Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	king_n	see_v	4,869	5	3.5371	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54142	Good advice to the Church of England, Roman Catholick and Protestant dissenter, in which it is endeavoured to be made appear that it is their duty, principle & interest to abolish the penal laws and tests	Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1687 (1687)	Wing P1296; ESTC R203148	42,315	65

should he be compell'd to do it and at least of all be punished for not doing it No Church can give Faith and therefore can't force it for what is constrain'd is not Believed since Faith is in that sence free and constraint gives no time to assent I say what I don't will is not I and what I don't Choose is none of mine and anothers can't save me tho it should save him So that this Method never obtains the end design'd since it Saves no body because it Converts no body it may breed Hypocrisie but that is quite another thing than Salvation What then is the use of Penal Laws only to show the Sincerity of them that Suffer and Cruelty of those that make and execute them And all time tells us they have ever fail'd those that have lean'd upon them They have always been loosers at last Besides it is a most unaccountable obstinacy in the Church of England to stickle to uphold them for after having made it a matter of Religion and Conscience to Address the late King in behalf of this to think He should leave his Conscience behind him in Flanders or when they waited on him to the Crown that he should send it thither upon a Pilgrimage is want of wit at best pardon the censure Could they Conscientiously oppose his Exclusion for his Religion and now his Religion because he will not leave it Or can they reasonably maintain those Tests that were contrived to exclude him when Duke of York while they endured none to hinder him from the Crown I heartily beg the Church of Englands excuse if I say I can't comprehend her Perhaps the fault is mine but sure I am she is extreamly dark How could she hope for this King without his Conscience or conceive that his Honour or Conscience would let him leave the Members of his Communion under the lash of so many Destroying Laws would she be so serv'd by a Prince of her own Religion and she in the like Circumstances She would not let her talk till Dooms-Day To object the Kings promise when he came to the Crown against the repeal of the Penal Laws shows not his Insincerity but her Uncharitableness or that really she has a very weak place For it is plain the King first declared his own Religion and then promised to maintain hers but was that to be without or together with his own His Words shows he intended that his own should Live tho t'other might Raign I say again it is not credible that a Prince of any Sincerity can refuse a being to his own Religion when he continues another in its well being This were to act upon State not Conscience and to make more Conscience to uphold a Religion he cannot be of than of giving ease to one his Conscience obliges him to be of I cannot imagin how this thought could enter into any Head that had Brains or Heart that had Honesty And to say true they must be a sort of State Consciences Consciences as by Law Establish'd that can follow the Law against their Convictions But this is not all I have to observe from that objection It implies too evidently first that she thinks her self shaken if the Penal Laws be repeal'd then by Law Established she must mean Established by those Penal Laws Secondly that the King having promised to maintain her as by Law established he ought not to endeavour their Repeal by which she is established I confess this is very close arguing but then she must not take it ill if all Men think her ill founded for any thing must be so that is established by destroying Laws Laws that Time and Practice have declared Enemies to Property and Conscience O let her not hold by that Charter nor Point thither for her Establishment and Defence if she would be thought a Christian Church Plutarch had rather one should think there never was such a Man in the World than that Plutarch was an ill Man. Shall the Church of England that glories in a great Light be more concern'd for her Power than her Credit To be than to be that which she should be I would say far be it from her for her own sake and which is of much more moment for the sake of the general Cause of Religion Let us see therefore if there be not another way of understanding those Words more decent to the King and more honourable for her viz. that she is in the National Chair has the Churches and Revenues and is Mother of those that do not adhere to any separate Communion and that the King has promised to maintain her in this Post from the Invasions of any other perswasion that would wrest these Priviledges out of her hands this he promised formerly this he has very particularly repeated in his gracious Declaration But to Ruin Men that would not Conform while himself was so great a Dissenter and came such to her knowledge to the Crown can be no part of his Promises in the Opinion of common Sence and Charity Is there no Difference to be observed between not turning her out and destroying all others not of her Communion He will not turn her out there 's his Promise and he has not done there 's his performance Nor will he do it am confident if she pleases But there is no manner of necessity from this Engagement that all Parties else are to be Confounded Tho if it were so 't is ill Divinity to pr●ss such Promises upon a Princes Conscience that can't be perform'd with a good One by Any Body Let her remember how often she has upbraided her Dissenters with this Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars whilst they have returned upon her t'other half of the Text and render unto God the things that are Gods. It happens now that God and Caesar are both of a mind which perhaps does not alwayes fall out at least about the Point in hand Will she Dissent from both now Her case believe me will be doubtful then I beg her to be Considerate 'T is the greatest time of Tryal she has met with since she was a Church To acquit her self like a Member of Christs Universal One let her keep nothing that voids her pretentions The Babilonish Garment will undo her Practices Inconsistant with her Reformation will ruin her The Martyrs Blood Won the Day and her Severity has almost lost it They Suffer'd by Law she makes Laws for Suffering Is this an Immitation of their practice to uphold the Weapons of their Destruction I must tell her 't is being a Martyr for Persecution and not by it Another Path then that the holy Ancients and our humble Ancestors trod and which wll lead her to be deserted and Contemn'd of every Body that counts it safer to follow the Blessed Rule and practice of Christ and his inspr'd Messengers then her narrow and worldly Policies But that which heighthens the Reproach is the offer of the Romanists themselves to

