Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	abandon_v	christian_a	religion_n	16	3	4.8222	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34156	The Complaint of the kingdome against the evill members of both Houses who have upon designe brought in ruine under a pretence of reformation, relating to that former complaint made by the citie and counties adjacent.		1646 (1646)	Wing C5616; ESTC R17392	35,451	48

good graine in this life and therefore hath reserved the thorow-purging of his floore till his owne comming unto Judgement A little breaking in of the salt waters makes our helds more fruitfull Our chief care must be to keep out Inundations and the way to doe that is to keep the bankes up and to keepe them sound not to levell them The Houses did once thinke it convenient to declare by Votes which we see religiously observ'd in other things that they intended the abolishing neither of the Liturgy nor of the Church-Government And truely if wee perceive Vote● which have presum'd ●o challenge so much respect and veneration from us created onely to serve turnes upon occasion and carried Pro and Con as emergent advantages are administred they will presently lose their repu●ation amongst us of being infallible and gives us hopes that upon the more mature deliberation of second thoughts at least all groundlesse Votes apparently and experimentally d●structive to the Kingdome shall bee recalled And for the Government of the Church being purg'd of some abuses wee professe wee like the Preachers ●dvice so well and have found their principles so pestilent that we would not willingly meddle with them that are given to change unl●sse we can see better Arguments produced though this last of the sword hath been the strongest to move us We are of their opinion that having dranke old Wi●e cannot desire new for they know the old is better And it is not an idle observation that since they fell from pruning to rooting up their endeavours have been almost miraculously blasted by an immediate and remarkeable curse upon them If there be any that thinks this order in the Church is not worth the strife about it and that our Religion may consist without it let them with a sad and serious heart ponder these Considerations 1. That instead of these by the independent way a Pope and however a Bishop will be set up in every Parish 2. That there was no other Government though perhaps some other qualifications in it heard of in the Church of God till about 100 yeares since insomuch as some of no small note for learning and piety stand in great doubt whether there can be any lawfull Ordination and consequently any lawfull Ministry without it These who make up a farre more considerable party in this Church then those who have already separated and therefore ought in the first place by all the rules of Christian charity to have their scruples satisfied upon the rooting out of this Ancient Government must needs abandon our Communion 3. That the true Protestant Religion establisht in the Church of England was never so much undermin'd and blemisht whilest some of the Bishops slept and others were too active as it hath been by new sprung up Sects and monstrous opinions since their office was suspended 4. That the next Orders like to be quarrel'd at if it be not too evident they are quarrel'd at already will be the Nobility and the Gentry and if we should allow the argument against the Order of Bishops that the Protestant Religion and the generall safety of the Kingdome may consist without them may not the same argument with as good reason be taken up against the other by the meaner sort of people who shall have hopes to share their estates amongst them till all degrees be levelled Lastly That the argument of the dispute is not so much whether Bishops or no Bishops as wheth●r a King or no King for we must hold the negative if Subjects may be allowed by force of Armes when they cannot get the Kings consent to pull downe any piece of his settled Government With the Fathers they pretend to thrust out the Children and those are commonly deciphered under the notion of scandalous Ministers The truth is it were well for the Church of God if all that were such were thrust out of her bosome But they have stretcht the Word to such a latitude that if they should goe on there would scarce be found an Orthodox man in the Kingdome out of this Catalogue For there are a company of scorners and terrible ones That watch for iniquitie that make a man an offender for a word and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate aud turne aside the just for a thing of nought Isa 29. 20 21. Is hee loyall according to the obligation of divers oaths sundry times repeated by him He is a scandalous Minister Is he a man well affected to the present Government c. or to peace he is a dangerous man and scandalous In the interim they set up their railing Rabshachaes that blaspheme God and slander the footsteps of his Annointed in such sort as their Prayers and Preaching are a very scandall except enmities seditions reviling of Gods Ordinances and Ministers when practised by them with the countenance of a party in both Houses cease to be workes of the flesh If we should forme comparisons wee should find moates in some mens eyes made greater by the multiplying-glasse of malice which they make too much use of then the b●ames that are most conspicuous in the eyes of others In some men they persecute their humane frailties and indiscretions whilst they protect others whose offences are died in graine Master Pigott amongst other such like Articles was accused by some few seditious men of the Parish of S. Sepulchres for drinking a Beere glasse of White-wine with a Lemmon and Sugar and though vindicated by the testimony of 600 of the a●●est men had his reputation blasted with no credit to his witnesses by Master Corbet who sate then in the chaire of Examinations I had like to have called it the seat of the scornfull and gave his hand afterwards that he was unworthy to exercise his Ministry by which meanes he hath since been put by two Lectures at Alhallowes Berking and Broad-street I make no question they have met with some scandalous enough I doe not excuse them But others they have prosecuted whom they might with much more honour have acquitted and given a checke to their too officious and troublesome neighbours Look we upon such as are in most favour and esteem with them we shall find they have trode their shooes awry aswell as others We may ●et Doctor Burgesse in the front and because he was so busie to pick holes in the coates of his brethren and rackt up the very ash●s of the dead to discover their corruptions we shall be the bolder to remember him not only of a man that was a Pluralist but of one that the High-Commission looked upon for Adultery And of one that with continuall suites of Law vext two Parishes and must have been calculated in the Black-bill if he had not taken himselfe off by his good service against Bishops Doctor Downing a reputed weathercock that turns which way soever the wind of his owne humour or ambition blowes him sometimes a great suitor to be the Earle of Straffords

