Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	disease_n	part_n	symptom_n	1,651	5	11.2411	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85082	Sir Lucius Cary, late Lord Viscount of Falkland, his discourse of infallibility, with an answer to it: and his Lordships reply. Never before published. Together with Mr. Walter Mountague's letter concerning the changing his religion. / Answered by my Lord of Falkland.	Falkland, Lucius Cary, Viscount, 1610?-1643.; Falkland, Lucius Cary, Viscount, 1610?-1643.; White, Thomas, 1593-1676.; Montagu, Walter, 1603?-1677.; Triplett, Thomas, 1602 or 3-1670.	1651 (1651)	Wing F317; Thomason E634_1; ESTC R4128	179,640	346

presently followed an unknowen Libertinage men yeilding themselves over to all concupiscence since they were perswaded they had no power to resist free-will being denyed I need not instance in prayer to Saints worshiping Images prayer for the dead and the like which is evident could not be changed without an apparent change in Christian Churches So that a doctrine contrary to faith is like a disease which although the cause be internall yet cannot the effects and symptomes be kept from the outward parts and view of the world The consequence which this note draweth is that it is not possible that any materiall point of Christian faith can be changed as it were by obreption whilst men are on sleepe but it must needs raise a great scandall and tumult in the Christian Common-weale For suppose the Apostles had taught the world it were Idolatry to pray to Saints or use reverence towards their Pictures How can we imagine this honour brought in without a vehement conflict and tumult in a people which did so greatly abhor Idolatry as the Apostles Disciples did I might make the like instance in other points if the whole History of the Church did not consist of the invasions made by Heretiques and the great and most violent waving of the Church to and fro upon those occasions We remember in a manner as yet how change came into Germany France Scotland and our own Country Let those be a signe to us what we may thinke can be the creeping in of false doctrine specially that there is no point of doctrine contrary to the Catholique Church rooted in any Christian Nation that the Ecclesiasticall History does not mention the times and combats by which it entred and tore the Church in peices Let it therefore remaine for most evidently constant that into the Christian Church can come no error but it must be seen and noted and raise scandall and opposition to shew it selfe as truly it is contrary to the nature of Piety and Religion And when it does come it cannot draw after it any others then such as first desert the root of Faith and Anchor of Salvation that is to be judged by what their fore-fathers taught them and affirmed to have received from their Ancestors as the Faith which Christ and his Apostles delivered to the whole world of their time and to such as ever claime and maintaine the right of succession as rule of what they beleeve Yet may this also be worthy of consideration that as in our naturall body the principall parts are defended by Bones Flesh Skinnes and such like defences in such sort that no outward Agent can come to offend them before having annoyed some of these so in the Catholique faith there are in speculation those we call Theologicall conclusions and other pious opinions and in practise many Rites and Ceremonies which stop the passage unto the maine principall parts of Christian beleife and action And about these we see daily such great motions in the Catholique Church that he must be very ignorant of the Spirit of God which quickneth his Church that can imagine any vitall part of his faith can be wounded while it lyes asleep and is insensible of the harm befalleth it for as in any Science a principle cannot be mistaken but it must needs draw a great shoale of false consequence upon it and lame the whole Science so never so little an error in faith can be admitted but in other Tenets and Ceremonies it must needs make a great change and innovation CHAP. IV. NOw let any discreet man consider what further evidence he can desire or peradventure what greater assurance nature can afford and not be of an awkward wilfulnesse to aske that which is not conformable to the lawes of nature Much like unto him who being sate in a chaire far from the chimney could not think of applying himselfe to the fire but was angry the fire and chimney were made so far from him The Phylosophers say it is indisciplinati ingenii to expect in any Art or Science more exactnesse then the nature of it affordeth As if a man would bind a Seaman to goe so far every day whether wind and weather served or no So in morall matters and such as are subject to humane action we must expect such assurance as humane actions beare If for the government of your spirituall life you have as much as for the managing of your naturall and civill life what can you expect more Two or three witnesses of men beyond exception will cast a man out of not onely his lands but life and all He that amongst Merchants will not adventure when there is a hundred to one of gaining well will be accompted a silly Factor And amongst Souldiers he that will feare danger where but one of a hundred is slaine shall not escape the stain of Cowardise What then shall we expect in Religion but to see a maine advantage on the one side we may cast our selves on and for the rest remem ber we are men creatures subject to chance and mutability and thank God he hath given us that assurance in a supernaturall way which we are content withall in our naturall and civill ventures and possessions which neverthelesse God knoweth we often love better and would lesse hazard then the unknowne good of the life to come Yet peradventure God hath provided better for his Church then for Nature since he loved her more and in his own Person did more for her Let us therefore examine the assurance he hath left her particularly It was found in the second Chapter upon this principle that so great a multitude of men as cleave to this ground to have received their faith by tradition could not conspire by lying to deceive their posterity And if I be not deceived this principle being granted the conclusion that this present Church is the true followeth in as severe a way of discourse as in Aristotles Organ is taught and exemplified in Mathematicall Writers whose use and art it is to put the like suppositions whence to enduce something out against their principle As in the said Chapter you are bidden to put what yeare or age such an error entred and it is evidently true that if it be true then that yeare or age conspired to tell a lye to deceive their posterity And as for the strength of their principle it selfe although no morall man can be so absurd as to doubt of it yet may we consider that the understanding being the part which maketh man to be a man and truth being the perfection of our understanding and true speech the effect naturall to true knowledge or understanding It is cleare that to speak truth is as naturall a fruit of mans nature as Peares of a Peare tree Grapes of a Vine Hony of the Bee and that it can be no lesse grafted in nature for men to speak truly then it is in any other naturall cause to yeeld the fruit for whose sake

