Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	pray_v	prayer_n	spirit_n	4,656	5	5.8534	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93064	The dignity of kingship asserted: in answer to Mr. Milton's Ready and easie way to establish a free Common-wealth. Proving that kingship is both in it self, and in reference to these nations, farre the most excellent government, and the returning to our former loyalty, or obedience thereto is the only way under God to restore and settle these three once flourishing, now languishing, broken, & almost ruined nations. / By G.S. a lover of loyalty. Humbly dedicated, and presented to his most Excellent Majety Charles the Second, of England; Scotland, France and Ireland, true hereditary king.	G. S., Lover of loyalty.; Searle, George, attributed name.; Sheldon, Gilbert, 1598-1677, attributed name.; Starkey, George, 1627-1665, attributed name.	1660 (1660)	Wing S3069; Thomason E1915_2; ESTC R210007	99,181	247

Majesty though above my capacity yet is it not above my concernment for in the latter I am concerned both as a man and as a Christian especially if I pretend at all to either discretion or conscience as a Christian it is my duty and I stand ingaged to pray for the peace of the place I live in and by consequence to study and endeavour it else my Prayers are but idle Prayers Also what I pray for I am exhorted to as a duty and commanded as a Christian to observe Gods dealing in the Return of Prayers else my praying is but mockery I am engaged then though I yet see nothing but war and confusion to be instant and urgent with God for peace and settlement and consequently I am bound to take notice how farre my prayers are answered that I may be thankfull how far they are denyed that I may finde the cause and be humbled for it and as much as in me lies help and remedy it This also discreet policy will teach me to endeavour and hope and pray for the peace of that place in which I intend with Gods help to settle my self and my Posterity of which if there be no hopes it is but indiscretion at best if not madnesse there to settle Let no man therefore blame me for enquiring after the state of affairs that I may see the cause of our present unsettlement and confusion and so far as advice will goe to apply if it lies in me a Remedy If the Cause be as most certainly it is the want of a true and proper Government and Governors let us enquire how far the defect extends and every man in his Calling those who are called thereto by action others as far as God hath given wisdome by counsell do what we can to supply that defect and help that want Adde to this that we are to pray for Kings to obey and honour the King and that by divine command and if so then no man can blame me if I enquire into the Case if or no I have by Divine Right a King to pray for to honour and to obey and whether or no active or barely passive obedience be due from and required of me as a Christian to those who in exclusion of him have exercised the Power of the Nation in which I live for these severall years But concerning this Subject I shall have occasion to enlarge before the end of this Discourse it may suffice here what I have more briefly touched only for the anticipating of such an Objection which may be made What matters of this nature concern me and which if unsatisfied might prejudice many Readers and preingage their spirits against what I shall hereafter write Hoping then that I have impartiall Readers now to deal withal who casting off all respects of Persons either comparing one with another and taking for granted that one in regard of his eminent abilities and learning and judgment hath the surer safer and better side or accounting the Subject of this Enquiry aliene from my employment and so condemning the discourse without perusal of the same I shall come soberly and modestly to take a view of Mr. Miltons ready and easy way to establish a Free Common-wealth c. Which I shal shew not only to be the farthest way about but an improbable way to our Ever settlement an impossible way to our present or speedy peace and therefore to be rejected as a crooked and unsafe path to walk in And in contradiction to his groundless position I shall evidence cleerly and undeniably that Kingship is our only sure and safe remedy under God to settle our distractions Make up our breaches secure our tottering foundations unite our divisions cure our distempers and in a word to save us from otherwise utter and inevitable misery and ruine And here judicious Reader let me crave thy attention and beg thy candor for the Subject of the ensuing discourse will be not light and trivial but such as concernes thy present welfare and the future good and welbeing of posterity Lord what English man that can without sighs and briny tears consider and recollect in his mind what this Nation was formerly and what now it is once the glory of Europe flourishing in prosperity and happiness the pride of her allyes the terrour of her Enemies the releif of the distressed the succour of the oppressed the ballance as I may call it of the neighbouring powerful Princes France and Spain turning the scale either way by its friendship or enmity How were our paths then anointed with Butter and our hills dropped fatness untill being filled with