Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A50916
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Of reformation touching chvrch-discipline in England, and the cavses that hitherto have hindred it two bookes, written to a freind [sic]
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Milton, John, 1608-1674.
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1641
(1641)
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Wing M2134; ESTC R17896
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44,575
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96
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it for the honour of the Body that such dignities and rich indowments should be decreed him as did adorne and set out the noblest Members To this was answer'd that it should bee consulted Then was a wise and learned Philosopher sent for that knew all the Charters Lawes and Tenures of the Body On him it is impos'd by all as chiefe Committee to examine and discusse the claime and Petition of right put in by the Wen who soone perceiving the matter and wondring at the boldnesse of such a swolne Tumor Wilt thou quoth he that art but a bottle of vitious and harden'd excrements contend with the lawfull and free-borne members whose certaine number is set by ancient and unrepealable Statute head thou art none though thou receive this huge substance from it what office bearst thou What good canst thou shew by thee done to the Common-weale the Wen not easily dash't replies that his Office was his glory for so oft as the soule would retire out of the head from over the steaming vapours of the lower parts to Divine Contemplation with him shee found the purest and quietest retreat as being most remote from soile and disturbance Lourdan quoth the Philosopher thy folly is as great as thy filth know that all the faculties of the Soule are confin'd of old to their severall vessels and ventricles from which they cannot part without dissolution of the whole Body and that thou containst no good thing in thee but a heape of hard and loathsome uncleannes and art to the head a foul disfigurment and burden when I have cut thee off and open'd thee as by the help of these implements I will doe all men shall see But to return whence was digress't seeing that the throne of a King as the wise K. Salomon often remembers us is establisht in Justice which is the universall Justice that Aristotle so much praises containing in it all other vertues it may assure us that the fall of Prelacy whose actions are so farre distant from Justice cannot shake the least fringe that borders the royal canopy but that their standing doth continually oppose and lay battery to regal safety shall by that which follows easily appear Amongst many secondary and accessory causes that support Monarchy these are not of least reckning though common to all other States the love of the Subjects the multitude and valor of the people and store of treasure In all these things hath the Kingdome bin of late sore weak'nd and chiefly by the Prelates First let any man consider that if any Prince shall suffer under him a commission of autority to be exerciz'd till all the Land grone and cry out as against a whippe of Scorpions whether this be not likely to lessen and keel the affections of the Subject Next what numbers of faithfull and freeborn Englishmen and good Christians have bin constrain'd to forsake their dearest home their friends and kindred whom nothing but the wide Ocean and the savage deâ—…erts of America could hide and shelter from the fury of the Bishops O Sir if we could but see the shape of our deare Mother England as Poets are wont to give a personal form to what they please how would she appeare think ye but in a mourning weed with ashes upon her head and teares abundantly flowing from her eyes to behold so many of her children expos'd at once and thrust from things of dearest necessity because their conscience could not assent to things which the Bishops thought indifferent What more binding then Conscience what more free then indifferency cruel then must that indifferency needs be that shall violate the strict necessity of Conscience mercâ—…les and inhumane that free choyse and liberty that shall break asunder the bonds of Religion Let the Astrologer be dismay'd at the portentous blaze of comets and impressions in the aire as foretelling troubles and changes to states I shall beleeve there cannot be a more ill-boding â—…gne to a Nation God turne the Omen from us then when the Inhabitants to avoid insufferable grievances at home are inforc'd by heaps to forsake their native Country Now wheras the only remedy and amends against the depopulation and thinnesse of a Land within is the borrow'd strength of firme alliance from without these Priestly policies of theirs having thus exhausted our domestick forces have gone the way also to leave us as naked of our firmest faithfullest neighbours abroad by disparaging and alienating from us all Protestant Princes and Common-wealths who are not ignorant that our Prelats and as many as they can infect account them no better then a sort of sacrilegious and puritanical Rebels preferring the Spaniard our deadly enemy before them and set all orthodox writers at nought in comparison of the Jesuits who are indeed the onely corrupters of youth and good learning and I have heard many wise and learned men in Italy say as much It cannot be that the strongest knot of confederacy should not dayly slak'n when Religion which is the chiefe ingagement of our league shall be turn'd to their reproach Hence it is that the prosperous and prudent states of the united Provinces whom we ought to love if not for themselves yet for our own good work in them they having bin in a manner planted and erected by us and having bin since to us the faithfull watchmen and discoverers of many a Popish and Austrian complotted Treason and with us the partners of many a bloody and victorious battell whom the similitude of manners and language the commodity of traffick which founded the old Burgundian league betwixt us but chiefly Religion should bind to us immortally even such friends as these out of some principles instill'd into us by the Prelates have bin often dismist with distastfull answers and somtimes unfriendly actions nor is it to be consider'd to the breach of confederate Nations whose mutual interest is of such high consequence though their Merchants bicker in the East Indies neither is it safe or warie or indeed Christianly that the French King of a different Faith should afford our neerest Allyes as good protection as we Sir I perswade my selfe if our zeale to true Religion and the brotherly usage of our truest friends were as notorious to the world as our Prelatical Schism and captivity to Rotchet Apothegmes we had ere this seene our old Conquerours and afterward Liege-men the Normans together with the Brittains our proper Colony and all the Gascoins that are the rightfull Dowry of our ancient Kings come with cap and knee desiring the shadow of the English Scepter to defend them from the hot perâ—…ecutions and taxes of the French But when they come hither and see a Tympany of Spanioliz'd Bishops swaggering in the fore-top of the State and meddling to turne and dandle the Royall Ball with unskilfull and Pedantick palmes no marvell though they think it as 〈◊〉 to commit Religion and liberty to their arbitrating as to a Synagogue of Iesuites But what doe I stand
