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	john_n	king_n	9,316	5	4.1111	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54850	The primitive rule of reformation delivered in a sermon before His Maiesty at Whitehall, Feb. 1, 1662 in vindication of our Church against the novelties of Rome by Tho. Pierce.	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1663 (1663)	Wing P2192; ESTC R28152	31,193	45

That against the Command of our blessed Saviour in the verse but one before my Text That which God hath joyned together the men of Rome do put asunder By these and many more Corruptions in point of Practice and Doctrine too which were no more then Deviations from what had been from the Beginning and which the learned'st Sons of the Church of Rome have been forced to confess in their publick writings the awakened part of the Christian world were compell'd to look out for a Reformation That there was in the See of Rome the most abominable Practice to be imagin'd we have the liberal Confesson of zealous Stapleton himself and of those that have publisht their Penitentials We have the published Complaints of Armachanus and Grostead and Nicolas de Clemangis Iohn of Hus and Ierome of Prague Chancellor Gerson and Erasmus and the Archbishop of Spalato Ludovicus Vives and Cassander who are known to have died in the same Communion did yet impartially complain of some Corruptions Vives of their Feasts at the Oratories of Martyrs as being too much of kin unto the Gentiles Parentalia which in the judgment of Tertullian made up a species of Idolatry And Cassander confesses plainly that the Peoples Adoration paid to Images and Statues was equal to the worst of the ancient Heathen So the buying and selling of Papal Indulgences and Pardons 't is a little thing to say of Preferments too was both confest and inveigh'd against by Popish Bishops in Thuanus Now if with all their Corruptions in point of Practice which alone cannot justifie a People's Separation from any Church though the Cathari and the Donatists were heretofore of that opinion we compare their Corruptions of Doctrine too and that in matter of Faith as hath been shewed Corruptions intrenching on Fundamentals it will appear that That door which was open'd by Vs in our first Reformers was not at all to introduce but to let out Schism For the schism must needs be Theirs who give the Cause of the Separation not Theirs who do but separate when Cause is given Else S. Paul had been to blame in that he said to his Corinthians Come ye out from among them and be ye separate 2 Cor. 6. 17. The actuall Departure indeed was Ours but Theirs the causal as our immortal Arch-Bishop does fitly word it we left them indeed when they thrust us out as they cannot but go whom the Devil drives But in propriety of speech we left their Errors rather then Them Or if a Secession was made from them 't was in 〈◊〉 very same measure that they had made one from Christ. Whereas they by their Hostilities and their Excommunications departed properly from us not from any Errors detected in us And the wo is to them by whom the offence cometh Matth. 18. 7. not to them to whom 't is given If when England was in a Flame by Fire sent out of Italy we did not abstein from the quenching of it until water might be drawn from the River Tiber it was because our own Ocean could not only do it sooner but better too that is to say without a Figure It did appear by the Concession of the most learned Popish Writers that particular Nations had still a power to purge themselves from their corruptions as well in the Church as in the State without leave had from the See of Rome and that 't was commonly put in practice above a thousand years since It did appear that the Kings of England at least as much as those of Sicily were ever held to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that by the Romanists themselves until by gaining from Henry the First the Investiture of Bishops from Henry the Second an Exemption of the Clergy from Secular Courts and from easie King Iohn an unworthy Submission to forreign Power the Popes became strong enough to call their strength the Law of Iustice And yet their Incroachments were still oppos'd by the most pious and the most learned in every Age. Concerning which it were easie to give a satisfactory account if it were comely for a Sermon to exceed the limits of an hour In a word it did appear from the Code and Novels of Iustinian from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set out by the Emperour Zeno from the practice of Charles the Great which may be judged by the Capitulars sent abroad in his Name from the designs and endeavours of two late Emperors Ferdinand the First and Maximilian the Second from all the commended Kings of Iudah from the most pious Christian Emperours as far as from Constantine the Great and from many Kings of England in Popish times too that the work of Reformation belong'd especially to them in their several Kingdoms And this is certain that neither Prescription on the Pope's side nor Discontinuance on the Kings could add a Right unto the one or any way lessen it in the other For it implies a contradiction that what is wrong should grow right by being prosperous for a longer or shorter season Had the Pope been contented with his Primacy of Order and not ambitiously affected a Supremacy of Power and over all other Churches besides his own we never had cast off a Yoke which had never been put upon our Necks And so 't is plain that the Usurper did make the Schism If Sacrilege anywhere or Rebellion did help reform Superstition That was the Fault of the Reformers not at all of the Reformation not of all Reformers neither For the most that was done by some was to write after the Copy which had been set them in my Text by the Blessed Reformer of all the World which was so to reform as not to innovate and to accommodate their Religion to what they found in the Beginning Nay if I may speak an Important Truth which being unpassionately consider'd and universally laid to heart might possibly tend to the Peace of Christendom seeing it was not so much the Church as the Court of Rome which proudly t●od upon Crowns and Scepters and made Decrees with a non obstante to Apostolical Constitutions or whatsoever had been enacted by any Authority whatsoever the Commandments of Christ being not excepted we originally departed with higher Degrees of Indignation from the Insolent Court then Church of Rome Nor protested we so much against the Church though against the Church too as against the Cruel Edict first made at VVorms and after cruelly re-inforced at Spire and Ratisbone for the confirming of those 1 Corruptions from which the 2 Church was to be cleans'd To the 1 former we declar'd a Vatinian Hatred but to the 2 latter of the two we have the Charity to wish for a Reconcilement That we who differ upon the way in which we are walking towards Ierusalem may so look back on the Beginning from whence at first we set out and from which our Accusers have foulely swerv'd as to