Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	good_a	people_n	time_n	1,769	5	3.1061	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B04785	A letter to Mr Penn with his answer.	Popple, William, d. 1708.; Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1688 (1688)	Wing P2964A; ESTC R187006	11,830	11

Access to him so unjust as well as sordidly false are all those Storys of the Town The only Reason that I can apprehend they have to repute me a Roman Catholick is my frequent going to Whitehall a place no more forbid to me than to the rest of the World who yet it seems find much sairer Quarter I have almost continually had one Business or other there for our Friends whom I ever served with a steady Solicitation thro all times since I was of their Communion I had also a great many personal good Offices to do upon a Principle of Charity for People of all perswasions thinking it a Duty to improve the little Interest I had for the good of those that needed it especially the Poor I might add something of my own Assairs too though I must own if I may without vanity that they have ever had the least share of my Thoughts or Pains or else they would not have still depended as they yet do But because some People are se unjust as to render Instances for my Popery or Hipocrisy rather for so it would be in me 't is fit I contradict them as particularly as they accuse me I say then solemnly that I am so far from having been bred at St. Omers and having received Orders at Rome that I never was at either Place nor do I know any body there nor had I ever a Correspondency with any one in those Places which is another Story invented against me And as for my officiating in the Kings Chappel or any other it is so ridiculous as well as untrue that besides that no body can do it but a Priest and that I have been marryed to a Woman of some Condition above sixteen Years which no Priest can be by any Dispensation whatever I have not so much as lookt into any Chappell of the Roman Religion and consequently not the Kings though a common curiosity warrants it daily to People of all Perswasions And once for all I do say that I am a Protestant Dissenter and to that degree such that I challenge the most celebrated Protestant of the English Church or any other upon that Head be he Lay-man or Clergy-Man in Publick or in Private For I would have such People know 't is not impossible for a True Protestant Dissenter to be Dutiful Thankful and Serviceable to the King though he be of the Roman Catholick Communion We hold not our Property or Protection from Him by our Perswasion and therefore His Perswasion should not be the Measure of our Allegiance I am sorry to see so many that seem fond of the Reformed Religion by their Disaffection to Him recommend it so ill Whatever Practices of Roman Catholicks we might reasonably object against and we know such there are yet He has disclaim'd and reprehended those ill things by His declared Opinion against Persecution by the Ease in which He actually indulges all Dissenters and by the Confirmation he offers in Parliament for the Security of the Protestant Religion and Liberty of Conscience And in His Honour as well as in my own Desence I am obliged in Conscience to say that he has ever declared to me it was His Opinion and on all occasions when Duke he never refused me the repeated Proofs of it as often as I had any Poor Sufferer for Conscience sake to sollicit His help for But some may be apt to say Why not any Body else as well as well as I Why must I have the preferable access to other Dissenters if not a Papist I Answer I know not that it is so But this I know that I have made it my Province and Business I have followed and prest it I took it for my Calling and Station and have kept it above these sixteen Years and which is more if I may say it without Vanity or Reproach wholly at my own Charges too To this let me add the Relation my Father had to this Kings Service his particular Favour in getting me released out of the Tower of London in 69 my Fathers humble Request to Him upon his Death-Bed to protect me from the Inconveniences and Troubles my Perswasion might expose me to and His Friendly Promise to do it and exact Performance of it from the moment I addressed my self to Him I say when all this is considered any Body that has the least pretence to Good Nature Gratitude or Generosity must needs know how to interpret my Access to the King. Perhaps some will be ready to say this is not all nor is this yet a fault but that I have been an Adviser in other matrers disgustful to the Kingdom and which tend to the Overthrow of the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of the People A likely thing indeed that a Protestant Dissenter who from fifteen Years old has been at times a Sufferer in his Father's Family in the Vniverfity and by the Government for being so should design the Destruction of the Protestant Religion This is just as probable as it is true that I dy'd a Jesuit six years ago in America Will men still suffer such Stuff to pass upon them Is any thing more foolish as well as false than that because I am often at White-Hall the refore I must be Author of all that is done there that does not please abroad But supposing some such things to have been done pray tell me if I am bound to oppose any thing that I am not call'd to do I never was a Member of Council Cabinet or Committee where the Affairs of the Kingdom are transacted I have had no Office or Trust and consequently nothing can be said to be done by me nor for that reason could I lye under any Test or Obligation to discover my Opinion of Publick Acts of State and therefore neither can any such Acts or my Silence about them in Justice be made my Crime Volunteers are Blanks and Cyphers in all Governments And unless calling at White-Hall once a day upon many Occasions or my not being turn'd out of nothing for that no Office is be the Evidence of my Compliance in disagreeable thingt I know not what else can with any Truth be aledged against me However one thing I know that I have every where most religiously observ'd and endeavour'd in Conversation with Persons of all Ranks and Opinions to allay Heats and moderate Extremities even in the Politicks 'T is below me to be more particular But I am sure it has been my endeavour that if we could not all meet upon a Religious Bottom at least we might meet upon a Civil One the good of England which is the common interest of King and People That He might be great by Justice and we free by Obedience distinguishing rightly on the one hand between Duty and Slavery and on the other between Liberty and Licenticusness But alas I am not without my Apprehensions of the Cause of this behaviour towards me and in this I perceive we agree I mean

