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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	church_n	rome_n	schism_n	1,901	5	10.5828	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51089	A modest apology for the suspended bishops with a brief vindication of the address which was signed in their favour by the Grand-Jury of the county of Gloucester, at the last Lent assizes / by a gentleman of the said Grand-Jury.	Gentleman of the said Grand-Jury.	1690 (1690)	Wing M2358; ESTC R38872	21,535	34

our Laws the Prerogative of our Prince and the true Liberty of the Subject We could address no other Person we could gain Relief from no other Place the King alone could grant our Request who might have been sensible of the Desires of his faithful People had not evil Men slandered us and mis-represented our Design but to proceed As many of those Gentlemen who disparage the Conduct of our Zeal challenge us for an Insult upon the Laws so others scruple not with open Mouth to tell us that we should not on any Account have petitioned for Bishops that Title being as odious to them as was Hannibals Name to the Roman Matrons In this Hatred they are fix'd by the prevailing Authority of Education and Prejudice and their spiritual Directors carefully improve those Maxims with which their early Judgments were possest Among them Lewis du Moulin hath furnished his Disciples with Invectives against the sacred Function out of the Writings of a learned Man whom he calls one of the sincerest Persons in the World though he confesses if Mr. Baxter be in an Error he is the greatest of Lyars * Moulin's short and true Account of the Advances of the Church of England towards Rome P. 64. c. The Episcopacy of the Church of England saith he is absolutely contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the Practice of the Primitive Church It is not compatible with the Peace of the Church nor with the Civil State It is the Cause of all the Sects all the Heresies and of all the Schisms and Divisions which have rent and torn and infected England for above this hundred Years banishing all likelihood of Reformation in Religion and good Manners That it shuts the Door against the Entrance of the Doctrine and Discipline of Jesus Christ letting loose the Reins to all Debaucheries Intemperance Luxury and Idleness making the Pastors lazy in the Discharge of their Ministry fomenting Ignorance hatred of Piety Plurality of Benefices That it is a Government that divests the Pastors of Parishes of the Authority to exercise the Discipline of Jesus Christ to invest the secular Persons with it breaking the Union of the Churches of England with those beyond Sea and gratifying the Enemy of our Salvation and Persons of a sensual and depraved Life This is the Language of the Man whom our Author calls the sincere and he does well deserve that Character for he hath delivered the true Idaea of his Thoughts to us And indeed if Episcopacy were of such a monstrous and Antichristian Composure and did it carry such a Wolf in its Back as this old Angry Divine would perswade us an Address in Favor of the Bishops had entituled us to a severe Chastisement I need not intermeddle with the Merit of those Allegations with which that luxurious Writer bespatters the Order and Succession of our Church but I beg leave to follow Monsieur Moulin himself in the full Stretch of his own Argument and shame his Party by giving them a Repetition of his Words The Reader therefore is to be informed that in the Judgment of this unerring * Idem p. 63. 65. Rabbin Dr. Tillotson is a Reverend and Learned Man that Dr. Floyd and the Canon of the Chapiter of which Dr. Tillotson is the Dean have done good Service by their Labours against Popery That all the Three are every where extreamly valued and honored by the best Judges and the holiest Men and that they live in the high Reputation of being eminently Learned and pious These are the Expressions of the double fac'd Janus in one place of his Book but in the reverse Page he seems much afflicted that these Doctors have vindicated our Bishops and the Frame of our Discipline and for this Reason he compares them to those who made Panegirics on the Bloody Busiris the Tyrant Nero and the Tertian Ague That it is with these three great Divines as with Anselm Ives and John of Salisbury who by the Reputation of their extraordinary piety have established more strongly the Perpetuity of the Popes Empire then all the Diabolical Instruments of Gregory the Seventh Innocentius the Third and Fourth and Boniface the Eighth The Monsieur is justly allowed his Pretence to an Insight in the Affairs of Church History for he managed his Conduct by the