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	england_n	great_a	1,929	5	3.0386	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63461	The True cause of all our miseries, discovered in their visible effects as I find it (to my great satisfaction) most manifest, in The lay-man's religion, lately published, licensed, Octob. 1, 1690 : which vindicates the doctrine of the Church of England, (above all others,) to allow liberty of conscience, according to the tenour of the Gospel ...		1690 (1690)	Wing T2593A; ESTC R38360	10,212	10

THE TRUE CAUSE Of all our MISERIES Discovered in their Visible Effects As I find it to my great Satisfaction most manifest in The Lay-man's Religion lately published Licensed Octob. 1. 1690. Which vindicates the Doctrine of the Church of England above all others to allow Liberty of Conscience according to the Tenour of the Gospel Unveils the Undermining Jesuite and Designing Sectary And detects the grossest Frauds and Cheats imposed on the Honest and Well-meaning under the most sacred Vizors and Pretences Worthy to be received and seriously considered of Ministers of State Lords and Commons as well as all other inferiour Subjects of every Persuasion in order to our lasting Safety and Settlement We find it impossible to prevent the sly and subtile Whispers of Designing Hypocrites who in secret do mis-represent the best of Their Majesties Subjects to create a Mis-understanding of them and their best Actions only to gain a good Opinion of themselves and to carry on their own Designs But none without a Forehead of Brass dare openly question such experienc'd Truths as have been exemplified in Bloody Tragedies within the Compass of our own Memory Therefore it must be acknowledged That Whoever is the Author of that Book he deals plainly and impartially with all beginning at Home with censuring the Criminals of his own Party both Clergy and Layety exposing Hypocrisie and Immorality as the two Extremes in All. And therefore I have singled out this Sheet as the best Service I can do Their Majesties and the Government heartily wishing it might be distributed throughout the whole Kingdom for Instruction to all in order to secure and transmit our Civil and Religious Rights to Posterity Which therein thus follows Page 21. AS God Almighty hath various Ways and Methods to reform and discipline his Children according to their various Tempers and Dispositions so the Devil by his Janizaries Designing Hypocrites and Time-servers who can readily take any Impression in Religion be of two or three persuasions at once to promote their own Interest puts himself into various shapes and baits his Hook with various Objects suited to mens different Inclinations that he may catch both Pharisee and Publican as well the spiritually proud as the Debauchee that no Fish may escape his Net and if it were possible the Elect too should be cheated by him Thus he baits the Luxurious with Pleasure the Avaritious with Riches and the Ambitious with Pride Dominion and worldly Design When he designs to subvert a Kingdom or overthrow a Government he doth not appear immediately in Arms and open Hostility but first under a Disguise of Zeal for Reformation which he generally prosecutes by removing all Foundation laid in the first Principles of Religion and then proceeds to create various Opinions in the Minds of honest and well-meaning Persons of easie and credulous Dispositions continually raising Niceties and Scruples before any Foundation be laid in fundamental Knowledge of the first Principles of our Religion contained in the Lord's Prayer the Ten Commands and the Creed and those Niceties and Scruples are more and more irritated by subtil and designing Teachers under a Disguise of Liberty of Conscience God forbid Liberty of Conscience if regulated by the Standard of the Scriptures as it is the Birthright of every Christian should be denied to any that in sincerity desire it to live peaceably under the Government in all Godliness and Honesty because many persons of honest and well-meaning Principles may from their Education in Foreign Parts or in Families of different Persuasions either misapprehend or not rightly understand the Truth of our Doctrine and Discipline established among us And many others in the simplicity of their Hearts when they see the vicious Lives and Actions of some of our Members or the Scandal of some of our Clergy in things that are open and manifest may be imposed upon by Jesuitical Whispers on the one hand and private insinuating Teachers on the other hand as to imagine that our Religion established must either countenance or allow of such Evils in the Professors of it Which is the Case of the Gospel it self Now forasmuch as our Government is founded in the Law of God and Nature and our Religion established is setled and framed from no other Model or Original but God's revealed Will in the Scriptures and so both may be a just Standard for all other Governments It must therefore be a Strain of great Arrogance and Presumption in any State-Mountebank to propose any Foreign Precedent for alteration of either And to silence all Complaints but theirs whom nothing less than All will satisfie as our Religion and Government so established do allow a peaceable and innocent Liberty of Conscience the Grand Charter of Christianity it self which we have found by experience no other differing Persuasion but ours would ever allow any longer than they wanted power to restrain it so none can deny it to be both prudent and just in the Government from the Law of self-preservation to take care of and secure it self against all abuse of so great a Blessing by such who have pure Religion only in their Mouths but the rankest Poison of Ambition and Worldly Design in their Hearts making no Scruple as Opportunity serves to devour Widows Estates as well as the Houses and Patrimony of them and all others to make way for their own Ambitious Designs For we find it most certainly true by woful experience that it is impossible to secure any Government in the World on a lasting Foundation but by annexing it to the Religion established so as to make them inseparable according to the Policy of New-England where Liberty of Conscience first planted their Law-makers They that do not first approve of and embrace our Religion established ought to have no share in our Government But such as would come into the Government on other Terms have Liberty of Conscience only in their Mouths but Ambition and Worldly Design in their Hearts which they carry on by multiplying Sects under several Leaders each ambitious to be Head of his own Party who by their Influence on credulous and well-meaning Persons inclose them as in so many Peculiars each Pastor to incline and lead his own Flock the only Method to divide and consequently to weaken both the Government and Religion established that whenever their Interest is in danger they may easily as hath been practised in like Cases by the same Art dispose all to unite for the same End against the Government they live under And thus one and the same common though invisible Enemy of Mankind putting himself into various Shapes and baiting his Hook with proper Objects suited to Men's various Inclinations and Dispositions which all centre in Self-Love can first divide and weaken and again unite and destroy the best Religion and Government in the World though the designing Party are ever lurch'd in what they aim at which is Dominion and Rule For no sooner is any Party gotten uppermost

