Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	effect_n	evil_a	good_a	4,841	5	4.5571	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43970	An answer to a book published by Dr. Bramhall, late bishop of Derry; called the Catching of the leviathan. Together with an historical narration concerning heresie, and the punishment thereof. By Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury	Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.	1682 (1682)	Wing H2211; ESTC R19913	73,412	166

THOMAS HOBBES OF MALMESBURY At veluti Pueri trepidant atque omnia caecis In tenebris metuunt Sic nos in luce timemus Interdum nihilo quae sunt metuenda magis quàm Quae Pueri in tenebris pavitant metuuntque futura Lucr. lib. 2.3 6. LONDON Printed in the Year 1682. Haerese●s Larvas Seclarum immania Monstra Hobbius invicto dispulit ingenio AN Historical Narration CONCERNING HERESIE AND THE Punishment thereof THE word Heresie is Greek and signifies a taking of any thing and particularly the taking of an Opinion After the study of Philosophy begun in Greece and the Philosophers disagreeing amongst themselves had started many Questions not only about things Natural but also Moral and Civil because every man took what Opinion he pleased each several Opinion was called a Heresie which signified no more than a private Opinion without reference to truth or falshood The beginners of these Heresies were chiefly Pythagoras Plato Aristotle Epicurus Zeno men who as they held many Errors so also found they out many true and useful Doctrines in all kinds of Learning and for that cause were well esteemed of by the greatest Personages of their own times and so also were some few of their Followers But the rest ignorant men and very often needy Knaves having learned by heart the Opinions of these admir'd Philosophers and pretending to take after them made use thereof to get their Living by the teaching of Rich mens Children that happened to be in love with those great Names Tho' by their impertinent Discourse sordid and ridiculous Manners they were generally despised of what Sect or Heresie soever whether they were Pythagoreans or Academicks Followers of Plato or Peripateticks Followers of Aristotle Epicureans or Stoicks Followers of Zeno For these were the names of Heresies or as the Latines call them Sects à sequendo so much talkt of from after the time of Alexander till this present day and that have perpetually troubled or deceived the people with whom they lived and were never more numerous than in the time of the Primitive Church The Heresie of Aristotle by the Revolutions of time has had the good fortune to be predominant over the rest However originally the name of Heresie was no disgrace nor the word Heretick at all in use Tho' the several Sects especially the Epicureans and the Stoicks hated one another and the Stoicks being the fiercer men used to revile those that differed from them with the most despightful words they could invent It cannot be doubted but that by the preaching of the Apostles and Disciples of Christ in Greece and other parts of the Roman Empire full of these Philosophers many thousands of men were converted to the Christian Faith some really and some feignedly for factious ends or for need for Christians lived then in common and were charitable and because most of these Philosophers had better skill in Disputing and Oratory than the Common people and thereby were better qualified both to defend and propagate the Gospel there is no doubt I say but most of the Pastors of the Primitive Church were for that reason chosen out of the number of these Philosophers who retaining still many Doctrines which they had taken up on the authority of their former Masters whom they had in reverence endeavoured many of them to draw the Scriptures every one to his own Heresie And thus at first entred Heresie into the Church of Christ Yet these men were all of them Christians as they were when they were first baptized Nor did they deny the Authority of those Writings which were left them by the Apostles and Evangelists tho' they interpreted them many times with a bias to their former Philosophy And this Dissention amongst themselves was a great scandal to the Unbelievers and which not only obstructed the way of the Gospel but also drew scorn and greater Persecution upon the Church For remedy whereof the chief Pastors of Churches did use at the rising of any new Opinion to assemble themselves for the examining and determining of the same wherein if the Author of the Opinion were convinced of his Error and subscribed to the Sentence of the Church assembled then all was well again but if he still persisted in it they laid him aside and considered him but as an Heathen man which to an unfeigned Christian was a great Ignominy and of force to make him consider better of his own Doctrine and sometimes brought him to the acknowledgment of the Truth But other punishment they could inflict none that being a right appropriated to the Civil Power So that all the punishment the Church could inflict was only Ignominy and that among the Faithful consisting in this that his company was by all the Godly avoided and he himself branded with the name of Heretick in opposition to the whole Church that condemned his Doctrine So that Catholick and Heretick were terms relative and here it was that Heretick became to be a Name and a name of Disgrace both together The first and most troublesome Heresies in the Primitive Church were about the Trinity For according to the usual curiosity of Natural Philosophers they could not abstain from disputing the very first Principles of Christianity into which they were baptized In the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Some there were that made them allegorical Others would make one Creator of Good and another of Evil which was in effect to set up two Gods one contrary to another supposing that causation of evil could not be attributed to God without Impiety From which Doctrine they are not far distant that now make the first cause of sinful actions to be every man as to his own sin Others there were that would have God to be a body with Parts organical as Face Hands Fore-parts and Back-parts Others that Christ had no real body but was a meer Phantasm For Phantasms were taken then and have been ever since by unlearned and superstitious men for things real and subsistent Others denyed the Divinity of Christ Others that Christ being God and Man was two Persons Others confest he was one Person and withal that he had but one Nature And a great many other Heresies arose from the too much adherence to the Philosophy of those times whereof some were supprest for a time by St. John's publishing his Gospel and some by their own unreasonableness vanished and some lasted till the time of Constantine the Great and after When Constantine the Great made so by the assistance and valour of the Christian Souldiers had attained to be the only Roman Emperor he also himself became a Christian and caused the Temples of the Heathen Gods to be demolished and authorized Christian Religion only to be publick But towards the latter end of his time there arose a Dispute in the City of Alexandria between Alexander the Bishop and Arius a Presbyter of the same City wherein Arius maintained first That Christ was inferiour to his

