Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	france_n	king_n	send_v	19,146	5	6.6374	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51956	The Church of England and the continuation of the ceremonies thereof vindicated from the calumnies of several late pamphlets, more particularly that entitled, The vanity, mischief, and danger of continuing ceremonies in the worship of God, subscribed by		1690 (1690)	Wing M65; ESTC R4181	64,933	67

Laws of the Land have placed them and which they might and ought if any doubts and scruples had arose in their minds to have had recourse to and consulted And indeed the frequenters of Consenticles consisting of Petty-coat Proselytes the vulgar sort of Men who are illiterate ignorant and unstable and some few Men of better quality that sometimes grace those Meetings with a fair out-side and the attendance of a Coach and Lacquey whose infirmities and defects made it necessary or convenient for them to give up themselves fortunes and Religions to the conduct and choice of their Wives for all such Persons it is more fit and necessary to be well instructed in the Church Catechism by their own proper Pastors than to take upon them to judge of or determine controversies in Religion of which they are no more qualified to be Judges than blind Men of colours So that being no competent Judges of such matters they can have no right to plead that the conviction of their judgments that such and such things in our Church are unlawful is the cause of their separation because it presupposes them to have judged and determined in a case in which no Wise Man much less any Church or Synod ever allowed them to have any right so to do But the truth is some suck in Fanaticism with their Mothers Milk are initiated with the Principles of it in their Infancy continue under the prejudices of that education and inherit their Parents Schism and have no more reason for it than the ignorant Papists Jews and Mahometans have for their Religions Some are Dissenters upon Worldly accompts and for temporal advantages as the promotion and encrease of Trade gaining of Custom advance of Fortune conveniencies of Marriage pleasing of Relations friendship of Favourites c. Others are Persons of a fickle and unstable temper affect novelties and as if the Religion of our Parents Age and our Infancy as well as their Houses and our last Years Clothes were out of fashion and unsuitable for us think to recommend their judgments to the World by their singularity and new Choice and alledge the Apostles Precept of proving all things for their justification Others being Persons of strong passions but weak judgments are of a ductile temper and wrought upon by the whining tone affected cant fustian Language stuff and unintelligible Phrases of their Holders forth not discerning that all these are but the designed artifices and cunning craft whereby they lye in wait to deceive sacrifice to their own nets and enhaunse their Glory by leading silly Women Captive Others well inclin'd without any persuasion of the unlawfulness of any thing in our Church's Doctrin Discipline or Constitutions or so much as doubting of it hearing these Venders of the Geneva Discipline make such large boasts of more than ordinary purity of Worship strictness of Discipline and holiness of life as if they were entail'd upon that Sect since so Pharisaical a confidence without something to support it would be monstrous and absurd are apt to think that some parts of them are true and not aware that all this is done to draw the more Customers together and get the better Market for their spiritual Wares blindly give up themselves by a Faith more implicite and inexcusable than that in the Romish Church to be taught and guided by them Thus ordinary People being Men of great inadvertency and small judgment become their cheap and easie prey and as for the richer sort whose Wealth may be useful to the supporting of the cause they usually imitate the Method of the first deceiver and so make their Addresses that the Men are made Disciples by the mediation and assistance of their Wives I might add hereunto the evil arts those designing Persons use to decry others to recommend themselves such are their traducing both Persons and Things the envious detractions and calumnies the unjust aspersions and slanders which they used to insinuate and spread abroad amongst their hearers with a purpose to put them out of conceit with and make them disaffected to the Government of both Church and State in general and the Persons of our Governors and Clergy in particular hence arose that malice censoriousness want of Christian Charity and bitterness of Spirit which they are leaven'd withal more than and above other Men this makes them turbulent and unquiet disobedient to the Government and like S. J. strugling with it contriving caballing and plotting against it factious in the State Schismatical in the Church proud and peevish in their dispositions morose unsociable and unneighbourly to all but themselves and banishes that Christian Charity and Brotherly Kindness which would qualifie them more for a re-union with our Church and conduce more to it than our abolishing all our Rites Ceremonies Church constitutions and Customs can or ever will do for it is not any evil in them or any of them but the evil designs of Men that caused these unchristian breaches and divisions 3. If the Dissenters had really made their Schism upon the accompt of Conscience the same Principles of Conscience would have influenc'd their other actions as well as it and they would certainly have behaved themselves very differently from what they have done and have carried themselves humbly modestly quietly and obediently to the Monarchy as God's Ordinance as the Primitive Christians did to even the Heathen Emperors Pro-consuls and Governors But alass we find them of a quite contrary temper to omit what Men of the same Principles have done in Germany France Bohemia Holland Switzerland Geneva c. The Murmurings Tumults Covenanting Conspiracy Insurrection and open Rebellion of the Scots against King Charles I. and their Invasion of England being promoted both by the Instruments of Cardinal Richelieu who aimed at furthering the French Kings designs against the Hugonots and Flanders by diverting King Charles's Forces and Attempts design'd against France and by the Missionary Jesuits who to ruine the Church of England exclaimed against the King and his Government the Archbishop and evil Counsellors Arbitrary Power and Popery c. blew the coals fomented differences pretended grievances aggravated miscarriages exasperated Parties both here and there and excited the Fanatick Party here to encourage their Brethren in Scotland first by secret and then open assurances of their assistance to invade this Kingdom cannot be imputed to the obligations of their Consciences unless the Cardinal and Jesuits are allowed the Guides and Directors of them The two several open Rebellions raised in Scotland against King Charles II. the Fanatick Plot against his Life here the continued carriage of the Dissenters in general and of the Presbyterian Party tin particular since his Restauration their malicious and bitter Speeches against him and his Government in ordinary conversation and discourses the slanderous Libels railing Pamphlets written and dispersed by them their intriguing caballing and plotting their pragmatical and indirect interposing in all Publick Elections Places and Offices their perverse

