Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	england_n	rome_n	5,202	5	6.8819	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A69663	The grand impostor vnmasked, or, A detection of the notorious hypocrisie and desperate impiety of the late Archbishop, so styled, of Canterbury cunningly couched in that written copy which he read on the scaffold at his execution, Ian. 10, 1644, alias called by the publisher, his funerall sermon / by Henry Burton.	Burton, Henry, 1578-1648.	1644 (1644)	Wing B6163; ESTC R6460	22,693	23

Nocents are which he was to have looked better to But for all this he thankes Christ he is quiet within as ever O poor wretch What All this while no remorse no stirring no sting of conscience No awaking of that sleepy Lion No apprehension of Divine Iustice Nothing but a dead slumber or deep Hipocrisie or damnable Atheisme I remember how * Bernard tells us of a bad conscience and quiet which is the most dangerous desperate of all other Among others his Predecessors as he calls them he brings in St. Iohn Baptist as he styles him whose head was danced off by a lewd woman And surely if he had been as faithfull as John Baptist was in reproving Herod and his lewd Woman he might perhaps have been prevented of loosing his head for treason and might have proved a Saint William for it did Saint-ship now a daies goe by vertue ●and not by villany the way that he tooke And why among the rest did he not mention his Predecessor his St. Thomas a Be●ket who thogh not judicially was taken away He sought by depressing the King and State to exalt the libertie of the Church For this the Pope Sainted him but K. Hen. 8. afterward would have him called no longer Saint but Traitor But this man thought himselfe no Traitor because not against the King As if Treason against the State of the Kingdome and Common-weale be not treason also against the King by dividing the one from the other and cutting the knot that should knit them together as Oath Covenant Lawes But it comforts him that his charge lookes somewhat like that of St. Paul Act. 25. being accused for Law and Religion and that of Stephen Act. 6. A poore comfort when well considered and the account cast up And though Paul before his conversion was consenting to Stephens death yet he found Mercy afterward as having done it ignorantly and confessing and repenting of it But this Prelate could not say he persecuted the Saints ignorantly neither would ever confesse those persecuting sins of his nor repent of them and therefore how could he finde or hope for mercy at Gods hand or mans either Here he as impertinently as before hales in another place of Scripture and that most grosly The Romans will come if we let this man ●lone Surely he hath pretty well played his part to bring the Romans in for hath he not been a maine instrument to fill the Land with Papists and prophane ignorant Protestants not only by the publishing of that prophane Booke of Sports lately burned in Cheap-side where with the whole Land hath been poysoned but by stopping the free course of Preaching God● Word cropping off both branch and fruit of all godlinesse and sound knowledge and by placing his prophane and Popishly-affected avaritious and ambitious Priests and the Courts favourites in all the chiefe places of the Kingdome so as no marvaile it is if by the industry of this man that enemy who hath sowed his tares in every field of this Kingdome while men sl●pt the Pope never had such a harvest in England And surely never had the Pope such a desperate power and numerous party in England and that collected out of all Popish Countries round about waging warre against our Lawes and Liberties Religion and Republick and all to reduce by solemn and fast league with Rome England back againe to the Pope as being one of those that are made drunke with the Whoores cup and doe give up their Kingdome unto the Beast who now altogether make warre with the Lamb and those on his side called and chosen and faithfull so that Popery is that grand Sect the Grand●m of all divisions especially of this great one between King and Kingdome Head and Body Husband and Wife Father and Children a right Babylonish division which tends to confusion But his aym was against godly people who separating from his Hierarchy he brands with sects and divisions and therin comprehendeth and condemneth the very body of the Kingdome the which hath cast out both Bishops and their Service book for which he styles us all Sects c. But I trust God will so blesse these Sects that they shall be the Angel with the sharp sickle to cut down the Popes Harvest in this Land never hence-forth to reap any more in England And as for that place of the * Apostle the Hypocrite doth most falsly apply it unto himself as he doth all other Scripture For his honour is dishonour his good report is evill and this deceiver is truely so living and dying Next he tells us what a good Protestant the King is Truely if he be not so good as he would have him the fault is not the Prelates And what good councell he hath given him both his practises and his Epistle Dedicatory before his Relation besides his conscience can tell Here he complaines of the City for that fashion in gathering of hands and going to the Parliament to clamour for Justice as being a disparagement to that great and just Court a way to indanger the innocent and pluck innocent bloud upon their owne and Cities head