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	rome_n	separation_n	2,430	5	10.6947	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39313	Hereticks, sectaries, and schismaticks, discovered to be the Antichrist yet remaining and the great enemies of the peace of this kingdome the question rightly stated and debated ... : with a hint about ordination and the covenant.	Ellyson, John.	1647 (1647)	Wing E631; ESTC R23279	25,773	37

are termed Presbyterians and who put these names upon them Who can with any face affirm that ever these men were members of any Presbyterian Churches in this Kingdom of England or ever had union or communion with them as such how can they then be said to make a Schisme or separation to part away or divide asunder from them who knows not that they are but of yesterday if so they may be said to have yet any being to this day some few it may be shuffled together after a fashion here in this great City but few or none else throughout the Kingdom and who knowes not also that many of these men who are thus reproached by them were such as they are in their opinion and practises long before there was any noise hope or expectation of any Presbyterian Government or Churches to be erected in this Kingdom Object Neither will it help them to say they were Members of the Church of England in the Bishops times and the Church consists of the same Members still Ans. But it s notoriously known that many of them were not so having long before discovered filthinesse in her skirts and if upon the common abjuration of those Officers Offices and wayes the same filthinesse Tyranny Superstition c. being generally by Discourses Conferences Arguments Debates Laws Ordinances and Oaths made known to many more ther have according to their Protestations and Covenants forsaken those wayes and are come up farther in a Reformation then the common light of the State will yet reach to who shall lay this as a crime unto their charge when as the higher powers through a speciall hand of Providence engaging men in a solemn Covenant for Reformation have necessarily forced them hereunto I answer if the Members be such as indeed it is too true this cannot but be a Just cause of breaking from them though men for such a separation ought not to be termed Schismaticks for Schisme is alwayes a causlesse seperation whilst they depart rather from their corruptions then their Communion being ready to joyn with them in such acts of Piety wherein they are not obliged to professe or practise what they are perswaded is Eroneous but I conclude this argument with this Assertion That to leave the Church and to leave the externall Communion of a Presbyterian Church is not one and the same but two distinct things the first is done by ceasing to be a Member of the Church i. e. by ceasing to have those requisites which make constitute a man a Member of it viz. Faith and obedience the second by refusing to communicate with such a Church in her publike worship and service of God I affirme this as a certain and undoubted truth that there is no necessity of communicating with true Believers in evill actions when men are Convinced know and believe they are so nay I assert farther there is a necessity herein of seperation from them and men may without scruple forsake and renounce the receiving and practise of some opinions and observances the which your Churches hold and in which they do communicate but I maintain that this is done without Heresie or Schisme because they have cause to do so and no man can have cause to be a Heretick or Schismatick and so I passe to the third Position which is That in case the name of Sectaries Schismaticks be truly applicable to any persons in this Nation that themselves and no others can so properly deserve that name and that they only make the rent and division that is amongst us my reason is because these men endeavour to force and compell others to the opinion and practise of such tenants as themselves maintain for true when others are convinced they are false a thing themselves did laetly much complaine against and which was hatefull and detestable in the old Episcopacy but is of a sudden grown very laudable and lovely in our new Presbyterie I shall hold forth this truth in these two Assertions which I shall place as Bul-warks to defend these poor harmlesse Sectaries from all the force the Presbyterian enemy can raise against them 1. That not every separation but onely a causlesse or needlesse separation from the externall Communion of any Church is the sin of Schisme If this Position be not sound there can be no justification of the Protestants separation from the Church of Rome nor of those eminent Saints who have in all Ages born witnesse against the errours of that Church 2. That Antichristian spirit and principle of persecution which makes some men to impose on others under penalties a necessity of professing known errours and practising known corruptions is a sufficient just necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause which Protestants alledge to justifie their separation from the Church of Rome now that divers things practised by the Presbyterian Churches are errors known so to be to those that depart from them None without the highest breach of charity can deny nor with lesse impudency affirm they endeavour not that others should believe the same or suffer All that men forsake in them is onely the beliefe practise and profession of their errors And for men not to forsake the belief of their errours having discovered them so to be is impossible and not to forsake the practise and profession of them is damnable hypocrisie Let them free their Churches from requiring the belief practise or profession of any errour or whether they will or no they must free such as depart from them from being Schismaticks for Schism there cannot be in leaving their communion unlesse men were obliged to continue in it And man cannot be obliged by man but to what either formally or virtually he is obliged by God For all just power is from God God the eternall Truth neither can nor will oblige us to believe the least and the most innocent falshood to be a truth that is to erre● nor to professe a known errour which is to lie Thus you see that whilest they require the belief practise or profession of any errour amongst the conditions of their Communion the obligation of mens communicating with them ceaseth and so the imputation of Schisme and the names of Horsticks and Secta its vanish into nothing but lie heavy upon themselves for making mens separation just and necessary by requiring unnecessary and unlawfull conditions of their Communion either let them prove then that they erre not at all or forbare those odious names or at least apply them rightly as they ought to themselves If men would be themselves and would be content that others should be so in the choice of their Religion the servants of God and not of men if they would allow that the way to Heaven is no narrower now then Christ left it if all men that believe the Scriptures would free themselves from prejudice and passion and sincerely endeavour to finde out the true sence of them live