Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	edward_n	king_n	succeed_v	2,762	5	9.6470	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41450	A serious and compassionate inquiry into the causes of the present neglect and contempt of the Protestant religion and Church of England with several seasonable considerations offer'd to all English Protestants, tending to perswade them to a complyance with and conformity to the religion and government of this church as it is established by the laws of the Kingdom.	Goodman, John, 1625 or 6-1690.	1674 (1674)	Wing G1120; ESTC R28650	105,843	292

have taken an effectual course to make it so durable by this stratagem When he had framed the body of their Laws he pretends occasion of Travail to consult the Oracle at Delphos about their affairs but first takes an Oath of all the Lacedemonians to preserve the Laws in being inviolable till his return Which having done he resolvedly never returns to them again By this means whilest the people were by the Religion of their Oath and a long expectation of his delayed return for a long time used to the Constitutions he had established they grew so well practised in them that at last Custom had habituated and even naturalized them to them that they became unchangeable Agreeable hereunto is the observation of our own Lawyers that the Common Law as they call it is never grievous to the people and seldome repealed whatever defects are in it as Statute-Laws frequently are because long Custom and Use hath fitted either that to the men or the men to it that all things run easily and naturally that way It is observed also by Divines That when God Almighty gave a peculiar Body of Laws to the people of Israel he took not only the opportunity of their straits and adversities at their coming out of Aegypt that his Institutions might the more easily be received but also kept them fourty years under the continual education in and exercise of those Laws and that in the Wilderness where they were not likely to take in any other impressions nor have other examples before their eyes to tempt or corrupt them And besides all this in a wonderful providence he so ordered it that all those men that came out of Aegypt except Caleb and Joshua and had observed other Customs and Laws and so might be likely to give beginning to innovation should all dye before they came into the Land of Canaan That by all these means the Laws he gave them might take the deeper root and so remain unalterable to all generations I cannot choose but observe one thing more to this purpose That when our Blessed Saviour had by himself and his Apostles planted his Religion in the World though it was such a Law as sufficiently recommended it self to the minds of men by its own goodness easiness and reasonableness and therefore was likely to be an everlasting Religion or Righteousness as the Prophet Daniel calls it yet for more security it pleased the Divine Providence to restrain the rage of Pagans and Jews for a good while and to give the Christians above sixty years of peace before any considerable persecution broke in upon them that in that warm Sun it might spread its roots and get some considerable strength and footing in the world But it was the will of God that the strength of this new-born Church of England should be early tryed And that it might give proof of its divine extraction it must like Hercules conslict with Serpents in its cradle and undergo a severe persecution the good King Edward the Sixth dying immaturely and Queen Mary succeeding him in the Throne By which means it came to pass that as this Infant-Reformation gave egregious proof of its intrinsick truth and reasonableness many fealing it with their blood so it had this disadvantage that we are all this while representing namely that by reason of this persecution a great number of the Ministers and other members of this Church were driven into other Countreys for refuge and shelter from the storm and there were as it 's easie to imagine tempted with novelty and distracted with variety of Rites and Customs before they were well instructed in the reasons or habituated to the practice of their own And hereupon as it is usually observed of English Travailers brought home with them those foreign fashions the fond singularity of which is still very taking with too many to this day I say thus it came to pass that those that went out from us returned not again to us when they did return in regard that before they were well inured to the English Reformation they became inamoured of the Rites of other Churches not much considering whether they were better so long as they were fresher and newer nor minding that there are oft-times reasons that make one Form necessary to be established in one place or people and not in another when otherwise it is possible they may be both indifferent in themselves but not equally fit to the humour and custome of the people or consonant to the Civil Constitutions nor yet observing that many things were taken up and brought into use in other Churches not upon choice but necessity not because they were absolutely better in themselves but the state of affairs so requiring As for instance where the Reformation had not at first the countenance of the Civil Government there the Reformers were constrained to enter into particular confederations with one another from whence Presbyterian Government seems to have taken its rise I say these Exiled English Protestants not entring into so deep a search into the special causes or occasions of those different Rites and Forms they found in the places whither they fled for succour as to discover whether they were strictly Religious or meerly Political but observing some pretexts of Scripture to be made for them and in process of time during their abode in those parts being used to them and by use confirmed in them they at last when they might with safety return to England again came home laden with these Foreign Commodities and crying them up with a good grace found too many Chapmen for such Novelties Thus as the children of Israel even then when they had Bread from Heaven Angels food longed for the Onions and Garlike of Aegypt remembring how sweet those were to them under their bitter bondage and had upon all occasions and upon every pet or disgust a mind to return thither So these men retained as long as they lived a lingring after those entertainments which they found then very pleasant when other was denyed them and so much the more in that as I said before they received a tincture of these before they had well imbibed or sufficiently understood the reasons of the Church of England And though these men are now dead yet the Childrens Teeth are still set on edge with the sowre Grapes their Fathers have eaten For those persons being considerable for their Zeal against Popery and very much recommended to the esteem of people at their return by the travail and hardship they had underwent for the Protestant profession were easily able with great advantage to communicate their Sentiments and propagate their Prejudices amongst the Members of this Church Here therefore I think we may justly lay the first Scene of the Distractions of this Church A second Cause may be reckoned the bad and incompetent provision for a Learned and Able Ministry in the Corporations and generality of great Parishes in England It is easie to observe that