Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	court_n	justice_n	law_n	3,065	5	4.7299	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48723	The churches peace asserted upon a civil account as it was (great part of it) deliver'd in a sermon before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor in Guild-Hall-Chappel July 4 / by Ad. Littleton, presbyter.	Littleton, Adam, 1627-1694.	1669 (1669)	Wing L2560; ESTC R37938	36,810	50

been inlightned since and changed their mind they must know too that that power which gives men in publick place leave to act may upon publick inconvenience suspend their acting and if then they do act 't is an unjustifiable disobedience Nor is it with them as it was with Saint Paul Wo be unto me if I preach not the Gospel he had another kind of Call but for these there 's a Wo belongs to them if they do 'T is otherwise too now the Church is setled under Christian Magistrates and govern'd by Christian Laws then at that time when it was to be planted under the Government of Heathen Emperours The Church now with all her subordinations and dependencies in all her jurisdictions and powers owns the King her Supreme She challenges nothing to her self but what the favour of her Prince and the Laws of the land have allow'd her Thus Bishops as to the execution of their Office are sent by the King as Supreme and act in their Courts by the Kings power as Civil Courts do the King deputing Arch-Bishops and Bishops to be Judges under him in causes Spiritual and in his name to govern the Ecclesiastical State as he makes Lord Keepers Chief Iustices and other Iudges of the Land For had the Church any power in it self in Civil affairs besides what the Laws give her I dare say there 's ne're a Bishop in England but would speedily redress those scandals and grievances possibly brought into their Courts by Lay-Officers which people so much clamour against But now what can they do they are ty'd up by Law All of us that are of the Clergy own the Civil Power pay the same obedience to the Laws as any of you do and in First-fruits Tenths and Subsidies make as chargable acknowledgments as any of the populacy I know 't is said though what need of such a pompous costly Religion of a Church with so great an allowance of means This ample Revenue exhausts and weakens the State smaller stipends would serve turn very well But can any one with any shew of ingenuity fairly reason against the encouragements of Learning and the rewards of desert Let it be consider'd that several of this Order had they gone another way might with submission I speak it have sate in your Seats and been clad with your Purple After all our pains and time and strength and charges too spent in studies do not think that what the Law allows us we have by doing nothing for it These things are propos'd publickly as the Acquists of Industry and may be got and injoy'd as legally as any of your Estates And is it not fit do you think a National Church wherein the honour and reputation of Religion is to be kept up should be secur'd from poverty and that contempt which always accompanies meanness It were to be wish'd that as Kings are to be the Nursing Fathers of the Church so Princes and the Sons of Nobles would fit themselves for her dignities that they might bear up the honour of Religion with their personal attendence It has been so heretofore when the two great Offices were united in the same person Melchisedek King of Salem and Priest of the living God and they were kept pretty near in the persons of Moses and Aaron brethren and the Priest elder brother to the Prince And hence the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kohen whence we have King signifies indifferently Prince and Priest whereupon the Apostle Rom. 13. calls the King in Ecclesiastical terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods Minister say we for both 't is Gods Liturgie-maker and Gods Deacon to shew too that a Christian Magistrate as such has power to order religious affairs in the Service of God This I say has been and 't were well if it could be so with us however must the Church alone be held up by a precarious dependence Is it not this that makes Religion a Prostitute to the humors of the people when men of mean spirits and parts shall out of fear comply for a paltry livelihood to preach things that may please and others of ambitious minds and voluble tongues to serve an interest shall lead the people to their own hurt But some will say what would you have men do that are not otherwise considered since there is that unequal distribution of Church-favours that some go away with all and others get little or nothing Judge in your own case whether this be a reasonable ground of quarrel Shall the inequality of Estates amongst you make the meaner Citizens quarrel the Government of the City because they have not all the wealth of Aldermen Shall I or any of my brethren and companions because we have not that place and esteem in the Church as we out of the pride of our own hearts may think we deserve go in a sullen arrogance and set up for our selves in a distinct interest from the Church and flye in the face of our Mother and put undutiful affronts upon her for not being so kind as we would have her No. Gen. 49. 6. O my soul come not thou into such mens secret unto their private assemblies mine honour be not thou united Let them for me be divided in Iacob and scattered in Israel that in their anger and self-will practise such things To go on I know it has been seriously discoursed and p●inted too that the largeness of the Church-revenue in any Nation impoverishes the State sets the people behind-hand and puts them out of a thriving condition and no less then demonstration offered that if it were retrenched Trade would flourish Manufactures and growths receive wonderful improvements and the people generally grow rich apace But to Answer that Author those Common-wealths he speaks of and ours are not alike in the constitution and nature of the Government and God forbid they ever should But it may be ones wonder why our people cannot now with much more case make those improvements since the Church keeps little in her own hands and for the most part lets easie penny-worths nor can it be any reason that the Church drains the peoples money since if the Church had not what she has some body else would in the Churches right nor would the people be much the better How our Neighbour-States order their Church affairs I suppose ought to be no precedent of Policy to us though they to keep up a National Religion by which those they admit into publick trust are brought to test and for the securing publick peace amidst the differences of Religion maintain a standing Army Further why our dissenters should not upon their own bottoms be comprehended within the legal settlement of the Church they themselves give a very just occasion for the very best Party amongst them have such Principles of Policy and Government as are utterly inconsistent and incompatible not only with any other Form but with Monarchy it self as hath been clearly evidenced

