Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	ancient_a	church_n	pope_n	2,079	5	6.4952	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34212	A missive to His Majesty of Great Britain, King James written divers yeers since by Doctor Carier ; conteining [sic] the motives of his conversion to Catholike religion ; vvith a notable fore-sight of the present distempers both in the church and state of His Majesties dominions, and his advice for the prevention thereof.	Carier, Benjamin, 1566-1614.; Strange, N., 17th cent.; James I, King of England, 1566-1625.	1649 (1649)	Wing C572; ESTC R8830	50,068	94

children whom I am so far from condemning and disliking as that I do account my selfe one of them and I desire nothing more in this world then in the toleration of Catholike Religion to live die among them And therefore I have had so great care in this point as before I did submit my self to the Catholike Church I received assurance from some of the greatest that if your Majesty would admit the Ancient subordination of the Church of Canterbury unto that Mother Church by whose authority all other Churches in England at the first were and still are subordinate unto Canterbury and the free use of that Sacrament for which especially all the Churches in Christendome were first founded the Pope for his part would confirme the Interest of all those that have present possession in any Ecclesiasticall living in England And would also permit the free use of the Common Prayer Book in English for Morning and Evening Prayer with very little or no alteration And for the contentment and security of your Majesty he would give you not only any satisfaction but all the honor that with the unity of the Church and the safety of Catholike Religion may be required which seemed to me so reasonable as being before satisfied of the truth of Catholike Religion I could ask no more So that I am verely perswaded that by yeilding to that truth which I could not deny I have neither neglected my duty and service to your Majesty and your Children nor my respect and honor to your Lords and Commons nor my love and kindnesse to my honest friends and brethren of the Clergy but rather that my Example and my Prayers shall do good unto all 47. But that which I must trust to when all the rest will faile me is the service of God and saving of my soule in the unity of that Church which was founded by Christ himselfe and shall continue untill his coming againe wherein all the Saints of God have served him on earth and do enjoy him in heaven without which Holy Catholike Church there is no Communion of Saints no forgivenesse of sinnes no hope of Resurection unto life everlasting I beseech your Majesty let not Calvins Ecclesia Praedestinatorum deceive you it may serve a Turk as well as a Christian it hath no faith but opinion no hope but presumption no Charity but lust no faith but a fancie no God but an Idoll For Deus est omnibus Religionibus commune Nomen All Religions in the world begin their Creed with I believe in God But homini extra Ecclesiant Religio sua est cultus phantasmatum suorum and error suus est Deus suus as S. Augustine affirmeth Epist. 64. 48. I have more things to write but the hast of answering your Majesties Commandement signified to me by Sir Thomas Lake his Letters hath made me commit many faults in writing this very suddenly for which I crave pardon and cut off the rest But for my returning into England I can answer no otherwise but thus I have sent you my soule in this Treatise and if it may find entertainment and passage my body shall most gladly follow after And if not I pray God I send my soule to heaven and my body to the grave assoon as may be In the mean time I will rejoyce in nothing but only in the Crosse of Christ which is the glory of your Crown And therefore I will triumph therein not as being gone from you to your adversary but as being gone before you to your Mother where I desire and hope for ever to continue Your Majesties true Servant and Beadsman B. CARIER Liege Decemb. 12. Anno 1613. Multum incola fuit anima mea Cum his qui oderunt pacem eram pacificus Cum loqucbar illis impuguabant me gratis FINIS

and the love of my Friends and Countrey This griefe of soule growing now desperate did still more and more increase the infirmities of my body and yet I was so loath to become a professed Catholike with the displeasure of your Majesty and of all my honourable and loving friends as I rather desired to silence my judgement with the profits and pleasures of the world which was before me then to satisfie it with reconciling my selfe unto the Catholike Church But it was Gods will that ever as I was about to forget the care of Religion and to settle my selfe to the world among my neighbours I met with such humors as I saw by their violence against Catholikes and Catholike Religion were like to waken my soule by torture rather then bring it asleep by temper And therefore I was driven to recoile to God and to his Church that I might find rest unto my soule 11. And yet because I had heard often that the practise of the Church of Rome was contrary to her Doctrine I thought good to make one triall more before I resolved and therefore having the advice of diverse learned Physitians to goe to the Spa for the health of my body I thought good to make a vertue of necessity and to get leave to go the rather for the satisfaction of my soule hoping to find some greater offence in the Service of the Church of Rome then I had done in her Bookes that so I might returne better contented to persecute and abhorre the Catholikes at home after I should find them so wicked and Idolatrous abroad as they were in every Pulpit in England affirmed to be For this purpose before I would frequent their Churches I talked with such learned men as I could meet withall