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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	authority_n	church_n	true_a	2,292	5	5.6438	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88227	The oppressed mans oppressions declared: or An epistle written by Lieut. Col. Iohn Lilburne, prerogative-prisoner (by the illegall and arbitrary authority of the House of Lords) in the Tower of London, to Col. Francis West, lieutenant thereof in which the oppressing cruelty of all the gaolers of England is declared, and particularly the lieutenants of the Tower. As also, there is thrown unto Tho. Edwards, the author of the 3d. ulcerous gangræna, a bone or two to pick: in which also, divers things are handled, of speciall concernment to the present times.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1647 (1647)	Wing L2149; ESTC R202786	33,231	28

GANGRAENA he hath fallen so point blanke upon me for no other cause but for standing for the Fundamentall Lawes of England which if he had not an absolute desire to be notoriously forsworn he might know his Covenant binds him to doe the same But seeing he there playes the simple man to fight with his owne shadow and doth not in the least meddle for any thing I can perceive by so much as I have read of his Book which so neare as I could find was every place where I was mentioned with the Statutes and other Legall Authorities that I cite in my wives petition and else-where to prove That all the Commoners of England ought in all criminall cases to be tryed by their Peers that is Equalls and that the House of Lords in the least are not the Peeres of Commoners And therefore seeing seemingly by that ulcerous book he hath given me something to answer that concernes me I will really and substantially give him something to answer that in good earnest concerneth him and all the rest of his bloody-minded pretended reformed fellow-Clergy Presbyters that lying deceitfull forsworn and bloodye Sect of whom it is true that the Prophet said of the Prophets of old That they make the people to erre and bite with their teeth and cry peace and he that putteth not 〈◊〉 theis mouthes they even prepare warre against him Micah 3.5 And that at present I have to put him to answer shall be certain Arguments which I made when I was close prisoner in irons in the Fleet against the then Episcopall Ministers of the Church of England which will serve in every particular against the present Presbyteriall Ministers and you shall find them thus laid downe in the 23. page of my Book called An Answer of 9. Arguments written by T.B. and printed at London 1645. First That every lawfull Pastor Bishop Minister or Officer in the visible Church of Christ ought to have a lawfull call and be lawfully chosen into his Office before be can be a true Officer in the Church of Christ Acts 1.23 24 25. and 6.3.5 6. and 14.23 Gal. 1.1 Heb. 5.4 But the Ministers and Officers in the Church of England as well Presbyterian as Episcopall have not a lawfull call neither are lawfully chosen to be officers in the Church of Christ See the booke of Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons as also the Directory and compare them with the Scripture Therefore all your Ministers are false and Antichristian Officers Rev. 9.3 and 13.2 and 16.13 Secondly the doing of those actions that belong to the execution of an Officer doth not prove a man to be a lawfull Officer but a lawfull power instating him into his Office Acts 8.4 and 11.19 20. and 28.24.25 26. 1 Cor. 14.29 30 31. 1 Pet. 4.10 But all the Ministers in the Church of England have nothing to prove the Lawfullnesse of their standing in the Ministry but the actions of a Minister and are not in the least able to prove that they are instated in the Ministry by vertue of a lawfull power and authority Therefore they are no true Ministers of Christ but false and Antichristian Ministers of Antichrist Thirdly againe in the third place upon your owne grounds I frame this Argument Those that by their Ministry doe not accomplish the same ends that the Ministry of the Apostles did are no true Ministers But the Ministers of the Church of England doe not accomplish the same ends by their Ministry that the Ministery of the Apostles did 1 Cor. 11.2 Therefore your Ministers are no true Ministers of Iesus Christ But Gangraena one word more at present-to-you seeing in the 271 281. p. of your late 3 d. Gangraena you fall so exceeding heavie upon me and my honest Comrade Mr Overton and say that if these two audacious men their daring bookes shall escape without exemplary punishment and instead there of be countenanced and set free I doe as a Minister pronounce but I say it is as one of Sathans that the plague of God will fall upon the heads of those that are the cause of it Come Antagonist let us come to a period for I hope for all your mallice you are not yet so farre gone beyond your selfe as to desire to have me hanged or killed and then condemned and adjudged and therefore I will make you two faire propositions First in reference to the Lords whose Goliah and Rabshaka-like Champion you are that if you please to joyne with me in a desire to both Houses I will so for goe below my selfe and my present appeale now in the House of Commons always provided it may not be no prejudice to the benefit I shall justly expect from my said appeale and joyne with you in this desire that there may be by both House a proportionable number thereof mutually by themselves chosen out to sit openly and publickly in the painted Chamber where I will against you by the established Lawes of this Land maintaine against you and all the Lawyers you can bring this position which is absolutely the contest betwixt the Lords and me THAT THE LORDS AS A HOUSE OF PEERS HATH NO JURISDICTION AT ALL OVER ANY COMMONER IN ENGLAND IN ANY CRIMINALL CASE WHATSOEVER and if you will I will wholly as in reference to the contest betwixt you and me stand to the vote and abide the judgement and sentence of that very Committee whose vote upon the fore-mentioned tearmes if you will tye your selfe J will tye my selfe either actually to execute or passively to suffer and undergoe it Jn the second place because so farre as J am able to understand your meaning in your fore mentioned pages you would have me dealt withall as the Earle of Strafford and the Bishop of Canterbury was for indeavouring as you say with so much violence the overthrow of the three Estates and the Lawes of the Kingdome and in the stead of the fundamentall Government and constitution of this Kingdome to set up an Utopian Anarchy of the promiscuous multitude and the lusts and uncertain fancies of weake people for Lawes and Rules Now in regard of the distractions of the Kingdome which are many and that they might not be made wider by new books from either of us J shall be very willing for peace and quiet sake to joyne with you in a Petition to the House of Commons to appoint a select Committee publickly to examine all things that are amrsse in your bookes and mine and to punish either or both according to Law and Justice without partiality and J appeale to all rationall men in the world whether I have not offered fayre or no. But in regard I know not whether you will imbrace my proffer I shall speake a little more for my selfe and reduce all to these three heads First whether the Lords have by the knowne Law of the Land any jurisdiction over the Commoners or no Secondly whether in the Parliaments own publick declarations in Mr. Prinns soveraign

