Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	great_a	king_n	5,512	5	3.6764	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46639	Nazianzeni querela et votum justum, The fundamentals of the hierarchy examin'd and disprov'd wherein the choicest arguments and defences of ... A.M. ... the author of An enquiry into the new opinions (chiefly) propagated by the Presbyterians in Scotland, the author of The fundamental charter of presbytry, examin'd & disprov'd, and ... the plea they bring from Ignatius's epistles more narrowly discuss'd.../ by William Jameson.	Jameson, William, fl. 1689-1720.	1697 (1697)	Wing J443; ESTC R11355	225,830	269

than the rest assert that it is founded on the Example and Institution of Christ or his Apostles § 3. This Discourse therefore shall weigh the Advantages alledged to flow from Episcopacy that it may appear if it have such Effects as they Promise As also inquire if the Hurt and Dammage does not preponderat all the Good they can pretend to be linked to their Hierarchy Neither shall we neglect to examine if what the most Learned of that Perswasion bring from Ecclesiastick Antiquity be subservient to their Cause Section II. The Aphorism No Bishop No King discuss'd A Chief Argument whereby they would prove the necessity of Prelacy they bring from the great Support which they say it affords to Monarchy Hence with them No Bishop No King is an axiomatick Aphorism which cannot be readily granted seeing to name no more the charges the Hierarchy stood the King and Kingdom made a dear Bargain Much was spent in their stated Revenues but more by their clandestine Exactions and other sinistrous means of draining the Country and places of their pretended Jurisdictions throw which there are Incorporations that even at this day groan under the Debts they then contracted And yet more by sustaining Standing-forces to be Janizaries to the Prelates and their Complices and persecute the sincerer part of Protestants for else there was then no use of such numbers Yet their Maxime may be thus far granted that Prelacy may much contribute to the introduction of a Despotick and Arbitrary Government And indeed the great Power they usurped and manifold Influences they had over both Cities and Country either to wheedle or menace them to elect such Members of Parliament as pleased them and to Cajole or awe these Parliament-men to speak in their own Dialect And the being of a good number of them prime Lords of the Articles whereby they had either the mediat or immediat Flection of the rest made them well nigh able to effect no less Which kind of Government no Wise and Paternal Prince will desire § 2. Moreover that Princes have no great reason to be fond of them is apparent from their great unfitness to manage Politick and State-Affairs There are two Ways whereby one may be fitted for being a Statesman either when Natural induements are extraordinary which I doubt if many of our Prelats could affirm of themselves Or else that of Education and continued Industry whereby to be fitted for State-imployments but so far were they from any thing of this that during their greener years they had quite other Studies and Imployments being designed for the Ministry and so were obliged to prosecute hard the Study of Divinity which I am sure will give any Man his handsfull of Work who makes earnest of it From this they are taken to feed some Flock which at least will give them no less exercise Now how these Men can be fit for managing State-affairs or how they can be well kept from falling into Solecisms therein whose skill is so small is not very discernable But though they were never so well fore-armed for such high State-imployments how find they leisure to exercise them Is not the Ruling and Governing so many Ministers and Churches which they alledge themselves to be entrusted with a Work heavy enough to exercise if not to bruise any one Man Or where have they found Warrant to relinquish the Ministry and turn themselves to Offices of State when offered or to undertake both together Do they not believe that either of them is heavy enough Know they not that not only the Apostle but also the ancient Canons and to name no others these which though not truly are called the Canons of the Apostles most clearly condemn this their Practice Let neither say they a Bishop Presbyter or Deacon taken upon him any secular Business otherways let him be cast out off his Office Hence we may learn if it be out of Conscience that these Men plead for Antiquity when they palpable contemn and trample what themselves count the most venerable Precepts thereof Moreover it 's observable how they so far as their Interest led them still studied the ruine of those to whom they owed their Being as Bishops Thus the Roman Prelats studied the Ruine of both the Eastern and Western Emperours Thus the Bishops of Scotland brought no small Vexation to both King and Nobility in the Reign of Alexander the III. And so Becket of Canter●ury and his Faction handled Henry the II of England But worse did their Successours treat Richard the II whom in his Absence they deprived of his Kingdom It 's vain to repone that these were Papists seeing the ambition of Prelats is well enough known of whatever Name they be Yea such also have been the Practices of Prelats who acknowledged no Pope as divers of the Greek Patriarks who helped not a little to Dethrone their Emperour And the English Bishops as Sir Francis Knols complains in a Letter to Secretary Cicil encroached not a little upon the Priviledges of the Crown kept Courts in their own Name and still give out that the Complex of their Office i. e. the civil part of it as well as the other without any Distinction was not from the King but from Jesus Christ. Which Encroachments are really Imperium in Imperio On which account this their usurped Power as being dangerous and of a Romish Original was abolished in the first Parliament of Edward the VI. The Substance of what Dr. Sanderson either insinuats or more clearly expresseth in Answer hereto is that this was a Corruption in Edward 's Reformation And that some other Courts in England as well as these of the Bishops are not kept in the King's Name But sure it 's not very credible that this was a Corruption seeing nothing else since Edward's Days hath been done during the succeeding Reigns for that Church's further Reformation but 't is an odd Paradox if we consider the Author for it was Mary who Abolished this Act of Edward and restored their Power when she brought back the rest of Popery And though other Courts as he says be not kept in the King's Name yet reason teacheth and former experience proves how dangerous it was to give Ecclesiasticks ought that looks like an Absolute power and worldly Grandure whereby like the Pope they may by his Artifices arrive at length to a real Independency And indeed B. Laud made large steps towards it who as Roger Coke relates copt with the King himself and maugre both his Will and Authority must visit Colledges not as his Commissioner but by his own Metropolitan right and plumed thus saith the Author in his own Feathers all black and white without one borrowed from Caesar whereby the more he assumes to himself the less he leaves to the King he now soars higher And notable here is Dr. Sanderson's disingenuity who always gives out that the Marian Act which he still compares with yea prefers to that of Edward was

