Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	church_n	word_n	world_n	3,040	5	4.5870	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02549	An humble remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament, by a dutifull sonne of the Church	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1641 (1641)	STC 12675; ESTC R210029	12,040	46

AN HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE TO THE HIGH COVRT OF PARLIAMENT BY A dutifull Sonne of the CHVRCH LONDON Printed by M.F. for Nathaniel Butter in Pauls Church-yard at the pyde Bull neare St. Austins gate 1640. AN HVMBLE REMONSTRANCE TO THE HIGH COURT of Parliament Most Honourable Lords And yee the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Honourable House of Commons LEST the world should think the Presse had of late forgot to speake any language other then Libellous this honest paper hath broken through the throng and prostrates it selfe before you How meanly soever and unattended it presents it selfe to your view yet it comes to you on a great errand as the faithfull Messenger of all the peaceable and right-affected sonnes of the Church of England and in their names humbly craves a gracious admittance Had it regarded the pomp and ostentation of names it might have gloried in a train past number It is but a poore stock that may be counted Millions of hands if that tumultuary and under-hand way of procured subscriptions could have reason to hope for favour in your eyes shall at your least Command give attestation to that which this scroll doth in their names humbly tender unto you Ye are now happily through Gods blessing met in a much-longed-for Parliament It were but a narrow word to say that the eyes of all us the good Subjects of the whole Realme are fixed upon your successe Certainly there are not more eyes in these three interessed Kingdomes then are now bent upon you yea all the neighbour Churches and Kingdomes if I may not say the whole Christian world and no small part beyond it look wishly upon your faces and with stretched-out necks gaze at the issue of your great Meeting Neither doubt wee but since Soveraigne Authority hath for this purpose both summoned and actuated you you will not faile to produce something worthy of so high an expectation Yee are the Sanctuary whereto now every man flees whether really or pretendedly distressed Even a Ioab or Adonijah will bee also taking hold of the hornes of the Altar Your noble wisedomes know how to distinguish of men and actions and your inviolable justice knowes to award each his owne Many things there are doubtlesse which you finde worthy of a seasonable reformation both in Church and State Neither can it be otherwise but that in a pamperd full body diseases will grow through rest Ponds that are seldome scoured will easily gather mud metals rust and those patients that have inured themselves to a set course of medicinall evacuations if they intermit their springs and falls fall into feverous distempers Not that supreme and immediately-subordinate Authority hath in the meane time been wanting to its charge Surely unlesse wee would suppose Princes to be Gods wee cannot think they can know all things Of necessity they must look with others eyes and heare with others eares and be informed by others tongues and act by others hands and when all is done even the most regular and carefullyinquisitive State is not like the Sunne from whose light and heat nothing is hid It cannot be expected that those constellations which attend the Southerne Pole should take view of our Hemisphere or intermixe their influences with those above our heads Every agent is required and allowed to work within the compasse of its own activitie Yee therefore who by the benefit of your dispersed habitations enjoy the advantage of having the whole Kingdome and all the corners of it within your eies may both clearly see all those enormities wherewith any part is infested unknown to remoter intelligence and can best judge to apply meet remedies thereunto Neither can it be but that those eies of yours which have been privately vigilant within the places of your severall abodes must needs not without much regret in this your publique Meeting take notice of the miserable disorders of so many vicious and misaffected persons as have thrust themselves upon your cognizance Whiles the Orthodoxe part in this whole Realme hath to the praise of their patience been quietly silent as securely conscious of their own right and innocence how many furious and malignant spirits every where have burst forth into sclanderous Libels bitter Pasquines railing Pamphlets under which more Presses then one have groaned wherein they have indeavoured through the sides of some misliked persons to wound that sacred Government which by the joynt-confession of all reformed Divines derives it selfe from the times of the blessed Apostles without any interruption without the contradiction of any one Congregation in the Christian world unto this present age Wherein as no doubt their lewd boldnesse hath been extremely offensive to your wisedomes and piety so may it please you to check this daring and mis-grounded insolence of these Libellers and by some speedy Declaration to let the world know how much you detest this their malicious or ignorant presumption and by some needfull Act to put a present restraint upon the wilde and lawlesse courses of all their factious combinations abroad and enterprises of this kinde And if you finde it passe for one of the maine accusations against some great persons now questioned before you that they endeavoured to alter the forme of the established government of the Common-wealth how can these Pamphleters seem worthy of but an easie censure which combine their counsels and practises for the changing of the setled form of the government of the Church Since if Antiquity may be the rule the civill Politie hath sometimes varied the sacred never And if originall Authority may carry it that came from arbitrary imposers this from men inspired and from them in an unquestionable clearnesse derived to us And if those be branded for Incendiaries which are taxed of attempting to introduce new formes of administration and rules of Divine worship into our neighbour Church how shall those boute-feux of ours escape that offer to doe these offices to our owne the severall and daily variable projects whereof are not worthy of your knowledge or our confutation Let me have leave to instance in two the prime subjects of their quarrell and contradiction Leitourgie and Episcopacy The Liturgie of the Church of England hath been hitherto esteemed sacred reverently used by holy Martyrs daily frequented by devout Protestants as that which more then once hath been allowed and confirmed by the Edicts of religious Princes and by your own Parliamentary Acts and but lately being translated into other Languages hath been entertained abroad with the great applause of forraigne Divines and Churches Yet now begins to complain of scorn at home The Matter is quarrelled by some the Form by others the Use of it by both That which was never before heard of in the Church of God whether Jewish or Christian the very prescription of the most holy devotion offendeth Surely our blessed Saviour and his gracious Fore-runner were so farre from this new Divinitie as that they plainly taught that which these men gain-say a direct

