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	succession_n	2,569	5	10.4652	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38980	An Examination of the case of the suspended bishops in answer to the Apology for them.		1690 (1690)	Wing E3726; ESTC R21500	16,321	37

AN Examination OF THE CASE OF THE Suspended Bishops In Answer to the APOLOGY for them LONDON Printed for Roger Alwin 1690. An Examination of the CASE of the Suspended Bishops THere is no folly incident to the Sons of Men but has had some one Pen or other to write either in its Praise or at least Vindication And it 's natural for Men to imitate their fore-father Adam in sowing Fig-Leaf Aprons to cover their Nakedness Thence it is I am nothing surpris'd to see so preposterous so ridiculous and so illegal an Action as was the Address of the Grand Jury of Glocester at the last Lent Assizes in favour of the Suspended Bishops endeavour'd to be vindicated especially by one who had the unhappiness to be one of the Addressers himself Yet one might have thought Men of any Discretion or Sense should have rather ventur'd to put a favourable Construction on this piece of Folly in Conversation among People of the Country where it was transacted than to expose themselves of new again to the World by an Apology little better upon the matter than the Address it self It has been the unhappiness of Men of our Profession I mean the Clergy whereof I have the honour to be one that the World has in all Ages tax'd them with something of willfulness and positiveness of humour beyond the rest of Mankind And this silly impertinent Apology does certainly add to the Calumny if it be one For tho' a certain Gentleman of the Crand Jury of Glocester has had the good Nature to Father this expos'd Brat yet we know that it was a Club of our own Profession that have had the Honour of bringing it to the World as they had that of framing the Address apologised for and inciting the Grand Jury to sign it If the church were at the point of Ruin for want of the Suspended Bishops the exercise of their Offices If the Succession of our Hierarchy derived to this Day without interruption were thereby in hazard of being broken off If there were no where in England to be found Men capable to handle down to our Posterity the Doctrine of the Gospel but they then it had been not only pardonable but in some sense necessary to use all possible means and even those out of the ordinary Road in order to their re-establishment But however Great however Learned these Suspended Bishops may be we are hopeful there are no such Miseries impending upon our Church through their Suspension as the fear of them should oblige us to break through Laws and Acts of Parliament meerly for their sakes which is the thing the Grand Jury of Glocester by their Address would have the King to do I cannot but regret that these Reverend Persons who had the Honour to give a noble Testimony of their Constancy and Zeal for the Liberties of our Church and Country in the last Reign should have been so unhappy as to occasion such a Schism and so many Offences in this We justly hop'd at the first dawning of this late happy Revolution That instead of proving Stumbling-Blocks to a great part of the Nation by casting all the Dust upon our Deliverance was in their Power in refusing to acknowledge it as such They would rather have continued in their first Zeal than to have left it so soon without every acquainting the World why they did so In this we have a bright Testimony of the weakness of Humane Nature and of the Possibility of the Stars of the first magnitude their suffering an Eclipse in the midst of their Carreer of Light God forbid that in making Reflections upon this Pamphlet I add to the ill Circumstances these Reverend Bishops are in from the harsh Censures of the most of Protestants both at home and abroad and I confess my self to be of the Humour of Constantine who us'd to say If he found a Bishop in the Act of Adultry he would throw his Mantle over him But no body will think the respect I owe them as being my ghostly Fathers should forbid a Refutation of a Paper that at the bottom is Levell'd against the King and both Houses of Parliament that Suspended them and at all the rest of the Reverend Bishops and other Clergy who took the Oaths to their Majesties in Obedience to the Act of Parliament For without all question so hearty and so zealous an appearance for them who have refus'd the Oaths must be more than a tacit Reflection upon others that did so To come to the Pamphlet it self I shall only touch at the Passages of it which seem to have any weight even in the Opinion of the Author or rather Authors themselves For the canting strain and a thousand Expressions foreign to the Affair are neither worthy of any body 's reading nor answer The Title it self is Comprehensible enough and tho' the Gentleman that Fathers the Pamphlet would seem to be only or most concern'd to vindicate his own and his Neighbours their Address yet he shuffles in both in the Title page and all along the Pamphlet it self an Apology for the Suspended Bishops At first sight of this specious Title I believe other People were as much mistaken as I For I immediatley thought I had fallen upon some mighty Treasure hidden to this moment from all Mankind but the Suspended Bishops themselves I imagin'd that in this Paper we was to expect an account of all those profound Reasons which determin'd the Bishops against taking the Oaths And which Reasons the World had been in so long expectation of But alas the poor Gentlemen in stead of really vindicating the Bishops as his Title bears leaves them in a thousand times worse Case than he found them For if he had been prevail'd with not to appear thus in print invita Minerva we might have still continu'd in an awful expectation of those thundring Arguments for refusing the Oaths which these Fathers have thought fit hitherto to lock up in their own Breast Whereas on the contrary by so ridiculous and nonsensical an Apology he has given occasion to the World to think more harshly of the Cause he undertakes and to ascribe his Friends their stiffness rather to a piece of groundless sullenness than to any perswasion from Reason This Thought will be the rather natural to those who reads the Apology That all the Country about knows it was the great product of the united Brains of those sort of Men tho' they took the Oaths themselves who are indeed far greater Enemies to the present Settlement than those who refus'd them In his Dedication he begins with a Reflection on all those of a contrary Opinion to his calling them a restless Faction and at the same time he begs the question for himself in calling the Cause he vindicates Truth and Charity alas the Gentleman does not consider that the People he calls a restless Faction as being an Enemy to his Address is the whole Noble-men Clergy Gentlemen and Commons of England

