Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	book_n	church_n	minister_n	2,564	5	6.5894	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53135	The countermine, or, A short but true discovery of the dangerous principles and secret practices of the dissenting party, especially the Presbyterians shewing that religion is pretended but rebellion is intended : and in order thereto, the foundation of monarchy in the state and episcopacy in the church are undermined / by one who does passionately wish the prosperity of the Church, his King and country.	Nalson, John, 1638?-1686.	1677 (1677)	Wing N96; ESTC R7744	126,642	332

season and most certainly out of season with which place they do so frequently scratch this Itch of the Ears An Itch the more it is scratched the more it may and the more it pleases especially the courser the Stuff is the more delightfully it rubs and is still desired until at last the blood and smart follows the busie Fingers and poyson'd Nails and from their scratching us till we bleed again Libera nos Domine A third advantage they make of Preaching is that hereby as well as in their Prayer they have many opportunities of displaying their own Excellencies and manifesting their great Abilities Gifts and Parts of which whatever men of sober Judgements may have They have no small Opinion as is most evident by their obstinate persisting in their own Ways and Wills not only against lawful Authority and the wise safe and prudent Determinations of their Superiors but against Scripture and Reason which must certainly speak them Wise in their own Conceit though thereby they render themselves more hopeless than Fools if we may take King Solomons word And they are so far from condescending to men of Low degree that they will not do it to those Persons who are of the Highest and whilest they thus preach Christ of strife and envy if they would impartially examine their Hearts they would find a great measure of Pride Conceit and Self-love at the bottom of them for as the abovementioned Royal Writer tells us Only by pride comes contention and it is very evident that in all their Preaching they have a great respect to advance their own Fame Interest and Design by the Authentick recommendation of their Doctrine and Discipline from the adored Pulpit which by successful Experience they find do all thereby receive the most considerable Advantage And how great an Estimate they set upon themselves is apparent by their Intrusion into other mens Parishes by which procedure they necessarily suppose themselves more fit and qualified than those who are by Law stated in those Places to do the work of an Evangelist One of these Men being about to set up for himself in another mans Parish was pressed with several Arguments to desist but more particularly with that golden Rule of Christs Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri nê feceris to do as he would be done by but either it was to him a leaden Argument or he had a leaden Head for he would make no other Reply to it But that it was fit the People should be instructed I will not trouble my self to explain that that spoke his Sense of himself and of the Minister of the place because it is easie to be read without the help of Spectacles It will now appear no Wonder that they do so highly magnifie Preaching and look upon it as the only Means of Grace so that in all their Discourses of it it passes amongst them with the Prerogative Emphasis of The Means and even their own Extempore Prayer which they pretend to be the immediate product of the Spirit to which I never heard preaching did pretend yet is but a handmaid to wait upon it and must lower the Top-sail to this All-powerful this only Soul-saving-Ordinance Good very Good and if the Spirit must truckle to the Flesh and Humane Invention be preferred before Divine Inspiration guess of the rest of them by this And in truth to hear them exalt it as they never fail to do upon the least hint that offers it self in their way a man would believe that they think it more essentially necessary to Salvation than Faith Hope or Charity of which last and greatest of the three you shall rarely hear them Discourse the true reason being because all their Preaching and Actings are directly contrary to it and by St. Paul's rule their golden Language is no better than sounding Brass and tinkling Cymbals worth nothing without Charity but the pretended Reason is to take men off from their Settlement upon the Lees and Dregs of Popery and the Opinion of the Meritoriousness of Good Works to which they say all men are but too naturally prone and inclined and I am very apt to believe it and that by the high value they set upon Preaching a great many of their Followers think that to go to hear a Sermon is a thing wonderfully Meritorious so that it is but changing the Work and not the Opinion of Merit which they bring men to by all their Pains Now do I know as well as if I were of the Secret Cabal and so I may be under a disguise for any thing they know purposely to discover their dangerous Intrigues that this one place will if possible keep this Book from ever being read by any of their Disciples and will heed no other Sentence for its Condemnation Oh 't is a most abominable Book it is against Preaching Oh what sad times should we have if every body were of this Persuasion It is against The Means Oh sad and in regard they sow this aspersion amongst