How What a disparagement doth he finely cast upon that great and wise Court as if any such clamour should extort from them any act of injustice as thereby to condemne the innocent Indeed if that Honourable Court were as those Pharisies in Stephens case and as Herod in Peters having killed Iames to whom this man compares our Parliament as not daring to do any thing in this kind till they saw how the pe●ple were affected it were some thing But here this Serpent sli●y stings both People and Parliament But was there not a cause And for his bidd●ng take heed of having our hands full of bloud surely this is the ready way to f●ee both land and hand from the guilt of innocent bloud when justice is hastened upon the heads of those who have shed it T is tru● God hath his owne time but we must serve his divine paovidence by doing our dutie and using the meanes Therein is our discharge and safetie And he might as well blame Gods Elect for crying day and night to the great Iudge to avenge their cause Surely if Gods wisdome and carefull providence over his people were hereby eclipsed hee would not animate them thus to cry and importune him continually and * not to faint but sharply reprove them and forbid them so to doe as here the Prelate doth Therefore certainly in calling for justice not only of God but of man who sits in Gods throne for that end is the peoples dutie who ought to obey God rather than a Prelate who is so unreasonably partiall in his owne cause Those places Psal. 9. and Heb. 12. he miserably applyes he would now in that impenitent and desperate condition be that poore man whose complaint God remembers and those fearfully to fall into the hands of the living God who have passed or procured the

the Prelate hath Gilded over his Protestation for currant for which he flies and layes hold on the Hornes of the Altar in the Kings Chappell his most sacred Sanctuary His * other is a word of Equivocation which is Popery He distinguisheth Popery into Proper and Improper or lesse proper Popery taken properly is that whereof the Pope is sole Head and Master And this is that Popery which he here protesteth he never intended or endeavoured to set up in the Church of England to wit the universall Headship of the Pope which the Logitians call proprium quarto modo that is such as is proper to the Pope and onely to the Pope and alwayes to the Pope as laughing is said to be proper to man alone at all times The Prelate then would not have such a Popery set up in the Propriety of it as should exalt the P. over the See of Canterbury to over-top the Metropolitan of all England What then He would have no other Popery set up in England then that only which is lesse proper or improperly called Popery or rather a thing that is Popery but must not be called Popery And that is That the Pope shall be Head or Bishop of the Church of Rome and the Arch-bishop of Canterbury shall be an Independent Primate and Metropolitan of all England and the Pope to have nothing to doe here but himselfe alone to be Dominus fac totum Onely with this Reserve that this Primate become Pope when time serves And it seemes he takes it as a deed if gift from the Pope which he gave to the Prelat● Predecessor Anselm to whom the Pope gave this Title stiling him Patrarcha alterius orbis the Patriarch or Pope of the other world meaning England of which the Roman Poet writ of old Et penitus toto divis●s or be Britannos And thus it seemes it descended upon the Successors of Canterbury by an hereditary right from the Pope And therefore not without cause doth the Prelate make mention hereof in his * Relation telling us that a Patriarch is above a Prelate so expert was he in the learning of Ecclesiasticall Heraldry for Titles and Degrees And thus we come to understand what he means by making profession of the Protestant Religion of the Church of England namely that this Religion is not Popery properly taken but only improperly as hath been said So as herein we may give credit to his words in some sense both for himselfe and his friends whom he so highly magnifies for good Protestants of the Church of England This is that true Protestant Religion which they so much profest by hooke or crooke to maintaine Touching his Treason in subverting the Laws and perverting of Religion it matters not for all his protestations that he never intended but ever abhorred it for all things were clearely and fully proved in Court against him His Protestations of his innocency have been too well knowne as well as others what credit they deserve A man commits many Murthers and pleades he abhorres to be a murtherer He kills slayes slaughters innocent Protestant Subiects and protests he intends the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion Will this hold good in Law or yet in the Court of Conscience For his contempt of Parliaments this was also proved against him and he here in part confesseth it And in the close he forgives all the world He cryes Thiefe first calling all his Persecutors his bitter enemies He forgives them he saith but he giveth them a cruell dash calling them bitter enemies who did but in a legall way and just cause prosecute him as a grand enemy both to Religion and to the Republicke Therefore what kind of forgivenesse this is God knowes when it so ends in a most bitter calumniation But he askes forgivenesse of God and then of every man whether I have saith he offended him or