over Presbyters to be grounded rather upon the custome of the Church then any appointment of Christ I must answer First that we cannot prescribe to other mens thoughts when all is said men will take liberty and who can hinder it to abound in their own sense But secondly if they shall grant as they shall be forced that this custome was of the Church Apostolicall and had its rise with the knowledge approbation practise of those inspired Legates of Christ and was from their very hands recommended to the then present and subsequent Church for continuance there is no such great dissonance in the opinions as may be worthy of a quarrell The second is intended to raise envy against us as the uncharitable censurers and condemners of those Reformed Churches abroad which differ from our Government Wherein we do justly complain of a sclanderous aspersion cast upon us We love and honour those Sister-Churches as the dear Spouse of Christ we blesse God for them and we doe heartily wish unto them that happinesse in the partnership of our administration which I doubt not but they doe no lesse heartily wish unto themselves Good words you will perhaps say but what is all this faire complement if our act condemne them if our very Tenet exclude them for if Episcopacy stand by Divine right what becomes of those Churches that want it Malice and ignorance are met together in this unjust aggravation First our position is onely affirmative implying the justifiablenesse and holinesse of an Episcopall calling without any further implication Next when we speak of Divine right we meane not an expresse Law of God requiring it upon the absolute necessity of the being of a Church what hinderances soever may interpose but a Divine institution warranting it where it is and requiring it where it may be had Every Church therefore which is capable of this forme of Government both may and ought to affect it as that which is with so much Authority derived from the Apostles to the whole body of the Church upon earth but those particular Churches to whom this power and faculty is denied lose nothing of the true essence of a Church though they misse something of their glory and perfection whereof they are barred by the necessity of their condition Neither are liable to any more imputation in their credit and esteeme then an honest frugall officious Tenant who notwithstanding the profer of all obsequious services is tied to the limitations and termes of an hard Landlord But so much we have reason to know of the judgement of the neighbour Churches and their famous Divines that if they might hope to live so long as to see a full freedome of option tendred unto them by Soveraigne Authority with all sutable conditions they would most gladly embrace this our forme of Government which differs little from their owne save in the perpetuity of their {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Moderator-ship and the exclusion of that Lay-Presbyterie which never till this age had footing in the Christian Church Neither would we desire to choose any other Judges of our calling and the glorious eminence of our Church so governed then the famous Professors of Geneva it selfe Learned Lectius for a Civilian and for a Divine Fredericus Span●emius the now renowned Pastor and Reader of Divinitie in Geneva who in his Dedicatory Epistle before the third Part of his Dubia Euangelica to the incomparable Lord Primate of Ireland doth zealously applaud and congratulate unto us the happy as he conceiveth flourishing estate of our Church under this Government magnifying the graces of God in the Bishops thereof and shuts up with fervent prayers to God for the continuance of the Authority of the Prelates of these Churches Oh then whiles Geneva it self praiseth our Government and God for it and prayes for the happy perpetuation of it let it not be suffered that any ignorant or spightfull Sectaries should openly in their Libels curse it and maliciously brand it with the termes of Unlawfull and Antichristian Your wisdomes cannot but have found abundant reason to hate and scorn this base and unreasonable suggestion which would necessarily inferre that not Christ but Antichrist hath had the full sway of all Gods Church upon earth for these whole sixteen hundred yeares A blasphemy which any Christian heart must needs abhorre And who that ever hath looked into either Books or men knows not that the religious Bishops of all times are and have been they which have strongly held up the Kingdome of Christ and the sincere truth of the Gospel against all the wicked machinations of Satan and his Antichrist And even amongst our owne how many of the Reverend and Learned Fathers of the Church now living have spent their spirits and worne out their lives in the powerfull opposition of that Man of sin Consider then I beseech you what a shamefull injustice it is in these bold sclanderers to cast upon these zealously-religious Prelates famous for their workes against Rome in forraigne parts the guilt of that which they have so meritoriously and convincingly opposed If this most just defence may satisfie them I shal for their sakes rejoyce But if they shall either with the wilfully-deafe Adder stop their eares or against the light of their owne consciences out of private respects beare up a known error of uncharitablenesse this very paper shall one day be an evidence against them before the dreadfull Tribunall of the Almighty What should I urge in some others the carefull peaceable painfull conscionable managing of their charges to the great glory of God and comfort of his faithfull people And if whiles these challenge a due respect from all well-minded Christians some others heare ill how deservedly God knows and will in due time manifest yet why should an holy calling suffer why should the faults if such be of some diffuse their blame to all Farre far we know is this from the approved integrity of your noble Justice whiles in the mean time unlesse your just check doe seasonably remedy it the impetuous and undistinguishing vulgar are ready so to involve all as to make innocence it self a sin and which I am amazed to think of dare say and write The better man the worse Bishop And now since I am faln upon this sad subject give me leave I beseech you to professe with how bleeding an heart I heare of the manifold scandals of some of the inferiour Clergy presented to your view from all parts It is the misery and shame of this Church if they be so foul as they are suggested but if I durst presume so far I should in the bowells of Christ beseech you upon the finding of so hateful enormities to give me leave to put you in mind of the charitable example of our religious Constantine in the like case you cannot dislike so gracious a patterne I plead not for their impunity let them within the sphere of their