Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	church_n	england_n	homily_n	1,679	5	11.5743	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47974	A letter from a clergy-man in the country to the clergy-man in the city, author of a late letter to his friend in the country shewing the insufficiency of his reasons therein contained for not reading the declaration / by a Minister of the Church of England.	Minister of the Church of England.	1688 (1688)	Wing L1369A; ESTC R26839	46,996	46

with this Power That it is no where wiser and safer lodg'd than in the King. That therefore we must acquiesce in His judgment when it is seasonable to use it That nevertheless for our satisfaction the Reasons which His Majesty has given in that Declaration of His which we refuse to Read are very clear and cogent for the putting in practice His Prerogative at this time But you say further We cannot Consent nor Read. For that is to recommend to out People the choice of such Persons as shall take away the Test and Penal Laws which most of the Nobility and Gentry have Declared their Judgment against This is an Argument not from the force of Reason but Example which may be right or wrong as it happens and we have no way to assure us when it is and when it is not but by putting it to the touchstone of Reason which being done already till I see those Reasons answer'd I have no more to say but Magis amica Veritas Passing this over therefore as nothing new but only a scrape to the Nobility and Gentry you say next rather than nothing almost the same over again viz. That it is to condemn all those great and worthy Patriots of their Country who forfeited the dearest thing in the world to them next a good Conscience that is The Favour of their Prince and a great many Honourable and Profitable imployments with it rather than consent to the Proposal of taking away the Test and Penal Laws which they apprehend destructive to the Church of England and the Protestant Religion and he who can in Conscience do all this I think need scruple nothing If the same Proposal had been made to us as to the Worthy Patriots that is Whether we would give our Votes in Parliament for taking off the Test and Penal Laws then you had rightly taken an Argument a simili for our suffering like them rather than consenting which is the thing you pretend to do but very inconsiderately for our Case is not like theirs Nor will the Great and Worthy Patriots Thank you for bringing them to parallel and patronize your Disobedience to His Majesties plain Command when the Consent they were asked to give was only to a Proposal and so can imply no Disobedience if they did not consent If His Majesty had asked no more of them than he does of us which is to publish His Declaration they would never have forfeited His Majesties Favour for that nor their Honourable and profitable Imployments For how I pray came His Majesties Declaration the first time published I suppose it must be communicated to others so as to pass all over the Nation through many Hands of Officers of the Gentry and of the Nobility too for any thing you know and of such as nevertheless did stop perhaps at the Proposal of taking off the Test and Penal Laws and so are you left free to do if you please for all your Reading and as free are all those that hear you You proceed next to the evil consequences which may follow your Reading It would make our Ministry contemptible you say which must by no means be admitted right or wrong for ought I see A Minister must look to please and humour the Mobile or all his Counsels Exhortations Preachings Writings are nothing worth For St. Paul has said Tit. 2.15 Let no man despise thee That is well enough argued against Authority in a matter where we see the People as hot and as forward as ourselves But now if we were to Teach the People as you call it by Reading the Act of Vniformity the Book of Homilies or the Book of Common Prayer or any thing else not so relishing or by which we are like to get the Ill-will and Contempt of the People Why it is but putting on our Nose of Wax again with a bent on the other side then by honour and dishonour by good report and evil report as deceivers and yet true 2 Cor. 6.8 Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the Truth If your business were only ad captandum populum this might serve but whereas you wish us so to behave ourselves that no Man despise us It will concern us who are Clergy-men and Scholars not to appear to all Men of Sense such silly and despicable Animals as you seem to take us for by thinking to impose upon us with such pitiful Sophistry as this For Sir Is the thing evil or is it not If it be as somtimes you are in the mind contrary to the Laws both of God and Man do but prove this as soundly to us as you have said it temerariously and we are as much at a point for not recommending it to our People as you though they should despise us for it never so much But if it be not evil in itself as forgetting your Theme in another place you had almost slipped out in these words It may be it were no fault to consent to the Declaration If I say there be perhaps no fault but only a popular misprision in it to make some Men despise us by the same reason we should not read the Book of Canons as we are bound every year nor an Homily nor the Book of Common-Prayer itself Your next Reason is that it will effectually tend to the ruine of the Church of England And why Because it will provoke or misguide all the friends it has What the Reading it and nothing else A Man had as good be a keeper of Bears as of such Friends who will be so easily provoked As for the King no body cares how much he be provoked though he be most able by His Power and obliged by His Sacred Promise to Protect us from ruine And if we once disoblige Him from that I fear we shall find it beyond the Power of the Nobility and Gentry to protect and maintain us so far as he has ingag'd Himself in this so provoking Declaration supposing His Majesty false and treacherous to His Royal Word and Promise you have said somthing on this Argument and truly he who should be over solicitous in answering it would but seem to be so too Wherefore you may run for me to the end of your Rope with the rest of your harangue on this reason It is all set on a false bottom which is Answer enough Your Objection comes next of some who should say These are Consequences but conjectural and not absolutely necessary It may be the Reading of it will not so effectually tend to the Churches ruine To which you Answer They are not indeed such effects in respect of certainty as arise from natural Causes but they are as morally certain as any thing can be Good Sir then do us the Favour but to hear them made out almost as evident Demonstrations as you have promised us let us see this Moral Certainty Moral Effects must have Moral Causes Is not the Kings a Moral Promise and may not a

