Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	england_n	reform_a	4,212	5	9.5265	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78664	Aurea dicta. The gratious words of King Charles I. of glorious memory: for the Protestant religion of the Church of England. / Collected out of [Eikon basilike].; Eikon basilike. Selections.	Gauden, John, 1605-1662.; Charles I, King of England, 1600-1649.	1682 (1682)	Wing C2150A; ESTC R225066	8,372	22

are fit to be in any degree of Church-Government also Enablements to works of Charity and Hospitality meet strengthening of their Authority in Point of respect and observance which in Peaceful times is hardly payed to any Governors by the measure of their Virtues so much as by that of their Estates I would have such men Bishops as are most worthy of such Encouragements and ablest to use them If at any time my Judgment of men failed my good Intentions made my Error Venial I am sure I had Whose Learning Gravity and Piety no man of any Worth or Forehead can deny The Abuses of Episcopacy deserve to be Extirpated as well as the use retained for I hold it far better to hold to Primitive and uniform Antiquity than to comply with divided noveltie A right Episcopacy will at once satisfy all just desires and interests of good Bishops humble Presbyters and sober People so as Church Affairs should be managed neither with Tyranny Parity nor Popularity neither Bishops Ejected nor Presbyters despised nor People oppressed And in this Integrity both of my Judgment and Conscience I hope God will Preserve me XVIII Vpon Uxbridg Treaty In Church-affairs where I had least Liberty of Prudence haveing so many strict tyes of Conscience upon me yet I was willing to condescend so far to the setling of them as might have given fair satisfaction to all men whom Faction Covetousness or Superstition had not Engaged more than any true Zeal Charity or love of Reformation God knows and Time will discover who were most to blame for the unsuccesfulness of that Treaty and who must bear the guilt of after Calamities I believe I am very excusable both before God and all unpassionate men who have seriously weighed these transactions wherein I endeavoured no less the Restauration of Peace to my People than the Preservation of my own Crowns to my Posterity Vpon the Reformation of the Times I am sorry to see after the freedom of Parliament was by factious Tumults oppressed how little regard was had to the good Laws Established and the Religion setled which ought to be the first Rule and standard of Reforming with how much Partiality and Popular Compliance the Passions and Opinions of men have been gratified to the detriment of the Public and the infinite scandal of the Reformed Religion What Dissolutions of all Order and Government in the Church What Novelties of Schisms and Corrupt Opinions What undecences and Confusions in sacred Administrations What Sacrilegious Invasions upon the Rights and Revenues of the Church What Contempt and oppression of the Clergy I conceive that where the Scripture is not so clear and Punctual in precepts there the constant and universal Practice of the Church in things not contrary to reason faith good manners or any positive command is the best Rule that Christians can follow I am sure the right methods of Reforming the Church cannot consist with that of Perturbing the Civil state nor can Religion be justly advanced by depressing Loyalty which is one of the chiefest Ingredients and Ornaments of true Religion For next to Fear God is Honour the King I doubt not but Christs Kingdom may be set up without Pulling down mine nor will any men in impartial times appear good Christians that approve not themselves good Subjects Christs Government will Confirm mine not overthrow it since as I own mine from him so I desire to rule for his Glory and his Churches Good XXIV Vpon the denying of his Majesty the attendance of his Chaplains When Providence was pleased to deprive Me of all civil Comforts and secular Attendants I thought the absence of them all might best be supplyed by the attendance of some of my Chaplains whom for their Function I reverence and for their Fidelity I have cause to love By their Learning Piety and Prayers I hoped to be either better enabled to sustain the want of all other enjoyments or better fitted for the recovery and use of them in God's good time so reaping by their pious help a Spiritual Harvest of Grace a midst the Thorns and after the Plowings of Temporal crosses If I had asked my Revenues my power of the Militiu or any one of my Kingdoms it had been no wonder to have been denyed in those things where the evil policy of men forbids all just restitution lest they should confess an injurious usurpation But to deny the Ghostly comfort of my Chaplains seems a greater rigour and barbarity than is ever used by Christians to the meanest Prisoners and greatest Malefactors whom tho the justice of the Law deprive of wordly comforts yet the mercy of Religiou allows them the benefit of their Clergy as not aiming at once to destroy their Bodies and to damn their Souls But my Agony must not be relieved with the presence of one good Angel for such I account a learned godly and discreet Divine and such I would have all mine to be I am so much a friend to all Church-men that have any thing in them beseeming that sacred Function that I have hazarded mine own Interests chiefly upon Conscience and Constancy to maintain their Rights Whom the more I looked upon as Orphans and under the sacrilegious eyes of many cruel and rapacious Reformers so I thought it my duty the more to appear as a Father and a Patron for them and the Church In Devotions I love neither profane boldness norpious Nonsense but such an humble and judicious gravity as shews the Speaker to be at once considerate of God's Majesty the Churches honour and his own riteness both knowing what God allows him to ask and in what manner it becomes a Sinner to supplicate the divine mercy for