Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	believe_v	church_n	faith_n	17,021	5	6.3601	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61862	A sermon preached at the assizes at Hertford, Jvly viii, 1689 by John Strype ...	Strype, John, 1643-1737.	1689 (1689)	Wing S6025; ESTC R685	13,242	36

polluted by a Mass of Fooleries and Corruptions and Errors restored to its Primitive use and practice and a reasonable Service celebrated and Preachers appointed to teach and instruct men concerning the Contents of our Holy Religion and Means of Saving-knowledg more and more brake in upon us And thus we were then delivered And this Mercy of God will appear to be the greater if we consider what a small part of Christendome in comparison enjoy it beside our selves God seemed to have picked us out from the rest of the World to manifest This his Kindness to for the greater part of Christians still sit in Darkness concerning CHRIST and his Religion and while their Priests pretend to keep knowledge they communicate little enough to them they tell them it is enough for them to believe as the Church believes That they must resolve their Faith into the Authority of the Church But what the Faith of the Church is they need not trouble themselves to know let them but hear Mass and mumble over their Rosaries and their Latin Prayers let them but kiss a Crucifix and kneel before a Saints Image and sprinkle themselves with Holy Water and arm themselves with the sign of the Cross and 't is enough This I say is the condition of most Christians but God hath dealt more bountifully with you my Brethren He hath given you means of more perfect knowledge of JESUS CHRIST and of the way and means of Salvation by him In a word We have our Christian Religion that had been defac'd blotted and blurred by Popish Superstition cleansed from its Corruptions and restored to us as it was in the Primitive Ages a most invaluable Mercy and Blessing so that nothing now remains for us to do but to live according to the knowledge and means of Grace which we have And this is one Rank of Divine Favours vouchsafed us of this Nation viz. Our deliverance from the Bondage and Tyranny of Rome answerable to that of the Iews from Egypt II. Another singular Mercy of God to this Nation parallel to that God vouchsafed the Iews is the good Land wherein God hath planted us As the former concerned our spiritual Good so this our Temporal indeed a blessed Country ours is a true Canaan a Land flowing with Milk and Honey The British Islands were antiently and truly reckoned one of the best and happiest Soyles in the World. And here I might insist upon the Fruitfulness of the Land the Plenty of all things for the Life and uses of Men the Temperature and Wholsomness of the Clime the Health and long Age of the Inhabitants the Manners and Dispositions of the People who are naturally Loyal and True Sober and Manly Couragious and Valiant For so the antient Inhabitants were reputed to be and if they are not all so now 't is owing to their Sins whereby many of us have marred and emasculated our Natures Moreover I might insist upon the happy Situation of this Island walled about with Seas to defend us from Foreign Invasion that ambitious Princes may not so easily make Inroads upon us and bring in their destructive Armies God hath placed us in a World by our selves and we were therefore sometimes called Alter Orbis The other World. Under the consideration of the Happiness of our Country I might likewise entertain you with a Discourse of our moderate and easie Government and wholesome Laws Our Kings rule by Law and are not arbitrary our Laws are framed and modelled by our own Representatives and so in effect we are under Laws of our own making And among the rest of the Priviledges of the English Nation this must not be forgotten at this time especially That for the saving us both the Labour and Expences of long Journies up to Westminster-Hall the Reverend the Judges leave their Seats there for our Ease and Convenience and are sent down among us twice a Year in these their Circuits to hear and determine our Grievances and to do us Right and to take Vengeance on Malefactors the common Mischieves of a Country And thus Justice is brought home as it were to our own Doors In all which Respects many wife Men not only our Country-men who may be thought to speak partially but Foreigners have held the English Government To be one of the best constituted Governments in the World. These things I can now but mention but these well thought on will enhance the Value of this second Rank of Mercies referring to the Country wherein God hath placed us insomuch that we may truly use the Words of the Psalmist The lines are fallen to us in a pleasant place and we have a goodly Heritage III. There is another Mercy still behind wherein God hath resembled us to his own People the Iews and that is The Protection of our Church and our Land from the Malicious and Unwearied Attempts of our Enemies Miraculous have been the Deliverances that God hath wrought for us from Foreign Invasion and Domestick Conspiracy I need but mention the Invincible Armada in the Year 88. when the Pope and the King of Spain and the Princes of Italy marshalled up all their Strength and Wealth and set forth the greatest Fleet that ever the Sea bore with an intent to invade our Land to massacre our Persons and to reduce us to the old Egyptian Bondage again But here the Winds and the Seas were on our side and fought for us and then God shewed strength with his own arm and scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts I can but name that prodigious and unheard of Plot of Gun Powder that should have made but one stroke of the three Estates and cut them off at one blow whereby both our Civil Government and our Protestant Religion should have been dispatched at once But this God by a strange Discovery disappointed also And when of later times we were embroiled in lamentable Civil Wars and the Lord 's anointed our Natural Sovereign slain by wicked Hands and our antient Government subverted in due time did the good God take pity upon the sad Estate of these Kingdoms and brought back our Natural Prince and restored our Counsellors as at the beginning and gave us our old Government again in Church and State. And thus God delivered us then also But there are later Deliverances than any of these fresh in our Memories wherein our merciful God hath aggrandized his Mercy and magnified his Goodness to us namely in the two last Kings Reigns when so many Plots and mischievous Projects were hatching and secretly carrying on against us and of late more openly and avowedly by our implacable Enemies of Rome to enslave our free-born Persons to overthrow our antient Government and which was worst of all to extirpate our excellent Protestant Religion having also the countenance of Authority on their side and a powerful standing Army to back them And they thought and so indeed did we all That their Work was as good as done nor