Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	catholic_n	church_n	communion_n	6,739	5	9.8919	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56280	A full and clear exposition of the Protestant rule of faith with an excellent dialogue laying forth the large extent of true Protestant charity against the uncharitable papists.	Pulton, A. (Andrew), 1654-1710.	1688 (1688)	Wing P4205; ESTC R7815	18,771	21

best of Governments left by Christ in his Church wherein every sound man should have Power to cancel the Decisions of the highest Courts and a full liberty of disobeying and opposing the Sentence of the Supream Judges in Law unless it should agree with his own private sense of the same Law. For if in matters of Faith the object whereof is remote from our senses and Essentially obscure to us in this Life every sound Sheep is left Judge over his Pastor and the whole Church what more reasonable than in a Question of meum tuum which we feel with our hands and see with our eyes and which is the ground of all Law and Government every sound man should be his own Judge and Arraign Judge and Condemn his Ruler Governour Prince King or Emperour if in his private Opinion he Judges they proceed not according to Law as he understands it This sequel is so natural and inevitable in our Protestant Principles that it has effectually in all Countreys where-ever Protestancy has spread it self Armed the Subjects against their Temporal Lords as it first had done against the Spiritual and nothing was so ordinary as to see them March to the Field with a Bible under their arms and a Text of Sripture in their Banner to fight the Battle of the Lord against the Princes of the Earth and hence perhaps it was that wise Prince King Iames the First presaging as it were the Fate of his Royal Son said of the Members of Parliament then sitting That they were an Assembly of 300 Kings That all the late Wars of Germany against the Emperour and Lawful Soveraigns happen'd upon their change of Religion is witness beside many others Dretserus A Protestant writer in part 2. Nullenarii 6. pag. 661. Of Basil Geneva Zuitzerland Sweedland Holland see Crispin Chitreus Flor. Rai c. 4 Paradox A true Protestant must grant that our Saviour was much over-seen in the method he took of Converting the World by Teachers and Preachers and laying a reiterated Command upon all men of believing them since really no man is bound to pin his Faith upon anothers sleeve Now the Efficacious way would have been to Command his Life and Actions to be writ in all Languages and compil'd with the Old Testament to be sent into every part of the World for all things necessary to Salvation being clear and evident in Holy Scripture and no body being oblig'd to believe more than the comprehends and as it were sees to be true out of the said Holy Scripture all by this means would or at least might have presently discover'd the nullity of their own false Religions and consequently imbrace common Christianity that is believe so much of Christ and his Doctrine as each one should draw under the Scheme of his own Reason nothing else being necessary to Salvation in our Protestant Principles 5 Paradox Should a Gentleman make the delivery of his Estate saying Sir I deliver unto you a full and free Possession of this Inheritance to dispose of at Discretion in quality of true Owner and Lord but if you touch it against my will or dispose of it in whole or in part otherwise than I shall judge expedient expect to be treated with all the Violence Severity can invent Would not this be a most impertinent and self-destroying Settlement questionless it would Yet this is the procedure of the Church of England Here take says she to all sound Members of the whole Christian Church this Holy Bible Read and Interpret it freely you can't but find out the Truth therein contain'd nor are you oblig'd to submit to any Authority under Heaven against your own Dictamen But if you presume to judge of matters therein contain'd contrary to my Sentiment thereof though you are as able and as free to judge as my self know that no Severity of the Law shall be spar'd in Chastizing you Is not this an admirable Liberty An unparallel'd Charity Millions who never were in themselves or their Ancestors Members of her Communion must be oblig'd against Conscience to come over to her and no body must presume to question her Authority because ipsa dicit and she shall inveigh against Roman Catholicks most violently for requiring that she return to the Union of the Church whose Member she had own'd her self for upwards of a thousand years Is not this a Paradox of Paradox's I must believe she had just reason to separate from the Church of Rome though if I read Scripture till Dooms-day I can find no ground for it I must blindfoldly believe no Subject in the Kingdom has just reason to remain out of her Communion That is I must believe no body but an English Protestant can be a sound Member of the Christian Church or a fit Judge in Controversy And that the Scripture has not for these thousand years been clear to any at all and at present is only so to an English Protestant Which if granted as granted it must be it evidently follows that our English Protestant is the most Uncharitable and Unconscionable Christian in the World. 