Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	ecclesiastical_a	jurisdiction_n	king_n	2,975	5	4.2912	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50367	A true copy of a letter written by N. Machiavill in defence of himself and his religion translated from an original copy.	Neville, Henry, 1620-1694.; Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527. Works. English. 1675.	1691 (1691)	Wing M141; ESTC R4918	22,326	35

Iews into Superstition Formality and Hypocrisie to die for the Salvation of Mankind and in fine to give to us the Holy Spirit and to regenerate our Hearts support our Faith and lead us into all Truth Now if it shall appear that as the lusts of our first Parents did at that time disappoint the good intention of God in making a pure World and brought in by their disobedience the Corruptions that are now in it so that since likewise the Bishops of Rome by their insatiable Ambition and Avarice have designedly as much as in them lies frustrated the merciful purpose he had in the happy restoration he intended the World by his Son and in the renewing and reforming of Humane Nature and have wholly defac'd and spoil'd Christian Religion and made it a Worldly and a Heathenish thing and altogether uncapable as it is practised amongst them either of directing the ways of its Professors to Vertue and good Life or of saving their Souls hereafter If I say this do appear I know no reason why I for detecting thus much and for giving warning to the World to take heed of their ways should be accused of Impiety or Atheism or why his Holiness should be so enraged against the poor Inhabitants of the Vallies in Savoy and against the Albigesi for calling him Antichrist But to find that this is an undoubted Truth I mean that the Popes have corrupted Christian Religion we need but read the New Testament acknowledged by themselves to be of Infallible Truth and there we shall see that the Faith and Religion Preacht by Christ and settled afterwards by his Apostles and Cultivated by their Sacred Epistles is so different a thing from the Christianity that is now Profest and Taught at Rome that we should be convinc'd that if those Holy Men should be sent by God again into the World they would take more pains to confute this Gallimaufry than ever they did to preach down the Traditions of the Pharisees or the Fables and Idolatries of the Gentiles and would in probability suffer a new Martyrdom in that City under the Vicar of Christ for the same Doctrine which once animated the Heathen Tyrants against them Nay we have something more to say against these Sacrilegious Pretenders to God's Power for whereas all other false Worships have been set up by some Politick Legislators for the Support and Preservation of Government this false this spurious Religion brought in upon the ruines of Christianity by the Popes has deform'd the face of Government in Europe destroying all the good Principles and Morality left us by the Heathens themselves and introduced instead thereof Sordid Cowardly and Impolitick Notions whereby they have subjected Mankind and even great Princes and States to their own Empire and never suffer'd any Orders or Maximes to take place where they have power that might make a Nation Wise Honest Great or Wealthy This I have set down so plainly in those Passages of my Book which are complain'd of that I shall say nothing at all for the Proof of it in this place but referr you thither and come to speak a little more particularly of my first assertion That the Pope and his Clergy have depraved Christian Religion Upon this Subject I could infinitely wish now Letters begin to revive again that some Learned Pen would employ it self and that some Person verst in the Cronology of the Church as they call it would deduce out of the Ecclesiastical Writers the time and manner how these Abuses crept in and by what Arts and Steps this Babel that reaches at Heaven was built by these Sons of the Earth But this matter as unsuitable to the brevity of a Letter and indeed more to my small Parts and Learning I shall not pretend to being one who never hitherto studied or writ of Theology further than it did naturally concern the Politicks therefore I shall only deal by the New Testament as I have done formerly by Titus Livius that is make Observations or Reflections upon it and leave you Messieur Giulio and the rest of our Society to make the judgment not citing like Preachers the Chapter or Verse because the reading of Holy Scripture is little us'd and indeed hardly permitted amongst us To begin at the top I would have any reasonable Man tell me whence this unmeasurable Power long claim'd and now possest by the Bishop of Rome is derived first of being Christ's Vicar and by that as I may so say pretending to a Monopoly of the Holy Spirit which was promised and given to the whole Church that is to the Elect or Saints as is plain by a Clause in St. Peter's Sermon made the very same time that the miraculous Gifts of the Spirit of God were first given to the Apostles who says to the Iews and Gentiles Repent and be Baptised every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ for the Remission of Sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for this Promise is to you and to your Children and to all that are afar off even as many as the Lord our God shall call Next to judge infallibly of Divine Truth and to forgive Sins as Christ did Then to be the Head of all Ecclesiastical Persons and Causes in the World to be so far above Kings and Princes as to Judge Depose and Deprive them and to have an absolute Jurisdiction over all the Affairs in Christendom in Ordine ad Spiritualia yet all this the Canonists allow him and he makes no scruple to assume whilst it is plain that in the whole New Testament there is no description made of such an Officer to be at any time in the Church except it be in the Prophecy of the Apocalypse or in one of St. Paul's Epistles where he says Who is it that shall sit in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God Christ tells us his Kingdom is not of this World and if any will be the greatest amongst his Disciples that he must be Servant to the rest which shews that his Followers were to be great in Sanctity and Humility and not in Worldly Power The Apostle Paul writing to the Christians of those times almost in every Epistle commands them to be obedient to the Higher Powers or Magistrates set over them and St. Peter himself from whom this extravagant Empire is pretended to be deriv'd in his first Epistle bids us submit our selves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake whether it be to the King or c. And this is enjoyn'd although it is plain that they who Govern'd the World in those days were both Heathens Tyrants and Usurpers and in this submission there is no Exception or Proviso for Ecclesiastical immunity The Practice as well as Precepts of these Holy Men shews plainly that they had no intention to leave Successors who should deprive Hereditary Princes from their right of Reigning for difference in Religion who without all doubt are by