greatest prejudices they labour under in that Church upon that account is the abolishing of Confession to the Priest and of Publick and Catholick Church fasts However what our Author adds viz. Ibi● The Quarrels occasioned by them hinder the Progress of the Reformed Religion must be granted if it be understood that the many Divisions and variety of Sects amongst us is an Objection the Papists make against the translation of the Bible into the vulgar Tongue and their pretence for their not coming over into that Church which is already so full of subdivisions caused as they think by the forsaking of the visible Head of the Church here on Earth under whose conduct they therefore continue as the only means to preserve Unity and avoid confusion But this must not be charged upon the Church whose Moderation is designed as a preservative of Union but on those perverse and humoursom Persons whom nothing will satisfie there is nothing in use in our Church but he who condemns it must condemn with it the Catholick Church of Christ and he who dare do that is a man no ways fit to be gratified by the condescension of a Nation and the alteration of the most perfect Liturgy and the best Ecclesiastical Constitutions that any visible Church now known to us enjoys Pag● 〈…〉 All wise and good Men amongst the Clergy and People desire the taking away the Instruments of our Confusions The execution of this would extend farther than our Author intends it or for fear of his own Copy-hold would assent to Many Pharisaical Zealots by an opposite Superstition in whose number I place him injuriously accuse our innocent Ceremonies as the instruments of our confusions when indeed they are not as we shall shortly consider but Men which if they should be taken away or brought within the compass of the Apostle's wish 〈◊〉 5.12 the Conventicle-doors would be shut up and our Author himself dismiss'd Ceremonies have been Cloaks of Impiety and Maliciousness ●●id if these are continued it will be exceeding difficult to purge out Vice which will shelter it self under them This Expression like the greatest part of his Pamphlet hath an abundance of prejudice and malice but no truth or shew of Reason for how is it possible that Ceremonies should be the Cloak of Impiety whenas if the Ceremonies be supposed to be numerous vain or not agreeable to the simplicity and spiritual sincerity of the Christian Religion for then only they become noxious they indeed become the parents of Superstition but can never as such be the Cloaks of Impiety because it is the opposite extreme Why may not that Man who kneels at his Prayers and stands at the repetition of the Creeds and Gospels as easily have his Vice purged out as he who sits at his Prayers and frequents a schismatical Meeting where they use no Creeds nor Gospels Or what strange Vice is it which can shelter it self more about a Man kneeling or standing in our Church than about one who sits in a Conventicle These are such gross absurd malicious and false insinuations and assertions of our Author's that I wonder he is not ashamed to propose them to a Convocation or even to undervalue himself by writing them or can in Conscience thus abuse the credulous Vulgar whose unaccountable prejudices are by such Artifices very easily improved into Malice and Schism Debauchery came in with Ceremonies 〈◊〉 28. we shall be happy if they fall together To make this good if we pass by the Brittish Churches our Author must grant that Debauchery came into England with Augustine commonly called St. Augustine sent hither by Gregory the Great Bishop of Rome in the seventh Century for he brought more Ceremonies in with Christianity 〈◊〉 Test●●y to 〈◊〉 Truth ●●esus ●●st and ●●ur ●●mn ●●gue than are now in use in our Church but this I suppose he never thought of However that Debauchery hath no dependence on Ceremonies appears even from hence that in the late times of Rebellion wherein the Government both of Church and State being dissolved and there was no King every one did that which was right in his own Eyes all sorts of Vice Wickedness and Debauchery grew up to that strength and vigour that they have never since been rooted out of this Kingdom and though now we should part with all our Ceremonies which we would very gladly do upon condition we could banish all Debaucheries with them yet there are no hopes to effect it as long as Schisms are no Crimes and the pretended Puritans are indulged in the sins of the godly and that God sees no sin in his Elect c. is allowed for Orthodox Divinity 2. They hinder love among the People and between the People and their Ministers 1. Love amongst the People is mightily hindred by the divisions and animosities caused by human Impositions That human Impositions are the causes of our Divisions and Animosities is presupposed by our Author since he asserts it without proof but this is but begging of the Question we must not grant him that as a Postulatum I leave what I design to say on the true causes of the Schism till the last In the mean time that love amongst the People is hindred by our Divisions and Animosities is too apparent to be denied tho that ought in truth and justice to be charged upon the Dissenters as the evil effects of their unnecessary and wilful separation for Ours being supposed which they also grant a true Christian Church their Schism becomes unnecessary and therefore sinful and these Animosities are the fruits of that Schism and the pride of their Spirits heightened by their Teacher's industrious railings against our Church and her Constitutions thereby to gain Proselytes to themselves and retain them to their own advantage Soon after the Restauration the Enemies of Piety and Virtue resolved to continue the division between the two most potent Interests of the Protestants in England to further this a Sham-plot was cast upon the Presbyterians in several Counties this was so improved in Parliament that Penal Laws were easily obtained to inslave and destroy the Dissenters By the Enemies of Piety and Virtue whosoever our Author means if we will reconcile it to Truth can be understood none but the Dissenters because it lay only in their power either to renew and continue a Division which they did or to reunite themselves with the Church of England as they ought to have done and so to have prevented the Evils which it hath since produced It is no wonder our Author takes such Liberty to make undecent if true reflections upon some single Persons when he ventures to cast such a severe tho oblique one upon the whole Parliament as to insinuate them all to be imposed upon by a Sham-plot yet I would gladly know how he came by such skill in discerning of Spirits as to discover that to be a Sham-plot which was cast upon the Presbyterians