Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	church_n	civil_a	ecclesiastical_a	2,893	5	8.1068	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67469	The life of Mr. Rich. Hooker, the author of those learned books of the laws of ecclesiastical polity	Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683.; King, Henry, 1592-1669.	1665 (1665)	Wing W670; ESTC R10749	56,844	234

Pious and Wisest of this Nation left the like days should return again to them or their present Posterity And the apprehension of these Dangers begot a hearty desire of a Settlement in the Church and State believing there was no other probable way left to make them fit quietly under their own Vines and Fig-trees and enjoy the desired fruit of their Labours But Time and Peace and Plenty begot Self-ends and these begot Animosities Envy Opposition and Unthankfulness for those very blessings for which they lately thirsted being then the utmost of their Desires and even beyond their Hopes This was the temper of the Times in the beginning of her Reign and thus it continued too long For those very people that had enjoyed the desires of their hearts in a Reformation from Rome became at last so like the Grave as never to be satisfied but were still thirsting for more and more neglecting to pay that Obedience and perform those Vows which they made in their days of Adversities and Fear so that in short time there appeared three several Interests each of them fearless and restless in the prosecution of their Designs they may for distinction be called The active Romanists The restless Non-conformists of which there were many sorts and The passive peaceable Protestant The Counsels of the first considered and resolved on in Rome the second in Scotland in Geneva and in diver selected secret dangerous Conventicles both there and within the bosom of our own Nation the third pleaded and defended their Cause by Establisht Laws both Ecclesiastical and Civil and if they were active it was to prevent the other two from destroying what was by those known Laws happily establisht to them and their Posterity I shall forbear to mention the many and dangerous Plots of the Romanists against the Church and State because what is principally intended in this Digression is an account of the Opinions and Activity of the Non-conformists against whose judgment and practice Mr. Hooker became at last but most unwillingly to be ingaged in a Book-war a war which he maintained not as against an Enemy but with the spirit of Meekness and Reason In which number of Non-conformists though some might be sincere and well-meaning men yet of this Party there were many that were possest with an high degree of Spiritual wickedness I mean with an innate radical Pride and Malice I mean not those lesser sins that are more visible and more properly carnal as Gluttony Drunkenness and the like from which good Lord deliver us but sins of an higher nature more unlike to the nature of God which is Love and Mercy and Peace and more like the Devil who cannot be drunk and yet is a Devil those wickednesses of Malice and Revenge and Opposition and a Complacence in working and beholding Confusion which are more properly his work and greater sins though many will not believe it Men whom a furious Zele and Prejudice had blinded and made incapable of hearing Reason or adhering to the ways of Peace Men whom Pride and a Self-conceit had made to overvalue their own Wisdom and become pertinacious and dispute against those Laws which they ought to obey Men that labour'd and joyed to speak evil of Government and then to be the Authors of Confusion whom Company and Conversation and Custom had blinded and made insensible that these were Errours and at last became so hardened that they died without repenting these spiritual wickednesses And in these times which tended thus to Confusion there were also many others that pretended a Tenderness of Conscience refusing to take an Oath before a lawful Magistrate and yet in their secret Conventicles did covenant and swear to each other to be faithful in using their best endeavours to set up the Presbyterian Discipline To which end there were many that wandered up and down and were active in sowing Discontents and Sedition by venemous and secret Murmurings and a Dispersion of scurrilous Pamphlets and Libels against the Church and State but especially against the Bishops by which means together with indiscreet Sermons the Common people became so Phanatick as to believe the Bishops to be Antichrist and the onely Obstructers of Gods Discipline and then given over to such a desperate delusion as to find out a Text in the Revelation of S. Iohn that Antichrist was to be overcome by the sword So that those very men that began with tender and meek Petitions proceeded to Admonitions then to Satyrical Remonstrances and at last having numbered who was not and who was for their Cause they got a supposed Certainty of so great a Party that they durst threaten first the Bishops then the Queen and Parliament to all which they were secretly encouraged by the Earl of Leicester then in great favour with her and the reputed Cherisher and Patron general of these pretenders to Tenderness of Conscience his Design being by their means to bring such an odium upon the Bishops as to procure an Alienation of their Lands and a large proportion of them for himself which Avaritious desire had so blinded his Reason that his ambitious and greedy Hopes had almost put him into present possession of Lambeth-house And to these Undertakings the Non-conformists of this Nation were much encouraged and heightened by a Correspondence and Confederacy with that Brotherhood in Scotland so that here they became so bold that one told the Queen openly in a Sermon She was like an untamed Heyfer that would not be ruled by Gods people but obstructed his Discipline And in Scotland they were more confident for there they declared her an Atheist and grew to such an height as not to be accountable for any thing spoken against her nor for Treason against their own King if spoken in the Pulpit shewing at last such a disobedience to him that his Mother being in England and then in distress and in prison and in danger of Death the Church denied the King their prayers for her and at another time when he had appointed a Day of Feasting the Church declared for a general Fast in opposition to his Authority To this height they were grown in both Nations and by these means there was distill'd into the minds of the Common people such other venemous and turbulent Principles as were inconsistent with the safety of the Church and State and these vented ' so daringly that beside the loss of Life and Limbs they were forced to use such other Severities as will not admit of an Excuse if it had not been to prevent Confusion and the consequence of it which without such prevention would have been Ruine and Misery to this numerous Nation These Errours and Animosities were so remarkable that they begot wonder in an ingenious Italian who being about this time come newly into this Nation writ pleasantly to a Friend in his own Countrey That the Common people of England were wiser than the wisest of his wiser Nation for here the very

