Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	day_n	know_v	time_n	6,487	5	3.8157	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60808	Some necessary disquisitions and close expostulations with the clergy and people of the Church of England, touching their present loyalty written by a Protestant.	Protestant.	1688 (1688)	Wing S4528; ESTC R2319	38,028	44

a second Reformation proclaimed to correct the first are all things fresh in Memory to those who are still living and saw them and all the world has wondered how the Church of England did so soon forget them as it appears She did for She was no sooner out of the Fiery Furnance of her Afflictions by the Restoration of King Charles the 2d but down right she falls upon her old pollicies of effecting an uniformity by vertue of Penal Laws when they had seen before the event of them in their Predecstors to have given them so much discredit and when they might have sufficiently learned how impossible it is upon Protestants Principles to erect and enforce a National uniformity in Religion to any one way of Worship but that there would still be Dissenters who upon their own Principles may plead an Exemption from it However they resolved to make a second Experiment and once more to try if they could make the whole People in England to be in their Religion all of one Complexion to which purpose a new Act of Uniformity is made more strict than that which went before with a new Test of Assent and Consent annexed thereto for bare Conformity in the use of the Liturgy will not now do there must be Swearing also All other waies of Religious publick Worship are made Conventicles and the Act of 20 l. a Month for not coming to Church revived and tho' it was alwaies thought to have been made directly against R. Catholicks it must now be made a sharp Scourge equally to all Dissenters What Confusions and Troubles these things brought upon His Majesties Subjects may be understood something from those who have given a publick Account of them a Printed Catalogue has informed us of neer 2000 Ministers turned out of their Livings by the Uniformity Act which was soon followed by another made at Oxford that turned them also out of their Houses to seek their Bread where they were no wise like to find it Another who was well able to make the Estimation informs us of fifteen thousand Families ruined by the Conventicle Act by proceedings against their Estates and Imprisonment of their Persons among whom he saies five thousand dyed under their bonds And if we suppose but three Children a peice to belong to those Families one with another we must compute no less than forty five thousand sufferers in their Estates by these Penal Laws for if the Parents be ruined their Children cannot but be deep Sufferers with them Do we talk of Queen Maries daies as times of sharp Persecutions Alas they were little to this Doctor Burnet gives an account but of 284. that suffered death in Her time and what is this to 5000. that have dyed under this Church of Englands Persecution nor doth he say any thing of loosing their Estates or the Childrens being deprived of what their Parents had I know a great matter is made by punishing Persons with Death but for my part I see little difference between suffering by the present Execution of Death and being stifled or starved to Death by the necessities and hardships of a Prison and supposing it lawful to make such a choice in case I must necessarily suffer by one of the two I should choose to suffer by the former rather then by the latter and I know many more to be of my mind How those of the Church of England can defend Her from being the only procuring cause of all these Miseries to those Multitude of afflicted Persons and Families I can no waies apprehend let them that can do it begin their Work as soon as they please in the mean time I hope they will not be angry if I endeavour to shew them how much all their proceedings this way was against the mind of King Charles the second who all along endeavoured to put a stop to their Severities from the desires he had that his Subjects might have injoyed the Liberties in Religion which they now do and this before he came into England as well as afterwards so soon as he saw what work was like to be made by the Execution of those Laws they had got him to sign chosing other more pious and peaceable Methods for his Subjects Ease Let us hear some of his own Words viz. His Declaration from Breda April 4th 1660. gives the first assurance of this We declare a Liberty to tender Consciences and that no Man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences in Opinion which do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom Then again Feb. 10th 1667. Speaking to the Parliament one thing saies he I hold my self obliged to recommend to you at this present which is that you would seriously think of some course to beget a better Vnion and Composure in the Minds of my Protestant Subjects in matters of Religion c. Which undoubtedly must be intended towards the mitigation of the Penal Laws for in his Declaration March 5th 1671. He complains again of the severities then in use saying That it was evident by the sad experience of 12 years that there was little fruit of all those forcible courses and many frequent waies of Co-ertion that we have used for the reducing of all erring and dissenting Persons Again in his Speech to both Houses of Parliament 1678. I meet you here with the most earnest desire that a Man can have to Vnite the Minds of my Subjects both to me and one another and resolve it should be your fault if the success be not sutable to my desires Thus for neer twenty years together was this King labouring against the Violences of the Church of England towards those his Subjects whose Worshipping of God differed from theirs and who were the Men but themselves that then opposed Him in it And at whose door but theirs must all these deplorable Calamities be laid that have happened by the want of that Indulgence that King would have given and is now granted by his Royal Brother and Successor they may if they please consider it more fully at their Leisure His Majesty that now is by a Gracious and most Wise Retrospection upon all that had been Transacted in these Affairs during the four last Kings Reigns and from a God-like compassion towards his Oppressed Subjects in the midst of their Calamities sends out his most refreshing Declaration suspending the Execution of all those Penal Statutes that had been but very little before so fiercely Executed Upon this many thousands of the Protestant Dissenters of all perswasions through out the Kingdom who had been formerly by the Church of England represented to the late King as a sort of Humoursome Fanatical Disobedient Persons and Enemies to Monarchy and every thing else that looked that way come in with their Humble Acknowledgments First of Gods goodness to them as believing such a publick Mercy could not be but by immediate his guidance of the Kings Heart in the thing after this they declare their Joy and Thanks