Consent nor Read. Nevertheless the Basis or Ground-work on which you Rear the whole Superstructure of your Letter is a supposition That no Minister of the Church of England can give his Consent to the Declaration What! Not to a thing in which if there be any Fault it is of his own making Is our thinking some one way some the other enough to turn the Scale so as what were otherwise no fault at all becomes presently contrary to the Laws of God and Laws of the Land as you say afterward Point to that matter of the Declaration which cannot be approved by a Minister of the Church of England on account of its being contrary to or prohibited by the Laws of God. This indeed would make it matter of Conscience which to render it the more odious you here and there slily suggest without offering at the least mann●● of Proof for you know well enough there is none His Majesty by this 〈◊〉 Declaration requires us to signifie to His People a method which in this juncture he Judges most expedient to be taken for the securing the Crown and the Persons of our Kings from those apparent Dangers to which they have been frequently exposed by our Dissentions in matters of Religion and for the common Peace and Good of all His Subjects Some approve it and some do not according as their Humour their Interest or their Parts serve and as ordinarily Mens Censures pass on other Affairs of State. But so to Reprobate it as a Mulum in se as a Pest to the Publick as an Abomination and Prophanation of our Churches and not fit to be heard by Christian Ears is such a hard straining of the case as brings along with i● the very dregs of Passion and Party We cannot approve of the matter of it you say it may be so Men do●c● always disapprove or deny their Consent to what is proposed because it is evil but because they have no mind to it and so the consequence will be applying it to the matter in Hand That the Authority of His Majesty over a Minister of the Church of England does not to extend so far as to injoyn him to Read the Declaration when he has no mind to it For I doubt there is with a great many more of Stomach in the refusal than Conscience but this not to appear above board One thing though I perceive you have a great mind to which is that we would grant you your supposition before you prove it namely That no Minister of the Church of England can give Consent to the Declaration and then let you alone to make good your Inference that he cannot Read it Now Sir I do not think you have us so much upon the Hanck as you imagine should I grant your Supposition But I see you care not whither we do or no for you presently fall hot upon the Work to prove the Conclusion Ergo He cannot Read for that is interpretative Consent Now for my part I confess to you I turn over the Leaf knowing how many soever your Arguments be to prove it they would not satisfie me nor I think any reasonable Man till he see first how well bottom'd your Hypothesis be from which you borrow your Inference I would fain see your Reasons first Why a Minister of the Church of England cannot Consent before I grant what you are so hasty to suppose Why that I shall by and by but you will prove first That Reading is Consenting Reading is Teaching which is as odd an Hysteron Proteron as Hanging and Trying afterwards Let Reading be Consenting or not Consenting without troubling your self till I hear whether I may Consent or Not. Wherefore I must beg your Favour to let me depart from your method and turn over two or three Pages further to examine your Reasons wherefore we cannot Consent 1. Your first is That it is against the Constitution of the Church of England which is established by Law and to which I have subscribed and therefore am bound to teach nothing contrary to it so long as this Obligation lasts The Constitution of the Church of England as it is now a Protestant Church distinct from what it was before consists in various Acts of Parliament made especially in the beginning of the Reformation But I know of no Subscriptions required of the Clergy to such Acts of Parliament There is a Book intituled Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical Treated upon by the Bishop of London c. Anno Domini 1603. Which Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical are in Number CXLI These I think you must mean by your saying to which you have subscribed But you have not pleased to tell us against which of them it is we offend by Reading the Kings Declaration So that this Argument does nothing but lead us into a Wood and there leave us to be lost Is there any Constitution or Canon Ecclesiastical which bars the King from extending Clemency even to His Dissenting Subjects where He sees a reasonable and honourable Occasion for it Much less where the Necessity of His Affairs drive Him to it His Honour His Conscience the Preservation of Himself and His Friends and the common Peace of all I dare trust King JAMES the First for that without troubling my self to look over all the Hundred and Forty One Canons He had more King-craft than to part with such a Jewel out of the Crown to adorn the Crosier of the Church of England The Constitution you mention here is to what you have subscribed you say By the 36 Canon Subscription is required not to the whole Book but only to three Articles in that Canon mentioned By the first We acknowledge the Kings Supremacy By the second The lawful use of the Common-Prayer By the third An Allowance is made of the 39 Articles Upon any of which I cannot imagine how you ground your Reason wherefore we cannot consent to the Declaration unless you had told us If you were to prove the contrary from these Constitutions there seems to be something accommodate for your purpose in the first and second Canons All Archbishops Bishops c. are obliged by the first to keep and observe all and singular the Laws made for restoring to the Crown of this Kingdom the Antient Jurisdiction over the State Ecclesiastical Which Antient Jurisdiction in the Second Canon is resembled to the same Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical which the godly Kings had among the Jews and Christian Emperors of the Primitive Church Now if the Parallel run so high as to the Antient Jurisdiction of this Crown how Antient does it mean Certainly before any pretence of the Invasion of it by the Bishop of Rome Wherefore that being a Work too big for a Letter I will give but one or two Instances and those so far back as to be out of suspicion of any such Foreign Invasion The Government or Jurisdiction of this Crown if inherent in it was and of right ought to be