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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	according_a	religion_n	true_a	3,345	5	4.3005	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77431	A brief discourse of the present miseries of the kingdome: declaring by what practises the people of England have been deluded, and seduced into slavery, and how they have been continued therein, and by what meanes they may shake off that bondage, they are now enthraled under. / Written by a lover of his country, for the good of all such who are not contented to be slaves, but desire to live free-men.	Lover of his country.	1648 (1648)	Wing B4583; Thomason E467_24; ESTC R205268	21,615	31

fowlest impieties and the most irreligious practises the basis and foundation of all their structure publique faith they have prostituted like a common whore and taught her to pick the pockets of her fornicators Lying and perjury hath been the untempered morter they have dawb'd withall Murder Theft and Rapine hath been the chiefe materials they have wrought withall But lest you should imagine me too invective although I speake nothing but the truth I will give you my observations of the difference betweene the present and preceding times wherein if every indifferent understanding be not able to discover a remarkable disparity and how we are declin'd into a much worse condition then formerly we enjoyed I must conclude he wilfully shuts the eyes of his reason lest he should be made sensible of that ignorance he hath lived in or be found guilty of conniving at those plots and practices which during this Parliament have been used to ruine and destroy his Country It were enough to let you see the difference if I onely tell you the Kingdome before this Parliament enjoy'd peace and that it is now embroyled with a Civill War but I shall addresse my selfe more particularly to each mans understanding and in the first place I shall begin with our Religion which was so reform'd and setled in this Kingdome as that it was an honour unto our Nation a fear and terror unto the Romish party and the hope and wish of all Protestant Churches beyond the Seas that they might be rendred in a capacity to imitate us for we had excluded the novell introductions and superstitious fopperies of the Papists and yet retained a decency of order Divine worship in our Churches such as would not admit of parity to confound or fancy to disturbe the wel-composed harmony in the government of the Church That God who is the God of Order and is delighted in it as appeares by the consent and union in the Creation and disposing of all things was here served with Order and Reverence Humility was the Garment we put on when we entred into the holy places exprest by our humble Gestures and civill Comportment in the time and place of Adoration and each degree according to his eminency had that duty and respect payed him which was due according to the superiority of his calling from his inferior and subordinate Officers A remedy was provided for each inconvenience and no crime could escape unpunished unlesse by the corruption of the Judge and that nothing can prevent for whilst Jugdes are men some of them will still be wicked and corrupt and private passions and interests will lead them to connive at offences or to passe indirect and unjust Sentences according to their affections and relations We had as many eminent and learned men in the Kingdom as any Age ever produced and the Vniversities and Innes of Court as flourishing in their severall Professions as ever they were The Word and the Sword Religion and Justice were equally administred through the Kingdom each man knew where and how to pray according to the Patterne and Forme prescribed by our Saviour and to joyne with united hearts and voices in the most sacred and best composed Lyturgie of the world The first rudiments of Christian Religion were learned by heart by being only Auditors and Assistans at our Church service The Lords Prayer the Greed and the ten Commandements which are the principles of Christian Religion was a part of our Lyturgie and we are daily taught how to praise God for the benefits we had and did daily receive and how to pray unto him for the supply of our wants And sure on these two maine pillars of Praise and Prayer the structure of Religion is erected This was the Sacrifice we offered three or four times a day in our Cathedrals and at least as many times a week by injunction in our ordinary Churches and now this sacred Offertory which by Act of Parliament was Enjoyned by Ordinance is Abolished as if it were a crime to serve God in any other forme or method then the two Houses shall prescribe Instead of this Decency and Vniformity what confusion is introduced is obvious to every man how these divine Collects are enforced to give place to extempore Nonsence and the admirable composed Prayers extracted out of the most patheticall parts of the Scripture must be banished the Church whilst Heresies and Blasphemies are planted within the walls of the Church whereby whole Congregations are infected and become Separatists in their tenents Pious Religious and Orthodox Ministers are Voted out of their Free-holds and violently ejected because they will not be perjured and conforme to worship the Presbyterian Idol or the