my constant Zeal for an Impartial Liberty of Conscience But if that be it the Cause is too good to be inpain about it I ever understood That to be the natural Right of all men and that he that had a Religion without it his Religion was none of his own For what is not the Religion of a mans choice is the Religion of him that imposes it So that Liberty of Conscience is the first Step to have a Religion This is no new Opinion with me I have writ many Apologies within the last twenty Years to defend it and that impartially Yet I have as constantly declared that Bounds ought to be set to this Freedom and that Morality was the best and that as often as That was violated under a pretence of Conscience it was fit the Civil Power should take place Nor did I ever once think of promoting any sort of Liberty of Conscience for any body which did not preserve the Common Protestancy of the Kingdom and the Antient Rights of the Government For to say Truth the one cannot be maintained without the other Upon the whole matter I must say I love England I ever did so and that I am not in her Debt I never valued Time Money or Kindred to serve her and do her good No Party could ever byass me to her Prejudice nor any Personal Interest oblige me in her wrong For I always abhor'd discounting Private Favours at the Publicks Cost Would I have made my Matket of the Fears and Jealousies of People when this King came to the Crown I had put Twenty Thousand Pounds into my Pocket and a Hundred Thousand into my Province For mighty numbers of People were then upon the Wing But I wav'd it all hop'd for better Times expected the Effects of the Kings Word for Liberty of Conscience and Happiness by it and till I saw my own Friends with the Kingdom deliver'd from the Legal Bondage which Penal Laws for Religion had subjected them to I could with no Satisfaction think of leaving England though much to my Prejudice beyond Set and at my great Expence here having in all this time never had either Office or Pension and refusing ever the Rewards or Gratuities of those I have been able to oblige If therefore an Vniversal Charity if the asserting an Impartial Liberty of Conscience if doing to others as one would be done by and an open avowing and steady practising of these things in all times to all Parties will justly lay a Man under the Reflection of being a Jesuit or Papist of any Rank I must not only submit to the Character but imbrace it too And I care not who knows I can wear it with more Pleasure than it is possible for them with any Justice to give it me For these are Corner Stones and Principles with me and I am scandalized at all Buildings that have them not for their Foundations For Religion it self is an empty Name without them A Whited-Wall a Painted-Sepulchre No Life or Virtue to the Soul No good or Example to ones Neighbour Let us not flatter our Selves We can never be the better for our Religion if our Neighbour he the worse for it Our fault is we are apt to be mighty hot upon speculative Errors and break all Bounds in our Resentments but we let practical ones pass without Remark if not without Repentance As if a mistake about an obscure Proposition of Faith were a greater evil than the breach of an undoubted Precept Such a Religion the Devils themselves are not without for they have both Faith and Knowledge but their Faith doth not work by Love nor their Knowledge by Obedience And if this be their Judgment can it be our Blessing Let us not then think Religion a litigious thing nor that Christ came onely to make us good Disputants but that he came also to make us good Livers Sincerity goes farther than Capacity It is Charity that deservedly excels in the Christian Relegion And happy would it be if where Vnity ends Charity did begin instead of Envy and Railing that almost ever follow It appears to me to be the way that God has found out and appointed to moderate our Differences and make them at least harmless to Society and therefore I confess I dare not aggravate them to Wrath and Blood. Our Disagreement lies in our Apprehension or belief of things and if the common Enemy of Mankind had not the governing of our Affections and Passions that Disagreement would not prove such a Canker as it is to Love and Peace in Civil Societies He that suffers his Difference with his Neighbour about the other World to carry him beyond the Line of Moderation in this is the worse for his Opinion even though it be true It is too little considered by Christians that men may hold the Truth in Vnrightcousness that they may be Orthodox and not know what Spirit they are of So were the Disciples of our Lord. They believed in him yet let a false Zeal do violence to their Judgment and their unwarrantable heat contradict the great end of their Saviours coming Love. Men may be angry for God's sake and kill People too Christ said it and too many have practised it But what sort of Christians must they be I pray that can hate in his Name who bids us love and kill for his sake that forbids killing and commands love even to Enemies Let not Men or Parties think to shift it off from themselves 'T is not this Principle or that Form to which so great a Defection is owing but a degeneracy of Mind from God. Christianity is not at Heart No Fear of God in the inward parts No aw of his Divine Omnipresence Self prevails and breaks out more or less through all Forms but too plainly Pride Wrath Lust Avarice so that though People say to God Thy Will be done they do their own Which shews them to be true Heathens under a mask of Christianity that believe without Works and repent without forsaking busie for Forms and the Temporal Benefits of them while true Religion which is to Visit the Fatherless and the Widow and to keep our selves unspotted from the World goes barefoot and like Lazarus is despised Yet this was the Definition the Holy Ghost gave of Religion before Synods and Councils had the meddling with it and modeling of it In those days Bowels were a good part of Religion and that to the Fatherless and Widow at large We can hardly now extend them to those of our own way It was said by him that could not say amiss Because Iniquity abounds the Love of many waxes cold What soever divides man's Heart from God separates it from his Neighbour and he that loves self more than God can never love his Neighbour as himself For as the Apostle said if we do not love him whom we see how can we love God whom we have not seen O that we could see some men as eager to turn People