Selected quad for the lemma: order_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
order_n church_n pope_n rome_n 3,776 5 6.5276 4 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A36092 A discourse for taking off the tests and penal laws about religion 1687 (1687) Wing D1593; ESTC R3313 36,709 48

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

intermedling of any Exterior Person or Persons to declare and determine all such Doubts and to administer all such Offices and Duties as to their Rooms Spiritual doth appertain So far the Statute 24. Hen. 8. c. 12. From which I infer That as the English Papists differ from Foreign Papists so the reason they give for what they hold in contradistinction to Foreign Papists is very cogent and powerful They need not apply themselves to any Foreign Power because they have always had at home persons every way qualified to determine all their Doubts And this was not only the Judgment of the Papists at this time but as they declare this has been the sense of their Forefathers for say they it has been always reputed it has been always found it has been always thought heretofore as well as at this hour and whoever will look back to the first words of the Statute may see cause to conclude that thus much they gathered out of the divers Authentic Histories and Chronicles which they consulted And that this must be esteemed especially by the Church of England to be the sense of the English Papist is manifest from the whole scope of Archbishop Bramhall's arguing against the Papists in Vindication of the Church of England when he charges the Papists for making the first Separation from Rome The first Separation saith he was not made by Protestants but by Papists and he endeavors to justifie the Separation by proving that always the English Papists esteem'd themselves a Church that did ever renounce the Pope's Supremacy and that what Henry VIII did was no more than an acting in pursuance of the ancient Law of the Land. To this of the Archbishop's I add That if the first Separation from the Church of Rome was made by Papists then it 's the Judgment of English Papists that they do not stand oblig'd to any Foreign Councils 't is their Judgment that tho' they grant the Pope a Primacy of Order yet that he ought not to have a Supremacy of Jurisdiction for the Crown of England is Imperial and the English Bishops are sufficiently qualified to determine all matters of doubt within themselves And this has been always their Judgment and is so at this time for our King by a continued Exercise of his Ecclesiastical Supremacy asserts it to be a Jewel inherent in his Crown and not to be parted with This then being the avowed Principle of the English Papists the mentioning the Decree of the Council of Lateran as what obliges them before it is prov'd to have been received amongst our Laws cannot affect us for until it be taken in amongst our Laws it obliges not an English Papist nor are they bound to take in this Decree amongst our Laws any more than they were anciently obliged to receive the Canon about Bastardy Furthermore whoever will look into this Objection he must needs see it to be ill as well as weak in the Foundation For to give strength to their Argument it must be presumed That either the Body of the People will turn Papist as soon as the Tests are taken off and choose none but Papists to sit in the following Parliament for to say some few may for Preferment does not reach the Case or a Parliament contrary to all Laws shall be imposed upon us To presume the former is to insinuate without the least colour of Reason that the Body of the Kingdom have nothing to say for their being Protestants but this That their Religion is uppermost and established by Law and that there are such Tests imposed on those who sit in Parliament that Popery is like never to be established But whatever may be said of the Church of England of whom yet I have better thoughts the world knows that a great part of the Nation notwithstanding the severity of the Penal Laws could not be persuaded to close with the Church of England because there was so much Popery in it and it 's to be supposed they 'll abide so firm to the Protestant Religion when they are in no danger of Sufferings as they did when they suffer'd so very much And it must be further considered That these Dissenters when Penal Laws hung over their heads and they were in constant danger of being immediately destroyed by them did even then appear so vigorously in the choosing their Representatives as to carry it for three Parliaments successively against the Papist and Church of England too and it 's not to be doubted but that when the Penal Laws are taken off they 'll not be less Able nor less Industrious to choose such to sit in Parliament as shall be far from introducing the Lateran Decree into their Laws for extirpating the Protestant Religion If on the other hand it shall be urged That a Parliament contrary to the Fundamentals of our Constitution shall be imposed on us by Regal Authority which is a thing the thoughts whereof should be abhorr'd by every good Subject it cannot be apprehended to be more Legal hereafter than such a Parliament presently chosen made up of whomsoever He pleases without taking the Test And considering that our King is aged if such a thing were design'd would it not be the Papists Interest to take that course immediately And seeing they take it not now may we not conclude rationally that they 'll not do it hereafter And yet farther if this were supposed as to the House of Commons the House of Lords for all that are so many of 'em Protestant and out-ballancing the Papists that unless we will reflect on our Nobility as well as on His Majesty and the Body of the Nation and say That as soon as the Tests are taken off they 'll be all Papists also there is no fear of such a matter Again the Papists also must be presum'd to be all fallen under the most strange deliration and madness imaginable seeing otherwise they must know that if they declare themselves to be for violent Methods or make any such attempt it must be with the greatest disadvantages to themselves for it is as if Five men would encounter a Thousand And they must consider how much such an Attempt would enrage the whole Kingdom and how uncertain they are of compassing their end in this King's Reign and how easie is it for the Protestants under a Successor of their Religion to destroy the Papists So that the very Attempt would but prepare their Families and Posterity for a Sacrifice under a Protestant Successor If then there be any wise men of Estates among them that can influence they 'll see it their Interest and make it their Endeavor if possible to Establish Liberty of Conscience on a Rock that can never be moved And altho' some may say that the Priests and Jesuits are a Fiery-spirited People who are for pushing on to violence yet it 's manifest that our Popish Gentry heretofore were never so Priest-ridden as to regard the Priests Humor more than their own