himself and others As I owe the Clergy the protection of a Christian King so I desire to enjoy from them the benefit of their Gifts and Prayers Which I look upon as more prevalent than mine own or other mens by how much they flow from minds more enlightned and affections less distracted than those which are encumbred with secular Affairs My comfort is that in the enforced not neglected want of ordinary means God is wont to afford extraordinary supplies of his Gifts and Graces If his Spirit will teach me and help mine infirmities in Prayer reading and meditation as I hope He will I shall need no other either Orator or Instructor XXVII To the Prince of Wales I had rather you should be Charles le bon then le grand Good then Great I hope God hath designed you to be both having so early put you into that exercise of his Graces and Gifts bestowed upon you which may best weed out all vicious Inclinations and dispose you to those Princely endowments and imployments which will most gain the love and intend the welfare of those over whom God shall place you The true Glory of Princes consists in the advancing of Gods Glory in the maintenance of true Religion and the Churches good Also in the dispensation of civil power with Justice and Honour to the publick peace Piety will make you prosperous at least it will keep you from being miserable nor is he much a looser that looseth all yet saveth his own Soul at last Above all I would have you as hope I you are already well grounded and setled in your Religion The best profession of which I have ever esteemed that of the Church of England in which you have been educated yet I would have your own judgment and reason now Seal to that sacred Bond which Education hath written that it may be judiciously your own Religion and not other mens Custom or Tradition which you profess In this I charge you to persevere as coming nearest to God's Word for Doctrine and to the Primitive Examples for Government with some little amendment which I often offer'd tho in vain your fixation in matters of Religion will not be more necessary for your Souls than your Kingdoms Peace when God shall bring you to them Let nothing seem little or despicable to you in matters which concern Religion and the Churches peace so as to neglect the speedy reforming and effectual suppressing Errors and Schisms which seeming at first but as a hand bredth by seditious Spirits as by strong Winds are soon made to cover and darken the whole Heavens Your Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting rather than exacting the rigour of the Law there being nothing worse than legal Tyranny Beware of exasperating any Factions by the crossness and asperity of some mens passions humours and private opinions employed by you grounded only upon the difference in lesser matters which are but the Skirts and Suburbs of Religion provided the difference amount not to an insolent opposition of Laws and Government Always keep up solid Piety and those Fundamental Truths which mend both hearts and lives of men with impartial favor and justice I do require and intreat you as your Father and your King that you never suffer your heart to receive the least check against or disaffection from the true Religion established in the Church of England I tell you I have try'd it and after much search and many disputes have concluded it to be the best in the World not only in the Community as Christian but also in the special notion as Reformed keeping the midle way between the Pomp of superstitious Tyranny and the meaness of Fanatick Anarchy Scarce any one who hath been a beginner or an active Prosecutor of this late War against the Church the Laws and Me either was or is a true Lover Embracer or Practicerof the Protestant Religion established in England which neither gives such rules nor ever before set such Examples Nor would I have you to entertain any Aversation or dislike of Parliaments which in the right Institution with freedom and honour will never injure or diminish your Greatness but will rather be as interchanging of Love Loyalty and Confidence between a Prince and his People Happy times I hope attend you wherein your Subjects by their miseries will have learned That Religion to their God and Loyalty to their King cannot be parted without both their Sin and their Infelicity FINIS

AUREA DICTA THE Gratious Words Of King CHARLES I. Of Glorious Memory For the Protestant Religion OF THE Church of England Collected out of ΕἸΚῺΝ ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΉ If once the Goodness and Equity of the Prince comes to be truly understood by the People the Authority of the Faction is extinguished Dec. Def. OXFORD Printed by L. Lichfield for John Barksdale Bookseller in Cirencester Anno Domini 1682. AVREA DICTA The Gratious Words of King Charles the First For the Protestant Religion of the Church of England Collected out of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I. Vpon His Majesties calling the Parliament 1642. THe odium and offences which some mens rigor or remissness in Church and State had contracted upon My Government I resolved to have expiated by such Laws and regulations for the future as might not only rectify what was amiss in practice but supply what was defective in the Constitution no man having a greater zeal to see Religion setled and preserved in truth unitie and order than My self whom it most concerns both in piety and policy as knowing That no flames of civil dissentions are more dangerous than those which make Religious pretensions the grounds of Factions I resolved to Reform what I should by free and full advise in Parliament be convinced to be amiss and to grant whatever my Reason and Conscience told me was fit to be desired I wish I had kept my self within those bounds and not suffered my own Judgment to have been overborn in some things more by others importunity than their arguments my Confidence had less betrayed my self and my Kingdoms to those advantages