Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	bishop_n	church_n	ordination_n	3,829	5	10.8464	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88228	The opressed mans opressions declared: or, An epistle written by Lieut. Col. John Lilburn, prerogative prisoner (by the illegall and arbitrary authority of the House of Lords) in the Tower of London, to Col. Francis West, Lieutenant thereof: in which the opressing cruelty of all the gaolers of England is declared, and particularly the Lieutenant of the Tower. As also, there is thrown unto Tho. Edwards, the author of the 3 vlcerous Gangrænes, a bone or two to pick: in which also, divers other things are handled, of speciall concernment to the present times.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1647 (1647)	Wing L2149A; Thomason E373_1; ESTC R201322	33,049	40

other cause but for standing for the Fundamentall Lawes of England which if he had not an absolute desire to be notoriously forsworn he might know his Covenant binds him to doe the same But seeing he there playes the simple man to fight with his own shadow and doth not in the least meddle for any thing I can perceive by so much as I have read of his Book which so near as I could find was every place where I was mentioned with the Statutes and other Legall Authorities as I cite in my wives petition and else-where to prove That all the Commoners of England ought in all criminall cases to be tryed by their Peeres that is Equals and that the House of Lords in the least are not the Peeres of Commoners And therefore seeing seemingly by that ulcerous book he hath given me something to answer that concerns me I will really and substantially give him something to answer that in good earnest concerneth him and all the rest of his bloody-minded pretended reformed fellow-Clergy Presbyters that lying deceitfull forsworn and bloody Sect of whom it is true that the Prophet said of the Prophets of old That they make the people to erre and bite with their teeth and cry peace and he that putteth not into their mouthes they even prepare warre against him Micah 3.5 And that at present I have to put to him to answer shall be certain Arguments which I made when I was close prisoner in irons in the Fleet against the then Episcopall Ministers of the Church of England and will serve in every particular against the present Presbyteriall Ministers and you shall find them thus laid down in the 23. page of my Book called An Answer to 9. Arguments written by T. B. and printed at London 1645. First Thtt every lawfull Pastor Bishop Minister or Officer in the visible Church of Christ ought to have a lawfull call and be lawfully chosen into his Office before he can be a true Officer in the Church of Christ Acts 1.23 24 25. 6.3.5 6. 14.23 Gal. 1.1 Heb. 5.4 But the Ministers and Officers in the Church of England as well Presbyterian as Episcopall have not a lawfull call neither are lawfully chosen to be officers in the Church of Christ See the Book of Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons as also the Directory and compare them with the Scripture Therefore all your Ministers are false and Antichristian Officers Rev. 9.3 and 13.2 and 16.13 Secondly the doing of those actions that belong to the execution of an Office doth not prove a man to be a lawfull Officer but a lawfull power instating him into his Office Acts. 8.4.11.19.20 and 18.24 25 26. 1 Cor. 14.29 30 31. 1 Pet. 4.10 But all the Ministers in the Church of England have nothing to prove the lawfulnesse of their standing in the Ministery but the actions of a Minister and are not in the least able to prove that they are instated into their Ministery by vertue of a lawfull power and authority Therefore they are no true Ministers of Christ but false and Antichristian Ministers of Antichrist Thirdly againe in the third place upon your own grounds I frame this Argument Those that by their Ministery do not accomplish the same ends that the Ministery of the Apostles did are no true Ministers But the Ministers of the Church of England do not accomplish the same ends by their Ministery that the Ministery of the Apostles did 1 Cor. 11.2 Therefore your Ministers are no true Ministers of Iesus Christ But Gangrena one word more at present to you seeing in the 217.218 pages of your late 3. Gangrena you fall so exceeding heavie upon me and my honest Camerade Mr. Overton and say that these 2. audacious men their dareing bookes shall escape without exemplary punishment and instead thereof be countenanced and set free I do as a Minister pronouncae but I say it is as one of Sathans that the plague of God will fall upon the heads of those that are the cause of it Come Antagonist let us come to a period for I hope for all