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england_n	book_n	church_n	time_n	2,893	5	3.6141	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65439	To the most illustrious, High and Mighty Majesty of Charles the II, by the grace of God King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, defender of the faith, etc. the humble declaration of being first a supplicatory preface and discourse of His Majesty, and then humbly shewing the great and dangerous troubles and intollerable oppressions of himself and his family, and the true occasion thereof, in the wofull times of these late most unhappy distractions : wherein the perfect loyalty of a true subject, and persideous malice and cruelty of a rebell, are evidently deciphered, and severally set forth to the publick view in their proper colours, as a caution for England : hereunto are annexed certain poems, and other treatises composed and written by the author upon several occasions, concerning the late most horrid and distracted times, and nver before published.	Wenlock, John.	1662 (1662)	Wing W1350; ESTC R8066	124,478	168

when the Jews in old time were the alone select people of God and his only true visible Church there was a Law or Command given unto them that they should not interweave Linnen with Woollen nor sow any Miscellain upon their grounds and surely there is ● secret mystery in it which I leave to more fit grave and wiser considerations then mine own But a Learned Father saith that in Ecclesia unam voc●● esse oportet and another tells us Tabernaculum Christi ●st Eccl●sia and we read that Christ our Saviour his shelter or Coat was without seame or division Indeed Scismes and Controversies in the Church especially in the Discipline or Government thereof the very Basis of our Publick peace do oftentimes prove to be of most dangerous and destructive consequence it is well known who is Seminator litium and therefore I trust that such as would seem to professe more purity and strictnesse in Religion then some others and that pretend to fear God so truly and to detest the Devil so strongly will in time learn to abhor and eschew the sinfull effects of those his so subtle suggestions It hath been observed if it please Your Majestie that the great splendor and eminent degree of Governours doth ordinarily strike a more ample awe and reverence into the hearts of the common people and makes them more tractable and submisse then they would be to others of a far inferiour rank in which respect as your Subject most humbly under correction conceiveth it is very requisite and necessary that the Episcopal Governours of the Church as well in point of policy as Religion should be readmitted as I trust they now are to their full rights power and privileges both in honour and patrimony the Churches Livelihood Revenue or Patrimony in good dayes was accounted to be Gods portion and I have read that Lands at first were given to the Church with an heavy curse annexed and imposed upon all such as should afterwards endeavour to disanull and make void the guist and so frustrate the good intent of the Donors thereof And I do much fear that the antient and modern Sacrilege of some of this Nation hath been none of the least sinnes and occasions to draw down the wrath of God upon us But now that after so long and violent an intermission themost of us have learned again to say that Lesson of truth it self Da Caesaris Caesari let us not forget the latter part of the sentence but give also unto God the things that are Gods And if the once so glorious and full Moon of the Church that hath so lately been obscured under the dis●all clouds of Tyranny and Persecution and now appears and moves in a serene Air must still for any seeming sound reasons in Religion or State be forced to suffer an Ecclipse in any the least Degrees or Digits which I wish may never be yet in the fear of God and to avoid the foul aspersion of the present and future ages let the same be never contrived acted or done without the full free and legall consent of all such parties whatsoever or at least the Major part of them as by the Antient and Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom in force and use before the embrion of the●e late distractions were duly and legally interrested to give their voices of consent or denyall in matters of that nature and consequence And since it is certain that the principall intent and end of all the grand and solemn Assemblies tending to Counsell and advice which are in a legall manner convoked in any Christian Kingdom is or ought to be above all other things for the glory of God and the due maintenance of his Church and true Religion which being taken pro concesso it is paradoxical and much marvelled at by many that such so worthy personages are by common entendment are most versed and best skilled in Transactions of that nature and whose Reverend Learning Wisedom and Integrity do likewise render them without scruple sufficient to be Assistants and Advisers in other things of far more trivial moment should at any time pro ratione ab scondita adhuc incognitae be exempted from or deprived of their just and genuine Rights and antient Privileges so deservedly conferred and so legally granted unto them or their Predecessors by the Renowned Pious and Politick Kings of this Realm ever since Christianity was in England and never yet so much as spurned at but in seditious and turbulent times or be shut out of doors when matters of so deep concernment both in Church and Commonwealth were