insinuated that the Bishops needed a Pardon which truly they did not for they humbly pray the like Favour viz. a Pardon might be extended to their Pious Bishops particularly their Diocesan Whatever Thanks they pretend to pay the King sure I am the Suspended Bishops owe none to those Gentlemen who desire a Pardon for them when they themselves I hope are sufficiently perswaded they need none And if a Man had been design'd to redicule these Reverend Fathers it could not been better done than begging a Pardon for them that had appear'd in the last Reign with so much Zeal for the Liberty and Religion of their Country and had suffered a Confinement like that of the Primitive Martyrs under Dioclesian among Murtherers and Traytors to use our Authors own words upon that Score IV. Our Addressers have stumbled unhappily upon the Word Serving their Majesties in their several Provinces One would have thought these Zealous Votaries should rather have used the word Serving God Almighty for the Office of Bishops does more immediately refer to that than to the Service of any Earthly Monarch It 's an ordinary Expression to Serve God in the Work of the Ministry but it 's a new one to Serve the King in it And I believe these Reverend Persons will be of my Opinion The word Provinces comes in as much from the Purpose for by Provinces when referring to the Bishops of England are meant two the Districts of Canterbury and York and that of York is already happily filled So that the word Province should have been used only in the Singular Number to mean that of Canterbury now Vacant otherwise it was not good Sense But to answer this Address in one word There is no Government in the World that ever allowed Men to enjoy the greatest Offices and Dignities in it that would not acknowledge the Government it self some one way or other And there can be no greater Presumption nor Affront done the Government than for a Handful of Men to present a Petition or Address which is all one for continuing these Men in Offices which the Law and all the Rules of Policy incapacitate them for There is no Honest Man but could heartily wish these Reverend Bishops might have their Consciences satisfied in point of the Oaths but until they satisfie the Law by taking them we must regret their Misfortune without wishing them in Offices the Law cannot allow them to enjoy There is no question but whenever they shall get over their Scruples the King will shew as much Kindness to them as he has been pleased to shew One of their Coat of late upon his getting over his We have some hopes that the Pungent Reasons which prevail'd with this Reverend Parson to change his Sentiments as to the Lawfulness of the Oaths may at length prevail with the Bishops too And it 's from thence the World is in so much Impatience to see that New Convert's Reasons in Print I know not if I be obliged to follow this rambling Apologist through all the Impertinencies in the rest of his Pamphlet But I cannot enough admire the wonderful Application he makes of the Fable about the Camels getting from Jupiter crop'd Ears instead of Horns and all this our Author is at pains to relate meerly for the sake of a fine single Epithet in calling Crop'd Ears a Sanctified Dress What a Learned Man must this be that can go back the length of Esop's days only to have a Nonsensical Fling at the Diffenting Ministers whom such Learned Authors as himself have sometime for what Reason no body knows Nicknam'd Crop'd Ear'd Parsons But I would fain know of this Gentleman whither if he himself had been to ask a Boon of Jupiter it might not have been as much his Interest to desire him to crop his Ears as to give him or allow him to keep Horns the one being more visible and making perhaps a greater Noise in the Neighborhood than the other could possibly do especially if hidden by a Perriwig He spends almost all the rest of the Pamphlet in vindicating the Grand-Juries making their Address to the King and not to the King and Parliament It 's not worth the pains to consider whither they should have Address'd it to the King or to the Parliament or to both for whatever way they were to do it they were to lose their pains and to meet with that Just Disdain such a Folly deserves The Poor Man after this falls into one of the Saddest Fits of Fury against the Presbyterians that can be and no body knows what has given occasion to this Paroxism of his Was it because they condemn'd the Gloucester Address At that rate he might have with the same reason belsh'd out his Venom at the Better and Learneder part of the Church of England who have unanimously condemn'd this Address as much as the Presbyterians as being more concern'd for the Reflection such a Folly brings upon the Church But how he comes to spend so much time and so many Invectives against Doctor du Moulin for writing against some Mistakes in the Discipline of the Church of England I know not The Truth is I thought both the Man and his Book had been forgotten but it 's probable our Author is Master of so few Books that it 's no wonder he takes pains to cite so many Passages out of one that has casually fallen into his Hands There is very few I know that approves du Moulin's Heat against the Discipline of our Church but there are others of the other side nothing behind him in Invectives against the Dissenters from the Church We have had both before and of late several who have gone to that length of Animosity against the Dissenters as for their meer Sakes to Vnchurch all the Protestant Churches in Europe because of the want of the Order of Bishops among them And it 's very likely this Uncharitableness of the Church of England against the Protestants abroad and particularly of the French Church whereof Doctor du Moulin was a Member might animate the Angry Old Man as our Author calls him a little beyond his Design and beyond Reason and Decency too So that Dr. du Moulin and our Author may even forget one another since they are equally in the wrong to one anothers Party The Author Raves when he tells us the Reason why People are displeased with his Gloucester Address is because it 's in Favour of Men that are Bishops and for their being so This is a rediculous and malicious Reflection there is no body but has a great Veneration for the Order and for a great many Learned Pious and Worthy Persons that compose it But indeed our Author will have much to do to reconcile the Generality of Mankind at least Protestants to the Conduct of the Suspended Bishops It 's not because they were Bishops that this Address in their Favours was generally condemned but it was because they by their Stiffness have weakened the Hands of