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	great_a	king_n	2,733	5	3.5643	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30391	A modest survey of the most considerable things in a discourse lately published, entituled Naked truth written in a letter to a friend.; Selections. 1685	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1676 (1676)	Wing B5835; ESTC R16335	27,965	32

any man's reasoning faculties are not sound that sees not a necessary series of truths hanging closely together in this contexture So that it is plain the Arians and our Modern Plotinians who are indeed more ingenuous than the Arians were did not think the Word that was made Flesh was truly God And now let any Man judge if there can be a greater and weightier matter than whether Jesus Christ were God by Nature or only a Creature Nor can a mistake rise higher than to believe Him to be a meer Man who is the Eternal Son of God or Him to be the Eternal Son of God who was only a meer Man This controversie was not only speculative but practical for our apprehensions and belief must direct our acts of worship and adoration if Christ be only a Man we cannot have that veneration for Him that confidence in Him or love to Him which we offer to the great God For there can be no Idolatry in the World so great as the worshipping a meer Man with the same adoration both inward and outward that we offer up to the Father This is sure if any thing can be the giving God's Glory to another On the other hand if He be the great God and of the same substance with the Father it is the most irreverent irreligious and ungrateful thing in the whole World not to offer that adoration which is due to Him equally with the Father He having so signally commended and expressed his love to us So that this is a matter not only of speculation but of practice This may suffice to satisfie any body how just reasonable and necessary it was for the Council of Nice to make their Definition in this matter that so a Test might be found out for discriminating the Catholicks from the Hereticks I am as far from a desire of multiplying new Creeds and Subscriptions as any man alive but if there be not some in the Church how soon may a conspiracy be laid and formed within the bosom of it that lying secret under general expressions till it be ripe and strong at length as out of a Trojan-horse shall burst forth to ruine and subvert Religion It is indeed a high tyranny of the Church of Rome that has added Anathemaes to her Canons about lesser and disputable points but except there be Foundations laid on which all the builders of the Church must edifie we shall soon grow worse than a Babel for we shall build with divided Languages and Tongues For what he says about ceremonies and all other controverted heads among us I shall only offer you one or two considerations The first is that in all such Rents as are now in our Church it is a very unreasonable demand to desire any thing that is established should be changed without a very great cause for to love changes for changes sake is an argument of a light unsettled mind And mutations in things external work much on the vulgar who seldom looking beyond what they see and hear are apt to be much startled at any visible alteration This made our blessed Saviour in his new Dispensation alter outward things as little as was possible Therefore he sanctified two Rites that were familiar to the Jews to be the two great Sacraments of his Gospel that so the Jews might be as little startled as might be But if there did appear great and just causes to change things that are indifferent there is no doubt but the Fathers of our Church and our Legislators the King and His two Houses of Parliament would examine them very deliberately If then the Authour of that Paper offers any reasons for a change he must take care they be very good and material ones I hope he will not insist on the so often baffled objections against them There is but one new reason can be offered and that is an agreement of a considerable body of our Dissenters to desire such concessions upon which they being granted they would enter into the Communion of the Church when this is once done then such a step were made as must needs set all men to very deep and serious considerations to ballance the evils of Schism the danger of Popery the relaxing all order and the abounding of all impiety among us which those who have made the Schism are deeply guilty of It is the duty of all men to lay these things home to the Consciences of such as separate from us that they may not stiffly keep up a breach thorough which so much mischief flows in upon us but may in colder blood review what is past and come to make such offers as may encourage those who love peace and moderation to drive on so desired a work But to expose the dignity of a Church and of constitutions settled by so long a prescription to the scorn of every bold Dissenter can have no other effect but to encourage them in their Schism and heap contempt upon our selves when we prostitute Law and Authority to such affronts Then do those that divide boast as if we distrusted our Cause or were afraid either of the strength of their Reasons or of their Party and they stand their ground the more firmly because they see us quitting ours and are confident that if they can weather out a few more blasts we will leave the