which some men sought for who wanted nothing but Power and Occasion to do Mischief But our Sins being ripe there was no preventing of God's Justice from reaping that Glory in our Calamities which we rebid him of in our Prosperity VI. Vpon His Majesties Retirement from Westminster I can be contented to recede much from my own interests and personal Rights of which I conceive my self to be Master but in what concerns Truth Justice the Rights of the Church and my Crown together with the general Good of my Kingdoms all which I am bound to prese●ve as much as morally lies in me here I am and ever shall be fixt and resolute nor shall any man gain my Consent to that wherein my heart gives my tongue or hand the lye nor will I be brought to affirm to men what in my Conscience I denyed before God VIII Vpon His Majesties Repulse at Hull I desire always more to remember I am a Christian than a King For what the Majestie of one might justly abhor the Charity of the other is willing to bear what the height of a King tempteth to revenge the Humility of a Christian teacheth to forgive keeping in compass all those impotent passions whose excess injures a man more than his greatest Enemies can For these give the Malice a full impression on our Souls which otherwise cannot reach very far nor do us much hurt IX Upon raising Armies against the King The bill against Root and Branch was brought on by tumultuary Clamors and Schismatical Terrors which could never pass till both Houses were sufficiently thinned and over awed To which partiality while in all Reason Justice and Religion my Conscience forbids me by consenting to make up their Votes to Acts of Parliament I must now be urged with an Army and constrained either to hazard my own and my Kingdoms ruine by my defence or prostrate my Conscience to the blind obedience of those men whose zealous superstition thinks or pretends they cannot do God and the Church a greater Service than utterly to destroy that Primitive and Apostolical and Anciently Universal Government of the Church by Bishops Which if other mens judgment binds them to maintain or forbids them to consent to the abolishing of it mine much more who besides the grounds I have in my judgment have also a most strict and indispensable Oath upon my Conscience to preserve that Order and the Rights of the Church To which most sacrilegious and abhorred Perjury most unbeseeming a Christian King should I ever by giving my consent be betrayed I should account it infinitely greater misery than any hath or can befall me XI Vpon the Nineteen Propositions Many of them savour very strong of that old leaven of Innovations masked under that name of Reformation which in my two last famous Predecessor's tune threatned both Prince and Parliaments but I am sure was never wont so far to infect the whole mass of the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdome however dispersed among the Vulgar Nor will I consent to more than Reason Justice Honour and Religion perswade me to be for Gods Glory the Churches good my Peoples welfare and my own Peace I will Study to satisfy my Parliament and my People but I will never for fear or flattery gratify any Faction how potent soever XIII Upon the coming in of the Scots The Coming again of that Party into England with an Army only to conform this Church to their late new model cannot but seem as unreasonable as they would have thought the same measure offered from hence to them Nor do I know any such tough and malignant humours in the constitution of the English Church which gentler Applications than those of an Army might not easily have removed Nor is it so proper to hewo ut Religious Reformations by the Sword as to polish them by fair and equal disputations among those that are most concerned in the differences whom not force but reason ought to convince Wise and Learned Men think that nothing hath more marks of Schism and Sectarism than this Presbyterian way both as to the ancient and still most universal way of the Church-Government and specially as to the particular Laws and Constitutions of this English Church which are not yet repeated nor are like to be for me till I see more rational and Religious motives I think my self so much the more bound in Conscience to attend the Church's Good with the most judicious zeal and care by how much I esteem the Church above the State the Glory of Christ above mine own and the salvation of mens Souls above the preservation of their Bodies and Estates Sure the Church of England might have purchased at a far cheaper rate the truth and happiness of a reformed Government and Discipline if it had been wanting tho it had entertained the best Divines of Christendom for their advice in a full and free Synod which I was ever willing to and desirous of that matters being impartially setled might be more satisfactory to all and more durable XIV Vpon the Covenant Altho I am unsatisfied with many passages in that Covenant some referring to my self with very dubious and dangerous limitations yet I chiefly wonder at the design and drift touching the Discipline and Government of the Church Nor can I see how they will reconcile such an innovating Oath and

