Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	archbishop_n	king_n	lord_n	4,729	5	3.8393	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35564	To J.S., the author of Sure-footing, his letter, lately published, The answer of Mer. Casaubon, D.D., concerning the new way of infallibility lately devised to uphold the Roman cause, the Holy Scriptures, antient fathers and councills laid aside	Casaubon, Meric, 1599-1671.	1665 (1665)	Wing C811; ESTC R3910	21,053	27

onely way God hath appointed and Mankind must trust unto It is far from my thoughts in this short Answer to your Letter to reason the case with you by way of Confutation there be some about it you tell me who I hope will make you sensible how miserably you are mistaken in your grounds Give me leave onely to insist a while on the monstrousness of your Opinion as it doth appear unto me You know the World is much amended generally in point of knowledge within these hundred or two hundred years Who hath not heard of that admirable or regeneration of Learning by all kind of Writers since or about that time so much extolled and magnified Let Pope Leo the X. who then was and his Cardinals have a great part under God of the thanks if you will I am not against it though by the aversness you shew frequently to Books and Learning I doubt you will be more ready to curse than to bless them for it But durst you even now undertake that every twentieth or fiftieth man or woman generally among you is able to give an account of their Faith I will not say rational but reasonable so that they may deserve the name of sound Christians in the main Fundamentals wherein we for the most part agree England I think I may say not to disparage others is furnished and hath been these many years with as able Ministers as any Nation can boast of in Europe I have been a Minister and Preacher here these Forty years and above I know what I have found to my grief in more places then one We may thank the Puritans of England if it be no better whose endeavour hath alwayes been in all places to set up their Lectures and Pulpit-Preaching instead of Catechising whereas Three moneths right Catechising will make more Christians I am confident then Forty years Pulpit-Preaching Do not think I pray to take any advantage of this and tell me Though it be so among us Hereticks yet you thank God it is otherwise among Catholicks as you call your selves For I could tell you strange things from your own Writers men who never were suspected in the least degree to favour Protestants concerning your Preachers what manner of men they are commonly how able or how carefull to discharge their duties I will name but one to you till you desire more Laurentius Villavineentius Doct. Theol. De reite formando studio Theol. which Book though not that particular passage of Ministers he did almost verbatim transcribe out of Hipperius a Protestant though otherwise a virulent inveigher against Protestants as any I have read Read him there but especially De sacris Concionibus formandis Lib. I. c. 2. and I think you will say you have your belly full So now Will you have a fight of former times from unquestionable Records In the dayes of Alfrid King of England the ignorance of the Land was such generally that himself complaineth in his Preface to Gregories Pastoral Christianity was become an empty name without any substance or reality And Asserius one of his Masters in his life doth relate that it was a long time before he could read because he could get none to teach him though he much desired it Some six or sevenscore years before when Cuthbert was Archbishop of Canterbury and Ethelbald King of the Mercit or Middle-land Counties a Synod was held at Clyff by which it was ordained that for the time to come All Priests should learn the Creed and the Lord Prayer that they might be able to teach them to others So in England How elsewhere In the dayes of Charles the Great in France there were so many ignorant Priests that a Law or Capitulum was made for the rebaptization of such as had not been baptized in the Name of the Father the Son a hard Lesson it seems for the Priests of those dayes and the Holy Ghost Yet we deny not but the worst dayes afforded some men of worth but what the generality was we may guess by these particulars I have read a Book intituled Fragmenta Caroli Magni printed at Antwerp A. D. 1560. in a place it treateth of the ancient manner as the marginal Note doth import of choosing Bishops First he is chosen à Clerosen Populo that is by the Clergy and the People according to the language of those times Then he is presented to the Apostolick that is the Pope for consecration Then faith the Record Pontifex jubet inquiri de quatuor Capitulis Canonicis Inquisition is made concerning the four Canonical Articles by which it seems the capacity or incapacity of men for such a degree was wont in those days chiefly or in the first place to be judged The first is Whether he had not been Arsanoquita 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sodomite The second Whether he had not lain with a Nun The third with a Beast The fourth Whether he had not married one that had been married before or a Widow Et de his inculpabilis inventus c. and being found innocent in these he further takes an Oath he will be so for the time to come Some few more questions being asked among which I find none except it be included in Dimissoria ab Episcopo concerning his sufficiency in point of Learning he is consecrated the next day I could tell you of Italy and other places But by this I hope you will give me leave to ask you What you think of the Fathers and Mothers of Families of those times in what a capacity they may probably be supposed to have been to preserve and transmit sound Christianity without any further helps of written Word or Record unto posterity Ordinary Romanists I know when they are put to it about the Popes Infallibility they fly to Christ his Promise and peculiar Providence which is a good plea could they prove by Scripture or true Tradition that is the consent of Primitive Fathers that such infallibility was ever promised by Christ unto the Pope Which to say your friend and Master as I find him stiled in Dr. Hammond Mr. White doth resolve to be Heretical yea archiheretical where Dr. Hammond will tell you p. 263. for I have not the Book But a plausible plea however I say as it pretends to ground upon Christs Promise but not your plea because you disclaim Christs Promise and all plea of a peculiar Providence as a principle to be grounded upon Is not the Church of Rome much beholding to you One thing I must grant to you that your way though few Romanists I think will acknowledge it their way is no new way absolutely For it was indeed the Heathens way as is objected unto them by ancient Fathers which they made use of to uphold their Heathenism against Christianity and what those Ancient Fathers thought of that way you may read in them or may be told by others in due time It was also the very way the infidel Jews used as by others