most eminent and glorious of all Protestant Churches If His Majesty consents not to all this and to something more upon the advice of a grave and learned Synod for the satisfaction of tender consciences but recedeth from His many free and gracious offers to that purpose then let those bitter and scandalous imputations of inclining unto Popery be never washt away from Him But if this be one of the maine Arguments of His Majesties taking up just necessary and defensive Armes against Anabaptists Brownists and Sectaries who have already throwne downe the hedge and now fall to pillaging of the grapes of the Lords Vineyard and that with countenance and encouragement from a party in both Houses then we may conclude we approach very fast unto Atheisme and Prophanenesse and are fallen into those times which Sir Walter Raleigh speakes of in his Historie of the Word B. 2. Chapt. 5. sect 1. speaking of the care that Moses had of all things that concerned the worship and service of God which care of his all ages have in some degree imitated Yet sayes he and we may say so more truly it is now so forgotten and cast away in this super fine age by those of the family By the Anabaptists Brownists and other Sectaries as all cost and care bestowed and had of the Church wherein God is to he served and worshipped is accounted a kind of Popery and as proceeding from an Idolatrous disposition insomuch as time would soone bring to passe if it were not resisted that God would be turned out of Churches into Barnes and from thence againe into the Fields and Mountaines and under the Hedges and the offices of the Ministers robb'd of all dignity and respect be as contemptible as these places All Order Discipline and Church-Government left to newnesse of opinion and mens fancies yea and soone after as many kindes of Religion would spring up as their are Parish Churches within England Every contentious and ignorant person clothing his fancy with the Spirit of God and his imagination with the gift of Revelation insomuch as when the Truth which is but one shall appeare to the simple multitude no lesse variable then contrary to it selfe the faith of men will soone after die away by degrees and alll Religion held in scorne and contempt Doth not this directly hit the temper of our times wherein the conformable ministry is generally discountenanced ignorant and seditious persons men of all qualities and professions s●t up like Jeroboams Calves to out-face rhem Wherein all sorts of Conventicles forbidden by Law are tolerated and frequented by those that ought to punish them wherein men will take upon them to be Magistrates and declaime against the publike worship and service of God as it hath stood ever since the Reformation in the Church of England and shut up the doores of the Mother-Church if it bee lawfull to use any name of reverence and authority besides the name of a Parliament that the solemne service of God may not be administred as it hath been for a president to other Churches wherein men are imprisoned and cannot be inlarged unlesse they will promise to forbeare the use of the Common-Prayer the Crosse in Baptisme and kneeling at the holy Communion wherein the holy Apostles of our Saviour are unsainted as if we now doubted of their salvation all this and more then this can be proved against Alderman Pennington If wee look into the House lest their Members should not bee infected fast enough with this pestilent disease the Preachers of their choosing were for the most part notorious schismaticall Separtists And for the Synod of their owne setting forth after a new translation for feare the Clergy should have sent men that were too orthodoxall they deprived them of their rights forgetting their Protestation or taking them to be not the Subjects intended in it and made choice of as many men as they could get under no remarkable character but for their ignorant novelty and factious singularity of opinion If we look upon the men they most confide in we shall find them of the same stampe or else their prisoners must not be committed to them Doctor Leyton an old Scottish Preacher stigmatized long since for Sedition Gaoler at Lambeth House Dillingham a notorious Brownist with his wife and family Goaler at London-House Devenish the Keeper and Randall the Porter both Conventicle-Preachers at Winchester-House and the Porter at Ely-House can deliver as much extemporary Sedition as the best of them If we look into their Army wee shall find their intemperate zeale not without encouragement from some great ones hath transported them not onely to the prophanation of Churches defacing of Monuments tearing of holy Books and decent Vestments but even to the murdering of the true sonnes of the Church for ioyning in her devotions as the late example at Lambeth evidenceth Wee see then what is done for the defence of the true Protestant Religion as it stands reformed and establisht in the Church of England This Religion is pretended but another is practiced and in order to this new one for the old hath consisted with the old government Episcopacy must be rooted out and to this end they have used the most Reverend Bishops for no other crime then for being of that function as whilome the enemies of the Gospell did the holy Martyrs of Jesus Christ when they clothed them in the skins of wilde beasts to animate the dogges to teare them so the Fathers of the Church have been set forth under the most scandalous and ignominious character to inrage the people against them And although they are as farre from discovering as from agreeing what they would have in the roome of it yet this must downe that 's concluded and though a Synod be desired as the most competent Judge of such Controversies yet this is to be convened onely for colour fake the work must be done or rather undone before they be consulted with or assembled We may expostulate though they will not allow their Votes how unreasonable soever to be disputed How came Episcopacy that hath stood so long a piller in the house of God to grow so diametrically opposite to the truth or peace of the Gospell Was not our Religion reformed under that Government and hath not our Church and State flourish't to the envy of our neighbours under it If some tares have sprung up under it have they not sprung up much faster and spread further under other formes of Government beyond the Seas If inconveniences have crept in through that wall which if not of Christs own is doubtlesse of his Apostles building much more through those low hedges of their setting up who hhve no grounds besides their owne fancies to plant them on There is a necessity of emerging offences and tares will grow amongst the Wheat untill the Harvest or else our Saviour hath deceived us His wisdome sees that the very chaffe may contribute something to the benefit of the