good things our soul began to loath the honey combe or like an horse provender prict we kict against our Rider and have gained to our selves a nominall liberty but reall slavery accompanyed with infamy and are now become the scorne of our neighbours and the Common by-word of Christendome Once we had our Kings not made but born whom at once the sunne beheld both men and Princes who by a long continuall descent were ennobled and both by affinity Consanguinity and mutual benefits bestowed and received were endeared reciprocally they to the Nation and the Nation to them We had a splendid Court persons of honourable extraction and excellent accomplishments a learned and renowned Clergy flourishing Academys and Schools of Education for youth A high spirited gallant Gentry Rich Yeamon and farmers and Citizens Wealthy and numerous A royall and powerfull Navy a plenteous and expert Souldiery and in a word we wanted nothing to make us happy at home and renowned abroad We wanted only thankful hearts to God for these unvaluable blessings and wisdome to esteeme and value them and improve and make use of them as we ought Now we find not only the want of but the contrary unto almost whatever before we enjoyed having scarce any thing left of our former happiness but the memory which only serves to aggravate our present miserie Dolet hoc meminisse fuisse Beatos and that which makes our condition more deplorable our hopes of recovery are in a great measure cut off only our eyes are to the hils from whence commeth our help And for the perpetuation if possible of our maladies and to make our wounds incurable our diseases desperate and our miseries irrecoverable I meet with many Mountebanks of State who wilfully mistaking our disease call that which is our without Gods great mercy mortall malady a State of happy Liberty only take notice of some troublesome Symptomes which Luscus cannot but see by twilight and for these they prescribe a cure more dangerous yea desperate then the disease it self and this they call a Free Common-wealth Among many that shoot at this Mark I find severall sorts some are fantastically absurd as Mr. Harrington with his Oceana the answer to which will be only ridiculous pastime by a winter fire others are religiously foolish as he who in imitation of Gods work of creation would make

own what they acted but would seem to lye under the Armyes Force when indeed they and the Rebellious part of the Army mutually complotted and contrived the whole businesse as it was after acted where was their Magnanimity If the Action was good and just and honourable why would they seem unwillingly compelled to it Why did they so oft send to the Army and demand the readmission of their Members since they did not desire nor intend it why did they pretend to desire it Was that a part of their valour and Magnanimity To pretend a fear and affrightment from unarmed Petitioning London Apprentices who seized not a person of them nor offered the least violence no nor yet menacing words not daring to oppose the insulting Soldiery if they really disliked their Actions nor yet having confidence enough to own their Actions if they did as since it appeared undenyably approve of what they did who but Mr. Milton would style this a Magnanimous Action If Perjury Treachery breach of Vowes Murther Vsurpation Oppression and Sacriledge be the demonstrations of a just action if to be chosen for the good of the Counties Cities or Burroughs choosing in a joynt not divided way with not without the House of Peers to consult with the KING not to depose and murther him and yet to do contrary to all for which they were Elected If to be returned by Indentures to advise with the King about matters of great concernment to be sworn at admission into the House to be true to the King his Heirs c. to maintain him and all his just Priviledges and to confirm this Oath by several after Oaths and Covenants and Protestations and yet to butcher the same King make Warre against and proclaim Traytor his Son expell him out of one of his Hereditary Kingdomes and wherein he was Crowned make it Treason to relieve him in Exile yea Malignity to pray for him publiquely If to make an Invasive Warre on Scotland for Crowning a King to whom and which they were bound by Oath without their consent who had murthered the Father not only without but contrary to theirs and contrary to their own re-iterated Oaths and Duty If I say all these and ten times as many the like Actions which all concur to and center in the abolishing of Kingship be just then next to the Devil the Rumpers shall have my Voyce to applaud their Justice And as for their Magnanimity let them commend it who know not or will not believe how perfidiously they wrought with their own stipendiary Servants to rebell against those from whom they derived their power and by whom payd It was the major part of the Commons and the Peers that alwayes acted empowered ordered and disposed of all things which how magnanimously the Rump could usurp to themselves we have seen having an Army at hand to back them but so cowardly they were that they durst not own themselves to have a hand in any of these Transactions but like a Puppet-player drew the Curtain of a rebellious mutinous Souldiery before the eys of the spectators though