and did of purpose dispute against them and with all the wit and learning I had I did both justifie the Doctrine of England established by Law and object the Superstition and Idolatry which I thought they might commit either with the Images in the Church or with the Sacrament of the Altar 12. Their common answer was that which by experience I now find to be true viz. that they doe abhorre all Idolatry and Superstition and do diligently admonish the people to take heed thereof And that they use Images for no other purpose but only for a devout memory and representation of the Church Triumphant which is most sit to be made in the time and place of prayer where after a more speciall manner we should with all reverence have our conversation amongst the Saints in Heaven And for the B. Sacrament they do not worship the Accidents which they see but the substance which they believe and surely if Christ be there truly and really present as your Majesty seems to grant he is he is as much to be worshipped as if we saw him with our bodily eyes Neither is there any more Idolatry in the one then in the other If our B. Saviour himself should visibly appeare in person as he was upon the earth Jewes and Infidells would hold it for Idolatry to worship him and would crucifie him again and so would all Heretikes also who refuse to worship him in the Sacrament where he is really present 13. After divers other objections which I made not so much because I was not as because I desired not to be satisfied I came to the Popes supposed pride and tyranny over Kings and Princes and told them of the most horrible Treason intended and practised by Catholikes against your Majesty which hath not yet been judicially condemned by the Church of Rome They all seemed to abhor the fact as much as the best Subjects in the world and much more to favor and defend the authority of their Kings and Witnesse their loyalty to the King in these late warres Princes then Hereticks do And they said that although your Majesty were out of the Church yet they doubted not but if complaint were made in a Judiciall proceeding that fact should be judicially condemned In the mean time it was sufficient that all Catholike Writers did condemne it and that the Pope by his Breve had condemned it exhorting the Cathelikes of England to all Christian patience and obedience As for any other authority or superiority of the Pope then such as is spirituall and necessary for the unity of the Church I have met with none that doe stand upon it 14. So that whereas my hope was that by finding out the corruptions of the Church of Rome I should grow farther in love with the Church of England and joyfully return home and by inveighing against the Papists both enjoy my present preferments and obtaine more and more I saw the matter was like to fall out cleane contrary It is true indeed that there are many corruptions in all States God hath no wheat-field in this world wherein the Devill hath not tares growing and there are no tares more rank then those that grow among the wheat For optimi corruptio pessima and where grace abounds if it be contemned there sin abounds much more But seeing both my reading and experience hath now taught me that the truth of Christian Religion now taught and practised at this day in the Church of Rome and all the obedient Members thereof is the very same in substance which was prefigured and prophesied from the beginning of the world perfected by Christ himself delivered to his Apostles and by them and their Successors perpetually and universally in one uniformity practiced untill this day without any substantiall alteration And that the new Religion of England wherein it doth differ hath no ground but either the pleasure of the Prince and Parliament or the common cry and voice of the People nor no constancy or agreement with it selfe what should I now do It is not in my power not to know that which I do know nor to doubt of that which I have spent so much time and taken so much paines and bestowed so much cost and made so many trialls to find And yet I know if I should yeeld to be reconciled to the Church I should be for this world in all likelihood utterly undone and that which grieved me more I should be rejected of your Majesty my most redoubted Lord and Master and despised by all my deare friends and lovers in England 15. These were in my thoughts at the Spa which did so vex and afflict my soule as that the waters could do my body no good at all but rather much hurt Neverthelesse I avoided the company of Catholikes abstained from the Church and did both dispute and write against the Church of Rome as occasion was offered I still hoped that time would give me better counsell and therefore resolved to go from the Spa to Heidelberg to do my duty there In the meane time I thought with my self it may be God hath moved His Majesties heart to think of peace and reconciliation I know his disposition was so

now purchased the Bishops Lands at easie rates c. Favourites of the Court were given the Lands and Inheritance of the Abbeys and religious Houses that having once as it were washed their hands in the bowells and blood of the Church both they and their posterity might be at utter defiance therewith And so having overthrowne and prophaned the good works of the Saints it was necessary for them to get them Chaplains that might both dispute preach and write against the merits of good works the Invocation of Saints the sacrifice of the Altar Prayer for the dead and all such points of Catholike Doctrine as were the grounds of those Churches and Religious Houses which they had overthrowne and prophaned And it was not hard for those Chaplains by some shew of Scripture to prove that which their Lords and their followers were so willing to believe 24. To the Commons was given great