no if he but conceive that I have Alas what a pittifull shu●●ing i● here Here i● a generall asking of forgivenesse but for what here is no acknowledgment of any sin against God o● of any one offence or injury to any man And tha● all may plainly see how this Hypocrite and Impostor playes mock-holi-day he askes forgivenesse of every man whether he hath offended him or no Why what needs forgivenes when no offence given or taken But 〈◊〉 he if he do but conceive that I have Oh ●ender heart But here lie would make the world beleeve that none can challenge him for wrong unlesse in conceit only t is but a conceit that men have only that the good Bishop of Canterbury should do the least wrong to any man living For what say you to that Speech of his in his Relation to the King God forbids I should ever offer to perswade a persecution in any kinde or practic● it in the least T is but a conceit then that the Prelate of Canterbury should be either a persecutour or a perswader thereunto A conceit that he should perswade that the terrible censure in the Star-Chamber against those his three bitter men as he calls them should be executed to the uttermost although he left them to the Kings Justice A conceite that he should use the least meanes to promerit the Judges a little before the censure though he made a great feast at Lambeth conceite that he should be an instrument of persecu●ion to whom poore petitioners to the King about the booke of sports were referred for mercie where none could be had or hoped for And thus he concludes Lord doe thou forgive me and I begge forgivenesse of him Of whom Of one whether I have offended him or no if he doe but conceive that I have What juggling is here No sparke of ingenuity or truth in all this nor all along Well but what then So saith he I heartily desire you to ioyne with me in prayer Nay stay He should have remembred that saying of Christ Matth. 5. 23 24. If thou bring thy gift before the Altar and there re●embrest that thy brother hath ought against thee leave there thy gift before the Altar and goe thy way first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer t●y gi●t Agree with thine Adversary quickly c. Now the Prelate here brings his gift to the Altar he hath a Prayer in his hand in stead of his heart to offer but he should remember that not one brother but many have great and grievous things against him Therefore before he read his Prayer he should have rubb'd up his old rusty memory and called for those who had many things against him and have made his peace with them He should have called for all thos● Preachers whom he had wickedly Prelatically Suspended Silenced Deprived thrust out of their Means with their wives children exposed to beggery misery among many others Mr. Rudd of Abington Mr. Bar●ard Mr. Forbis Mr. Ward c. He should have called for all those godly Preachers

himselfe this is to pray that this more then miserable Kingd●me may be made more then most miserable If he meane the stopping of the now ●●sue of blood that is hath been shed by this intestine and unnaturall warre whereby the Beasts power seekes to destroy the Lambs Kingdome with his called and chosen and faithfull people This should extreamly aggravate and make the sin of this Prelate ou● of measure sinfull as who hath been one prime instrument and bloody agent to procu●e all this blood-shed But that which followeth surpasseth all transcendency of the malice and wickednesse of hell it selfe I shall desire saith he that I may pray for the people too as well as for my selfe O Lord I beseech thee give grace of repentance to all people that have a thirst for blood but if they will not repent then scatter their devices c. Here 1. he makes it plaine that what hee prayed before was for himselfe and his party and that the issue of blood on his part might be stopt as before 2. The maine of his prayer is to lay the guilt of al the blood that hath been shed in this war upon the Parliament and people especially this City that stand for their Rights ●s a people that thirst for bl●od whereof if they repent not that then their devices may be sca●tered as being contrary to Gods glory the truth and sincerity of Religion to wit of Popery as before is shewed to the establishment of the King and his Posterity after him in their just Right● and Priviledges to wit in an Arbitrary and Tyrannicall gove●nment whereby the Tyrannicall Prelacy the truth sincerity of the Popish Religion may he supported and maintained for which very cause all this bloody war● hath been● raised and con●●●ued in Ireland and England wherein so many hundred thousands of innocent people loyall Subiects have been most barbarously murthered and for no other cause but that they bar● the name of Protestants only not such Protestants as could be hoped to professe the true Protestant Religion of the present Church of England the truth and sincerity of which Religion is Popery improperly so called as befo●● shewed But he adds For the honour and conservation of Parliaments in their ancient and iust power Note here never a prayer in particular for this present Parliament but for Parliaments in generall and that also with a limitation in their auncient and iust power And what is that Namely so farre as standeth with the Kings Prerogative according to that new clause lately foysted into the Kings Oath at his Coronation by the Legierde-main of this Iugler to govern his