Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A50573
|
A Memento for English Protestants ... together with a preface by way of answer to that part of the Compendium, which reflects on the Bishop of Lincoln's late book.
|
Sixtus V, Pope, 1520-1590. De Henrici Tertii morte sermo. English.
|
1680
(1680)
|
Wing M1658; ESTC R9391
|
45,461
|
60
|
a Friar For unto this it may truly be compar'd though the Prophet spake of another thing namely of the Incarnation of our Lord which exceedeth all other Wonders and Miracles As also the Apostle Saint Paul referreth the same words unto the Resurrection of Christ Acts 13. v. 41. When the Prophet says Awork he means not by it some common or ordinary thing but a rare and notable matter and worthy to be remembred as that of the Creation of the World The heavens are the work of thy hands and again He rested the seventh day from all the works which he had made When he saith I have wrought with these words the Scripture is wont to express things not to come to pass casually by fortune or accident but things falling out by the determined Counsel Will Providence and Ordinance of God As our Saviour says The works that I do shall yeâ— do also and greater works than these Joh. 14. v. 12. and many more in Holy Writ to the like purpose Now that he says that it is done in times past herein he follows the use and manner of the other Prophets who for the certainty of the Event are wont to predict things to come as if they were past already for as the Philosophers say Things past are of necessity things present of being and things to come onely of possibility so do they speak For which certainty the Prophet Esay long before prophecying of the Death of Christ hath thus spoken He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb dumb before his shearer so opened he not his mouth c. as it is likewise repeated Acts 8. And this of which we are now speaking and which has hapned in these our days is a very famous memorable and well nigh incredible thing not done or accomplished without the particular providence and disposition of the Almighty A Frier has kill'd a King not a painted one in paper nor pictur'd out upon a wall but the French King in the middle of his Armies encompassed round about with his Guard and Souldiers which truly is such an Act and done in such a manner that none will believe when it shall be told them and perhaps our Posterity after us will account and esteem it but a Fable That the King is dead or else slain it is easily to be believ'd but that he is kill'd and taken away in such sort is hardly credible Even as we presently assent that Christ is born of a Woman but if we further add of a Virgin Woman then according to Humane Reason we cannot assent unto it And so we can readily believe that Christ died but that he rose from the dead to life again this to mans natural understanding is impossible and therefore incredible because there is no return from a Privation to an Habit. That one is awakened again out of a Sleep Ecstasie or a Swoun because it is not against Nature we naturally believe it but to be risen again from the dead it seemed so incredible a thing to Nature that Saint Paul disputing with the Athenian Philosophers about this very point was disgusted for it and accused to be a Setter forth of new or strange Gods and some as S. Luke reports mocked him others said We will hear thee again of this matter Of such things therefore which befall not according to the Laws of Nature and the ordinary course thereof speaketh the Prophet viz. That none shall believe it when it shall be told them But we give credit unto it whilest we consider the Omnipotency of God and by submitting our own Understandings to the Obedience of Faith and the Commands of our Saviour Christ and by these means what was incredible before by Nature becometh credible by Faith We therefore that as mere Men cannot believe Christ to be born of a Virgin when this is further added that it was wrought supernaturally by the Operation of the Holy Ghost then we truly assent to it and faithfully believe it So likewise when it is said that Christ is risen again from the dead naturally we believe it not but when it is affirmed that this was done by the Power of the Divine Nature which was in him then we readily and without any kind of doubting believe it In the same manner though to Natural Reason and Humane Capacity it may seem a thing incredible or altogether improbable that such a mighty King should be slain in the midst of his Army environ'd round with his Guards and Souldiers by a poor simple weak Religionist or Frier Yet considering on the other side the great and grievous sins of this King and the special Providence of the Almighty herein and by what a strange and wonderful way he hath accomplished his most just Will and Judgment against him then we fully and most firmly believe it and therefore this great and miraculous Work we are to ascribe to a particular Providence of God onely not as those that erroneously refer all things unto some ordinary Causes or unto Fortune or such like accidentary Events but as those who more nearly observing and looking into the course of the whole matter do easily see that there were many things in tervening in it which could not have been brought to pass and dispatched without the special help of God And truly the state of Kings and Kingdoms and all other such rare and weighty Affairs should not be thought to be Governed of God rashly and unadvisedly there are some Instances in holy Writ of this nature and none of them can be referred unto any other cause but God only but yet there is none wherein the celestial operation more appeareth than in this whereof we are now speaking We read in the first Book of Macchabees c. 6. how Eleazer run himself upon a certain Death to Kill the King that was an Enemy and Persecutor of the People and Children of God For in the Battel espying an Elephant higher and more stately than the rest whereon it was like the King rode with a swift pace casting himself into the midst of his Enemies Troops here and there making his way by force he came to the Beast at last and went under her and thrust his Sword into her Belly and slew her who falling with great weight of her Body press'd him to death and Kill'd him out of hand Here in this Instance we may see something not unlike to ours viz. as to zeal valiantness of mind and the issue of the Enterprize but in the rest there is no Comparison to be made Eleazar was a Souldier exercised in Weapons and trained up in Wars set in Battel emboldned with courage and inflamed with rage and anger This a Fryer not inured to fighting and so abhoring blood by the Order of his Profession that perhaps he could not abide the cutting of a Vein He knew the kind of his Death as also the place of his Burial namely that he should be Entombed under the fall of the
