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	pope_n	rome_n	4,587	5	6.8117	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A12788	A learned and gracious sermon preached at Paules Crosse by that famous and iudicious diuine, Iohn Spenser ... ; published for the benefite of Christs vineyard, by H.M.	Spenser, John, 1559-1614.; Marshall, Hamlett.	1615 (1615)	STC 23096; ESTC S521	35,428	60

Prophet onely howsoeuer diuided both in sects and kingdomes amongst themselues are yet in regard of their common profession of Mahumetisme accounted but as one body of Mahumetans How much more truely doe these 3. bonds of professing one and the same Lord and King of receyuing his one and the same law and word of incorporating themselues into one body by Baptisme in which 3. the essence of Christianity consisteth make al the professed christians of the world of one incorporation howsoeuer they are scattered in the earth and scattered in place and in knowledge one of another yea and in som priuat opinions also differ for they all visibly meete in their one roote Christ and in professing of faith in him To these 4. common bonds the Primitiue Church added as they might a fift bond of communion and mutuall society euery new created Bishoppe and ouerseer of any particular Church sending his synodicall letters of the profession of his faith to his neighbour brethren and they accordingly receiuing one another into the communion and fellowshippe of loue as appeareth by the Ecclesiasticall story Lastly when the Emperor himself became a christian and the bonds of the Empire and of the church were in a maner all one they added a 6. bond the common assemblies of all the ouerseers of the particular Vineyards within the Empire in common counsell to make peace and set down orders for the peaceable and vniform gouernment of the whole But the church of Rome which in the greatnes shee is growne to sayeth of her selfe as Babylon Reuel 18. I am a Queene and am no widow and shall see no mourning that is I cannot faile would teach the world a new lesson or article of christian faith not read in the Scripture not thought of in the Primitiue church not acknowledged by any ancient Father not dremed of by any anciēt Bishop of that See that notwithstanding God thundered and was angry when the Israelites asked a King as therein reiecting God to raigne ouer them yet now the Church cannot be vnder Christ and his Iudges as Israel was vnlesse she haue a King an absolute Monarch ouer her and that is the Bishoppe of Rome that all who acknowledge not this doctrine are heretiques all that yeelde not that obedience are schismatiques none of the Church and body of Christ all as Publicans and Infidels and in the state of damnation A fearefull sentence like that of the Bramble Iugd. 9. If you put not your trust vnder my shadow fire shall come out from me and consume the Cedars of Libanon For if all bee schismatiques and cut off from the Church like branches from the Vine that acknowledged not the Bishop of Rome for their King then was Saint Cyprian in a damnable estate who not onely reiected Stephanus the Bishoppe of Rome in a matter of faith but in matter and cases of iurisdiction also forced appeales to Rome and aduised the Bishops of Spaine to repeale him whom Stephanus had restored to his Bishoprick Then was Saint Augustine in a damnable estate who with 216. Bishops in the 6. Councell of Carthage not onely wrote to Innocentius not to receiue appeales out of Africa nor to send his Legats a letter nor to bring in the smoaky pride of the world into the Church of God but also made a decree purposely against his challenged authority that what Priest or Deacon soeuer should appeale to any beyond the sea he should be excommunicated throughout all Africa But what doe I speake of particular Bishoppes that a canonicall Councell of Calcedon of 630. Catholique Bishoppes was in a damnable state which made a decree that the Archbishoppe of Constantinople should haue equall priuiledges with the Archbishop of Rome and that he hauing the next place of honour should in causes Ecclesiastical be aduanced as farre as the See of Rome And although the Popes Legates did by all meanes labour to stay the decree as being repugnant to a former decree of the Nicene Councell for the church of Antioch yet it passed with generall consent and was pronounced by the Iudge as the decree of the Councell neither is this it selfe so much to be regarded as the reason they gaue for that their decree that as their Father had not giuen without good aduice to the See of elder Rome the first place of honor because that City was the seat of the Empire so with a former councell of 150. Bishops at Constantinople vnder Theodosius the elder moued with like consideration had giuen equall priuiledges to the most holy See of new Rome and they insisting in the steppes of sacred Fathers did againe decree the same thing This was in those dayes the opinion of the Bishops of the whole world concerning the ground reason of the Bishoppe of Romes Primacy neither was that the opinion of the Church for a time but three partes of the Christian world vnder the three Patriarkes of Constantinople of Antioch and of Alexandria haue alwayes since receiued him as hereticall for his claime insomuch that they denied their Emperor Michael Palaeologus christian burial for yeelding to the Church in the councell at Lions euen at this day though their miserable slauery vnder the Turke might force them to yeeld a shew of subiection to any christian of whom they might hope of any comfort yet they cannot in their consciences frame themselues to this grosse and lying flattery Wretched men if vndergoing such miseries vnder the hands of their enemies for Christs name neglecting such liberties and worldly preferments as are proposed to reuolters they are notwithstanding in the damnable estate of the Turkes and Infidels and Aliens from CHRIST for that default though they thus liue as Confessors and many of them die as Martyrs But to conclude the vniuersall Church and Spouse of Christ for many ages after her Lords ascension kept herselfe free from these domesticall yoakes neither could shee bee induced that any decree or cannon should be imposed ouer her by any one of her Bishops but that which her self in the free and common Councel of her elder children concluded to bee good for her selfe and hers for execution of which orders and Canons though shee appointed her elder sonnes to ouersee her younger first some as Bishoppes to ouersee her Presbyters and after some as Primates to ouersee her Bishops and lastly some as Archbishoppes and Patriarks to ouersee her Primates yet all the orders which they exacted of particular persons were the common decrees of their Synods Now wonderfull it is to consider how one of her owne children by getting the elder brothers place hath in the absence of the Lord vsurped and claimed ouer the necks first of all his brethren in particular and lastly ouer the necke of his mother also creeping vp by the Emperour like Iuie by the Oke till he had ouertopped him also from a primacy to a supremacy and after to an absolute and visible Monarchie and Kingdome of Romans and as Lord of all