6. Paradox The true Protestant believes that a Roman Catholick Prays to a Crucifix as well as to Christ himself and attributes as See Advice to the Pulpits the Repres Misrepres much satisfaction to it as to the Blood of his Redeemer That the Roman Catholick Saints were Canonized for Treasons detestable Villanies as a reward of strife and every evil Work That to be false and deceitful is meritorious and worthy of Eternal Life That with Money one may compound with Heaven for unforsaken sins and be absolved without being at all sorry for them That Indulgences serve instead of sanctification and good life Confession to carry on the Plots and projects of the Priests with a hundred such detestable Abominations True Protestant Ministers have laid out the Catholick Tenets under these foul colours for above these hundred years while the whole Body of Roman Catholicks and every Member of them disown condemn and execrate every point thereof in particular Now is it not a mysterious Paradox that a Minister of the Church of England should better understand our Catholick Tenets than the Council of Trent and the whole Body of the Catholick Clergy I do most solemnly protest See the Catechism of the Coun. of Trent in the presence of Almighty God that were these Doctrines and the like taught in the Roman Catholick Church as Protestants say they are I would not remain one hour in her Communion yet the Vulgar must believe it so and why Because it is for the Interest of the Protestant Clergy that the People should live in Apprehension and Horrour of Popery whether by false or true Reports it was always alike to the Protestant Teachers 7 Paradox Although it be evident that King Henry the Eighth never thought of laying the first stone of the Reformation pretended till he was refused by his Holiness the liberty of putting away his

Lawful Queen and that the Protector of Edward the Sixth who carried on the design had always in his eye the great Fortune he raised upon the Ruins of Abbys Priorys c. And that Queen Elizabeth had never perfected it was it not that she found it the only expedient for the making a Party to support the weakness or rather defect and nullity of her Title Altho' all the Promoters of this great Revolution were apparently invited by ample and rich Possessions of the Church and the Protestant Clergy entered into Possession of more than a Million of Catholick Revenues Altho' nothing be so clear as that the necessity of a handsom maintenance for Wife and Children mixt with a fear of being defam'd and ruin'd by the Party if they leave it be the chief invitation of the Ministers of the Church of England to remain in her Communion as many of them have own'd to me some of which I have reconcil'd Altho' experience hourly teaches that no Catholick ever calls for a Minister on his Death-bed to be received into the Protestant Communion Tho' Protestants daily send for Roman Catholick Priests in that Truth-discovering moment Yet our true Protestant believes this whole work of the Reformation to have been begun and carried on without Interest Prejudice or Passion and that there is a finger of God in the whole And that it is the Roman Catholick forsooth who in matters of Religion is guided by Interest while the Protestant is governed by pure Reason and sole Principles of Religion which if so our Reason is inverted our Judgment without Rule and all of us destitute of common Sense Can it be possible that any Considering Serious Sober Christian Reading this Paper with an unbyass'd Mind and indifferent Reason should do otherwise than doubt at least whether the Protestant Rule of Faith may be follow'd in the perillous journey of Eternity and whether he may not have the same reason to doubt as an Eminent Doctor of the Church of England had when giving me his Hand he said Sir you have by the Hand the Vnhappiest Man living I desir'd to know the reason of his Dissatisfaction I am says he a Member of a Church I know to be False and a Guide to other in a way I am sure will never Save them Why truly Dr. said I things standing so you have a great deal of reason to style your self Unhappy and ought in my judgment to provide a timely remedy he replyed That God was merciful and that he would think on 't in good time That there was one Impediment viz. A Wife which he must provide for that he had been Gentilely Educated and was now very acceptable to the Gentry as indeed he was and that to become a Catholick would ruine his Family That if he should quit his Benefice one of the best in our Country another might succeed who would do more harm and rail against the Truth more than he had done For his part he said he had never in his Life Preached against the Papists but twice which still lay upon his Conscience and it was for that he had been check'd by his Bishop for not doing it I replyed That all these specious Arguments would not prove a sufficient Plea at the day of Judgment He shrunck up his shoulders saying He served a God he hop'd would be as merciful to him as he had been to one of his Predecessors who was reconcil'd upon his Death-Bed I laboured to shew him the danger of that fallacious Discourse saying how he ought to call to mind that altho' a Thief on the right hand of our dying Saviour had found mercy yet another as near to his Redeemer had perished on the left and much to that purpose In the end he promised that the Spring following He would go to Rome and do as his Conscience obliged him nor could I obtain any more of him I returned soon after into Flanders and that very Winter the poor Gentleman died without any assistance It was as I take it upon the same occasion that he told me How he thought it impossible for any Schollar who was not blinded by false Principles of Education Interest Passion or Sensuality to read the Holy Scriptures and search into History without being convinced of the Roman Catholick Churches being the only way to Salvation and consequently of the nullity of all the pretended Reformations ADVERTISMENT I Have been obliged to prefix different Titles to this short Discourse by reason of the Endeavours I have Experienced to be used by Protestant Ministers to keep out of the Peoples hands all Books and Papers which might contribute to the dis-abusing a Nation the most imposed upon this day in Christendom FINIS