Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	church_n	pope_n	rome_n	4,716	4	6.7141	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52127	Mr. Andrew Marvell's Character of popery; Character of popery	Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678.	1689 (1689)	Wing M866; ESTC R22844	5,651	10

Thus by a new and antiscriptural Belief compiled of Terrours to the Phansie Contradictions to Sense and Impositions on the Understanding their Laity have turned Tenants for their Souls and in consequence Tributary for their Estates to a more than Omnipotent Priesthood I must indeed do them that Right to avow That out of equitable Consideration and recompense of so faithful a Slavery they have discharged the People from all other Services and dependance infranchised them from all Duty to God or Man insomuch that their severer and more learned Divines their Governours of Conscience have so well instructed them in all the Arts of Circumventing their Neighbour and of Colluding with Heaven that were the Scholars as apt as their Teachers there would have been long since an end of all either true Piety or common Honesty and nothing left among them but authorized Hypocrisie Licentiousness and Knavery had not the natural Worth of the better sort and the good Simplicity of the Meaner in great measure preserved them For nothing indeed but an extraordinary Temper and Ingenuity of Spirit and that too assisted by a Diviner Influence could possibly restrain those within any the Terms or Laws of Humanity who at the same time own the Doctrine of their Casuits or the Authority of the Pope as it is by him claimed and exercised He by his Indulgences delivers Souls out of the Pains of the other World So that who would refuse to be vicious here upon so good Security He by his Dispensatian annuls Contracts betwixt Man and Man dissolves Oaths between Princes or betwixt them and their People and gives Allowance in Cases which God and Nature prohibits He as Clerk of the Spiritual Market hath set a Rate upon all Crime The more flagitious they are and abominable the better Commodities and Men pay only an higher Price as for greater Rarities So that it seems as if the Commands of God had been invented meerly to erect an Office for the Pope the worse Christians Men are the better Customers And this Rome does by the same Policy People its Church as the Pagan Rome did the City by opening a Sanctuary to all Malefactors And why not if his Power be indeed of such Virtue and Extent as is by him challenged That he is the Ruler over Angels Purgatory and Hell. That his Tribunal and Gods are all one That all that God he can do Clave non errant and what he does is as God and not as Man. That he is the Universal Head of the Church the sole Interpreter of Scripture and Judge of Controversie That he is above General Councils That his Power is Absolute and his Decrees infallible That he can change the very Nature of things making what is Just to be Unjust and what is Vice to be Virtue That all Laws are in the Cabinet of his Breast That he can Dispense with the New Testament to the great Injury of the Devils That he is still Monarch of this World and that he can dispose of Kingdoms and Empires as he pleases Which things being granted that Stile of Optimum Maximum Supremum Numen in Terris or that of Dominus Deus noster Papa was no such extraordinary stroke of Courtship as we reckoned But it was rather a great clownishness in him that treated so mighty a Prince under the simple Title of Vice-Deus The Exercise of his Dominion is in all Poins suitable to this his Pretence He antiquates the Precepts of Christ as things only of good Advice not commanded But makes it a Mortal Sin even to doubt of any part of his own Religion and demands under Pain of Damnation the Subjection of all Christians to his Papal Authority The denying of two things so Reasonable as blind Obedience to his Power and an Implicit Faith to his Doctrine being the most unpardonable Crime under his Dispensation He has indeed of late been somewhat more retentive than formerly as to his Faculty of disposing of Kingdoms the thing not having succeeded well with him in some Instances But he lays the same claim still continues the same Inclination and though Velvet Headed hath the more Itch to be Pushing And however in order to any occasion he keeps himself in breath always by cursing one Prince or other upon every Maunday Thursday Nor is there any whether Prince or Nation that Dissents from his Usurpations but are marked out under the Notion of Hereticks to Ruine and Destruction whensoever he shall give the Signal That Word of Heresie misapplyed hath served him for so many Ages to justifie all the Executions Assassmations Warrs Massacres and Devastations whereby his Faith hath been propagated of which our Times also have not wanted Examples and more is to be expected for the future For by how much any thing is more false and unreasonable it requires more Cruelty to establish it And to introduce that which is absurd there must be somewhat done that is barbarous But nothing of any Sect in Religion can be more recommended by all these Qualities than the Papacy The Pagans are excusable by their natural Darkness without Revelation The Jews are tolerable who see not beyond the Old Testament Mahomet was so honest as to own what he would be at that he himself was the greatest Prophet and that his was a Religion of the Sword. So that these were all as I may say of another Allegiance and if Enemies yet not Traytors But the Pope avowing Christianity by Profession doth in Doctrine and Practice renounce it And presuming to be the only Catholick does persecute those to the Death who dare worship the Author of their Religion instead of his pretended Vicegerent And yet there is nothing more evident notwithstanding his most notorious Forgeries and Falsification of all Writers than that the Pope was for several Hundred of Years an honest Bishop as other Men are and never so much as dreamed upon the seven Hills of that Universal Power which he is now come to Nay was the first that opposed any such Pretention But some of them at last growing wiser by foisting a counterfeit Donation of Constantine and wresting another Donation from our Saviour advanced themselves in a Weak Ignorant and Credulous Age to that Temporal and Spiritual Principality that they are now seized of Tu es Petrus super hanc Petram adificabo Ecclesiam meam Never was a Bishoprick and a Verse of Scripture so improved by good Management Thus by exercising in the Quality of Christs Vicar the publick Function under an invisible Prince the Pope like the Mayors of the Palace hath set his Master aside and delivered the Government over to a new Line of Papal Succession But who can unless wilfully be ignorant what wretched Doings what Bribery what Ambition there are how long the Church is without an Head upon every Vacancy till among the Crew of bandying Cardinals the Holy Ghost hath declared for a Pope of the French or Spanish Faction It is a Succession like that of the Egyptian Ox the living Idol of that Country who dying or being made away by the Priests there was a solemn and general Mourning for want of a Deity until in their Conclave they had found out another Beast with the very same Marks as the former whom they themselves adored and with great Jubilee brought forth to the People to Worship Nor was that Election a grosser Reproach to Human Reason than this is also to Christianity Surely it is the greatest Miracle of the Romish Church that it should still continue and that in all the Time the Gates of Heaven should not prevail against it It is almost unconceivable how Princes can yet suffer a Power so Pernic ous and Doctrine so destructive to all Government That so great a part of the Land should be alienated aad condemned to as they call it Pious Uses That such millions of their People as the Clergy should by remaining unmarried either frustrate Human Naiure if they live chastly or if otherwise adulterate it That they should be priviledged from all Labour all publick Service and exempt from the Power of all Secular Jurisdiction That they being all bound by strict Oaths and Vows of Obedience to the Pope should evacuate the Fealty due to the Sovereign Nay that not only the Clergy but their whole People if of the Romish Persuasion should be obliged to rebel at any time upon the Popes Pleasure And yet how many of the neighbouring Princes are content or do chuse to reign upon those Conditions which being so dishonourable and dangerous surely some great and more weighty Reason does cause them submit Whether it be out of personal Fear having heard perhaps of several Attempts which the blind Obedience of Popish Zelotes hath executed against their Princes Or whether aiming at a more absolute and tyrannical Government they think it still to be the Case of Boniface and Phocas an usurping Emperour and an usurping Bishop and that as other Cheats this also is best to be managed by Confederacy But as far as I can apprehend there is more of Sloth than Policy on the Princes side in this whole matter And all that Pretence of inslaving Men by the assistance of Religion more easily is neither more nor less than when the Bramine by having the first night of the Bride assures himself of her Devotion for the future and makes her more fit for the Husband FINIS