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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	church_n	matter_n	see_v	1,546	5	3.4343	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54578	A discourse concerning liberty of conscience In which are contain'd proposalls, about what liberty in this kind is now politically expedient to be given, and severall reasons to shew how much the peace and welfare of the nation is concern'd therein. By R.T.	Pett, Peter, Sir, 1630-1699.; Dury, John, 1596-1680.	1661 (1661)	Wing P1881A; ESTC R213028	34,446	118

persons intend to be judges how far mens civil and spirituall liberties reach and what are the frontires of both Nothing we see is more common among the Romish Priests then to pick the pockets of the people in ordine ad spiritualla And 't is most certain that he who doth impose any thing upon the people under the species of Religion would not leave them a power to judge whether it be in order to it or no. For if they are the Judges of it they will say that any thing in Religion which displeaseth them opposeth their civil liberty and so nothing at all will therein be enjoyned Secondly those that take away from others their spirituall liberties shew that they can take away part of their civill at least or else the whole of them accordingly as they valued their spirituall liberty If it be said that mens civil liberties are thought more important then their spirituall yet it may be replyed that in the thoughts of very many men their spirituall liberties are as considerable as part of their civill So that the totall destroyers of spirituall liberty shew that part of the civill is at their mercy And if they are able to take away one part of mens civill liberties they are by that means in a better capacity to take away another just as he that is able to take away one limb from a mans body is the more able to take away another because by the losse of that a man hath the less strength to defend himself against a further assault But although in some parts of the World men have not the same high esteem for spirituall liberty as for civil just as the par or proportion of Silver to Gold in severall Countries doth differ it may be affirm'd that in this Nation generally they have 'T is true that broken-fortun'd men do not value civil liberty nor men of debauch'd Consciences spirituall but neither of these qualifications hath produced a generall undervaluing of either sort of liberty among us As to what may be objected concerning some Popish Countries as Venice c. where they have not a proportion of esteem for spirituall liberty equall to their civil I answer that their Religion obligeth them to perform a servile obedience to the Bishop of Rome in things sacred and they looking on him as infallible have no reason to prize a liberty of not obeying him Yet even in those places obedience to the Roman Catholick Religion is not maintain'd by the severe Discipline of an Inquisition The policy of the French Nation is in this respect exactly good the liberty of the Gallican Church being so cautiously asserted in order to the liberty of the Gallican Kingdom where their Courts of Parliament in case of Appeals do declare void and null the Popes Bulls and Excommunications and forbid the execution of them when they are found contrary to the liberty of the French Church and the Kings Prerogative Nor without cause were the severall European Princes jealous of the Popes designs to invade their civil liberties when as Mr. Selden observes in his Dissertatio ad Fletam Innocent the second being very earnest with them to admit the Canon Law into their Territories they received the Civil Law to keep out the Canon In which Law the Bishops of Rome have severall Titles De emptione venditione De locato conducto and severall other Titles that concern Temporall affaires between man and man Thirdly they engage themselves to be in readiness by Temporall power to maintain their conquests over mens spiritual liberties For he that takes away a feather out of a mans hat is obliged in interest to take away his sword from his side If it be said that a man may think himself bound in Conscience to oppresse people in spiritual things but not in civil I answer most certainly then his Conscience will lead him to put them out of a condition to assert their spiritual liberties so opprest It is with restraining the freedom of Conscience as the denying a mare liberum to neigbouring nations which any Prince that doth must not trust to prescription of long time or imaginary lines in the heavens whereby the compasse of his dominion of the Sea may be determined but to powerfull Fleets Fourthly they give men just cause to think that they will be willing to invade their civil liberties whenever their Consciences or their interests shall prompt them to it From what hath been said in this first Reason about the connexion of civil and spiritual liberty and mens concernednesse in the valuation of both I shall occasionally affirm that the next best way to Liberty of Conscience for the preservation of the publick peace of a Country where spirituall liberty is regarded in any high measure by the people is an Inquisition But he hath much to learn in Politicks who thinks that an Inquisition is practicable