in agitation and disquisition And if this Holy Order received the least skar or blemish in the time of his late Majesty I do believe confidently that it was compulsive and for some emergent reason of State and not with his Majesties free consent But prudent and moderate men will ever have a greater regard to venerable Antiquity then to the humorous conceits novelties of some giddy heads and I doubt there be some that popularly were thrust on to act a part on the Theatre that if they were truly sensible of their former failings and duly penitent for their so grosse erroneous and dangerous Deviations remorse of Conscience and Humility would not then suffer them at all to be ashamed to give this character of themselves Hesterni sumus Ignor amus c. For it was the saying of an Antient Author and also confirmed by Reverend Judges of great Honour and Antiquity in this Nation Quae praeter consuetudinem morem majorum fiunt neque placent neque recta videntur and I fear that the remembrance of this and some other old Maxims may be an occasion to some men and those none of the least considerable understanding and judgement to apprehend some doubts and jealousies concerning the conscience though not the legality of some of the very late proceedings And yet your Graces true loyall and loving Subjects do alwayes desire to lye prostrate at the feet of your Majesties Clemency and not in the least degree to oppose nor contradict but only in this humble way of Animadversion any of your Councels truly tending to your Majesties honour safety and repose neither can I much fear but humbly hope that your Royal Prudence will not be offended at this my free and yet most Supplicatory Expostulation for it were happy if your Majesty did know the hearts of all your Subjects so well as I do freely manifest mine own and I dare affirm it under favour that it will be a great grief to most of the Judicious Loyal and Freeborn Subjects of this Realm to behold the least overture towards the future infringement or violation either in case Ecclesiastical or Temporal of that Great Charter of the Liberties of England so long since granted and obtained after the sad adventures and deep dangers both of the Head and whole Body of this Realm and so oftentimes since confirmed by the full and

their black Imperial Prince is descended from a Childe that Solomon begot upon the Queen of Sheba and this they stand upon as a great and honourable Antiquitie for that Nation but withall I did still inform these people that your Majesties Title to England was full as antient far more authentical And the chief scope and end of all these my Speeches and Relations was to inlighten their blind Eye● to inform their Judgements to make them know and understand the Truth of your Majesties indubitable just and religious Rights and Authorities over this Nation that therby they might be induced to have a more reverend regard and opinion of the same and so in time become inclinable to yield their due obedience thereunto On a time being at a Court Baron in a great and populous Town divers of the Tenants there in open discourse did ask me many Questions in Law which I gave them my Opinion in to their satisfaction at the length a jolly fellow there who was a Presbyters lay elder did say that the tenants were much beholding to me for I had told them a great deal of Law but quoth he I have heard but little Gospel come from you Friend said I thanks be given to God for it I can speak Gospel too as well as Law but Gospel now is not fit for your hearing because you have cast off the practise of it No sure said he I do make more account of the Gospel than of your Law You ought indeed to do so said I but you have forgot your Dutie then for the Gospel enjoynes you to give Caesar his due and that you have quite forgotten and where are you now Then I desired him to tell me Whether he thought that St. Peters Epistles were Canonical Scripture or not Yes quoth he they are Then said I there you fail again for there is in them a good Document that you and others have slighted most shamefully What is that said he It is this said I Fear God and honour the King and that I am sure you have quite forgotten or little regarded these two seven years Hereat the whole Auditorie fell into a loud laughter and the Elder knew not what to say for himself There was a rich Town not far from me which at the first beginning of the late Rebellion were liberal and very free to part with their Monies and Armes to that purpose but their Purses being prettily well exhausted and some of them not well willing or able to spare any more Monie out of their Stocks for the present yet for a further ostentation and to make their Zeal and Devotion though blinde in it self yet perspicuous and clear enough unto others They consulted therefore and agreed together to borrow 1000 pound upon interest of a rich Usurer and presently they lent the same to the Parliament upon the Publick Faith though alass they knew not where that Utopian or imaginarie Creature did then dwell neither from that day to this could they ever find out the residence thereof nor yet so happily meet with it as to get their Monies again It was my chance a few years after to enter discourse with one of the most solid Heads in that Parish and I said unto him that I had seldom or never read or heard of such a stupified and blockish kind of people as most of them were Why quoth he are we worse then all others Truly said I there be none that I know of that have manifested more ignorance and