Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	sin_n	wage_n	2,391	5	11.9240	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A18610	The religion of protestants a safe vvay to salvation. Or An ansvver to a booke entitled Mercy and truth, or, charity maintain'd by Catholiques, which pretends to prove the contrary. By William Chillingworth Master of Arts of the University of Oxford	Chillingworth, William, 1602-1644.; Knott, Edward1582-1656. Mercy and truth. Part 1.	1638 (1638)	STC 5138; ESTC S107216	579,203	450

part therefore of this Doctrine is manifestly untrue The other not only false but impious for therein you plainly give us to understand that in your judgement a resolution to avoid sinne to the uttermost of our power is no necessary meanes of Salvation nay that a man may resolve not to doe so without any danger of damnation Therein you teach us that we are to doe more for the love of our selves and our own happinesse then for the love of God and in so doing contradict our Saviour who expresly commands us to love the Lord our God withall our heart withall our soule and withall our strength and hath taught us that the loue of God consists in avoiding sinne and keeping his commandements Therein you directly crosse S. Pauls doctrine who though he were a very probable Doctor and had delivered his judgement for the lawfulnesse of eating meats offered to Idols yet he assures us that he which should make scruple of doing so and forbear upon his scruple should not sinne but only be aweak brother whereas he who should doe it with a doubtfull conscience though the action were by S. Paul warranted lawfull yet should sinne and be condemn'd for so doing You pretend indeed to be rigid defenders and stout champions for the necessity of good workes but the truth is you speak lies in hypocrisy and when the matter is well examin'd will appear to make your selves and your own functions necessary but obedience to God unnecessary Which will appear to any man who considers what strict necessity the Scripture imposes upon all men of effectuall mortification of the habits of all vices and effectuall conversion to newnesse of life and universall obedience and withall remembers that an act of Attrition which you say with Priestly absolution is sufficient to salvation is not mortification which being a work of difficulty and time cannot be perform'd in an instant But for the present it appears sufficiently out of this impious assertion which makes it absolutely necessary for men either in Act if it be possible or if not in Desire to be Baptiz'd and Absolv'd by you and that with Intention and in the mean time warrants them that for avoding of sinne they may safely follow the uncertain guidance of a vain man who you cannot deny may either be deceiv'd himselfe or out of malice deceive them neglect the certain direction of God himselfe and their own consciences What wicked use is made of this Doctrine your own long experience can better informe you then it is possible for me to doe yet my own litle conversation with you affords one memorable example to this purpose For upon this ground I knew a young Scholar in Doway licenc'd by a great Casuist to swear a thing as upon his certain knowledge whereof he had yet no knowledge but only a great presumption because forsooth it was the opinion of one Doctor that he might doe so And upon the same ground whensoever you shall come to have a prevailing party in this Kingdome and power sufficient to restore your Religion you may doe it by deposing or killing the King by blowing up of Parliaments and by rooting out all others of a different faith from you Nay this you may doe though in your own opinion it be unlawfull because Bellarmine a man with you of approved vertue learning and judgement hath declared his opinion for the lawfulnesse of it in saying that want of power to maintaine a rebellion was the only reason that the Primitive Christians did not rebell against the persecuting Emperors By the same rule seeing the Priests and Scribes and Pharisees men of greatest repute among the Iewes for vertue learning and wisdome held it a lawfull and a pious work to persecute Christ and his Apostles it was lawfull for the people to follow their leaders for herein according to your Doctrine they proceeded prudently and according to the conduct of opinion maturely weighed and approved by men as it seem'd to them of vertue learning and wisdome nay by such as sate in Moses chaire and of whom it was said whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and doe which universall you pretend is to be understood universally and without any restriction or limitation And as lawfull was it for the Pagans to persecute the Primitive Christians because Truian Pliny men of great vertue and wisdome were of this opinion Lastly that most impious detestable Doctrine which by a foule calumny you impute to me who abhorre and detest it that men may be saved in any Religion followes from this ground unavoidably For certainly Religion is one of those things which is necessary only because it is commanded for if none were commanded under pain of damnation how could it be damnable to be of any Neither can it be damnable to be of a false Religion unlesse it be a sin to be so For neither are men saved by good luck but only by obedience neither are they damned for their ill fortune but for sin and disobedience Death is the wages of nothing but sin and S. Iames sure intended to deliver the adequate cause of sin and death in those words Lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Seeing therefore in such things according to your doctrine it is sufficient for avoiding of sin that we proceed prudently by the conduct of some probable opinion maturely weighed approv'd by men of learning vertue and wisdome and seeing neither Iews want their Gamaliels nor Pagans their Antoninus'es nor any sect of Christians such professors and maintainers of their severall sects as are esteem'd by the people which know no better and that very reasonably men of vertue learning and wisdome it followes evidently that the embracing their religion proceeds upon such reason as may warrant their action to bee prudent and this is sufficient for avoiding of sin and therefore certainly for avoiding damnation for that in humane affaires and discourse evidence and certainty cannot be alwaies expected I haue stood the longer upon the refutation of this doctrine not only because it is impious and because bad use is made of it and worse may be but only because the contrary position That men are bound for avoiding sin alwaies to take the safest way is a faire and sure foundation for a cleer confutation of the main conclusion which in this Chapter you labour in vain to prove and a certain proof that in regard of the precept of charity towards ones selfe and of obedience to God Papists unlesse ignorance excuse them are in state of sin as long as they remain in subjection to the Roman Church 9 For if the safer way for avoiding sin be also the safer way for avoiding damnation then certainly whether the way of Protestants must be more secure and the Roman way more dangerous take but into your consideration these ensuing controversies Whether it be lawfull to worship

