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
A70105	A representation of the threatning dangers, impending over Protestants in Great Brittain With an account of the arbitrary and popish ends, unto which the declaration for liberty of conscience in England, and the proclamation for a toleration in Scotland, are designed.	Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1687 (1687)	Wing F756A; ESTC R201502	80,096	60

found to have taken Orders in 〈…〉 e Church of Rome obnoxious to death or 〈…〉 ose other Statutes by which the King hath 〈…〉 ower Authority for levying two thirds of 〈…〉 eir Estates that shall be convicted of Recu 〈…〉 cy but by an usurped prerogative and an Absolute power he is pleased to suspend all 〈…〉 e Laws by which they were only disabled 〈…〉 rom hurting us thro standing precluded 〈…〉 rom places of power and trust in the Government So that the whole security we have in time to come for our Religion depends upon the temperate disposition and good nature of those Roman Catholicks that shall be advanced to Offices and Employments and does no longer bear upon the protection and support of the Law and I think we have not had that experience of grace and favour from Papists as may give us 〈…〉 just confidence of fair and candid treatment from them for the future Now that we may be the better convinced how little security we have from his Majesties promise in his Declaration of his protecting the Arch Bishops Bishops and Clergy and all other his subjects of the Church of England in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law established and in the quiet and full enjoyment of their possessions without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever which is all the Tenour that is left us 't is not unworthy of observation how that beside the suspending the Bishop of London ab Officio and the Vice Chanceller of Cambridg both ab Officio and Beneficio and this not only for Actions which the Laws of God and the Kingdom make their duty but thro a sentence inflicted upon them by no legal Court of Judicature but by five or six mercinary persons supported by a Tyrannous and Arbitrary Commission his Majesty in his Proclamation for Toleration in Scotland ●earing date the 12. of February doth among many other Laws cass disable and dispense with the Law enjoining the Scots Test tho it was not only enacted by himself while he represented his Brother as his high Commissioner but hath been confirmed by him in Parliament since he came to the Crown Surely it is as easie to depart from a promise made in a Declaration as 't is to absolve and discharge himself from the obligation of a Law which he first concurred to the enacting of and gave the creating Fiat unto as the late Kings Commissioner and hath since ratified in Parliament after he was come to the Throne As there is no more infidelity dishonor and injustice so there is less of absolute power and illegality in doing the one than the other Nor is it possible for a rational man to place a confidence in his Majesties Royal word for the protection of our Religion and the Church of England men's enjoying their possessions seeing he hath not only departed from his promise made to the Council immediately after his Brothers death but hath violated his Faith given to the Parliament of England at their first Session which we might have thought would have been the more sacred and binding by reason of the grandure state and quality of the Assembly to which it was pledged If we consider how much protestants suffered what number of them was burnt at the stake as well as murderd in Goals beside the vast multitudes who to avoid the rage and power of their Enemies were forced to abandon their Countrey and seek for shelter in forraign parts and what endeavoures of all kinds were used for the Extirpation of our Religion under QueenMary we may gather and learn from thence what is to be dreaded from James the II. who is the next popish Prince to her that since the Reformation hath sat on the Throne of England For tho there be many things that administer grounds of hope that the Papists will not find it so easie a matter to bring us in shoals to the stake nor of that quick and easie dispatch to suppress the protestant Religion and set up Popery at this time as they found it then yer every thing that occurs to our thoughts or that can affect our understandings serves not only to persuade us into a belief that they will set upon and endeavour it but to work us up to an assurance that his Majesty would take it for a di 〈…〉 ution of his glory as well as reflection upon his zeal for the Church of Rome not to attempt what a woman had both the courage to undertake and the fortune to go thro with And there is withal a concurrence of so many things both abroad and at home at this juncture which if laid in the ballance with the motives to our hope of the papists miscarrying may justly raise our fears of their prospering to a very sad and uncomfortable height Whosoever shall compare these two Princes together will find that there was