Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	king_n	lord_n	parliament_n	20,596	5	6.9552	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78025	A narration of the life of Mr. Henry Burton. Wherein is set forth the various and remarkable passages thereof, his sufferings, supports, comforts, and deliverances. Now published for the benefit of all those that either doe or may suffer for the cause of Christ. According to a copy written with his owne hand.	Burton, Henry, 1578-1648.	1643 (1643)	Wing B6169; Thomason E94_10; ESTC R20087	50,659	60

back for my friend to follow the Bishop at that very instant changed his note and began to speak me as faire as possibly could be whereupon I came towards him againe saying with●n my selfe that if he spake reason I would heare him Nor was I at any time before him but methought I stood over him as a School-master over his School-boy So great was the goodnesse of God upon me Another time I being convented at a High-Commission Board at London-house about my fore-said Book Babel no Bethel Harsenet then Archbishop of Yorke having run himselfe out of breath with railing against me and my Book a speciall faculty wherein his Grace exceeded at length saying that I had dedicated my Book to the Parliament to incense them against the Higher Powers he meant the King then I answered No my Lord I am none of them that divide the King and Parliament but I pray God to unite them together At this he had never a word more to say For this was presently after that Parliament was broken up wherein the Petition of Right was signed so that he knew better who they were which at that time divided the King from the Parliament Well at the same time I must to prison and tendring bale London answered No for said he the King had given expresse charge that no baile should be taken for me Then my Lord said I I desire to know by what Law or Statute of the Land you doe imprison me if it be according to Law I humbly submit my selfe otherwise I doe here claime the right and priviledge of a subject according to the Petition of Right but nor Petition nor Right nor Law could keep me from prison To the Fleet I went where stepping in and saying to the Porter By your leave and he answering You are welcome Sir I thanked him saying that is some comfort yet But I found the comforts of my God there exceedingly it being the first time of my being a Prisoner saving that I was still and had beene a long time in the High Commission Bonds which restrained my liberty to the scantling of that tether But I hasten to the maine Battalion or pitcht battell with the Prelates and their prelaticall party For I more and more disliked their usurpations and tyrannicall Government with their attempts to set up Popery Therefore I purposely preached upon the second Chapter to the Colossians crying downe all will-worship and humane inventions in Gods service Hereupon I began in my practice as in my judgement to fall off from the ceremonies Only I watched for an occasion to try it out with them either by dint of Arguments or force of Law or by the King and his Counsell resolving of this that by this means I should either foile my adversaries though I had no great hope this way or at least which I was sure not to faile of discover the mystery of iniquity and the deceit of hypocrisie which like a white vaile they had cast over all their foule practices and false pretences being woven with the fine thread of solemne Protestations Declarations Proclamations and the like And this discovery I tooke to be of no small importance and consequence because I saw how every day they got ground in the hearts of simple and credulous people apt to beleeve their plausible pretences and pompous shewes of piety as if all they did were to maintain the Protestant Religion when under that specious colour the withered whore of Babylon came in maskd at the first till at length she began to shew her painted face in her Superstitions Altar-service and other garbs And as they laboured to undermine and overthrow the true Protestant Religion and in stead thereof to set up Popery so they did no lesse seeke to overthrow the Civill state with the good lawes thereof and just liberties of the subject and to introduce an arbitrary Government otherwise called Tyrany which taketh away every mans property in his owne goods and estate as plainly appeared by all their practices as in exacting of shipmoney which was to be perpetuall and sometimes twice imposed in one yeare upon some pretence of forraine enemies when we had cause to feare none but our home-bred traitours and other impositions with a thousand monopolies Of all which I being not a little sensible both as I was a poore servant of Christ and therefore bound to vindicate his cause against Antichristian men and also as a free borne subject of the kingdome as one who ever prized the just libertie of my birthright above this life it selfe I therefore thought how I might best acquit my duty both to God and to his Church and to my Country in defending the cause of both To this purpose on the fifth of Noxember 1636 being a day by Act of Parliament to be solemnized in an anniversary solemne thanksgiving for that great deliverance of King and Parliament from the Gunpowder-treason which Popish traytors conspired to have executed on that day 1625 I preached according to my custome two Sermons taking for my Text Prov. 24. 