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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	history_n	king_n	time_n	2,563	5	3.4716	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93861	The second part of the apology of Socrates Christianus, or, A plain declaration of the authority by which he acts freely offered to the consideration of all serious, considerate, and unprejudiced Christians.	Stephens, Edward, d. 1706.	1700 (1700)	Wing S5439A; ESTC R42855	13,986	16

they are so often Call'd and Assembled Nor 6. Are the Mischiefs to the State and Government less than these to the Church They betray the State into Sin by encouraging a Usurpation which is one of the greatest Acts of Sacrilege that can be and that by as Gross and Pernicious an Heresy condemned by all Parties but their own Faction and besides are charged with Schism by a Considerable Part of the Church of England who make out sufficiently by strength of Argument what they want in number of Persons But of such Latitude are their Principles that they comprehend as great Matters as all this as justifiable or excusable enough for attaining their End and therefore one of them Melitus himself who first began the Clamours could tell me Do you think that King William will part with such a Flower in His Crown Yea say I why not and with his Crown too for just and necessary Cause if he be indeed a Christian But they who are themselves so much for getting and keeping that they can strain their Consciences for it cannot easily believe that others will be perswaded to part with what they have once gotten upon any Terms or Consideration Such Flowers to the Eye of a worldly minded Man are to a Christian indeed no better than Weeds stinking Weeds and are really Poysonous Weeds in their Effects And certainly it is no more consistent with the Duty of a faithful Pastor of Christ's Flock than of a good Subject and true Friend to his Country to suffer his Prince to take such Poyson without Warning But what wonder if they who make no scruple to betray the Rights of Christ's Kingdom make as little to expose their Prince and Country too to danger for their own Ends And what else do they who encourage a Prince whose Title is doubtful or it may be none at all in the Judgment of his Neighbours to do and continue what is offensive to so considerable a part of his Subjects and cast the Odium of their own Evil Counsels upon his Will and Pleasure to the Prejudice and Scandal of his Government The English are an Active and Bold People and as sensible of the Violations of their Rights as any And when they are free from Wars abroad are not like to be very quiet at Home upon such Occasions and Provocations And Rights of the Church have in the English Laws been always heretofore as carefully provided for as any and particularly in the Corronation Oath And the Rights of the Convocation which are well vindicated in a Learned Book lately published are so well understood by many Learned Men of this Church that I wondered that none did it before or that the Universities and the Clergy of the several Diocesses did not by some Publick Instruments declare their Judgments or at least revive the Antient good Custom of Communicatory Letters in much use when under Heathen Emperours they could not enjoy the Liberty of Synods to Consult of the Common Concerns of the Church But I hear of another coming out and more may reasonably be expected if this Course be still continued Surely it is time both for the Clergy and for the Commons of England the Commons I say not their Trustees especially such as are notoriously known to have made a Trade of their Employment to look about them for I do not apprehend that the Christian Religion and the true English Government can be in greater Danger than from two such Factions in Combination The One is so full of the Spirit of the World and so temporizing and compliant to the Powers of the World and with their Prudentials which is nothing else but the Wisdom of the World such corrupters of the Simplicity and Generosity of the Christian Religion in their Explications and Betrayers of Souls and States into Sin that if the other prevail to get the Power into their hands there is little doubt to be made of their Compliance whatever the Religion be which they set up be it Deism Socinianism or whatever else I know one of them who objected such Matters of Conscience against his Acceptance of a Preferment proposed to him that I could not in Conscience perswade him to accept it and yet soon after he did accept it and holds it too to this day with another of it self a sufficient Charge for any man of Conscience to undertake I have known the same Person very warmly reprove a Master of a Family for not allowing his Family the Use of such Pomps and Vanities of the World as he thought renounced in their Baptism very disagreeable to the Example and Precepts of our Saviour his Apostles and the Primitive Christians and of evil Consequence to the living of most People and thereby encourage them to live in Disobedience to his Grief and their Shame and Prejudice And yet this Man passes for a good Man To the Author of the Appeal It looks like Madness to attach a Religion when it becomes the Religion of the Country when it has the Establishment of the Laws of the Constitutions And in his Wisdom such Zeal for the Souls that Newgate could not escape their Diligence is an Aggravation of a Crime of the Priests and such a Crime it is as such good Men are little guilty of and might be ashamed to mention a Matter so reproachful to themselves Such Prudentials as these have been noted by others in their late Patriarch and may easily be traced to their Original in their Protopatriarch himself And such Agreement there is in some of their Principles with Mr. Hobbe's and such kindness have they commonly shewed to one of the most Active Promoters of Socinianism that their Complyance and Officiousness to the other Faction if they succeed