Disputes long Prayers or fruitless Discourses If these things were laid to heart so as to be well weighed and considered by all sincere and well meaning Christians who now separate from our publick Communion into private Congregations that from thence they might be awakened to examine and with me seriously enquire into the Truth of Things they would soon find how miserably they have been imposed upon and drawn into Prejudice and an ill Apprehension of the purest and best established Religion on the Earth by such designing Leaders as can be contented to sacrifice the Peace and Safety of the whole Kingdom to promote the Interest of a Party in order to gratifie their own Ambition and Worldly Design though under a Disguise of Liberty of Conscience when in truth by Separation from us they do but exchange one Shell of Religion for another for so I reckon and so our Church doth esteem the most resined Discipline or outward Way of Worship to be and lays no more stress in it than Decency and Order requires Therefore it is no wonder that the most Ignorant and Short-sighted and such as look no farther into Religion than the outward Appearance but are never capable of discerning the vital Substance should from the Scandal of some wicked Members from which the Gospel it self was not wholly exempt be so apt to despise our established Discipline and yet at the same time idolize another Form or Way of Worship as if God were more pleased with one Shadow than another Whereas we esteem our outward Discipline no otherwise than as outward Means composed and adapted by the most pious and learned Men from the sacred Fountain of the Scriptures suited to every Capacity through a whole Kingdom the Least Knowing as well as the Most Learned that all may joyn together In which the pious and well-disposed Christian may worship God in the Beauty of Holiness and the Youth and Ignorant as with a Leading-step may be trained up from the first Principles of Religion to the greatest Perfection and whereby also the Profane and Loose are by a venerable Authority influenced and reclaimed at least kept within some Bounds from scoffing at Religion which is daily occasioned by the Separation of such who are still subject with their Neighbours to the same Infirmities attending Humane Frailty as well as to Pride Ambition Self-Love in the inordinate Love of the World Railing at and Censuring of others and yet puffed up with a false Conceipt of their own Way do herd and distinguish themselves under their several Leaders into so many and various Ways Opinions and Persuasions I wish it were not so near a Resemblance of the several Orders in the Church of Rome and all under Conduct of their peculiar Guides From whence it comes to pass that vain and loose Persons beginning first with light Thoughts of Religion and by degrees declining the publick Prayers of the Church and private Family-Duties and from thence giving scope to boundless Lusts at last cast off all Religion and become downright Debauchees and practical Atheists This may satisfie any but such as are in love with a false Persuasion and beforehand resolved to know no better that the Offence is taken and not justly given by those that thus separate from our National Communion especially when they may be all so clearly convinced that the original Cause of Separation from our Communion did not arise from any thing either in our Doctrine or the Discipline of our Church but from what was acted by Temporal Rulers as they were steered by Jesuites and Popish Interests in Ecclesiastical Courts procuring a Toleration of Sports on the Lord's Day and Indulgence to be granted in other Matters which our holy and pure Religion expresly condemns and abhors which could not but be very offensive to many honest and well-meaning Persons especially when so industriously improved by subtile Jesuites and whispering Sectaries the secret Enemies of our Church who insinuated into the Minds of the Easie and Credulous that our Religion did countenance such Evils and thereby drew them into separate Congregations whereby they had opportunity to introduce so many strange Doctrines and variety of Persuasions the Seed and Cause of all our Heats Divisions and Animosities on the one hand and of Practical Atheism Debauchery and Immorality on the other Both which as gross Hypocrisie and bare-faced Impiety do equally expose us to the Divine Vengeance and lay us open to our Foreign Enemies For it is most Plain the Enthusiastick as well as the Debauchee when thwarted in their Designs have an equal Tendency to Rebellion and Treason I say were sincere though mis-persuaded well-meaning Persons but once fully sensible of these great Truths and of the unavoidable Necessity of their Returning into our Communion as the only Means left to unite and save us by restoring True Piety and Christian Charity in Sobriety and Righteousness among us it is impossible they should sleep quietly one Night before they returned into this Bosom of Safety For God knows I fear there is no other Cure left for our universal Distemper and it is high time to begin so happy a Work Wherein their Leaders if they have as they all pretend to have the Spirit of Primitive Christianity may as faithful in God's Vineyard outstrip all our idle Labourers in painful and powerful Preaching and especially by their exemplary and holy Living so influence their Doctrine on the Mind as to reclaim many profane Persons who now take occasion from their Separation into so many Forms and Shadows of Religion to inveigh and rail against them all And the Lay-Menbers if they return into our Communion and live up to what our holy Religion which is defective in nothing but good Living doth most plainly and powerfully teach may boldly reprove by our Church-Authority and put to silence many open Transgressors and Evil-doers who now take occasion from so many Fashions of Religion among us to deride and scoff at all Religion in general and also to their great comfort may thereby shame a scandalous Clergy-Man into a Reformation of his Life by saying with the Spirit of Meekness in the Language of the holy Prophet I have more Vnderstanding than all my Teachers for thy Testimonies are my Meditation Psal 119. And this I bear witness is countenanced by all our reverend and pious Fathers and Pastors who would have all come to the Knowledge and Practice of the Truth and who it is most manifest are willing and ready to comply with any thing that may tend to heal our Breaches and to purchase Vnion with their Dissenting Brethren if desired in such a way and to be done in such a manner as may preseve Peace and Vnity in the Church Which we can never reasonably hope should be done without some orderly Application of such as must own themselves inferiour to those whom the Government under which they live have made their Superiours which nothing can hinder or obstruct but Pride