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	separate_v	separation_n	2,045	5	10.3917	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56100	The Protestants letter concerning the re-union of the two religions to the Assembly of the clergy of France, held at Paris, May, 1685 humbly offered to the consideration of all Protestants in England, as an expedient for reconciling the great differences in religion now among them.	Kidder, Richard, 1633-1703.; Catholic Church. Assemblée générale du clergé de France.	1690 (1690)	Wing P3851; Wing K409_CANCELLED; ESTC R882	28,330	38

them publickly so far as the safety of Peace can allow There are some Truths that be not of such grand importance as that the Peace of the Church should be troubled to establish them as on the contrary there are others which are so important that one ought to have no regard for the Infirmities of Men nor for the Prejudices which do possess them This is also a Principle which seems to us to be uncontestable I know not whether we have been so happy as to bring so clear a Light of Evidence unto these Principles as that wherein we our selves do see them but supposing that these Principles are certain clear and evident as we do conceive them to be we do not judge that the Re-union should be so very impossible And this is that Sirs which we desire you will be pleased that we may lay before you in this place by applying these general Principles unto the particular Matters of Fact now in question Our first Principle was That they who will endeavour an happy Re-union must search out the Means which are proper to satisfie both the Parties and that both Sides must sacrifice unto the Blessing of Peace all that can be abandoned without doing any Injury to Religion We cannot doubt Sirs but that you look upon this as a Maxim of most sovereign Equity We do for the present consent that you should consider us as Schismaticks who have unjustly separated our selves from the Church because the Causes of our Separation have not been sufficient But however that be you have too much Understanding and Sincerity not to see and not to acknowledge that if those Causes of Separation have not been sufficient yet they have not been altogether null or frivolous It was a long time that a Reformation was demanded to be made both in the Head and in the Members The whole World did universally complain of the Disorders and of the Corruptions which were crept into all the parts of Religion Now do you believe that all that Reformation which might then have been justly demanded hath been so fully made as that there remains nothing more to be added thereunto Were all those Proposals which your Predecessors made in the Ages last past unto the Council of Trent unjust or idle Might they not have been granted to them without doing any prejudice to the Church There were no less than four and thirty Articles the greatest part of which were of very grand importance The Seventeeth and the Nineteenth tended to re-establish the Vulgar Tongue in the Divine Service the Eighteenth made a Demand of the Cup for the People in the Sacrament the Twentyninth demanded the Retrenchment of that Abuse which was sliden into the Worshipping of Images into that of Relicks into the Pilgrimages into the Fraternities c. Now is there any one among you Sirs who can believe that all that which was fit for Reformation was reformed thereupon We are persuaded that you are the major part of you at least of his Opinion who composed The wholsome Advice of the Virgin to her indiscreet Votaries that is to say that you will confess that there are very many Abuses which have insinuated themselves into the popular Devotions Besides all this Do not you own that among those things which divide the Catholick and the Protestant all of them are not of the same importance some of them might be foregone for the benefit of Peace We do not now mark which they are but in the general we are persuaded that you have so great a Love to the Peace of the Church and for the Salvation of those People unto whom you still do that honour as to call them your Brethren that you will freely abandon something to facilitate their Return unto the Church provided that the Fundamentals of Religion may suffer no Wrong thereby The Aim of these Reflexions is to shew you that you are not in such Terms as that you cannot give a Relaxation in any thing for as much as that on the one side you are sufficiently convinced that divers Reformations might be granted unto us which would be very convenient for the Church and on the other side your Charity might very well extend it self so far as to leave some Practices of small importance to re-unite a divided Church and to join it together again in one and the same Place and Communion If you are resolved to release nothing and that you will make no Reformation it is in vain that you invite us to return unto the Roman Church While you do remain in the same Terms wherein you were before the Council of Trent we shall be forced to keep in the same Terms wherein we are at present otherwise we should condemn our former Conduct and impeach the Memory of our Fore-Fathers and that is a thing which we will never do We ought at least to have some pretext and that we may be able to say that the Gallican Church is not the same thing that it was when we did separate our selves from it and therefore that as we had then reason to depart from it so now we have reason to re-return unto it again Now when we do thus demand a Relaxation we are not so unreasonable as not to offer the like By the Establishment of our Maxim the Toleration ought to be mutual on both sides We are fully persuaded that our Doctrines are true and that our Worship is most pure but we do not believe that all the Truths which we defend are of an equal Importance We could tolerate some Errors opposite to some of our Truths waiting until God should be pleased to illuminate all of us We could well enough be assistent at a Worship which for the Ceremonies of it was different enough from our own provided that there be nothing therein contrary to that which doth make up the essential part of our Duties and of those Adorations which we do owe unto God So then in regard of a Re-union in this first Principle viz. that there ought to be a Relaxation on both sides for the mutual benefit of Peace there is nothing that is impossible Our second Principle is That when Men will endeavour a Re-union of two Religions by way of Accommodation and of mutual Relaxation neither of the Parties can honestly demand of the other any Relaxation in those things which his Opposite doth believe to be of the highest Importance and of sovereign necessity for the Salvation of Souls We have already proved this Maxim and though we had not done so yet it carries so great an Evidence along with it that it is proved by it self According to this Principle it would not be honest in you Sirs to demand that we should give our selves a Liberty for Example sake in the matter of Adoring the Sacrament of the Altar of the Invocation of Saints of the Adoration of Images and of many other such like things which we believe to be of the highest importance For

