Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	bishop_n	church_n	jurisdiction_n	5,357	5	9.3309	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52139	The rehearsal transpros'd, or, Animadversions upon a late book intituled, A preface, shewing what grounds there are of fears and jealousies of popery	Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678.	1672 (1672)	Wing M878; ESTC R202141	119,101	185

but for all men at home of their perswasion if he meet them in the dark he runs them thorow He usurps to himself the Authority of the Church of England who is so well bred that if he would have allowed her to speak she would doubtless have treated more civilly those over whom she pretends no Jurisdiction and under the names of Germany and Geneva he rallies and rails at the whole Protestancy of Europe For you are mistaken in our Author but I have worn him thread-bare if you think he designs to enter the Lists where he hath but one man to combate Mr. Bayes ye know prefers that one quality of fighting single with whole Armies before all the moral Virtuesput together And yet I assure you he hath several times obliged moral Virtue so highly that she ows him a good turn whensoever she can meet him But it is a brave thing to be the Ecclesiastical Draw-Can-Sir He kills whole Nations he kills Friend and Foe Hungary Transv●…lvania Bohemia Poland Savoy France the Netherlands Denmark Sweden and a great part of the Church of England and all Scotland for these beside many more he mocks under the title of Germany and Geneva may perhaps rouse our Mastiff and make up a Danger worthy of his Courage A man would guess that this Gyant had promised h●…s Comfortable Importance a Simarre of the beards of all the Orthodox Theologues in Christendom But I wonder how he comes to be Prolocutor of the Church of England For he talks at that rate as if he were a Synodical Individuum Nay if he had a fifth Council in his belly he could not dictate more dogmatically There had been indeed as I have heard about the dayes of Bishoy 〈◊〉 a sort of Divines here of that Leaven who being dead I cover their names if not for healths sake yet for decedcy who never cou'd speak of the first Reformers with any patience who pruned themselves in the peculiar Virulency of their Pens and so they might say a tart thing concerning the Foreign Churches cared not what obloquy they cast upon the histo ry or the profession of Religion And those me●… undertook likewise to vent their Wit and 〈◊〉 Choler under the stile of the Church of England and were indeed so far owned by her that wha●… preferments were in her own disposal she ra●… ther conferred upon them And now when the●… were gone off the Stage there is risen up 〈◊〉 Spiritual Mr. Bayes who having assumed to him●… self an incongruous Plurality of Ecclesiastical Of●… fices one the most severe of Penitentiary U●… niversal to the Reformed Churches the othe●… most ridiculous of Buffoon-General to the Churc●… of England may be henceforth capable of an●… other Promotion And not being content to en●… joy his own folly he has taken two others int●… Partnership as fit for his design as those tw●… that clubb'd with Mahomet in making the 〈◊〉 an who by perverse Wit and Representatio●… might travesteere the Scripture and render 〈◊〉 the careful and serious part of Religion odio●… and contemptible But lest I might be mistake as to the Persons I mention I will assure th●… Reader that I intend not Huddibras For he is man of the other Robe and his excelleut tha●… hath taken a ●…ight far above these Whiflers tha●… whoever dislikes the choice of his Subject ca●… not but commend his Performance and calculat●… if on so b●…rren a Theme he were so copious wha●… admirable sport he would have made with an Ec●… clesiastical Politician But for a Daw-Divine not onely to foul his own Nest in England bu●… to pull in pieces the Nests of those beyond 〈◊〉 't is that which I think uncedent and of very ill ex●… ample There is not indeed much danger 〈◊〉 Book his Letter and his Preface being writ in En●… glish that they should pass abroad but if they 〈◊〉 printed upon incombustible Paper or by reason of the many Avocations of our Church they may escape a Censure yet 't is likely they may dye at home the common fate of such Treatises amongst the more judicious Oyl-men and Grocers Unless Mr. Bayes be so far in love with his own Whelp that as a Modern Lady he will be at the charge of translating his Works into Latin transmitting them to the Universities and dedicating them in the Vaticane But should they unhappily get vent abroad as I hear some