Authority of a great and leading Example treating our Doctors in the same Stile with which the primitive Christians were entertain'd at Rome Caius Scius as the old learned Apologist Writes was esteem'd as good and as rightous a Man as any in that City but he was therefore declared wicked by a pubilc Out-cry because he professed Christianity And by the same Analogy Dr. Tillotson and his Reverend Brethren after they had been acknowledged to be Angels of light were soon transform'd into Instruments of darkness because they asserted the Power and Jurisdiction of Christian Prelacy and if our Doctors are thus sentenced by the ill natur'd Minister what mercy can our Bishops expect from the Tongues of his violent Party Our Diocesan hath been often allowed to have done glorious Exploits and his expence of Labor and Gold in the ransom of Christian Slaves and his hazards in the Rescue of others from Turkish Tyranny speak him a great Man but yet he is no Christian in the New Catalogue because he is a Bishop Our holy Primate and this his loudest Enemies confess is a Person of stupendious Gifts and admirable Piety and is most Serpahic in the Austerities of his Life but he is therefore thought unworthy his Majesty's Grace because he is a Bishop In this Current and Chanel doth Lewis du Moulin lead us and it is no wonder his Votaries will not subscribe to a Pardon for our Prelates who were the times answerable to their Wishes would blot out the Names of their Persons and pull down the Establishment of their Order I have often wished that those who assume the name of Protestants and by their great English Patriarch are Stiled the Sober and Self-denying Men had not in their Practice maintained what he the sincere Person has deliver'd in Thesi It would have conduced much to their Reputation had they been led by the sweet and Angelic Spirit of Calvin to which though they do in a large Sense pretend yet they never studied that part of Christian Imitation I am sure they have lost their Credit among all good Protestants nor has their Conduct been pleasing to the Lutheran Hugonot and the Evangelical Churches for when our Dissenting Brethren enjoy'd a full swinge of Liberty by the Toleration in the late Reign many of them could not bare the equal prosperity of our Church and of our Bishops but rather then not ruin both they could for once allow Satan their help to raise the Superstructure of his Kingdom I am unwilling to enlarge on what I before purposely avoided or at least but lightly touched but their unpardonable iniquity cannot be concealed in this place I suppose they remember the

and Men were so fully perswaded Nor are the Archives of our Senate destitute of Examples which being nearer ally'd to our Case are beyond Exception Among these that I may omit the dispensation which was lately afforded to the Quakers we have a proper instance in the Reign of the last King Charles when notwithstanding all the Tests Oaths and declaratory Provisions which were in true Prudence enjoyn'd in order to our Security against the encroachments of the Court of Rome and the design of her busie Emissaries Mr. John Huddleston for one approved act of Loyalty was excused the Obligation and discharg'd the Penalties of the Statute And therefore since in this World there is no exact perfection in the greatest Councils the most important Affairs of State being sometimes perform'd in such Rapid and Critical haste that 't is impossible to consult every particular Circumstance we readily acknowledge that if the Convention had among their many other serious and mature Performances copyed out any thing in favour to the Bishops as they would have introduced no new Custom so had we not been at the Labour of an Address I could add more but I choose rather to take up with the Rule prescribed by a great Casuist another learned Prelate of the Church * Bishop Taylors Rule and Exercise of holy Living Ch. p. 3.5.10 who tells us That we must not be too easie in examining the Prudence and Unreasonableness of human Laws for althô we are not bound to believe them all to be the wisest yet if by enquiring into the lawfulness of them or by any other Instrument we find them to fail of that Wisdom with which some others are ordained yet we must never make use of it to disparage the Persons of the Law-giver or to countenance any Mans disobedience I am sure our Holy Fathers the Bishops are of the same Opinion I shall therefore endeavour to apply our Proceedings and our Address to the same Topick The Address in few words was no other then the return of our Thanks to His Majesty for his repeated Assurances to maintain our Religion as by Law Established and for his Gracious Resolution