field entirely to them This makes their pride swell and their demands become endless and unsatisfiable But if their Stomachs were so far down that they had the Humility and honesty to confess they had been mistaken in some things and were now resolved to go as far towards the repairing our breaches as their Consciences could allow and did propose a clear Scheme of what they would submit to and on what terms they would again enter into the Communion of the Church then I am confident such candid dealing will find an entertainment beyond what they can justly hope for And that upon very good reasons for we ought to make another account of the modest scruples of such as are indeed tender Consciences than of the presumptuous demands of insolent Sectaries And it is most just that propositions this way ought to begin from them they are Subjects and the Laws are settled and they gave very just cause both to Church and State to be displeased with them and to distrust them and so they ought to address for favour upon such reasonable terms that the insolence of their demands may give no new grounds of irritation and offence And till then all that is incumbent on us of the Church is first to live and labour so as to outdo all these appearances of good among them which have wrought so much on the vulgar then to pray the God of Peace that he would of his infinite Mercy and compassion to these divided Churches pour down a Spirit of Love and Peace on all men and in fine to do all that lies in us to convince those that separate of the evil of

and taking Therefore I shall study so to clear it that I hope no scruple shall remain about it There are some conditions that are simply necessary to Salvation without which no man shall see the face of God and these do indispensibly oblige all without exception There be other positive precepts which are of obligation to all who possibly can obey them so that the contempt or voluntary want of these is a high provocation they being both means of Grace and symbols of Christian fellowship instituted by Christ and to continue for ever in his Church Yet few are so severe as to deny a possibility of salvation without these I know St. Austin was of this severe side but in that he is generally censured as having exceeded it is an hard Doctrine to condemn all Infants that die without Baptism at least to exclude them from the Kingdom of Heaven as St. Austin did For if the Child die in the belly or birth it is not conceiveable that it should be punished for the want of that which God himself made impossible And the Primitive Church did generally believe that such as being converted to the Faith did suffer Martyrdom even though they were not baptized were certainly saved In like manner if in some Northern and poor Countries where Wine can scarce be had and goes at excessive rates if persons be so poor that they cannot get Wine and so either die without the other Sacrament or offer some other liquor in the Chalice it were a strange degree of hardness to deny salvation to the people of such a Clime So also the Offices of the Church are necessary by a divine appointment even in the principles of most of the Non conformists and yet neither this Authour nor they will deny but even a Laick if cast upon an Island where he upon learning their Language came to instruct them in the Christian Faith and could have no commerce with any Church under such a necessity he might perform all divine Functions for all Christians are a Royal Priesthood and absolute necessity supersedes all the rules of order decency and Government And the Presbyterians who acknowledge as great difference between a Presbyter and a Laick as we plead is between a Bishop and Priest yet acknowledge these to be true Churches which began upon no orders at all where some persons that understood the Scriptures did gather Churches and administer the Sacraments and they can say nothing for justifying such Churches which is not applicable to us in this case Therefore when the Western Churches were so corrupted that none could any longer with a good Conscience receive orders in them or submit to the terms upon which only their Communion could be had If any Priests seeing these errours did instruct the people in the truth and finding no other way possible to propagate or preserve that purity of Doctrine did ordain other Priests though this was irregular and defective yet we are not so uncharitable as to judge people under these circumstances but acknowledge that absolute necessity supersedes all positive precepts I know some have been severe on this head because they judge they are under no absolute necessity But that is a great mistake those that live under a Prince of a different Religion as the Protestants in France do could not with any security come over hither to receive orders For can it be imagined that Princes who are always jealous of their Authority and chiefly of such of their Subjects as differ from them in Religion would suffer them to come and be ordained in another Prince's Dominions they would certainly use that as a pretence to justifie their severities against them Nor would they permit them to come under such a strength and compacted unity as this constitution of the Church would bring them to Therefore these are to be pitied helped and prayed for and not insulted over And for those other Churches that are under