Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	church_n	rome_n	transubstantiation_n	3,421	5	11.4318	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25712	An Appeal to all Protestant kings, princes, and states, concerning the apparent danger of the Protestant religion, and the great decay of its interest in Europe with a most awakening account of the unjust and cruel methods for the destruction thereof, that are practiced in several countries.		1700 (1700)	Wing A3567; ESTC R8897	21,558	40

AN APPEAL TO ALL Protestant Kings Princes and States Concerning the Apparent Danger of the Protestant Religion And the Great Decay of its Interest in EUROPE With a most Awakening Account of the Unjust and Cruel Methods for the Destruction thereof that are Practised in several Countries LONDON Printed for Brabazon Alymer at the Three Pigeons over-against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1700. AN APPEAL TO ALL Protestant Kings Princes and States c. NExt to the Blessing of Christianity it self we have reason to Thank God for the Reformation upon many Accounts Hereby the Holy Scriptures were restored to us which for many Ages were kept from the Laity or lockt up in an unknown Tongue Hereby was our Holy Religion restored to its Native Purity all those gross Corruptions having been purged from it with which the Church of Rome had so defiled it that it became in Abundance of Instances a quite different Religion from that which the Apostles Preached and for which they suffered Martyrdom and in too many even a perfectly Contrary Religion And hereby Consequently our hopes of Heaven are confirmed and better grounded We are hereby put into a much better and surer way of Pleasing God and of Saving our Souls And are not these Unvaluable Blessings In short it was the Reformation that restored to us true Christianity and after our Blessed Sviour's Mind and free us from a Religion which was devised merely to serve the Secular Interests of the Bishop and Church of Rome Nay we may Urge farther that all good and useful Learning Reviv'd and now Flourisheth under it And we may say also that it hath greatly benefited the World by establishing Men in their just Rights those which they were born to and which God and Nature most manifestly designed for them by discountenancing Arbitrary Power and Tyranny Nothing hath been more observed than that where the Reformation is embraced the Government hath kept more within its due bounds as where Popery prevails Arbitrary Power doth most bear sway And no Wonder for if Moral Men can dispose Arbitrarily of Heaven it self much more allowable is it that they should Absolutely dispose of the things of this Life And before the Reformation the Church of Rome had so abused the World that whatsoever she defined was a Law to all Christians though never so contrary to Scripture or Reason And she being sensible of the Power she had got had no Mercy or Moderation in the exercise thereof but Abrogated Old Doctrines and Practices taught and enjoyned by the Apostles and their Successors and made and established new ones as she pleased and found it her Interest to do And Mankind were so captivated in their Understandings that she could Coin no Doctrine so Absurd or Extravagant but the People were as ready to swallow it Witness the Enormous Doctrines of Indulgences for Sins as they were then Preached and Transubstantiation And though it pleased God even in the darkest times to preserve some few as in the days of Ahab who did not submit to the Romish Churches Monstrous Doctrines did not bow the knee to Baal but were pure as to most of them as Primate Vsher has most Learnedly shewed that so there might be a visible Church or Nmber of Christians together free from such Errours which hath been a great satisfaction to those who think such a visibility necessary to the Being of a True Church and to the fulfilling of our Blessed Saviour's Promises concerning it yet most part of the Western World was greatly tainted and corrupted with Her Errours And instead of growing better she grew every day worse and worse New Doctrines were Coined and worse Practices built upon them and little left but outward Pomp and Splendour exorbitant Riches and Authority which our Saviour disclaimed and no Account was made of that inward Purity Humility and Meekness of Spirit which he commended to his Disciples to follow him in But it pleased God in his good Time to raise up Martin Luther and other Reformers to oppose the great Corruptions of the Romish Church not by Humane Power not by Fire and Faggot or any other such Means as she useth but by dint of Argument and the force of Truth by the Sword of the Spirit the Word of God and by those very means by which Christianity