin as Job speaks c. 34.37 The very same circumstances which rendered the sin of Saul in sparing Agag and the best of the spoil a Rebellion are fully applicable to the sin of wilful and causeless Separation and with some superiour aggravations Did Saul break the Commandment of God so do they And far more hainously for he transgressed onely a single positive temporary dispensable Precept but they an eternal and indispensable Law of Love and Righteousness Saul transgressed to preserve and save but they to ruine and destroy Did Saul notwithstanding his disobedience pretend that he had performed the Commandment of the Lord so do they They do it in obedience to the Call of God who will have them as they say come out from among us and separate Did Saul excuse and justifie his sin from the pretence of a good end and intention so do they The Church needs Reformation and they have covenanted to reform it and they will bring religious Ministrations to greater purity so that they are in a faithful pursuit of The good Old Cause are the men called forth to bear witness to the Gospel-designe and their Separation is for the Honour of God and the Edification of his Church that is they pull down the Church to build it up rend the Members of the Body asunder to joyn them the more orderly together wreck and quite mar the Ship to repair and mend it destroy to save Did Saul at last confess his sin so do not they but obstinately defend it yea glory in it as an attainment of an extraordinary size and which is the foundation of it

endeavour that the Kingdom of God may come Mat. 6.10 that is that the government of God administred by Jesus Christ may more and more prevail and be every where erected or in the Apostles words that the Word of God which is the Scepter of his Kingdom may have free passage and be glorified 2 Thess 3.1 by opening mens eyes and turning them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God Acts 26.18 and adding them to the Church Acts 2.47 This is one of the great Interests of the Church and whosoever sets himself to oppose it is an Oppressor of it You account that he which unlawfully obstructs anothers Trade and Commerce and hinders him from improving and increasing his stock doth as really oppress him as he that violently detains or takes his goods from him And this is the case of all Separatists as they do unjustly with-hokl from the Church what of right belongs to it so they hinder it from enlarging it self by begetting Scandals and laying Stumbling-blocks against its Communion and Fellowship 'T is a thing both good and pleasant for Brethren to dwell together in Vnity Psal 133.1 2 3. excites Admiration in the Beholders invites their Affections and encourageth them to a Commerce and Communion But can we reasonably expect to gain the hearts of Jews Pagans Mahometans Papists and Atheists to us perswade them to embrace our Religion and to joyn themselves to our Communion so long as we have such Variances are at such Distances from one another and cannot agree upon terms of religious Communion among our selves Do not our Divisions and Separations seem to proclaim to all the world that we understand not the intent and meaning of those Institutions Laws which Jesus Christ hath imposed upon us and are uncertain what that Religion is which we our selves profess and commend to others as the best in the world One Sect preacheth up that which another crieth down and the religious Communion of one sort is an abomination to another and what one justifieth another condemneth And did you ever know disagreeing Witnesses an effectual Proof Sect. 25. Besides will a considering man unite himself to that City which is divided against it self or chuse that house for his place of habitation whose materials are falling asunder and will not the Enemies of Christ think him an unmeet person to gather under his dominion and rule all the Nations in the world who seems not able to govern those in Unity and Peace which are already subject to him 'T is reported of Julian that he thought the fomenting of Divisions in the Church the most effectual way to suppress Christianity and to advance Paganism and he had reason to think so for the world will never believe that they are taught of God who divide from one another because the Spirit of Truth is never contrary to it self and the designe of all true Religion is to draw and binde men unto God and one another And therefore you shall finde that our Saviour prayeth again and again that his Disciples and followers might be one as he and his Father are one and to this very end that the world might believe that God had sent him Joh. 17.21 23. which implieth that their Unity would be of principal influence to perswade the world that he came into the world on Gods errand to destroy the works of the Devil and to restore man to Gods image favour and fellowship Sect. 26. And you shall finde that when three thousand were converted at one Sermon and added to the Church all the Christians were with one accord in one place and continued with one accord in the Temple and were of one heart and one soul Acts 2.1 41 46. 4.32 33. and then by the rule of contraries they which cause divisions cause offences Rom. 16.17 and prejudice the minds of men against the Church of God as if it were a Synagogue of Satan a Society to be shun'd and abhorr'd which obstructs the propagation and enlargement of it and consequently is a mighty Oppression to it Sect. 27. As Separation is an heavy Oppression to so 't is a grievous Persecution of the Church too Persecution in the strictest and severest sence is the prosecution of a person with a peremptory designe to ruine and destroy him And what is Separation less than the execution of a designe to dissolve and destroy that Community of Christians from which the Separation is made Persecutors think the persecuted so bad and hateful that they are not fit for the society of men And Separatists think that Church from which they separate so corrupt and degenerous that 't is not fit for the society of Christians And as Persecutors would not have the persecuted to continue in being and existence among men so the Separatists would not have the Churches they separate from to continue in being and existence among Churches They both act from the same inodiating and envenomed principle and the aim of each horribly mischievous Sect. 28. Yea I take the Separatists to be the worst and most cruel sort of Persecutors for by how much the Rights and Priviledges of Christians as such are better and dearer to them than the Rights and Priviledges of men as such by so much the more of Rigour and Severity is there in the rejection of Christians from their Rights and Priviledges Is it a very bad thing to suffer confiscation of Goods imprisonment banishment and death 't is much worse to be rejected from the love and fellowship of God and his Church the means of Grace and the hope of Glory Whatever some inconsiderate folk may think to be dealt withal as intolerable in the Church is much harder usage than to be dealt withal as intolerable in the Commonwealth for the outward earthly and temporal condition of the Body is onely concern'd in the one but the inward spiritual and eternal condition of the Soul is concern'd in the other When you unchurch a Society of Christians you account them in the expression of the Holy Text as Dogs Rev. 22.15 the basest and uncleanest sort of creatures a company of men so far sunk under the power of the animal life and given over to the power and tyranny of the Devil that they are alienated from the life of God enemies to all goodness to be shunned as the Prophaners of holy things and the Pests of Christian Commerce And if it be great cruelty without cause to be judged worthy of Death I am sure 't is a greater without cause to be judged worthy of Hell and Damnation Sect. 29. And I think 't is very ordinary for the Separatists to carry on their Separation by far worse methods than for the most part other Persecutors do their Persecutions for other Persecutors accuse those they persecute of some hainous and capital Crime implead and try them by the known Laws of that Community to which they do belong produce Evidences of their Allegations against them and