Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	church_n	great_a	lord_n	3,522	5	3.3255	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54853	A prophylactick from disloyalty in these perilous times in a letter to the Right Honourable, and Right Reverend Father in God, Herbert, by Divine Providence Lord Bishop of Hereford : to which (at some distance) will be added a short discourse upon the anchor of the soul of the said Lord Bishop.	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1688 (1688)	Wing P2195; ESTC R8958	5,692	10

A Prophylactick FROM DISLOYALTY IN THESE Perilous Times IN A LETTER To the Right Honourable and Right Reverend Father in God Herbert by Divine Providence Lord Bishop of Hereford To which at some distance will be added A Short Discourse upon The Anchor of the Soul of the said LORD BISHOP LICENSED Aug. 13. 1688. The wrath of a King is as Messengers of Death but a wise man will pacifie it Prov. 16.14 Whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own Soul Chap. 20.2 My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change Chap. 24.21 I counsel thee to keep the King's Commandment and that in regard of the Oath of God Eccles. 8.2 LONDON Printed for Randall Taylor near Stationers Hall 1688. A Prophylactick from Disloyalty in these Perilous Times c. Right Reverend Father in God BEing one of those Thousands to whom your Lordship 's Short Discourse concerning the Reading his Majesty's late Declaration in the Churches hath brought Conviction and Contentment I think it my Duty to give your Lordship my very humble and hearty Thanks for defending so many Sons of the Church of England from the great Sin of Disobedience to God's Vicegerent into which they might have fallen with a World of blind Guides had they not happily been upheld by your Lordship's Example and Discourse which is indeed very short but withal very sufficient for the attaining of those prudent and pious Ends by which your Lordship was induced to Pen and Print it Together with my said Thanks I humbly present Another Discourse to your Lordship's Patronage and Protection grounded upon the same Text and the same Authority of St. Peter which represented it self unto your Lordship as an Anchor whereby to fix and hold fast your Soul and compose your Conscience p. 5. to which is added the equal Authority of St. Paul and the yet greater Authority both of the Precept and the Example of our Lord Iesus Christ who in his Person and by his Apostles hath made Obedience to Higher Powers and most especially to the Supream in whatsoever he commands which God does no where forbid a principal Doctrine of the Gospel A Fundamental of Christianity A great Essential to all Religion And I crave leave to add the very greatest Characteristick whereby a Genuine Son of our most Holy Mother The Church of England is to be known even our Heartiness of Submission to every Ordinance of man and that as well for the Lord's sake as for our own not only for fear of wrath but for Conscience sake Why I chuse to call this a principal Doctrine of the Gospel a Fundamental of Christianity and the great Essential to all Religion ●… seem to my self to have so many and great Reasons that if they were every where urged and laid to Heart especially by the Parties who are the least aware of them but most concern'd to take them in they might suffice to put an end to those numerous Schisms and Part-takings which now do threaten to put an end to our whole Religion Your Lordship knows better than I that the Doctrine of Obedience to God's Vicegerent upon Earth is certainly the aptest of any other next to That of our Obedience to God Himself whereof This Doctrine is a most necessary Part too to keep the Vnity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and to congregate into one Body the most disjoynted and scattered Members in Church and State. A Doctrine laid for this purpose by God the Father from the Foundation of the World and that in the Law of the first Creation A Doctrine propagated by Moses as taught by God to teach others A Doctrine perfected by Christ as by the Wisdom of the Father who pray'd his Followers might be One even as his Father and He were One which yet without Obedience to this very Doctrine can never be A Doctrine inculcated and inforced by God the Holy Ghost as by The Spirit of Love and Meekness of Peace and Vnion A Doctrine extended to all Authority upon Earth not only Regal in the first Place but Ecclesiastical in the second A Doctrine in absolute Opposition to the Church and Court of Rome because to the Hildebrandine Doctrine Deposing Kings and freeing Subjects from their Allegiance and so Authenticating Rebellion against God himself in his Vicegerents To summ up all in a Word There is not a Doctrine in all the Gospel either more earnestly or more assiduously either more plainly or more expressly prescribed to us and that under the pain of Damnation too than That of our Vniform Obedience to all that are over us in Authority and above All to the Supream from whom all inferiour and subordinate Authority is derived I say to All not only to the Best the Good and Gentle but as well to the Worst and most Froward Governours For with your Lordship's Approbation I beg leave to say It is not only most foolishly but most nefariously pretended and that by some in these Dregs of Time