Princes or a Government of the same Religion they are in no less captivity to their superiours who will never suffer them to go to another Church for orders and they would think it a thing inconsistent with the peace of their States to let any Ecclesiasticks get into so calumniating a power where the constitution of their policy is Democratical It is to be regrated that at first their Bishops were stubborn and would not receive the Reformation which the chief of the Reformers did very much lament Nor is it to be wondred if these Churches being thus formed under these necessities and not according to the ancient and Apostolical constitution in their ordinations have since that time studied to justifie themselves upon other accounts than bare necessity In that we think them in an errour but it being no fundamental one and the necessity that at first forced that disorder lying still over them we dare not be so severe as to deny them to be true Churches Though we hold there is still such defects among them that they are not compleat and perfect in all their constitutions But after all this Charity to those under such hardships we have great cause to conclude much more severely against those who being born in a Church that had no such defect in it's first Reformation but was exactly moulded after the primitive pattern and continued in so flourishing an estate that it was the just glory of the Reformed Churches and the chief object of the envy and hatred of the Roman was at first separated from and then subverted by some hot-headed Schismaticks Therefore the disparity being so great between our dissenters who are such out of Choice and in opposition to all Laws both of Church and State and the foreign Churches who are irregular out of necessity our judging tenderly and favourably of the one does no way oblige us to relax and forego these excellent primitive constitutions on the account of the others among our selves And thus far I think I have given you a satisfactory account of all that this Authour says on this head You know me and my circumstances better than to suspect either interest design or obligation has engaged me to these perswasions since by all these I am rather byassed another way I have written nothing but that about which I am so well assured that I know I am able to make good every particular I have set down And therefore though I do not allow you to let my name go with this Paper if you make a more publick use of it It is not that I fear either the censures of engaged and partial Zealots or the replies of a contentious Disputant so he abstain from railing and fooling in neither of which my Genius which was born for severer exercises will permit me to engage But now to wind up all after so tedious a Letter I must conclude with my 〈◊〉 regrates that we are brought to such a pass that discourses of this kind find such acceptance among us The Patient is in a high distemper when he loaths wholesome food and longs after every fantastical quelque chose he hears of So it is indeed to be lamented that the best composures that do either inform or edifie the Reader are neglected and if any thing gets vent that tends to make the most sacred things grow cheap and fall in contempt it is bought up at any rate and read with an insatiable itch I wish the Authour of that discourse may with serious and deep reflections consider what he has done in this work of his he has made all the enemies of Peace triumph and has put some popular things in the mouths of his Readers with which they think themselves sufficiently armed to baffle both the Articles and Rules of our Church I am confident he is so serious and so sincere a man that when ever he is made sensible of this he will be very ready to take out of the way any scandal which these his conceptions have brought forth In fine I pray God teach us to know the things that belong to our Peace that so our animosities and heart-burnings being laid aside we may all study to seek the things that belong to Peace and the things whereby we may edifie one another If I have wearied out your patience with a long Epistle I was forced to it by the subject you commanded me to write about And yet I have done it as short as was possible which has made me overlook many lesser errours in that discourse which were not of such general concern but discover how easily that Writer takes many things upon trust It was needless to amuse the World with these particulars and I am more a Friend and Honourer of that Authour than to engage with him meerly out of humour to contend with him or to expose him least of all to make a needless show of reading But I will make an end London May the 23. 1676. Advertisement A Conference about Religion held in London April 3. 1676. between Edward Stillingfleet D. D. and Gilbert Burnet With some Gentlemen of the Church of Rome Octavo price 2 s. 6 d. Sold by Moses Pitt at the Angel in St. Paul's Church-yard FINIS Ezek. 14. ver 7 8 9. Acts 13 ver 2. 3. Iren. lib 3. cap. 3. Et apud 〈◊〉 lib 4. cap. 13 Lib. 3. advers Heret cap. 3. Apud Euseb Lib. 5 cap 24. a De prasc cap. 32. Cont. Marcion Lib. 4. cap. 5. * De Bapt. † De Cor. Milit. * Epist. 75. inter Epist. Cypr. * Cont. Lucifer Apud Euseb. Lib. 6. cap. 44. Can. 6. Can. 2. Con. Carth. 4. de Eccles Hier. cap 5. Can 3. Carth. and Dion ibid. Epist. 65. Epist. 10. Epist. 27. Ep. 31. 1 Cor. 12. v. 4. 5. c.