Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	head_n	king_n	supreme_a	4,443	5	9.1068	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53665	Animadversions on a treatise intituled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion, between papist and Protestant, Presbyterian and independent by a Protestant.	Owen, John, 1616-1683.	1662 (1662)	Wing O713; ESTC R22534	169,648	656

or do deserve not the least notice from men who will seriously contemplate the hand power and wisdom of God in the work accomplished by them The next thing undertaken by our Author is the ingress of Protestancy into England and its progress there The old story of the love of King Henry the Eighth to Ann Bullen with the divorce of Queen Katharine told over and over long ago by men of the same principle and design with himself is that which he chooseth to flourish withall I shall say no more to the story but that English-men were not wont to believe the whispers of an unknown Fryer or two before the open redoubled Protestation of one of the most famous Kings that ever swaid the Scepter of this Land before the union of the Crowns of England and Scotland These men whatever they pretend shew what reverence they have to our present Soveraign by their unworthy defamation of his Royal Predecessors But let men suppose the worst they please of that great Heroick Person What are his miscarriages unto Protestant Religion for neither was he the Head Leader or Author of that Religion nor did he ever receive it profess it or embrace it but caused men to be burned to death for its profession Should 〈◊〉 by way of Retaliation return unto our Author the lives and practices of some of many not of the great or leading men of his Church but of the Popes themselves the Head sum and in a manner whole of their Religion at least so farre that without him they will not acknowledge any he knows well enough what double measure shaken together pressed down and running over may be returned unto him A work this would be I confess no way pleasing unto my self for who can delight in raking into such a sink of Filth as the lives of many of them have been yet because he seems to talk with a confidence of willingness to revive the memory of such ulcers of Christianity if he proceed in the course he hath begun it will be necessary to mind him of not boxing up his eyes when he looks towards his own home That Poysonings Adulteries Incests Conjurations Perjuries Atheism have been no strangers to that See if he knows not he shall be acquainted from stories that he hath no colour to except against For the present I shall only mind him and his friends of the Comaedian's advice Dehinc ut quiescunt porro m●neo desinant Maledicere malefactae ne noscant su● The declaration made in the days of that King that he was Head of the Church of England intended no more but that there was no other person in the world from whom any Jurisdiction to be exercised in this Church over his Subjects might be derived the Supreme Authority for all exterior Government being vested in him alone That this should be so the Word of God the nature of the Kingly Office and the ant●ent Laws of this Realm do require And I challenge our Author to produce any one Testimony of Scripture or any one word out of any general Council or any one Catholick Father or Writer to give the least countenance to his assertion of two heads of the Church in his sense an head of Influence which is Jesus himself and an head of Government which is the Pope in whom all the sacred Hierarchy ends This taking of one half of Christs Rule and Headship out of his hand and giving it to the Pope will not be salved by that expression thrust in by the way under him For the Headship of influence is distinctly ascribed unto Christ and that of Government to the Pope which evidently asserts that he is not in the same manner head unto his Church in both these senses but He in one and the Pope in another But whatever was the cause or occasion of the dissention between King Henry and the Pope it 's certain Protestancy came into England by the same way and means that Christianity came into the World the painful pious Professors and Teachers of it sealed its truth with their bloud and what more honourable entrance it could make I neither know nor can it be declared Nor did England receive this Doctrine from others in the days of King Henry it did but revive that light which sprung up amongst us long before and by the fury of the Pope and his adherents had been a while suppressed And it was with the blood of English-men dying patiently and gloriously in the flames that the truth was sealed in the dayes of that King who lived and dyed himself as was said in the profession of the Roman faith The Truth flourished yet more in the dayes of his pious and hopefull Son Some stop our Author tels us was put to it in the dayes of Queen Mary But what stop of what kind of no other than that put to Christianity by Trajan Dioclesian Julian a stop by fire and sword and all exquisite cruelties which was broken through by the constant death and invincible patience and prayers of Bishops Ministers and People numberless a stop that Rome hath cause to blush in the remembrance of and all Protestants to rejoyce having their faith tryed in the fire and coming forth more pretious than Gold Nor did Queen Elizabeth as is falsly pretended indeavour to continue that stop but cordially from the beginning of her Reign embraced that faith wherein she had before been instructed And in the maintenance of it did God preserve her from all the Plots Conspiracies and Rebellions of the Papists Curses and Depositions of the Popes with Invasions of her Kingdomes by his instigation as also her renowned Successor with his whole Regal posterity from their contrivance for their Martyrdom and ruin During the Reign of those Royal and Magnificent Princes had the Power and Polity of the Papal world been able to accomplish what the men of this innocent and quiet Religion professedly designed they had not had the advantage of the late miscarriages of some professing the Protestant Religion in reference to our late King of glorious Memory to triumph in though they had obtained that which would have been very desirable to them and which we have but sorry evidence that they do not yet aim at and hope for As for what he declares in the end of his 10th Paragraph about the Reformation here that it followed wholly neither Luther nor Calvin which he intermixes with many unseemly taunts and reflexions on our Laws Government and Governours is as far as it is true the glory of it It was not Luther nor Calvin but the Word of God and the practise of the primitive Church that England proposed for her rule and pattern in her Reformation and where any of the Reformers forsook them she counted it her duty without reflexions on them or their wayes to walk in that safe one she had chosen out for her self Nor shal I insist on his next Paragraph destined to the advancement of his interest

