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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	woe_n	word_n	write_v	24	3	5.3940	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56807	The conformists plea for the nonconformists, or, A just and compassionate representation of the present state and condition of the non-conformists as to I. The greatness of their sufferings, II. Hardness of their case, III. Reasonableness and equity of their desires and proposals, IV. Qualifications, and worth of their persons, V. Peaceableness of their behaviour, VI. The churches prejudice by their exclusion, &c. humbly submitted to authority / by a beneficed minister, and a regular son of the Church of England.	Pearse, Edward, 1631-1694.	1681 (1681)	Wing P976; ESTC R1092	66,864	80

without the Common-Prayer See also Mr. Blake Covenant sealed p. 308. as I my self have known nor any Child rightly baptized without the Cross yet by this Act of Uniformity they must declare Assent and Consent to all and every thing to Cross as well as Baptism to Ceremony as well as Substance And how easie was it for sinful people and weak to say See what these Men can do Yea in case that in any after-time wise and moderate Governours should see a necessity of making Alterations Then again teaching Scorners to say Yea see what these Men can do to the great dishonour of Religion and disgrace of the best of Ministers And one would think that because the Courts continue to swear Churchwardens to present they had Spies enow upon our Nonconformists and Punishments smart enough they might have spared to require this Declaration or if they had thought us honest our promise to conform had been sufficient tho kept in the Registers and made at our Institutions Yet through this Dishonour we attain our Honour They are debarred from all exercise of their Ministerial Abilities their Wives and Children turned out of doors and when they had made a sad and chargeable Remove of late must remove again upon the Five-mile Act. And these Penalties were next to Death and I conceive proved the Death of many I remember the Renowned Bishop Morton wrote these words to the Nonconformists and desired them earnestly to consider the Censure of the Apostle's Wo being so dreadful I ought not to esteem any thing a just Cause why I should wilfully incur the Censure of Silencing my self from Preaching for which I ought not as willingly to adventure my Life The General Defence of the three Ceremonies Part 1. p. 163. The Nonconformists have suffered what is next to Death and too many have suffered even unto Death in Prisons where several caught their Death and others died it is a dreadful story of whom shall their Deaths be required And it is easie to retort those words of the Reverend Bishop Imposers should not esteem any thing a just Cause of bringing any under the censures of Silencing of Preachers from preaching for which they may not adventure to take away their Lives It is objected That they sin against the Law And they may answer Who procured the Law it is the Magistrate's Sword but who moved him to draw it They are told they have no cause to complain of Sufferings for the Magistrate hath been merciful and hath not execued the Laws Thanks be to God for the Mercy but all have not been so merciful as the King hath been or many inferiour Magistrates but their Mercy hath not been kindly taken by many who should have more tender bowels than any Man that wears a Sword To conclude A reasonable Understanding may judge that Law not fit to remain in force that is not fit to be put in execution That Law cannot be good that is not fit to be brought to act without more real hurt than good And if the wise and merciful God hath by many remarkable Providences put a stop to their execution it is time for Men to annul the Law 2. The Penalty is hard upon them that make their offers to be admitted into the Churches Service or that would come in but for these Injunctions It is but a narrow passage that is made for them that enter in yet what shall they do who have spent all they have in a Preparatory Education In they must tho but to a Curacy which is not easie to be had It is grievous to think with what Implicit Faith they do what is to be done yet must Assent to more than ever many have studied rather following Example than Reason or else there is nothing for them to do Others that are enclin'd to Learning and to serve in the Gospel are deterred upon many accounts and have great prejudices against Conformity because of the great reverence they have to Nonconformists and these are under a great temptation to perpetuate a Nonconformity which is more sutable to their inclinations as being a state of freedom to their Consciences from great Bonds and Obligations tho an Estate attended with hazard to their Bodies and Estates And all young Students are under this necessity either they must subscribe hand-over-head or else they must spend their time in these endless Controversies of the Church and be engaged in the dolefull and fearfull Wars of the Church on one side or other 3. The third Consideration that pleads for our Non-conforming Brethren is taken from the Reasonableness of their Demands I distinguish these Demands into those Proposals made by the Commissioners in the Savoy Anno 1662 with that Modesty Gravity Humility and Reason treating the Bishops and other Commissioners as Superiours 2. Into those which have been repeated by particular Persons and may be seen in the Writings of Laborious and Catholick Mr. Baxter Mr. John Corbet and Dr. Owen in his learned and moderate Book of Church-Peace Love and Unity I shall only generally compare what they humbly desired with what was declared 1. In his Majesties gracious Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs a most large and healing Plaister for the Churches Wounds and might have been a Pillar to have born up the Church in Unity as his Gracious Act of Indempnity and Oblivion hath held up the State if some Men who can be loyal for their own ends had not perhaps bin industrious to make Divisions by their Affected Terms of Union 2. They humbly moved but for what great Men and famous in the Church of God to all posterity thought fit to grant In that Year 1641 there was a Committee for Religion appointed in the House of Lords ten Earls ten Bishops ten Barons The Bishop of Lincoln Williams sent a Letter to some Divines to attend that Service who met in his House Breviat of his Life p. 24. the Deanery of Westminster upon which Arch-Bishop Laud hath this Note Upon the whole matter I believe this Committee will prove the National Synod of England to the great dishonour of the Church and what else may follow upon it God knows These Divines were no less Men than the most Venerable Arch-Bishop Vsher Bishop Williams of Lincoln Dr. Prideaux after Bishop of Worcester Dr. Brownrig after Bishop of Fxeter Dr. Ward Professor of Divinity in Cambridge and Arch-Deacon of Taunton Dr. Featly Dr. Hacket of late Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield All these subscribed a Paper called The Proceedings c. touching Innovations in Doctrine and Disoipline of the Church of England together with Considerations upon the Common-Prayer Book Out of which I draw a Parallel with the Proposals of the Divines appointed to treat by his Majesty's Commission with the Archbishop and Bishops and other Divines of the Church of England at the Savoy See Account of the Proceedings printed Lond. 1661. The Divines appointed to meet in the Dean's House 1641. Considerations on the