claime succession and to have received it from hand to hand the other the glory of great learning and to have come by great industry to discover the errors of their forefathers But it is evident that if what the Apostles preached be the touchstone of what is true and what they preached to be seen in what those beleeve who have heard them and they who received it from them that heard them It is most evident I say that the one part who seek for Christian truth in learned discourse must needs forgoe the most certain and easie way of attaining unto what they aime at And likewise evident that who keep themselves duly and carefully unto this principle cannot possibly in any continuance of time swerve from the truth which Christ hath left unto his Church So that the whole difficulty is reduced unto this whether the Church for so many ages be perpetually preserved in this principle that what she received from her forefathers is that she must beleive and deliver unto her posterity A thing so grafted in nature which maketh us receive our being our breeding our learning our goods our estates our arts and all things we have from our fathers that it is a wonder of our mutability that without forcible Engines we can be drawn from it CHAP. II. NOw let us turn our discourse and as we have seen that if our Saviour ordred his Apostles in the manner explicated there was no way for his Church to swerve from his truth but by swerving from the most plain the most naturall and most evident and concluding rule of his doctrine and that but one and most easie so let us see whether from the present Church we can draw the like forcible train which may lead us up to Christ and his Apostles Be therefore supposed or imagined what no judicious man can deny to see with his eyes if he hath never so little cast them upon this present religion of Christendome to wit that there is one Congregation or Church which layeth claime to Christ his doctrine as upon this title that she hath received it from his Apostles without interruption delivered ever from Father to Sonne from Master to Scholler from time to time from hand to hand even unto this day and that she does not admit any other doctrine for good and legitimate which she does not receive in this manner Againe that whosoever pretendeth Christ his truth against her saith that true it is that once she had the true way but that by length of time she is fallen into grosse errours which they will reforme not by any truth they have received from hand to hand from those who by both parts are acknowledged to have received their lesson from Christ and his Apostles but by study and learned Arguments either out of ancient Writers or out of the secrets of nature and reason This being supposed either this principle hath remained unto her since the beginning or she took it up in some one age of the 16 she hath endured if she took it up in some latter age she then thought she had nothing in her what she had not received from her fore fathers in this sort And if she thought so she knew it For as it is impossible now any country should think it was generally taught such a thing if it were not so so also was there the like necessity and impossibility to be otherwise if all men were not runne mad Therefore clear it is she took it not up first then but was in former possession and so clear it is that she could not have it now if she had it not from the very beginning Now if she had it and hath conserved it from the beginning no new opinion could take root in her unlesse it came unto her under this Maxime as received from hand to hand and to say that any opinion which was not truly received from hand to hand should by such a community be accepted as received from hand to hand is to make it beleeve what it seeth clearly to be false to lye unto it's own soule against it's own soule and the soule of it's posterity Let us adde to this that the multitude of this Church is so dispersed through so many Countries and languages of so divers governments that it is totally impossible they should agree together or meet upon a false determination to affirme with one consent a falsity for truth no interest being able to be common unto them all to produce such an effect Wherefore as an understanding man cannot chuse but laugh at the self-weening Hampshire Clown who thinks in his heart there was no such Country as France and that all that was told of it were but Travellers tales because himselfe being upon the Sea shore had seen nothing but water beyond England so I think no wise man will accompt him lesse then phrentick that understandeth so little in humane wayes as to think whole Nations by designe or by hazard can agree together to professe and protest a thing which they know of their own knowledge to be a meer lye and a well known falshood to themselves and all their neighbours CHAP. III. THe force of the declared linke of succession is so manifest to a capable understanding that being compared with any objection made against it it will of it selfe maintain it's evidence and bear down the greatest oppositors and opposition if the understanding be left unto it selfe and not wrested by the prejudice of a some wayes interessed will Neverthelesse there is a deeper root which greatly strengthens and reduceth into action the former efficacity of the tradition And this is that Christian doctrine is not a speculative knowledge instituted for delight of man to entertain his understanding and hath no further end then the delectation which ariseth out of contemplation but it is an art of living a rule of attaining unto eternall blisse a practicall doctrine whose end is to informe our action that our life and actions squared by her directions may lead us to that great good the which God Almighty esteemed so highly of that he thought it reason enough for himto shade his Divinity under the misery of man to make us partakers of so great a blisse Hence it followeth that no error can fall even in a point which seemeth wholly speculative in Christian faith but soone it breedeth a practicall effect or rather defection in Christian behaviour What could seem more speculative then whether the second or third Persons of the Trinity were truly or participately God Yet no sooner was an error broached in these questions but there followed a great alteration in Christian action in their Baptismes in their manner of Prayer in the motives of Love and Charity toward Almighty God the very ground-work and foundation of all Christian life Whether man hath free-will or no seemeth a question belonging to the nature of man fit for a curious Phylosopher but upon the preaching of the negative part