Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A69024
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A replie to a relation, of the conference between William Laude and Mr. Fisher the Jesuite. By a witnesse of Jesus Christ
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Burton, Henry, 1578-1648.
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1640
(1640)
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STC 4154; ESTC S104828
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423,261
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458
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a shorter period of your life least promising to yourselfe and sleeping in the security of so many yeares more you should be suddainly taken napping as that rich man in the Gospell to whom it was said Thou foole this night shall they take away 〈◊〉 soule from thee And besides you are â—et in a slippery place 〈◊〉 you may fall into suddain destruction as in a moment as the Prophet saith So as there is lesse confidence to be put in that then in your Age. And therfore bethinke your selfe how suddain the time may be that you must goe and give account as you say to God and Christ of the Talent committed to your Charge which you cannot so easily answere before that Judge as you could doe in the Starre-Chamber And remember what you said to the Jesuite pag. 316. Our reckoning wil be heavier if we thus mislead on either side then theirs that follow us But I see I must looke to my selfe for you are secure And are not you full out as secure as the Jesuite But in that you pray that God for Christs sake would be mercifull to yo u. But is that enough to wipe off all old scores to say God be mercifull to me When the Course of a mans life hath been a very Enmity and Rebellion against Christ when he hath spent the Talent of his Strength and Wit Meanes and Friends to the dishonour of God in oppressing Christs word persecuting his Ministers and People profaning and polluting the service of God with humane Ordinances and will-worship forcing mens Consciences to conformity and the like doe you think to salve all with a Lord have mercy upon me Nay you seem to be in good earnest when you say and pray if God for Christs sake would be mercifull unto you But wherein or for what should God for Christs sake be mercifull unto you Which of your sins your scarlet sins your Episcopall sins doe you confesse to God and because publick unto the world that truly repenting of them God for Christs sake may be mercifull to you Doe you confesse and repent of your persecuting of Gods Ministers and People for their Conscience sake Nay you are so farre from this that you say God forbid not God forgive that I should perswade to persecution in any kind or practise it in the least So as you in all this persecute none no not you nor yet perswade others to it nor disswade neither And yet you still continue a persecutor as accounting it not a sin but a vertue not vicious but rather meritorious to root out the Puritans And what say you to your more then Barbarous shedding of the Innocent Blood of Gods servants and Christs witnesses mangling their Bodies and breaking them in pieces causelesly separating Man and Wife to satisfie your wicked malice and so to murther them with your intollerable oppressions Doe you crave mercy of God for this Or is your guilty Conscience still seared and stupified Is your heart still hardened Do you need no mercy for such cruell shedding of Innocent blood David confessed his blood-shed and found mercy But you continue your cruelty still in cold blood What Do you think that because Gods people are as sheep appointed for the slaughter and you the chiefe Butcher therfore you sin not in devouring and spoyling so many good Ministers with their Families and Flocks O stupid Conscience O desperate soule And so still desperately you goe on in justifying your selfe in all that you have done and calling God to be witnesse too saying Who knows that however in many weaknesses yet I have with a faithfull and single heart bound to his free Grace for it laboured the meeting the blessed meeting of Truth and Peace in his Church O shamelesse hypocrisie O blasphemous wretch Doth God know Is God the Author of all thy impiety iniquity cruelty craft hypocrisie and dissimulation of thy faithlesse and false heart in thy plotting to bring thy false Truth and thy turbulent Peace with the Whore of Babylon that notorious enemy of Christ and his true Spouse his Church to a meeting to a blessed yea to a cursed meeting O GOD thou searcher of all hearts behold this blaspemous Wretch calling thee for a witnesse of his notorious and perfidious false heart and ascribing it to thy free Grace as the moving and helping cause of all his impious practises O Lord Be not mercifull to any wicked Transgressor that dare thus desperately take thy sacred Name in vaine and make thy Grace the father of his gracelesse actions Seest thou not ô thou All-seeing and All-revenging GOD how this man hath been a prime Instrument of oppressing thy Word of forbidding it to be preached therein denying and destroying the Doctrine of thy free Grace which here he hypocritically nameth of persecuting thy faithfull Ministers and People even to root them out Of proclaming Libertinisme in the publicke profanation of thy Sabbaths and violation of thy holy Commandement Of setting up Idolatrous Altars to the denying of the Lord Iesus Christ our onely Altar whereon our Persons and sacrifices offered up unto thee are accepted of Thee Of bringing into thy worship sundry supersâ—tious Idolatrous Rites and Ceremonies in Adoration of Altars Names praying towards the East Of setting up Images and Crucifixes those Idols in the publick place of Worship Of putting down preaching of thy holy Word upon thy holy Sabbaths especially in the Afternoones when there is most need and people should be aptest and best at leasure generally to heare Of inlarging and making heavier the yoake of Bondage and Tyranny upon the necks of thy People in increasing of more Ceremonies to the intollerable vexation of thy Children and incrochment and usurpation upon Christs Kingdome and royall soverainty as sole King over his Church and Lord of the Consciences of his people Yea surely thou hast seen all these things for thou beholdest mischiefe and spight even to requite it with thy hand and therfore the poore committeth himselfe unto thee For thou art the helper of the fatherlesse Therfore arise ô Lord ô God Lift up thine hand forget not the humble Wherfore doth the wicked contemn thee ô God He hath said in his heart Thou wilt not require it But Lord break thou the arme of the wicked and the evil man seek out his wickednesse till thou find none For wherfore should the Heathen say where is their God O let our God be known among the Heathen in our fight by the revenging of the blood of thâ— servants which is shed And let the sighing of the Prisoners come before thee according to the greateesse of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to dye And render unto our Neighbours sevenfold into their bosome their reproach wherewith they have reproched thee ô Lord. So we thy People and Sheep of thy pastture will give thee thanks for ever we will shew forth thy praise to all Generations Now to return to you againe