perverseness than you have done for when you had parted with all and lent to the Rebels so much Monie of your own as you listed to spare then must you forsooth take up Monie at interest to send the same way and so purchase to your selves a stronger Title to the Triple-tree for that will be your portion in the end if you meet not with the more mercy and was there ever known any people so sottish as to borrow Monie upon use to drive such a dangerous Trade certainly a man that is not worse then mad would have had so much Monie as he knew not what to do withall before that ever he durst have ventured to lay it out upon so poor an advantage as to buy himself a Bargain of such dead and desperate Ware Indeed I believe that amongst all the Wrongs and Indignities that were put upon me and too tedious here to be related there was nothing so much perplexive and vexatious unto me as to see my native Country-men so readily run on to their own ruine and to be so secure and confident in the wayes of Error and Destruction but still I told them that Security was the Mother of Danger that they walked upon deceitfull grounds for so soon as the Winde turned their false Teachers would all forsake them clap their tailes between their legs and run away like a chidden Curre and that those they most trusted in would soonest forsake them to serve their own turns And yet allwayes when I took an occasion to declare my strong hopes of your Majesties Restauration many would seem to laugh at it and wish me to set my heart at rest for I should never live to see that day to which I ever replied with a constant courage that I trusted in God to live and see that happy day which I had so much prayed for and so long expected and continually hoped for so many years together and that their security was a sign and strong Argument to me of the more sudden approach thereof for it would certainly come to passe when the most of men did least dream of it and a time of the weakest probability in the eye of the world is the fittest season for the Divine succour and the most glorious opportunity for God Almighty to bring his own purposes and blessed decrees to the best effect for it was impossible for a real and true Christian to beleeve that the divine justice could any longer suffer such usurping wretchednesse to have continuance which had so basely and injuriously subverted the whole frame of Government both in Church and Commonwealth setting up such pandarising Magistrates as were content to submit themselves to be agents in the most heathenish and Mahometan absurdities and such idolatrizing Ministers as for Balaams wages were content to idolize every usurping rebell and perfidiously and perjuriously to defame and cast off the Hierarchie of the Church which they had formerly sworn to maintain and yeeld their obedience unto and stubbor●ly also to deprave and disclaim the holy Liturgie thereof the Book of Common-prayer and administration of the Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies of the Church of England being in truth so holy and sacred in it self and so consonant to Gods word and the primitive institution of the true Catholick Church founded upon the faith of the holy Apostles and Prophets as the most critical Phanatick can never be able to find the least just occasion of offence therein unlesse

Here the Author did intend to have placed his Effigies and Coat of Armes but the exact Sculpture thereof being so chargeable and his Sufferings so great for which he hath yet no recompence he is enforced to be frugal in expences and therefore intreats the gentle Reader to accept of the Verses that he composed to be printed underneath the same and courteously to correct the Printers Errata These are the Verses This Figure here doth lively represent A Courage bold but clearly Innocent Not prone to injure feeble Age nor Youth But ever zealous to divulge the Truth Who Schisme and horrid Treason did defie And unto Heaven for Truth and Justice crye Who for his love to Englands King and Church Hath been despis'd revil'd and suffer'd much Yet Truth of worth and Honour gained so By being dubb'd the Tyrant R●bell's soe Peruse this Book and you may surely see Some Signal Emblems of His Loyaltie J. W. Fidelitatis Feodum Felicitas To the most Illustrious High and Mighty MAJESTY of CHARLES the II By the Grace of God KING of Great Britain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. The Humble Declaration of JOHN VVENLOCK of Langham in the County of Essex Esquire an V●ter Barrister of near Forty years continuance in that Honourable Society of Lincolnes-Inne Being first A Supplicatory Preface and Discourse to His Majesty and then humbly shewing the great and dangerous Troubles and intollerable Oppressions of Himself and His Family and the true occasion thereof in the wofull Times of these late most unhappy Distractions Wherein the perfect Loyalty of a true Subject and the perfideous malice and cruelty of a Rebell are evidently deciphered and severally set forth to the publick view in their proper colours as a Caution for England Hereunto are annexed certain Poems and other Treatises composed and written by the Author upon several Occasions concerning the late most horrid and distracted Times and never before published Nemo plus videtur aestimare virtutem nemo magis illi esse devotus quam qui boni viri famam perdidit ne conscientiam perderet Sen. 72. Ep. Fortitudo tua fiducia fidelis conscitnciae Bern. Conscientia mala benè sperare non potest Aug. London Printed by T. Childe