Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A57226
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Providence and precept, or, The case of doing evil that good may come of it stated and resolved according to Scripture, reason, and the (primitive) practice of the Church of England : with a more particular respect to a late case of allegiance &c. and its vindication in a letter to the author.
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Richardson, Mr.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing R1377; ESTC R24095
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23,343
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36
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Practice and your new Notions of Allegiance let the World judge 'T is easie to draw divers other Inferences altogether as useful for the Enemies of our Israel as these two I have already named but they would swell this Letter beyond its intended Bounds And therefore I will haste towards a Conclusion for by this time I presume Acts 26.27 I may ask you St. Paul's Question to King Agrippa Believest thou the Prophets I know that thou believest c. Yet your Case of Allegiance c. would almost persuade a good Christian to doubt it for your prevaricating according to the different Cases which at different times happens to fall in your eye gives cause for a just suspition And your two last Books has made it too evident that you do not as to what you have formerly told us believe your self which must consequently create in us poor Laymen melancholy Considerations in that we must venture our very Souls upon the Judgment and Integrity of such Priests who are as variable as the Weathercocks on the Steeples of the Churches they preach in For it is not many Years ago that not only your self but the whole University of Oxford rejected such Doctrines as your Case c. is founded on witness the Judgment and Decree that past in their Convocation July 1. 1683. against certain Books and damnable Doctrines as they were pleased to call them consisting in all of 27 Propositions the 10th of which I will give you in the very words c. because they are the same on which the whole stress of your Case relies on and I wonder you did not place it amongst your own The 10th Proposition c. runs thus Possession and Strength gives a Right to Govern Success in a Cause or Enterprize proclaims it to be Lawful and Just To justifie it is to comply with the Will of God because it is to follow the Conduct of this Providence * Hebbs Owen's Sermon before the Regicideâ— Jan. 3â— 1648. Baxter Jenkins's Petition Oct. 1651 So you see you do but bring up the Rear to all these famous Heroes who have march'd before you fighting the good Fight of Faith in the Good Old Cause some of which have not as yet finished their Course and so are still but in expectation of their future Reward but what that may be is no great matter For if they grow Rich and fill their Bags with Crowns here they will trust to Providence for hereafter And filling of Bags you know is such an Epidemical Distemper that there are few but what are Infected with it And Judas himself possibly had never coveted to have been one of the Twelve but for the sake of carrying the Bag and rather than not have it full for a Sum betray'd his Lord and Master And it is too plain we all the Priests not excepted do much more mind the things that belong to our Profit and Preferment here Luk. 16.8 than our Peace hereafter And our Saviour has told us The Children of this World are in their Generation wiser than the Children of Light But it is such a sort of Wisdom which will turn but to a slender Account at last and therefore as our Lord elsewhere says Mat. 16.26 What will it profit a Man to gain the whole World and lose his own Soul c But that is not much minded in our days We may observe from the Universal Degeneracy of the Age we live in that Truth and Justice Religion and Loyalty are fled from amongst us 1 Kings 22.23 and that Almighty God for our Sins has as he once did permitted a lying spirit to go forth and possess our Prophets so that they prophesie falsely and we love to have it so c. which strengthens the Argument of Heaven's permissive Will And that those Texts cannot without abdicating our Understandings be understood in your Sense of Providence and Success giving a Right which is the chief Basis on which your new Fabrick stands but how long it will Time and the next change of Stars if ever there be any will best demonstrate And truly should there be as many in your Time as hapned in the Life of the Famous Vicar of Bray the Scheme is so nicely drawn and your Case so exactly calculated to the purpose that you may without Doubt or Scruple swear Faith and Allegiance to them all nay though they were all Competitors at the same time And as they happen to be uppermost you have as you say God's Authority for so doing So that you are now Thanks to Providence pretty safe For should our Metropolis be in as much danger by the French which God forbid as Vienna was not long since by the Turks you no doubt would like a good Christian patiently submit and pay both a chearful and active Obedience from your Notion of Providence judging it the Lord 's doing though it appear never so marvellous in our eyes For indeed Passive Obedience and Nonresistance were never more necessary as now in your Case c. And yet after all I cannot but be amazed to see two such Cases as your Resistance and Allegiance come from one and the same I will not say Heart but Hand without blushing for the matter But though you do not I am apt to believe there are some and of your own Function too that do for you not so much for your taking the Oaths c. as no doubt a great many good Men may but for your giving such Reasons as reflect upon the Honour and Reputation of the Church of England and possibly may make many of Her weak Sons believe that She now owns the same pernicious Doctrines that her Clergy have been preaching and writing against ever since the Reformation and strictly forbidding their Hearers the practising under no less Penalty than Damnation But I find the Case as well as the Times are altered For then was then and now is now But to draw towards a Conclusion I hope your Christian temper will lead you to a favourable Construction of this Letter which I 'll assure you was not as I said in the beginning design'd to reflect on Persons or Things but only to expose as well as I could pernicious Principles which would if universally receiv'd quickly throw us from St. Paul's state of Grace to Hobbs's of Nature And what Advantage that would be to preserve Civil Societies let the World judge 'T is true you say God is not confined to humane Laws but at the same time 't is reasonable to suppose though he be not you and I and all Mankind are and the acting or doing any thing against humane Laws especially such which do not contradict his is the same thing as breaking of God's Laws And no doubt the doing so is a Resisting the Higher Power and they that Resist shall as you say receive to themselves Damnation And if so What is Sawce for a Goose is Sawce for a Gander And I know