fit Have not all the Pamphlets that have been writ in Vindi … tion of that Bill argued the Lawfulness of it from the Constitution of the Civil Government and wholly disclaim'd the interesting of Religion at all in the business as to the justifying of it in the least degree endeavouring with great pains to prove that true Religion does not meddle with the Civil Rights of Princes but leaves them to be determin'd by the Laws and Customs of particular Countries By what strange consequence they can he entitle the Church of England or the Protestant Religion to things that are so perfectly of a Civil nature unless he will make them answerable for all the Actions of Protestants of what kind soever and resolve to maintain that childish Sophism I first took notice of as the chief ground of all his extravagant Raving against the Bishop's Book viz. The concluding the Principles of a Religion from the practises of her Professors Which is the very Dregs of Folly the last Running of Impertinence 'T is true the Protestant Religion i.e. the care of preserving it was no doubt the great Motive of doing what was done in every one of these three Cases but that is not here to the purpose for 't is not the Reason for which but the Authority by which a Prince is depos'd and the kind of Principle i. e. whether Civil or Religious 't is justified upon that must condemn or acquit a Church of the Guilt of it though this man endeavour all along to insinuate the contrary by such a fallacious way of representing the Position charg'd on the Church of Rome as makes that seem to be the chief Point in the Controversie between her and the Bishop of Lincoln which is in truth no part of it viz. the Motive or end of deposing Princes But 't is not the Business of this little Pamphlet … to state things fairly and reason clearly but to amuse the Reader◠and puzzle the Question a close way of arguing will not suit either with his Cause or his Understanding a good proof of which he gives us at the very first in these words * See the Compend pag. 76. If on the other-side says he the Bishop means that there have been Popish Doctors of the opinion that Princes might be Depos'd upon the account of Religion what Advantage I would fain know can that be to his Lordship or his Treatise since not only all the prime Leaders of the Reformation c Is it to be imagin'd now that a man should get so far out of his way unless he purposely design'd to ramble or write things so grosly impertinent to the matter he was treating of unless he studied to confound it and render it as little intelligible as was possible Never did any man take more true pains to understand a Discourse difficult in it self than he has done to misunderstand the Bishop's which was plain and easie or a least to make his Reader do so for he cannot be so dull himself in this Point as he would seem 'T is not possible that he or any man who has read the Bishop's Book should think it was the Bishop's meaning only to charge the Popish Doctors with holding indefinitely that Princes might be Depos'd upon the account of Religion when 't is so palpably evident in a hundred places of his Book that he only brings their Opinions as a collateral proof of his Charge of their Church and Religion and that with a quite different Tenet as I have already shew'd And as 't is the Roman Church and not the Doctors only or chiefly which the Bishop charges with holding that Princes may be Depos'd by her Authority not with holding indefinitely that they may be Depos'd upon the account of Religion So 't is the present Popish Canon-Law the Bulls the Decretals of Popes and the Canons of General Councils which are the Testimonies he relies upon for the making good of his Charge and not the private Opinions of Popish Doctors though being cited out of Books licens'd and approv'd by that Church they are of considerable weight in the Argument Now what says the Compendionist to these strong and most convincing Proofs Why in fine as Mr. Bayes says upon another occasion he wont tell us He has not one word not one syllable of Answer to them but passes them over with as deep a silence and as good a grace as if they were like most of his own not at all to the purpose This discreet and necessary Resolution being taken he bends all his little Wit and with a great deal of chearfulness goes about to invalidate what the Bishop urges from the Writings of the Popish Doctors which yet the poor impotent Scribler is by no means able to do as I have made appear in my Answer to his Charge of Luther and Calvin The Attempt however was just as wise and as likely to satisfie reasonable men as if a General who had a great and well disciplin'd Army to fight with should neglect the Main Body and with his whole Strength set upon the Forlorn Hope For his Objections of the Protestant Rebellion in Hungary the late Rising in Scotland the Murther of the Archbishop of S. Andrews and that Home-Blow of his the Gazet Advertisement of The Tryals of Twenty nine Protestant Regicides they are of the same nature and grounded on the same pitiful Falacy with those I have already answer'd and when he can shew us any Principle of the Protestant Religion that justifies Rebellion or Murder especially that of Princes or does but in the remotest degree encourage men to commit these detestable Crimes I shall again consider them In the mean time let him not wast his Paper and tire his Reader with the Repetition of such fulsom Sophistry But perhaps it may not be amiss to give a more particular Answer to his Home-Blow because he has such an opinion of its force and does so triumph with the conceit of his Victory I shall endeavour therefore to take him down in the height of his Rapture and shew his ignorant malice The Reader will remember the Point he should prove is That Protestant Principles are destructive to Kings for those are the very words of the Introduction to his terrible Argument of Instances of Fact Now did the Twenty nine Protestant Regicides ever pretend to justifie their abominable Villany by any Principle of their Religion Nay did they not pretend the quite contrary and ground it wholly upon a Civil Authority Did they not argue the lawfulness and justice of it from a Power they fancied in the People to call the King to an Account for his Actions Though in this they were as absurd Logicians as the Compendionist has all along shew'd himself and reason'd not only against the very first Principle of Civil Policy but point blank contrary to the most fundamental Maxims of the Law of England which says That the King can do no wrong and therefore makes his