acted by that unclean Spirit which now is every where working in the Children of Disobedience that the Piety or Impiety the Religion or Irreligion of them that are over us in the Lord can either widen or contract our Divine Obligation to strict Obedience For never was any Incarnate Devil more incomparably impious than those Emperours of Rome Tiberius and Nero whom yet our Saviour and St. Paul commanded their Followers to obey and obey'd themselves For Obedience to God's Anointed being of Divine Right strongly founded upon the Will and the Word of God and even a Part of our Obedience to God Himself whilst it is paid to that Authority which God has commanded us to pay an Obedience to cannot possibly be due to the Men as Men or to the Good as they are Good but to the Magistrates or Masters reduplicativè as they are Such 'T is due to the Governors as they are Governors and as the Ordinance of God let their Practices and Opinions be what they will. My Lord I wish some of our Clergy would pay at least as much Obedience to our present most Gracious and Rightful Sovereign as they paid when time was to a most Scandalous Usurper when there lay an Exception to their Obedience Due to God rather than Man. But this Exception makes strongly for your Lordship 's irrefragable Discourse and now for mine in Pursuance of it and that by Virtue of the Old Axiome Exceptio firmat Regulam in non exceptis So that by this Rule and Reason that when God and his Deputies do stand in Competition for our Obedience God must have our whole Active and his Deputies our Passive Obedience only It cannot but follow that when our Governours are Rightful and do only command what God does no where forbid or do only forbid what God does no where command us There we must obey God by obeying Man there being no other way of paying God our

Obedience in such a Case For there our Governour 's Command is the Command of God also There the very same Command which is immediately Humane is also mediately Divine Seeing we There are commanded by That Authority upon Earth which in the Old and New Testament God has commanded us to obey Nor is there any one Duty belonging to us as Men or Christians which God is pleased to make a stricter provision for we are no more commanded to fear God than to honour the King as your Lordship most loyally and most religiously observes p. 5. nor are we more forbidden to worship Idols than to resist or disobey God's Representative upon Earth This my Lord I do the rather insist upon in my common conversation with Men abus'd by these Times because I am of Opinion with the Learned and Reverend Dr. Sherlock in his Seasonable Treatise for Non-Resistance more seasonable now than when 't was first printted that to reproach and vilifie Government much more fl●●y to disobey it in things not forbidden by God in Scripture is 〈◊〉 Degree of Resistance and none are so weak but they may do that without Valiant Leaders and Force of Arms. Nor can I any more separate the Sin of Disobedience from some Degree of Resistance of God's Vicegerent than I can separate Resistance from Rebellion against the Gospel or a State of Damnation from either of them My Lord I observe the Lords Commissioners for Ecclesiastical causes who are not less able to judge of things than their Inferiours do call a wilful Omission or Neglect of Dispersing and Reading the Declaration a manifest Contempt of his Majesty's Authority Royal. An Assertion very dreadful in my Opinion For a manifest contempt of Supream Authority link'd with an Obstinate Contumacious fomenting Jealousies and divisions is such a Monster that the least Errour of Judgment which had been Venial in it self is by these Aggravations made great and grievous and contracts unto itself as well a diabolical as damning Quality The following short Discourse upon your Lordship's well-chosen Text may not unfitly be called a Sermon though never preached in any Pulpit or in any particular Congregation either by the Author of it or by any other Person he ever heard of but only from the Press to all in general who may stand in need of such a Preservative from Disloyalty in times of Trial and Temptation Or who pr●tend to Fears and Jealousies of a most obliging and gracious Soveraign who supports and protects us in all we have and particularly in that which is dearest to us the Great and National Church of England as it is now and will be ever by the Blessing of God and his Vicegerent by Law established I am as absolutely perswaded as of any thing in the World the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against the established Church of England Our King's Declaration is clearly for it and as clearly against Three or Four General Councils as Bellarmine and others think fit to call them 'T is also against the Bulla Coenae and quite against the rigid Practice of the potent French King towards his Protestant Subjects So that however our present Soveraign may be and continue a Roman Catholick he cannot possibly be a Papist in the true Notion of the Word whilst his Royal Declaration does stand in Force and affords Liberty of Conscience to all sorts of Haereticks as the rigid Papalins make bold to call us All Recusants and Dissenters are but permitted We alone are allowed who are of the truly Catholick and Apostolick Church of England whereof our late gracious King had so transcendent an Esteem for her Faithfulness and Abhorrence of all the Hildebrandine Doctrines in all degrees that He thought fit to say to the Cambridge University waiting on him at New-Market Sept. 18. 