Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	act_n	king_n	law_n	5,822	5	4.7877	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74667	An answer to Monsieur de la Militiere his impertinent dedication of his imaginary triumph, to the king of Great Britain to invite him to embrace the Roman Catholick religion. / By John Bramhall D.D. and Lord Bishop of London-Derry.	Bramhall, John, 1594-1663.; La Milletière, Théophile Brachet, sieur de, ca. 1596-1665. Victory of truth for the peace of the Church.	1653 (1653)	Thomason E1542_1	53,892	235

you opened to the liberty and boldness of other men who if they should assume to themselves the same freedom that you have done might say as much with as much reason concerning the pressures of other great Princes abroad that God afflicts them because they will not become Protestants as you can say that God afflicted our late King because he would not turn Papist But if you will not allow his Majesties suffrings to be meerly probatory And if for your satisfaction there must be a weight of sin found out to move the wheel of Gods justice why do you not rather fix upon the body of his Subjects or at least a disloyall part of them Wee confess that the best of us did not deserve such a Jewell Soveraigns may be taken away for the sins of their subjects that God might justly snatch him from us in his wrath for our ingratitude Reason Religion and experience do all teach us that it is usuall with Almighty God to look upon a body politique or Ecclesiastique as one man and to deprive a perverse people of a good and gracious Governour as an expert Physician by opening a vein in one member cures the distempers of another Prov. 28. ● For the Transgressions of a Land many are the Princes thereof It may be that two or three of our Princes at the most the greater part whereof were Roman Catholiques Not above two or three of our Princes called Heads of the Church did stile themselves or give others leave to stile them the Heads of the Church within their Dominions But no man can be so simple as to conceive that they intended a spirituall headship to infuse the life and motion of grace into the hearts of the faithfull such an head is Christ alone No not yet an Ecclesiasticall headship We did never believe that our Kings in their own persons could exercise any act perteining either to the power of Order or Jurisdiction That is onely politicall heads 1 Sam. 15.17 Nothing can give that to another which it hath not it self They meant onely a Civill or Politicall head as Saul is called the Head of the Tribes of Israel to see that publick peace be preserved to see that all Subjects aswell Ecclesiastiques as others do their duties in their severall places to see that all things be managed for that great and Architectonicall end that is the weal and benefit of the whole body politique both for soul and body If you will not trust me Hear our Church it self When we attribute the Sovereign Government of the Church to the King Art 37. we do not give him any power to administer the Word or Sacraments but onely that Prerogative which God in holy Scripture hath alwayes allowed to Godly Princes to see that all Sates and Orders of their Subiects Ecclesiasticall and Civill do their duties and to punish those who are delinquent with the civill Sword Here is no power ascribed Expos Paraphr art Conf. Ang. Art 37. no punishment inflicted but meerly politicall and this is approved and justificed by S. Clara both by reason and by the example of the Parliament of Paris Yet by vertue of this Politicall power he is the Keeper of both Tables the preserver of true piety towards God as well as right Justice towards men And is obliged to take care of the souls aswell as the skins and carkasses of his subjects The Christian Emperours politicall heads This power though not this name the Christian Emperours of old assumed unto themselves to Convocate Synods to preside in Synods to confirm Synods to establish Ecclesiasticall Laws to receive appeals to nominate Bishops to eject Bishops to suppress Heresies to compose Ecclesiasticall differences in Councils out of Councils by themselves by their delegates All which is as clear in the History of the Church as if it were written with a beam of the Sun This power The old Kings of England politicall heads though not this name the Antient Kings of England ever exercised not onely before the Reformation but before the Norman Conquest as appears by the Acts of their great Councills by their Statutes and Articles of the Clergy by so many Laws of provision against the Bishop of Romes conferring Ecclesiasticall dignities and benefices upon foreiners by so many sharp oppositions against the exactions and usurpations of the Court of Rome by so many Laws concerning the Patronage of Bishopricks and Investitures of Bishops by so many examples of Church-men punished by the Civill Magistrate Of all which Jewels the Roman Court had undoubtedly robbed the Crown if the Peers and Prelates of the Kingdom had not come in to the rescue By the antient Laws of England it is death or at least a forfeiture of all his goods for any man to publish the Popes Bull without the Kings Licence The Popes Legate without the Kings leave could not enter into the Realm If an Ordinary did refuse to accept a resignation See Authorities for all these in Cawdries Case in Judge Crook his Reports the King might supply his defect If any Ecclesiasticall Court did exceed the bounds of its just power either in the nature of the cauie or manner of proceeding the Kings Prohibition had place So in effect the Kings of England were alwaies the Politicall heads of the Church within their own Dominions So the Kings of France are at this day But who told you that ever King Charles did call himself the Head of the Church Neither K. Charles K. James nor Queen Elizabeth stiled heads of the Church thereby to merit such an heavy Judgement He did not nor yet King James his Father nor Queen Elizabeth before them both who took Order in her first Parliament to have it left out of her Title They thought that name did sound ill and that it intrenched too far upon the right of their Saviour Therefore they declined it and were called onely Supreme Governours in all Causes over all persons Ecclesiasticall and Civill which is a Title de jure inseparable from the Crown of all soveraign Princes Where it is wanting de facto if any place be so unhappy to want it the King is but half a King and the Common-wealth a Serpent with two Heads Thus you see you are doubly and both wayes miserably mistaken First King Charles did never stile himself Head of the Church nor could with patience endure to hear that Title Secondly a Politicall Headship is not injurious to the Unity or Authority of the Church The Kings of Israel and Judah the Christian Emperours the English Kings before the Reformation yea even before the Conquest and other Soveraign Princes of the Roman Communion have owned it signally But it seems you have been told or have read this in the virulent writings of Sanders or Parsons or have heard of a ludicrous scoffing proposition of a Marriage between the two heads of the two Churches Sixtus Quintus and Queen Elizabeth for