of none of them on this Subject Our Saviour says he never pressed Followers as men do Souldiers but said If any man will come after me let him take up his Cross not his Sword and follow me His was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his very Commands shewed his Meekness his Laws were sweet and gentle Laws not like Draco's that were writ in Blood unless it were his own that gave them His design was to ease men of their former Burdens and not lay on more the Duties he required were no other but such as were necessary and withal very just and reasonable He that came to take away the insupportable Yoke of Jewish Ceremonies certainly did never intend to gall the Necks of his Disciples with another instead of it And it would be strange the Church should require more than Christ himsel● did and make other conditions of her Communion than our Saviour did of Discipleship What possible reason can be assigned or given why such things should not be sufficient for Communion with a Church which are sufficient for eternal Salvation And certainly those things are sufficient for that which are laid down as necessary Duties for Christianity by our Lord and Saviour in his Word What ground can there be why Christians should not stand upon the same terms now which they did in the time of Christ and his Apostles Was not Religion sufficiently guarded and fenced in ●hem Was there ever more true and cordial Reverence in the Worship of God What Charter hath Christ given the Church to bind men up to more than himself hath done Or to exclude those from her Society who may be admitted into Heaven Will Christ ever thank Men at the great day for keeping such out from Communion with his Church when he will vouchsafe not only Crowns of Glory to but it may be Aureolae too if there be any such things there The Grand Commission the Apostles were sent out with was only to teach what Christ had commanded them Not the least Intimation of any Power given them to impose or require any thing beyond what himself had spoken to them or they were directed to by the immediate Guidance of the Spirit of God. Without all Controversie the main Inlet of all the Distractions Confusions and Divisions of the Christian World hath been by adding other Conditions of Church Communion than Christ hath done There is nothing the Primitive Church deserves greater imitation by us in than in that admirable Temper Moderation and Condesention which was used in it towards all the Members of it This admirable Temper in the Primitive Church might be largely cleared from that Liberty they allowed freely to Dissenters from them in matters of Practice and Opinion as might be cleared from Cyprian Austin Jerome and others Leaving the Men to be won by observing the true decency and order of Churches whereby those who act upon a true Principle of Christian Ingenuity may be sooner drawn to a Compliance in all lawful things than by Force and rigorous Impositions which make men suspect the weight of the thing it self when such Force is used to make it enter in Preface The same is in effect declared by the House of Commons when they returned their Thanks to Dr. T●llotson Dean of Canterbury for his Sermon preached before them November the 5 th 1678. desiring him to Print that Sermon where he says upon our Saviours Words Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of Ye own your selves to be my Disciples but do you consider what Spirit now Acts and Governs you not that surely which my Doctrine designes to mould and fashion you into which is not a Furious and Persecuting and Destructive Spirit but Mild and Gentle and Saving tender of the Lives and Interests of Men even of those who are our greatest Enemies pag. 6 7. No difference of Religion no pretence of Zeal for God and Christ can warrant and justifie this Passionate and Fierce this Vindictive and Exterminating Spirit ibid. pag. 7. He i. e. Christ came to introduce a Religion which consults not only the Eternal Salvation of mens Souls but their Temporal Peace and Security their Comfort and Happiness in this World ibid pag. 8. In seemed good to the Author of this Institution to compel no man to it by Temporal Punishment ibid. pag. 13. To seperate Goodness and Mercy from God Compassion and Charity from Religion is to make the two best things in the World God and Religion good for nothing idid pag. 19. True Christianity is not noly the best but the best natured Institution in the World and so far as any Church is departed from good Nature and become Cruel and Barbarous so far it is degenerated from Christianity idid pag. 30. Thus far Dr Tillotson who to be sure deserves not to be thought the least Eminent in the present Church of England Let us hear what Doctor Burnet says to it Men are not Masters of their own Perswasions and cannot change their thoughts as they please he that believes any thing concerning Religion cannot turn as the Prince commands him or accomodate himself to the Law or his persent Interests unless he arrive at that pitch of Atheism as to look on Religion only as a matter of Policy and an Engine for civil Government Dr Burnet's History of the Rights of Princes c. in his Preface pag. 49. 'T is to this Doctor 's pains she ows the very History of her Reformation and as by it he has perpetuated his Name with hers certainly he must have Credit with her or we can deserve none with any body else for no man could well go further to oblige her Let me here bring in a lay Member of the Church of England Sir Robert Pointz in his vindication of Monarchy who yeilds us an excellent Testimony to the matter in hand The Sword availeth little with the Souls of Men unless to destroy them together with their Bodies and to make men desperate or dissemblers in Religion and when they find oppertunity to fall into Rebellion as there are many Examples p. 27. In the Ancient Times of Christianity such means were not used as might make Hereticks and Schismaticks more obstinate than docible through the preposterous proceedings of the Magistrates and Ministers of Justice in the Execution of Penal Laws used rather as Snares for gaining of Money and Pecuniary Mulcts impos'd rather as Prices set upon Offences than as Punishments for the Reformation of Manners ibid. pag. 28. The Ancient Christians were forbidden by the Imperial Law as also by the Laws of other Christian Nations under a great Penalty to meddle with the Goods of the Jews or Pagans living peaceably ibid. pag. 29. For the Goods of the Jews although Enemies to the Christian Religion cannot for the cause of Religion come by Escheat unto Christian Princes under whom they live ibid. pag. 29. It is truly said that Peace a Messenger whereof an Angel hath been chosen to