was to be planted in Canaan What are Leuiticus and Deuternomy but the heauenly rules and orders of husbandring disposing and pruning and dressing this vine to preserue it in state And lastly what are the histories of Iosua and Iudges and Kings but the mighty planting of it in the land of Canaan the casting out of the Cananits like stones thorns the weeding out of those mighty Nations which might hinder the growth of the Vine There the heauens and the earth the sunne the fire the cloudes and the sea together with the Angels host of heauen all were commanded in their seuerall callings to attend vpon this Vine for they were the people which the Lord called to be a holy generation his royall Priesthood and that was the place of which he prophesieth Psal 132. The Lord hath chosen Sion and loueth to dwell in it saying here is my rest for euer here will I dwell for I haue delighted therin I will surely blesse her victuals satisfie her poore with bread I will cloath her Priests with saluation and her Saints shall shout for ioy Now those temporall blessings of peace and abundance those temporary deliuerances from al enemies those miracles and those wonders and that sensible presence of God himselfe in the middest of them though they seeme strange in our eyes and at the reading of them doe make vs Christians to say Hee hath not dealte so with any Nation Hee hath not dealt so with any Christian Church yet wee are deceiued for the gracious kindnes of God died not with Israel but rather those visible mercies towards Iudah were the visible seales of his inuisible and perpetual graces towards his Church and euery part therof for where he hath an outward Church there he hath also some elect to bee placed in it for eternity and where any of his elect are there are all things necessary to their accomplishment his Ministers his Word his Sacraments his Graces his Protection his exceeding loue For seeing those outward visible Churches bee as it were the Lords Worke-houses wherein hee frameth the inuisible members of Christs body by grace and proportioneth them to glory that etern all wisdome and loue will so prouide order and proportion also those means one to another and all vnto the end that it may iustly challenge the whole world what should I say What could I haue done for my Vineyard which I haue not done And here though occasion is offered It were a good thing to prayse the Lord and to sing vnto the name of the most high to declare this his louing kindnes in the morning and his truth all the day vntill night season for so much of our life is Angelicall as is spent in songs of thankefulnes vnto our God yet I must leaue this work to be the sacrifice of your priuate deuotion In which that one onelie benefit vpon the Christian Church is more then wee shall be able to comprehend that this Vineyard this Paradice whereof himselfe vouchsafeth to be the husbandman hee hath purchased to himselfe by the price of bloud not as Ahab purchased Naboth his Vineyard by the cruell shedding of the right owners bloud and vniust robbing the possessor of it but by giuing an infinit price for it the bloud of his onely beloued sonne to redeeme it where it lay ingaged in the hand of iustice and the Apostle concludeth necessarily Rom. 9. Hee who spared not his owne sonne but gaue him for his Church how shall hee not with him giue all things to her he that hath yeelded vp the person of his infinitly beloued to be a sacrifice for her sins and doth giue his flesh to feede his Church and his bloud to bee her drinke how iustly may hee demaund What could he doe more for his Vineyard which hee hath not done But here though it be with the consent of all tongues acknowledged that the blessings of God vpon his Church and euery part thereof are exceeding great yet this challenging as it were of his own omnipotency What could I haue done more which I haue not done rayseth a doubt not to bee ouerpassed For might not this house of Iudah the inhabitants of Ierusalem haue replyed in the wordes of the Leper Math. 8.2 Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me cleane the ordinarie obiection which many godles persons in our times doe frame both against God and themselues attributing their impenitency not to their owne obstinacy and corruptions but to Gods vnresistable will for if hee would say they he could sanctifie vs and make vs cleane also Wherein first that is vndoubtedly true that God who made Iron to swimme and rockes of stone to yeelde forth streames of water who made Aaron his dried staffe to bud and bring forth Almonds in a night he who could of stones raise vp children vnto Abraham if hee would by miracle could mollifie these obstinate sinners also and make their rockie hearts gush forth with teares hee could make them of stones children and of withered stickes fruitfull trees and that in a moment by the might of his omnipotent power but as in the gouernement of the world hee hath set downe an ordinary course according to the nature of his creatures which he doth not alter but vpon speciall occasion as our Sauiour noteth in the cure of Naaman and in the feeding of the widdow of Sarepththa Luke 4.27 so in the ordering of his Church also conuersion of the soules of men he hath set down an ordinary course of secondary spiritual causes agreeable to their end and fitted to perswade the mind of man as principally the word of truth and light in the mouth of his messengers accompanied with a measure of his spirit Thus by Moses and the Prophets hee conuerteth sinners if men will not heare them no though a man should rise from the dead saith our Sauiour they will not belieue for these are so forceable and so proportionated in his wisdom to the heart of man so seconded with the graces of his powerfull spirit both for the instructing of the mind and thereby the inclining of the will that vnlesse a man hath more then ordinarily corrupted himselfe in sin vnlesse he be like these trees in Iude his Epistle Twice dead and plucked vp by the rootes vnles hee bee like Lazarus not onely dead but stinking also in his graue habitually corrupted and that with such kinds of particular vices as are opposite to the receiuing of the life of grace it could not but draw him vnto God Of this sort are those obdurate sinners which haue hearts and cannot repent Rom. 2.5 for though all inherent sinne be contrary to God and his truth yet some sinnes and vices are more opposite to Christ then others which maketh some sinners conuersion more difficult then others Thus our Sauiour affirmeth that Publicans and Harlots shal sooner come to Gods Kingdome then proud Pharisies that stand vpon their owne righteousnes according to the Law and