happy and which do dispose us unto a perfect beatitude it is enough therefore for us to ask them of him alone We ought not to pray unto the Saints according unto you Sirs with any other Spirit or Affection than that wherewith we desire the Faithful here upon the Earth to pray unto God for us and is that such a great Piece of Business to leave it when it proves to be such a Rock of Offence unto so many Millions of Souls which according to your supposition do destroy themselves in the Schism You do agree that a Man who doth content himself with the succours of his Brethren's Prayers alone who are here on Earth and who should continually himself pray unto God should yet nevertheless be in a very fair way for Heaven and should not fail of obtaining that which he did ask for We desire you also Sirs to consider that supposing that the Saints do know our Wants and do intercede for us that the Church would lose nothing by it though they were not invoked here upon Earth You are sufficiently persuaded that the Charity of those Glorious Souls is no way in the World dependent upon the Homages which are paid unto them here below they are jealous only for God they do not require of any body to build them Chapels and to pray unto them And if a Cessation were put unto that Invocation not out of any Contempt of them but for fear of exciting the Jealousie of God they would never be displeased with the Church for that Cause they would pray nevertheless for the Church in general and for the Necessities of every one of the Faithful in particular You do also know that though they should be supposed to be capable of Resentment for the abandoning of their Oratories and their Chapels yet they would still pray unto God in the behalf of those who did nothing for them So that the Church would lose no Succours by retrenching this Invocation and she would gain an infinite of Souls by the Bargain This Invocation of Saints is founded upon that which they call their Intercession You do agree in that Point Sirs that the Intercession of Jesus Christ is only sufficient for to save us that although all the Saints should be silent provided that our Redeemer did but set his Bloud a speaking for us that our Affairs would go on never the less prosperously for all that You do also grant Sirs that he who doth rely upon the Intercession of Jesus Christ alone doth not do amiss What prejudice therefore could it be to the Church to lay aside the Intercession of the Saints If we should leave it out of a Principle of Scruple and of Fear to offend Jesus Christ we should not yet for all that lose it in case that there be any reality in such Intercession for as we have lately represented unto you you are sufficiently persuaded that the Saints if they know our Wants do pray for the Conversion of the Ungodly who do never at all invoke them as well as for the Perseverance of the Faithful who do Unto these Considerations we may subjoin another thing Sirs which you do very well know and which without making any Mystery of it you do openly avouch namely that this Invocation of the Saints is very subject unto great Abuses and that a great number of them are already crept thereinto The wisest Persons of your Body do publickly complain of those Abuses and do reprove them they do approve of The wholsome Advices of the Virgin unto her indiscreet Votaries The Defence of the Bishop of Tournal for those wholsome Advices The Catechism of the three Bishops of Anger 's of Rochel and of Luzon wherein there is an entire Lesson concerning the Abuses which ought to be avoided in the Invocation of Saints and in the Devotion of the holy Virgin That Lesson begins thus Is there no Abuse to be avoided in the Invocation of the Saints And the Catechumenos is made to answer Yes there are many of them which are but too too common among ill-instructed People You know Sirs that it is impossible in this Case to weed out the Abuse without extirpating the Thing which is abused for the People are not capable in religious Service to discern and separate the Bounds which distinguish the Honour which is due unto none but God alone from that which may be render'd unto the Saints We dare boldly say it is impossible but that they should be deceived herein by their Ignorance and by those Inclinations they have unto Superstition Whereupon I beseech you Sirs to consider that the Worshipping of Saints on the one hand being not absolutely necessary to the Perfection of the Christian Religion and on the other hand being subject unto so many Abuses it would become your Piety and your Charity to retrench a thing the privation of which would bring no prejudice to the Church and the removing whereof would restore her so many Souls which according unto you are wander'd from her Folds To conclude You are all of you fully persuaded that the Divine Service would be never the less pure though none but God alone should be invoked and therefore you are also persuaded that God and his Glory would suffer no prejudice by such Retrenchment The same things we say concerning Images and the Worship of them That kind of Worship will everlastingly beget an Horrour in the Protestants they believe that the Law of God doth forbid it they are persuaded that it is a pure piece of Paganism which the Devil hath brought into the Church they cannot beat it out of their Thoughts but that this Worship is an invincible Obstacle unto the Conversion of the Jews and Mahometans Suppose if you will that all this is but Pre-occupation yet however it is such a Pre-occupation as they can never recover from But on the contrary Sirs you are fully persuaded in the first place that Images are not essential unto the Christian Religion and that one may pass very well without them Secondly That the Church Apostolical was well enough contented without Images You will say that that was for fear lest it might prove a Snare unto the ill-instructed Pagans whom they desired to withdraw from the Worship of Idols But let that be how it will it doth thereby appear that one may be a very good Christian without prostrating himself before Images The most Learned and the most sincere among you do also agree that the Church was without Images for more than three hundred Years which doth still make it evident that even according unto you Images are not necessary Finally You do agree that the Abuse of that Worship is possible frequent great and dangerous Moreover it is impossible for the Simple to form unto themselves distinct Ideas of relative Worship and of absolute You cannot be ignorant how many thousands of People are mistaken therein and that a Peasant doth prostrate himself before an Image with more