to Grant to all his Subjects except such as in his Princely Wisdom he should distinguish from the rest his Gracious Pardon And we humbly prayed that the like favour might be extended to our Pious Bishops particularly our Diocesan that the incapacity they were then under by not taking the Oaths might no longer disable them from serving Their Majesties in their several Provinces It contain'd great deference to the Kings Royal Person Charity to the distressed Malice against none much less can it be arraign'd as a breach of the Law or deserve the Character that some hot Spirits have fix'd upon it as the product of a Papistical and factious Zeal In the discovery of this Truth I do appeal from the lofty Tribunal of our rash Criticks and bespeak the sober Judgment of the honest and impartial Reader We therefore in the first place own that we gave the public testimony of our Thanks to the King for his support of that Religion in the defence of which Cranmer and the other mitred Martyrs spent their precious Blood to which a Virgin Queen was solemnly espoused and of which our Suffering Bishops have made a good Confession Sure I am the Church of Rome hath the only cause to be sensibly touch'd and tormented at this Reflection nor can I judge but that the moderate Dissenters do in some measure congratulate with us For though many of our home-bred Pharisees did stifly presume that after the Ruine of our Establishment they should flourish under the Popes Influence and gain strange Advantages to the Protestant Faith from their new Patron yet their golden Hopes had put a notorious Cheat upon them Those Temporizers would have obtained no better Lot than what befel the crooked Camel in the Fable who being Heavens Favorite petitioned the Gods for Horns but Jupiter deriding his Pretence croped his Ears and made him ever after bare the Mark of his Presumption in a sanctified Dress The Moral is obvious and needs no Explanation We thought it also not unbecoming the Exercise of our Duty to thank his Majesty for a Pardon he design'd his Subjects yea we did not exclude the trimming Latitudinarians of the last Reign for we suppose their Consciences have sufficiently chastised their evil Extravagance Neither did we except against the other violent and brutish Addressors from whom King James received the like Homage which was paid to Mercury by the Heathen Sleepers viz. a Sacrifice of the Tongues of Beasts We insulted no Faction but calmly considered the Favor of our Prince and since an Amnesty was so seasonably tender'd by him we conceiv'd it would not have been construed in a vile Sense to desire his Majesty to include our Diocesan in the same Grace and to render some of the best Men in the World capable of his Service But in the Progress I now take I must be so just as to satisfie the most plausible Objection that thwarts our Proceeding Our Adversaries contend that for as much as our Case was already concluded by a positive Law a Statute having past a legal Disability and Suspension upon the Bishops the King must not be perswaded to break through the Obligation of an Act of Parliament the Consequence of which would be destructive of our Liberties and again exalt the exploded Idol of Arbitrary Power To this specious Offer we answer in the following Terms First We do observe that our Address was penned in the Session of Parliament and therefore it cannot with reason be supposed we would incur the Displeasure of that August Body In the next Place it is apparent that we design'd to thank his Majesty for no other Pardon than what he himself intended and prepared And was it not proposed by him to the two Houses with an Assurance they would pass it and that it should derive a just Solemnity from their Consent On this Account our Address was the irreprovable Witness of our Sincerity for after the King had discovered his gracious Intentions to them we paid our Tribute of Gratitude to the Royal Favor and desired him to extend the common Priviledge of his Mercy to our pious though suffering Bishops Certainly if this be Criminal or destructive either of Gods Honor or the Liberties of Human Society there is neither Justice on Earth nor Truth in Heaven for Vertue and Vice have lost their Names If our Adversaries are not yet satisfied but in the Burthen of their irreconcileable Animosity against our Prelates still say as I have often heard them maintain that it would have been more agreeable to the Usage of Parliament if one or both the Houses had first prepar'd and passed a Bill in Favor of the Bishops than that such an important Repeal should begin with his Majesty and descend to their Consideration as from the Authority and Force of his Will and