Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	church_n	scripture_n	word_n	12,302	5	4.8636	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63246	The speech of Charles Trinder, recorder of Gloucester at his entrance upon that office, January the 8th, 1687/8.	Trinder, Charles.	1688 (1688)	Wing T2283; ESTC R37902	12,670	19

their matter For in the 31st of his Reign it is Enacted That If any hold that in the Sacrament of the Altar there is not present the Natural Body and Bloud of our Saviour born of the Blessed Virgin or that any substance of Bread and Wine romains after Consecration he shall be Burnt and otherwise forfeit as in case of High Treason If any hold Communion under both Kinds necessary or that Priests or Religious may Marry or oppose private Masses or deny Auricular Confession or if a Priest or Religious Person Marry they shall suffer Death and forfeit as in the case of Felony And by these Antiprotestant-Tests very many well-meaning persons no doubt were violently hurried out of their Lives and Fortunes with as much I would say with as little Reason and Justice as they have been of late For setting aside on which part the Truth of those points did lie men being left to their own private Interpretation of Scripture exempted from all Authority of the Church how could they ever bring themselves to believe what they could not find in their own Sense of scripture-Scripture-Words or why should they be forced to become Hypocrites and pretend to believe what they did not Again by a Statute of 32 of Hen. 8. it was Enacted that all Decrees and Ordinances which according to God's Word should be ordained in matters of Faith and Religion by the Bishops and others thereto appointed by the King's Letters Pattents should be obeyed and believed by all the King's Subjects The King in whom then rested the final result of all Controversies in Religion would no doubt ever Judge all his own Decrees to be according to God's Word So here was an Implicite Faith to be yeilded not onely to what the King then had but to whatever more he should hereafter decree A Burden sure too heavy for any man that had any sence of any Religion at all In the 24 and 25 of the same King it was Enacted That all English Bibles of Tyndal 's Translation and other English Books of Faith Religion or Scripture contrary to the Doctrine set forth since 1540. or to be set forth by the King should be Abolished None should deride or despise such Doctrine none shall retain Books for Maintenance of Anabaptism or other Books supprest or to be supprest by the King's Proclamation The Bible shall not be read in English by the common People Nothing shall be taught contrary to the King's Injunctions By a Statute of the 37 of the same King it is declared That the King hath full Authority to Correct all Heresies and Errours and to exercise all other manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and that the Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Persons have no manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction And if so then they derive no more from Christ than what is common to the meanest Mechanick By a Statute of the 35 of the same King Power is given him to name sixteen Spiritual and sixteen Temporal Persons whom he pleased to establish all such Ecclesiastical Laws as he and they thought fit So Volatile and Floating was Religion in those days and yet every change under great Penalties to be obeyed And thus did this poor unfortunate Prince weary out himself in difficulties most insuperable to constrain by cruel Laws the Belief of his own tottering Doctrines after he had driven his Subjects from all reliance on those Established by the Church But such doings against Nature and Reason can have no longer duration than either Violence does compel or Interest bribe Obedience and therefore notwithstanding all those costly Baits of Church-Lands with which he had drawn the Nobility and Commons to a Compliance notwithstanding those many hideous Executions with which he had terrified Dissenters during his life lastly notwithstanding the careful choice and rigorous charge given to those to whose Government he committed by Testament the Minority of his Successour he is no sooner laid in his Grave but all he had done is overthrown and buried with him All I say except the Supremacy that is the Source and Fountain of all the Miseries which had already befallen the one Party and a Power of making as much Havock upon the Souls Bodies and Fortunes of the other when time should serve And accordingly by an Act of the 2 and 3 of Edward 6th reciting That the King who was then a Child had appointed certain Bishops and Learned Men to make an Vniform Order of Common-Prayer and Sacraments which says the Statute by the aid of the Holy Ghost they had done Thô very incoherent with any thing done by Henry 8. who no less pretended to the aid of the same Holy Ghost you have a new Anticatholie Test Enacted That if any refuse or use any other or speak contemptibly of this the Makers it seems were very apprehensive of being laught at for their pains they should suffer the Deprivations Forfeitures and Imprisonments in that Act appointed And this was further inforced by a Statute of the 5 and 6 of Edw. 6. which obliges all to come to Church on all Sundays and Holidays And by an Act of the 3 and 4 of Edward 6. Cap. 11. The King had power to name thirty two persons to compile such Ecclesiastical Laws as he and they thought fit And Cap. 12. To name twelve to settle the Form of Making and Consecrating Bishops and Ministers The inferences from all these Acts are so natural obvious and easie that I shall leave every man to his own Remarks on them But this again held not long for by an Act of the 1st of Queen Mary all that was done before concerning Religion was again Repealed and the Sanguinary Severities of this Queen's Reign were no less ineffectual and deplorable than those of her Father and Brother They were indeed design'd to restore that Spiritual Church Authority which when submitted to can alone prevent or heal all Dissensions about Religion but they had a quite contrary effect and left those whom they pretended to reduce in a far greater degree of horrour and aversion from all Peace and Reconciliation than they were before To her succeeded Queen Elizabeth in the Throne as she did her Brother in the Supremacy For as he a Child so now she a Woman forbidden by God's Laws so much as to speak in the Church ascends the Chair and declares her self Supreme Governour of the Church of England And by an Act of the 1st of her Reign Power is given to her and her Successors to Reform Correct and Amend all Errours Heresies Schisms and Offences After this time such an Inundation of Penal and Sanguinary Laws to compel the Worship of this Idol so set up as would require more than this whole day to enumerate But I am the more willing to instance in some of them because it was she that began to employ her Two-edged Supremacy against all sorts of Dissenters as well Protestant as Catholick and from her too exemplary zeal for Uniformity have sprung all