are already sent over for curiosity what scandal what heart-burning and animosity must it raise against our Church unless they chance to take it right at first and limit the Provocation within the Author And then what can he expect in return of his Civility but that the Complement which passed betwixt Arminius and Baudius should concenter upon him that he is both Opprobrium Academiae and Pestis Ecclesiae For they will see at the first that his Books come not out under publick Authority or recommendation but only as things of Buffoonery do commonly they carry with them their own Imprimatur But I hope he hath considered Mr. L. in private and payed his Fees Neither will the Gravity therefore of their Judgements take the measures I hope either of the Education at our Universities or of the Spirit of our Divines or of the Prudence Piety and Doctrine of the Church of England from such an Interlooper Those Gardens of ours use to bear much better fruit There may happen sometimes an ill Year or there may be such a Crab-stock as cannot by all ingrafting be corrected But generally it proves otherwise Once perhaps in a hundred years there may arise such a Prodigy in the University where all Men else learn better Arts and better Manners and from thence may creep into the Church where the Teachers at least ought to 〈◊〉 well instructed in the knowledge and practice 〈◊〉 Christianity so prodigious a Person I say may 〈◊〉 there be hatch'd as snall neither know or 〈◊〉 how to behave himself to God or Man and 〈◊〉 having never seen the receptacle of Grace or 〈◊〉 science at an Anatomical Disfection may 〈◊〉 therefore that there is no such matter or no 〈◊〉 obligation among Christians who shall 〈◊〉 the Scripture it self unless it will conform to 〈◊〉 Interpretation who shall strive to put the 〈◊〉 into Blood and animate Princes to be the 〈◊〉 tioners of their own Subjects for well-doing A●… this is possible but comes to pass as rarely and 〈◊〉 as long periods in our Climate as the birth of false Prophet But unluckily in this fatal Year Seventy two among all the Calamities that 〈◊〉 logers foretel this also hath befaln us I woul●… not hereby confirm his vanity as if I also belie●… ed that any Scheme of Heaven did influence 〈◊〉 actions or that he were so considerable as 〈◊〉 the Comet under which they say we yet labou●… had sore-boded the appearance of his Preface 〈◊〉 no though he be a creature most noxious 〈◊〉 he is more despicable A Comet is of far

in the consolidation of Kingdoms where the Greatest swallows down the Less so also in Church-Coalition that though the Pope had condescended which the Bishop owns to be his Right to be only a Patriarch 〈◊〉 he would have 〈◊〉 up the Patriarchate os Lambeth to his Mornings-draught like an Egg in Muscadine And then there is another Danger always when things come once to a Treaty that beside the debates of Reason there is a better way of tampering to bring Men over that have a Power to 〈◊〉 And so who knows in such a Treaty with Rome if the Alps as it is probable would not have come over to England as the Bishop design'd it England might not have been obliged lying so commodious for Navigation to undertake a Voyage to Civita Vechia But what though we should have made all the Advances imaginable it would have been to no purpose and nothing less than an entire and total resignation of the Protestant Cause would have contented her For the Church of Rome is so well satisfied of her own sufsiciency and hath so much more wit than we had in Bishop 〈◊〉 days or seem to have yet learn'd that it would have succeeded just as at the Council of Trent For there though many Divines of the greatest Sincerity and Learning endeavoured a Reformation yet no more could be obtained of her than the Nonconformists got of those of the Church of of England at the Conference of Worcester-House But on the contrary all her Excesses and Errors were further rivited and confirmed and that great Machine of her Ecclesiastical Policy there perfected So that this Enterprise of Bishop Bramhall's being so ill laid and so unseasonable deserves rather an Excuse than a Commendation And all that can be gathered besides out of our Author concerning him is of little better value for he saith indeed that he was a zealous and resolute Assertor of the Publick Rites and Solemnities of the Church But those things being only matters of external neatness could never merit the Trophies that our Author erects him For neither can a Justice of Peace for his severity about Dirt-baskets deserve a Statue And as for his expunging some dear and darling