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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	evil_a	good_a	see_v	2,875	5	3.5208	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62285	A serious inquiry into the means of an happy union, or, What reformation is necessary to prevent popery and to avert God's judgments from the nation written upon the occasion of the fast, and humbly offered to the consideration of the Parliament by William Saywell.	Saywell, William, 1643-1701.	1681 (1681)	Wing S805; ESTC R25119	28,144	52

evil learn to do well If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land but if ye refuse and rebell ye shall be devoured with the sword Is a. 1. CHAP. IX Comprehension the certain way to greater Division HAving seen the Causes of our Distractions we are to inquire after the means of an Happy Uninion which all ought to wish and pray for yet how to expect it I do not see but by requiring strict Conformity to the Religion of the Church of England as it is now established wherein ten thousand Clergy-men and most of the Nobility and Gentry are agreed For the Independents Anabaptists and Quakers desire no Union with us neither will their Principles admit any unless the Church will perfectly go over to them which can never be done As for the Presbyterians they never did nor never will like the Common Prayer as long as they can be flattered by Enthusiastick Preachers in Conventicles though they can and often do joyn with it after their careless manner So that all the Union that can be hoped for by changing of the present Laws of Subscription Declaration and the like will be to bring in forty or fifty of these Enthusiastick Preachers into the Church and then besides the Schisms without amongst the Fanaticks they will breed a Division also within the Church amongst those that will call themselves the Conformable Clergy for their Enthusiastical way will be onely admired by the Vulgar and all the sober judicious Divines will be slighted as unprofitable Preachers Besides having stood out twenty years in defiance of all Subscriptions and Declarations to testifie their Approbation of the Common Prayer and willingness to uphold the Government in Church and State as it is now established they will upon the taking away these Obligations not onely think themselves at liberty but bound in honour and duty to endeavour the extirpation of both at best will keep men up and further them in contempt of the publick Prayers and Orders of the Church and so spoil all serious Devotion That neglect and contempt they have brought already upon the publick Prayers and Sacraments has been no small profanation of Gods Name and the great ground of all other Profaneness so that if they gain this point to be taken into the Church upon their own terms after they have cast such contempt upon it they can readily then tell the people what good effect their resolution and clamours have had and encourage them to persist in their demands and there is no doubt but they shall be able to take the whole Constitution of the Church away And if they cannot effect that yet what a miserable case will it be when the publick Prayers and Sacraments Fasts and Feasts shall be thought by these that will call themselves the Godly Party the Misery and Grievance of the Nation Those that daily see and hear how Gods publick Worship is contemned by that Party cannot but with bleeding hearts and sorrowful groans lament for the sad condition of the Nation and fear greater evils yet from that they call Comprehension But these matters must be left to your Wisdom to consider of and in all former Ages it was the custom to advise with the Bishops and Clergy in their Synods about settling Religion Thus did the pious Roman Caesars in their times and our Kings and Parliaments hitherto and we cannot doubt the like from you who by fasting and prayer do seek to God for direction However this must never be forgotten when we endeavour after a Union we must not separate from the whole Church of God nor hope to keep out Popery by upholding Ignorance and Profaneness But if ever we expect Gods blessing and an Happy Union it must be by settling sound Religion and true Piety in the Nation for while Heresie and Schism Ignorance and Profaneness are suffered without controul we must look for Plots and Conspiracies Miseries and Confusions to attend us Having therefore shewed by plain matter of fact from the Confessions of Protestant Churches and also by the Tradition and Decrees of the Catholick Church that the Quakers and Anabaptists do teach manifest and condemned Heresie and that the Papists Presbyterians and Independents that keep Conventicles are undoubted Schismaticks and that Heresie and Schism are heinous offences in the sight of God the first step to publick Reformation and a Happy Union is effectually to take away all their Conventicles and at least make them all rest satisfied with a private Worship in their own Families And because under their shelter abundance of ignorant and profane persons have grown up amongst us at the same time the utmost endeavour must be used to compell all the ignorant sort at least to hear sober Instruction and by severe penalties to restrain Blasphemy Swearing Drunkenness Uncleanness and all manner of Vice and Wickedness And if these things be carefully provided against as far as is possible by publick Authority men that are not reformed by such means shall perish for their own sins but God will accept our humiliation and hearken unto our prayers and not onely deliver our Nation from the great danger of Popery but from all other publick evils and calamities But if Quakers and Anabaptists be still permitted to propagate their Heresies and Presbyterians and Independents to uphold their Schismatical Conventicles Papists will lurk among them Ignorance and Profaneness will more and more increase and so God will retain his displeasure and be more provoked against us and what can we expect then from an angry God and a sinful People but Popery Misery and Desolation POSTSCRIPT SInce the writing of these Papers the Reverend and Learned Dean of S. Pauls has published a great and elaborate Book where he does largly prove and further confirm what I could but briefly mention in this short Inquiry and in pag. 45. he says Pref. p. 45. My judgment being that a causless breaking the peace of the Church we live in is really as great and as dangerous a sin as Murder and in some respects aggravated beyond it And herein having the concurrence of the Divines of the greatest reputation both ancient and modern Would they have me represent that as no sin which I think to be so great a one or those as not guilty whom in my conscience I thought to be guilty of it Would they have had me suffered this sin to have lain upon them and not reproved it Would they have had me found all the soft and palliating considerations to have lessened their sense of it No I had seen too much of this already and a mighty prejudice done thereby to men otherwise scrupulous and conscientious that seem to have lost all sense of this sin And then after he had more seriously weighed and examined all their reasons to justifie themselves from this Guilt he concludes his Book thus Although I make no such Appeals to the Day of Judgment as others do yet I cannot but