among us as 't is in Spain where one Religion hath had quiet possession in the Countrey so many yeares The second Reason to prove that the Peace and Safety of the Nation will be very considerably advanced by the allowance of freedom to mens Consciences shall be this As long as there is such a due Liberty of Conscience granted 't is hardly possible for any civil Wars to happen on the account of Religion which for want of this freedom may If there are but two parties in a Nation that differ from one another in Religion 't is not unlikely but that a civil War may arise on the account of Religion though the one doth tolerate the other because either of them that thinks its share in the chief Magistrates savour least may for that reason attempt a forcible suppression of the other But any such War can hardly be where the parties differing in Religion are many For they are not likely to know the exact strength of one another and their severall animosities will keep them from joyning together against any one that doth not invade their liberty in generall Nothing but extreme necessity can bring them to meet amicably and consult together For the nearer they seem to one another in opinion the sharper their mutuall hatreds are just as people of severall Countreys that live in the frontires of each do hate one another with a greater vehemence then those more remotely situated do Besides 't is probable that if any one of the parties tolerated should go about to make it self uppermost which design only could make it fly out into a civil War the rest would immediately Joyne to suppresse it For they are not sure they shall have that from the conquering party after all the horrors of War which they already possesse to wit a fair liberty Which if it be competently allow'd to the severall parties seditious persons at home and the Ministers of State to our enemies abroad will be deprived of their old benefit from our Divisions in Religion which they accidentally made use of as a handle to

is lawfull for the Communalties themselves to present or such as have not the right of presentation they shall have the right to name fit school-masters and Ministers of the Churches to be examined by the publick Consistory or Ministry if they be of the same Religion with the Commu●alties which nominate and present or if they be not of the same Religion they shall be examined in the place which the Communalties shall chuse whom the Prince or Lord shall afterwards without any denial confirm This Statute-law of the Empire is the ground of all that freedome which the Reformed or the Lutheran party can lay claim to when they fall under Magistrates of a different profession As for the observation of this Law it is found that the Reformed Magistrate is almost every where more equitable towards Lutherans then these are unto those for in the Palatinate at Heidelberg and other places in Hessen at Smalcalden and at Marpurg and in some places of Anhalt in all the Territories of the Elector of Brandenburg and in the Principalities of Nassaw where the Reformed have the supreme power the Lutherans have their full liberty without interruption but where the Lutherans have the supreme Authority in Germanie I know no places where they permit the free exercise of the Reformed profession but in the places named heretofore in Holstein at Fridericksburg and Altena and in Hamburg the English have their freedome within the City but none else nor doe I know any Imperiall City where the Magistrate is Lutheran which permits the Reformed party to have the liberty of publick profession within their walls there is one of the Lutheran Earls of Hanaw who hath given of late years to the Reformed party dwelling in Strasburg the liberty to build a Church upon his Territory and to have their publick meetings therein and one of the Lutheran Marquesses of Brandenburg hath done the like a year or two ago to the Reformed inhabitants of Noimberg At Bremen where the Magistrate is wholly reformed within the City the Lutherans have the possession of the Cathedrall Church where they exercise their Religious Worship in publick but there are complaints made of the late King of Sweden that in the Territory under his Jurisdiction he hath suffered the Statute of the Empire touching the freedom of Religion to be violated by casting out the Reformed Ministers and imposing Lutherans upon the Reformed Professors depriving them of the Liberty which they have enjoyed ever since the first Reformation of these places from Popery In the Low Countries of the united Provinces the Lutherans the Remonstrants and the Anabaptists have a freedom to meet in a publick way others of all sorts do meet in private and the difference which is made between the Professors of severall parties is chiefly this that the Reformed party which doth own the National Confession and are owned to be Members of the National Congregations have only the Priviledge and Preeminence of being admitted to places of Trust in the State from which all others are excluded And this Liberty of Religion which the united Provinces have yielded and maintained unto all sorts hath made that little spot of ground to be the Centre of the Trade of Europe having onely three Sea-Ports the Wicling the Mase and the Texel