Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	call_v	church_n	king_n	1,685	5	3.6233	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46641	An apology for, or vindication of the oppressed persecuted ministers & professors of the Presbyterian Reformed Religion, in the Church of Scotland emitted in the defence of them, and the cause for which they suffer: & that for the information of ignorant, the satisfaction and establishment of the doubtful, the conviction (if possible) of the malicious, the warning of our rulers, the strengthening & comforting of the said sufferers under their present pressurs & trials. Being their testimony to the covenanted work of reformation in this church, and against the present prevailing corruptions and course of defection therefrom. Prestat sero, quàm nunquam sapere.	Smith, Hugh.; Jamieson, Alexander.	1677 (1677)	Wing J446; ESTC R31541	114,594	210

then any he there produceth before we subject to such neither is it a sufficient argument he useth in the 6. proposition that they are Ministers of Jesus Christ Suppone it be so yet the consequence is wide we aske at them if they think it lawful to hear and receive ordinances from our ej●cted and inhibited Ministers If they do how comes it that they do not hear our Ministers but disswade the people from it If they judge hearing of us unlawful they must either say that our Ministers are no Ministers or els that Ministers may be withdrawn from and not heard although they be Ministers of Christ Jesus and consequently it will follow from their own opinion and practice anent us that there are some things for hearing and receiving of ordinances from any person beside there being Ministers of Jesus Christ Or els the charge of schisme and separation will fall as heavy on themselves for not hearing and receiving of ordinances from our Ministers as on us But enough of this Whoever reads that manuscript will find it sufficiently answered in this short touch for all his argueings are against his owne shadow and misse the mark he should shoot at To shut up this wearysome and unpleasant subject In the last place we are charged with all the profanity wickedness and enormous practices that are commited and do since the erection of Prelacy abound in the Land yea our meetings for worship now branded with the anciently odious name of Conventicles with which assemblies of Christians in the primitive times were noted and designed by their persecutours are given out and represented to the world as the cause inductive to these horrid abominable scandals which are boldly asserted to be acted commited at them in a paper of greivances given in from the Diocesan Synod of Glasgow in Prelat Lightons time and presented to the then Kings Commissioner the Duke of Lawderdal and the honourable privy Councel by the parson of Glasgow Mr. Arthur Rosse and now Prelat of Argile that impudent and viperous Calumniator who from the pulpit other places useth to father all the scandals of the time on our party and their meeting Ans passing that Prelats malicious and venemous railings against us as not worthy of our notice whose not-our and manifest lies his bitter invictives and ill grounded assertions which not only speaks his heart and tongue to be set on fire of hell but renders him distiked and odious to many of his owne party we say 1. From whence came that fearful deluge of all sorts of profanity and wickedness that filled the before at after the last erection of Prelacy and for a considerable time when there were few or no Couventicles We have not forgetten and we hope the sober and humble that mourne for the abominations done in the midst of us will not with what a Spirit of impietie Prelacy entered into this Church and followed it for a long time could our meetings for worship called Conventicles be the cause of these when they were not and had not a being 2. We beg of our opposites that they will assigne us the cause of the open reigning scandals found in them that follow not our meetings but keep and adhere to theirs especially in the places where there are no Conventicles but an universal subjection to Prelacy That there are such impieties reigning without any control in these parts is past all denyal And what will our adversaries give for the cause of these Surely they cannot with any shew of reason Father them on our meetings 3 Is it not observeable yea observed by all that in places drowned in ignorance sin and wickedness where Conventicles have come and at this day are in use a sensible reformation in persons and families hath ensued thereon and that to the restraining of these scandalous impieties that prevailed in these bounds before and the shameing of these that yet live in them can that be the cause of scandals that in experience is alwayes found to be the effectual means of restraining and removing of them 4. While we cast our eyes about us to discover the grounds on which they fix this greivous and heavy charge it does not appear to us so much as to give the least degree of probability to it yea the evidence of the contrare is so clear and full that we cannot think our adversaries do beleeve themselves in these and other reproaches they load us with Sure we are they cannot binde this charge on the doctrines we professe and are preached in our meetings which are contained in our printed Confessions of faith long since emited to the world especially in the Confession of faith the large and shorter Catechismes composed by the Assembly of divines at West Minster We earnestly beg of our Antagonists that they will give instances in any of these doctrines if they can that of themselves do tend to licenciousness and profanity Upon a review of the whole of our doctrine in its several parts we cannot pitch upon one except the doctrine of justification by faith only throw the alone merits and blood of Christ Iesus maintained by all protestants except some who of late do assert the interest of good works as a preexistent condition of a sinners justification before God which yet is not directly and positively done but by indirect wayes and hints as is to be seen in Mr Gilbert Burnets first dialogues Patrick the Pilgrim and the Author of the whole duty of Man who resolve a sinners justification before God in his serious purpose and endeavour of good works at least as a preexistent condition of it which is not only against the doctrine of all protestants till of late as is to be seen in their writings but directly against the great Apostle Paul in his Epistles to the Romans and Gallatians whose arguments in that mater when our adversaries have answered them we shall consider at more length All the reasons they give for this charge from the head are so fully answered by that Apostle in the6 Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans and 2. to the Galatians towards the close that we judge it needlesse to insist any further on this We do not charge all of the Prelatical party with this corrupt doctrine some of them particularly doctor Tully hath so clearly and soundly asserted and vindicat the doctrine of Protestants in this mater against the exceptions and arguments of the contrare minded that he if living deserves thanks from all the Protestant Churches of Christ in this and other parts of the Christian world A doctrine that hath been esteemed fundamentall among them and given as one great characteristick betwixt us and Papists yea it hath been looked upon as the note and signe of the resurgentis aut cadentis ecclesiae as she holds to or departs from the same We are not so antiprelatical as not to love truth wherever we find it and the assertor thereof for its

