A01956:1310
The happiness of the church, or, A description of those spiritual prerogatives wherewith Christ…The happines of the church, or, A description of those spirituall prerogatiues vvherewith Christ…
The happiness of the church, or, A description of those spiritual prerogatives wherewith Christ hath endowed her considered in some contemplations upon part of the 12. chapter of the Hebrews : together with certain other meditations and discourses upon other portions of Holy Scriptures, the titles whereof immediately precede the book : being the sum of diverse sermons preached in S. Gregory's London / by Thomas Adams ...The happines of the church, or, A description of those spirituall prerogatiues vvherewith Christ hath endowed her considered in some contemplations vpon part of the 12. chapter of the Hebrewes : together with certain other meditations and discourses vpon other portions of Holy Scriptures, the titles wherof immediately precede the booke : being the summe of diuerse sermons preached in S. Gregories London / by Thomas Adams ...
London: printed by G.P. for John Grismand, 1619London: printed by G.P. for Iohn Grismand, 1619
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. He kindles the fire of open war. He is the great general of that army. Psal. 2. that do band themselves against the Lords anointed. The Dragon and his angels fight against Michael and his Angels: There is no fighting against 1the Saints, but under his colours. He was the captain in that Parisian massacre; the Pilot to that invincible navy: 88. He is the great master of the inquisition: the grand Cair of all confederacies abroad; the Machiavell of all conspiracies at home. There was no treason, but was first hammered in his forge & took the damned fire from his breath. The Pope hath bin his applauded Instrument many years, to kindle these belluine & Belial fires. Innumerable seditions of wars have bin sent from the enginous study of his holy breast to vex Christian Emperors and kings: wherein continually the Pope gave the battle, but the Lord gave the victory: and that where his vicar least intended it Hildebrand (Hell-brand rather) promised Rodolphus, whom he incensed against his liege-Emperor Henricus, assured conquest: but it seems the Bishop had small power in heaven, whatsoever he pretended on earth: for Rodolphus his overthrow gave Henricus direct proof to the contrary. It appears in a certain letter of Benno to the Cardinals, that this Hildebrand preaching in the Pulpit did so promise and prophesy the death of Henricus, that he bid his auditors no more to take him for Pope, ⟨p. 114⟩but to pluck him from the Altar: if the said Henry did not dye, or were not dejected from his kingdom, before the feast of Saint Peter then next ensuing. But the event proved the Pope a liar in the Pulpit; and therefore I hope took from him all impossibility of lying in Cathedra, Indeed he laboured tooth and nail, by policy and sorcery, by his friends and fiends to sect this: innumerable were the plots of his treason. One among the rest is observable in the letter of the said Cardinal Benno. that he had hired a villain, observing the place in the Church where th• Emperor used to pray, to carry up to the roof of the Church a great number and weight of stones; with purpose to let them fall down on the Emperors head at his devotion, and to knock out his brains▪ but the traitor being busy to remove a stone of an unwonted hugeness to the place, the plank whereon he stood broke;