set in them to do evil From which it is evident That Prosperity and Success is no sign of God's approving the wicked Ways and Designs of bad Men especially when his own Sacred Laws are broken to gain their Ends For if we will not allow a difference between the permissive and approbative Will of Heaven then as I before observed God must be the only Author of all Evil and how much that borders upon if not the same thing we call Blasphemy I shall leave it to your self to judge There is one place more I remember you quoted to prove your Case c. and that is our Saviour's Answer to that ensnaring Question of the Pharisees and Herodians Mat. 22.17 Is it lawful to give Tribute unto Cesar or not But our Saviour well knowing their Designs gave them an Answer according Render therefore unto Cesar the things that are Cesars and unto God the things that are Gods When they heard these words they marvelled and left him And well they might for his Answer was no more to their purpose than it is to yours For what relation had this Answer to your Notion of Possession and Success giving a Right unless you had proved Cesar had no legal Right and so was according to your own distinction but a de facto and not a legal and rightful Emperor Besides Tribute may be paid where Allegiance is not due as many in Flanders and Savoy and other places are too sensible of and therefore our Saviours was a fit Answer to their own answering the Question our Lord asked them when they brought unto him a Peny And he said unto them Whose is this Image and Superscription They say unto him Cesars So that it is plain our Saviour bidding them give unto Cesar the things that are Cesars and unto God the things that are Gods is not to your purpose for our Saviour we find in lesser matters declines being a Judge And one of the company said unto him Master Lu 12 14. speak unto my Brother that he divide the Inheritance with me And he said unto him Man Who made me a Judge or a Divider over you And so in like manner in the other Case without determinating the Point which indeed was the only thing that the Pharisees expected that so they might entangle him in his talk and therefore he answer'd them v. 18. Why tempt ye me ye Hypocrites c. which was as much as to say You know well enough those things before you ask you have Rules and Laws which I came not to destroy but to fulfil c. and then gave the aforesaid Answer on purpose to frustrate their expectations and to put them in mind of what was due to God as well as to Cesar So that our Lord's Answer was no more a giving of new Rules to know what are Cesars and what are Gods than to what sort of Cesars they become due well knowing God's Word is sufficient to instruct us how to determin that Case And so according to my promise I have briefly examin'd those Texts of Scripture which you urged in favour of your Case of Allegiance c. But having as you see compared them with others they do not appear in my judgment to favor it all and therefore what remains is the third and last thing viz. to draw from your Notion of Providence and Success giving a Right some useful Inferences very necessary for practical Reformers both of Church and State And first of all If Power and Success gives a Right c. than those sort of People we call Grumbletonians for I believe there is no Government without Heaven permitting them as the Canaanites were amongst the Children of Israel as Thorns in their sides may take comfort from this wholsom and as you call it providential Doctrin for notwithstanding they are in a state of damnation as the providential Instruments of our happy by your all the while they are a plotting and contriving to resist the higher Powers c. Yet if they have the good Fortune or Providence should permit them to get uppermost I presume then their Case may be altered especially as to this World but what it may be in the next you have not as yet in your Case told them But Secondly this Doctrin promiseth the like Consolation to all the chief Heads of all the Mobilees in all Governments though never so thorowly setled in the World And a Captain Tom if he can but preach or persuade as Marsinello did enow of his Gang to espouse his Cause and Interest he may for ought I can see purchase as good a Title to a Crown as he has to his Commission and if he succeeds by your Rule who dare question his Right since you have given it the Divine Stamp which puts me in mind of what a great Poet said in the Character of a Noble Peer who preached to the Mob much such sort of Doctrin and I will make bold they being much to the Point in hand to transcribe them only to let you see how good Wits jump He preaches to the Crowd that Power is lent Midal p. 6. But not convey'd to Kingly Government That Crowns Successive bear no binding Force That Coronation Oaths are things of Course Maintains the Multitude can never Err And sets the People in the Papal Chair The Reason's obvious Interest never lyes The most have still their Interest in their Eyes The Power is always theirs and Power is ever wise Almighty Crowd thou shortens all Dispute Power is thy Essence Wit thy Attribute Not Faith nor Reason make thee at a stay Thou leap'st o're all Eternal Truths in thy Pindarick way Athens no doubt did Righteously decide When Phocian and when Socrates was try'd As Righteously they did those Dooms repent Still they were wise whatever way they went Crowds Err not tho to both Extremes they run To kill the Father and recall the Son Some think the Fools were most as Times went then But now the World 's o'r-stockt with prudent Men. The Common Cry is even Religion's Test The Turks is at Constantinople best Idols in India Popery at Rome And our own Worshiy only true at home And true but for the time 't is hard to know How long we please it shall continue so This side to day and that to morrow burns So all are God Almighty's in their turns A tempting Doctrin plausible and new What Fools our Fathers were if this be true Who to destroy the Seeds of Civil War Inherent Right in Monarchs did declare And that a lawful Power might never cease Secured Succession to secure our Peace Thus Property and Sovereign sway at last In equal Balances were justly cast But this new Jehu spurs the hot-mouth'd Horse Instructs the Beast to know his Native Force To take the Bitt between his Teeth and flie To the next head-long Sleep of Anarchy And how agreeable this part of the Peer's Character of preaching to Mobilees was to his