21 22. My sonne feare thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change For their calamity shall arise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both But before I proceed to a further relation hereof let me tell you of a passage or two falling out but a little before my troubles The first was this A reverend godly Minister Mr Williamson of Kent having newly preached in my Church upon Acts 21. 13. and we having some private conference of his Text and Sermon I said to him in the close Well brother I must be an example hereof one day The other was of a strange dreame I had one night not many dayes before this day came I dreamed lodging then at a deare friends house in Stratford Bow neere London that I saw a most magnificent Pallace the like whereof I never saw upon the earth and therein a most glorious throne erected and in the throne Jesus Christ sitting in Majesty but all alone without any attendance of Angels or Saints about him only there lay all along before the throne a man dead with his feet towards Christ and his face upward the other way But after awhile the dead man was raised up and stood upon his feet looking towards the throne Whereupon immediately there appeared about the throne an innumerable company of glorious Angels and Saints exceedingly rejoycing and praising God for restoring life to that man This dreame I told in the morning to my wife and after that to my deare Christian friends in the house all yet surviving to whom I also made this interpretation that this dead man was the present Church of Christ which now lay for dead and none took the care of it but Christ alone but after awhile Christ would restore his Church to life and set her in a glorious estate as one raised from the dead to the state of glory and then all the

holy Angels and Saints should rejoyce and sing Halelujahs to him that sits upon the Throne And this I told them should most certainly come to passe and that shortly so as they should live to see it And so being to goe to London that morning I took my leave thereupon saying Well what ever come on it I must to my work And this work proved to be that aforesaid Nov. 5. When having preached those Sermons I was not long after summoned by a Pursuivant into the English Inquisition Court the High Commission from which I presently appealed to the King And because I foresaw that this would prove a publick cause and putting no confidence either in my Appeale or in the equity and innocency of my cause or in the just lawes of the Kingdome being fallen into such times wherein nor law nor conscience nor innocency nor justice nor clemency nor humanity could take place but that some unjust odious censure must stigmatize both the cause and the person therefore I shut my selfe up in my house as in my prison and there did compile my two said Sermons with my Appeale in one Book to the end it might be published in print as it was sheet by sheet as I writ it the while the Prelates Pursuivants those barking Beagles ceased not night nor day to watch and rap and ring at my doores to have surprised me in that my Castle nor yet to search and hunt all the Printing houses about London to have prevented the comming forth of my Book which they heard to be at the Presse But God by his good providence so prevented them as neither they could touch my person before I had finished my Book nor yet prevent the publishing thereof for all their unwearied search And here I may not omit to magnifie the great Name of God especially for two things First for his admirable strengthning and supporting presence in so carrying up my spirit all the while of my writing that Book entituled For God and the King together with the Appeale c. that not all the incessant roarings and ballings of those beagles could either interrupt my work or distract my thoughts or discourage my resolution by any the least apprehension or feare of danger but that with all cheerfulnesse and invinciblenesse of spirit the work was finished Secondly the Lords wonderfull Providence is here to be admired in that the Pursuivants had no power either to apprehend my person or to prevent the publishing of my Book but just that night when I had received some dozens of Copies bound up and the Books for the King and Councell were a binding up and nor sooner nor later having also newly concluded the Family-duties for that night came the Serjeant at Armes with his Mace in the Bishop of Londons name accompanied with divers Pursuivants and other Officers yea with the Sheriffe of London with swords and halberds and with pick-axes fell a breaking up my doores which being strong and I making no resistance held them work till eleven of the Clock They break in surprise my person ransack my study carry away what Books they pleased and carry me away prisoner to a Constables house for that night and the next day at night being