Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	great_a	part_n	people_n	5,808	4	4.2401	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61950	A sermon preach'd before the King, May 9, 1675 by John Sudbury ...	Sudbury, John, 1604-1684.	1675 (1675)	Wing S6137; ESTC R17686	12,043	34

in inflicting censures within their limits and upon them in absolving men from those censures which were inflicted by them in granting Indulgences and Dispensations in matters of Vowes Order Matrimony and in effect leaving them the Mitre and the Staff and a part of the care assumed to themselves the fulness of the Power And having thus made use of the temporal Sword to get the spiritual they made use of the spiritual Sword to get the temporal For it was upon the account of this spiritual Sword that they took upon them to depose Emperours and Kings to dispose of their Dominions to excite other Kings to invade them with force of Arms to discharge their Subjects from their natural obedience to absolve them from their Oaths of Fidelity and Allegiance to stir them up to make Conspiracies to commit Treasons and Rebellions And thus came the Church to be rent and torn with Schisms Christian Kingdoms to be imbroyled in Wars and Blood and the World filled with scandals The Papacy which is the greatest Schism that ever was in the Church hath been the cause of thirty Schisms in that Church of Rome one of which lasted fifty years and diverse of the rest had lasted longer than they did had not the Emperours used that Authority which they had then to put an end to them In which times the Church of Rome was so far from being that visible Church with which all Christians were bound to hold Communion upon pain of Damnation that it was not visible where that Church of Rome was with which they were bound to hold Communion for having many times two heads and sometimes three and each head had a Body which was joyned to it and if the one were the true the other must of necessity be schismatical the world could not know with which of them it should hold Communion because it could not know which was the true and which was the schismatical And if a Canonical Election were necessary to make a true head it was many times without a head while some invaded the See with violence and hands imbrued in Blood some with Fraud and Subtilty and some as the Centurion in the twenty second Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles obtained the freedom of a Roman with a great summ of Money By which means the See was filled sometimes with such as were so ignorant and unlearned that their own Writers confess they had not so much as the first Rudiments of Learning Sometimes with such as were so wicked that they call them filthy Monsters of Men and sometimes with Novices within the years of their Minority who were fitter to be put to School than to be placed in the Apostolical Chair and were more glad that they were past the fear of the Rod than that they had obtained the Crofier Staff and the triple Crown It would require a long time to speak of the many bloody Wars which have been made and caused in the Empire and Christian Kingdoms by this usurped power of the two Swords The errours and abuses in Doctrine and Worship against which there was a remedy before that remedy which St. Cyprian mentions Subvenient Caeterae if one Church fall into any Errour let all other Churches bring it out But this exorbitant power of the Bishops of Rome hath not only disabled all other Churches from bringing that or any other Church out of those Errours and abuses into which it might fall but enabled them to bring other Churches into the same Errours and Abuses The time would fail me if I should speak of the many Scandals which they have given by their Pride and Ambition in exalting the Mitre above the Crown and making them stoop to kiss their Feet at whose Feet their pious Predecessors were wont to bow and prostrate themselves By their Avarice in making sale of those things which were Sacred and raising vast summs of Money in Christian Kingdoms and particularly in this upon specious pretences as if the Keys of Heaven had been made and put into their hands to open and unlock the Treasures of the Earth By their Cruelty in contriving and countenancing Massacres Murders of Kings and Princes Persecutions with Fire and Sword driving Men as Sheep to the slaughter instead of leading them to the Pasture as if they had been set over them not to feed but to fley them and so making themselves no less hateful to the Christian World than their Predecessors were venerable But to leave them and return to my Text which speaks not of them but of the Saints at Rome Where it is not unworthy our Observation how speedy and successful a progress the Christian Faith and Doctrine had throughout the World not only in the Eastern Countries Jerusalem and all Judaea and Samaria the most famous Cities of Asia and Greece but in these Western parts of the World even at Rome that Proud and Stately City that was full of people great among the Nations and Princess among the Provinces which had subdued mighty Kingdoms with the force of her Arms and made her self dreadful to the world with the fame of her Victories and was then come to the height of all her Pride and Glory and grown so insolent as to exalt her self above all that is called God or Worshipped For what else meant that challenge which Caius one of the Caesars sent to Jupiter Thou shalt down with me or I will down with thee and that Command which he gave under a great pain and peril to set up his own Statue in the Temple of Jerusalem to be Worshipped by the name of Jupiter and that Decree of the Senate that no God should be Worshipped at Rome but by their leave And yet we see it was not long before the sound of the Gospel which began at first to be heard at Jerusalem was heard as far as Rome and not only heard but received not only by Strangers at Rome Jews and Proselytes but by Romans for it was to them that St. Paul directed his Epistle and it was of them that he saith Rom. 1.13 I would not have you ignorant Brethren that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you That I might have some fruit among you also even as among other Gentiles And when he came to them he had much fruit among them as among other Gentiles even that fruit which he promised himself Rom. 15.29 I am sure that when I come unto you I shall come in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ For as when he came to Ephesus and Preached the Gospel to them All they that dwelt in Asia heard the Word of the Lord Jesus both Jews and Greeks Acts 19.10 And when he came to the Cities of Greece he made Saints in Macedonia and all Achaia as we read 1 Thes 1.7 and 2 Cor. 1.1 So when he came to Rome Where he dwelt two whole years in his own hired House Preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concerned the