with for their Moderation And truly it is an ill sign of an aspiring contentious nature in those that will fall out with Peacemakers that are sober and moderate and wish that both contending sides may understand one another better and love one another more and remove the matter of debates and strifes How are the Ejected called it grieves my heart to hear them called all to naught and how are these names returned And many throw Bones of Contention among them whisper and backbite and carry tales to soment the heats which gentle tempers labour to cool The other broken Party of the dissatisfied and complaining Family are not so well agreed as it were to be desired but they differ more in Accidentals than Substantials from one another I mean the Brethren whose cause I attempt to open Some of them will consent to an imposed Form of Prayer and all to Decency and Order as necessary in Christian Assemblies and in a word to all that is contained in the General Rules and Laws of Christ and rationally deduced from them as far as they do understand They all submit to an Episcopacy of primitive Institution and Limitation with the due Exercise of Discipline and they that cannot agree to the same Form of Government are for maintaining Peace and Love under different Forms and they yeeld enough to have made them Ministers in the Apostles days and after They say 't is true that to us there is but one Lawgiver and that is Christ and they will teach whatsoever he hath commanded them They hold that his Laws are sufficient for the Government of the Church that the Church must be subject to Christ that her Power as Protestant Writers have maintained is only Ministerial under Him that all Power is seated still in Him and not made over by Him to any other that the Churches Power is not decisive for as such they argue that Controversies have not been decided by any that here ingrossed the name of the Church but declarative and so far binding as the Reasons are cogent and divine They acknowledge the King's Supremacy as it hath been declared by former Learned Writers against the Romish Antagonists and Usurpers of that Sovereign Right as by Nowel against Dorman Rainold's conference with Hart King James and many more They assert a Liberty which Christ hath given them and cannot subject themselves as the servants of men in the things of God They offer to assent to all the Essentials of the Christian Faith to observe all the Ordinances of Christ and every part of his Worship and Decency and Order in the Worship of God as was said before and in short do say Shew us but what the Apostles Rule was and we will walk according to it and as far as we have attained be of one mind and walk according to the same Rule But then they can never yeeld to declare an unfeigned Assent and Consent to Laws Rubricks and Ceremonies that are significant of any Grace or obligatory to any Duty of the Covenant of Grace or to make Ceremonies federal Signs tho not Seals nor the Reading the Apochrypha and Neglecting Canonical Scripture and other things which divers of them have spoken of at large and cannot be repeated in this place They profess and we believe them that they quarrel not because they may not be Lords and Bishops or that others are so promoted they declare it is no grief to them if the Magistrate or legal Patrons bestow the Revenues of the Church upon whom they please and are legally qualified according to the Constitution They only beg the use of that Liberty of their Consciences to preach and worship God according to the Primitive Rule and Simplicity and that they may not be Ejected and Excommunicated and forced to beg their Bread because they cannot consent to what they cannot believe nor vow against their Duty The danger of giving them a Toleration while they remain Dissenters is strongly suggested from the multiplication of Papists Socinians and Jews as the effect of the Toleration in the Netherlands But two things may be replied 1. Widen the Terms which may be done with safety to the Church and there will be no need of a Toleration they will be incorporated with us 2. There can be no such danger from Christians of the same Faith and substantial Worship but of different Accidental Modes as from Socinians Papists Jews of a contrary Faith and Worship And why we cannot be as kind and liberal to Natives indulging a Liberty to them in small things as we are to French Dutch and to Lutherans I do not know I have represented the Divisions of this most famous Church of Christ not with the exactness of an Historian nor of an Arbitrator or a Moderator but as best suiting with a Man in haste and trouble And here 's enough to move the honest and faithful Justices to arbitrate Differences and command the Peace Nothing else will do nor any other Man so likely to compose the Difference as they For Prayers innumerable have been made to God who acts by means in settlements of Peace and Order therefore we must pray Men too The different Parties will not agree The Commissioners * in the Savoy an 1662 commissioned by the King disputed and both carried the Cause The Ejected humbly petitioned the Bishops for Peace they would not hear them And what Arguing Preaching Writing hath been ever since Some Reverend Sons of the Church in love to Peace and fear of Enemies have earnestly called and exhorted the Dissenting Ejected Brethren to come and unite to come into the Present Constitution as safest as strongest as best c. But if they could not come in at the Narrow Door eighteen years ago and the Door as narrow still as it was then and there be the same Cross-bars laid across as were then to keep them out to what purpose is the Exhortation Is there a great Storm a coming they think that Christ is the same Ship and they are as safe as any other They may clearly plead they could have conformed at first upon better worldly terms than now they might have saved what they have lost and got their share with others to come now to conform when all places are full and not enow for numerous Expectants and when there is nothing for them without tedious waiting and if their Judgments and Consciences could not enter then how can they now Unless their Heads have voided all their Reasons and so are grown less or that Custom hath made the Entrance smoother for them Learned and Worthy Men have written for and against and are they gained over to one another If they are it is more than they will confess The one writes the Mischies of Separation the other denies the Charge and Proof and another throws back the Mischief a Mischief of Impositions and many Swords are drawn by Seconds too many bitter words for the Children of the same Heavenly Father that