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	true_a	2,865	5	5.6178	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35038	Analepsis, or, Saint Peters bonds abide for rhetorick worketh no release, is evidenced in a serious and sober consideration of Dr. John Gauden's sense and solution of the Solemn League and Covenant : so far as it relates to the government of the church by episcopacy / by Zech. Crofton.	Crofton, Zachary, 1625 or 6-1672.	1660 (1660)	Wing C6984; ESTC R7749	30,761	39

must be confessed Cisterns of Ministerial power and Ecclesiastical authority and immediate successors to the Apostles and so the Bond of Baptisme binds to Gospel-Ministers as the explicite and preceptive institution of Christ whil'st Episcopal order can claim no more but tradition and that very disputable the Prelatical Divines of our Nation would not be thus tyed to the observation of the Lords day nor I to the observation of Easter yet both these especially the first look as like an immediate institution of Christ preceptive and explicite or tacite and exemplary as any order or kinde of Episcopacy he suggesteth to be upheld by the bond of baptisme As to what the Doctor addeth concerning the signal and intolerable injuries offered to the persons of such excellent Bishops as England lately had and still may have and the abatement of the honour of this whole Church and its Ministry c. I wish it may be considered That the Covenant is not levelled against any Real Excellency in the Bishops but an unwarrantable greatness power and authority assumed by them or attributed to them which conferred an unfitting honour on the Church and then the exclusion of it is no injury and the mighty abatement thereof is a positive duty I cannot think but that learning and the due honour of the Church may and will be best encouraged by the vailing of that pompous worldly state and wicked superiority her Governours had obtained the Churches perspicuity seems not to me so necessary that it must needs shine in Lawn Sleeves and succession of Bishops of paternal authority over their brethren nor know I to what Churches save those of Rome who make the Succession of their Bishops the sole and singular Note of the true Church a Supersedeas of such Episcopal order how ancient or venerable soever it be deemed can be so scandalous as is suggested I am sure few of the Reformed Churches see cause so to judge it and then Sir we finde little force in this his complicated Answer Thus Sir I have made bold to consider the Doctors indirect answer and arguments wherein he endeavoureth to shake and subvert the whole fabrick of the Solemn League and Covenant and in them to my judgement there is so little strength of Reason or true Religion that it affords but a poor ground for his insulting and triumphant discharge in page 13. These things being thus premised are sufficient as I conceive to abate the Edge and Rigour of the Covenant and to ravel that cabel and bond of Religious obligation For Sir notwithstanding his supposal asserted in good earnest there is neither Law of God or man requiring imposing or comprobating any such Covenant The Boanergesses will finde cause to thunder out terrour against Covenant-breaking lest Rhetorical flourishes without strength of Reasons should release the consciences of the vulgar from the power of religious bonds It may be Sir we shall finde more strength in the Doctors down-right stroaks His direct answer than in his back-blows His batteries in his indirect answers attempted have bespoken his purpose to break in sunder the Sacred bond of the Covenant His power to effect it in point of Episcopacy must appear in his direct Answer wherein we thank him he looks on the Covenant in the softest sence that can be made as it is a voluntary vow or Religious bond which private men spontaneously took upon themselves c. But yet he suggesteth it was taken by very few not one fourth part of the Nation now living and those few made to take it by the terrors of prison plunder sequestration and the like wracks Unto which before we observe his particular reconciling Answers relating to the special point of Episcopacy I propound to consideration that The paucity of Covenantets will not discharge its obligation be there never so few I hope those few may be free in asserting and must be faithful in adhering to the Covenant in which their confidence may be the greater for that His most Sacred Majesty comes in to make up the number But if the Doctor saw with my eyes he would not suppose the number to be so small if all Tables were as legible as those of the Lords and Commons I believe their number would be found many more than the fourth part of the Nation But can any considerable observer take notice the Covenant was imposed on and submitted unto by all sorts and degrees of men in all Counties Cities and Towns tendred and since testified by their publique subscriptions by the most Ministers in the several Counties unto their individual Congregations and that under the success of War which usually extendeth a Covenant unto all who come under its influence and yet without the supposal of a very great mortality imagine not the fourth part of the Nation to have taken the Covenant The Doctor sure judgeth by such with whom he converseth and I easily believe they are not a fourth part of the Nation yet methinks he himself being to be reckoned into the number might well conjecture them to be more But again Sir the capacity of the Covenanters is more considerable than the number and will make it a question well worth consideration Whether it be not obligatory to the whole Nation When I consider the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled and under that notion and capacity swearing the Covenant as the collective body of the Nation though not near a fourth part in number I am apt to think it looks very like a National Obligation For I know not how they can take pardons if they may not make promises in our names especially when the assent of His Most Sacred Majesty is made so legible by His Royal Subjection to the same Solemn League and Covenant I am much mistaken if the Oath of Zedekiah and the Princes without popular delegates did not binde the people of Israel I hope the Doctor will be more warie than to plunge the whole Kingdome into perjury That there was any such Logick as Prisons Plunder and Sequestrations to enforce the Covenant I am not well-pleased I hope he had more fortitude than to suffer his Reason and Religion to be so captivated he knoweth the will cannot be compelled and I imagine he will not make extortion by force any more than fraude absolve the Obligation and warrant the recession or violation of an Oath he knows that Nature and Scripture do teach the contrary whatever was Cicero's affection to him he knows wherein he commends Pomponius the Tribune as to his extorted Oath nor will a Casuist deny Juramentum metu extorium to bind greater force can besiege none to the making of an Oath nor greater fury from God follow any for breaking the oath so forced than that which befell Zedekiah to the King of Babylon But let us see by what strength of Reason he worketh out release from this voluntary vow that we may be also free-men and it is produced by several suggestions where of The