less danger to be apprehended from Mary and that not only upon the score of her Sex but by reason of a certain gentleness and goodness of nature which all Historians of judgment and credit ascribe unto her than is to be expected from the present King in whom a sourness of temper fierceness of disposition and pride joined with a peevishness of humour not to bear the having his will disputed or controlled are the principal ingredients into his Constitution and which are all strangely heightned and enflamed by contracted distempers of Body and thro furious principles of mind which he hath imbib'd from the Iesuites who of all men carry the obligations arising from the Doctrines of the popish Religion to the most outragious and inhumane excesses Nor can I forbear to add that whereas the cruelty which that Princess was hurried into even to the making her Cities common shambles and her streets Theatres of murder for innocent persons for which she became hated while she lived and her memory is rendred infamous to all Generations that come after was wholly and entirely owing to her Religion which not only proclaims it lawful but a necessary duty of Christianity and an act meriting a peculiar Crown of Glory in heaven to destroy Hereticks 't is to be feared there will be found in the present King a spice of revenge against us as we are Englishmen as well as a measu 〈…〉 heap't up and running over of furious 〈◊〉 zeal against us as we are Protestants 〈◊〉 the wrath he bears unto us for our depar 〈…〉 from the Communion of the Romish Chu 〈…〉 and our rebellion against the triple Crow 〈…〉 the war wherein many of the Kingdom wer 〈…〉 engaged against his Father and the issue of it in the execution of that Monarch is what he hath been heard to say that he hopes to revenge upon the Nation And all that the City of London underwent thro that dreadful conflagration 1666. of which he was the great Author and Promoter as well as the Rescuer and Protector of the Varlets that were apprehended in their spreading and

the Laws of Christ when they are found to interfere with what is required by the King. But whether Gods Power or the Kings be superior and which of the two can cassate the others Laws and whose wrath is most terrible the judgment day will be able and sure to instruct them if all means in this world prove insufficient for it The Addressers know upon what conditions they hold their Liberty and they have not only observed how several of the National Clergy have been treated for preaching against Popery but they have heard how divers of the Reformed Ministers in France before the general suppression were dealt with for speaking against their Monarchs Religion and therefore they must be pardoned if they carry so as not to provoke his Majesty tho in the mean time thro their ●●lence they both betray the Cause of their Lord and Master and are unfaithful to the Soules of those of whom they have taken upon them the spiritual guidance As for the Papers themselves that are stiled by the name of Addresses I shall not meddle with them being as to the greatest part of them fitter to be exposed and ridicul'd either for their dulness and pedantry or for the adulation and sycophancy with which they are fulsomly stuff● than to deserve any serious consideration or to merit reflections that may prove instructive to Mankind Only as that Address wherein his Majesty is thanked for his restoring God to his Empire over Conscience deserveth a rebuke for its blasphemy so that other which commends him for promising to force the Parliament to ra●i●y his Declaration tho by the way all he says is that he does not doubt of their concurrence which yet his ill succ 〈…〉 upon the closetting of so many Member 〈…〉 and his since Dissolving that Parliament shews that there was some cause for the doub 〈…〉 ting of it I say that other Address merits severe Censure for its insolency against th 〈…〉 legislative Authority And the Authors of 〈◊〉 ought to be punished for their crime com 〈…〉 mitted against the Liberty and Freedom 〈◊〉 the two Houses and for encouraging th 〈…〉 King to invade and subvert their most essen 〈…〉 tial and fundamental Priviledges and withou 〈…〉 which they can neither be a Council Judi 〈…〉 cature nor Lawgivers After all I hope the Nation will be so in 〈…〉 genuous as not to impute the miscarriages 〈◊〉 some of the nonconformists to the whole part 〈…〉 much less to ascribe them to the principles o 〈…〉 Dissenters For as the points wherein the 〈…〉 differ from the Church of England are purel 〈…〉 of another Nature and which have no re 〈…〉 lation to Politicks so the influence that the 〈…〉 are adapted to have upon men as member 〈…〉 of Civil Societies is to make them in a specia 〈…〉 manner regardful of the Rights and Fran 〈…〉 chises of the Community But if some nei 〈…〉 ther understand the tendency of their ow 〈…〉 principles nor are true and faithful unto them these things are the personal faults of thos 〈…〉 men and are to be attributed to their ig 〈…〉 norance or to their dishonesty nor are thei 〈…〉 carriages to be counted the effects