Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	henry_n	king_n	pope_n	16,586	5	6.9376	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39326	A vindication of the clergy from the contempt imposed upon them by the author of The grounds and occasions of the contempt of the clergy and religion with some short reflections on his further observations.	Eachard, John, 1636?-1697.	1672 (1672)	Wing E65; ESTC R35669	53,663	152

Author that I know very few Parsons who will turn their backs of him in any solid piece of old Learning many of them being aware of his new Philosophy too But the whole strain of his Book tells us he aims at a cowardly triumph over the little Vicars and Curates though he is not likely to have his end of them neither One of them has answer'd him already but that he was so civil to his old Acquaintance as to be too too free and prodigal in his Concessions and for ought he shall ever know the contrary I may be another As for the Vicars and Curates in Cities and Corporations which make a considerable part of the Nation himself grants they are mostly very learned and judicious persons but then he tells us a piece of worshipful News that Christ came not to save Mayors and Aldermen and Merchants only but Country-people also whereby he requires me to follow him into the Villages to find out that Ignorance we are Nosed withal and hitherto are at a loss for And the truth is I have made it more my business than ever he hath done to enquire into these Men of a low Church-Dispensation as we must phrase it and will maintain it against him or any other be he never so confidently ingenious that many of them are Men of very considerable Worth and want nothing but a little of his boldness to shew their Parts and a Friend at Court to provide them of good Benefices The generality of them though perhaps they aspire not to be made the Kings Professours nor can split the hair exactly in determining the five Points or confuting Transubstantiation yet are very sufficiently qualified for the discharge of their Cures Nay there 's scarce any amongst 'um all but preacheth once every Sunday and that with good gravity honest sobriety and to take satisfaction of his Parishioners and if there be here and there one less knowing than others you shall be sure to find him at it twice a day Bishop Andrew's his old Rule being worn out in some places viz. He that preaches twice every Sunday usually prates once In a word if upon due examination our Author had found but ten men of worth amongst all the Vicars of England had he been a merciful Chastiser he might have found out a very good Precedent to have spared the rest for their sakes But since he writes at random of Men he hath never studied and hath taken so much pains to impose upon the World with a parcel of prodigious Whiskers dress'd a la mode since we defie him to pick out Ten amongst us all who have not Learning enough to discharge our places let him hereafter keep his Ignorance to himself for it belongs to very few of our Profession Nor is he much more ingenuous in representing the Poverty of our inferiour Clergy for them alone he must mean by making it far more extream and desperate than in truth it is For if any man hath such a miraculous Faith as to take his word rather than believe his own eyes he must needs fancy them a company of sneaking Mendicant Friars who live from hand to mouth who are pincht with want of the common necessaries of life and spend all their days in studying only to stave off those two troublesom Creditors the Back and Belly Indeed it must be confessed that the Church of England is not now so rich fat and well-liking as she was in diebus illis his days and consequently not able to settle such plentiful Portions upon her younger Children as she would for she lost a considerable Collop by the Pope however our Author is so civil to the old Gentleman as not to mention him who laid a fair foundation of Sacrilege by impropriating 3845. of the 9284. Parishes then in England as Doctor Basire notes out of Cambden And when she had somewhat pick'd up her crumbs again by the accession of new Revenues King Henry the Eighth knowing as infallibly as the Pope himself that the Church-Lands were very good Lands could not forbear writing after his Holiness's Copy but gave her such a tearing Purge that she hath never recover'd her Complexion since Not to mention how far Queen Eliz. did patrizare thanks be to God our Vicarages are not all so poor as they left them for however our Author's memory fails him again he speaks not a syllable of any late Augmentations No he never heard that our Reverend Bishops and Deans and Chapters have by the gracious Intimation and to the eternal Honour of His present Majesty competently augmented most if not all the small Vicarages belonging to them respectively And now I have told him it would be a good jest indeed if he should write an effectual piece to make the Sky fall I mean to perswade all other Impropriation-mongers to follow so good an Example and bring them to some satisfaction however for I despair he should ever win them to refund the whole and make us all Parsons again although it be a grievance to our Consciences that Vicarages and Sacrilege came first into England together from Rome and in the same Cloak-bag and besides Experience tells us that Church-Lands like the Ark of God amongst the Philistims have been but a plague to the Families and a canker in the Estates of their Purchasers as saith the Heathen Prophet Vix gaudet tertius Haeres Now though we dare not be so bold as to say with my Lord Bacon that all Parliaments since the 27 and 31 of King Henry the Eighth stand obliged to God in Conscience to reduce the Patrimony of the Church to which he adds that since they have debarred Christs Spouse of a great part of her Dowry it were reason they made her a competent Ioynture yet thus much we dare boldly say that our gracious Sovereign and this present Parliament have already given a signal earnest of their pious intentions by restoring that part of the Churches Patrimony which was bought and sold by those unhallowed Rumpers and our little Historian was unworthy to mention that Noble Act reserved for some great Hand to record it for which their Names shall be had in everlasting remembrance In the mean time those Vicars whose Incomes are but small as yet content themselves to make a Vertue of Necessity and cut their Coat according to their Cloth Enough sometimes is as good as a Feast and a Dinner of Herbs is more pleasant and acceptable to some than a stalled Ox attended with all varieties is to others Not one of an hundred of the Clergy but is as well provided for as those the Poet cries up for the happy Men Queis Deus parcâ dedit quod satis est manu Indeed I have oft admir'd to observe how contentedly yea how plentifully several of them live upon a little and though I have imputed it somewhat to their own prudence frugality temperance and cutting off many artificial necessities others create to themselves yet I could not