Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A62951
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Innocency no shield against envy A sermon preached on Friday, April 11. being the fast-day appointed by the Kings proclamation to seek reconciliation with God, &c. By George Topham, rector of Boston in Lincolnshire. Perused and approved of by the right Reverend father in God, Thomas, Lord Bishop of Lincoln.
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Topham, George, d. 1694.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing T1906; ESTC R220703
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23,634
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40
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money are eternally damned as dying out of the Communion of the Church So that if St. Peter should now come to his Successor in his old tone Silver and Gold have I none if he were a thousand Peters he must into Purgatory How many Millions then of Souls did this Innocent the Pope wilfully send to Hell in this great Kingdom of England in the Space of above six years And this for no offence no fault of theirs For what could they do if the King would not be ruled by the Pope Are these the actions of the Vicar of Christ Is this the kind Father of the Church Is this the way of managing the Keys Yes he that consults the Reigns of our succeeding Kings from the time of King John to our own which would make me too great a debtor to your patience particularly to relate shall find that no stone has been left unturn'd no policies though never so horrid have not been put in execution to reduce this Nation to that miserable slavery they had once imposed upon it For it is not for the Points of true Doctrine but for Wealth and Grandeur for the setting up of their visible Monarchy of the Church whereof Christ and his Apostles never spake a word and of which the Primitive Fathers never dreamt they so much contend Henry the Eighth held all the Doctrinal Points of the Romish Religion yet for rejecting the Jurisdiction of Rome was Excommunicated by the Pope his Subjects commanded to deny obedience and all men to take Arms against him This is it which if our Religion would allow Pius IV. Hist Conc. Trid. lib. 8. p. 7.5 they would allow of our Religion The Politick rather than Pious Pope said once Since he could not regain the Protestants it was necessary to keep those in obedience which he had to make the division strong and the parties irreconcilable Conformable whereunto their now Doctrine is that such as submit not to the Popes Supremacy do renounce Christianity When the Fires of Queen Maries bloudy Reign could not do this work how many Plots were laid against the life of Queen Elizabeth that Queen of blessed memory by whose gracious hand God wrought those wonders that the most potent Kings can hardly reach Honour filled the Circle of her Crown her brow with Majesty her heart with Piety and her lap with Plenty Yet how execrable were the Treasons against that glorious Defender of the Faith and of her Royal Rights When neither the Dagger nor the Poyson could reach her Sacred Person an invincible Armado as they themselves stiled it must be sent to invade England three Popes having made way for the Sword by three roaring Bulls which dethroned the Queen and commanded her Subjects to take Arms against her But when the invincible Army had lost that name being defeated by the powerful Arm of God other Armies were poured from time to time into Ireland ever prone to Rebel When all those effects were frustrated God blessing England because the Popes cursed it and Elizabeth full of days and glory was translated from a Temporal to an Eternal Diadem her peaceful Successor Defender of the same holy Faith must be welcomed to his Throne by a Mandate of Clement the VIII declaring him unworthy to sit there as an Heretick and forbidding his Subjects to obey him When all that would not effect the desired end to make short work such a device is excogitated as nothing but Rome and the Devil could have invented And now they are resolved on that desperate Cry Incendium extinguatur ruina the King and his Royal Issue Lords and Commons all the flower and vigour of the Kingdom must be blown up sent to heaven before the Resurrection Bloudy Priests that would have offered a whole burnt Sacrifice and made both Prince and Peers pass through the fire an oblation to their Moloch of Rome And as for our late King of blessed memory that Prince in whose breast all those Vertues Centred which severally had commended the great Monarchs of former Ages Was he not beholden as it is now apparent to his Holiness for raising all those storms of Rebellion upon the face of his calm Government hoping in those troubled waters to have catch'd that Fish he had been Angling for so many Ages Indeed the large claim of St. Peters Regalities has been for these last six hundred years the cause of all the Corruptions of Faith and Religion of all the Confusions and Distractions of all the Seditions and Rebellions in the West of the world And we of this Island by sad experience have been taught that this is the great Wheel that sets those Mischiefs Plots and Treasons on going wherewith the State hath been so many times shaken torn and brought to the brink of ruine For when hot-headed Zealots are really perswaded that the Pope has power to depose Emperours and Kings that oppose him and absolve Subjects from their Allegiance to them and this believed as absolutely necessary to Salvation what Royal bloud will they spare What attempt be it never so cruel never so unjust never so difficult will they not assay to bring their Country under the Popes subjection and to promote his Universal Monarchy Or can it be expected they will desist from endeavouring its reducement though after the most inhumane and barbarous way that any thing but Rome and Hell ever thought of so long as the Pope whose slaves they are is himself a slave to his own cruel and illimited Ambition which to satiate all the Kingdoms and all the bloud in the world are too little And never was it more evident more apparent to the world than in this late discovered Conspiracy against our most gracious Sovereign what their resolutions are and what both King and People must expect from the Roman Prelate whose malice never sleeps nor whose Agents never rest to work his Ruine so that he may say of them and justly too as King David did of his They are minded to do me some mischief so maliciously are they bent against me But we will pass from their Malice and Policy to a consideration of their Might and Power the next in order The mighty men are gathered against me The mighty alas he is such in the Superlative degree that is enemy to his Majesty if you will believe him for this he that asserts that all Empires and Scepters are at his dispose As Pius the Fifth taught the People of this Kingdom in express words in the Bull of Deprivation which he thundred against Queen Elizabeth And to make this good to the world and to shew the height of his Pride Pope Celestine crowned Henry the Sixth Emperour of that name with his feet and kickt it off when he had done making no less than an Emperours Crown his Foot-ball Gregory the Seventh made Henry the Fourth pay attendance at his Gates in Winter four days bare-footed And Alexander the Third with an insulting scorn trode on the Neck
