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
A75481	An anti-remonstrance, to the late humble remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament.		1641 (1641)	Wing A3511; Thomason E206_7; ESTC R209859	2,708	9

AN ANTI-REMONSTRANCE TO THE LATE HVMBLE REMONSTRANCE TO THE HIGH COVRT OF PARLIAMENT Printed Anno 1641. AN ANTI-REMONSTRANCE TO THE LATE HVMBLE REMONSTRANCE to the High Court of Parliament THese few Leaves of Paper breake on through after the Humble remonstrance with lesse noyse because of lesse bulke and not stuffed with the huskes of a bare pleasing speech but presented to your view with more substance then Rethorique and with more things then words and such as I hope will plucke off the vizard of dutifull Sonne from the Authour of the Remonstrance or make his Mother little beholding to him for his advise Yee are not ignorant of the great distractions oppositions and of the diversity of affections and feares of the people of the whole land about the event of the Churches reformation in hand for indeede some out of a zeale somewhat inconsiderate doe cry downe Episcopacy as Antichristian Others very moderate crave and wish earnestly Episcopacy were reformed and purged from the Romish and Tyrannicall government that incumbers it and which since the last reformation in King Edward the sixth dayes no free Parliament yet was so happy as to redresse Againe a third kind of men carried by a contrary winde maintaine Episcopacy to bee by Divine right not so much as naming that apply of discord nor mentioning the maine thing which is so much stood upon which is not that Episcopacie is either of Divine right or not for if as the Author of the remonstrance acknowledgeth a Church may stand without Episcopacie it matters not much which of these two opinions is held but the maine point debated lyes in this assertion that Episcopall government as it is established in England is most disagreeable to Christ and the Apostles institution and to therites and constitutions of the primitive Church and makes a part of the mysterie of iniquities which the Roman Church for many hundred yeares in England hath had the greatest share in Likewise the favourers of the humble remonstrance traduce as libellers the opposers of that tenet of Episcopacie by Divine right and of the corruptions that attend Episcopacie as it is established in England These distractions and oppositions being such may it please the Honorable Court seriously to ponder that there is as great a latitude between having no Bishops at all and having them with the tendred limitations by those they call libellers as there is betweene retaining a limited power in Bishops and confirming the Bishops in the exorbitant authority and greatnesse of Government as it is established in England which Governement God forbid it were retained being as it is conceived by the most learned pious and judicious of the land most Antichristian and attended with more evill then the quite abolishing of Episcopacie can prove hurtfull and of dangerous consequence and that for these reasons and grounds following I. Episcopall Government as it is established in England is a continuation of the height of power and jurisdiction which in the darkest times of Popery the Pope hath usurped by his Bishops and Abbots farre beyond the footing he ever tooke in France Spaine or Germany Therefore what the Authour of the remōstrance alleadgeth of the ancientnesse of Episcopacie and of its continuance hitherto 1500. yeares is vaine and frivalous for the Roman Church upon the same ground or pleading of antitiquitie makes her heresies and abominations warantable II. The Bishops institution and inthronising is altogether repugnant and contrary to the lawes and customes of the Primitive Church and against the constitutions of the Prime Christian Emperours who ordained that the people joyntly with the inferiour Cleargie should present to the Emperour a catalogue of the most pious and learned men of the Diocesse and the man that the Emperour was to pitch upon be invested with the function of a Bishop for proofe thereof reade the constitutions of Charles the great Lewis the godly Gregory the great Gelasius and others II. The height and superiority of place that Bishops hold is one of the greatest reliques of the Popish tyranny in England which is most unfit in Ministers of the Gospel repugnant to the customes of other Nations to the distance yea rather nearenesse of Office and dignity that ought to be betweene Bishops and Ministers It is not heard but in England that Chancellors or Lord Keepers take place after Arch-Bishops while other Ministers are so farre inferiour and distant from them as a Prince from of poore tenant or a high sumptuous palace from a poore thatcht cottage IIII. The Bishops sole exercise of Iurisdiction is such as the like was never heard in any Court of justice and is repugnant to reason and naturall equity and cannot bee but an appendice derived from the sonne of perdition that arrogates to himselfe an unerring sole power The Kings Bench Common-pleas Exchequer are benches of a certaine number of Iudges The Chancellor of England hath an assistance of 12. Masters I would faine know when Christ said dic Ecclesiae if he understood that a Bishop should be a sole Iudge within his Diocesse in deciding any litigious cause V. Also the exercising of any power by deputies which is the prerogative of Kings is a monstrous usurpation in the Bishops of England a strange bird hatcht in no court but theirs every judge in any other Court discharging his judiciall function in his own person 'T is no marvell if they that Preach by deputies observe the like practise in keeping of Courts VI. The Bishops jurisdiction entrenching upon the civill Magistrate or Iudge by their jus Pontificium or Canon law which the Pope left them for a legacie such are the causes testamentary and matrimoniall is an usurpation no lesse bad then the former and derogates from the holy power of Ecclesiasticall keyes which Bishops assumed in the prime pure times of the Church VII It were not so much to usurge jurisdiction if their lawes were but sound and their legall proceeding just But their High Commission the oath ex officio the horrible abuse of excommunication the commutations of bodily penance into pecuniary their hinderances of prohibitions stopping the course of law their determining of tithes possessions of livings by a Quare impedit are as many pockie eye-sores which deface the holy calling of Bishops and make them though their first institution had beene of Divine right to be now lesse then of humane institution VIII Ther not depending on any free Ecclesiasticall assembly is as much or more then the Papists ascribe to the Pope who by maine of them is thought inferiour to the councel and censurable by ir IX Their Visitations are apish and counterfet imitations of the ancient Synods which are degenerated into receits of custome as paying for Licences Procurations Benevolences Synodalls and the like Nihil est quod curia Episcoporum non vendat c. X. Their convocations or Synods are little better wher 's deputati sunt deputantes the deputies are deputing where in most of the members of it there is no free choise of election but Bishops Deanes and Arch-deacons have right to sit by their place and office where those of the lower House are like to maine stockes that have no motion but as they are carried by the members of the sphere of the higher house Who ever shall reade Mathaeus Paris and Mathaeus Westmonasteriensis and view the disfigured face of the Church of England under Henry the second John Henry the third Kings of England will acknowledge that the Pope had more power jurisdiction in England in the persons of his Bishops and Abbots then in any other Kingdome and will not wonder if Bishops have hitherto kept possession though they hold no more of the Pope nor will hee easily be perswaded that that governement is of Divine or Apostolicall institution which hath ever been contrary to the constitutions of the ancient Church and to Imperiall lawes and repugnant to the proceedings of all Courts of Iustice and to common equitie and sence FINIS