themselves under the pretence of being Dissenters and the multitude of Divisions does make careless people believe there is no such thing as Religion at all which is too too evident by the prodigious growth of Atheism and Irreligion ever since these Divisions have been countenanced in 41 under the colour of being favourable to Tender Consciences and indulging to the weakness of Sober Protestants CHAP. III. HEresie and Schism being in themselves crying sins and the causes of Ignorance and Profaneness we must see in the next place upon whom the charge of these Crimes must be laid that so we may find out the true means to redress them And first because the word Protestant is so much used in the style of our times Anabaptists and Quakers Hereticks I will begin with the sense of the Protestant Churches abroad concerning some Heresies that are preached and openly maintained by many that are now called Sober Protestants And first I will begin with Baptism which is wholly laid aside by the Quakers and denied to all Infants as unnecessary by the Anabaptists contrary to the express Word of God John 3.5 that says Except any one be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God that is either re or voto when ordinary means are not to be had Hence the Augustan Confession of greatest account and most generally received in Protestant Churches beyond the Seas says cap. 9. Of Baptism they teach that it is necessary to Salvation as a Ceremony instituted by Christ and that the grace of God is offered by Baptism and that Infants are to be baptized and that Infants commended to God by Baptism are received into the favour of God and are made the Children of God as Christ does witness They do condemn the Anabaptists that reject Baptism of Infants and that do affirm that Infants may be saved without Baptism and out of the Church The French Confession Art 35. We acknowledge two Sacraments onely common to the whole Church of which the first is Baptism given us to testifie our Adoption because by it we are engrafted into the Body of Christ that being washed by his Bloud we may also be renewed unto holiness of life by his Spirit Besides though Baptism be a Sacrament of faith and repentance nevertheless since God does receive into his Church parents with their posterity we affirm that Infants that are born of holy parents are to be baptized by the authority of Christ Acts 22.16 Rom. 6.3 Matth. 3.11 Mark 16.16 Matth. 19. The Dutch Confession Art 34. We believe that every man that desires to attain eternal life ought to be baptized with the one Baptism that is once onely Neither doth this Baptism profit onely in that moment when the water remains upon us but throughout the whole time of our life Therefore we detest here the error of the Anabaptists who are not content with one onely Baptism once received but also condemn the Baptism of Infants that are born of faithful parents The Saxon Confession Art 14. The Son of God sitting at the right hand of his everlasting Father is so efficatious in him as S. Paul saith to the Galatians As many as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ And he affirms the Holy Ghost is given in Baptism when he saith in Titus By the laver of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost And in John 't is said Except any one be born again of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven We teach therefore that Baptism is necessary and we baptize none but once onely We retain the Baptism of Infants because it is certain the promise of grace does also pertain unto Infants and to them onely who are engrafted into the Church Now we have seen what is the sense of the Protestant Churches concerning these Anabaptists and Quakers that either wholly set aside Baptism as useless or not necessary or at all belonging to Infants let us inquire what was the Opinion of the Ancient and Catholick Church in this matter That the practice of baptizing Infants was universal throughout all Ages of the Church is clear from Tertullian S. Cyprian and Origen and all the Fathers in the following Ages And when Pelagius denied the Doctrine of Original Sin and the Necessity of Supernatural Grace in that sense which the Church had always received it he did also deny the Necessity of Baptism for Infants which opposition of his to the Catholick Truth caused several Councils to condemn his Heresies and was the occasion of S. Jeroms and S. Augustines and many other ancient Fathers Writings about this subject Hence we have the Decree of the Council Milevis confirmed in the 77th Canon of the African Codex It pleaseth us that whosoever he be that doth deny that little Children that are newly born from their Mothers womb ought to be baptized or saith that they are baptized for the remission of sins but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam that ought to be cleansed by the laver of regeneration From whence it does follow That the Form of Baptism for the remission of sins is not understood to be true but false and feigned let him be an Anathema because that cannot be understood which was spoken by the Apostle By one man sin came into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all forasmuch as all have sinned unless in that manner that it has been understood by the Catholick Church every where spread abroad throughout the world And because of this rule of faith even Infants who could commit no sins in their own persons are truly baptized for the remission of sins Vide epist Celest ad Episc Gall. that that may be cleansed through regeneration which they derived from their first generation Afterwards the Acts that were past in condemnation of this Doctrine of Pelagius were sent to the third General Council held at Ephesus and there confirmed by the universal Church Act 5. Relatio Conc. Eph. gen 3. ad Celest act 5. The Commentaries of the things that were decreed and constituted by your Piety in the deposition of the wicked Pelagians and Celestians of Celestius Pelagius Julianus Persidius Florus Marcellinus Orentius and of those that are of the same opinion with them being read in the Synod we have also judged that they ought to remain firm and valid and we decree the same thing with you and account them deposed And that you may be more certain of this we have sent you the Commentaries and the Subscriptions of the Synod It were easie to prove the same more largly throughout the Christian Church in all Ages ever since so that the Quakers and Anabaptists being Hereticks by the Word of God as it has been generally understood by Protestant Churches and the Church Universal before their time if they be openly tolerated to profess and propagate their Heresie it must needs bring down Gods