I know not But all this granted yet it is but little that you grant to Popes and Prelates For you say they are a part and the eminentest members that is somewhat but you add and indeed could not avoid it by your grounds pag. 333. in proportion to their number and what is that among so many millions of other men The fifth Injury I charge your way or Doctrine with many Chymerical suppositions and impertinencies I have said enough to this which I shall not need to repeat I shall onely add I understand by you some body is appointed to answer you You know what Dr. Hammond hath done already whom I think you never answered But by your Sure footing first and second part I perceive you or rather indeed your disease or delusion hath made a great progress If therefore it should so fall out that you have been mis-informed and your dreams are not thought so considerable as to deserve an answer pray for my life and health for it may do you good and I look upon you still as an ingenuous man however this hath happened to you and I will promise you very mathematically and scientifically as great an enemy as you take me to science to examine all your grounds and to make it appear clearly to your self if possible but to all men that have but eyes and ears to use your own expression that nothing can be more contrary to the course of Nature and to Reason and Providence grounded upon certain and approved experience of all Ages than what you ground upon What you may think of it I know not but I do not conceive that there is any thing of bragging in this undertaking else it would not become me and I should be sorry for it In that which followeth by Ours and Yours I know not what you mean whether Poepists and Protestants in general or whether you and me particularly but I think and it is more probable Papists and Protestants in general However it is apparent you do brag and vapour egregiously as if you intended to put your adversaries out of countenance by calling them cowardly rogues and by telling them what brave things you have done when in very deed it is but a dream and pure imagination Put this is as all the rest Tradition on its Throne and the gates of Hell c. it is no good sign But I have said or indeed suspected I say no more but I will not stand upon that you are no friend to ancient books or learning Truly Sir I think a man may gather so much by your own words and profession What mean you else when you so often tell us of wordish learning aicry descants and discourses knacks of humane learning Grammar and Criticisms bookishness and much reading and the like But if it be granted all this may come from a man that is a lover of true learning but impatient to see how much it is wronged by many false pretenders which is true enough yet if Fathers and Mothers of Families who I think generally do not pretend to much learning are able and sufffcient nay the onely sure means appointed by God to preserve truth in matters of Faith and Religion what further use have we of all books ancient and late that have been written on that subject You know Sir that ancient Fathers and Councils and other Ecclesiastical Writers their Translations and what hath been written upon them by sundry learned men will make a great part of that which we Divines at least call Learning that such Books in greatest Libraries take up most part of the room It is not enough to say a man may read them for his recreation if he will and we are not bound to burn them You need to say no more but that there is no need of them what will follow should you be believed generally by men in Authority any man may foresee without the gift of Prophesie in this age especially so much addicted to new knacks and inventions so fiercely set to disgrace and cry down whatsoever former ages have most esteemed and reverenced Your division of Books into several Classes and sentiment of them so divided I have no mind to quarrel at or examine because it is not much to the purpose or main business That many deserve no better then to be burned even of them that fill Catalogues and Libraries I should easily yield so it were done by them that could judge of Books indeed not by self-conceited men or by men addicted to one kind of study who are apt to think all needless that comes not within the verge of their cognisance or capacity But I do not like your counsel of abridging for that hath been the destruction of best Authors in all Ages and hath brought many a curse upon the Abbreviators Among them that deserve to be burned it would not much trouble me if Dr. Dee's tedious Legend about his Spirits were one And because you tell me of him I am very willing to take this occasion to acquaint others in case this paper be ever printed how I came to have to do with him I know I have said enough elsewhere but because many have heard of the Book by relation who never saw it and because somewhat is come to my knowledge since which I did not know then I hope it will not do amiss here When I lived at Sir John Cottons where besides the comfort and honour of that truly noble and learned Gentlemans company I had the use of a choise Library as any England for the number doth afford in his Father Sir Thomas then living his house at Westminster I had not been there many months but Sir Thomas did mention these papers of Dr. Dees unto me adding that my Lord of Armagh had seen them and wished them printed not for their worth or exellency but because he found in them so much of the humor and language of the times as that he thought many would be convinced by the book from whence either Canting language and affected Sanctitie did spring When I had perused them my answer was I was very fully satisfied of the reality of those things w ch the book related that I knew Dr. Dees hand very well I did know it because I had divers books which had been his among others a Simleri Bibliotheca where Dr. Dee had written in the margines the names of divers Manuscript books in England Greek and others w ch he had seen in several places I know not how I came to part with it as I did with many others for which I have been very sorry since and was sure it was his hand and made no question but the Devil or deluding spirits whom he thought to be good had appeared to him in that manner as is there related But for the printing I doubted scarce any man would adventure upon it because it was such mad uncouth stuffe for the most part So the business rested halfe a year more