hope of reliefe for their poverty case of Subsidies and of the burden of so great a Clergie and many other goodly gay nothings And for the present they should have liberty and the benefit of the Common-Law that is leave to live by such Lawes as themselves list to make and to contemne the Authority of the Church which although it were for their benefit every way yet because it crossed their affections like wayward Children they could never abide it And was not this reason enough for them to hold out the breach and to study Scripture themselves that they might be able to confute Confession Satisfaction Penance and to declaime against all that Tyranny of the Church of Rome whereby themselves and their fore-fathers had been kept in awe and obedience unto God and their Kings 25. To the Clergy men that would turne with the times besides the possibility of present preferment by the alteration was given shortly after leave to marry and to purchase and injoy the profit and pleasure of the world as well as the Laity And what carnall minded Monk or Priest would not with might and maine keep open the breach after he was once plunged in it rather then be in danger to forgo so pleasing a commodity Hence did arise a necessity of speaking and writing against Vowes Virginity Poverty Fasting Praying Watching Obedience and all that austerity of life which is by the Lawes of the Church required in a Monasticall and Priestly Conversation 26. Upon these conditions the Lords the Commons and the Clergie were content to believe that the King was supreme Head of the Church of England not that they did think so indeed or that they desired to augment his authority but that they might be protected by him and freely injoy those commodities So our Purchasers love not to hear of peace or unity lest they should come to lose their so easie bought Bishops lands other profits which they thought Schisme had brought unto them and feared the unity of the Church might again take from them Hence did arise a necessity of inveighing against the Pope and the Church of Rome as against Antichrist and Babylon and the greatest enemies of the State of England Insomuch that that Clergie-man was most acceptable to them and in their opinion most worthy of preferments that could most confidently preach and write the most foule and monstrous assertions of the Pope and the Church of Rome though they were never so false These and such like are those temporall respects which would faine seem the daughters of those Doctrines which themselves have brought forth and to be divided from the Catholike Church by Doctrine when they themselves have caused the Doctrine of Division 27. In all these and all other Doctrines of Division men have received great countenance and incouragement from Geneva For although ● John Calvin were never any good Subject or friend to Bishop Duke or King yet he did so fit the common people with new Doctrine that no Gospell can be so pleasing to them nor so lightsome as his For finding Geneva to be fallen out both with their Bishop who was their ancient Prince and their Duke to whom they pretended against their Bishop and to be all in a combustion among themselves for want of government although he were then a stranger and a very young man of some 26. or 27. years old at the most yet he thought good upon the oportunity to give the venture and to step in himselfe to be the founder of a new Church and State amongst them and for that purpose he found them out such a Catechisme as they might easily contemn all ancient Learning and authority and save themselves by a strong fancy which he called Faith And this pleased the Burgers of Geneva so well that they called a meering and caused all the Citizens to sweare that that Catechisme was true and that all Popery was false as may appeare in Calvins life written by Beza himselfe and prefixed to his Epistles And although the Ministeriall Presbytery of Geneva hath lost much of M. Calvins greatnesse yet the City hath had the fortune ever since by the help of their neighbours to hold out against their Bishop and their Duke and all their ancient Governours 28. Now it is the nature of all common people especially of Islanders not only still to * These late times witnesse this truth sufficiently affect more and more novelty and liberty and to be wearie of their old Clergie but also to admire any thing that comes from beyond the Seas to cherish and comfort one another with reporting the good successe which Schismaticks and Rebells happen to have against their lawfull Prelates and ancient Governours to impute all their good fortune to their new Religion Hence it comes to passe that that Doctrine which is indeed the lawfull Doctrine of the Church of England is neglected and contemned as a Relique or a Rag of Popery and Calvins Institutions being come from Geneva and fairly bound up with the Preface of the Gospell is dispersed throughout all Schooles Cities and Villages of England and hath so infected both Priest and People as although it be against Law yet it is cried up by voices to be the only current Divinity in Court and Countrey In hope belike that it may one day serve the turn in England as well as it hath done in Geneva and in other places where it hath prevailed 28. These reasons or rather Corruptions of State have so confounded the Doctrine of the Church of England and so slandered the Doctrine of the Church of Rome as it hath turned mens braines and made the multitude on both sides like two fools who being set back to back do think they are as far asunder as the Horizons are which they look upon But if it might please your Majesty to command them to turne but each of them a quarter about and looke both one way to the Service of God and your Majesty and to the salvation of soules they should presently see themselves to be