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	just_a	whole_a	2,767	5	6.2168	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64246	The confession or declaration of the ministers or pastors which in the United Provinces are called Remonstrants, concerning the chief points of Christian religion; Confessio sive declaratio sententiae pastorum qui in Foederato Belgio Remonstrantes vocantur super praecipuis articulis religionis Christianae. English	Remonstrantse Broederschap.; Episcopius, Simon, 1583-1643.; Taylor, Thomas, 1576-1632.	1676 (1676)	Wing T564; ESTC R10771	123,629	274

absolutely bind the Consciences of Men before God and therefore none should depart from it even in the least to wit neither in Matter nor in Words nay nor in method or manner of Teaching Far be so proud a vanity from us who know that this honour agreeth not with any Writings of Men how accurate soever and diligently and long and much considered but only with the Word of God contained in the Holy Scriptures and who both know that from the abuse of such Writings which is too frequent and too common new Schisms Sects Condemnations Persecutions and other Scandals of that kind have more often arisen and do seriously bewail the same And this was our principal aim To satisfie the often earnest requests of those who judged that we owed this Service both to the Church and Common-Wealth and indeed for to promote the Publick good that is both for the more ample illustrating the Truth of God and for the the more happy procuring and on every side propagating of Peace in them both Another end is that we might by this means the more commodiously vindicate the truth of our Opinions and our Innocency against the inique accusations of those who when as themselves hold grievous and very hurtful errours among others that in the first place concerning fatal Predestination and other points annext thereto as also concerning the killing of Hereticks yet will be thought the only Orthodox Men and the altogether pure Reformed and stick not to fasten upon us not only Errours but also Heresies and Blaspemies yea who while themselves exercise new dominion in the Church and do not only cause Schisms and Sects but do also every where raise up direful Persecutions and Banishments against harmless Men do nevertheless complain of us whom having in part indeed cited in their Conventicle of Dort they very lately condemned yet unheard and without making our defence more than Calumniously as of the true Authors forsooth of all the Scandals and Disturbances that have been hitherto made in the Belgick Churches For the fuller conviction therefore of these Men before God and the whole Christian World of their manifest calumnie and manifold injustice hitherto used against us and withal for the truer information of all that are pious and lovers or studious of the Truth of God and the Churches Peace we have thought not without weighty and just cause that we were bound to set forth this publick and unanimous Declaration of our judgment touching almost the whole Christian Religion In the sraming indeed whereof we have first of all diligently endeavoured that there might not be omitted therein any Opinion or Doctrine either necessary or very useful and that there might not be any thing either false or confused or lastly any thing idle and superfluous contained in the same But that it might comprehend in it the very form of sound or rather of healing words which abundantly express unto us Christian Faith and Piety both briefly and plainly and no less methodically and as it were in a brief survey hold forth the whole thereof to be viewed of all and that by the unanimous consent of all the Brethren not so much as excepting those who are held shut up in Goals all which jointly and severally diligently read it before and in the fear of the Lord examined it by the rule of the Holy Scripture as far as they might by reason of the iniquity of the times and at length with one Heart and one Mouth did all approve of it And indeed we have called it not only a Confession of our Faith but also a Declaration of our Mind and Judgment for that such a Declaration promiseth somewhat more full and pregnant than a bare Confession of Faith alone doth For indeed we were willing to satisfie the hope and expectation of those who desired a more copious full and clear exposition or unfolding of our Judgment concerning for the most part all the Articles of the Christian Religion and withal also to put a bolt upon the mouth of those who having nothing justly to carp at in us would perswade the people that we would never agree together upon any common clear and uniform Judgment touching the chief heads of Religion that we did conceal some things of which we were ashamed to give our judgment in publick and that they were such which did overthrow the very chief heads and as it were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tenths or chief of the Spoils of Christianity or if we did sometimes also publish or utter these that we did hide and cover them by obscure doubtful and uncertain expressions or some general and deceitful coverings of words This false accusation of theirs although long since elsewhere often detected and sufficiently refuted by us yet had we rather obviate it even by a publick and general Declaration of our Belief than by other means more lyable to calumnie So secure is a good Conscience and the Confidence of a good Cause which we have thought worth our while even upon this occasion publickly to declare And this among others was a cause why we conceived or framed it not in meer Scripture-Words lest we should indeed nourish that suspition to wit that we sought lurking Holes and hid as some indeed think mischievous and prophane meanings under an equivocal covering of the words of the Sacred Scripture and that we might by this means cut off all new matter of calumniating from those whose solemn study and chief labour it is to blu● and stain under any pretence or colour whatsoever the credit and good name of the Remonstrants with heinous reproaches or at least with sinister suspicions As to thorny and too subtile questions which are proper to your Universities and Schools and which neither advantage the knower nor prejudice the ignorant we have purposedly waved them leaving them to idle and to curious Wits and which are troubled with an incurable evil habit of disputing to whom it is matter of pleasure to make shew of their acuteness and from this kind of paste made to comfort the stomach with to seek or purchase to themselves the petty Garland of Victory We have bestowed our time and service on that Truth alone which is according to Godliness and indeed in conjunction with an ingenuous and open simplicity the which even the Unlearned may understand and the Learned ought not to disdain Lastly we have thought it best and safest to keep within the bounds of things necessary and in our judgment profitable waving and passing all other things of set purpose and that indeed the more commodiously to avoid both the extreams towit the excess and the defect For neither do we like their Opinion who will have nothing contained in Consessions and Declarations but what is precisely necessary to be known and believed We have thought it meet to have a regard o● those things that are profitable also especially of those which in this kind excel the rest