Independent Monster these novell Reformers would set up And in the Cures of these Reverend Divines for the most part ignorant Non-conformists and factious Schismatiques are placed by which they have new modell'd the Church and setled therein fit Chaplains for such Patrons who must instruct the people to believe nothing to be Orthodox Divinity but what they read unto them out of a Parliament Ordinance or a City Diurnall And if they can but continue the people in this slavish Ignorance to forget their duty to God and their Loyalty to the King and to submit by an implicite faith to the power of the Parliament then their great work is done for all their great labour is to keep up their Diana the Parliament and to keep the people from knowing that it is the Devill that utters those Oracles which are vented from that Shrine But sure the Bloud of those Martyrs who have suffered for good Consciences and have either dyed in Prisons or for want been starved abroad being unjustly robbed by these mercilesse men of all their Estates and Lively-hoods cry loud for vengeance and will one day awaken the patience of our long suffering God And draw down his revenging wrath on these counterfeit Zealots and impious Hypocrites who have indeed really no Religion but only make use of that sacred Cloak to disguise all their villany For what have these great Reformers done but introduced will-worship into the Church and Lawlesnesse in the Common-wealth For who can now discover the face of any Church in this Kingdome where every severall Congregation use a distinct forme of worship and where there is no Coercive power to compell Vniformity in Doctrine or to punish Deformity in manners The sacred Scripture is profaned and by the Liberty each man appropriates to himself to Interpret according to his own Fancy or rather to apply that divine writing to serve for the advancing his own designes the sense thereof is so inverted by these Scripturists who use it no other wayes then the Devill did to intrap circumvent their hearers so that those divine Oracles which were bequeath'd us to instruct us in the right way to Heaven are by these lying Prophets become by-paths that lead to destruction Our Lawes which are each Subjects Birth-right how

A BRIEF DISCOVRSE OF THE PRESENT MISERIES OF THE KINGDOME Declaring by what practises the people of England have been deluded and seduced into Slavery and how they have been continued therein and by what meanes they may shake off that bondage they are now enthraled under Written by a lover of his Country for the good of all such who are not contented to be slaves but desire to live Free-men Printed in the Yeare 1648. A briefe discourse of the present Miseries of the Kingdome c. THe sad and deplorable condition of this unhappy Kingdome is remarkeably evident to all intelligent persons of all degrees who have any share or interest in the Common-wealth and by all those who are honest as much lamented Yet every man is not sensible by what practices and endeavours our Lawes have been subverted or who have been the Authors and contrivers of the Kingdomes miserie or at least all men will not seeme to understand who have blowne the bellowes to kindle this unnaturall War which hath almost wasted and consumed although not in their persons yet in their Estates all the chief Nobility and Gentry of the Land I have therefore out of my zeale to rectifie those understandings who are not wilfully blinded by their owne ignorance and folly written this ensuing narrative wherein is discovered how and by what practises the Subjects of England have been seduced and made the unhappy instruments to contribute to their owne undoing by which they may easily discerne who have been the Authors and contrivers of their miserie and may hereby if they become sensible of their past errours finde a meanes to recover their lost Liberty and redeeme themselves from the Slavery and Thraldome they have so long endured No man is ignorant in how happy a condition this Kingdome was before it was destroyed by this unhappy Parliament neither am I so partiall to the foregoing times but that I could discerne that there were faults then for there was pride sloath and covetousnesse in some of the Clergie Bribery and corruption in some of the Judges partiality and selfe-interests in many Magistrates an aiming at an exorbitant power in the Court managed to His Majesties disadvantage by those He imployed and trusted who studied their owne ends and profits without regard to His Majesties Honour These were the personall crimes of men which could not justly occasion complaint against the whole frame and order of our setled constitution of Government yet the offences of these evill Ministers were accounted great grievances and multiplied in their number and aggravated in their nature by those Schismaticks who could not make a rent and division in the Church Government to which they were enemies because they were curb'd and restrained by the Ecclesiasticall power hindred from introducing innovation into the Church which they could not effect unlesse they first beget a distraction in the Civill Government And therefore there was no pressure put upon the people and they counted all such whether legall or illegall if it concerned them in their purposes but these Schismaticall people presently