of England I shall not miss it first or last though it be but a loose unjoynted peece and so perhaps hitherto untouched We are onely accused of Schism Amongst other things which you lay to our charge you glance at the least twelve times at our supposed Schism But from first to last never attempt to prove it as if you took it for granted I have shaped a Coat for a Schismatick and had presented it to you in this answer but considering that the matter is of moment and merits as much to be seriously and solidly weighed as your naked Crimination without all pretext of proof deserves to be sleighted lest it might seem here as an impertinent digression to take up too much place in this short discourse I have added it at the Conclusion of this Answer in a short Tract by it self that you may peruse it if you please Presbyterians and Brownists have been Romes best friends You fall heavily in this Discourse upon the Presbyterians Brownists and Independents if they intend to return you any answer they may send it by a messenger of their own As for my part I am not their Proctor I have received no Fee from them And if I should undertake to plead their Cause upon my own head by our old English Law you might call me to accompt for unlawfull maintenance Onely give me leave as a by-stander to wonder why you are so cholerique against them for certainly they have done you more service in England then ever you could have done for your selves And I wonder no less why you call our Reformation a Calvinisticall Reformation brought into England by Bucer and Peter Martyr a blind Reformation yea the intire ruine of the Faith of the very form of the Church and of the civill Government of the Common-wealth instituted by God P. 16. Though you confess again in our favour that if our first Reformers had been interrogated whether they meant P. 19. P. 14. any such thing they would have purged themselves P. 17. and avouched their Innocence with their hands upon the new Gospell The gifts of Enemies are no gifts If such as these are all your courtesies you may be pleased to take them again Our first Reformers might safely swear upon any Gospell old or new that they meant no such thing And we may as securely swear upon all the books of God old or new that there is no such thing But why our Gospell should be younger or newer than Sixtus Quintus his Gospell or Clemens Octavus his Gospell passeth my understanding and yours also Comparisons are odious therefore I will not say that the true English Protestant standing to his own grounds is the best subject in the world But I do say that he is as good a subject as any in the world and our principles as Innocent and as auxiliary to civill Government as the Maximes of any Church under Heaven And more than yours where the clashing of two Supreme Authorities and the exemption of your numerous Clergy from the Coercive power of the Prince and some other novelties which I forbear to mention do alwayes threaten a storm Tell me Sir if you can what Church in Europe hath declared more fully or more favourably for Monarchy than the poor Church of England L. Cant. 1643. C. 1. That the most high and Sacred Order of Kings is of Divine Right being the Ordinance of God himself founded in the prime Lawes of Nature and clearly established by express Texts both of the old and new Testament Moreover that this power is extended over all their Subjects Ecclesiasticall and Civill That to set up any Independent coactive power above them either Papall or popular either directly or indirectly is to undermine their great royall Office and cunningly to overthrow that most Sacred Ordinance which God himself hath established That for their subjects to bear Arms against them Offensive or defensive upon any pretence whatsoever is to resist the powers which are ordeined of God The English Reformation not Calvinist cal And why do you call our Reformation Calvinisticall contrary to your own Conscience contrary to your own confession That in our Reformation we reteined the antient Order of Episcopacy P. 9. as Instituted by divine authority and a Liturgy and Ceremonies whereby we preserved the face or Image of the Catholick Church P. 10. And that for this very cause the disciplinarians of Geneva and the Presbyterians did conceive an implacable hatred against the King for the Churches sake and out of their aversion to it Did they hate their own Reformation so implacably If these things be to be reconciled reddat mihi minam Diogenes He that looks more in disputation to the Advantage of his partie than to the truth of his grounds had need of a strong memory We reteined not onely Episcopacy Liturgy and Ceremonies but all things else that were conformable to the discipline and publick service of the primitive Church rightly understood No Sir we cannot pin our faith upon the sleeve of any particular man as one used to say We love no nismes M. Tho. Sq. neither Calvinism nor Lutheranisme nor Jonsenianism but onely one that we derive from Antioch that is Christianism We honour Learning and Piety in our fellow servants but we desire to wear no other badge or Cognizance than that we received from our own Master at our Baptism Bucer was as fit to be Calvins Master as his Scholar So long as Calvin continued with him in Germany he was for Episcopacy Liturgy and Ceremonies and for assurance thereof subscribed the Augustane Confession and his late learned Successor and assertor in Geneva Monsieur Deodate with sundry others of that Communion were not averse from them Or why do you call our Reformation blind It was not blindness but too much affectation of knowledge and too much peeping into controverted and new fangled Questions that hath endamaged our Religion It is you that teach the Colliers Creed not we Howsoever you pretend to prove that our Reformation was the ruine of the Church and Common-wealth wee expect you should endeavour to prove it You cannot so far mistake your self as to conceive your authority to be the same with us that Pythagoras had among his Scholars to have his Dictates received for Oracles without proof what did I say that you pretend to prove it That 's too low an expression you promise us a demonstration of it P. 19. so lively and evident that no reason shall be able to contradict it Are you not afraid that too much expectation should prejudice your discourse by diminishing our applause Quid tanto dignum feret hic promissor hiatu Do you think of nothing now but Triumphs Lively and evident demonstration not to be contradicted by reason is like the Phenix much talked of but seldom seen Most men when they see a man strip up his sleeves and make too large promises of fair dealing