the other Tares of Dissention and endeavour by it to make the Bishops and Church of England as odious as it is possible by telling their Disciples the most abominable falshood That the present Governors of the Church are all against Preaching I will endeavour to ward off the desperate blow with the Shield of Truth and wash off the Dirt which these Calumniators throw upon the face of the most beautiful Church in the Christian World I must therefore let them know that the Church of England has as great a Veneration and Esteem for that Duty as it can challenge It is not the truely ancient and Apostolical Way of Preaching nor the new Way neither that the Church is against It is the gross abuse of Preaching which these Men have put upon it and the Ill Vses they dayly make of it to countenance disperse and insinuate their wicked Designs to disturb and ruine all Government against which with very good Reason the Church declares it self St. Peters Sermon with which he converted three thousand Souls was not one quarter of an hours Discourse nor attended with the Prologue of a long-winded Extempore-Prayer nor indeed is that preaching which is so strongly prest and commanded any thing of affinity or kindred with this which they call Preaching as will appear to any who considers That the great Commission of our Saviour to his Disciples to go and teach all Nations St. Matth. 28. ult was as the Word plainly imports to go and make Disciples of them That is to Baptize them into the Faith of Christ by turning them from their former Vanities of Idolatry worshipping Stocks and Stones Act. 14.15 Gold Silver four-footed Beasts Creeping Things to know and serve the only true and Living God and Jesus Christ whom he had sent To certifie unto the Gentiles as well as the Jews Heb. 1.3 that Christ the only begotten Son of God the express Image of his Person and brightness of

change indeavouring an alteration in the Establilsh't Government for such an humour the word signifies such Persons as are Sorte suâ minimè contenti a description so exactly suiting with the querulous humour of these People that all the Art in the World cannot coyn a fitter And to conclude all Emphatically These are they which separate themselves Animal having not the Spirit how highly soever they may pretend to it nor having made a further progress in Religion than what is meer Sensitive or Animal as the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies such natural attainments as without Grace men may and many Heathens have attained to unless they may be said to exceed them in the Confidence of proclaiming their own Worth and Merits Thus do they stand guilty by the Verdict of Christ and his Apostles and if we must Judge of them by their fruits and by the fore-mentioned signs whether they are False Prophets and Wolves in Sheeps clothing then here is Separation Sedition Contention Disobedience Despising of Dignities speaking evil of Dominions Wrath Strife slanderous and false accusations of their Sober Pious and Lawful Superiours and much more of the same Nature of which they stand daily convicted by their Preaching and Practice LET them now if they can shew that the Church of England does either teach or allow any of these things forbidden by Christ or the Gospel or that any one of these signs of False Prophets do agree to them And let all the World judge if the true Sons of the Church are not the true Ministers of Righteousness AS for their Impeachment against us as guilty of Idolatry and Superstition all the Art they have used for near this hundred Years has not been able to go further in the proof of it than a bare saying so and that though pronounced never so Magisterially will amount to no more than a seeble Womans Argument They are so because they are so Ergo they are guilty of Idolatry and Superstition Which may be good Logick amongst their silly Apron Disciples but will never pass muster any where else AND for their slander That our Clergy especially the Prelates are so much inclined to Popery I know not whether it has more Malice or falshhood in it For they cannot be ignorant how learnedly some former Bishops and some of the present Clergy have defended the Protestant Cause against all the Champions of Rome and have shewn the forgeries and feign'd Miracles upon which that Church has built her Usurpations how amply have they satisfied the World that we have not left Rome as anciently Christian till Rome had first left the Ancient Catholick-Apostolick Faith and Truth AND however the Men of this Party made the great and learned Arch-bishop Laud so much a Papist as for that suspicion or imputation to lose his Head they are obliged to that Head which we lost more than He And the best Arms they can employ against the Papists they must be forc'd to borrow out of his Magazine and so long as that Incomparable Piece of his against Fisher continues in the World it will be an Eternal Monument of his Learning Piety and firmness in the Protestant Doctrine and of their falsehood and Cruelty in depriving our Church and the whole Protestant cause of such an able Chief and expert Commander and for no other Crimes but his Loyalty to his Prince his Constancy to the Church and his wearing the Sacred and Venerable Miter Crimes great enough if They were Judges to take off the Heads of all the Bishops in the World THEY cannot but know how many several times before a Man comes from a Colledge to a