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	think_v	4,338	5	3.9369	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34735	The counter-plot, or, The close conspiracy of atheism and schism opened and so defeated and the doctrine and duty of evangelical obedience or Christian loyalty thereby asserted / by a real member of this most envy'd as most admired, because, best reformed Protestant Church of England.	Real member of this most envy'd, as, most admired, because, best reformed Protestant Church of England.	1680 (1680)	Wing C6522; ESTC R10658	41,680	44

also from us the honour of obedience because this is only of consequence as agreeing with the nature and will of God Say now again is our Worship and Service Idolatrous or Superstitious Oh ye blessful Souls of Cranmer Ridley Hooper Latimer c. are not we followers of you or were not you of Christ Is our Superstition more or less than yours Tell us if it were not part of your Triumph that you enjoyed those very priviledges which the present establishment affords us 'T is true there were some differences of judgment even among these but not more I trow nor greater than were between St. Peter and St. Paul nor of worse consequence among themselves however since perverted by Posterity than theirs were They had not all the same mind in all things but they had all no mind to separation They were men but good men sincere men therefore differing and therefore not divided They had several opinions of some lesser circumstantial things but gave them all up and at such a time as conscience must needs have been most awake to those greater and essential interests of peace and unity The most fearful among them did but slacken their steps thoughtfully none of them stood still restively or stubbornly or stayed till the Government should come to them by Teleration rather than they would go to it by Conformity No no they knew for all the prejudices of Foreign conversation or domestick Persecution either of which might have been apt enough to drive them out of or beyond their pace they knew well how Obedience was better than Sacrifice but knew nothing of our modern Gloss which sacrifices obedience it self to the Mammons of interest or humour How unlike were their peaceable Dissentings to our Seditious dissentions Those soft and tender Willows to our hard and sturdy Ket's Oaks of Reformation quite another thing in their causes and effects their means and ends their extraction and conversation Their differences were neither begotten of Pride nor born of Ignorance but the lawful issue of godly jealousie and humble fear so born in honest wedlock Christned by the Canon of Scripture attested by the Prophets and Apostles proclaimed and certified to us as with Drum and Trumpet by their Noble Army of Martyrs and fellow-souldiers They were not menaged by peevish publick Remonstrances or the same thing in other words prohibited Petitions but by modest inquiries by private gentle discussions by fraternal correptions or admonitions and at last sweetly concluded and indeed necessarily from such Christian premisses in most Evangelical complyances and condescensions There have been there are there will be differences in the judgments till there be none in the faces of men Schism only let them be without offences however without that which has more than all the rest and is the Rock of offence SCHISM An offence with a witness having as much of the Devil for it as of Christ against it A difference as Antichristian as Inhumane not only of interests but of natures making one man a Wolf in Plundering a Serpent in Trapanning or Implotting and a Devil in accusing to another For my own part as I doubt not there are many so I am perswaded that I know some in the present Communion of the Church of England so abhorrent from any likeness or appearance of Superstition that they are always ready in voto to interpose their own lives between it and their Consciences who yet chuse to incorporate themselves into this Establisht body as the aptest the clearest the surest evidence of that abhorrence This Clouds of Witnesses past away before our memories only by the hearing of the ear but there 's another which our eyes have seen though no bigger at first than a mans hand Arch-Bp Laud. or the dimensions of a single person yet quickly spreading it self over the surface and darkning the Horizon of three Nations with such a thick and palpable darkness as will never let us forget how long it was ere Sun or Stars appeared A Martyr of the infelicity of the times he liv'd in A Martyr against the Devil and his principal work of Schism and how then or who says not a Martyr for the God of Vnity who wrote himself so Legibly a Protestant that even that which we know runs fastest from truth prejudice it self or any thing but gross or affected ignorance may read it so that one might with as much truth and reason deny him the name of his first Baptism William Laud as with justice or good manners that of his second Protestant Martyr a Name so truly and eminently his own that besides his Title by purchase as before he has that of Royal donation and that also from that First CHARLES THE PRINCE OF PROTESTANTS AND MARTYRS TOO wherefore it may be good counsel or caution to him that thinks or speaks otherwise to consider well whether he can reasonably suppose there were any man then living with so great advantage to know or ability to judge the mind and cause of that happy man that unhappy Metropolitan as was that incomparably most Judicious Prince But to resume our buisiness of inquiry does the Schismatick dislike our Worship because he likes not our Discipline Is he offended at that lenity and longanimity which is used towards scandalous sinners If this be it then let them first compare as was noted before those sins which the Devil never commits with those which are proper to him and then religiously consider the dreadful Emphasis of St. Peters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chiefly or especially concerning those that despise Government of whom he tells us that they are especially reserv'd by the Lord to the day of judgment ● Pet. 2.9 10. to be punished and then though our Ministers do not what they cannot lawfully shut the doors against such sinners till excommunicated they will either think with more Charity of our Communion or with less Arrogancy of their own and separate from us if at all with the temper and language of that meek Centurion Domine non sum dignus Lord I am not worthy 〈◊〉 7.6 ●s 65.25 c. not of those Idolaters in the Prophet stand further off c. And then how would such an excess of humility in them be quickly matcht with another of Charity with arms and hearts from us what joy would there be in heaven what peace on earth what harmony in both How would the Atheist blush the Papist fret and our Schismatick leer and all the enemies of God and the King be as that young man Absalom Whereas on the contrary if these brethren of ours Alas our brethren for such they profess frequently they are and such God knows we desire most passionately they should be will still remain inexorable by all the methods of reason or loving kindness if they will invincibly persist to maintain their separation to deprave the doctrine disturb the discipline and disown the Government of the Church if they will walk thus