whole Parliament no nor the whole House of Commons it selfe according to their own principles which is the only clause he can fix upon And good Mr. Gangrena is it not as just and as man-like in me if I be set upon by you when I have no better weapons to cudgell you with then your own to take them from you and knockt your pate as to make use of my owne propper weapons to cut you soundly or any other man that shall assault me to the hazzard of my being and this is just my case that you count such a disgrace untome But say you there I have owned their legislative power and their judicative power over commons Therefore you draw an inference to condemn me from mine own practice Alas man may not I Lawfully seeke or receive a good turn from the hands of any man yet as lawfully doe my best to refuse a mischief from him But secondly I answer what though the 4. of May. 1641. I stooped to arryall at the Lords Barre upon an impeachment against me by the King doth that ever the more justifie their Authority or declare me to be mutable and unstable no not in the least for you cannot but know the saying of that most excellent Apostle Paul 1 Co. 13 11 ' When J was a child J spake as a child I under stood as a child I thought as a child but when I became a man I put away childesh things So say I to you five or six yeares ago I knew nothing but the Lords Jurisdiction was as much more above the House of commons over Commons as their Robes and Grandeur in which they sat was above them especially seeing at all conferences betwix both Houses I sec the members of the house of commons stand bare before the Lords for which action I now see no ground for especially having of late read so many bookes which discourseth upon the Lords jurisdiction which was upon this ground about a moneth or six weeks before the Lords cast me in prison A Gentleman a Member of the house of Commons and one that I believe which wisheth me well bid me look to my selfe for to his knowledg there was a designe amongst some of the Lords the grounds of reasons of which he then told me to clap me by the heeles and to fall so heavie upon me as to crush me in pieces or else make me at least an example to terrisie others that they should not dare to stand for their Rights And being thus fore-warned I was halfe a med which made me discours upon every opportunity with any that I though knew any thing of the Lords Jurisdiction and I found by a generall concurence that the 29. Ch. of Magna Charta was expresly against the Lords jurisdiction over Commoners in all criminall cases And upon that ground I protested against them and then upon further inquiry I found Sir Edward Cooks Judgement expresly against them as is before recited which book Mr Gangraena I must tell you is published since my first tryall before the Lords and was not publikely in being when I then stooped unto their jurisdiction and then comming prisoner to the Tower one of my fellow-prisones very honestly told me of the fore-mentioned Record of Sir Simon de Bereford which presently with all speed under Mr. Collets hand I got out of the Records office All which just and legall authorities and testimonies makes me so stiffe against the Lords as I am and I hope I shall continue to the death against them in the thing in question betwixt us as unmoveable as a brazen Wall come hanging come burning or cutting in pieces or starving or the worst that all their malice and ulcerous Gangraena Priests put together can inflict for all that I principally care for is to see if the thing I engage in be just and if my conscience upon solid and mature deliberation tell me it is I will not by the strength of God if once I be engaged in it either goe through with it or dye in them dest of it though there be not one man in the world absolutely of my mind to back me in it But lastly admit in former times I had been as absolute a Pleader for the Lords jurisdiction over Commoners as now I am against them Yet truly a man of Mr. Gangraenes coat is the unfittest man in the Kingdome to reprove mee for it For his Tribe I meane of Priests and Deacons those littie toes of Antichrist now called reformed Presbyters are such a Weather-cock unstabled generation of wavering minded men as the like are not in the whole Kingdom For their predecessors in Henry the 8. dayes were first for the Pope al bis Drudgeries and then for the King and his new Religion and then 3. in his time returned to their vomit againe and then fourthly in Edward the 6. dayes became by his proclamation godly reformed Protestants and then 5. in Queen Maries dayes by the authority of her and her Parliament which Parliament I doe aver it and will maintaine had as true a ground to set up compulsive Popery as this present Parliament hath to set up compulsive Presbytery became for the generality of them bloody and persecuting Papists and then 6. by the authority of Queen Elizabeth and her Parliament who had no power at all no more then this present Parliament to wrest the Scepter of Christ out of his hands and usurpedly to assume the Legislative power of Christ to make Lawes to governe the Consciences of his people which they have nothing at all to doe with He having made perfect compleat and unchangeable Lawes himselfe Esay 9.6.7 and 33.20 22. Act 1.3 and 3.22 23. and 20.26 27. 1 Cor. 11.1.2.1 Tim. 6.13.18 Heb. 3.2 3 6. became againe a Generation of pure and reformed Protestants and have so continued to this present Parliament But now like a company of notorious forsworne men who will be of any Religion in the world so it carry along with it profit and power after they have for the generallity of them taken and sworn six or seven Oaths that the Bishops were the only true Church-government and that they would be true to them to the death Yet have now turned the 7. time and engaged the Parliament and Kingdome in an impossible-to-be-kept oath and Covenant to root up their ghostly Fathers the Bishops as Antichristian from whom as Ministers they received their life and Being Yea and now the 8th time have turned and falne from that Covenant and Oath by which they mode all swear that took it not onely to root out Bisheps but all Officers whatsoever that dependeth upon them In the number of which are all the m●…lves having no other ordination to their Ministery but what they had from them and so are properly really and truly dependents upon them and yet now of late have by themselves and instruments as it were forced the House of Commons to passe a vote to declare