the Scripture doth suo jure vindicare challenge as her own right and which no man can take from her And if Theologie must borrow or begge this principle Of whom Of the Tradition of the Church Beware of that For then the Borrower should be servant to be Lender as Solomon saith And to Begge it were worse But if Theologie have this principle of her owne and it in the Scriptures possession what need she goe either to begge or borrow it and that of those who can neither give or lend it And if this be a Principle that Scripture 〈◊〉 the word of God What use of your Church Tradition For Principles are not to be denied But you denying that this can be beleeved without the Tradition of the present Church doe first induce unto it then you are one of those that deny Principles And Contra negantem Principia non est disputandum we are not to dispute against him that denyeth Principles but in this case to hold him as an Heretick and to deale with him as the Apostle admonisheth A man that is an Hereticke after the first and second Admonition reject knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being a'utokatákritos selfe-condemned L. p. 105. The evidence of supernaturall Truths which Divinity teaches appeares not so manifest as that of the Naturall though in themselves more sure and infallible P. Appeares not true indeed to a naturall man Here you speake by experience But to the spirituall man this evidence appeares very clearely for as the Apostle saith The Naturall man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishnesse unto him Neither can â—e know them because they are spiritually discerned But he that is spirituall judgeth all things as Solomon also saith Evill men understand not judgement But they that seeke the Lord understand all things L. p. 106. Faith is a mixed Act of the Will and the understanding and the Will inclines the understanding to yeeld full approbation to that whereof it sees not full proof Not but that there is full proofe of them But because the maine grounds which prove them are concealed from our view and folded up in the unrevealed Councel of God God in Christ resolving to bring mankind to their last happinesse by Faith and not by Knowledge That so the weakest among men may have their way to blessednesse open P. 'T is true that Faith being the life of the soule anima animae as Aug. speaks doth informe and quicken all the faculties thereof as the Will Understanding Reason Affections so as the Will doth no more incline the Vnderstanding to assent this being the opinion of those Schoolmen that hold the Will to be the seat of Faith as others do hold the Vnderstanding Then the Vnderstanding doth the Will or Reason the Affections But Faith being that Grace which quickneth the whole soule and in it all the faculties as aforesaid it is this Faith Principally that inclineth all the whole soule with all its faculties to yeeld their unanimous assent unto it And yet I deny not a mutuall reciprocation and interchangeable cooperation which is between these faculties as in the naturall man so in the spirituall man regenerate by faith For as in the naturall man somtimes the Vnderstanding inclines the Will somtimes the Will the Vnderstanding sometimes Reason inclines the Affections and somtimes the Affections incline Reason and that oftentimes with great violence to a wrong object the like working there is among the sanctified faculties of the soule Regenerate somtimes the Vnderstanding inclining the Will somtimes the Will the Vnderstanding and sometimes the Affections incline both as the Apostle saith speaking of zeale for God Whether we be besides our selves it is to God or whether we be sober it is for your Cause For the love of Christ constraineth us And the affections of the Apostle towards Christ were so strong in him that they carryed his Vnderstanding Will and Reason along with them with strong hand when notwithstanding he was told of dangers yea bonds abiding him at Ierusalem and earnestly desired of his Friends not to goe thither he answered What meane ye to weep and to breake mine heart For I am ready not to be bound onely but also to dye at Ierusalem for the Name of the Lord Iesus And Christ himselfe was so full of holy Zeale and strong Affections as he was carryed with a wonderfull violence of them insomuch as they said of him that he was madde And his friends one time went to lay hold on him saying he was besides himselfe And many of Christ his Servants his Ministers being carryed with a strong love of Christ and zeale for his glory expressed in their courragious witnessing of the truth against wicked men the enemies thereof although their Vnderstanding apprehend the danger and their Will could be content to live in peace yet the Affection here carries all along with it and they willingly follow because the same Faith guides and carries all along with it whence it comes to passe that the affection here to Christ and to truth being as it were the Leader of the rest the Vnderstanding Reason and Iudgement least appearing in the sence of the world men are thereupon so apt and prone to Censure such Ministers of indiscretion But this may shew the inward opperation of the faculties of a regenerate soule how one works upon another reciprocally and one inclines another somtimes the superiour faculties the inferiour and somtimes the inferiour the superiour but Faith is the principall agent working in and inclining all It is not then the Will that alwayes inclines the Vnderstanding but the Grace of Faith which infused doth at once both illuminate incline and draw both the Will and Vnderstanding to rest in the saving truth of God apprehended by Faith This Faith I say doth so illuminate the whole soule with all its faculties as that it selfe brings meat in the mouth as ye say even a full proofe in it selfe of the things beleeved so as now not onely the affiance of the Will but the affiance and certain knowledge of the Vnderstanding doe rest themselves in the cleare evidence which Faith it selfe bringeth with it which evidence hath the ample and sure Testimony both of the word of God and of the Spirit of God whose worke it is For this saving Faith never goes alone but is both ushered in and wrought and accompanied with the word and Spirit of Christ. For so soon as Faith is conceived in the soule it unites to Christ and so it hath communion with Christ together with his Spirit mimediately so as both the Will and the Vnderstanding and the whole soule heart and affections so soon as Faith possesseth them which Faith is a plerophoria full assurance of the things beleeved and a cleare evidence of them though not seen as before is shewed there is withall exhibited both in and with Faith a full sufficient