Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	according_a	true_a	truth_n	2,749	5	5.2105	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34534	Dolus an virtus?, or, An answer to a seditious discourse concerning the religion of England and the settlement of reformed Christianity in its due latitude to which are added, the votes of Parliament.	Corbet, John, 1620-1680.; England and Wales. Parliament. House of Commons.	1668 (1668)	Wing C6252A; ESTC R19442	23,495	41

to act all this without regret as things of no moment amongst their momentous progeny Surely had you not already moulded every thing amongst your selves unto your own satisfaction so that you are now ready as you phrase it your self to stand in your stations you would not yet have dropt from your Pen these your most villanous and impious derisions let me prophesie for once however plausible and facile the means you have projected may appear now unto you you will miss of your end as you have once already through the infinite mercie of Almightie God to this poor Nation and fall your selves into these heavie miseries which you mention as slight things by way of derision to the State and Kingdom § 14 To prevent all these inconveniencies and miseries your Legislative prudence tells us That all that are thought fit to abide with security so that it seems there are some you think fit to force again into Exile though you will not now name them may be reduced to three sorts you would first have an established order made up of such as are proportionable to the ends of Church and State secondly a limited Tolleration of some others and thirdly a discreet Connivance to the rest according to charity and safety But who shall be placed in the first and who in the other ranks must be concealed till the time of acting in particular what here you word in general be in season And although a vulgar man can hardly distinguish betwixt Tolleration and Connivance yet distinguished they must be for you will have three sorts I suppose although you never speak it your self in respect to three states of Dissenters Presbiterians Independents and Quakers c. Presbiterians you would have put into the comprehensive state with Episcopal Protestants settled and established and cherished by Law The Independents are only to be tollerated but with careful restrictions that they come not too near the Line The Quakers to be wisely and charitably connived at as rules of safety may suggest And you take this your rule it may be from the consideration of the Rainbow which hath three chief colours in it the Pumicious or Yellow-colour gilds the outward and greater semicircle refracted from the least Opacitie the Green tincture is in the middle refracted from a meaner thickness of matter the Purple is the interior of the least semicircle and therefore so much the darker for stronger is the action of the Luminous bodie in the outward Periphere and greater the Opacitie in the inward and a mean of both in the middle The Presbiterian must be put in the outward and greater Circle with the Episcopal Protestants here called the comprehensive state or established and cherished order as next to the firmament The less lightsom and greenish Independent must be in the middle state of Tolleration as further from God And the Quaker who professeth himself to be the only pure light must be content with the lower Rim of discreet connivance which being nearest the earth hath more of Opacitie in it and less of light If you do not mean this pray tell us what you mean I am sure you would have the fine Yellow Presbiterian to be in the Circle of comprehensive approbation or else your whole Book signifies just nothing § 15 Now to let us know something more of your mind as far as generalities will go concerning this Established Order stated in its due Latitude you tell us here and in your Sixteen and Seventeen Sections three words more The first is That this established Order must be sure to be made wide enough that it may take in so many as may be able to controul all the rest those forms of men which use to be imposed on the Consciences of those who enter in being so far made void that they may neglect them without offence and hold only to indisputable Truths and indispenceable Duties This is in plain English to let the Presbiterians come within the line of Communication and favour with the Episcopal Divines now cherished and all the rest kept out that they may have some bodie under them to controul But why should any be kept out that use the very same Plea for themselves which you now do and if you once proceed so far as to give any reason for their Exclusion you shall find that they have already used the same for yours But you will not be in Heaven except you may have some bodie there to controul and trample on You first were begotten and born with this controuling spirit and if it should once fail you would be no more your selves let me tell you a secret To controul and trample upon Inferiours is but a Presbiterians Propertie but to controul Superiours is his very Essence and Nature § 16 Your second word is That the Dissenters who desire to be included in this Comprehensive state under the paternal favour and care of Magistrates Presbiterians you mean are very capable of such an inclusion as being those whose Principles are fitted for Government and Doctrine according to Godliness and so ready to cement with the Church of England which is true in substance though defective in Discipline and Rules compiled by men which the true Sons of the Church cannot swallow They allow of true Episcopacy as ballanced with Presbiters They admit of a Liturgy and are satisfied in their Judgments concerning the lawfulness of it and Ceremonies too if consonant to the Word and Rules of Scripture the time was when you threw us into blood about it but it is well if the miraculous hand of God in restoring the Church hath convinced your judgments but I doubt 't is but conditionally if you may be admitted And you say It is our misery that the favoured Party will never condescend but still trample upon the rest But Sir we perceived but lately that you would not your selves be otherwise favoured than that you might have some left out to trample on But as to that favoured part unto whose Societie you would be taken you let them know in this word of yours That you mean still to think as you have thought and speak and act as you have done hitherto but yet notwithstanding you are very capable of that their Association because they giving an example of Moderation must condescend to let you the wisest of Dissenters sit upon their Benches whilst you are wilfully resolved to condescend and complie with them in nothing The Church of England never excepted against your Principles and Doctrines which be conform to Government and Godliness What you disavow what you have railed at so unjustly and your implacableness in your own wayes which it is unknown to this day whither they will tend or in what they can rest This is the only impediment of your favour and your general cautation of your own holiness sobriety justice and industry all which we have fully experimented is no recantation of this nor any real way of Sociation § 17 Your