Subjects Liberty and Property received Confirmation from the glorious Ancestors of our present Reigning Monarch What Spot of Ground is there thrô the whole circumference of the Earth where the Subject lives so free so plentiful and so secure from any sort of Oppression as in this our truly fortunate Island What man so low as not offending the Laws to need fear his most potent Neighbour Again What Nobleman so Great as to dare either by force or treachery to attempt either upon the Royal Authority or Publick Peace Lastly What Throne so fix'd and unmoveable as Ours Since the Royal Prerogatives are so inalienable from the Crown that even the most solemn Acts of our Kings when found inconsistent with their personal safety and Government and the good and safety of their Subjects are of no manner of force to restrain the exercise of their Regal Power This appears by the King's Declaration in the 15th of Edward 3d Printed with the Statutes and by many other instances which might be produced After such Foundations laid after such regular and well-polish'd Architecture in the whole Frame of this our happy Government when moreover our Kings have at their Call the most August Senate in the World whose Duty it is to strengthen the Hands of the Soveraign by their Counsels and the Kingdom 's Treasure as Emergencies arise How comes it to pass that we have seen and felt effects not only far short but even contrary to such glorious Causes to pass by our ceasing now for a long time to advance our Nations Glory by Acquisitions abroad tho' we have not wanted Princes of great Abilities and Inclinations that way How comes it to pass that we have with much difficulty conserved our own from Forreign Encroachments Nay lastly how has it come to pass that we have suffered such fatal Convulsions at home among our selves by which the whole Frame of our Government hath been shaken in pieces nothing to be seen but Horrour and Confusion nothing to be expected but utter Ruine and Destruction To answer these important Queries thô private Malice Pride Lust and Avarice be the immediate incentives of all who are Authors or Fomenters of all Civil Dissension yet manifest it is that this so great decay from the Ancient vigour of our Government and the many Difficulties in which it is of late so deeply involved have arisen principally if not purely from the Cause of Religion 'T was a memorable saying that of my late Lord Chancellour Clarendon to the two Houses of Parliament soon after his late Majesty's happy Restauration It is said he a mournful subject and that which has cost the King many a Sigh many a sad Hour to consider that that very thing which was appointed by God as a Cement of Affection betwixt Strangers and Enemies Religion should now become the fiercest Incentive to Strife between the dearest Friends and nearest Relations This Consideration carries me back to examine from what time and from what cause this unhappy effect of Religion had its first rise For were it indeed to be found in the Root or Essence of Christianity it self I should conceive the Reception of such a Religion into the World and it s so long continuance amidst so many Nations to be a greater Miracle than any that was ever wrought for its Birth or Propagation But I take the fact to be far otherwise For upon the first Planting of Christianity the Apostles inspired with the Holy Ghost all taught one and the same Truths which their Disciples held themselves obliged to believe and for ever keep inviolate and intire as proceeding all from one and the same eternal Verity and when afterwards any difference arose concerning what was so taught or what not The general practice of Christians was to submit to the determination of their Pastors either Single or in a Provincial National or General Council as the exigency of the matter required and the circumstances of the time and place allowed Which left no room for pertinacy in Dissention at least not any possibility of disturbing the publique Peace And by this means Christianity remained in this Kingdom unshaken from its first entry until about the 24th year of K. Henry the 8th when that unhappy Prince not finding from his long and chargeable Addresses to Rome a passage to the Enjoyment of a second Wife the first then living breaks that Power he was not able to bend and levels whatever opposes to his unbridled Appetite and maugre Magna Charta which in the first place grants that the Church of England be free and all her Rights and Liberties inviolable the Treasures and Revenues of the Church nay it s very Foundations and Lands are no longer spared than that King's Profusions needed not fresh Supplies To this end by an Act in the 26 of his Reign the King is declared Head of the Church of England in Spirituals and that under the Penalty of High Treason to deny it But this Sounding Monstrous Novel many of the most eminent for Learning and Piety who could not believe what they had never before heard nor pretend to believe what really they did not lost their Lives and Fortunes and that with all the outward marks of Infamy The Fence being thus broken down whereby Unity had been thus long preserved no wonder if way was soon made for multiplying of Opinions For People being once persuaded they had been taught one untruth and that in a point of so great importance as the Headship of the Church in Spirituals how could they forbear to doubt whether they were not imposed upon and taught Untruths in many others also since both the one and the other depended on the same Authority And to what other Oracle could they then possibly resort for the solution of their Doubts but either to the mere Letter of the Scriptures on all hands admitted to be God's Word or else every man to his own Interpretation for himself Since if the Church it self had been so foully deceived therein and therefore forsaken by them certainly no other could pretend Authority to deliver the true Sence so as to oblige others to the belief of it But the King himself having lookt upon that Power as intolerable which had been ever before Superiour to him in Spirituals could now less brook any control or contradiction from His own Subjects over whose Souls and Consciences He assumed a more absolute Dominion than ever any Pope had done before or any King of England over their Bodies or Estates By this absolute Spiritual Power he thought to put a stop to that great difference of Opinions which multiplied every day and backing the said Spiritual Power with Authority of Parliaments which he had always at his beck and ready for his turn he began first to think of some means of Reducing Dissenters by Acts of Vniformity and then to make Tests much like to our Modern ones as to the meekness of their Stile thô a little point-blank as to