Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	age_n	doctrine_n	rome_n	2,871	5	6.3467	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A12604	The eunuche's conuersion A sermon preached at Paules Crosse, the second of February. 1617. By Charles Sonnibank, Doctor of Diuinitie, & Canon of Windsor.	Sonibancke, Charles, 1564-1638.	1617 (1617)	STC 22927; ESTC S114127	43,380	142

man another there harken to God It is a most Christian and worthy answere fitting this present purpose worthy of all your attention and obseruation which was giuen by Valentinian the Emperour to Symmachus which is recorded in the fift booke of Saint Ambrose his Epist Symmachus a heathen man and in all likelihood an excellent Oratour such a one as was Tertullus of whom there is mention Acts 24. hauing penned an eloquent speech the scope and purpose whereof was to perswade the Emperour that embraced the Christian religion himselfe and was resolued to haue the same receiued and professed in his Empire that he would bee pleased to permit the ancient Citie of Rome to hold her olde forme and to keepe and vse the olde manner of seruing her heathenish Gods thus he tuned his pipes and thus he bespake the Emperour Regard saith Rome mine age which haue now stood a thousand yeares and shall I now at the last be checked and controuled in my olde dayes This religion which wee now seeke for sue for at thy hands O Emperor was that which won to Rome the soueraignty of the earth which repelled and beat back that cruell Hannibal from scaling of our walls which preserued our goodly Capitoll out of the French mens hands And now it were a reproach after so long time so many Ages to haue it quite reuersed Much more was spoken all very suiteable and like if you marke it to the discourses and speeches of our Papists but for an vp-shoot and for a concluding argument that was at last brought in that his owne Father before him had suffered them to enioy that forme and manner of seruing their Gods and neuer disallowed it and therefore it was his part to permit it so likewise But the worthie Emperour as Ambrose saith in his funerall Sermon vpon him beeing resolutely addicted to the defence and maintenance of Christs glory made this answere Let Rome my Mother intreate any thing else at my hands and aske what else she will of me I owe vnto her I confesse a very great dutie and affection because she is my Mother but I doe owe a greater to God my Father who is the author of my saluation This was a worthie answere of a worthie Prince from whence wee may learne this instruction In matters which concerne the glory and seruice of God not to stand vpon the will or words of men but onely on this only point Sic dicit Dominus thus saith the Lord and with thankfulnesse to receiue his trueth whensoeuer it is brought vnto vs. And surely if our ancient Fathers the olde and first Christened Gentiles of this our Iland of Great Britanne other faithlesse at the first and Heathenish Kingdomes had not held this rule and kept this course when it pleased God in great mercy that the Gospell of his Sonne Christ and his sauing truth was first brought vnto them then might they and we still haue remained in our ignorance and infidelitie then should they and wee haue continued aliens from the common-wealth of Israel strangers to the couenants of grace bondslaues to sin and Satan not onely depriued of that glorious name by which we are called Christians of Christ but also debarred from hauing any part or portion in that great worke of mercy and redemption which was wrought by Christ For they might haue replied to them that were the first messengers and preachers which first brought vnto them the glad tidings of the Gospell and haue saide vnto them as the Athenians did to Saint Paul Act. 17.18 What will this babbler say hee seemeth to bee a setter forth of strange gods in that he preacheth vnto vs Iesus and the resurrection They might haue said vnto them Our Fathers worshipt the Queene of heauen they beleeued on Iupiter and Apollo they sacrificed to Mars and Venus they worshipped the Moone and the Starres and so did their Fathers and great Grandfathers and Ancestors some thousands of yeares before them and shall we now begin to listen to a new and vp-start Religion and renouncing those ancient Gods that they so long serued controll their iudgement and so admit of a new-found doctrine worship new-found Gods But it pleased God to mooue their hearts to receiue with meeknesse that truth and so by succession to deriue vnto vs that truth which was and is able to saue both theirs and our soules You see Right honourable Right worshipfull and beloued in the louer of your soules Christ Iesus to vvhat issue this point is brought and what it is that I ayme at namely that as this noble Eunuch renounced the Idolatry of his Country and the superstitions of his Ancestors and Forefathers not suffering them to be a rule or making them a president to himselfe either for his faith or for his manner of seruing God but went vp to Ierusalem there to worship him in his holy Temple so it is the duty of all men to renounce all false superstitious worship of God and to entertaine his holy truth whensoeuer and by whomsoeuer it is reuealed and brought vnto them how many soeuer or how mighty soeuer or how neere or deere soeuer they be vnto them that do discountenance and withstand the same Now although this be a most vndoubted truth and that our Aduersaries doe knowe it in their consciences so to be yet doe they neuer giue ouer to obiect and with a full mouth to exclaime against vs filling the ayre and the eares of men with these and the like frequent questions demaunds What were all our Ancestors and Forefathers deceiued liued they all in error did they all of them misse and mistake the meanes which leade vnto saluation and by consequent did they all misse the end Did so many millions of them perish and vvere they all damned In answer of which their demands which they so willingly and frequently make and by which they haue inthralled many soules especially of the simpler sort and such as are vnlearned carying them away captiue and making them bondslaues to the man of sinne the Antichrist of Rome I will lay downe these three propositions 1. Proposition First They were not all Papists that liued in the time of Popery and so by consequent all our Ancestors and Forefathers were not Papists Secondly They did not all die Papists that in their life time were Papists Thirdly Some that both liued and died Papists in many points yet holding the principall and fundamentall parts of Gods blessed and holy truth might be and vvere also saued And first not to speake of the first six or seauen hundred yeeres after Christ which were the purer times of the primitiue Church in which neither the name of Pope nor the doctrine and points of Popery as now they are held had any beeing or footing in the Church if we shall descend to the lower and later ages and times wherein Popery or the religion of Rome grew strong and held her head at the highest wee shall

