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	great_a	king_n	3,018	5	3.5536	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48243	The letter writ by the last Assembly General of the Clergy of France to the Protestants, inviting them to return to their communion together with the methods proposed by them for their conviction / translated into English, and examined by Gilbert Burnet.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.; Catholic Church. Assemblée générale du clergé de France.	1683 (1683)	Wing L1759; ESTC R2185	82,200	210

are not succeeded by men of their own tempers yet it is to be hoped that these seeds so sown do still grow where they find a soil disposed for them For though such Notions are not very grateful to some whose Interests biass them another way or to others whose ill lives make them look on all Books of a severe Piety and that design a strict Discipline as so many Satyrs writ against themselves yet to such as are not prepossessed nor corrupted nothing does so easily enter and continue so fixed as those Maximes which they infuse particularly those of the necessity of a Vocation of the Holy Ghost before one enters into Holy Orders and a strict application to the care of Souls after one has engaged in them Truth and Goodness are in their Natures so Congenial that there is no way so certain to lead men to the knowledge of the Truth as to form their minds inwardly to such a sense of Piety and Goodness as may make them fit receptacles of Truth Thus did the Heathen Philosophers begin at the purging their Auditors minds by their cleansing Doctrines before they communicated to them their sublimer Precepts Among the Jews the Sons of the Prophets were long prepared in a course of Mortification and Devotion that so they might become capable of Divine illapses and our Saviour began his Instructions with the correcting the ill Morals of his Followers and Hearers and did not communicate the higher Mysteries of his Doctrine to them till they were well prepared for it since as he said himself the way to know his Doctrine whether it was of God or not was to do his will which makes the sense of the Soul become as exact in judging of its object as a sound state of Health makes the Organs of our Bodily Senses fit to represent their objects distinctly to us And therefore that Church that has advanced so far in the reforming the Morals of the People and the Conduct of the Clergy may be very justly esteemed the best as well as the most learned part of the Roman Communion Though it is not to be denied but the Iealousie that those men of better Notions have fallen under what by the Interest the Jesuites have gained both at Court and in the Sorbonne what by the willingness that is in the greatest part of Men particularly of corrupt Ecclesiasticks to love looser Principles and what by the odious names of Innovators of Men enclined to Heresie Schism or Faction is such that as on the one hand they are lookt at with an ill Eye as a sort of men that are neither good Subjects to the King nor to the Pope So they on the other hand to free themselves from these imputations have perhaps departed too much from these sincere principles which they had at first laid down and have betaken themselves to some Arts and Policies that do not become men so enlightned as they are But I will not enlarge more on this because I honour them so much and have learned so much from them that I will rather bewail than insult over their failings But though they themselves are thus suspected yet such is the force of Truth and the Evidence of those Maximes which they hold and the World is so possessed with them that even their greatest Enemies are forced to yield to them rather perhaps because they dare not scandalize the World by keeping up abuses of which all people are convinced than out of any inward affection they bear to a severe or Primitive Discipline By this means it is that there is now nothing more common in all the parts of France than to talk of a Reformation of abuses even in those places where the Prelates Example is perhaps one of the most conspicuous of all the Abuses To what has been said this may be added That their Glorious and Conquering Monarch being now possessed with this Maxime That he will have but one Religion in his Dominions every one there looks on the reducing many of those they call Hereticks as a sure way to obtain his favour and so to attain to great Dignities in the Church It is certain the most refined Wits there are now set on work to bring out the strength of their cause with the greatest advantage that is possible Therefore the Assembly General of their Clergy being called together and being so much the more engaged to shew their Zeal against Heresie that they might cover themselves from the Reproaches of some that are more bigotted for their compliance with the King in the matter of the Regale hath now made an Address to all the Calvinists of France inviting them to return to their Communion to which they have added Directions to those that shall labour in these Conversions which they call Methods by which their minds are in general to be wrought upon without entring into the detail of these Arguments by which the Controversies have been hitherto managed I confess when I read these first I was astonished at most things in them and could have almost thought that a Veron or a Maimbourg had published their Visions in the name of that August Body but I know the Press there is so regulated and the Constitution of that Kingdom is such that so gross an abuse could not be put upon the World Besides when I had over and over again laid all these methods together I found that indeed all the strength of their Cause lay divided among them So that if there is no extraordinary force in them it is because the Cause can bear nothing that is more solid or more convincing I doubt not but the Letter and these Methods will be examined in France with that clearness and exactness that may be expected from the many extraordinary Pens that are there But I being earnestly desired to write somewhat concerning it have adventured on it I have first begun at home and since here we have the concurring voice of so great and so learned a Church concerning the methods of converting Protestants I hope it will be no unacceptable thing to this Nation to put these in English together with such Reflections on them as may be more easily apprehended by every Reader that has but a due measure of Application and Iudgement though ●e has not amused himself much with deep studies of Divinity I shall hold in the general and to the Rational part as they do without going further in any particular Enquiry than shall seem in some sort necessary I ought to make great Apologies for so hardy an Enterprize but I cannot do that without giving the Reasons that determined me to it which is not at present convenient Therefore I must only in general beg the Readers Charity and that he will not impute this attempt to any forwardness of mine or to any extravagant opinion I may have of my self as if I were fit to enter the Lists with such great persons to whom I pay all that Reverend esteem which