Covenant with that former Protestation which was so lately taken to maintain the Religion established in the Church of England since they count Discipline so great a part of Religion I am prone to believe and hope that many who took the Covenant are yet firm to this judgment That such later vows Oaths or Leagues can never blot out those former Gravings and Characters which by just and lawful Oaths were made upon their Souls As for the Reformation of the Church which the Covenant pretends I cannot think it just or comely that by the partial Advice of a few Divines of so soft and servile tempers as disposed them to sudden acting and compliance contrary to their former judgments such foul Scandals and Suspitions should be cast upon the Doctrine and Government of the Church of England as was never done that I have heard by any that deserved the name of Reformed Churches abroad nor by any men of learning or Candor at home all whose judgments I cannot but prefer before any men's now factiously engaged No man can be more forward than my self to carry on all due Reformation with mature jud●ment and a good Conscience in what things I shall after impartial Advice be by God's Word and right Reason convinced to be amiss And I have offer'd more than the fullest freest and wisest Parliaments did desire But the sequel of some mens Actions makes it evident that the main Reformation intended is the abaseing of Episcopacy into Presbytery and the robbing the Church of its lands and revenues Still I see while the breath of Religion fills the Sails profit is the compass by which factious men steer their course in all seditious commotions I thank God as no man lay more upon to temptations of usurping the Church lands and revenues so I have always had such a perfect abhorrence of it in my Soul that I never found the least inclination to such sacrilegious reformings Yet no man hath a greater desire to have Bishops and all Church-men so reformed that they may best deserve and use not only what the pious Munificence of my Predecessors hath given to God and the Church but all other additions of Christian Bounty But no necessity shall ever I hope drive Me or Mine to invade or sell the Priest's Lands which both Pharaoh's Divinity and Joseph's true Piety abhorr'd to do So unjust I think it both in the Eye of Reason and Religion to deprive the most sacred employment of all due encouragements and like the other hard-hearted Pharaoh to withdraw the Straw and encrease the Task So pursuing the oppressed Church as some have done to the Red-Sea of a Civil War where nothing but a Miracle can save it or Him who esteems his greatest Title to be called and his chiefest Glory to be The Defender of the Church both in its true Faith and its just Fruitions equally abhorring Sacriledge and Apostacy XV. Vpon the Scandals cast upon the King It was a great part of some mens Religion to scandalize Me and Mine They thought theirs could not be true if they cryed not down mine as false I thank God I have had more tryal of his Grace as to the constancy of my Religion in the Protestant Profession of the Church of England both abroad and at home than ever they are like to have Nor do I know any exception I am so liable to in their opinion as too great a fixedness in that Religion whose judicious and solid grounds both from Scripture and Antiquity will not give my Conscience leave to approve or consent to those many dangerous and divided Innovations which the bold ignorance of some men would needs obtrude upon Me and my People contrary to those well-tryed Foundations both of Truth and Order which men of far greater learning and clearer Zeal have setled in the Confession and Constitution of this Church in England which many former Parliaments in the most calm and unpassionate times have oft confirmed In which I shall ever by Gods help persevere XVI Vpon the Ordinance against the Common Prayer-Book Tho I am not against a grave modest discreet and humble use of Ministers Gifts even in publick the better to fit and excite their own and the peoples affections to the present occasions Yet I know no necessity why private and single Abilities should quite justle out and deprive the Church of the joynt Abilities and concurrent gifts of many learned and godly men such as the Composers of the Service-Book were who may in all reason be thought to have more of Gifts and Graces enabling to Compose with serious deliberation and concurrent advice such Forms of Prayer as may best fit the Churches common wants inform the Hearers understanding and stir up that fiduciary and fervent Application of their Spirits wherein consists the very Life and Soul of Prayer then any private man by his solitary Abilities can be presumed to have The want of Liturgy I believe this Church will sufficiently feel when the unhappy fruits of many mens ungovern'd ignorance and confident defects shall be discover'd in more errours Schisms disorders and uncharitable distractions in Religion which are already but too many the more 's the pitty One of the greatest faults some men found with our Common-prayer-book I believe was this That it taught them to pray so oft for Me for which Petitions they had not Loyalty enough to say Amen nor yet Charity enough to forbear reproaches and even cursing of Me in their own Forms instead of praying for Me. I wish their Repentance may be their only punishment XVII Of the Differences in point of Church Government I must now in Charity be thought desirous to preserve that Government in its right Constitution as a Matter of Religion Wherein my Judgment is fully satisfied that it hath of all other the fullest Scripture Grounds and also the constant Practice of all Christian Churches till of late years They must give me leave having none of their temptations to alter the Government of Bishops that I may have a Title to their Estates not to believe their pretended grounds to any new wayes contrary to the full and constant Testimony of all Histories sufficiently convincing unbiassed men Not that I am against the managing of this Presidency and Authority in one man by the joynt Counsel and Consent of many Presbyters I have offerd to restore that as a fit means to avoid those Errors Corruptions Partialities which are incident to any one man also to avoid Tyranny which becomes no Christian least of all Church-men Besides it will be a means to take away that burden and Odium of affairs which may lay too heavy upon one mans Shoulders as indeed I think it did formerly on the Bishops here For those secular Additaments and Ornaments of Authority Civil Honour and Estate which my Predecessors and Christian Princes in all Countries have annexed to Bishops and Church-men I look upon them but as just Rewards of their Learning and Piety who