people according to the Lawes and maintain their Rights and Liberties But with this Provi●o so far as stands with the Kings Prerogative Which Legier-de-main was one of those Charges proved against the Prelate in the Honourable House of Peeres so as in these words ancient and iust power doth lurck a great deal of serpentine deceit that all this ancient and iust power comes to iust nothing further then with reference unto and dependance upon the Kings Prerogative Such are the slie equivocations and mentall reservations of this subtle serpent all along in this his pretended prayer wherein he thus desperately dallyeth with God and men Then For the preservation of this poore Church in her truth peace and patrimony This poore Church to wit the late and yet proud Prelacy her truth such as is regulated by he● Canons with an Et caetera her Peace for which shee hath caused troubles and war in those Kingdomes he●Patrimony a part of Peters Patrimony for the support of her truth peace that which this Prelate in his Relation of a conference tooke all that paines about for the blessed meeting of Truth and Peace as he call● it in reconciling of Rome and England together as hee professeth throughout his booke and in the very last page and words thereof He adds And the settlement of this distracted and distrossed people c. Whatsoever he prayes here is with reference to the truth peace and patrimony of his poore Church and therefore it is added with a Copulative and the settlement c. And hereunto hee adds another And And when all this is done that then they may be thankefull with religious dutifull obedience to thee and thy Commandements Here they must take notice that there is no such blessing for which to be thankfull as the up-holding of the Prelates Protestant Religion When this is done then fill their hearts with thank●fulnesse But how can dutifull obedience to Gods Commandements and to Prelaticall Canonicall Commandements stand together For what more contrary and opposite one to the other then Christs Commandements to Antichrists We have had wofull experience hereof Christ commands to preach the Word in season and out of season the Prelates forbid Lectures on week dayes and Sermons in the afternoone on Lords dayes God commands to worship him in spirit and truth Prelates command to worship God by humane forms by Images by Adorations towards the East with many other superstitious Ceremonies of mans devising God commands his Sabboths or Lords dayes to be sanctified Prelates suspend Ministers for not reading the book for profane sports on these dayes with infinite more He closes all with a Lord receive my soule to m●rcy adding Our Father c. Now what hath an impenitent hard hearted hypocrite to doe with mercy All that hee hath here prayed or rather babled out of a paper is but meerly to delude the people and to mocke God even to his face Never came there such a forlorne and formidable spectacle upon stage or scaffold to act the hypocrites part so that as he was a seducer deceiver ell his life time so hee will dye The reply to the Relation hath set him ●orth in his colours long before prophecying of his c●rsed end which we see now fulfilled as also of the terrible iudgments and calamities that should fall upon his Prelaticall Clergy of England together with his Protestant Religion aliâs Popery though but improperly so called He complaines for want of Room to dye which he needed not for he had too much of Room that brought him to dye I beseech you saith he let me have an end of this misery For all this hast hee should have laid a better and surer foundation to build his hope upon for freedome from a future misery both infinitely durable and extreamly intollerable then yet we have seene in him Nor could he finde a word in Scripture to satisfie Sir John Clotworthie's question for any assurance that hee had of a better life And just was this with God the righteous Iudge that as hee was a great decryer and vilifier of the Scripture as The light which is in Scripture it selfe is not bright enough it cannot beare sufficient witnesse to it selfe That the beliefe of Scripture to be the Word of God dependeth primarily upon the

and Christians whom his bloody cruelty caused to fly into the Deserts of Ameries as Mr. Cotton Mr. Hooker Mr. Davenport Mr. Peter with many thousands more He should have called for all those Congregations whose soules he had famished by taking away their godly teachers the blood of whose soules were found to be upon his skirts and under ●is wings He should have called for all those whom he had most cruelly and against all justice caused to be imprisoned pillaryed eare-cropped branded whipped fined confined to perpetuall close imprisonment and that in perpetuall banishment from their native country from society of wives children freinds a●quaintance common light and ayre and what not As Mr. William Pryn Doctor Bastwick Henry Burton Doctor Leighton Mr. Iohn Lilburne Nathani●ll Wickins all which with many more indured intollerable inhumane and most barbarous usage in their prisons and persons These these should he have called for to have made his peace with them by a● least acknowledging his extreame wronging of them as having beene the prime instrumentall cause thereof though otherwise he could never make them re●●itution for their eares nor satisfaction for their losses But he should have done to the uttermost what lay in his power