is not to be questioned And for the other Faction which lay concealed for a time among many Honest well-meaning Men in the long Parliament and hath lain concealed among many such call'd Whiggs in the late Reigns it presently appeared after this King came in how they stood affected to Religion and is now since the Peace apparent enough how they stand affected to the Government too Both might easily be perceiv'd by such as have had Admittance to the Calves Head Club and to Mr. Toland's Clubs before now But now appear bare-faced enough so that they are no Mysteries And the Whiggs are now commonly reputed the veriest Knaves of the Nation by many Honest Men who were heretofore taken to be of their Party While I was writing this I took notice in a Booksellers-Shop of this Title of a Book A brief History of the Times which opening at page 40. I cast my Eye upon these Words The Plot-Faction Design'd the Ruine of the late King and to compass it by leaving him neither Money Power Credit nor Friends And when I had looked farther into it I observed such Agreement between what is there related then to have been and what I am satisfied now is in Agitation as do mutually confirm the

Truth each of other and doth fully satisfy me of the Mystery of the late Pretence and Clamours of the growth of Popery to be no other than to Affront the King as I was told expresly by a Person lately deceas'd who had as much reason to know as any one I know to lessen his Reputation with his Confederates abroad and the Affections of the People to him at Home to draw their Hearts to themselves and Abuse and Amuse them with that Pretence while they compass their own Designs of reducing Religion to Deism and the true English Government to a Commonwealth most like to end in Anarchy and Confusion as it did before And whosoever shall well consider that Book which I Confess I had never seen before will there find such Truths so unanswerably asserted as will both satisfy him concerning the Truth of what I say here and make him more cautious and more wise than to be any more imposed upon by so wicked and gross an Abuse and Deceit but rather turn his Indignation against such Impostors and Disturbers of the Peace of his Country These things I take to be all Truths and such Truths as I thought my self obliged to declare I have endeavoured faithfully to discharge my Duty and now leave it freely to others to judge as they think fit and to the Consequences of their own Judgment Nor have I written any thing here out of ill will to any but out of good will to my Country and even to those very Persons who may be thought to be most particularly and most sharply reproved and in due order to them to whom I have performed my Duty before in private whose Reformation I desire but not Confusion other than truly Penitential And such Fruits as these are they by which according to our Saviour's Rule the Tree is to be known I know no Sin more Epidemical and common in this Nation at this time among such as make Profession of Religion than that which by the Punishment denounced in the Gospel seems one of the greatest Disowning or not owning Christ or his Words for Fear or Shame or worldly Compliance And none more notoriously Guilty than Latitudinarian and Nemine contradicente Professors It was in my Mind when I was Writing the Letter now Published that should Almighty God let lose some of their Consciences upon them we should soon have more Hamdens amongst them Nor should I have mentioned it now but to prevent so great a Mischief and put them in mind to consider the things which belong to their Peace in time confess their Faults give Glory to God and expiate their Former Miscarriages by so much the more generous Acts of Christian Magnanimity upon all Occasions hence forward To such as are apt to Assault me with their spiteful Argumentum ad Hominem concerning my Authority when they have well considered what I have to say to for my self I shall recommend to their Consideration for their own selves what is well said in an ill History of the Reformation upon the Questions in the Book of Ordination And with that I shall Conclude as followeth An 1550. in the Abstract p. 118. which the Reader may see more at large in the History p. 145. There were some Sponsions promised as a Covenant to which the Ordination was a Seal The first of these was That the Persons that came to receive Orders professed that they believed they were inwardly moved to it by the Holy Ghost If this were well considered it would no doubt put many that thirst after Sacred Offices to a stand who if they examine themselves well dare not pretend to that concerning which perhaps they know nothing but that they have it not and if they make the Answer prescrib'd in the Book without feeling any such Motion in their Heart they do publickly Lye to God and against the Holy Ghost and have no reason to expect a Blessing on Orders so obtained But too many consider that only as a Ceremony in Law necessary to make them capable of some Place of Profit and not as the Dedication of their Lives and Labours to God and to the gaining of Souls It were happy for the Church if Bishops would not think it enough barely to put these Questions but would use great strictness in examining before-hand the Motives that set on those who come to be Ordained Another Sponsion is that the Priests shall teach the People committed to their Charge and exhort them both in private and publick and Visit the Sick By this they plight their Faith to God for the care of Souls to be managed by them in Person and upon that they must find the Pastoral Care to be a Load indeed and so will neither desert their Flocks nor hire them out to weak and perhaps Scandalous Mercenaries In which the faultiness of some have brought a blemish on this Church and given scandal to many who could not have been so easily perswaded to divide from it if it had not been that they were prejudiced by such gross and publick Abuses FINIS