quicker sights easily at first perceived the juggle 'T wil now not be unseasonable to consider the experience which the worthy Patriots the restorers of us to Liberty had of Kingship which is no more then what themselves expressed in their Resolvs and Votes as is at large related by learned Mr Walker in his History of Independency and the same is here laid down by Mr M●lton their Champion for the ground of this their abolishing the same They had found it by long experience burdensome expensive uselesse and dangerous so also they judged the House of Peers unnecessary c. Concerning this I have spoken already and yet I must repeat the same arguments although not the same words since that maxime in oratory holds ever true Nunquam nimis dicitur quod non satis intelligitur Let us consider things then and if we want not memory we shall not want instances enough to convince as well the Rump as this their Champion that this their old discovery was but a new forgery and an expresly sinning against the light of their Conscience would any that had read the Speakers Speech to the KING made on the fifth of November 1640 at the first convention of this Parliament beleive that he then had found Kingship or Kingly Government such as the Rump since declare to the world their experience thereof nevertheless the same William Lenthal though he then protested his Judgment that the welfare of these Nations under God depended on his Majesty and his Royall issue and acknowledged with pretended gratefulnesse how under him and his Father this Kingdome had flourished yet eight years after behold and stand in admiration the same man with a perjurd tongue and double mind sits Speaker to the Rump and they pretend their long experience not only of the burthen and uselesness but the danger of Kingly Government Of Sir Henry Mildmay and both the Vanes Cornelius Holland and severall others this I may say and wrong neither them nor the truth That if ever Servants had a good Master and he in requital false wicked servants they and their murdered Master may be cited as ful and clear Examples And yet these will needs be Saints in opposition to the Apostle Paul who saith that perhaps for a good Master some servant may dare to dye never supposing or imagining there should be such desperately treacherous Servants to circumvent and Murther their Master As for the burthensomnesse of Monarchy which I presume we are to interpret concerning our own Government by Kings and more particularly of that excellently accomplished and first english royall Martyr King CHARLES How expensive I pray you how burdensome was he Could he or any other KING before him rayse monys without a Parliament As for his Family expense did ever any man before you taxe him with profusenesse Did he or could he make warre without the advise of those Nobles who were of his Privy Counsell Nay on the other hand was not his Father so farre given to peace and peace-making that he gave for his Motto Beati Pacifici and reckoned it his honor to be accounted one of that number Was not the imputation laid upon him by those who make it their business to bark at Majesty and to speak evill of dominion that he was a Coward and one who would rather choose to buy a dishonourable peace then to make and manage an honourable Warre was not he by the invitation of his allyes the Bohemian Protestants as well as those of Rochell the instigation of his Peers the addresses and incouragement of all his loving Subjects stirred up to a Warre in defence of both the Bohemians and Rochellians In prosecution of which was not his treasure exhausted and a Warre left from the Father to the Sonne to the pursuing whereof Conscience Religion and reputation bound him and yet how slack were the Parliaments for his supply

future forty Commoners if they can bribe a Competent force to abet and back them may be supreme unking and murther their Soveraign disable his Posterity unhouse the Lords and make their Fellow members six times their own number uncapable of trust power and priviledge both for present and future and then what English man would but loath the name of Parliaments for ever Your priviledges were broken and the breakers stiled themselves the Patriots and true Assertors of the Nations liberty now the vulgar cannot discern between the name of a thing and the thing it self The publick faith given by both Houses O abominable to consider was made the by word of every Baliad singer And what was the cry of the people but the Parliaments publicque faith was become a publick cheat This my Lords and worthy Gentlemen must be protested against solemnly and effectually to the undeceiving the people else the glory honour and reputation of English Parliaments is lost in England till oblivion devour the memory of these things Without this be done the King whenever by God restored as most certainly he will be in Gods due time may well nautiate the memory and mention of a Parliament unlesse the Rump be disoned and disclaimed as one And so if the Prince dislike and the Common people contemne and abhor that under God which is the Nations strength glory and safty of what fatall consequence this must needs be I leave to your wisdomes maturely to judge What remaines then but that we conclude of the Rump with like expressions to those