DOLUS an VIRTUS OR An ANSWER TO A SEDITIOUS DISCOURSE CONCERNING The RELIGION of ENGLAND AND The Settlement of Reformed Christianity in its due Latitude Vae Vobis Hypocritae To which are added The VOTES of PARLIAMENT LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Star in Little Britain M. DC LXVIII AN ANSWER TO A SEDITIOUS DISCOURSE CONCERNING The RELIGION of ENGLAND MEeting with your Discourse of the Religion of England asserting That Reformed Christianity settled in its due Latitude is the Stability and Advancement of this Kingdom I was inclin'd to peruse it because casting my Eye upon your Preface I found your first words acknowledge That Religion is deeply imprinted in humane Nature and hath a great power over it therefore I could not but hope to meet with the great Effects of it in your own especially since you seem'd so sollicitous only for the Peace of Religion and the Nation and that you did so ingenuously profess That nothing was suggested in your Discourse for Politick ends That Episcopacy was not undermin'd nor any other Form of Government insinuated That all Pragmatical Arrogance presuming to give Rules to Governors or teach them what to do was carefully avoided That only the Possibility Expediency and Necessity of Moderation was represented And that you humbly desired this honest intention of yours in pursuance of Peace might find a favourable reception This is the pretended Incense you offer to the Publick good hoping that the smoke of it will skreen your Falsehood from view but being smoke it vanisheth and leaves your designs so perspicuous that I esteemed my self obliged to detect you and to shew the World how contrary your Discourse is to all these Pretensions in your Preface A man may see an itching humor in you to be doing but what one can hardly conjecture but by the shadows of your motions which are subtle and violent and therefore properly to be called Presbiterian Three differing wayes of Religion are mentioned in your Discourse to be in this Realm viz. Protestants of the Church of England Protestants Non-conformists and Papists With the Papists you begin and therein spend seven Sections which are premised on purpose to make your Reader more attentive and kind to the Author who would be accounted so fiery an enemy to them But this part of your Discourse I am not concerned in who neither am nor ever was a Papist nor do I pretend to understand their Religion as you do therefore I shall leave them to the consideration of the Parliament who you confess hath appointed a Committee to receive Informations concerning them only I shall offer somewhat out of your Discourse whereby it may truly be discern'd how true an enemy you are in your heart to them I have heard very wise and great Politicians say that Jesuites are but Popish Presbiterians and Presbiterians but Protestant Jesuites and it is no wonder that Cocks of the Game bred up in the same Principles should sometimes fight with one another not coldly as with some others but with most sharp and deadly stroakes provoked and enabled by the Spurs of Emulation and Pragmaticallness Under this consideration I confesse you may be looked upon as an enemy but wherein else we will now consider In your Preface you acknowledge that in this your discourse you only submissively offer to the consideration of your Superiours a Relaxation only of the Prescribed Uniformity and some Indulgence to Dissenters of sound Faith and good life amongst which number you account the Papists because after the Character you have given of their Faith and Actions you say in your Seventh Section That Notwithstanding they have not changed their Principles c. but have taken methods of greater artifice and subtilty yet you professe that your whole preceeding Discourse against them is not directed against the security of their Persons and Fortunes or any meet Indulgence or Clemencie towards them but advise That they may have their Faith to themselves without being vexed with snares or any wayes afflicted Here your Proposing a Tolleration for Popery under the pretence of a meet Indulgence or Clemencie must not by any means be thought a suggestion for Politique Ends although 't is one of the chiefest in your whole discourse since it increases the number of the Dissenters from the Church of England which presently makes the body of them in your opinion so momentous c. Next The security without any limitation which you plead for their Persons and Fortunes which at once proposes the Repealing of all the Poenall Statutes against them which you account snares is in your opinion only a Relaxation of the prescribed Uniformity and no pragmatical arrogance nor doth not in the least presume to teach your Governours what to doe contrary to the established Sanctions both of Church and State But Dat veniam Corvis You may write what you please provided you pretend That you only propound these things in Case of insuperable necessity and that for Truth 's sake but should any thing of the like nature be in the least motioned by any else of whatsoever persuasion we know the Tune you would sing presently Now Sir I will accompany you to your main design where you would be though with much cunning sliness you creep to it by degrees and with more Pollicy even then conceal it when you speak it so that none may see your skin but only such as can see thorough the thin lawn of your Rhetorick § 10 First then in your Tenth Sect. you tell us That you would have Reformed Christianity to be settled in the Kingdom in its full extent In your Eleventh That Protestants Non-Conformists are most momentous in the Ballance of the Nation In your Twelfth That the Extirpation of them is most difficult and unprofitable And in your Thirteenth That all this your discourse for them is neither threatning nor intimation of Rebellion I could wish you had not mentioned these last words for the very telling us you do not threaten after you have discoursed so largely of the number momentousnesse and weight of Non-Conformists and withall of the impossibility of their extirpation which was never yet thought of Does deeply threaten Reform'd Christanity must be settled in its full extent this argues that it is not yet done Those who require it are an innumerous people powerfull and momentous which indeed they did demonstrate sufficiently but the other day when they bare down all before them and now being again debarr'd from the Benefices and Fatness of the Land they esteem themselves ruin'd and extirpated and yet they cannot be extirpated because it is neither good nor feasable not feasable and therefore cannot not good and profitable and therefore will not all this you say and yet if any think you threaten in all this he is much mistaken you do not use to threaten before you strike nor strike before you find evidently you can prevail and strike home But what is the Cause of all this