put themselves in opposition against it and by that gain'd an opinion amongst the common sort who are still of least understanding that those men were the chief Patriots beleeving according to their hypocriticall demenors that they had no indirect ends but aimed only at the good of the Common-wealth and to maintaine the Laws and Liberties of the Subjects These men having by these subtile insinuations crept into the good opinion of the vulgar people the Clergie and Laity of the same Sect magnifying each the others integrity and both deluding the ignorant people the one by an humble and feined piety the other by pretending to a strict observation of the Laws in so much that the common people imagined that there was no way left to recover the golden age but by bringing these men into power and Authority and to make them the directors and Governours both in Church and State Then was raised a generall complaint that all things were out of order by reason we had no Parliaments called but how to reduce His Majesty to a necessity to call a Parliament and to make that necessity such as that He might not be able to dissolve that Parliament this was the study and practice of these underminers of our happy and peaceable Government The people of England had been so long inur'd to Peace and with it were growne so rich that it was difficult to stir them up to any commotion or Rebellion And therefore there must be some way found out by His Majesties owne Instruments and Ministers of State to disturbe the Kingdome and no man was found so fit for this as the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury whose zeale to advance the dignity of the Protestant Church within His Majesties Dominions by reducing it to an uniformity and decency in Gods worship and by endeavouring to increase the Wealth of it that so the Clergie might not become contemptible was cherist in these pious endeavours and became so passionate in the pursuance thereof being I am afraid a little transported with the vanity of being stiled the author of so glorious a worke that without mature consideration he swallowed all proposals that he imagined might conduce to so good an end And so became unfortunately engaged in the reforming of the Scottish Kirke by endeavouring to conforme it to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England In this undertaking I am confident his Lordship had no end that aimed at any thing but Gods worship but I have been on very good grounds ascertain'd that those who put his Lordship on this work had an intention thereby to destroy the Bishops in that Kingdome that so they might be disposers of the Churches patrimony This gave the first rise to our miseries for the Scots imediately oppose our Lyturgie branding it as Popish and Superstitious that Lyturgie which in the time of Queene Elizabeth when She protected them against the Invasions of the French they embraced with all reverence and thankefulnesse and made use thereof in their Churches as long as they had need of the English Protection and then it was neither Popish nor Superstitious but a most holy worship divinely composed for the decent and true honour of God but they had not then been instructed in Mr. Calvins Doctrine or at least knew not how to wrest it and make use of it to throw off obedience to Kings as the true Protestant Religion had taught them to throw off the usurpt Authority of the Pope Cardinall Richlieu who was undoubtedly the most vigilant and wisest Councellour of this latter age who industriously studied his Princes advancement and enlargements of his Dominions and had been long studying and contriving to disturbe the Peace of England and watching every opportunity to doe it for he well knew as long as the King of England enjoyed Peace he held the ballance of this part of Christendome and by joyning with any

miserably are they perverted what man can now be secured in his inheritance or possession being so enslaved and subjected to an Arbitrary power when by a Vote of the House of Commons we are dispossessed of all that we enjoy and if we plead our title and appeal to any Court of Judicature expecting Justice according to the known Lawes of the Land our proceedings are obstructed by some Order from the House of Commons or one of their Ordinances of which they have made so many that they know not what they have made and besides diverse of them are contradictory in themselves and by these without dispute we are debard of our legall Rights This is now our miserable condition that we know not what we may call our own or how to preserve those auncient Inheritances descended from our Predecessors for it is in the power of a Knave to stile an Honest man and a Loyall Subject either Malignant or Delinquent new termes in the Law invented this blessed Parliament and to informe this under-hand to a Committee where himself dares not publickly appear to avow his information or to be crosse interrogated concerning his accusation and this is sufficient to turne a man out of all his Estate expose his Wife and Children to beggary and no way left to repaire this injurious proceeding but by appealing to them that doe the wrong whence it is probable you may expect equall justice when your Judges have equally divided your Estate amongst them For Informers they share with Sequestrators