of Jerubbaal concerning them who pleaded for Baal because some body had thrown down his Altar Will ye yet plead for the Rump Let them plead for themselves at the Barre of Justice Will ye yet defend the Murtherers of the King Lord Capel Doctor Hewit c. with the monstrous high Court of Injustice Leave them to the determination of Justice and the mercy of his incomparable Majesty the true inheritor of his Fathers Christian vertues and graces to wit patience compassion meeknesse long-suffering c. as he is heir to his Kingly Diadem Let as many as plead for the Rump be put to death in this morning of our deliverance because God by the means of his Excellency the Lord Generall MONCK hath thrown down their Pride and cut off their lawless power and so put an end to their matchless fury and mercilesse rage proceed therefore wisely goe on prosperously Noble Senators and settle these poor confused Nations call home our banished yea I know you will do it God having instructed you with a high hand walk not in the way of the Rumpers Observe the hate scorn and contempt which deservedly lies upon them on the other hand the Joy triumph and jubile the bone fires ringing of bels the freeness of the Citizens in opening their Purses toward defraying publick charges and paying his Excellencies Army upon hopes given of your being convened The expressions of gratitude toward that noble instrument from the Citizens each Hall and Company being ambitious to entertain him and shew all manner of thankfulnesse to him for his high merits in being instrumentall toward your calling and declaring his resolved acquiescency in your prudent determinations All which speaks to you in most patheticall expressions Make up our breaches Restore our King Pity our past distractions even almost unto finall destruction Let us now be redeemed indeed and setled upon our true and lasting foundation Let us not be lift up to Heaven in joyfull hopes and comfortable expectation and then cast down to Hell in heart-breaking disappointments My Lords and Worthy Senators you have before you to revive and restore or to kill and destroy us choose the former yea blessed be God you have chosen it and will perform it Next to God our eyes are upon you and we rest assured that our hopes will not make us ashamed nor our confidence confounded in the conclusion Let not any wicked lying spirit whisper to your selves or his Excellency and find credit that high merits with Princes are repayed with ruine of him whose deserts cannot be recompensed True where an instrument is assisting toward the exaltation of an usurper contrary to duty and conscience the Tyrant when seated cannot endure him by whom he climbed still measuring the drift of the other by his own spirit and knowing that none out of conscience would ever assist or set up an Vsurper but what is done in that way let the pretence be what it will the aime is only self preferment So that many times an active Rebell aiming at his own grandeur yet is content to truckle under another of greater repute and who can make better pretence then himself still resolving that if he can under that visor throw down lawfull power he may after much more easily baffle him whom he pretended to advance and side withall Thus aspiring Oliver did by Fairfax the Rump Lambert Harrison Vane and many others And so Lambert aimed to have dealt with Fleetwood Desborough c. and the restored Rumpers But his Excellencie neglecting self interest eys cordially we hope and confidently believe a truly publique nationall concernment and good and for that end was instrumentall in readmitting the secluded Members and so the Rumpers noses being wiped to call summon and convene your Honours and resolves to stand satisfied with your conclusion and determination that envy it self cannot say of him that he tampers with the Government which it is equally presumption in a Generall to attempt upon his own score to set up or restore as to pull down or dispossesse This prudent management of things in so distracted a time as it is praise worthy beyond expression so it is but the duty which he owes to God and his Country In performing which had he no other recompense the content of his own spirit would be ample satisfaction But he cannot go without thankfull reward having equally engaged his Countrey with his Prince from the latter of whom I know his generous spirit expects only his gracious acceptance whose most Princely disposition I confide will lead him to return the Author deserved Honour His gratefull Country also will requite his Piety with all possible acknowledgment and perpetual celebration of his memory for the same It is one thing to serve a Tyrant and Vsurper and deserve of him beyond requitall another thing to serve a mans lawfull Prince in lawfull things and Country together The former by what he deserves shews himself to be void of all Conscience and therefore may well be feared for unless the Tyrant surprize and ruine him he seldome failes doing the like for the Tyrant but here the glory of the Act is ample satisfaction and the justice and honour of it takes away all cause of jealousie from the King Who can once imagine that he who having an Army and not wanting pretences to make a claim being of Royall descent should in sincere Loyalty turn his eies upon