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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	divine_a	england_n	great_a	159	4	2.1268	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44650	Historical observations upon the reigns of Edward I, II, III, and Richard II with remarks upon their faithful counsellors and false favourites / written by a person of honour.	Howard, Robert, Sir, 1626-1698.	1689 (1689)	Wing H2997; ESTC R36006	52,308	200

a little after the Commons come to receive his Resignation and were seated in a Form ready for the Ceremony The King came out in Mourning and at the sight of a form'd Power ready to take away His sunk down but being recover'd to a miserable Life the Bishop of Hereford deliver'd the Cause of their coming After which Trussell a Lawyer and Speaker of the House of Commons pronounces a Form of renouncing all Allegiance to Edward of Caernarvon to which as most Writers say the King made not the least Answer but turn'd about and went out There were Articles also exhibited against him and his Son with much Ceremony chosen King in Westminster-Hall with the full consent of the People which gave the occasion to the Archbishop of Canterbury to choose for the Subject of his Sermon Vox populi Vox Dei exhorting the People to pray for the King they had chosen Thus the Lawyer found out a Legal Method for the People to deprive their King of Sovereignty and the Divines Consecrated their mighty Power in calling their Voice a Divine Election Philip de Comines in his Third Book takes notice That the Great Earl of Warwick subdu'd England in Eleven days and King Edward the Fourth recover'd it in One and twenty Though these were sudden Revolutions yet the Fortune of them was dispos'd by many Battels but this was as sudden yet without a Blow which shews no Force to be greater than the Power of Injuries and Oppressions For though in Prosperity and the full gust of Power this mighty Force lying as it were in an Ambush in the Vexed Minds of injur'd Subjects is undiscern'd and slighted And the fatal Precedents made by the Errours of others are seldom made use of to our selves yet when it begins to shew it self it seems no wonder that the united Minds of all conclude for themselves But Men are so much their own Flatterers that they believe every thing Permanent they wish to be so and Favourites that cannot submit to share a Common Benefit venture at uncertain Advantages and make it a Principle to depend more upon Men's Fears than Love. By the Mighty and Ambitious Mischiefs and Disturbances are wrought but the Weak and Moderate desire Peace and Quietness The unhappy King was now kept in Confinement with a small allowance that he might be deprived of all things that resembled a Princes Condition and suffer'd now for his unsteady Errors as much perhaps by the wounding reflection of their Memory as by what he endured for them But too late he was taught Truth by Misery and saw the Difference to lose those Friends that cou'd preserve him and keep none but only such as could help to destroy him Princes sometimes believe that the right of Power should preserve them notwithstanding the want of Conscience in the using of it But when their Errors have contracted Enemies and the same Errors raised Accidents enough to give power and opportunity to those Enemies misguided Princes like this unhappy King will find that such with as much want of Conscience will revenge their Wrongs as they shew'd by the Oppression It now appear'd that the Graves of Princes are ever near their Prisons This unhappy one above all things deplored That his Wife whom he had ever loved wou'd not be got to see him But she was now possessed by her passion for Mortimer that all her Duty and Vertue was Sacrific'd and her Husband was now as much her apprehension as aversion Mortimer was as jealous as he could be and never thought himself safe in his Enjoyments while the King liv'd They cou'd be inform'd of the murmuring whispers of their Course of Life and that hard usage of the King proceeded from thence and therefore looked upon the King's Death as their only security His Keepers were therefore changed by the advice of that ready Counsellor of mischief the Bishop of Hereford for Sir Maurice Berkley in whose Custody he was had been tamper'd with and not found ready for the intended Villany he was therefore taken from Henchworth Castle and committed to Sir Thomas Gourney and Sir John Matravers who carry'd him to Corf-Castle a place some write that he always declared an apprehensive aversion to from thence to Bristol from whence upon some suspicion of a Plot for his escape he was convey'd to Berkley Castle where by those barbarous Villains he was wretchedly murthered with a hot Iron