and L. Parry for the Author and are to be sold at most Booksellers shops in London and Westminster-hall 16●2 ERRATA IN Page 9. l. 2. for are read us in p. 13. l. 23. for happily r. unhappily in p. 14. l. 11. for for any r. or for any in p. 18. l. 1. for gratitude r. gratuitie in l. 6. for stickle r. strive l. 11. for works r. words l. 19. for defection r. defects in p. 29. l. 11. for months r. twelve months p. 30. in the title for demeans r. demeanour in p. 34. the last line but one for to themselves r. to the ruine of themselves in p. 35. l. 14 for to honoured r. to be honoured p. 37. l. 21. for four r. fourty p. 38. l. 12. for there r. and there p. 40. for very proper r. prime and proper l. 19. and p. 52. for nor r. and. p. 56. l. 1. for fanings r. failings p. 64. l. 37. for coarse r. course The Epistle Dedicatory To the High and Mighty Majesty OF Charles the II. By the Grace of GOD King of Great Britain c. Defender of the Faith c. Most Royal Religious and Sacred Soveraign WHen I had first most humbly presented my petition to your Majesty upon the Long Gallerie stairs towards St. James his park in Trinitie Term 1660. I did presently implore your Majestie to be pleased but to peruse the same and then my self your poor subject should reap abundance of satisfaction therein and your Majesties gracious answer unto me was with a reiteration of these words I shall I shall and within lesse then an hour after I did hear that your Majestie had performed your princely promise for which I have ever since desired to render to your Grace the most humble and hearty thanks of a loyal and gratefull subject And now most humbly prostrating my self at the feet of your Maj●sties clemency again I do most submissely and earnestly begg at your gracious hands one favour more beseeching your Majesty to be pleased to accept of and to patronize these my weak endeavours which most humbly and thankfully I do Dedicate and present to your Grace beseeching your Majesty to vouchsafe the perusal of this Treatise at some time when the heavie burden of those so serious and urgent affairs imposed upon you will admit of an intermission and so your Majestie shall be truly informed what my condition is and hath been which being once known to your Grace I shall rest in abundance of quiet and with alacritie submit to such success as the good Providence and will of God and your gratious Pleasure shall thereupon suffer to be produced Royall Sir I am one of those that have been a Cordiall loving and obedient Subject in my Dutie and Allegiance to your Royall and Religious Father and Grandfather of glorious and blessed Memorie yet my Fate was never hitherto so propitious as to afford me any further favour then the common protection of a Subject and if the unhappinesse of the Times by the occasion of our sins had not late deprived us of that royal Favour then in all probability I might have been in such a posture before this time as I should not now have been necessitated to seek an Office to maintain me in my old Age But I have almost been bereaved of all my means and practise from my Age of 40 years to 60. the best time of proficiencie in all a mans life and yet I praise God for it I can with a good comfort and courage say to your Majestie that I am no absolute Beggar but only in Relation to God and your good Grace that is his lawfull and undoubted Deputie here upon the Earth for by means of Gods mercie and your Majesties so happy and Fortunate Accesse to your just and Royal rights I am still in lawfull possession of an Estate in Lands which although it be but small yet it is of a Noble Tenure being late holden of your Majestie by a whole Knights Fee and which hath lineally been enjoyed by my Ancestors and continued in my name for the space of near 500. years ever since the Reign of King Henry the 3d. and that is more then some great Ones are able to assert and certainly a blessing hath been upon it in the so long continuance thereof being at first honestly bought with their Money and a Bargain I think more justifiable then some kind of purchasing either of Honour or Offices And although my name be at present and of late in some obs●uritie yet it hath not been allwayes so in the times of Antiquit●e for in the Reign of that Valiant and Famous Prince King Edward the 1. there lived one of my name which had the Honour to be Lord

so poysoned and their Judgements abused and depraved with such Devillish dissimulation and as soon as I could I got my self away thorough the croud and going out at the door an Officer of the Court espyed me and said Sir whither do you go so fast Away said I what should I do here Why quoth he I hope you will tarry and dine with the Justices no surely said I for such doctrine I have already heard amongst them as I am resolved neither to eat nor drink with them this day But I hope now such popular Temporisers will truly see their Errors ere it be too late for every such Proteus or Protogenes that intends to participate of Eternal felicity and to be as well capable of Gods mercy as of their Princes pardon must not think it sufficient to turn a new leaf with the times but they must be seriously sorrowfull and repentant for their former failings and corrupt conversations One of the holy Fathers used to pray unto God to forgive him his other mens sins that is the sins which he had occasioned others to fall into and commit and most heartily I do beseech Almighty God that the whole body of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may obtain the grace