Articles from the Ptotestant Cause it is as far as I can perceive only his substituting some Arminian Tenets which I name so not for reproach but for difference instead of the Calvinian Doctrines But this too could not challenge all these Triumphal Ornaments in which he installs him For 〈◊〉 suppose these were but meer mistakes on either side for want of being as the Bishop saith pag. 134. scholastically stated and that he with a distinction of School-Theologie could have smoothed over and plained away these knots though they have been much harder For the rest which he leaves to seek for and I meet casually with in the Bishop's own Book I find him to have been doubtless a very good-natur'd Gentleman Pag. 160. He hath much respect for poor Readers and pag 161. He judges that i●… they come short of Preachers in point of Effu●…acy yet they have the advantage of Preachers as to point of Security And pag. 163. He commends the care taken by the Canons that the meanest C●…re of Souls should have formal Sermons at least four times every year pag. 155. He maintains the publick Sports on the Lords-day by the Proclamation to that purpose and the Example of the Reformed Churches beyond-Sea aud for the publick Dances of our Youth upon Country-Greens on Sundays after the duties of the day he sees nothing in then but innocent and agreeable to that under-foot of people And pag. 117. which I quoted before he takes the promiscuous Licence to unqualified persons to read the Scriptures far more prejudicial nay more pernitious than the over-rigorous restraint of the Romanists And indeed all along he complies much for peace-sake and judiciously shews us wherein our seperation from the Church of Rome is not warrantable But although I cannot warrant any man who hence took occasion to traduce him of Popery the contrary of which is evident yet neither is it to be wondred if he did hereby lye under sometimpuration which he might otherwise have avoided Neither can I be so hard-hearted as our Author in the Nonconformists case of Discipline to think it were better that he or a hundred more Divines of his temper should suffer though innocent in their Reputation than that we should come under a possibility of losing our Relgion For as they the Bishop and I hope most of his Party did not intend it so neither could they have effected it But he could not expect to enjoy his Imagination without the annoyances incident to such as dwell in the middle story the Pots from above and the smoak from below And those Churches which are seated nearer upon the Frontire of Popery did naturally and well if they took Alarm at the March For in fact that incomparable Person Grotius did yet make a Bridge for the Enemy to come over or at least laid some of our most considerable Passes open to them and unregarded a crime something like what his Son De Groot here 's Gazotte again for you and his Son-in-law Mombas have been charged with And as to the Bishop himself his Friend an Accusatory Spirit would desire no better play than he gives in his own Vindication But that 's neither my business nor huMour and whatsoever may have glanced upon him was directed only to our Author for publishing that Book which the Bishop himself had thought fit to conceal and for his impertinent efflorescence of Rhetorick upon so mean Topicks in so choice and copious a Subject as Bishop Bramhal Yet though the Bishop prudently undertook a Design which he hoped not to accomplish in his own dayes our Author however was something wiser and hath made sure to obtain his end For the Bishop's Honour was the furthest thing from his thoughts and he hath managed that part so that I have accounted it a work of some Piety to vindicate his Memory from so scurvy a commendation But the Author's end was only railing He could never have induc'd himself to praise one man but in order to ●…ail on another He never oyls his Hone but that he may whet his Razor and that not to shave but to cut mens throats And whoever will take the pains to compare will find that as it is his only end so his best nay his only talent is railing So that he hath while he pretends so much for the good Bishop used him but for a Stalking-horse till he might come within shot of the Forreign Divines and the Nonconformists The other was only a copy of his countenance But look to your selves my Masters forin so venomous a malice courtesie is always fatal Under colour of some mens having taxed the Bishop he flyes out into a furious Debauch and breaks the Windows if he could would raze the foundations of all the Protestant Churches beyond Sea