he confesseth that he doth purposely conceal But the truth is it is easily discoverable there being few pages in the Book that do not display it The Reader then must understand that the plain English of all his Commendations of Moderation and all his Exhortations to a relinquishment of those false Lights and Principles which have lead men to a disturbance of the Publique Peace and ensuing Calamities is that Popery is the only Religion in the world and that centring therein is the only means to put an end to our differences heats and troubles Unless this be granted it will be very hard to find one grain of sincerity in the whole Discourse and if it be no less difficult to find so much of Truth So that whatever may be esteemed suitable to the fancies of any of them whom our Author courts in his Address those who know any thing of the holiness of God and the Gospel of that Reverence which is due to Christ and his Word and wherewith all the concernments of Religion ought to be mannaged will scarsely judge that that blessed Fountain of Light and Truth will immixe his pure beams and blessing with such crafty worldly sophistical devices or such frothy ebullitions of Wit and Fansie as this Discourse is stuffed withall These are things that may be fit to entangle unstable spirits who being regardless of Eternity and steering their course according to every blast of temptation that fills their lusts and carnal pleasures are as ready to change their Religion it men can make any change in or of that which in reality they neither leave nor receive but only sport themselves to and fro with the cloud and shadow of it as they are their cloaths and fashions Those who have had experience of the power and efficacy of that Religion which they have professed as to all the ends for which Religion is of God revealed will be little moved with the Stories Pretenses and Diversions of this Discourse Knowing therefore our Author's design and which we shall have occasion to deal with him about throughout his Treatise which is to take advantage from the late miscarriages amongst us and the differences that are in the world in Religion to perswade men not indeed and ultimately to mutual moderation and forbearance but to a general acquiescency in the Roman-Catholicism I shall not here further speak unto it The five Heads of his matter may be briefly run over as he proposeth them pag. 13. with whose consideration I shall take my leave of his Preface The first is That there is not any colour of Reason or just Title to move us to quarrel and judge one another with so much heat about Religion Indeed there is not nor can there be no man was ever so madd as to suppose there could be any reason or just Title for men to do evil To quarrel and judge one another with heats about Religion is of that nature But if placing himself to keep a decorum amongst Protestants he would insinuate that we have no reason to contend about Religion as having lost all Title unto it by our departure from Rome I must take leave unto this general head to put in a general Demurrer which I shall afterwards plead to and vindicate His second is That all things are so obscure that no man in prudence can so far presume of his own knowledge as to set up himself a guide and leader in Religion I say so too and suppose the words as they lye whatever be intended in them are keenly set against the great Papal pretension whatever he may pretend we know the Pope sets up himself to be a guide to all men in Religion and if he do it not upon a presumption of his own knowledge we know not on what better grounds he doth it And though we wholly condemn mens setting up themselves to be Guides and Leaders to their Neighbours yet if he intend that all things are so obscure that we have no means to come to the knowledge of the Truth concerning God and his mind so far as it is our duty to know it and therefore that no man can teach or instruct another in that knowledge I say as before we are not yet of his mind whether we shall be or no the process of our Discourse will shew 3. He adds That no Sect hath any advantage at all over another nor all of them together over Popery Yes They that have the Truth wherein they have it have advantage against all others that have it not And so Protestancy hath advantage over Popery And here the Pretext or Vizor of this Protestant begins to turn aside in the next head it quite falls from him That is 4. That all the several kinds of Religion here in England are equally innocent to one another And Popery as it stands in opposition to them is absolutely innocent and unblameable to them all I am little concerned in the former part of these words concerning the several kinds of Religion in England having undertaken the defence of one only namely Protestancy Those that are departed from Protestancy so far as to constitute another kind of Religion as to any thing from me shall plead for themselves However I wish that all parties in England were all equally innocent to one another or that they would not be willing to make themselves equally nocent But the latter part of the words contain I promise you a very high undertaking Popery is innocent absolutely innocent and unblameable to them all I fear we shall scarce find it so when we come to the tryal I confess I do not like this pretence of absolute innocency and unblameableness I suppose they are Men that profess Popery and I do know that Popery is a Religion or Profession of mens finding out how it should come to be so absolutely innocent on a suddain I cannot imagine but we will leave this until we come to the proof of it taking notice only that here is a great promise made unto his noble and ingenious Readers that cannot advantage his cause if he be not able to make it good The close is 5. That as there neither is nor can be any rational motive for Disputes and Animosities about matters of Religion so is there an indispensable moral cause obliging us to moderation c. But this as I observed before though upon the first view of the sign hanging up at the door a man would guess to be the whole work that was doing in the house is indeed no part of his business and is therefore thrust out at the postern in two short leaves the least part of them in his own words after the spending of 364 pages in the pursuit of his proper design But seeing we must look over these things again in the Chapters assigned to their adorning we may take our leave of them at present and of his Preface together CHAP. V. Chap. I. Contests about Religion and Reformation Schoolmen