Communion an Interest in the Advantages of the Government of the Land. So that if it has been her care to open the way that those who believe Transubstantiation may notwithstanding that belief be admitted to her Communion the making this Test to the excluding all such Believers of Transubstantiation from their Civil Rights must needs be unjustifiable in the Church of England But in Obedience to Queen Elizabeth it has been the endeavor of the Church of England to explain the Doctrin of the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist in such a Latitude of Expression as might indeed take in under it the Notion of Transubstantiation Thus much the Queen commanded as Dr. Burnet in his History of Reformation reports in these words The Queen who inclin'd to keep up Images in the Churches was resolved to have the Manner of Christ's presence in the Sacrament left in some general words that those who believe the Corporal Presence might not be driven away from the Church by too nice an Explication of it And as Dr. Heylin assures us the Church obey'd this Injunction For saith he in his Hist of Q. Eliz. In the first year of K. Edward the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper being delivered with this Benediction that is to say The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for the Preservation of thy Body and Soul to Life everlasting The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ c. This was thought by Calvin and his Disciples to give some countenance to the gross and carnal presence of Christ in the Sacrament which passeth by the name of Transubstantiation in the School of Rome This was alter'd into this Form in the second Liturgy that is to say Take eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed on him in thy heart by Faith with Thanksgiving Take and drink this c. But the Revisers of the Book in Queen Elizabeth 's time joyned both Forms together that so according to the Queen's Injunctions the Corporal Presence by the Addition of the old Form might receive countenance Vpon this ground they expunged also a whole Rubric at the end of the Communion Service in which 't was declared that Kneeling was not in Regard of any Real and Essential Presence of Christ's Body and Blood. And to come up closer to the Church of Rome it was ordered by the Queen's Injunctions That the Sacramental Bread should be made round in fashion of the Wafers as in Queen Mary 's Days She also ordered That the Lord's Table should be placed where the Altar stood So far Heylin Besides in pursuance of the Queens Orders in the Communion in the Catechism and Book of Homilies there are several Expressions countenancing the Real and Corporal Presence which has been the occasion of Dr. Moor's brief Discourse on the Real Presence in which it must be observ'd that the Doctor putting us in mind of the Bishop of Meaux's Judgment which was That the Opinion of the Real Presence is the Doctrin of all the Churches as well Reform'd as Unreform'd The Doctor adds That he must confess he has been of this Persuasion ever since he wrote his Mystery of Godliness viz. That it is the Doctrin of the Church of England and that the Doctrin is true And he further assures us in these Words I remember saith he this I have heard from a near Relation of mine when I was a Youth a Dignitary of the Church of England and that often viz. That our Church was for the Real Presence but for the manner thereof if asked he would answer Rem scimus modum nescimus We know the Thing but the Mode or Manner thereof we know not And the Assurance we have of the Thing is from the common Suffrage of the Ancient Fathers and from the Scripture it self which impress'd that Notion on the Minds of our pious Predecessors in the Church of God. Nor can we as I humbly conceive relinquish this Doctrin of the Real Presence without declining the most easie and natural Sense of the Holy Scripture as it stands written in the Sixth Chapter of John. Pag. 42. Of which this Doctor saith It is plain that our Saviour's Discourse in this Chapter has for its Object or Subject not the Manner or Way of receiving his Body and Blood as if it were meant of that very Flesh and Blood on the Cross but that it was to be receiv'd in a Spiritual manner which Interpreters several of them drive at but the Object of his Discourse is his very Flesh and Blood it self to be taken as the Fish and Loaves were wherewith he lately fed them or it is Himself in reference to his Flesh and Blood which belongs to him as he is the Eternal Word Thus far Dr. Moor of Cambridge if he be the Author of the Mystery of Godliness from whom I observe the Doctrin of the Church of England to be this viz. That the very Flesh and Blood of Christ is present in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist in the same Sense as the Fish and Loaves were present to the multitude miraculously fed by them Of this Thing with them there is no doubt tho' as to the Manner how it should be so they are in the dark And were not the Fish and the Loaves Corporally present How then can the Flesh and Blood of Christ be present in the Eucharist as the Fish and Loaves were unless Corporally present And if Corporally present there must be either a Transubstantiation or a Consubstantiation And I have heard some Learned Protestants say that of the two Consubstantiation is the most difficult and perplexing And this Doctor himself unless he lays a violence on the very Words of the Text as understood by all Men throughout Christendom whether Papist or Protestant and moreover falls into one of the greatest Extravagances of Plato cannot escape a closure with Transubstantiation For he offers nothing towards the solving this great Phainomenon but this That tho' the Body of Christ is present yet not the Body Broken on the Cross tho' the Holy Ghost expresly affirms it but a Body made of Divine and Spiritual Flesh and Blood every where present a Vehicle for the Eternal Logos to inhabit So that he is necessitated contrary to express Scripture not to make a Coat for the Moon but God Almighty knows with horror I mention it a Coat for the Godhead of Christ a Body compos'd of Flesh and Blood of equal extent with and for the Clothing of Divine Nature For the countenancing which he brings Gratian a Popish Canonist whom he quotes out of Morney distinguishing between the Body of Christ's Soul which was Broken on the Cross and the Body of the Eternal Word or Logos and affirms That the Body in the Eucharist is the Omnipresent Body of the Eternal Word which is there Corporally present From the whole then I would humbly propose to the Reader 's Thoughts these few Considerations 1. That the Doctrin of the Church