your mallice you are not yet so farre gone beyond your selfe as to desire to have me hanged or killed and then condemned and adjudged and therefore I will make you 2. faire propositions First in reference to the Lords whose Goliah and Rabshaca-like Champion you are that if you please to joyne with me in a desire to both Houses I will so far go below my selfe and my present appeale now in the House of Commons alwayes provided it may be no prejudice to the benefit I justly expect from my said appeale and joyne with you in this desire that there may be by both Houses a proportionable number thereof mutually by themselves chosen out to set openly and publickly in the painted Chamber where I will against you by the established Lawes of this Land maintaine against you and all the Lawyers you can bring this position which is absolutely the contest betwixt the Lords and me THAT THE LORDS AS A HOVSE OF PEERS HATH NO JVRISDISCTION AT ALL OVER ANY COMMONER IN ENGLAND IN ANY CRIMINALL CASE WHATSOEVER and if you will I will wholly as in reference to the contest betwixt you and me stand to the vote and abide the judgement and sentence of that very Committee whose vote upon the fore-mentioned tearmes if you will tye your selfe I will tye my selfe either actively to execute or passively to suffer and undergo it In the second place because so farre as I am able to understand your meaning in your fore-mentioned pages you would have me dealt withall as the Earle of Strafford and the Bishop of Canterbury was for indeavouring as you say with so much violence the overthrow of the three Estates and the Lawes of the Kingdome and in the stead of the fundamentall Government and constitution of this Kingdome to set up an Vtopian Anarchy of the promiscuous multitude and the lusts and uncertaine fancies of weake people for Lawes and Rules Now in regard of the distractions of the Kingdome which are many and that they might not be made wider by new bookes from either of us I shall be very willing for peace and quiets sake to joyne with you in a Petition to the House of Commons to appoint a select Committee publickly to examin all things that are a misse in your bookes and myne and to punish either or both according to Law and Iustice without partiality and I appeale to all rationall men in the world whether I have not offered fayre or no. But in regard I know not whether you will imbrace my proffer I shall speake a little more for my selfe and reduce all to these three heads First whether the Lords have by the known Law of the Land any jurisdiction of the Commons or no Secondly whether in the Parliaments own publick declarations in Mr. Prinns soveraigne power of Parliaments and in the Assemblies exhortation to the solemn legall Covenant and

the hopes of my being freed from my close imprisonment but your falling so heavily upon me as you did struck me to the heart and made me beleeve it was possible I might have been destroyed before I should have an opportunity publickly to cleare my own unspotted innocency in reference to the Lords and to anatomize their tyranny both of which my soul thirsted after and therefore if I had been able I would have purchased an opportunity to have done it though it had cost me 20. l a week And-truly Sir I have done my doe and in despite of all the Lords published and truly and faithfully stated my cause to the view of the whole Kingdome First in my Wives Petition delivered by her to the House of Commons Septem 23. 1646. which I pen'd and framed my selfe without the help or assistance of any Lawyer in England And secondly in my Book called Londons Liberty in Chains discovered And thirdly twice before the Committee of the Honorable House of Commons The last discourse of which I published to the view of all the Cōmons of England and called it An Anatomy of the Lords tyranny And besides some of my friends or well-wishers have done it excellent well for me in those two notable Discourses called Vox Plebis and Regall Tyranny discovered which will live when I am dead and be I hope as good as winding-sheets unto the Lords and therefore I am now ready for a Dungeon or Irons or Death it self or any torture or torment that their malice can inflict upon me and seeing that I cannot by any means I can use get my report made to the House of Commons and so enjoy justice and right at their hands which I beg not of them as a Boon but chalenge of them as my due and right by reason of the Lords and the rest of their Prerogative Co-partners influence into the House Commons to divert them from the great affaires of the Kingdome in doing justice and right unto the oppressed and putting them upon making Lawes Edicts and Declarations to persecute and destroy the generation of the righteous and so bring the wrath and vengeance of heaven and earth upon them and theirs Read Mr. Thomas Goodwins Sermon preached before them Feb. 25. 