they were invented justifi'd or maintain'd ought at once to be removed and so troden under the obedience of God's Word that continually this sentence should be present in thy Heart and ready in thy Mouth not that which appeareth in thine own Eye shalt thou do c. Deut. 12. Let not then the King and his proceedings whatsoever they be not agreeable to the Lord 's Holy Word be a snare to thy Conscience Let God's blessed Word alone be the Rule and Line to measure his Majestie 's Religion What it commandeth let it be obeyed what it commandeth not let that be execrable because it hath not the sanctification of God's Word under what Title or Name soever it be published Halt no longer on both parts Let not these Voices prevail in your Parliament This to our Judgement is good and godly this the People cannot well bear this repugneth not to God's Word And But let his holy and blessed Ordinances by Christ Jesus commanded to his Kirk be within thy limits and bounds so sure and established that if Prince King or Emperour would enterprize to change or disannull the same that he be the reputed Enemy of God Which horrible Crimes if ye will avoid in time coming then must ye I mean the Princes Rulers and People of the Realm by solemn Covenant renew the Oath betwixt God and you That benefice upon benefice be heaped upon no Man but that a suffient Charge with a competent Stipend be assigned to the Work-men for O how horrible was that confusion that one Man should be permitted to have two three four five six or seven Benefices who scarcely in the year did so often preach yea that a Man should have the Charge of them whose faces he never saw For the great Dominions and Charge of your proud Prelats impossible by one Man to be discharged are no part of Christ's true Ministry but are the maintainance of the Tyranny first invented and yet retain'd by the Roman Antichrist That diligent heed be taken that such to whom the Office of preaching is committed discharge and do their Duties for it is not nor will not be the chanting nor mummelling over of certain Psalters the reading of Chapters for matines evening Song or of homilies only be they never so godly that can feed the Souls of hungry Sheep What efficacy the living voice hath above the naked letter which is read the hungry and thirsty do feel to their comfort But the other maketh for Mr. Parson's purpose who retaining in his hand a number of Benefices and appointed such in his place as are altogether destitute of the Gift of Preaching but let all such Belly-gods be whipp'd out of God's Holy Temple Let none that be appointed to labour in Christ's Vineyard be intangl'd with Civil Affairs except it be when the Civil Magistratand the Minister of the Word assemble together for Execution of Discipline which is a thing easie to be done without withdrawing any Person from his Charge if that which was before express'd be observed For as touching their yearly coming to Parliament for matters of Religion it shall be superfluous vian if God's true Religion be once so established that after it never be called in controversie And as touching Execution of Discipline that must be done in every City and Shire where the Magistrats and Ministers are join'd together without any respect of Persons So that the Ministers albeit they lake the glorious Title of Lords and the Divelish Pomp which before appear'd in proud Prelats yet must they be so stout and so bold in God's Cause that if the King would usurp any other Authority in God's Religion than becometh a Member in Christ's Body that first he be admonished according to God's Word c. Read pray the rest of this Exhortation and you shall find that never was light more opposite to darkness than Knox is to their Ceremonies and Hierarchy and in a word their whole way whatsoever they contend for in opposition to the Church of Scotland Now suppose which yet he is far from doing that Knox allow'd them some umbrage of imparity should they not notwithstanding providing they closed with what he saith here and elsewhere really relinquish what they call the Church-of England's way and come over unto us Yea were they according to Knox's Exhortation stript of the hope their exorbitant Gain Ease and Grandour c they should soon also send packing their Plea for Imparity this being a meer shrowd and pretext to cover these Enormities from which Knox so warmly dehorts and whieh with less colour of modesty can be sustain'd Add hereto that seeing Knox so zealously requires express and positive Warrant in the Word of God for every thing in the Worship Government and Discipline of the Church and seeing hitherto none hath darred to averr that he was for the Divine Right of Prelacy yea even our Author himself adventures not plainly to assert so much but only labours to make Knox to account it Lawfull and Innocent and to speak nothing against it it must undeniably follow that he was for a Divine Right of Parity § 13. Did not Knox continues our Author write and bear the Letter sent by the Superintendents Ministers and Commissioners of the Church within the Realm of Scotland to their Brethren the Bishops and Pastors in England Anno 1566 Did not he in that same Title of that same Letter acknowledge that these Brethren Bishops and Pastors of England had renounc'd the Roman Antichrist and professed the Lord Jesus in sincerity And doth not the Letter all alongst allow of the Episcopal Power and Authority of these English Bishops But had never a Protestant to do with an Abbot Prior or some other such Popish Officers whose Offices he did not allow Might he not therefore speak or write to him in such Terms without which he should either not have been understood or his Letter or his Discourse been altogether uneffectual Altho' then it could be prov'd they had given Bishops the distinguishing Titles they assume by no good Logick could it be inferr'd that they accounted the Office as it is distinguish'd from any other Pastor Lawfull which yet can never be prov'd nor any thing concluded from the Letter save that they took Bishop and Pastor for synonymous Terms Moreover 't will no more follow that they count Episcopacy Lawfull than that they esteem so of the Surplice Corner-cap and Tippet which yet in the same Letter they make the Marks of the odious Beast They there indeed acknowledge the English to have renounc'd the Roman Antichrist but so as notwithstanding to have retain'd divers of his Abominations whereof they name none but only the most notorious of these which the then present English Controversies gave occasion to mention The rest of his Discourse on this Head leans on this that our Superintendents were really Diocesan Bishops of whom more anon And well may I deny 't were there no more than the Doctrine