if their Absolution is thought to have any other Vertue in it than a giving the Peace of the Church with a Declaration of the terms upon which God pardons Sinners If the Vertue of the Sacraments upon which so much depends according to their principles is so entirely in the Priests power that he can defeat it when he pleases with a cross intention so that all mens hopes of another state shall depend on the Priests good disposition to them by which every man must know how necessary it is to purchase their favour at any rate If likewise they pretend to an Immunity from the Secular Judge and do all enter into Oaths which center in him whom they acknowledge their Common Head whose authority they have advanced above all the powers on Earth so that he can depose Princes and give away his Dominions to others It must be confessed that all these have such Characters of Interest and Ambition on them and are so little like the true Spirit of Christianity or indeed the Common Principles of Nat●ral Reason and Religion that a man is very partial who does not think it reasonable to suspect such proceedings and a Church that holds such Doctrines 3. It is likewise reasonable to suspect any Church that holds many opinions that tend much to a vast encrease of their Wealth and to bring the greatest Treasures of the World into their hands The power of redeeming Souls out of Purgatory has brought more Wealth into the Church of Rome than the discovery of the Indies has done to the Crown of Spain Such also was the power of Pardoning and of exchanging Penances for Money by which the World knew the price of Sins and the rates at which they were to be compounded for The Popes power of granting Indulgences the vertue of Pilgrimages the communication of the merits of Orders to such as put on their Habits and in a word the whole authority that the C●●r● of Rome has assumed in these latter ages that tend so much to the encrease of their Revenue are all such evident Indications of particular ends and private designs that he must be very much wedded to his first impressions that does not upon this suspect that matters have not been so fairly carried among them that nothing ought to be doubted which is defined by them 4. It is a very just cause of suspecting every thing that is managed by a company of Priests if they have for several Ages carried on their designs by the foulest methods of Forgery and Imposture of which they themselves are now both convinced and ashamed When the Popes authority was built on a pretended Collection of the Letters which the Popes of the first ages after Christ were said to have writ and their assumed Jurisdiction was justified by those precedents which are now by themselves acknowledged to be forgeries When the Popes Temporal Dominion was grounded on the Donations of Constantine of Charles the Great and his Son Lewis the Good which appear now to be notorious forgeries When an infinite number of Saints of Miracles Visions and other wonderful things were not only read and preached to the people but likewise were put into the Collects and Hymns used on their Festivals which wrought much on the simplicity and superstition of the vulgar many of which are now proved to be such gross impostures that they are forced to dash them out of their Offices and others against which there lyes not such positive proof yet depend on the credit only of some Legend writ by some Monks When many Books past over the World as the Writings of the most Ancient Fathers which were but lately writ and many of their genuine Writings were grossly vitiated When all those things are become so evident that the most Learned Writers amongst themselves particularly in the Gallican Church have not only yielded to the proofs brought by Protestant Writers in many of these particulars but have with a very Commendable Zeal and Sincerity made discoveries themselves in several particulars into which the others had not such advantages to penetrate There is upon all these grounds good cause given to mistrust them in other things and it is very reasonable to examine the assertions of that Church with the severest rigour since an Imposture once discovered ought to bring a suspicion on all concerned in it even as to all other things 5. There is likewise great reason to suspect all that are extream fierce and violent that cannot endure the least contradiction but endeavour the ruine of all that oppose them Truth makes men both confident of its force and merciful towards such as do not yet receive it Whereas Errour is Jealous and Cruel If then a Church has decreed that all Hereticks that is such as do not submit to all her decisions are to be extirpated if she has bound all her Bishops by Oath at their Ordinations to Persecute them to the utmost of their power If Princes that do not extirpate them are first to be excommunicated by their Bishops and after a years Contumacy are to be deposed by the Popes and their Kingdomes to be given away If all Hereticks upon Obstinacy or Relapse are to be burnt and if they endeavour in all places as much as they can to erect Courts of Inquisition with an absolute authority in which Church-men forgetting their Character have vied in Inventions of Torture and Cruelty with the bloodiest Tyrants that have ever been Then it must be confessed that all these set together present the Church that authorizes and practises them with so dreadful an aspect so contrary to those bowels and tendernesses that are in the nature of man Not to mention the merciful Idea's of God and the wonderful meekness of the Author of our Holy Religion that we must conclude that under what form soever of Religion such things are set on foot in the World such a Doctrine is so far from improving and exalting the nature of man that really it makes him worse than he would otherwise be if he were left to the softness of his own nature And certainly it were better there were no revealed Religion in the World than that mankind should become worse more cruel and more barbarous by its means than it would be if it were governed by Nature or a little Philosophy Upon all these grounds laid together it is no unreasonable thing to conclude that a Church liable to such imputations ought justly to be suspected and that every one in it ought to examine well on what grounds he continues in the Communion of a society of men against which such strong prejudices lie so fairly without the least straining or aggravating matters too much I proceed now to the second part of my undertaking which is to shew that the grounds upon which that Church builds are certainly weak if not false And 1. They boast much of a Constant Succession as the only infallible mark to judge of a Church and