before he should go on so desperatly to offer his Sacrifice of Prayer at Gods Altar He should have put it past If and And w●●ther he had offended any or no as if any did but conceive so But so far was he from shewing the least ingenuity or from having the lest dramme of grace as that he refused to be spoken withall by any whom hee had wronged much lesse would he acknowledge the least offence done to any either in his lif● or now at his death But as a man beref●of his common senses stript of his understanding benumb'd with a lethargy senselesse brutish blinde obdurate he persists in his Diabolicall impenitencie acknowledging not the least offence to Man in all his Life of which to repent hoping thereby after his Death to merit his Inscription upon his Tombe Here lies the most Innocent Archbishop of Cantyrbury But now can he not be content to die in his owne sins but he must heartily d●sire the people to ioy●e with him in his most hypocriticall dead ●●me blind Prayer that he brought with him in his hand as a price in the fooles hand but he wants a heart Had he not sufficiently ca●tivated the people to such blind devotion by his Servi●-book Prayers And had not this old Arch-prelate in all the time he lived got one Prayer at least by heart though he wanted grace in his hear● Christs Spirit ●ven the Spirit of Grace and Supplication which for any evidence he hath given he never had in all his life to powre forth one 〈◊〉 sigh of godly sorrow now at his death Here be may goodly words indeed compiled together but all will not make up one prayer of Faith being but as a dumbe Image without life and breath or like Caesars Sacrifice without a heart which was taken for a presage of death as proved true the same day Againe should the people become accessory to all the hypocrisie dissimulation and impenitencie of this wretched man who would wrappe up all his villanies committed in against the State of this Kingdome all Gods faithfull people therein by ioyning with him in such a godlesse spirit-lesse Prayer even the dead carkasse of a prayer a blind and lame sacrifice which the Lord abhorreth and forbids to be offered Besides as the whole prayer for the frame of it is not an Incense according to Christs spirit but patched and made up of sundrie ingredients of a most hypocriticall spirit which makes the whole prayer to be a very packe of lies and so abominable before God so there are some passages in it so grosse and palpable as any one that hath the least sparke of Gods spirit may discover plainly to be monstrous false As 1. That he hath a heart ready to dy for Gods honour and yet he will not confesse any one particular wickednesse that he might with Achan give glory to God 2. For the Kings happinesse when yf either he counselled the King to all those courses so destructive both to himselfe and kingdome or yf hee by obeying the Kings command in being an active instrument of all those cruell oppressions perpetrated by him upon the innocent subjects and exorbitant illegall violent tyrannicall invasions upon the just lawes of the kingdome and naturall liberties of the subiect be thus by the lawes of the kingdome and a due proceeding therein brought to this just penall death surely this can little make for the Kings happinesse unl●sse the cutting off of such limbes as these and so of this active instrument of mischiefe in patticula● may be a meanes to procure the Kings happinesse in case such Heads so cut off prove not the heads of the Roman Hydra which upon the cutting off of one head puts forth two untill the whole Lerna-Lake shall be quite drained and dried up otherwise he whose life hath but a little advanced the Kings happin●sse can give but little hope of raising it by such a death the just reward of a traitour Thirdly for this Churches preservation by which he alway●● understands his Hierarchy or the protestant Religion of the Church of England as before there cannot be a more sure Omen of the utter ruine of that as whose Primate is so cut off by the hatches of Justice in the Hangmans hand Againe he boldly tells God that his zeale to these three is all the sin which he knowes is yet knowne of him in this particular of Treason Did his zeale then so far transport him as to wade so deepe through so many acts of treason to the State as to play the Traitour for the honour of God surely God will not be honoured with any such service And as for his zeale to the Kings happinesse no m●rvaile if i● were so fiery as to become an Incendiary to the State and all for the prservation of this his Church which could not be preserved but with the extreame hazz●rd if not utter ruine of three kingdomes so as such a preservation purchased at so deare a rate could be a● little for the Kings honour as for his happinesse when three kingdomes should rather welter in their owne blood then the Prelaticall kingdome should not wallow in all its pompe and pleasure and indeed the zeale hereof in all Ages hath beene that which hath set the kingdomes of the Earth in such horrible combustions as at length it hath growne to be a Proverbe of the Prelates owne making No Bishop no King and so No Bishopprick or Bishopdome no Kingdome He prayes also that there may be a stop of that issue of blood in this more then miserable Kingdome Here it may be questioned what he meanes by this issue of blood If he meane the stopping of the course of Iustice in cutting off such Trayt●rs as