Cathedral he must take the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegia●●e and renounce the Church of Rome and therefore they must suppose That all these Pious and Reverend Fathers will make no scruple of Perjury of which if ever they return to the obedience of the Pope they must be most horribly guilty but the truth is they care not how much they suppose them guilty and never think they can render them odious enough though by the most improbable slanders which their Malice can invent God forgive them for it for sure they know not what they do CHAP. XX. THE CONCLVSION AND now having found them thus guilty I know they will say I am a Man of a persecuting Spirit a Reprobate a Machiavellian a hard word they use to brand their Enemies withall and which most of their Party know not what it means whether a man or a Devil or something worse if it could be But it has been the hard measure of those whose names I do so reverence that it will be the greatest honour they can do me to put me in the Rear of them The Captain of our Salvation was said to be a Samaritan and to have a Devil and the great Apostle tells us he was by some accounted their Enemy because he told them the Truth and so long as the World indures it will be so For Obsequium Amicos Veritas odium parit Flattery will for a while procure many Friends but great is the Truth and will prevail though it raises a Man never so many Enemies And if it shall be said All Truths are not fit for all times I must make that Necessity plead for me which can do violence to Nature and which made the Son of Crassus who before was Dumb break his Silence with Regem nolite occidere And it would make the dumb Ass speak the second time if she were alive to reprove the madness of these Prophets who run on in the Wayes of Balaam to curse a Church and People whom the Lord hath Blessed and they shall be blessed when these their Enemies shall inherit the Woe and perish in the Gainsaying of Corah The very Geese will awaken the Gauls when they hear the Barbarous Gauls secretly creeping up the Hill to surprize the Capitol And the silly Curs will bark when they hear the Evening Wolf coming towards the Fold to worry the Sheep Danger opens every Eye and Fear will open any Mouth I do not question but to run through various Censures and am ever since I was at School acquainted with the Fate of Books Pro captu Lectoris habent sua fata Libelli And though it is uncommon yet give me leave to close this Discourse with what is usually the begining of others something to the Reader which I do not because I love innovations but because I hate long Prefaces and will not be a Pimp to my own Pen or Court the coy to cast their Eyes upon the following Sheets with Epistolary Rhetorick I had rather have People read if they think good and then judge than judge by the Elaborate Front and after read what it may be they will not like and meet with Eger Wine after all the Promises of the Carved and Gilded Bush All I have to say for my self is That if I have not done so well as I should I have done as well as I could and am sure I shall deceive no expectation because nothing was ever expected from me IF the judicious shall tax me of two much Levity there is to entertain the greatest Sobriety even under those little lightnesses serious truths and it was the humour of the Age which has violenc'd my Inclinations with which even Truth is hardly palatable without the Ragoust of Droll and Burlesque AS for the Aiery and pleasant they will think it too serious and so it is to play withall and if it may not by diverting advantage them I shall not be offended if they chuse what they like better AS for my Friends in which Number I reckon all those that love their Country Prince Laws Liberty and Religion they will certainly pardon the Defective Effects of that Zeal and Passion I have for them and their Interests though in some things to the severity of Criticks especially the prejudiced I may appear to have been so far transported as to seem blind AND for my Enemies to shew them I am a Church of England Man I will forgive them and pray for them though for speaking out too plain they hate me persecute my Fame or despightfully use my Reputation and it may be I am too intent upon Affairs of greater concern than to turn again and pelt Stones at the Dogs that bark at me or to be angry because I am dasht and bespatter'd in dirty Ways which whoever travels in the same Road of Truth that I have must of necessity expect and though a great Man tells us Of Writing Books there is no End I will hope there will be such an End as proceeds from there being no necessity of such Books because no occasion for them Dabit Deus his quoque Finem FINIS A Catalogue of some Books printed for Jonathan Edwin at the three Roses in Ludgate-street THE True Liberty and Dominion of Conscience vindicated from the usurpations and abuses of Opinion and Perswasion in Octavo Christian Ethicks or Divine Morality opening the way to Blessedness by the rules of Virtue and Reason by Tho. Traherne B.D. Octavo Roman Forgeries or A true Account of False Records discovering the Impostures and counterfeit Antiquities of the Church of Rome by the same Author Octavo Daily Devotions consisting of Thanksgiving Confessions and Prayers in two parts by an humble Penitent in 120. The Causes and Remedies of the Distempers of the Times in certain Discourses of Obedience and Disobedience Octavo