of thei 〈…〉 Religious Tenets much less are others of the party to be involved under the reproach an 〈…〉 guilt of their imprudent and ill conduct 〈…〉 Which there is the more cause to acknow 〈…〉 ledg because tho the Church of England ha 〈…〉 all the reason of the World to decline Addressing in that all her legal Foundation a 〈…〉 well as Security is shaken by the Declaration yet there are some of her Dignitaries and C 〈…〉 gy as well as divers of the Members of he 〈…〉 Communion who upon motives of Ambition Covetousness Fear or Courtship hav 〈…〉 enrolled themselves into the Li●● of Addre 〈…〉 sers and under pretence of giving thanks 〈◊〉 the King for his promise of protecting 〈◊〉 arch-Arch-Bishops Bishops and Clergy and a 〈…〉 〈…〉 erof the Church of England in the free Exer 〈…〉 of their Religion as by Law established 〈…〉 ve cut the throat of their Mother at 〈…〉 ose breasts they have suckt till they are 〈…〉 own fat both by acknowledging the usur 〈…〉 prerogative upon which the King assumes 〈◊〉 Right and Authority of Emitting the De 〈…〉 ration and by exchanging the legal stand●●g and Security of their Church into that 〈…〉 ecarious one of the Royal word which 〈…〉 ey fly unto as the bottom of her Subsistence 〈…〉 d trust to as the wall of her defence And 〈◊〉 most of the Members of the Separate So 〈…〉 ties are free from all accession to Ad 〈…〉 essing and the few that concurred were 〈…〉 eerly drawn in by the wheedle and impor 〈…〉 nity of their Preachers so they who are 〈◊〉 the chiefest Character and greatest repu 〈…〉 tion for Wisdom and Learning among 〈…〉 e Ministers have preserved themselves 〈…〉 om all folly and treachery of that kind The Apostle tells us that not many wise not ●any noble are called which as it is verified 〈◊〉 many of the Dissenting Addressers so it ●ay serve for some kind of Apology for their 〈…〉 ow and sneaking as well as for their in 〈…〉 iscret and imprudent behaviour in this mat●er And it is the more venial in some of ●hem as being not only a means of ingra 〈…〉 iating themselves as they phansie with ●he King who heretofore had no very good ●pinion of them but as being both an easie ●nd compendious method of Attoning for Offences against the Crown of which they were strongly suspected and a cheap and expenceless way of purchasing the pardon of their Relations that had stood actually 〈…〉 ccused of high Treason Nor is it to be doubted but that as the King will retain very little favour and mercy for Fanaticks when once he has served his Ends upon them so they will preserve as little kindness for the Papists if they can but obtain relief in a legal way And as there is not a people in the Kingdom that will be more 〈…〉 oyal to Princes while they continue so to govern as that fealty by the Laws of God 〈…〉 or man remains due to them so there are none of what principles or communion soever upon whom the Kingdom it its whole interest come to ly at stake may more assuredly and with greater confidence depend than upon the generality of Dissenting Protestants and especially upon those that are not of the Pastoral Order The severities that the Dissenters lay under before and their deliverance from oppression and disturbance now seconded with the Kings expectation and demands of thanksgiving Addresses were strong temptations upon men void of generosity and greatness of spirit and who are withall of no great Political Wisdom nor of prospect into the Consequences of Councils and tricks of State to act as illegally in their thanks as His Majesty had done in his bounty So that whatsoever animadversion they may

I shall not mention would have taken so many bold wide and illegal stepps for the supplanting our Religion and Laws and for the introduction and establishment of Popery and Tyranny and this not only to the losing and disobliging his former Votaries and Partizans but to the strange allarming and disgusting most persons of honor quality and interest in the three Kingdoms were he not beside the being under the sway of his own Bigottry and the strong ballance of a large measure of ill nature bound by ties of implicite obedience to the Commands of that extravagant and furious Society to the promoting of whose passions and malice rather than his own safety and glory or the lasting benefit of the Roman Catholicks themselves the whole course of his Government hitherto seems to have been shapen and adapted The occasion and subject of the late contest between him and the Pope which hath made so great a noise not only at Rome but thro all Europe may serve to convince us both of the Extraordinary zeal he hath for the Society and of the transcendent power they have over him and that 't is no wonder he should exact an obedience without reserve from his Subjects in Scotland seeing he himself yields an obedience without reserve to the Iesuites 'T is known how that by the Rules of their Institution no Iesuite is capable of the Myter and that if the Ambition of any of them should tempt him to seek or accept the dignity of a Prelate he must for being capacitated thereunto renounce his Membership in the