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	time_n	2,337	5	3.6439	3	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

which will not save them from hell nor Superiors be ever told of their Errors but by Rebellion which will not bring them to heaven These such like be the liberties that both Prince People do enjoy by the want of Confession and of Catholike Religion 43. As for the liberty of making Lawes in Church-matters the Common Lawyer may perhaps make an advantage of it and therefore greatly stand upon it but to the common people it is no pleasure at all but rather a great burthen For the great Multitude of Statutes which have been made since the Schisme which are five times more then ever they were before since the name of Parliament was in England hath caused also an infinite number of Lawyers all which must live by the Commons and raise new Families which cannot be done without the decay of the old And if the Canons of the Church and the Courts of Confession were in request the Lawyers market would soon be marred And therefore most of your Lawyers in this point are Puritans do still furnish the Parliament with grievances against the Clergie as knowing very well that their own glory came at the first from the Court Infidell and therefore cannot stand with the Authority of the Church which came at the first from the Court Christian I speak not against the Ancient Lawes of England which since King Ethelberts time were all Catholike nor against the honest Lawyers of England I know many and honour all good men among them and do hope for better times by the learning wisedom moderation of the chiefest But I am verily perswaded that the pretended liberties of the Commons to make Lawes in matter of Religion doth burthen the Common wealth and both prejudice your Majesty and pleasure none at all but the Puritan and petty-fogging Lawyer that would faine fetch the antiquity of his Common Law from the Saxons that were before King Ethelbert So that whether we respect the spirituall instruction and comfort or the temporall wealth and liberty of the Commons of England if the Puritan Preacher and Puritan Lawyer who both do seek the overthrow of the Church and deceive and consume the people would let them alone there would quickly appeare no reason of their Sta●e at all why they should hate the Catholike Church that is so comfortable and beneficiall unto them or maintain the Schisme that with sugred speeches and counterfait faces doth so much abuse them 44. I am therefore in very assured hope that by my coming to the Catholike Church besides the satisfying and saving of my own soule I shall do no ill service to your Majesty neither in respect of your selfe nor your Children nor in respect of your Lords and Commons and that there is no reason concerning the State in any of these that is sufficient to disswade unity There is only the * The Protestant Clergie are now like to find this a true prediction Clergy left which if Calvinisme may go on and prevaile as it doth shall not in the next age be left to be satisfied And there is little reason that any man that loves the Clergie should desire to satisfie such Clergie men as do under hand favour Calvinists and maintain such points of Doctrine as if your Majesties favour were not would out of hand overthrow the Clergie and instead of them set up a few stipendary Preachers 45. There never was is or shall be any well setled State in the world either Christian or Heathen but the Clergie or Priesthood was is and must be a principall part of the Government depending upon none but him only whom they suppose to be their God But where Calvinisme prevailes three or four stipendary Ministers that must preach as it shall please Mr. Mayor and his Brethren may serve for a whole City And indeed if their opinions be true it is but a folly for any State ●o maintain any more For if God hath predistinated a certain Number to be saved without any condition at all of their being in the visible Church by Faith or their persevering therein by good works If God hath reprobated the greatest part of the world without any respect at all of their infidelity heresie or wicked life If the Faith of Christ be nothing els but the assured perswasion of a Man 's own Predestination to glory by him If the Sacraments of the Church be nothing but signes and badges of that grace which a man hath before by the carnall Covenant of his Parents faith If Priesthood can do nothing but preach the Word as they call it which Lay-men must judge of and may preach too if they will where occasion serves If the studie an I knowledge of Antiquity Universality and Consent be not necessary but every man may expound Scripture as his own spirit shall move him If I say these and such like opinions be as true as they are among Calvinists in the world common and in England too much favoured and maintained there will certainly appear no reason at all to your Parliament whensoever your Majesty or your Successor shall please to ask them why they should be at so great a charge as they are to maintain so needlesse a party as these opinions do make the Clergy to be They can have a great many more How right this points upon the Doctrine of these times Sermons a great deale better cheap and in the opinion of Calvinisme the Clergy do no other service They that do in England favour and maintain those opinions and suppresse and disgrace those that do confute them they although themselves can be content to be Lords and go in Rochets are indeed the greatest Enemies of the Clergy And it were no great matter for the Clergy they might easily turn Lay and live as well as they do for the most part But it is a thing full of compassion and commiseration to see that by these false and wicked opinions the Divell the the Father of these and all other lies doth daily take possession of the soules of your Subjects both of Clergy and Laity These kind of Clergy men I confesse I do not desire to satisfie any other way then as I have alwaies done that is by the most friendly and plain confutation of their errors to shew them the truth As for other Clergy men that are conformable to the Religion established by Law as well for their Doctrine as for their Discipline if they be good Schollers and temperate men as I know many of them are they cannot but in their judgements approve the truth of Catholike Religion and if it were not for fear of losse or disgrace to their wives and Children they would be as glad as my selfe that a more temperate course might be held and more liberty afforded unto Catholikes and Catholike Religion in England These Clergy-men I am and ever shall be desirous to satisfie not only in respect of themselves but also in respect of their wives and