likewise Consubstantial in the Nicene Creed is properly said of the Trinity But to an English man that understands neither Greek nor Latin and yet is as much concerned as his Lordship was the word Hypostatical is no less Canting than Eternal now J. D. He alloweth every man who is commanded by his lawful Soveraign to deny Christ with his tongue before men T. H. I allow it in some Cases and to some men which his Lordship knew well enough but would not mention I alledged for it in the place cited both Reason and Scripture though his Lordship thought it not expedient to take notice of either If it be true that I have said why does he blame it If false why offers he no Argument against it neither from Scripture nor from Reason Or why does he not show that the Text I cite is non applicable to the Question or not well interpreted by me First He barely cites it because he thought the words would sound harshly and make a Reader admire them for Impiety But I hope I shall so well instruct my Reader are I leave this place that this his petty Art will have no effect Secondly The Cause why he omitted my Arguments was That he could not answer them Lastly The Cause why he urgeth neither Scripture nor Reason against it was That he saw none sufficient My Argument from Scripture was this Leviathan pag. 271. taken out of 2 Kings 5.17 where Naaman the Syrian saith to Elisha the Prophet Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice to other Gods but unto the Lord. In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant that when my Master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there and he leaneth on my hand and I bow my self in the house of Rimmon when I bow my self in the house of Rimmon the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing and he said unto him Go in peace What can be said to this Did not Elisha say it from God Or is not this Answer of the Prophet a permission When St. Paul and St. Peter commanded the Christians of their time to obey their Princes which then were Heathens and Enemies of Christ did they mean they should lose their Lives for disobedience Did they not rather mean they should preserve both their Lives and their Faith believing in Christ as they did by this denial of the tongue having no command to the contrary If in this Kingdom a Mahometan should be made by terror to deny Mahomet and go to Church with us would any man condemn this Mahometan A denyal with the mouth may perhaps be prejudicial to the power of the Church but to retain the Faith of Christ stedfastly in his Heart cannot be prejudicial to his Soul that hath undertaken no charge to preach to Wolves whom they know will destroy them About the time of the Council of Nice there was a Canon made which is extant in the History of the Nicene Council concerning those that being Christians had been seduced not terrified to a denyal of Christ and again repenting desired to be readmitted into the Church in which Canon it was ordain'd that those men should be no otherwise readmitted than to be in the number of the Catechised and not to be admitted to the Communion till a great many years penitence Surely the Church then would have been more merciful to them that did the same upon terror of present death and torments Let us now see what his Lordship might though but colourably have alledged from Scripture against it There be three places only that seem to favour his Lordship's opinion The first is where Peter denyed Christ and weepeth The second is Acts 5.29 Then Peter and the other Apostles answered and said we ought to obey God rather than men The third is Luke 12.9 But he that denyeth me shall be denyed before the Angels of God T. H. For answer to these Texts I must repeat what I have written and his Lordship read in my Leviathan pag. 362. For an unlearned man that is in the power of an Idolatrous King or State if commanded on pain of Death to worship before an Idol doing it he detesteth the Idol in his Heart he doth well though if he had the fortitude to suffer Death rather than worship it he should do better But if a Pastor who as Christ's Messenger has undertaken to teach Christ's Doctrine to all Nations should do the same it were not only a sinful Scandal in respect of other Christian Mens Consciences but a perfidious forsaking of his Charge In which words I distinguish between a Pastor and one of the Sheep of his Flock St. Peter sinned in denying Christ and so does every Pastor that having undertaken the Charge of Preaching the Gospel in the Kingdom of an Infidel where he could expect at the undertaking of his Charge no less than Death And why but because he violates his Trust in doing contrary to his Commission St. Peter was an Apostle of Christ and bound by his voluntary undertaking of that Office not only to Confess Christ but also to Preach him before those Infidels whom he knew would like Wolves devour him And therefore when Paul and the rest of the Apostles were forbidden to preach Christ they gave this Answer We ought to obey God rather than Men. And it was to his Disciples only which had undertaken that Office that Christ saith he that denyeth me before Men shall be denyed before the Angels of God And so I think I have sufficiently answered this place and shewed that I do not allow the denying of Christ upon any colour of Torments to his Lordship nor to any other that has undertaken the Office of a Preacher Which if he think right he will perhaps in this case put himself into the number of those whom he calls merciful Doctors whereas now he extends his severity beyond the bounds of common equity He has read Cicero and perhaps this Story in him The Senate of Rome would have sent Cicero to treat of Peace with Marcus Antonius but when Cicero had shewed them the just fear he had of being killed by him he was excused and if they had forced him to it and he by terror turned Enemy to them he had in equity been excusable But his Lordship I believe did write this more valiantly than he would have acted it J. D. He Deposeth Christ from his true Kingly Office making his Kingdom not to Commence or begin before the day of Judgment And the Regiment wherewith Christ Governeth his Faithful in this Life is not properly a Kingdom but a Pastoral Office or a right to Teach And a little after Christ had not Kingly Authority committed to him by his Father in this World but only Consiliary and Doctrinal T. H. How do I take away Christs Kingly Office He neither draws it by Consequence from my Words nor offers any Argument at all against my Doctrine The words he cites are in the Contents of