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	minister_n	ministry_n	3,814	5	8.8738	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42490	Megaleia theou, Gods great demonstrations and demands of iustice, mercy, and humility set forth in a sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, at their solemn fast, before their first sitting, April 30, 1660 / by John Gauden ...	Gauden, John, 1605-1662.	1660 (1660)	Wing G364; ESTC R16267	41,750	78

being almost Ship-wrackt and sincking it had been a very preposterous zeal to have left the vessel to have contended with the Rocks and Sands by a superdevout diligence to save the lading or goods in it Alas we had been much to seek for a reformed Church in a ruined State Your discreet and orderly diligence took the right method in making way for religion by civil justice nor need you fear the dictates frownes and censures of any Anastarchusses whose piety like Jacobs might hope to have supplanted this just necessary and honest policy of restoring our civil laws and royal authority by which our Religion as Cristian and reformed was best established The setling or reforming of religion in all its duties and devotions discipline and decencies together with its order and Government is a work which requires not only time but that leisure which is attended with a calme and steddy posture of civil affaires Men cannot build Gods Temple till they have first washed their hands and purged the land of innocent blood No prudent piety can think such a storme as we were in was a meet season for Church reformation It would only fit those who might hope to fish best for their parties opinions in troubled waters knowing their projects and models to be less consistent with the true interests and pristine welfare of this Church and State doubtless they must have made strange work of Church and reformation before ever they had owned and restored the Master-builder the King who is supream Governour of it under Christ as to all extern order and Authority We hope and pray that God will shortly give both his Majesty his Parliaments and his loyall people such rest on every side as may be most apt for those sacred and serious concernments of the Church and true Religion which require first Justice as to the rights of Christ and his Church both Bishops Presbyters and People Secondly they require mercy as to that remission moderation and condescention in things not necessary to the being and well being of religion which either tender consciences or weak but humble and harmless Christians do require yea and expect agreeable to Christs care of his little ones and the Apostles regard to weak brethren yea and the Kings gracious expressions touching his regard to such that they may not be needlesly offended superciliously despised or rigorously oppressed in matters that are neither of faith nor morality Lastly Religious composures require an unfeined humility and self denying as the proper rule and measure and of all Church-work that nothing may swell out beyond the plumline of verity and charity order and decency use and edification either in the substances or circumstances of Religion nor yet in the controversies of it In all which blessed counsels and endeavours there will be need and use of the assistance of the best heads the honestest hearts and the softest hands which the Church of England affords not only in the Nobility and Gentry the Lords and Commons but also among the Clergy who are no doubt the Angels or Intelligences most proper for those motions and that spheare of Religion But we hope by the good hand of our good God upon his Majesty and your loyal counsels for the best of blessings a wise constitution and well ordered administration of religion both as Christian and reformed which will be the greatest glory and stability of all estates As you have given to Cesar the things that are Cesars so no doubt you will be ready to give to God the things that are Gods In which just and humble retributions you will both shew mercy to many thousands of souls and obtain mercies for your own for which ends as you have the prayers and thanks of all worthy persons so you shall never want mine whose freedome in speaking and writing I presume your sound minds can bear as abhoring to keep your Ministers like Parots in a cage as at no great charge so only for the pleasure to hear them speak Your honor is that you hear and know and do the will of God in which that you may enjoy his eternal rewards is the Prayer of Your humble servant in Christ I. GAVDEN May 12. 1660. Books written by Dr. Gauden and sold by Andrew Crook at the green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1. HIeraspistes A Defence for the Ministry and Ministers of the Church of England 2. Three Sermons preached on publick occasions 3. Funerals made Cordials in a Sermon preached at the Interment of the Corps of Robert Rich Heir apparent to the Earldom of Warwick 4. A sermon preached at the Funeral of Dr. Ralph Brounrig Bishop of Excester Decemb. 17. 1659. with an account of his Life and Death 5. A Petitionary Remonstrace in the behalf of many thousand Ministers and Scholars {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sive Medicastri Slight healers of publique hurts set forth in a Sermon Preached in St. Pauls Church London before the right honorable Lord Mayor Lord General Aldermen Common-Council Companies of the honorable City of London Febr. 28. 1659. being a day of Solemn thanksgiving unto God for restoring the Secluded Members of Parliament to the house of Commons And for preserving the City as a Door of Hope thereby opened to the fulness and freedom of future Parliaments The most probable means under God for healing the Hurts and recovering the health of these three Brittish Kingdoms Magna Dei postulata Gods great Demonstrations and Demands Set forth in A Sermon preached at a Solemn Fast April 30. 1660. before the Honorable House of Commons Upon MICAH 6.8 He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do Iustice to love Mercy and to walk humbly with thy God I Am not so ignorant of my infirmities Right Honorable and Beloved as to have adventured on so great a province before so noble an Assembly in such an important time and on so short warning if my obedience to Gods call in your commands had not swayed more with me than any confidence of my own sufficiency whose greatest ambition is to walk humbly with my God in the amplest services I were able to do for his glory his Churches peace and my Countries welfare I well understand the great importance of this Parliamentary Convention as to the peace and setling of this Church and State all things sacred and civil are imbarqued in your counsels and adventured on your Justice and Mercy your piety and Humility your Equanimity and Moderation You under God are the Ark in which the weather-beaten and scattered remains of our Religion Laws Estates Liberties Peace Honors and Lives are deposited so much of them as hath escaped the tedious tempest and the terrible deluge of our sad troubles and confusions these last score of years in which the windows of heaven the just wrath of God and the fountains of the great deep the lusts and passions of mens