and these Ports are not easie neither but difficult to be entred In the Cantons of Switzerland and Geneva there is no different Profession publickly tolerated although in the Circumstantial way of the Administration of Ordinances and in the particular order of Discipline and Government each Canton is different from another yet they fell not out about their differences but correspond in a friendly manner in matters of common concernment In France the Protestant Churches are to be considered within themselves for the Liberty which they enjoy under their Popish Magistrate is not under our consideration but the liberty which their Nationall Synod doth give to particular men to protesse different opinions without bleach of unity in the Church is that which is to be observed and may be a president to teach others Moderation for in the late Controversies between Monsieur du Moulin and Monsieur Amyraut concerning Predestination wherein many others were engaged on both sides although some hears did begin to break forth yet the Nationall Synod hath allayed the distemper and preserved Peace and Unity in the Churches notwithstanding the difference of judgment which was found amongst them The freedome which the particular Churches have to depute some of their members from their Consistories to the Colloques and Provinciall Synods is the means to preserve their Unity and Peace In Switzerland the freedome which the Churches enjoy doth wholly depend upon the Constitution of their order as ratified by the Civil Magistrate who in each canton is Sovereign and upon the correspondency between the Churches which is ordinarily managed by those of Zurich towards all the rest for as the Canton of Zurich hath the precedency and direction in all Civil matters of common concernment so hath the Antistes and Consistory of Zurich in matters Ecclesiasticall a kind of trust put upon them to communicate to the rest by way of correspondency matters to be advised on for mutuall concurrence In Germany there is no such correspondency between the Churches but their freedome in the exercise of Discipline and Government depends wholly upon the Sanction which the Prince and his Ecclesiasticall Senate or Consistory doth make concerning the order and way of administring all things In the Low-countries the freedome of meeting in Classes and in Synods in Classes every Month or oftner if need be according as the Classes are divided in Synods Provinciall every year once is the preservation of these Churches in unity for the six Provinces viz. Gelderland Holland Ulrecht Friesland Groning and Overyssell hold their Synods so consecutively that they can send from each Synod Deputies to another to correspond with them and to communicate matters of Deliberation that there may be no causes of breaches between them the Province of Zeeland hath no setled time of Synodicall meeting but the Classes of Middelburg upon all Emergencies doth give notice to the other Classes of the adjacent Islands of matters to be taken into consideration So that in the Low-Countries the Liberty to meet for the ordering of all things within themselves which preserves the Churches in France and the Liberty to correspond and to communicate one with another the things which they settle by order which preserves the Churches in Switzerland is more complete then any where else and because the Deputies or rather Commissioners from the Civil Magistrate are always present at the Provinciall Synods therefore their decrees are more valid and yet altogether free in matters of spirituall concernment This is the Liberty which I have observed to be in use amongst Protestants within themselves in the exercise of their profession by publick meetings by the administration of Government within themselves by Classes

and a speedy punishing so numerous a party would not be prudent because the persecution of one party would alarme all the others and make them fear that their turnes would be next This is a party that none have reason to fear as long-liv'd according to the course of nature for it doth not cherish the hopes of its followers by any sensuall pleasures in this World nor can its principles assure men of any reward in the World to come because the Quakers having degenerated from the light of the Scripture to that within them they can have no grounded assurance of any good terms in another World Those of them that are idle and go from Town to Town neglecting their callings may without any injury or provocation to the rest of the parties he compell'd to work And I am confident that these poor Enthusiastick people by hard labour and diligence in their callings might be at once curd of their melancholy and errours and be thus induced no longer to call a bad spleen a good Conscience Undoubtedly any Enthusiast that had been tired in some Mechanicall Trade by very hard labour in the day would find little gusto in reading Iacob Behmon's works at night Sixthly that those who professe the belief of a fifth Monarchy that is of Christs Reigning personally on the Earth a thousand yeares and draw no consequences from thence about their duty in promoting that fifth Kingdom by being active in dethroning any Magistrates or devesting Bishops and Ministers of their places because they are