and as it were lead and guide the Family For these like Spurs and Goads mightily excite and put forward the will the more freely and cheerfully to mind and endeavour after a love and observation of those things that are necessary From hence wee se it sometimes come to pass that some things which are not indeed precisely necessary to Salvation do nevertheless draw after them strong motions of minds and do strongly incline and bow by their weight our affections and whole will to this side or part or to the other so that he who sets his foot less aright or less firmly in them is upon a light occasion put by the staydness of a right mind and easily like a restless wave driven this way and that way Wherefore although it be not absolutely necessary for all to know them yet to be willing not to know or sometimes to be simply ignorant of them is dangerous and often times very hurtful And we have directed all things to the practice of Christian Piety For we believe that true Divinity is meerly practical and not either simply or for its greatest or chiefer part speculative and therefore whatever things are delivered therein ought to be referred thither only that a man may be the more strongly and fitly inflam'd and encouraged to a diligent performauce of his duty and keeping of the Commandments of Jesus Christ. For it is a dry decayed barren and consequently spurious Divinity which consists within the bounds of an empty speculation and meer contemplation and which after it hath a long time greatly wearyed the diligence of every the most vigilant and with pain exercised his wit only doth not yet reach to his will and beget therein a due obedience unto God and therefore worketh not in us a true and saving knowledg of God and Christ. For he that saith that he knows God and 〈◊〉 keepeth not his Commandments he is a lyer and the Truth is not in him The first therefore and chiefest praise of Theologie consists in this that it bows the Heart of Man unto an Obedience toward God and so inclines or bends that part of us which God hath endowed with a natural liberty and made as it were to be at its own pleasure and dispose that it do again of its own accord subject it self wholly unto God and abandoning the former abuse of its own liberty doth only follow the ducture of the will of God All other things unless they be directed to this mark are before God vain and frivolous and of themselves of the least price and consequently in a manner nothing to be esteemed The knowledg therefore of them is neither necessary nor profitable farther than so far as it may and is wont to serve unto this principal scope or design For this very cause also those things which pertain to the five Articles as they call them to wit of Predestination and the heads annext thereto we have somewhat more largely expounded them and here and there diligently intermingled with other things For if there be any Articles of our Faith which are very profitable and in a manner absolutely necessary unto practice or for the inculcating and begetting in us an observation or keeping of the Commands of Jesus Christ these at least are to be accounted such For these are every where and diversly scattered or spread abroad through out the whole body of Divinity as certain nourishments yea as it were Sinews small strings Arteries and Veins whereby our Spirit is effectually moved unto the exercise of Piety and kept nourished and cherished yea continually carryed and put forward in the same and so consequently strongly engaged unto a continual progress therein Which also was the cause why we have every where here and there where the matter so required with reasons also added openly rejected the contrary Articles unhappily established in the Synod of Dort as some unhappy cockle-weed and tares that are very hurtful to true Piety and Holiness yea as the foul blots and spots of the Christian Religion which all pious people ought no otherwise to detest then botches and imposthumes wholy sucking up the whole juice bloud and vigour of Goodness and Honesty and drawing them out of our souls to nourish themselves For there is nothing so much an Enemy to Religion as that fictitious fate of Predestination and unavoidable necessity of obeying and offending We had yet another cause of this our doing to wit that by this means we might testifie and declare to the whole Christian World how just and weighty causes moved us why we impugned their Opinion who obstinately and stiffly urged the said fatal Predestination as the chief basis as indeed it is or pillar and ground of their Religion and refused to tolerate in our Netherlands their brethren that dissent with them about the same to wit because if indeed it be considered by its self and according to its genuine disposition and tendency we saw that it was greatly hurtful to Religion and Piety and then that we might leave it to all godly Men to judg whether we any way deserved upon that account to be so unworthily and ignominiously dealt with by the Synod of Dort to be dismist with reproach to be put out of our places to be taken and violently haled from our Churches though never so much against their wills and furthermore afterward by the most Illustrious Lords the Lord States General which were but a little before every where after an unusual manner for a great part altered and changed to be cast out of our Country and Banished for ever for that being moved only with Religion and Conscience we could not promise that we would keep in everlasting silence that our Opinion and that we would no where whether privately or publickly whether directly or indirectly whether upon occasion sought or offered disseminate the same or inculcate it upon our Churches being in other respects ready to perform and discharge all the duties of good Citizens and Subjects together with our Country-Men concerning both which proceedings both Ecclesiastical and Civil no doubt but God and his Church in their due time will judg far otherwise than our adversaries desire or expect Lastly we have no where added to this our Confession the direful Anathema's i. e. cursings of mens persons and that a sorrow it is to speak it too thread-bare worn Damnamus We condemn but have every-where only barely or simply spoken our Opinion or Mind or with a moderate rejecting of certain errours added thereunto Not that we religiously fear to denounce an Anathema there where the holy Spirit of God goeth before us by his own example For with the Apostle Paul we doubt not to bid Anathema to Angels and Men if they preach any other Gospel than what hath been preached Yea further with the same We bid Anathema Maran-ath● unto all that love not the Lord Jesus Christ that is to ungodly prophane and Atheistical persons