Sequestrators they share with Committee-men and Committee-men they share with the Members of the House who are their great Masters that protect them against all complaints in the House of Commons thus the honest Country-man who knew no offence in maintaning his Allegeance which he was bred in and had sworn unto his King is taught by suffering to conforme to what he understands not nor his rulers declare not the inscrutable unlimitable Priviledges of Parliament from offending whereof he is no sooner cleared by submitting to a large Fine but that he is presently subject again to the like mischief if he obeyes the Law of the Land or the malice of his neighbour prosecutes him Rebels and Traytors shall be protected to rob and plunder by Ordinance of Parliament and honest men and Loyall Subjects shall be ruined and destroyed for adhering to the Established Religion and the known Lawes I will appeal to every honest Country-man whether he were not in a much better condition when he was unacquainted with the termes of Plunder Free-quarter and Contribution when he understood not the iniquity of a Sequestrator or a Committee but upon occasion of any injury done him had immediate recourse to the next neighbour the Justice of Peace where he complained and had redresse according to a known Law When he went to Church and knew how to Pray and had good life and manners taught him out of the Pulpit and not Parliament Orders and Declarations read every Sunday which he understands not when holy Feasts were kept and observed by which he was taught the History of the Church and Martyrologie of the Saints at which time Hospitality was observed and thereby Amity and Friendship maintained and continued amongst neighbours These were the blessings of peace what hath succeeded instead of this they have fresh in memory I need not particularize but I am sure they have according to the old proverb removed out of Gods blessing into the warme Sunne for I am sure they have changed Peace and Plenty into Warre and Poverty by which as they sowed they are assured to reap the unpleasant fruits of their labour I am confident if men are not mad and possest with such a spirit of Frensie as that they cannot discerne between Good and Bad False-hood and Truth Religion and Irreligion they must needs confesse that all they have done or acted for six or seaven yeares last past wherein they have complyed with the Parliament they have endeavoured to advance evill false-hood and irreligion thereby to destroy themselves and their Posterities and to make themselves slaves to the Arbytrary wills and powers of the usurped Authority of their fellow-subjects by which they are not masters of their own Estates but at the wills and pleasures of those they have set over them And let them ingenuously judge of their own actions and then they will confesse that they have wilfully perjured themselves in forfeiting their Allegiance to their Soveraigne for no profit or advantage to themselves but to render themselves in a worse condition of Slavery and Vassallage then ever they were in for now they are disposable at the wills and pleasures of their fellow-subjects as their absolute Vassalls and Slaves and can call nothing their own when they that is the House of Commons have a desire to call for it For this is a Maxime in our new reformed Government that all we possesse belongs to the State and that when the State bath occasion to make use of it all is at their disposall O happy Subjects what a blessed Government have you fought for no doubt the whole Christian world will admire your Ignorance but not follow your Example for that were to become fooles like you and from being Subjects free and happy under a gracious King to make themselves Slaves to their Fellow-subjects as you have done to M. Ash the Clothier M. Martin the Atheist M. Blackston the Pedler M. Birch the Carrier therest of the Reverend rabble of which the House of Comons is now composed Oh you Subjects of England if you have any sense of your own miseries entaile them not to your Posterities but at length rouze up your selves shake off the servile youk you have drawn in returne in zeal to your God his Worship in duty to your King and his Just Rights in love to your Country and your Legall liberty vindicate your selves from those aspersions which now lie heavy on you and make the King according to your Protestation a great and a glorious King your selves free from Slavery make the Parliament know they are but your Fellow-subjects trusted by you and that you will call them to an account wherein they have exceeded their Commission And when you dare to become so bolde as to call the Parliament to account for their past actions aske them whether you gave them any Authority to destroy the Church to extirpate Episcopacy roote and branch to abolish Common Prayer to exclude you from the blessed Sacraments of Baptisme and the Lords Supper to introduce a forme of Marrying and Burying into the Church fitter for Pagans then Christians to remove the Ten Comandements written with the Finger of God out of the Church and to place instead thereof their new-invented damned Covenant After them whether you gave them Authority to levy War against your King and to pursue Him and endeavour to kill Him because He would not perjure Himself by taking that Covenant