it self prevailed against Heathenism And in little more than Forty Years a Reformation was Established in Four Kingdoms viz. England Scotland Sweden and Denmark and in many Dukedoms Principalities and Free Cities in Germany so that about Two Thirds of that large and populous Country were become Reformed And the Reformation had got also great footing in other Countries where the Government was still Popish as in France Poland Hungary and Benemia c. But as it was with Christianity in general that for the first Four or Five Centuries it did spread farther than it hath done in above a Thousand Years since Nay it has lost much of that ground which it had in that time gotten viz. in Persia ARabia Africa and in all the Turks Dominions just so fares it with the Reformation The wonderful Progress it made at first is now stopped and it plainly goes backward Which we cannot but ascribe to the just judgment of God on the gross Carelesness and Unthankfulness of Protestants they being so far from sufficiently valuing so mighty a Blessing as neither to take care to propagate it to others norsincerely to practise it themselves And next it is to be ascribed to the Cunning and Unjust and Cruel Methods of our Romish Adversaries for the Ruining of the Protestant Religion and Interest every where Some of their Methods we call Cunning in which it is to be wished that the Protestant Princes and States would imitate them as their Uniting intirely for the support of their Religion However they disagree on Secular accounts they agree against all Protestants of all denominations Those Popish Princes who are Mortal Enemies to each other perfectly agree in supporting Popery and running down the Reformation So the Emperour and French King during the late long and bloody War have as it were laid their Heads together and taken the same Measures to establish Popery and destroy the Reformation in their Dominions and every where else Whereas the Protestant Princes if they at all think of their Religion generally only mind that part which themselves are concerned in without regarding what becomes of others as hath been too sadly experimented But they use not onely cunning Methods but even the most Cruel and Unjust imaginable And Protestants read of them in the News Papers and from time to time hear of them but how few lay them to heart or so much as Remember in their Prayers the deplorable Condition of other Churches When they understand the Ruin of the Protestant Religion and Interest in some Places by Cruel Persecution Falsehood and Breach of Faith or the decay thereof in other places by Undermining Arts and diligent Applications they

grow never the Wiser nor consider how soon this may be their own Case Nay they will scarce so open their Eyes as to take notice of those very Arts that are using against themselves by which others have been destroyed And now to Awaken all if possible out of this Lethargy we will as briefly as may be give an Account of what they of the Church of Rome have done in other Countries for the Ruining of the Protestant Religion and Interest and perhaps afterwards of what they are now doing against our own Church To give Instances of their Cruelties and Plicies and of their Success against the Protestant Interest in the several parts of Europe is as easie as it is a Melancholy Task As for those beginnings of a Reformation which were entertain'd and which spread not a little in ITALY and SPAIN the Inquisition was let loose upon them and that bloudy and barbarous Tribunal soon extinguish'd them In BOHEMIA the Reformation was reciv'd with so much readiness BOHEMIA that in a short time the Protestant Religion became almost the Religion of the Countrey Bohemia indeed was ready for it having struggl'd for some Ages before against the Usurpations of the Church of Rome and been prepar'd not onely by the Doctrine but by the Sufferings of their two Countreymen John Huss and Jerome of Prague who had been burnt for their Religion by the Popish Council at Constance expresly contrary to the Faith given them by the Emperor Sigismund This flourishing of the Protestant Religion in Bohemia was a mighty Eye-sore to the Church of Rome and the Ruin of it was their great aim and that which one might have hop'd to have been the Eternal Establishment of it there became the fatal opportunity of the Ruin of it viz. the Election of a Protestant Prince from Germany to be their King To understand how this became the Ruin of the Protestant Interest in Bohemia it will be necessary to look a little into their sad History That Kingdom hd been by their Constitution for many Ages Elective as that great Statesman who had been so often Embassador abroad and to Vienna it self Sir Thomas Roe has