of the Gospel unless there be some way found by the wisdom piety honor and bounty of the Nation of Prince Parliament and People for the competent maintenance of such Ministers as may do the work of God and take care of mens souls with what Justice or Mercy can you exact a full tale of bricks from poor Ministers when they have no straw Alas when shall the scandal of livings not worth fifty or thirty or twenty pounds a year be taken away by the generosity justice liberality and mercy of England How many years tax how much treasure hath been spent to maintain Soldiers and a war of which the publick hath no fruit but those of tears oppression and repentance me thinks it should not seem much to allow one years tax to be gathered in some convenient time by which to begin a banck or treasury an aerarium sacrum for the making some augmentations and purohases of Impropriations to poor livings One good foundation laid for so great and good a work many other superstructures would easily be added by the piety wisdom and charity either of the publick or of the private and well-disposed persons If this may not be put upon the account of Justice to be done to the Church and Clergy of England in compensation of the many diminutions depredations and indignities which they have of late or long since sustained by the policies powers or superstitions of later times yet I beseech you look upon it as a signal and eminent act of Mercy for which thousands of poor people in the Countries who perish for want of knowledge having no Prophet nor seer among them will bless God and you to many generations And since God hath by a most miraculous return of mercy brought you thus far to the morning of your redemption from civil slavery and oppression where we were under Chams curse to be servants of servants O bethink your selves whether it be not worthy of your munificent piety and gratitude to offer some oblation of thankfulness as a peace-offering and Eucharistical monument to God and his Church but I may not so far distrust your nobleness as to urge you too far in this thing which is so much its own Orator and wherein many thousands both Ministers and people are silently and humbly importune for your favour in so great a concern of Church and State yea of mens souls eternal welfare The Fourth and last General Head is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the manner of Gods shewing and requiring these duties of all sorts of men in all occasions times in all dealings and administrations in the whole tenure of their conversation to God and men civil and religious I formerly gave an account of this which will excuse me if I here briefly insist on some main heads only 1. God hath shewed it to mankind in principiis internis in those inward principles of right Reason and that standard of Justice which is set up in each mans own heart besides the Chancery of Mercy both which he cannot but desire in his own case yea he expects and exacts humility reverence and submiss respect from those that are his descendents and inferiors especially if many ways obliged to him by undeserved favours so as every mans case is toward God 2. Praeceptis scripturae by the Letters pattents of the holy Scriptures whereof no man in the light of Religion which shines in the Church can without sin be ignorant because no lessons are easier to be learned and set out in greater characters or text letters both of the ten Commandments and the Gospel than these three of Justice Mercy and Humility Nor is any man meet to learn or observe the more abstruse mysteries of Christianity who doth not first apply to these plain morals of humanity and native Divinity in which instructions who so profited most among the Jews or Gentiles and lived accordingly were most capable vessels of Gods Mercies although they had not such an explicite faith in the Messias as we Christians are now obliged to as a condition of the Evangelical Covenant 3. God hath shewed us these demonstrations magnis exemplaribus exemplis by the greatest exemplars of holy men in all degrees in the best of Kings and vvisest of Counsellors yea in his blessed self and his Son our Lord Jesus Christ in whom Justice was satisfied Mercy Magnified and Humility most exalted for mans imitation To these are added the great examples of his Judgements on those whose exorbitant lusts and passions forgetting God and themselves presumed to do beyond these bounds and prescriptions which the Divine Iustice and Mercy had set to mankind running out to violence and cruelty in order to gratifie their pride On the other side God hath by many blessings on Prince and People manifested his approbation of their ways when conform to those grand Precepts which suppress first all private extravagancies by humility and all publick oppressions by justice mixed with mercy no man that is humble can be unhappy nor any people or Prince miserable who keep to Justice and mercy except in martyrly cases for trial of their faith patience and constancy which are found most in those if not onely who are most endued with principles and wonted as to Justice so to the practice of mercy and humility Lastly God hath shewed and required these things cum gravi interminatione poenae not lightly and arbitrarily but with great earnestness and frequent obtestation threatning punishment answerable to the neglect and executing vengeance on the presumptous nor are they Laws of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} diurnal justice to day loyalty to morrow Treason this week lawful and just next week illegal and unjust like a Lesbian rule but they are standards fixed in Gods immutable Justice mercy and excellent Majesty which no men at any time may dispense withall nor can they be dispensed with as to Gods judgments if they break them But it is now time for me to releive your attention with the variety of my successors paines onely I crave your Christian patience so far as to give me leave to make some such improvement of this Text as the grand occasion and present sollemnity do require You are all this day as the Representatives of the Commons of this Nation met before the Lord to fast and pray to humble and afflict your souls to confess your sins and the sins of your people among which none are more crying to heaven for vengeance then the want of Justice mercy and humility for pride ambition covetousness cruelty and oppression the land hath mourned these many years and the more deploredly because it hath suffered by all these pests of Church and State under the name and pretensions of humility sanctity liberty and equity It was a small matter for us to be miserable by the insolency of some men but we were commanded by their hypocritical and cruel mocking to beleive our selves to be an