thrust through a Pipe up behind into his Bowels which way they thought wou'd perhaps make the least discovery by what Death he died though his Groans and Cryes sufficiently proclaim'd the Violence of it Some write That the Bishop of Hereford by a dark Sentence instigated the Murtherers to hasten the Execution by this Line Edwardum occidere nolite Timere bonum est At once giving them encouragement and concealing an excuse for himself But Ecclesiastical Riddles are dangerous and sometimes their Expositions of Texts have been no other After this horrid Execution the Murderers Gourney and Matravers expected Rewards but found the Queen and Bishop readier rather to threaten and accuse them than to own the Service and were forc'd to fly beyond Sea to seek safety for their loath'd Lives But Gourney after three years was taken and sent to England and by the way had his Head struck off Matravers fled into Germany where in Repentance he had time to wast a miserable Life This King Reigned something above Eighteen years and was murther'd in the 43d year of his Life His Body was carryed to Glocester and there buryed without any Ceremony His Character I will reserve till I join it with Richard the Second since the same Methods and Errors in Government workt the same Effects and both Princes equally unfortunate The Reigns of Edward the Second and Richard the Second to which I am now proceeding may be justly said to be as Mezeray calls the Reign of Henry the Third of France The Reign of Favourites who did enervate all his Vertues and dispos'd him to looseness and carelesness deafen'd and confounded him with Flatteries prompting to observe no Law but his Will while they were the Disposers of all things At which many great Men and others retired discontented and left the Favourite-Ministers at large to pursue their Ambition and with new Inventions to waste and pillage the King's Revenue This Description suits with the beginning of this unfortunate King Richard the Second who after the death of his Grandfather that great Prince Edward the Third succeeded him in the Throne His Father the Famous Black Prince dying in his Father's time who by contrary Methods to what they us'd met as contrary Fortunes The Comeliness and Beauty of his Person exceeding all his Predecessors only seem'd to Entitle him to a Generous Father and as beautiful a Mother But that promising Person which might have become great Actions was turned to Looseness and Pleasures and Flatterers broke in to encourage that dissolute Carelesness which they found wou'd

Chrysostom who most sharply of any handled that Doctrine And then the Stream quite turn'd and as in the First and Second Age it was believed Christianity was asserted by it so now in the Third and Fourth Ages 't was found out that Heresie sprung from it The Latin Fathers were not so clear sighted to find out that the Subtilties of Aristotle were not full of a Spirit of Contradiction against the Christian Religion but the Greeks that flourish'd in the Eleventh Age found it otherwise by studying it and the Commentaries of Avicen and Averrhoes on the Philosophy of Aristotle assisted his Reputation and helped it to spread In the 13th Age as the French write the Works of Aristotle were brought into France and for some time taught in the University but after a little time his Writings were burnt and Excommunication threatned against any that taught out of them His Metaphysicks were Condemned by an Assembly of Bishops at Paris and six years after the Cardinal of Estieune sent by Pope Innocent forbid the Professors of the University of Paris to teach his Physicks which afterwards was also Condemned by a Bull of Gregory the Ninth and one Simon a Professor and Diuant a Master of Arts were after accused of Heresie for being Esteemers of Aristotle's Opinions and Writings Mezeray says that in the Year 1209. one Almeric a Priest beginning to preach some Novelties had been forc'd to recant for which he died of Grief Several after his Death follow'd his Opinion and were Condemn'd to be burnt and he being Excommunicated by the Council of Paris his Body was taken up and his Ashes thrown upon a Dunghil And because they believed the Books of Aristotle lately brought from Constantinople had fill'd their Heads with these Heretical Subtilties the same Council forbids the reading or keeping them under the pain of Excommunication But during this Disgrace there arose in his defence three famous Divines to whom Damascen had open'd the way having abridg'd many of his Works which had assisted him to put in order his great work of Divinity And afterwards others improv'd this and took as it were a Plan of Divinity from Aristotle's Philosophy In the year 1366. Two Cardinals Commissioners