1681. That He would constantly own and defend the Church of England as established by Law. Giving them this for his Reason that there is no other Church in the World that taught and practised Loyalty so Conscientiously as that did Your Lordship's Assertion is tantamount to it in the 15 th Page of your Discourse and from Both I make this Inference That they who will not obey the King in whatsoever he commands which God does no where forbid are No true Sons of the true Church of England let their Professions and Pretences be what they will. And if God shall ever permit our ever dear though dread Soveraign to be provoked out of his Patience by the Undutifulness of Subjects to whom his sacred Majesty hath been the most munificent and meritorious to the hazarding of Truth and Peace among us They will have much to answer for to use your Lordship 's own Words p. 13. who shall have been the Authors of it But the great and good God of Heaven and Earth in whose Hand the King's Heart is will never suffer him I believe through any the greatest provocations to violate his Promises to the established Church of England And as our late King of blessed Memory in his said Speech at New-Market to that most Learned University Bid them all be assured that he would never break his Word notwithstanding whatever Representation either had or should be made of him to the contrary So what ever unworthy Jealousies others may have of our present King and his gracious Promises yet long Experience being my Mistress to convince me by all Injoyments of the King's Truth and Generosity I do protest unto your Lordship that could I possibly be willing I should not be able to distrust him My Lord when I observed the different Judgments of Seven Bishops on one side and Six of another I stood pendulous for a time between Six and Seven like an hovering Piece of Iron between two Loadstones But after due Deliberation like that of your Lordship p. 4. I thus determin'd within my self That supposing though not granting Both sides to be Erroneous it would concern me if I must err to err as safely as might be possible and of Two supposed Evils to take the Least If thought I the Six Bishops are in an Errour their Errour is on the Right hand because on the side of strict Obedience to the Lord's Vicegerent for the Lord's sake though in a doubtful or undue Instance But if the Seven Bishops are in an Errour their Errour is on the Left hand because on the side of Disobedience to God's Vicegerent not for the Lord's but for the Law of the Land's sake as all but the Iudges and other great Lawyers do expound it Now this Left handed Errour if an Errour is an Errour with a Witness and like Sinon's Trojan Horse in the Second Aeneid of Virgil carries an Army of Destroyers within its Bowels and endangers the very Palladium after the Loss of which Security Down goes our Troy For St. Paul grounds Obedience to the Higher Powers among Men upon their being all of God not only permitted but ordained of God and thence infers That whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God. And they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation This would have frighted me into m● Loyalty if the ingrafted Law of Nature and the Law of all Nations and the Law of the Land also antecedently to my Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy had not most sweetly though invicibly induced me to it Hence My Lord I took my final Resolution to follow my King with my Obedience through thick and thin usque ad Aras though not a whit farther And rather to mark the unerring Judgments of St. Peter and St. Paul and of those great Divines now with God Dr. Hammond and Bishop Sanderson two the most exact Casuists in all the World and now at last of your Lordship also than the more obnoxious Judgments of all the other Bishops of Christendom which are or shall be I do expect to be a Sufferer from the one side or the other at least of Obloquy and Railing for hereunto we are appointed 1 Pet. 2.21 But my Study is for whom and for what to suffer If I suffer for doing well from the Sons and Daughters of Disobedience I suffer wisely and as a Christian and St. Peter does assure me This is acceptable with God v. 20. yea This is Thank worthy v. 19. But if I suffer for a scandalous Recalcitration and Disobedience to God's Vicegerent and follow a Multitude into the Pit I only suffer as a Fool and an Evil Doer And for all that shall follow must thank my self am not worthy of Thanks from God seeing I would not like the Israelites 1 Sam. 8.7 That God himself should reign over me by his Vicegerent Now that God will ever bless and reward your Lordship for your Loyalty with a Continuance of the Blessings you now enjoy even the Blessings in the Left and in the Right Hand of Wisdom Riches and Honour and Length of Days is and shall be ever the Vote and Suffrage of Your Lordship's most Obedient and Humble Servant Theophilus Philobasileus * 1 Pet. 2.13 † Rom. 13.5 1 Pet. 2.18 Rom. 13.1 2. 1 Pet 2.17 * The Case of Resistance p. 180. P●…shed in the Year 1684. * Printed by Authority in the Gazette of that time for Publick Vse Rom. 13.1 2. ●