ne ipsa delet iniquitas as St. Aust speaks that Law written in mens hearts which sin it self could not blot out This was that Law to which a penalty was annext in case of Transgression to be taken upon the verdict or testimony of Conscience i. e. that reflection the Soul makes Conscience what and the judgment which by that reflection it passes upon it self according to Law without which Law as there could be no guilt so without guilt there could be no Conscience Therefore if the Law makes not distinctively good or evil we can neither do well or ill or have either comfort or regret in the sense of one or other Conscience can never act without respect to a Law and to the Maker and Judge of that Law Its reflexion would be an useless and idle thing if all other things were indifferent because the sense of guilt would be incompossible with the praeclusion of Law and therefore every mans experience as it feels the one so it proves the other Witness the perplexity that haunts the Soul of the most cautious and closest sinner Witness the lashes that the Monarch feels from the hand of Conscience though freed from the touch of any other patiturque suos mens conscia manes Witness the fears and horrors of dying men who are then most afraid of this when they are nighest out of the reach of all other punishment But besides the testimony of Conscience we have the universal consent of Mankind there having never yet been any Nation so barbarous that believed every thing naturally alike or that had not some Principles and Practices too of Morality And indeed were it not thus were not good and evil made such by nature distinctly and antecedently to humane Laws these Laws could signifie nothing for were there no antecedent obligation to obey those Laws Rebellion would presently be as lawful as obedience is necessary Vain names of Oaths of Allegiance or Promises of Fidelity if it be not first a duty in it self to keep ones word I wonder who would then be a Subject that could hope to better himself by being otherwise Besides were it not thus how should humane Laws bind as we see they do in those places where Revelation has not yet been if the Obligation of Conscience to Obedience in such places be not resolv'd into the Law of Nature enjoyning Obedience as due to Governours Yea precluding the Law of Nature I speak now with becoming reverence how could God himself bind us to obedience by any Positive Law for unless it be first my duty to believe God because of his Veracity I am after the clearest Revelation left at my liberty to believe whether the Law be from God or no and if I should be so kind as to believe him yet if nothing be good or bad in it self then to despise the authority of God cannot be evil and therefore I may chuse as an indifferent thing whether I will obey him or not Yea why may not men if they please invert the very frame of all moral things and turn Vice into the place of Virtue So absurd as we have seen is this false and dangerous Hypothesis so directly thwart to the first Principles of Reason and to the common sence of mankind so plainly effective and introductive of all the evil and misery that can be done or suffer'd in the world that if it could be reasonably believed that the Author a man I doubt not eminently Learned should not be aware of what so follows thereupon it might also be charitably hop't that he would have denyed himself upon the first sight of such mischievous consequents were it not that we see many other and some not unlearned men who while they abhor the Principles in terms yet embrace those inferences which must needs come from them in course Tell the Schismatick there is no God oh Abominable that 't is abominable and the Atheist shall feel his arm but tell him Kings are not or obedience due to them is not Gods and you may shake his hand Suum euique tribuaere Tell him there is a natural or original Law of justice c. out upon these Atheists he 'l say so too tell him right reason is that instrument by which we discern this Law to be given to our natures still he 's content but tell him that therefore Obedience is both rational and natural and he begins to start what do you mean Sir Tell him that therefore it is due to man as Governour i. e. as the Ordinance of God you amaze him what though he be a Papist where by the way we cannot but acknowledge this same though Modern Papist or Infidel c. to be so much the more considerable as it carries with it an Emphasis of the loudest and harshest sound Papist in our English Reformed Translation being in a manner the same reading with Infidel or Mahometan but whilst I think it the severest I may also suspect it for the unjustest too as being a supposition however made at first God knows not I yet since that time manifestly as enviously urg'd and improved by some to such a popular height that it now seems more than probable they had rather suppose it though false than truly not suppose it and that they would not quit their advantage or exchange the pleasure of fixing the guilt and odium for my comfort in or my hope of the improbability of that imputation Their busie floating upon the top or surface of common fame will not let them sink to the depth and bottom of such humble reflexions as supposing what they suppose would certainly help us more and become us better for whether is more Evangelical think we the language of Ashdod or the speech of Canaan that roaring clamour he is Popishly affected and shall never Reign c. or that still remorseful voice righteous art thou O Lord and thy judgments are true and as we sin'd by thrusting out as we did a Protestant King and Nursing Father so shouldst thou punish us by bringing in the contrary yet still righteous art thou O Lord c. But besides that we may be jealous of this jealousie as seeing no more sufficient ground than we think they have good cause for it and that we are not to suspect rashly without such ground or tumultuously and irreverently with it methinks we have this good reason against it that it got no higher than a Supposition there where we doubt not it would if it could have been lifted up to an Assertion and I know some very near the subject of this praedicate that know no more of it than I do and I now thank God that thus I do not know it and thence may infer my duty not to believe it my duty I say and the rather because I believe verily such a Supposition can hardly be well made of any man or Christian without making another of the ignorance or unsincerity of the same man