to be truly penitent and pathetically pious in the reforming of what hath been amisse God and the World too well knows who were incentively the first founders and fomenters of the late Rebellion and so consequently it is to be feared of all the horrible Murders Rapines and other grosse and Atheistical absurdities and Deviations both in Church and Common-wealth which upon the same so sadly ensued Have not some lately brought to a condign punishment pretended as an excuse for their so wicked an● unparallel'd Treacheries that they were Commissioned Officers under such a man and who had he all his own Commissions from and were there not Votes passed for Non-Addresses to his late Majesty and was not the clause for preservation of his Majesties person quite left out in some of their Commissions Alas I touch not upon these things with a desire to rub or renew the sore but to give a charitable admonition as a Christian salve to the soul that such as are any wayes guilty thereof may be drawen to abhorre themselves and to repent in dust and ashes It is most true if it please your Majesty that I was ever a sore detester of Rebellion but I was as well pleased to endure the yoak of a single Tyrant as of a multitude of the same stamp and yet I could not forbear inveighing against him sometimes in the presence of such as had near relation to him and it is very strange that I was not destroyed amongst some others for many silly seditious So●s would cry out upon me with a why you speak against the Government but these Rurals were ●oth to trouble themselves or travel up so far to accuse me and certainly next to Gods mercy my so seldome comming at London was an Antidote to preserve me out of his clutches For indeed my constant discourse concerning that Tyrant was that God had raised him up as he did Pharaoh to plague his People for their sins and to the in●ent that the Lord might shew his Power upon him in the conclusion For I never looked upon the late Rebells and all their Complices and Adherents but as upon the Aegyptian vermine of Frogs Lice and Caterpillers sent and suffered to torment this Nation for their rebellious offences and therefore I did every day continually expect their ruine For if the Nation repented not then I knew that God was able to punish us some other wayes but I could never doubt but that the Lord in his due time would vindicate his own glorie and truth against such wicked wretches and suddenly send some strong favonian Wind to disperse and drive them all into the red Sea of ruine and utter destruction I have often wondred at the strange Hipocrisie or strong delusions of some reputed wise ones in this Nation for their first pretence of taking up Armes as they held it forth to the People was to depresse and beat down Popery forsooth and yet some of themselves afterwards when successe did seem to favour their factions did put in practise and strive to maintain the opposing deposing and murder of Kings the absolute merit of their own Works and the infallibility of their own dirty decretalls such desperate and dangerous Tenets as no moderate Romanist will now allow of or yield any approbation unto Nay the very written Word of God his ten Commandements the Lords Prayer the Holy Epistles and Gospels and the true Christian Catholick Beleefe c. are by some sacrilegiously thrust out at the Church doors to the end that ignorance and perversness may yet be nourished and their own weak and neer non-sensicall inventions only applauded amongst the people and for the pleasing and feeding the idle and obstinate humours of a few factious schismaticks And yet whosoever in the late times durst but once open his mouth to speak against such ethnical practises was presently branded with the odious name of a Malignant ill affected person to the state but if all had been so blockish as to be silent and not have spoken a word against such damnable doings I think as our Saviour saith in another case the very stones would have cried out although too many were much offended at those that spake their minds in sinceritie yet I beleeve it was happie for the whole Nation that there were some such persons to be offended at for had there been no righteous Lots therein to reprove the wickednesse of others and that were continually vexed with the unjust conversation of such Sodomites there might have been danger enough for fire and brimstone to have fallen from Heaven upon such a grosse apostatizing Kingdome for I am sure that the sinnes of Sodome never mounted so high nor cried so loud in the ears of Gods vengeance as the bewitched wickednesse of wretched England for many years of late hath certainly done the Lord in his Christ be mercifully appeased with us for the same Indeed for mine own particular I doe professe and have divers times formerly said as much that next to the great hopes that I have for the saving of my poor soul by the mercies of God in the merits alone of Jesus Christ I did never think that my God had afforded me a greater favour then to preserve and keep me by his grace from being an agent in or adherent to the late rebellion for if any thing had been amisse in the practise of religion as was pretended by some yet such as were not wholly given over to a reprobate sense might easily have understood that armed violence could never amend it but rather make all worse then it was before it is grosse ignorance to imagine that reformation in the Church or Religion and Truth it self can be setled in bloud but only in the innocent and precious bloud