Jesuits presum'd in Italy to give their judgement of S. Paul as of a hot headed person as Sandys in his Relations tells us Now besides all this who knows not how many surreptitious works are ingrass'd into the legitimate writings of the Fathers and of those Books that passe for authentick who knows what hath bin tamper'd withall what hath bin raz'd out what hath bin inserted besides the late legerdemain of the Papists that which Sulpitius writes concerning Origens Books gives us cause vehemently to suspect there hath bin packing of old In the third chap. of his 1. Dialogue we may read what wrangling the Bishops and Monks had about the reading or not reading of Origen some objecting that he was corrupted by Hereticks others answering that all such Books had bin so dealt with How then shall I trust these times to lead me that restifie so ill of leading themselvs certainly of their defects their own witnesse may be best receiv'd but of the rectitude and sincerity of their life and doctrine to judge rightly wee must judge by that which was to be their rule But it wil be objected that this was an 〈◊〉 state of the Church wanting the temporall Magistrate to suppresse the licence of false Brethren and the extravagancy of still-new opinions a time not imitable for Church government where the temporall and spirituall power did not close in one beleife as under Constantine I am not of opinion to thinke the Church a Vine in this respect because as they take it she cannot subsist without clasping about the Elme of worldly strength and felicity as if the heavenly City could not support it selfe without the props and buttresses of secular Authoritie They extoll Constantine because he extol'd them as our homebred Monks in their Histories blanch the Kings their Benefactors and brand those that went about to be their Correctors If he had curb'd the growing Pride Avarice and Luxury of the Clergie then every Page of his Story should have swel'd with his Faults and that which Zozimus the Heathen writes of him should have come in to boot wee should have heard then in every Declamation how hee slew his Nephew Commodus a worthy man his noble and eldest Son Crispus his Wife Fausta besides numbers of his Friends then his cruell exactions his unsoundnesse in Religion favoring the Arrians that had been condemn'd in a Counsell of which himselfe sate as it were President his hard measure and banishment of the faithfull and invincible Athanasius his living unbaptiz'd almost to his dying day these blurs are too apparent in his Life But since hee must needs bee the Lord-starre of Reformation as some men clatter it will be good to see further his knowledge of Religion what it was and by that we may likewise guesse at the sincerity of his Times in those that were not Hereticall it being likely that hee would converse with the famousest Prelates for so he had made them that were to be found for learning Of his Arianisme we heard and for the rest a pretty scantling of his Knowledge may be taken by his deferring to be baptiz'd so many yeares a thing not usuall and repugnant to the Tenor of Scripture Philip knowing nothing that should hinder the Eunuch to be baptiz'd after profession of his beleife Next by the excessive devotion that I may not say Superstition both of him and his Mother Helena to find out the Crosse on which Christ suffer'd that had long lien under the rubbish of old ruines a thing which the Disciples and Kindred of our Saviour might with more ease have done if they had thought it a pious duty some of the nailes whereof hee put into his Helmet to beare off blowes in battell others he fasten'd among the studds of his bridle to fulfill as he thought or his Court Bishops perswaded him the Prophesie of Zachariah And it shall be that that which is in the bridle shall be holy to the Lord Part of the Crosse in which he thought such Vertue to reside as would prove a kind of Palladium to save the Citie where ever it remain'd he caus'd to be laid up in a Pillar of Porphyrie by his Statue How hee or his Teachers could trifle thus with halfe an eye open upon Saint Pauls Principles I know not how to imagine How should then the dim Taper of this Emperours age that had such need of snuffing extend any beame to our Times wherewith wee might hope to be better lighted then by those Luminaries that God hath set up to shine to us far neerer hand And what Reformation he wrought for his owne time it will not be amisse to consider hee appointed certaine times for Fasts and Feasts built stately Churches gave large Immunities to the Clergie great Riches and Promotions to Bishops gave and minister'd occasion to bring in a Deluge of Ceremonies thereby either to draw in the Heathen by a resemblance of their rites or to set a glosse upon the simplicity and plainnesse of Christianity which to the gorgeous solemnities of Paganisme and the sense of the Worlds Children seem'd but a homely and Yeomanly Religion for the beauty of inward Sanctity was not within their prospect So that in this manner the Prelates both then and ever since comming from a meane and Plebeyan Life on a sudden to be Lords of stately Palaces rich furniture delicious fare and Princely attendance thought the plaine and homespun verity of Christs Gospell unfit any longer to hold their Lordships acquaintance unlesse the poore thred-bare Matron were put into better clothes her chast and modest vaile surrounded with celestiall beames they overlai'd with wanton tresses and in a aâ—…aring tire 〈◊〉 her with all the gaudy allurements of a Whore Thus flourish't the Church with Constantines wealth and thereafter were the effects that follow'd his Son Conâ—…antius prov'd a flat Arian and his Nephew Iulian an Apostate 〈◊〉 there his Race ended the Church that before by insensible degrees welk't and impair'd now with large steps went downe hill decaying at this time Antichrist began first to put forth his horne and that saying was common that former times had woodden Chalices and golden Preists but they golden Chalices and woodden Preists Formerly saith Sulpitius Martyrdome by glorious death was sought more greedily then now Bishopricks by vile Ambition are hunted after speaking of these Times and in another place they gape after possessions they tend Lands and Livings they coure over their gold they buy and sell and if there be any that neither possesse nor traffique that which is worse they sit still and expect guifts and prostitute every induâ—…ment of grace every holy thing to sale And in the end of his History thus he concludes all things went to wrack by the faction wilfulnesse and avarice of the Bishops and by this means Gods people every good man was had in scorn and derision which S. Martin found truly to be said by his friend Sulpitius for being held in admiration