demonstrated in a Book of his call'd Regnum Bohemiae Electivum The Emperors of Germany had among others been sometimes elected their King by the States of the Countrey but when the Austrian Family became greater and had Three of them Ferdinand Maximilian and Rodolphus successively chosen Kings of Bohemia they had a mind to joyn it to their other Dominions by making it Hereditary In order to this Matthias who had himself been nominated upon the surrender of the Emperour Rodolphus with the Consent of the States of the Countrey declares his adopted Son Ferdinand Successor to the Crown of Bohemia without any Election from the States at all This the States of that Kingdom looking upon as a manifest infraction and subversion of the Liberties of their Nation They reject Ferdinand as their States had formerly done to Vladislaus 3d. for the same reasons and Elect Frederick 5th Count Palatine of the Rhine a Protestant Prince to be their King This Act of the States is immediately call'd Rebellion and the whole Popish Party catch at this opportunity not onely of being reveng'd on the new King and his Party but of Extirpating the Protestant Religion out of Bohemia upon it Popery Flyes to its best Argument that of Arms. Ferdinand that bitter Enemy of the Protestant Religion puts the new King under the Imperial Ban raises a too potent Army against him and discomifits him at the Battle of Prague Thus Success puts an end to the New King's Power ruines all his Friends and the Protestant Religion in Bohemia and I cannot but say it 's the greatest blot upon the Memory of all the Protestant Princes of that time but especially of King James the First of England He having been so shamefully wanting to so just a Cause and to his own Son in Law in it Thus fatal was this War to the Protestant Interest in Bohemia and to convince the World what Regard Popery has to Rights and Laws the Protestant Religion and the Civil Rights and Liberties of that Countrey were ruin'd together and both buried in the same Grave The Jesuits who had before been expell'd out of that Kingdom for their wicked Pranks the great Governours of that Emperor Ferdinand have reason to triumph in that success against the Protestant Interest since it not only ruin'd the Protestant Religion but restor'd them there and gave them for their pains in it such a share of the forfeited Estates of the Exil'd Barons and Protestants as is almost incredible They that self-denying Order which minds nothing but the Glory of God possessing more Lands and Lordships in Bohemia than the Duke of Tuscany does in Italy They began with Bohemia where the Protestant Religion is quite destroy'd and this success encourag'd them to persecute the same Religion in HVNGARY where it is almost in the same condition The Reformation was so well receiv'd in Hungary HUNGARY and so well settled there in the Year 1567 that there were ten Protestants to one Papist before their late Persecutions and at least 2500 Protestant Churches in that Kingdom The Free exercise of it was establisht by their Laws and their Kings sworn in their Coronation Oaths to maintain and preserve the same but what Laws or Oaths signifie against the persecuting and bloudy Principles of Popery the present State of the Reform'd Religion there will plainly tell us It looks like madness to attack a Religion when it is become the Religion of the Countrey when it has the establishment of the Laws and of the Constitution but the Popish Clergy were resolv'd to leave no way untry'd to ruin the Protestant Religion in Hungary for all that They onely want a tolerable pretext to begin their persecutions of them and such an one they thought they had got in the Year 1670. There was an Insurrection that year in Hungary the Heads whereof Serini Nadasti Frangipani the two Barkoksys c. were known and profest Papists and though it was about matters purely Civil and nothing relating either to the one Religion or the other yet this opportunity was laid hold on by the Jesuits and others the Protestants are accus'd vehemently as being guilty or at least complices in it and assoon as the Emperor had upon this Insurrection Garrison'd all the strong places of the Kingdom with his Popish German Soldiers which was contrary to the Laws and Liberties of their Countrey it was thought high time to begin their Persecution of the Protestants there They began with the chief Patrons of the Protestants that were of the Nobility and afterwards with the Generality of the Gentry and Citizens imprisoning the Persons of such as did not fly and confiscating their Estates as guilty of Rebellion which they prov'd themselves altogether innocent of The rest of the Principal Protestants seeing that Innocence was no Protection