Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bishop_n	church_n	england_n	1,563	5	6.0318	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A17020	A treatise of the perpetuall visibilitie, and succession of the true church in all ages	Abbot, George, 1562-1633.	1624 (1624)	STC 39.3; ESTC S100501	43,587	128

God's good seruants to bee of the number of the Elect and propter sanioren et meliorem partem for their sounder and better part to bee of that Church whereof we are to be members of that body whereof by the grace of Christ we are a portion And in this respect our settled and resolued iudgement is that when it is asked Where our Church in former Ages was we may besides that which we haue formerly answered truly say that it was in England in France in Spaine in Italy yea in Rome it selfe Spiritus vbi vult spirat the holy Ghost breatheth where it pleaseth for who cannot conceiue by the writings of many in former Ages or by such touches as others doe giue concerning them that diuers who liued neerest the Whore of Babylon did most detest her abomination and finding that the weaknes and impurity of her doctrine could not truely satisfie the hungry and thirsty soule did according to that knowledge which Christ out of his Word reuealed vnto them seek some means which was not ordinarily professed in that Time And if it be asked Who they were and how they could lie hid from the world It may truly be answered that their case was like the case of them in the daies of Elias who were not knowne to that State which would haue persecuted them Now why should not wee think but as God had his secret and inuisible company at that time in that most idolatrous Countrey so in the time of the deepest darknesse hee had those which saw light his Christian Children among Antichrists Brood such as embraced true Religion among the superstitious So that Italy and Rome and these Westerne parts had some of Gods Saints in all Ages who like Sea-fish most fresh in the salt water and beeing remoued in their affections though not in their persons did with Lot vex their righteous soules in the middest of a spiritual Sodom and kept themselues vnspotted of the world And yet it is not to bee taken that wee coarctate the Church within those Prouinces onely which looked towards the See of Rome but know that God had thousands of his Elect elsewhere Christians haue bin in India euen by perpetuall descent from the daies of the Apostles and so in Africa among the Abissines in infinite and huge companies besides such as haue continued in Armenia Asia the lesser Aegypt but especially in the Greeke Church which was neuer so much as in shew extinguished and from whom the Russians and Muscouites had their Faith Our Popish Lads would gladly shut all these out of Christs Fold because they acknowledge not the Bishop of Rome for their Vniuersall Pastor but wee should doe wrong to Almighty God to pinne his iudgement vpon the Popes sleeue and to offer to pull from him so many ample Churches whereas charity and common sense might put vs in minde that he might there haue thousands throughout all Ages Looke to these places ye Papists and imagine that if there had beene none but these yet the words of the Scripture which in generality speake of a Spouse had beene true and Christ had there had his body on earth and the Church had not beene vtterly extinguished if neither we nor the Synagogue of Rome had beene extant But in as much as it cannot be denied but that the prophesies concerning Antichrist doe most touch the Westerne world Rome beeing by the holy Ghost euidently designed to bee the seat of the Whore of Babylon as also because our Romish Standard-bearers are more willing to talke of those parts then of any other I will once returne againe to the Countreys neere adioyning Then in some parts of Christendome how many men were there in all ages who loathed both the See of Rome and the whole courses of it as the Israelites did loath the Aegyptians bondage Mathew Paris alone giueth as many notable experiments that way as relating the Acts of the Emperour Frederick who put out diuers declarations in detestation of the Pope and adding elsewhere further of his owne that Pope Gregory did absolue from the oath of fealty all who were bound vnto the Emperor perswading them that they should be faithfull in vnfaithfulnesse obedient in disobedience But so much deserued the Romane Churches lewdnesse which is to be execrated of all men that the Popes authority did merit to bee harkened vnto by few or none He reporteth also of a certain Carthusian Monk at Cambridge who cryed out against the Pope and said that Hee was an Heretick and that the Churches were profaned and of Robert Grosthead Bishop of Lincolne who was a man both holy and learned in his time This Lincolniensis while he liued had many combates with the Bishop of Rome and openly resisted his barbarous tyranny in domineering so farre in England as to enioyne prouision of the best Benefices to be taken vp for Italian Boyes which for a Prebend in his Church of Lincolne hee would not yeeld vnto and for that cause was by the Pope excommunicated But when hee was dying hee most bitterly inueighed against the Romane Bishop and the Ecclesiasticall persons as the most wicked men that did liue In the same Author you may also finde the conceit which the most reuerend Arch-bishop of York Sewaldus had of them and their proceedings What should I mention Ioachim who said that in his time Antichrist was already born and was in the City of Rome or that Bishop of Florence who liued about the yeer 1100 and did vse to say that Antichrist was then in the world Which moued Pope Paschalis so much as that hee thought fit to enquire of him in a Councell and did there castigate him for it Notable in this kinde are the Contentions of Philippus Pulcher the King of France and his whole Clergy against Boniface the Eightth I might adde to these Petrus de Brus and many other learned men who laid the Axe to the very Root of Popery and some in set Treatises oppugned one of their documents and some assaulted other but that the Writer of the Catalogus testium veritatis as it is lately enlarged and Master Fox and Master Bale and diuers other haue largely handled this to the reading of whose Bookes I doe referre them who in particular desire to bee more aduertised in this behalfe Now if these things doe appeare much by their own witnesse and by the confession of Papists themselues as also by such few Records as by Gods prouidence so disposing doe yet remaine how many illustrious arguments might there haue beene of the Confession of our faith if the Clergy and Magistracy of those darke times had not burned and suppressed all things which made against them as I shewed before touching the Bookes of Iohn Wickles Reinald Pecock in Oxford The Clergy in those dayes did almost rule all and they had the custody of all Libraries to ransack at