his addresses to the Empress that the Emperour would be pleased to command a Synod to be celebrated in Italy and though he did it by all the ways of humility could not obtain it The next is Pope Pelagius the First who asserted that by holy Scripture then adjusted as the rule of faith and manners they were commanded to be subject to Kings The third is Pope Adrian the first who devoted himself to the Emperour by Letters as one in supplication fallen down prostrate at the soles of his feet That base submission of Princes kissing the Popes Toe being not then known to the world It was a thousand years after Christ before St. Peters temporal Sword was found unsheath'd and flourished to fright Kings out of their Authority and Power and what horrid means have they used it having laid rusting so long to make it bright deluding and inebriating the people with false opinions perswading them to drink down Poyson instead of wholsom Doctrine to break the most manifest and positive Laws of God at the Popes command How strongly do the Precepts of the Almighty bind us to an obedience to all that are in Authority and Power How has he hedged in Regality saying Touch not mine Anointed That one would think nothing could be more safe Yet alas how has this wild Boar out of the Fofrest broke down all those Fences Telling his Devotaries that he hath power to absolve them from all their Oaths of Allegiance to their King the Lords Anointed and declaring they ought rather to obey him than God That it is no matter nay though St. Peter himself gave it in charge and that for Conscience sake as acceptable to heaven 1 Pet. ii 17. not only to fear God but to honour the King Thereby plainly intimating that it is impossible to be true Servants to God without being Loyal Subjects to the King so long as he says Rebel against Princes who will not own my Supremacy and for Conscience sake though contrary to Religion and common honesty work Treasons Insurrections Massacres and what not for that is acceptable to God What new incredible abominable Doctrine is this That firing Cities Treasons Rebellions dethroning of Princes adjudging their Kingdoms to strangers filling the World with Perjuries Wars Invasions bringing in a Chaos of Confusion and the face of Hell into the Christian world should be meritorious a work of Piety and Religion Yet is not this preached up by the Jesuits espoused and faithfully believed and practised by the Romanists Could the Martyrs of his Holiness speak to us from their Ashes under the Gallows how would they tell us that what they did was in obedience to the Father of their Faith the Pope whose Mandate did instruct and encourage them to do it upon him then upon that your unwearied enemy lay the greatest burden of the infamy Look to shield your heads from the designs of the living and leave the dead in the hands of Gods Justice For be assured that though we are cut off he will not want some Sons as blindly zealous as we were who for the hopes of a Canonization will refuse the executing of no Treason though never so horrid never so bloudy nay though against Princes by whom they have been never so much obliged And that this is their Creed and Practice was there ever a more clear demonstration to the world than in this damnable Piot against his Sacred Majesty which Heaven in despite of all their seeret contrivances has been pleased to lay open to their shame if they be capable of any and our comfort Which brings me to the last particular proposed by way of Parallel Davids resolution to praise God for delivering of him Now in this as well as in the rest our King is resolved not to be behind King David having commanded to blow the Trumpet in Zion and sanctifie a Fast a Trumpet worthy of Royal breath having set this day apart to bless God for his mercies already bestowed and by an early and timely repentance in and through the bloud of the ever blessed Jesus to engage a further continuance of them Never was it never can it be more seasonable than now Now when our God has done so great things for his Anointed delivering from his enemies whose Malice is not to be defeated and whose secret Combinations are not to be discovered but by his goodness who never slumbers nor sleeps in our prefervation Ask from East to West consult the days of old and see if ever God has appeared more visibly for any Nation than this of ours How did he scatter that daring Armado in Eighty Eight not only to the wonder of our Allies but to the Amazement of our Enemies which made some of them though blasphemously say That God himself was turned Lutheran whose prodigious weight seemed to make the very Waves groan with its insupportable burden How did he in the days of King James lay open those Penetralia mortis those inward Chambers and recesses of death Their secresie made them confident engaging their Agents with all that is looked upon as Sacred Religion Oath and Sacrament not to reveal it eating their God upon a bargain of bloud How did he when they by raising those late uncivil Civil Wars and dissensions among us hoped to have made us fallen by our own Swords make us happy in his Majesties return And to endear our gratitude how is he resolved as it is evident by the discovery of this late most detestable Conspiracy still to defend maugre all their envy and malice the Great Defender of the Faith So that if we have not absolutely taken leave of our Understandings if our spirits be not quite besotted we must say with holy David What shall we return unto the Lord for all his benefits done unto us What indeed O God! for delivering us from a Religion that contrary to all thy Precepts in the Old and the Doctrine and Example of thy Son in the New Testament commands us to Worship Images Adore Reliques Invoke Saints Sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead hold a Purgatory as if the bloud of the ever blessed Jesus was not able to do it for the cleansing of Souls tread down thy Viceroys from their Thrones and set up an usurping Prelate who by the consent of all Ages has been acknowledged a Vassal to Princes in short from a Religion that would take away the Scriptures those Sacred Legacies of thine to the Sons of men and wrap up our Consciences in the livery of an unknown Language that licenses Stews condemns Marriage sells Pardons and Canonizes Traitors So that surely were there nothing but this it were enough for ever to oblige our thankfulness Yet besides for ever to engage us to thy service how hast thou chosen us out of all the Earth and divided us from the rest of the World that we might be a singular Pattern and strange wonder of thy bounty How hast thou fenced us about