Order Yet so great is His Majesties passion for the Honor and Grandure of the Society and such is their domination and absolute power over him that no less will serve him neither would they allow him to insist upon less than that the Pope should dispense with Father Peters being made a Bishop without his ceasing to be a Iesuite or the being transplanted into another Order And this the old Gentleman at Rome hath been forced at last to comply with and to grant a Dispensation whereby Father Peters shall be capable of the Prelature notwithstanding his remaining in the Ignatian Order the Iesuites thro their Authority over the King not suffering him to recede from his demand and His Majesties zeal for the Society not permitting him to comply either with the prayers or the Conscience and Honour of the Supream Pontiff Not only the Kings unthankfulness unto but his illegal proceedings against and his arbitrary invading the Rights of those who stood by him in all his dangers and difficulties and who were the Instruments o● preventing his exclusion from the Crown and the Chief means both of his advanc 〈…〉 ment to the Throne and his being kept in are so many new evidences of the ill w 〈…〉 he bears to all Protestants and what they a to dread from him as occasions are admin 〈…〉 stred of injuring and oppressing them a 〈…〉 may serve to convince all impartial a 〈…〉 thinking people that his Popish malice to o 〈…〉 Religion is too strong for all principles of H 〈…〉 nor and Gratitude and able to cancel t 〈…〉 Obligations which Friendship for his pers 〈…〉 and service to his interest may be suppos 〈…〉 to have laid him under to any heretofor Had it not been for many of the Church 〈◊〉 England who stood up with a zeal and v 〈…〉 gour for preserving the succession in t 〈…〉 right line beyond what Religion co 〈…〉 science Reason or Interest could co 〈…〉 duct them unto he had never been able 〈◊〉 have out-wrestled the endeavours of thr 〈…〉 Parliaments for excluding him from the I 〈…〉 perial Crown of England and had it n 〈…〉 been for their abetting and standing by 〈◊〉 with their swords in their hands upon th 〈…〉 Duke of Monmouth's descent into the Kingdom anno 1685. he could nothave avoid 〈…〉 the being driven from the Throne and th 〈…〉 having the Scepter wrested out of his han● Whosoever had the advantage of knowin 〈…〉 the temper and genius of the late King an 〈…〉 how affray'd he was of embarking into an 〈…〉 thing that might import a visible hazard t 〈…〉 the peace of his Government and dra 〈…〉 after it a general disgust of his person wi 〈…〉 be soon satisfied that if all his Protestant Subjects had united in their desires and co● curred in their endeavoures to have ha 〈…〉 the Duke of York debarred from the Crow 〈…〉 that his late Majesty would not have on● scrupled the complying with it and th 〈…〉 his Love to his dear Brother would hav● given way to the apprehension and fear 〈◊〉 forfeiting a love for himself in the hear 〈…〉 of his people especially when what wa 〈…〉 required of him was not an invasion upo● the fundamentals of the constitution of th 〈…〉 English Monarchy nor dissonant from th 〈…〉 practice of the Nation in many repeated i 〈…〉 stances Nor can there be a greater evidence 〈◊〉 the present Kings ill nature Romish Bi 〈…〉 ry and prodigious ingratitude as well 〈◊〉 of the design he is carrying on against our 〈…〉 ligion and Laws than his carriage and be 〈…〉 viour towards the Church of England tho 〈◊〉 cannot but acknowledg it a righteous 〈…〉 gment upon them from God and a just 〈…〉 nishment for their being not only so un 〈…〉 ncerned for the preservation of our Reli 〈…〉 n and liberties in avoiding to close with 〈…〉 e only methods that were adapted there 〈…〉 to but for being so passionate and indu 〈…〉 ious to hasten the loss of them thro put 〈…〉 g the Government into ones hands who 〈…〉 s they might have foreseen would be 〈…〉 e to make a sacrifice of them to his belo 〈…〉 d Popery and to his inordinate lust after 〈…〉 spotical and arbitrary power And as the 〈…〉 ly example bearing any affinity to it is 〈…〉 t of Louis the 14 th who in recompence to 〈◊〉 Protestant Subjects for maintaining him 〈◊〉 the Throne when the late Prince of Con 〈…〉 assisted by Papists would have wrested the 〈…〉 own from him hath treated them with Barbarity whereof that of A●●iochus to 〈…〉 ards the Jews and that of Diocletian and 〈…〉 aximian towards the primitive Christians 〈…〉 ere but scanty and impersect draughts so 〈…〉 ere wants nothing for compleating the pa 〈…〉 lel between England and France but a little 〈…〉 ore time and a fortunate opportunity and 〈…〉 en the deluded Church men will find that 〈…〉 er Peters is no less skilful at Whitehall for 〈…〉 nsforming their acts of loyalty and merit 〈…〉 wards the King into crimes and motives 〈◊〉 their ruin than Pere de là Chaise hath shewn 〈…〉 mself at Versailles where by an Art peculiar 〈◊〉 the Iesuites he hath improved the loyalty 〈…〉 zeal of the Reformed in France for the house 〈◊〉 Bourbon into a reason of alienating that 〈…〉 onarch from them and into a ground of 〈◊〉 destroying that dutiful and obedient