said to be of the fourth may not for that opinion be liable to any punishment For as ill uses as this opinion hath been put to in our dayes it was believed by almost all the Fathers of the Church before the first Nicene Councell And therefore I do so state this sixth proposall that only those now that believe a Millennium and draw no more consequences of Rebellion and Sedition from it then its Primitive assertors did may have the benefit of liberty As for those who by this innocent opinion would occasionally disturb civil Societies it is fit they should be dealt with as enemies of mankind and as such who would found the fifth Monarchy in a colluvies of more vile people then Romulus did the fourth and would multiply Confusions and Disorders in the World by destroying propriety and producing innumerable swarmes of Hypocrites in so much that if the Devil were to reign personally on the Earth he would not fill the World with more prodigious impieties For 't is likely that he would not take away more mens lives then they but rather be willing that severall generations of men should still succeed one another and that he would account the most provoking indignities that could be offer'd God in the World were only to be shewn by those men who would advance their temporall designes by Religion it being a greater affront to a King to be put to servile and ignominious uses in his Kingdom then to be banish'd from it Till any factious assertors of the fifth Monarchy can shew Gods warrant for their having Donations from him of our Estates as the Israelites could for their seising on those of the Egyptians we have reason to look on them as the Nations exterminated by Ioshuah out of their Countries did on him who as Procopius saith in the second book of his Vandalics caus'd Pillars to be erected with words on them in the Phanician Language which he thus renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. We fly from the face of Ioshuah the thief the Son of Nun. But without doubt these mens design is not to claim our goods by such a right as Gods people the Israelites who yet were weary of the Theocracy they liv'd under did the Egyptians first of all but as the Mammelucs did since whose Government is the true example of theirs who would rule us by a Nation within a Nation And indeed those men may be asham'd to ask Liberty of Conscience who in their principles proclaim they will never give it from whom all the favour such as are not of their opinions can hope is to be kept so well in heart as to be able to hew their wood and draw their water for them Moreover their abusing those words of the Saints inheriting the Earth or which is all one founding dominion in grace would leave us still in a state of war For every man pretending to have grace nothing can decide the controversie but the Sword where there is no infallible judge Among the Papists there is a pretended one and so the opinion of giving the ballance of Land to the party preponderating in grace where there is a steady hand to hold the scales is not among them so mischievous as here it would be Seventhly that neither the old Discipline nor the Ceremonies of the Church of England nor an acknowledgment of the lawfulness or expediency therof be obtruded on any of the fore-mention'd parties nor that any censures from Ecclesiasticall Courts by Fines or Excommunication may be extended against them for Non-conformity For though Excommunication from a Church which a man doth not own as true or having Authority over him doth terrifie him no more then predictions of Thunder from Almanacks yet it makes that tremendous punishment of the the Gospel that judgement precursory of the last cease to be formidable But truly according to the Custom of our Church and much more according to the Church of Scoland an Excommunicate person is some way obnoxious to outward punishments And as our barbarous custom is for the Lord of a mannor to seize upon all the goods of any shipwrack'd persons that were thrown up by the Sea on his ground so in Scotland often the goods of those men who fall as wrecks on the shore of the Church accrue to it And thus accidentally trouble is created to the Magistrate about tempering the rigour of the Church by his power As one not many yeares since Excommunicated in Scotland procur'd his Excommunication to be taken off by a Counsell of War and so it was revers'd errante gladio as laid on possibly errante clave Having thus presented the proposalls to be considered and therein occasionally given some Reasons for Liberty of Conscience as it concerns some of the respective parties among us it remains now that more generall Reasons be produced and such as are comprehensive of the concernments of all or most of the parties differing in lesser matters of Religion To prove how much a due liberty granted to them will conduce to the peace and safety of the Nation and what publick inconveniences will follow from the contrary The first Reason shall be taken from the necessary connexion between Civil liberty and that which is Spiritual and therefore they that would devest any of their spirituall liberties do alarm them with just causes of fear about their losing civil liberties by the same hands For first it must necessarily be presumed that such