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

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

thing to think upon such exhortations and all one as if a phantasticall fellow finding a herd of young Cattell in a close should first break downe the hedges and then cry loud to the Cattell not to venture to go out nor to seek any fatter pasture for fear they be put into the pound and if they chance to feed where they are because they have no experience of other and to tarry in the Close for an houre or two then the unhappy fellow should run to the owner of the Cattell and tell him what great service he had done him and how he had kept his Cattell in the Close by his goodly charmes and exhortations Let them say what they list of their own honesty and of their exhortations to obedience as long as they do freely infect the peoples soules with such false opinions in Religion they do certainly sow the seeds of disobedience and Rebellion in mens understandings which if they be not prevented by your Majesties giving way to Catholike Religion will in all likelihood spring up in the K. Charles feels the sad effects of this predictiō next generation to the great prejudice and molestation of your Majesty and your posterity So that whether I doe respect heaven or earth my own soule or the service of your Majesty God or your Neighbours or your Subjects my assured hope is that by joyning my selfe to the Catholike Church I neither have done nor ever shall do any ill duty or service unto your Majesty 18. But perhaps there is such opposition both in matter of Doctrine and in matter of State as it is unpossible that ever there should be any reconcilation at all betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome of which I humbly pray your Majesty to give me leave to shew you what I have observed 19. It is true the breach hath continued now these many yeares and it is much increased by so long continuance so that it was never greater then it seems to be at this day nor ever more dangerous to deal withall For if a man do but go about to stop it there ariseth presently a great and fearfull noise and roaring of the waters against him but yet neverthelesse the greatnesse of the noise ought not to discourage us but rather to give us hope that although it be wide yet it is but shallow and not far from the bottome as proceeding from affection which is sudden and violent and not from judgement which is quiet constant and alwaies like it self for if a man ask in cold blood whether a Romane Catholike may be saved the most learned Church-man will not deny it And if a man aske whether a Romane Catholike may be a good Subject the most wise States-man will easily grant it May we be both saved then we are not divided in God May we be both good Subjects then we are not divided in the King What reason is there then that we should be thus hotly and unplacably divided 20. Truly there is no reason at all but only the violence of affection which being in a course cannot without some force be staied The multitude doth seldome or never judge according to truth but according to customes and therefore having of purpose been bred and brought up in the hatred of Spaniards and Papists cannot chuse but think they are bound to hate them still and that whosoever speaks a word in favour of the Church of Rome or of Catholike Religion is their utter enemy And the Puritannicall Preacher who can have no being in charity doth never cease by falsifications and slanders to blow the coales that he may burn them and warm himselfe But if your Majesty shall ever bee pleased to command those make bates to hold their peace a while and to say nothing but what they are able to prove by sufficient authority before those who are able to judge and in the mean time to admit a conference of learned and moderate men on either side the people who are now abused and with the light of the Gospell held in extreme ignorance are not yet so uncapable but they will be glad to heare of the truth when it shall be simply and evidently delivered by honest men and then they will plainly see that their Light of the Gospell which they so much talk of is but a counterfeit light in a Theeves lantern whereby honest mens eyes are dazzled and their Purses robbed And it will also appear that there is not indeed any such irreconcileable opposition betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome as they that live by the Schisme do make the world believe there is neither in matter of Doctrine nor matter of State 21. For matter of Doctrine there is no reason that your Majesty or the Kingdome should be molested or burdened for the maintenance of Calvinisme which is as much * Indeed a true Protestant and a Papist are now almost equally odious against the Religion of England as it is against the Religion of Rome and will by necessary consequence overthrow not only the Catholike Church the Communion of Saints and the forgivenesse of sinnes but also all the Articles of the Creed saving only so much as the Turk himselfe will be content to believe which will be easie to prove upon better leisure The Doctrine of England is that which is contained in the Common Prayer Book and Church Catechisme confirmed by Act of Parliament and by your Majesties Edict wherein all English men are Baptized and ought to be confirmed and therefore there is some reason that this should be stood upon But this Doctrine in most of the main points thereof as hath been touched before and requireth a just treatise to set down in particular doth much differ from the current opinions and Catechismes of Calvinisme or doth very neer agree with or at least not contradict the Church of Rome if we list with patience to hear one another And those points of Doctrine wherein we are made to be at warrs with the Church of Rome whether we will or not do rather argue the Corruptions of that state from whence they come then are argued by the grounds of that Religion whereupon they stand and the contradiction of Doctrine hath followed the altera●ion of State and not the alteration of State been grounded upon any truth of Doctrine 22. For when the breach was resolved upon for the personall and particular ease of King Henry the eight and the Children of his later Wives it was necessary to give every part of the Common-wealth contentment for which they might hold out in the heat of affection and study to maintain the breach otherwise it was likely that in the clearnesse of Judgement it would quickly have grown together again and then the Authors thereof must have been excluded and given account of their practise 23. Therefore to the Lords and * In like manner the Members of Parliament and their Adherents have