comfort and encouragement of the Saints of Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia that St. Peter concludes his Epistle to them with a salutation from the Church which was in Babylon 1 Pet. 5.13 The Church which is in Babylon elected together with you saluteth you so it was no less for the comfort and encouragement of the Philippians that St. Paul concludes his Epistle to them with a salutation from all the Saints at Rome and chiefly from those of Caesar's Household Now though my Text speaks of Saints a great way off at Rome and in Caesar's Houshold we may easily bring the Consideration of it Home to them who are not only of the Country but of the Houshold of Kings who are Defenders of that Faith of which Nero was the Persecutor and hear it often Preach'd to them by those who are of the same Houshold now it is become the Faith which hath overcome the World which they heard when it was a new and a strange thing and the World set against it from one that was a stranger to them and a Prisoner They liv'd in a Court in which the name of Saints was a greater reproach than that of Idolaters and Infidels we may well think it too great a reproach to us not to be thought worthy to be ranked among the chief of Saints For if the Church of Christ be as he calls it a City set upon a Hill which cannot be hid they of the Court are upon the top of the Hill whose Christian Piety and Vertues would be so much more exemplary to the whole City and Country as their station is more eminent and conspicuous Indeed the name of Saints hath been so Prophan'd of late that not only good Christians but honest men may be ashamed of it For it hath not only been assumed but impropriated by a Generation of men who take upon them the name of Saints not because they have their Conversation in Heaven but that they may seem to have a better Right and Title to inherit the Earth and look upon all other men as Usurpers of those good things which belong to them The Saints that must judge the World and they themselves be judged of no man Such Saints as they that arose up against Moses and against Aaron saying All the Congregation are holy every one of them and the Lord is among them wherefore then lift ye up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord And have so great a prejudice against those of the Court as to be ready to say of them Exeat aulâ qui vult esse pius He that will be a Saint must not be a Courtier Others there are who would perswade us that we cannot be Saints unless we be Romans though we hold the same entire Catholick Faith which the whole Christian Church received from the Apostles and they from Jesus the Author and finisher of our Faith yet are not ashamed to call us schismaticks and Hereticks because we do not believe that we owe an obedience and subjection to the pretended successors of St. Peter as Monarchs of the whole Church which St. Peter himself never had nor ever offered to require upon any such account But neither are the one the better Saints because they look upon those who are not of their Faction as unholy and prophane nor the other the better Catholicks because they are so impudent as to call us Schismaticks and Hereticks Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered between two Malefactors and so it is in effect with us but with this difference there was but one of them that railed upon him but here both exclaim against us We have no better way to stop their mouths than to contend earnestly for that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints and to shew forth the fruits of it in our lives and Conversations by giving up our selves to him who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works That they who call us unholy and prophane may be ashamed when they see our Piety and Devotion to God who is highly to be honoured in the Congregation of the Saints and to be had in reverence of all them that draw nigh to him Our Justice and Equity our Love and Charity our Fidelity and Sincerity in all our Conversation with men Our Prudence in governing our selves with that sobriety and temperance in the use of those things which God hath made for our welfare that they and all men may see that as we know that all things are lawful for us so we consider that all things are not expedient and though we know that all things are lawful for us we are not so much the servants of our own liberty as to be brought under the power of any thing And that they who call us Schismaticks and Hereticks may be ashamed when they see that we are the better Christians because we have not been bred and brought up under Jesuits and that we are the more Catholick because we are not so much Roman as they would have us And that as we know no other Head of the Universal Church but him who is the great Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls so we honour him not only by calling him Lord Lord but by doing the things which he commands us though we do no more believe that he hath made one Catholick or Universal Bishop over all Bishops and Churches than we believe that he hath made one Catholick or Universal King over all Kings and Kingdoms And though we do not offer up our Prayers to the Saints nor give that Worship to them which St. Peter would not receive from Cornelius the Centurion nor an Angel from St. John we honour the memory of them holding fast the profession of their Faith and following the examples of their good and Godly lives that we together with them may at last receive the end of our Faith which is the Salvation of our Souls through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory now and for ever FINIS ERRATA PAge 1. line antepenult for those read these p. 14. l. 24. for our r. one