Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	christian_a	church_n	great_a	1,565	5	2.6950	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58927	A Seasonable discourse shewing the unreasonableness and mischeifs [sic] of impositions in matters of religion recommended to serious consideration / by a learned pen.	Learned pen.	1687 (1687)	Wing S2229; ESTC R34063	41,323	46

he tells that one of the three returned soon after repenting it seems next morning and so he receiv'd him again into the Church unto the Laick Communion But for the other two he had sent Successors into their places And yet after all this ado and the whetting of Constantine contrary to his own Nature and his own Declarations against the Novatians I cannot find their Heresy to have been other than that that were the Puritans of those times and a sort of Non-conformists that could have subscribed to the Six and thirty Articles but differed only in those of Discipline and upon some Enormities therein separated and which will always be sufficient to qualify an Heretick they instituted Bishops of their own in most places And yet afterwards in the time of the best Homoousian Emperors a sober and strictly Religious People did so constantly adhere to them that the Bishops of the Church too found meet to give them fair quarter for as much as they differ'd not in the Fundamentals and therefore were of use to them against Hereticks that were more dangerous and diametrically opposite to the Religion Nay insomuch that even the Bishop of Constantinople yea of Rome notwithstanding that most tender Point and Interest of Episcopacy suffered the Novatian Bishops to walk cheek by joul with them in their own Diocess until that as Socr. l. 7. c. 11. the Roman Episcopacy having as it were passed the boands of Priesthood slip'd into a Secular Principality and thenceforward the Roman Bishops would not suffer their Meetings with Security but though they commended them for their consent in the same Faith with them yet took away all their Estates But at Constantinople they continued to fare better the Bishops of that Church embracing the Novatians and giving them free liberty to keep their Conventicles in their Churches What and to have their Bishops too Altar against Altar A Condescension which as our Nonconformists seem not to desire or think of so the Wisdom of these time would I suppose judg to be very unreasonable but rather that it were sit to take the other course and that whatsoever Advantage the Religion might probably receive from their Doctrine Party 't is better to suppress them and make havock both of their Estates and Persons But however the Hereticks in Constantine's time had the less reason to complain of ill Measure seeing it was that the Bishops meted by among themselves I pass over that Controversy betwixt Cecilianus the Bishop of Carthage and his Adherents with another set of Bishops there in Africk upon which Constantine ordered ten of each Party to appear before Miltiades the Bishop of Rome and others to have it decided Yet after they had given Sentence Constantine found it necessary to have a Council for a review of the Business as in his Letter to Crestus the Bishop of Syracuse Euseb. l. 10. c. 6. Whereas several have formerly separated from the Catholick Heresy for that word was not yet so ill natured but that it might sometimes be used in its proper and good sense and then relates his Commission to the Bishop of Rome and others But forasmuch as some having been careless of their own Salvation and forgetting the reverence due to that most holy Heresy again will not yet lay down their enmity nor admit the Sentence that hath bin given obstinately affirming that they were but a few that pronounced the Sentence and that they did it very precipitately before they had duly enquired of the Matter and from thence it hath happened that both they who ought to have kept a brotherly and unanimous agreement together do abominably and flagitionsly dissent from one another and such whose Minds are alienated from the most holy Religion do make a mockery boih of it and them Therefore I c. have commanded very many Bishops out of innumerable places to meet at Arles that what ought to have been quieted upon the former Sentence pronounced may now at least be determind c. and you to be one of them and therefore I have ordered the Prefect of Sicily to furnish you with one of the publick Stage-Coaches and so many Servants c. Such was the use then of Stage-Coaches Post-Horses and Councils to the great disappointment and grievance of the many both Men and Horses and Leather being Hackney Hackney jaded and worn out upon the Errand of some contentions and obstinate Bishop So went the Affairs hitherto and thus well disposed and prepared were the Bishops to receive the Holy Ghost a second time at the great and first general Council of Nice which is so much celebrated The occasions of calling it were two The first a most important Question in which the Wit and Piety of their Predecessors and now theirs successively had been much exercised and taken up that was upon what day they ought to keep Easter which tho it were no Point of Faith that it should be kept at all yet the very Calendary of it was controverted with the same zeal and made as heavy ado in the Church as if both Parties had been Hereticks And it is reckon'd by the Church Historians as one of the chief felicities of Constantine's Empire to have quieted in that Council this main Controversy The second cause of the assembling them here was indeed grown as the Bishops had order'd it a Matter of the greatest weight and consequence to the Christian Religion one Arrius having as is related to the disturbance of the Church started a most pernicious Opinion in the Point of the Trinity Therefore from all parts of the Empire they met together at the City of Nice 250 Bishops and better saith Eusebius a goodly company 318 say others and the Animadverter too with that pithy Remark Pag. 23. Equal almost to the number of Servants bred up in the House of Abraham The Emperor had accommodated them every where with the publick Posts or laid Horses all along for the convenience of their Journey thither and all the time they were there supplied them abundantly with all sorts of Provision at his own charges And when they were all first assembled in Council in the great Hall of the Imperial Palace he came in having put on his best Clothes to make his Guests welcome and saluted them with that profound Humility as if they all had been Emperors nor would sit down in his Throne no it was a very little low Stool till they had all beckoned made signs to him to sit down No wonder if the first Council of Nice run in their Heads ever after and the ambitious Clergy like those who have been long a-thirst took so much of Constantine's Kindness that they are scarce come to themselves again after so many Ages The first thing was that he acquainted them with the Causes of his summoning them thither and in a grave and most Christian Discourse exhorted them to keep the Peace or to a good Agreement as there was reason For saith Russin