Adversaries God hath bestowed upon him themselves though nothing glad thereof must needs confess Now of late years the heat of men towards the Discipline is greatly decayed their Judgements begin to sway on the other side the Learned have weighed it and found it light wise men conceive some fear lest it prove not only not the best kind of Government but the very bane and destruction of all Government The cause of this Change in mens Opinions may be drawn from the general nature of Error disguised and clothed with the name of Truth which is mightily and violently to possess men at first but afterwards the weakness thereof being by time discovered to lose that reputation which before it had gained as by the outside of an House the Passers by are oftentimes deceived till they see the conveniencie of the Rooms within so by the very name of Discipline and Reformation men were drawn at first to cast a fancy towards it but now they have not contented themselves only to pass by and behold a far off the fore-Front of this reformed house they have entered in even at the special request of Master-workmen and chief Builders thereof they have perused the Roomes the Lights the Conveniencies they find them not answerable to that report which was made of them nor to that opinion which upon report they had conceived So as now the Discipline which at first triumphed over all being unmasked beginneth to droop and hang down her head This cause of change in opinion concerning the Discipline is proper to the Learned or to such as by them have been instructed another cause there is more open and more apparent to the view of all namely the course of Practice which the Reformers have had with us from the beginning the first degree was only some small difference about Cap and Surplice but not such as either bred division in the Church or tended to the ruine of the Government established This was peaceable the next degree more stirring Admonitions were directed to the Parliament in peremptory sort against our whole Form of Regiment in defence of them Volumes were published in English and in Latin yet this was no more than writing Devices were set on foot to erect the Practice of the Discipline without Authority yet herein some regard of Modesty some moderation was used Behold at length it brake forth into open outrage first in writing by Martin in whose kind of dealing these things may be observed first that whereas T. C. and others his great Masters had always before set out the Discipline as a Queen and as the Daughter of God He contrariwise to make her more acceptable to the people brought her forth as a Vice upon the Stage 2. This conceit of his was grounded as may be supposed upon this rare policy that seeing the Discipline was by writing refuted in Parliament rejected in secret corners hunted out and decried it was imagined that by open rayling which to the vulgar is commonly most plausible the State Ecclesiastical might have been drawn into such contempt and hatred as the overthrow thereof should have been most grateful to all men and in manner desired of the common people 3. It may be noted and this I know my self to be true how some of them although they could not for shame approve so lewd an Action yet were content to lay hold on it to the advancement of their cause acknowledging therein the secret judgements of God against the Bishops and hoping that some good might be wrought thereby for his Church as indeed there was though not according to their construction For 4. contrary to their expectation that railing Spirit did not only not further but extremely disgrace and prejudice their Cause when it was once perceived from how low degrees of contradiction at first to what outrage of Contumely and Slander they were at length proceeded and were also likely further to proceed A further degree of outrage was in Fact Certain Prophets did arise who deeming it not possible that God should suffer that to be undone which they did so fiercely desire to have done Namely that his holy Saints the favourers and Fathers of the Discipline should be enlarged and delivered from persecution and seeing no means of deliverance Ordinary were fain to persuade themselves that God must needs raise some Extraordinary means and being persuaded of none so well as of themselves they forthwith must needs be the instruments of this great work Hereupon they framed unto themselves and assured hope that upon their Preaching out of a Pease Cart all the multitude would have presently joyned unto them and in amazement of mind have asked them Viri fratres quid agimus whereunto it is likely they would have returned an answer far unlike to that of St. Peter Such and such are men unworthy to govern pluck them down Such and such are the dear Children of God let them be advanced Of two of these men it is meet to speak with all Commiseration yet so that others by their example may receive instruction and withall some light may appear what stirring affections the Discipline is like to inspire if it light upon apt and prepared minds Now if any man doubt of what Society they were or if the Reformers disclaim them pretending that by them they were condemned let these points be considered 1. Whose associates were they before they entered into this frantick Passion whose Sermons did they frequent whom did they admire 2. Even when they were entering into it whose advise did they require and when they were in whose approbation whom advertised they of their purpose whose assistance by Prayers did they request But we deal injuriously with them to lay this to their charge for they reproved and condemned it How did they disclose it to the Magistrate that it might be suppressed or were they not rather content to stand aloof of and see the end of it and loth to quench the Spirit No doubt these mad practitioners were of their society with whom before and in the practise of their madness they had most affinity Hereof read Doctor Bancrofts Book A third inducement may be to dislike of the Discipline if we consider not only how far the Reformers themselves have proceeded but what others upon their Foundations have built Here come the Brownists in the first rank their lineal descendants who have seised upon a number of strange opinions whereof although their Ancestors the Reformers were never actually possessed yet by right and interest from them derived the Brownists and Barrowists have taken possession of them for if the positions of the Reformers be true I cannot see how the main and general Conclusions of Brownism should be false for upon these two points as I conceive they stand 1. That because we have no Church they are to sever themselves from us 2. That without Civil Authority they are to erect a Church of their own And if the former of these