is there not here a reciprocal subordination and superiority of persons with a coordination of powers as is hinted above We plead no more for the Ministers of the Gospel and the Government of the Church commited to them We grant a great difference in other respects betwixt the Magistrat and Ministers they act as meer servants without all dominion in them He with dominion and Magistratical authority over the persons of Ministers yet for all this the powers are coordinat and in their exercise not directly subject to one another 2. These powers their exercise and respective objects becoming reciprocally the object of one another as the Ministry and its objects being one part of the Magistrats power the Magistrat and the objects of his power being likewise a part of the object about which Ministers exercise their power under different formalities and specifications there arises or results not only a sweet harmony and a mutual subserviency to one another in advancing of their respective ends but likewise an indirect subordination to one another in the exercise of their powers without any dependance of these powers upon one another But this subordination is only of the persons and not of the powers which by being the mutual objects of one anothers powers does not subject the power and its exercise but only the persons for any thing or power becoming the object of another does not subordinat it to that power the Word Ordinances c. are not by being the object either of the Ministerial or the Magistratical power subordinated or subject thereto so that the Ministerial power its exercise and the maters about which it converses are not by being the object of the Magistrats power subordinated to it This breaks the force of our adversaries Argument which lyes mainly in this Obj. 6. It is only this sort of Supremacy and subordination that the act of restitution does mean Ans It is not so as is clear from the words and frame of the acts for it is the Church assemblies their proper maters their constitution the intrinsick obligation of their conclusions that are subordinated to the Magistrat so that all is nothing without him Obj. 7. All Divines even the Presbyterians and independents in the Church of England grant the Magistrat to be Supream in all causes and over all persons Ecclesiastical none of them scruple to take the oath of Supremacy as it is established by law in that Kingdom Ans All Divines do not grant this as is to be seen in the writings of many and for any thing we know it is not yeelded by the Presbyterian and Independants in the sense controverted among us neither can it seing it quyt overthrows all Church Government in its distinction from and independency on the civil Government of the Magistrat which is contrare to the known principles both of Presbyterians and Independants and if the Prelats themselves durst speak their minde conforme to their owne principles they would not in this differ from us as Thorndike more free and engenuous then the rest of his party does declame and cry out against the oath of Supremacy as the great crying sin of the Church of England but to an excesse would assert all and much more then we do in this mater were it not for fear of offending the Magistrat on whom now they wholly depend and whose Creaturs they only are● which hath in our times reconciled the Prelatical and Erastian principles at least in appearance that are most contrare to and distant from one another yea more then theirs and ours And although the Presbyterians and Independants in the Church of England do take the oath of Supremacy yet it is with such explications allowed assented to by the Magistrat that give it a sound sense which was stumbled and scrupled at both in Queen Elizabeth and King James times till its sense was explicat and allowed as is to be seen in the instructions given to justices of the peace by Queen Elizabeth for administrating the said oath Bishop Ushers explanation of it approven by King James In which sense it is understood taken to this day among them But to understand this mater aright and to avoid the labyrinth of generalities ambiguities with which some divines perplex intricat it it would be considered 1. That there is a two fold proper supremacy one civil and another Ecclesiastical about Church power meetings and maters 2 There are two Kinds of Causes of those they call Ecclesiastical some that are only extrinsically such but in their nature immediat ends and use civil that for their more remote ends and respects to things truely and properly sacred are called Ecclesiastical as lawes made for the Church her concerns outward liberty and peace external rewards and punishments c. Againe some causes Ecclesiastical are intrinsically and formally such as who shall preach the Gospel be invested with the Ministery or who shall be deposed from it who shall be rebuked admonished and excommunicated or received and admitted into the Church c. 3 The terme CAUSES is not here to be understood in a physical but moral and juridical sense that is for questions to be decided by those who are impowered either by God or men to this work 4 Causes or questions as they are the object of power its exercise are either proper and immediat or els improper and remote Hence we say 1. That the Magistrat is Supream Governour in all things or causes properly civil relating to causes and persons Ecclesiastical the judicial cognition and definitive judgment of these belong to him and not to the Church in this sense we admit the oath of Supremacy declared ourselves willing to take it which was refused us 2 That the Magistrat is not the supreme Governour in Causes and over persons formally Ecclesiastical This we assert belongs to Christ Jesus only and not to the Magistrat as hath been proven above This is the supremacy we deny to the Magistrat and for which we have declined to take the oath anent it that is now established law being perswaded for the reasons formerly given that this is the supremacy granted by law and understood in this oath But3 That causes and persons formally Ecclesiastical are not the proper and immediat object of the Magistrats power but only improper and remote and the reason is becaus in the execution of Christs law given to the Church the judicial cognition and definitive judgment about these belongs not to the Magistrat but to the Ministers of the word as for instance it is not the Magistrats part to cognosce and determine who is to be received into the Church and who not this is proper to the Ministers of the Gospel and so of other causes and questions of the like nature Obj. Then the Magistrat in protecting countenancing and furthering of the Churches acts and sentences by the sword must be a blinde executer of them Ans This must be said