1645. called The great Interest of States and Kingdomes and also lay a great blot of reproach upon them by all the rationall men in the world for endevouring to destroy a generation of peaceable and quiet-minded men that have contributed all they had and have in the world for their preservation and by whose undaunted valour and blood-shed as principall instruments they enjoy liberty at this day to sit in the House of Commons and to be what they are Sure I am the Spirit of God saith That he that rewardeth evill for good evill shall not depart from his House Prov. 17.13 And yet for any thing I can perceive the best reward is intended these men from those they have done so much for is ruine and destruction that so that Antichristian office and function of Priesthood newly transformed into a pretended godly and reformed Presbyter may again be established although by the second Article of the Covenant now more magnified by the sonnes of darknesse add blindnesse then the Book of God they have expresly sworn to root up that Function by the roots The words of the Covenant are That we shall in like manner without respect of persons endevour the extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-Deacons and all other Ecclesiastical officers depending on that Hierarchy superstition heresie schisme prephaneness c. Mark the sentence And all other Ecclesiasticall Officers depending on that Hierarchy In the number of which are those pretended reformed presbyter-Ministers that either sit in the Assembly or are in any other place in the Kingdom that officiate by vertue of their Ordination which they had from the Bishops or any by vertue of their Authority And I will maintain it with my life that he is a forsworn man whether he be Parliament-man or other that hath taken the Covenant and doth contribute any of his assistance to maintain preserve and uphold that Ordination of the Presbyterian Ministers that they received from the Bishops or punish any man for writing preaching or speaking against it or any other wayes endevouring the destruction or extirpation thereof For the expresse words of the Covenant are that we must endevour the extirpation of all Officers without exception depending on that Hierarchy part of which all the fore-mentioned Ministers are being ordained Priests and Deacons by the Bishops and have no other Ordination to this very day but what they had fro them But if they shal say they were ordained by them not as Bishops but as Presbyters I answer This is a simple foppish distinction For as well may the Bishops say They were not ordained by the Pope or his Bishops quatenus as Pope or Bishops but quatenus as Presbyter or Presbyters and so are in every particular as lawfull Ministers as any of these men that have their ordination from them and yet have endevoured to draw the whole Kingdom into a Covenant sinfully to extirpate them that are Christs Ministers upon their own Principles as really truly and formally as any of themselves But in the second place if they were ordained Presbyters by the Bishops not as Bishops but as Presbyters then are these present reformed Ministers lesse then Presbyters For the Author to the Hebrewes chap. 7. v. 7. saith Without all contradiction the lesse is blessed of the better or greater And I desire the learned Presbyters to shew me one example in all the New Testament that ever any Officer ordained another Officer in the same Office and Function that he himselfe was in Thirdly I desire to know of these reformed Presbyterian Ministers that seeing as they themselves confesse the Bishops Office and Function was and is Antichristian how is it possible their Ministeriall Function or Ordination can be Christian that like a streame flowed from them the fountain Sure I am Job demands this question Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean And by the same Spirit of God he answers Not one Job 14.4 And James interrogates saying Doth a Fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter Or can the Fig-tree my brethren beare Olive-berries either a Vine Figges Therefore in a positive negation he concludes that no Fountain can both yeeld salt water and fresh And therefore seeing THOMAS THE GANGRENA the Rabshakeh Champion of the new sprung-up Sect in England of Presbyters who may more truly and properly be called Schismatickes then any of those he so brands for they have separated from their Ghostly Fathers the Bishops and yet are glad to hold their ordination and are therefore schismaticall And therefore seeing in his last GANGRENA he hath fallen so point-blank upon me for no