Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	church_n	faith_n	propose_v	3,020	5	9.4539	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49353	The loyal martyr vindicated	Fowler, Edward, Bishop of Gloucester, 1632-1714.	1691 (1691)	Wing L3353A; ESTC R41032	60,614	53

may have Learning enough to use those Four ordinary Words none of them being artificial Law Terms but such honest English as every Gentleman that converses with Persons above the lowest Rank is capable of understanding and using But this candid Gentleman seeing his Cause could not be maintained but by Tricks for this whole turn of Government was nothing but a Trick of Policy disjoyns by his Discourse illiterate from unskill'd in the Law and refers the Four cramp Words to the former and his passing a peremptory Iudgment about our Laws to the latter and when he has done he tells us very sadly one may justly wonder at it and indeed it is very wonderful For to play so many jugling Tricks in so little room wresting almost every Word 'till he has made it crooked and then gracing every Flam he gives us with such a demure Hypocrisie is altogether Monstrous He tells us p. 9. That the Loyal Martyr design'd two Things To assert his Principles and to testifie his Innocency and he sets himself to prove that he did neither As for the former he grants that by the Faith of the Church of England Mr. Ashton meant the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and then confutes him most learnedly by telling us That he suffered not for Passive Obedience but for want of it and that had he regulated his Life by this Principle he had preserved it Did ever any Man's Reason turn tail so aukwardly The constant Doctrine of the Church of England was Passive Obedience to a lawful King and he is the lawful King according to the Constitution of our Government who has Title to it by immediate Succession Now comes this acute Gentleman and pretends without Shame or Wit that the Doctrine of the Church of England is not Passive Obedience to the legal King whom all the World did ever acknowledge for such in their clear unb●ass'd and 〈◊〉 in us Thoughts but to ano●her who has dispossest this legal King of his Kingdom and whose Title is quite annulled by our English Laws nor own'd by any but some of those who got their Advantages in doing so or who dare not do otherwise And then after he had preva●icated thus eg egiously he te●ls us very gravely That certainly there must be some g●ea● mistakes about the Doctrines and Principles of our Church Whereas if there be any 't is manifestly on his side but to say the plain Truth there is no mistake at all even on his side but an open Prevarication and a wilful shuffling and shifting the whole Subject of the Church of England's Tenet making our Passi●e Obedience regard not only a wrong but an opposite Object which is to make the Principles of our Church face ab●ut with the Times and point as a Weather-cock does to the Wind to a Dispossessour of the true Prince so he gets but Power enough to make himself a strong Party and keep under or Murther by his new Laws and new Judges those who dare be Loyal He pretends that The Doctrines and Principles of our Church are to be found in the Articles and Constitutions of it If he means that only some of them are found there it reaches not home to his purpose But if he means that All the Doctrines of Faith which our Church holds are found there he shews himself to be very weak Sure he cannot forget that God's written Word and it only is our intire and adequate Rule of Faith and that the best Interpreter of it for us to follow is the most unanimous Exposition of it avow'd by the Doctrine of our Church-men and the agreeable and constant Practice of our Church If then he would prove that our Church does not hold Passive Obedience and Indispensable Allegiance to our lawful King upon our Rule of Faith that is does not hold it part of her Faith he should have produced such and so many genuine grave and eminent Members of one Church as are beyond Exception who have unanimously declared themselves to understand the Scripture in an opposite Sense and upon that ground held the contrary I except always from that Number Dr. Sherlock who is so flexible a Complier with every side that I fear he is of no side and ready to be of any as God-M●mmon shall inspire him by proposing a good fat Deanry or some such irresistible Temptation As for the Practice of our Church giving us light to know her Faith it cannot be possibly manifested better than by her Carriage towards King Charles II. in the Protector 's days who had Abdicated twi●e if the leaving England to avoid danger to his Person might be called Abdicating and there was another actual supreme Governor who had got all the Power into his Hands and so was Providentially Settled in Dr. Sherlock's Sense yet none of the genuine Sons of our Church flincht from their Allegiance to their King in those happy days when honest Principles as yet unantiquated made our Church shine gloriously even in the midst of Persecution but all adher'd to their legal King though all of them suffered in their Estates and many lost their Lives rather than forego their Duty But as our Author told us formerly that Mr. Ashton died for want of that Passive Obedience which the Church of England holds so he tells us here that he might have believed himself obliged by his Religion to look upon his rightful lawful Prince whatever his Principles were or his Practices might be as God's Vicegerent and accountable to God only from whom he received his Power All this says he he might have done and have been alive still because as he contends King William was his rightful lawful Prince So that it se●ms let King William be of what Principles he will even though he were as zealous a Papist as King Iames or let his Practices be what they will even to the Subverting all our Liberties Properties nay the most Fundamental Laws of the Land still we are to believe our selves obliged by our Religion to look upon him as on God's Vicegerent accountable to God only and consequently to obey him as such Which ridiculous Partiality overthrows a good part of his Book and makes all the Deserters and fi●st Adherers to the Prince of Orange and the whole Parliament that set him up for their King and the Consent of the Nation he talks of to be Irreligious and Wicked For since King Iames was confessedly at that time their rightful lawful King nor can he be pretended to have worse Principles and Practices than those mentioned which comes within the compass of his whatever his Principles are or his Practices might be and this Man confesses that notwithstanding all this they were obliged by their Religion to submit to him as God's Vicegerent it follows unavoidably that we are to believe they violated the Principles of Religion in the highest Degree who deserted him opposed him turned him out and set up a Stranger in his stead Yet this Action of theirs confest