finde if with a single eye and without partialitie wee enquire thereinto that as in the former times so in all succeeding ages times euen to this of ours there was a Church of our Religion And although the Professors therof could not possesse whole Nations or Countries or Cities wherin they might freely openly professe their faith by reason of the great height tyranny of the church of Rome which not onely obscured them but did also cruelly persecute them Yet were there few Nations fevv Countries few Citties wherein there were not some from time to time yea and that also in the very bosome and midst of the Church of Rome that did learnedly and zealously and with the losse many times of their liues professe the same If any man shall heere call vpon vs to make a particular and precise bed-roll or catalogue of their names and aske vs who they vvere that so haue done I answere that besides all those which liuing in former ages and in the times of Popery who either could not by reason they were vnlearned be known publiquely to the world but onely to God and to their ovvne consciences to bee professors of our Religion or if they were learned did yet commit nothing to writing wherby the same might be known of them I say besides all those whose number no doubt was infinite great is the nūber of those godly and learned men of those faithfull witnesses which frō time to time both by writing by preaching and by dying haue shewed to the world that they groned vnder the burthen of Popery that they wished a reformation and that they were of our Church and professed our Religion The names of which men with the times in which they liued together with those passages and parts of their bookes and writings in which they witnesse that which I haue affirmed of them are collected together and set downe by many learned men of our part and therefore I will spare my selfe the labour of naming them vnto you at this time If any man shall further except and say They are but few that are named in comparison of the rest that their number is small let such a one know that the number is not small and if it were yet that it is no maruell that so few are named it is rather a maruell that so many are named seeing that the Church of Rome hath in all ages times so earnestly laboured to blot out and to deface the memory of all both men and matters which might speake for vs or beare witnesse vnto vs. For if at this day our Aduersaries wipe our very names out of bookes and command that no man shall name vs but in contempt wee may well assure our selues that their Ancestors haue done the like in former ages to the men of our Religion and hence it commeth that so few are mentioned and named in ancient stories The practice of the Papists at this day with vs defacing our names belying our opinions burying our memory corrupting our books suppressing the truth of things purging and razing all manner of Euidence by that diuelish deuice of their Indices expurgatorij their purging tables maketh vs assure our selues that in the same manner our Ancestors were vsed And this is a principall reason why wee yeeld not so perfect a catalogue as else we might doe 2. Proposition My second proposition vvhich I deliuered was this that They did not all die Papists which in their life time and in outward profession were Papists For seeing it pleaseth God sometimes euen at the eleuenth howre to call men to the knowledge of himself and to repentance and seeing Gods mercy is not bounded or confined to any times but that as hee will haue mercy on whom he wil haue mercy so also hee will shew mercy at vvhat time it pleaseth him to shevv mercie VVho can tell but that many of our Ancestors and forefathers being touched in conscience and renouncing themselues and all humane satisfactions haue at the time of their dissolution the approching of death changed their mindes and so in that faith and religion which wee professe yeelded vp their soules into the hands of God A thing the more probable and like to bee true because in these our dayes many Papists haue bin by most certaine and true experience obserued to haue done and to do the like who in articulo mortis beeing at the brink and point of death haue been content not onely to suspect and feare but to renounce their own merits and their owne works to disclaime the vvhole body of humane satisfactions and to cleaue onely and alone to the mercie of God in Christ for their saluation and so though they liued Papists haue died Protestants And no maruaile though many Papists haue so done and do so daily for alas what comfort or consolation can a wounded conscience and a soule laden with sinne now ready to depart the vvorld and to appeare before the maiestie of GOD in whose presence the Cherubins are polluted the Angels are vnholy and the heauens are vncleane there to answere the iustice of God and to giue an account for all things that it hath done in the bodie I say what comfort or consolation can such a sinfull and dying soule finde in reflecting it selfe vpon it selfe in the works of it owne hands in the worth of it owne merites in the fruites of it owne labours in crosses crucifixes Saints Agnus Dei's blessed graines holy reliques pilgrimages extreame vnction dirges trentalls masses in Priests absolutions in Bishops blessings in Popes pardons or in all or any of these or other the trash trumpery of Rome Will such Figge-leaues couer our shame will such sacrifices satisfie for sinne or can such stubble and strawe endure the fierie triall of Gods iustice and yet not be consumed Foolish Semele great was thy folly and thou art worthily taxed branded with a marke of folly and dangerous indiscretion euē by Poets themselues for desiring that Iupiter would in the selfe-same manner visit thee at his next comming in which hee vsed to visite Iuno by vvhich meanes it came to passe that thou wast not onely amazed at his brightnes but also by the lightning and thunder which attended him when he was in his maiestie wast burnt vp quick quite consumed So may I truly say and it is no poeticall fiction but an vndoubted truth which I am about to vtter to all proud Papists proud Pharisees and Iusticiaries whatsoeuer which gird themselues with their owne righteousnesse and arme themselues vvith their owne good deseruings and merites as it were with armour of proofe and coats of steele Foolish Papist great is thy folly thou art woorthily taxed and branded with a marke of folly and dangerous indiscretion who puffed vp with the winde of thine owne worth and being tickled in thine own heart with the wanton conceit of I wot not what proportionable agreement between thine owne proper inherent