from Vrban the Fifth came to Establish the Doctrine of Aristotle in France where it was order'd that none shou'd proceed Master of Arts that were not Examined upon his Logick Physicks Metaphysicks and his Books of the Soul and afterwards were enjoyned to study Aristotle carefully to restore the Reputation of the University Pope Nicholas the Fifth a great advancer of Learning commanded a new Translation of Aristotle into Latin for the use of the Divines of the Romish Church Pope John that Canoniz'd St. Thomas and his Doctrine increas'd the Reputation of Aristotle from whom that great Doctor had drawn his Principles but now his Writings became the Fundamental Laws of Philosophy In the Fourteenth Age grew the hot Contention between the Thomists and the Scotists The Disciples of St. Thomas and Scotus about Subtile things or as Mezeray calls them brangling Cobweb-Controversies which yet was pursued with Passion according to Interest or Inclination or by engagement of Parties And so multiply'd were Disputes that a Venetian Writer pretended to reckon up Twelve thousand Volumes published in that Age about the Philosophy of Aristotle This pursuit of Differences and Niceties never to be made decidable grew to raise a new Philosophy that the other became scarcely intelligible Interest and the Excessive love of Dispute caused so many vain subtilties that Philosophy began to lose its former Credit and Reputation And if it were not from my purpose the naming only of those useless and unintelligible Subtilties would easily convince any that by the sharp Disputes it appear'd it was for Truth or the hopes evidently to discover it that engaged the quarrelling Parties Yet after this the Reputation of Aristotle so far increas'd and was so established in the University of Paris that Ramus who had found out some new Subtilties in Logick and Published some Observations upon Aristotle to diminish his Credit was by the other Professors in the University condemn'd in the year 1543. for Rash Ignorant and Impudent to dare write any thing against Aristotle and an Order made that none should teach any other Philosophy Such a Religious Veneration they had for Aristotle that dissenting from it grew a Heresie and in the Massacre at Paris Ramus was murther'd with as much fury as the Calvinists themselves The Credit of Aristotle was also not a little encreas'd in the Church of Rome from the Opposition of Bucer Calvin Melancthon and others and it was then more and more found out that it was a support to the dark Opinions of that Church This was the Cause that it was so supported by the Doctors of Paris in the year 1611. by making a new Rule that all Professors should teach the Philosophy of Aristotle And in the year 1624. a Request was denied for some particular Theses to be propos'd against the Doctrine of Aristotle And the same Parliament in the Year 1629. made an Arrest against some Chymists upon the Information of the Sorbonists that the Principles of Aristotle cou'd not be written against or lessen'd without prejudicing the School-Divinity receiv'd And this perhaps rais'd and confirm'd his Reputation in all Universities which were first encourag'd by the Popes as proper Soils to sow the Seeds for Disputers to grow up to defend and support all new and dark Opinions Thus his Name grew almost Sacred in Universities and Queens Colledge in Oxford yet shews a kind of Testimony of Veneration by reading Aristotle upon their Knees and those that take Degrees sworn to defend his Philosophy Whosoever will impartially consider the dark Subtilties contain'd in Aristotle's Philosophy will find reason enough for the use of it in as dark but more dull Writings of School-Divinity whose end seems only to confound all things with obscure and dark distinctions For when an impartial Obedience is to be perswaded the most sublime and unintelligible means are most proper to be used And 't is no wonder if the Fathers and Sages of the Three first Ages were not quick enough to understand a sort of Dullness of which then they had no use the thing not being then found out that they were to be applied to But when the occasion was ready for it the puzling parts of Aristotle's Philosophy were found useful and among all his dark Subtilties none more convenient than that of separated Essences which were Beings where no Being was and the only proper Notion to find out a place for Purgatory and seem'd also very useful to support the hard Point of Transubstantiation where there appears a Substance that must not be believ'd to be there and another to be believ'd there that is not at all to be perceiv'd Yet though the Church engag'd in the Quarrel the Credit of the New Philosophy has increas'd chiefly by the Writings of Mirandula