where there is no express command of God against them though there be no express command for them we are to comply with publick order and decent custom If they would but do thus ingenuously there would be some likelihood of Peace But they would have the Church submit to them and then all should be well Which of them for they cannot all be comply'd with that 's impossible for to take in one and leave out another will be the ground of further discontents and to gather all at a cast into the comprehension would possibly be to please none of them at least to displease the better half If they would but once agree among themselves and say what they would have they would then have some fair pretence to be consider'd But here 's the misery on 't 't is very hard for them themselves to define what will satisfie Conscience because that being not engag'd upon certain Rules may to morrow judge that necessary the necessity whereof to day it doth not fore-see and if any mens Consciences are to be satisfied thus at random the Church will never know when it has done but be still to seek upon new emergencies Whereas would they come to some certainty of demands wherein the whole party in all its subdivisions would agree they might the better be treated with there would be some hope in time of a good understanding But if their meaning is to be left to such a latitude to do whatsoever they shall upon occasion find agreeable to their Conscience i.e. possibly sometimes to their interest or humour to do there 's no body so void of reason but must needs see of how dangerous a consequence it is to any Government to leave any sort of men whatsoever their Principles be be they never so honest to such a Liberty And such a Liberty if they had it would be so far from composing differences that those everlasting quarrels and irreconcileable animosities they have purely out of Conscience taken up one against another which are now partly in kindness to the common cause they are engag'd in for the reputation of Schism and partly for fear of the Laws smother'd and kept in would then instantly break out with violence into open flames whilst some sticking rigidly to those measures they have already attain'd and comparing themselves with themselves severely censure those that upon pretence of greater light and more plentiful effusions of the Spirit walk beyond their line and rule And those on the other hand priding themselves in their Spiritual Priviledges and the purity of Ordinances despise their Brethren as carnal and narrow-spirited men that still keep close to outward forms and walk according to the flesh and the will of man in the beggerly rudiments of the world Thus you see if we do not come to an agreement as I do not see how we ever shall unless authority interpose in the exercise of Religion the hearts of English-men are never like to be united either in brotherly love to one another or in common affection to our Countrey but that the awe and union of Religion being lost the hazard of the Churches Peace threatens disturbances also to the Civil State which is our third and last Argument Taken from the particular constitution of our Government wherein the Civil and Ecclesiastick State are so nearly united that like Hippocrates twins they are both well or ill together and run the same hazard of health and must take share of the same fortune so that who wishes well to the Government to the concerns of our Brethren and Companions must by unavoidable consequence favour the prosperity of the Church To prove this I shall not pretend to the Law though however unkind Lawyers may be to the Churches interest in its Iurisdiction there 's enough in the Law it self to this purpose nor shall I quote King Iames his Apophthegm though he must be acknowledg'd a wise man and one that well understood the nature of Government nor shall I tell you out of our own Stories that men of this Robe have usually undergone the greatest Offices of State and publick imployments which 't is very uncharitable wholly to impute to Church-mens ambition and to allow nothing of merit in the case upon which those preferments and publick trusts were grounded nor what great benefactures some of them left behind them to Community from those secular advantages they were assisted with nor yet shall I insist upon our own experience an irrefragable proof in the late times when the design seemed levell'd only at the Hierarchy but was carried on to the ruine of Monarchy it self and the overthrow of Prelacy was so zealously prosecuted that they brought all Orders into confusion and Mar-prelate proved the Mar-all of the Nation And if we did not buy wit then at a rate dear enough we may if we please make farther tryal to our greater cost I shall only make a general Propose That Magistracy and Ministry are the two Pillars and supports of Society there 's no body I think will deny and if either of these Pillars fail the whole Structure is in danger of falling nor can publick order be secur'd unless the two Swords the Sword of Iustice and th● Sword of the Spirit assist each the other in the administration of affairs and in the execution of their several off●●s Now for any man to take upon him to be a Minister or if he be one to exercise that Function without the approbation and against the plain sense of the Law is as irrational and irregular a misdemeanour and must needs be of as dangerous a consequence to the publick as for any man to create himself a Magistrate or to execute the office of a Magistrate without Law I say for one that has no Commission or has been put out of the Commission of Peace to act notwithstanding as a Iustice let him be as wise and as honest a man as he will is sure a high crime I know not how the Law may call it And it is the very same or worse in the Ministry because this office has a more immediate influence on the Consciences of men the most busie and sturdy principle in humane Nature 'T is confest on all hands that a man cannot exercise the office of a Minister without a Call Let me ask then whether theirs be an ordinary or extraordinary Call If extraordinary by the way 't is Enthusiasm to say so let them make it appear by Miracles and Languages If Ordinary certainly they knew afore-hand before they came into Orders for to such I speak what the legal constitution requires of them is their Canonical Obedience if they did know this and yet came with a resolution to disobey this is manifest prevarication if they did not know and their ignorance betray'd them into a snare the men are to be pitied but their ignorance is by no means to be excused if they knew it before and were then satisfied but have