Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	glory_n	good_a	work_n	2,590	5	5.8729	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75431	An answer to the letter directed to the author of Jus Populi by a Friend of the authors.		1671 (1671)	Wing A3415; ESTC R231777	24,152	42

truth we contend for without further canvassing of what you subjoine of the nature of Moses dispensation or the Gospels call to the Crosse I frankely leave it as you do with all free mindes to consider whether your poor blinde negatives be of any moment to preponderat that cleare light of reason which shineth in our assertions and is confirmed both by old testament examples and new testament approbations as my friend the answerer of the dialogues do evidently hold out As to your ensuing section anent the first ages of the Church their unacquaintednesse with this doctrine and your boasting Historical observe that until Pope Gregory the 7th his dayes it was unheard of in the Church with your endeavours to render it odious by the patrociny of Cannonists and Jesuits it is so exactly the same with the discourse of the dialogues and is by the answerer so clearly discussed that I am not affraid to oppose his single reply to your vaine repetitions one thing I must tell you that seing you cannot deny that about and after Constantines dayes when Christians arrived to a greater consistency and better capacity not only did Constantine himself with the express approbation assisting presence of the Godliest teachers in these times fight against Licinius for his persecutions but also both the oppressed Christians in the east did assert by armes the liberty of the Gospel against Jovius Maximinus and at other times and in other places they implored the aid of Christian and orthodox Emperours against pagan and Arrian persecuters your endeavour to put a tashe upon these practises as criminal which yet all the after ages of the Church have approven and to evade by saying that the doctrine was not then owned which was onely not expressely maintained because not contradicted is nothing at all ingenuous therefore since it is certaine that even the most excellent truths have been lyable to the foulest abuses neither your odious dating of the doctrine of resistance from a notorious Papall rebellion nor your futilous essay to make men beleeve that its onely propagators were the Popes Parasits do deserve any further notice And now we are come to the close of your Letter wherein conceiting that either you have made sure our conviction or discovered our cure to be with men impossible you think good to give a testimony to your self which I am perswaded considering the folly or falsehood of the poor purpose that I have perused among all that have written on the subject you deserve least But if you misse of your owne praise you are resolved my friend shall fare no better and therefore as if this were the first of it you pretend constraint for one severe word to tell him whom almost in the beginning you termed an agent of hell as evill as Beelzebub that you do feare him to be in the gall of bitternesse Sir although such reproaches be to me very light yet I wish that for your own souls good you would seriously ponder that to undervalue the grace and despise the glory of the work and cause of God that we have seen in the land to strengthen the wicked in their wickednesse adde affliction to these whom for conscience onely men do persecute are characters of this wretched and woful state equal if not worse to what appeared in him against whom these words were first pronounced whether your preceeding discourse and subsequent stricture in this place against the cause of God do partake of these evils I leave it with your selfe Your last observe is upon my friends postscript occasioned by the Bishop of St Andrews his affirming in a sermon that the subjects lives were more the Kings then their own and his passage so moves your spleen that it is evident you resolve to be behinde with him in nothing and therefore after you have charactered him as insolent guilty of rebellion and treason all the difference betwixt you and him is that what the postscript would have done by St Andrewes upon himself in a just consonancy to and punishment of his lying flattery you would have the King for no cause to inflict on my friend as real demerit But that which I concerne my self most to notice is the medium that you use to convince us of the truth of the Bishops position viz. that because a subject committing a capital crime hath no right to be the executioner of justice on himself therefore his life is more in the Kings power then in his own but not to differ with you about thir pitieful words which were that all mens lives are in the Kings hand and hold of him what ever agreement or place the argument may haue as to the Bishop and amongst his complices persons its like conscious of their own guilt yet sure I am as all honest men are without the compasse of such a title so he must be a fool aswell as a knave that will hold a plaine forfiture to the King to be a good tenor of him the Bishop no doubt thought he had passed a great complement upon his Majesty when by putting his life in the Kings power he gave more unto him then he hath himself but when you come to be his interpreter how strangely do you mis-serve them both the Bishop by supposing him to be criminal and fo making him by right to amitt what he thought he had freely given and the King by presenting him with nothing else then the forefeited lives of wretched catives in place of the loyal resignation of free leiges but leaving these your follies which if they had escaped my friend had no doubt been lashed by you as dull buffonries and the coursest of rallerie without either edge or point the truth is our lives are not our own all soules are mine saith the Lord and therefore as we neither can give them up absolutely unto the Prince his arbitrary disposal not hath the Lord even in the case of the most atrocious crime obliged the criminal to be felo dese and his own executioner so all the power the Magistrat can pretend is onely founded in the sentence of righteous Law by which the person guiltie losing his right is therefore both by the will of God and his owne consent subjected to the Magistrats execution and how much this doth militat both against the Bishops flatterie and the pretensions of tyrannie all sober men may preceive Thus Sir in place of your examining my friends book in bulk evident enough by the grossenesse of your reflexions I have considered your Letter by retaile wherein I am assured you will see that I have omitted to answer nothing except such things as silence will best reprove What satisfaction you will finde in my reply dependeth upon your self only in this I think I merit your acknowledgement that by my prevention I have delivered you our of my friends hands who probably would have searched you out in a more accurat manner if my sineere endeavours shall produce to you any greater advantage it is according to the serious desire of one who though he hath no reason to be more yet subscribeth himself SIR Your real well-wisher PAg. 6. lin 3. read sufferings Pag. 9. l. 3. r. enough p. 10. l. 1. r. doing p. 17. l. 12. r. Skeens p. 25. l. 1. r. this FINIS