answerable but already answered The memorandums I would commend to him are these 30 That not every separation but only a causelesse separation from the externall Communion of any Church is the Sinne of Schisme 31 That imposing upon men under pain of Excommunication a necessity of professing known errours and practising known corruptions is a sufficient and necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause which Protestants alleage to justifie their separation from the Church of Rome 32 That to leave the Church and to leave the externall Communion of a Church at least as D. Potter understands the words is not the same thing That being done by ceasing to be a member of it by ceasing to haue those requisites which constitute a man a member of it as faith and obedience This by refusing to communicate with any Church in her Liturgies and publike worship of God This little Armour if it be rightly placed I am perswaded will repell all those Batteries which you threaten shall be so furious 33 Ad § 13. 14. 15. The first is a sentence of S. Austine against Donatus applied to Luther thus If the Church perished what Church brought forth Donatus you say Luther If she could not perish what madnesse moved the sect of Donatus to separate upon pretence to avoid the Communion of bad men Whereunto one faire answer to let passe many others is obvious out of the second observation That this sentence though it were Gospell as it is not is impertinently applied to Luther and Lutherans Whose pretence of separation be it true or be it false was not as that of the Donatists only to avoid the Communion of bad men but to free themselves from a necessity which but by separating was unavoidable of joyning with bad men in their impieties And your not substituting Luther in stead of Donatus in the latter part of the Dilemma as well as in the former would make a suspicious man conjecture that you your selfe took notice of this exception of disparitie between Donatus and Luther 34 Ad § 16. Your second onset drives only at those Protestants who hold the true Church was invisible for many ages Which Doctrine if by the true Church be understood the pure Church as you doe understand it is a certain truth and it is easier for you to declaime as you doe then to dispute against it But these men you say must bee Heretiques because they separated from the Communion of the visible Church and therefore also from the Communion of that which they say was invisible In as much as the invisible Church communicated with the visible 35 Ans. I might very justly desire some proofe of that which so confidently you take for granted That there were no persecuted and oppressed maintainers of the Truth in the daies of our Fore-fathers but only such as dissembled their opinions lived in your Communion And truly if I should say there were many of this condition I suppose I could make my Affirmative much more probable then you can make your Negatiue We read in Scripture that Elias conceived There was none left besides himselfe in the whole kingdome of Israell who had not revolted from God and yet God himselfe assures us that he was deceived And if such a man a Prophet and one of the greatest erred in his judgement touching his own time and his own countrey why may not you who are certainly but a man and subject to the same passions as Elias was mistake in thinking that in former ages in some countrey or other there were not alwaies some good Christians which did not so much as externally bow their knees to your Baal But this answer I am content you shall take no notice of and thinke it sufficient to tell you that if it bee true that this supposed invisible Church did hypocritically communicate with the visible Church in her corruptions then Protestants had cause nay necessity to forsake their Communion also for otherwise they must haue joyn'd with thē in the practise of impieties and seeing they had such cause to separate they presume their separation cannot be schismaticall 36 Yes you reply to forsake the externall Communion of them with whom they agree in faith is the most formall proper sin of Schisme Ans. Very true but I would fain know wherein I would gladly be informed whether I bee bound for feare of Schisme to communicate with those that believe as I doe only in lawfull things or absolutely in every thing whether I am to joyn with them in superstition and Idolatry and not only in a common profession of the faith wherein we agree but in a common dissimulation or abjuration of it This is that which you would haue them do or else forsooth they must be Schismatiques But hereafter I pray remember that there is no necessity of communicating even with true Beleevers in wicked actions Nay that there is a necessity herein to separate from them And then I dare say even you being their judge the reasonablenesse of their cause to separate shall according to my first observation justifie their separation from being schismaticall 37 Arg But the property of Schisme according to D. Potter is to cut off from the hope of salvation the Church from which it separates And these Protestants haue this property Therefore they are Schismatiques 38 Ans. I deny the Syllogisme it is no better then this One Symptome of the Plague is a Feaver But such a man hath a Feaver Therefore he hath the Plague The true conclusiō which issues out of these Premisses should be this Therefore he hath one Symptome of the plague And so likewise in the former therefore they haue one property or one quality of Schismatiques And as in the former instance The man that hath one signe of the plague may by reason of the absence of other requisites not haue the plague So these Protestants may haue something of Schismatiques and yet not be Schismatiques A Tyrant sentencing a man to death for his pleasure and a just judge that condemnes a malefactor doe both sentence a man to death and so for the matter doe both the same thing yet the one does wickedly the other justly What 's the reason because the one hath cause the other hath not In like manner Schismatiques either alwaies or generally denounce damnation to them from whom they separate The same doe these Protestants yet are not Schismatiques The Reason because Schismatiques doe it and doe it without cause and Protestants haue cause for what they doe The impieties of your Church being generally speaking damnable unlesse where they are excus'd by ignorance and expiated at least by a generall repentance In fine though perhaps it may be true that all Schismatiques doe so yet universall affirmatiues are not converted and therefore it followes not by any good Logick that all that doe so when there is just cause for it must be Schismatiques The cause in this matter of separation is