Febr. 2. they had got a new warrant from the Councell Board to carry me to prison in the Fleet where I was kept close prisoner from wife or friend and so remained for halfe a yeare till I was removed to another prison as you shall heare anon During my abode in the Fleet I was served with a Writ into the Starre Chamber to answer an information there against me drawn up by the Kings Atturney in the Name of the King notwithstanding my said Appeale not yet repealed But all is one for that With much difficulty being all along close prisoner I get my Answer drawne up by Counsell and the same by speciall Order of Starre-Chamber admitted in Court upon my Oath to be a true Answer Above a week after I heare that the two Chiefe Justices by appointment of the Court have quite expunged my Answer and defence contained in 80 sheets leaving only the negative part and that also of their owne patching together contained in some halfe a dozen lines Thus my Answer in Court is left no Answer of mine After this comes the Examiner for my Answer to his interrogatories which was to be reckoned part of my Answer in Court But I answered him that my Answer in Court being wholly expunged and so made no Answer of mine I was not bound to answer the interrogatories Hereupon I was brought into the Starre-Chamber to be censured by all those terrible ones pro confesso as having refused to put in my Answer when indeed themselves had put it our What I then spake for my selfe by leave of the Court which had already the day before set downe my Censure in black and white and what the Censure was and by whom I referre to the Relation of all the passages of our three sufferings set forth at large in Print 1641. Only thus much when I saw that they would proceed to censure notwithstanding they did not nor could object the least crime in all my Book For God and the King but that they said I was too sharp against the Prelates having obtained leave to speak I said My Lords I perceive I am brought into a great strait that of necessity I must either desert my cause and my conscience or undergoe the Censure of this Honourable Court and therefore I doe without any further deliberation choose rather to abide the Censure of this Honourable Court then to desert my Cause my conscience Here at the Audience gave a great humme But when they came to the censure it was so terrible especially the perpetuall close imprisonment in a desolate goale that lest my spirits should faint within me I did there earnestly in my heart entreat the Lord that he would strengthen me and hold up my spirits that I might not any way dishonour the cause or give those terrible ones cause to triumph And at that very instant the Lord heard me he put such strength in me as neither my selfe nor my two Brethren did once change countenance before those terrible ones so as some of them afterwards said that they never saw three such men who instead of being daunted so stood before the Court as if they had sit in the Judges place And forasmuch as the night before a friend came to me in the Fleet and told me he saw my Censure set down in their Book as standing on the Pillory c. I did therefore that night * redouble my prayer to God that he would strengthen me at my Censure so as I might not dishonour him and his Cause the next day before that great Court And immediately upon my prayer I was filled with a mighty spirit of courage and resolution wherewith I was carried up farre above my selfe even as it were upon

of an imminent danger as all doe know so as the dissolution of the Parliament in the prevention thereof proved to be as the ashes of the Phenix whereof is begotten another Phenix the dissolution of that proving the generation of this hitherto in many things happy Parliament which we have now so long enjoyed and which God hath so miraculously preserved from so many desperate Cut-throats when they came armed both with power and bloody resolution to make a massacre of that sacred Senate and when the Northerne Army was designed for the like execution And should we runne over and well weigh and number the severall deliverances that God hath given both in this Kingdome and in that of Scotland from so many treacheries treasons and rebellions from the first till this present both by Sea and Land taking in the late Spanish Fleet and Armado for not the least so miraculously defeated we shall finde and acknowledge them so many miracles or miraculous deliverances and so much the more when we consider on the one side the overtopping power and undermining plots of the most cruell and trecherous sworne enemies and home-bred vipers and degenerate monsters that ever hell hatcht or Rome brought forth machinating the utter ruine of both Parliament and People Religion and Rights Lawes and Liberties City and Countrey and on the other side the weaknesse both of Parliament and People to defend themselves and the State from imminent ruine when in our greatest dangers there were such divisions in both Houses so as for a long time especially before the Prelates those incendiaries and make-bates were cast out of the House of Lords matters of maine consequence tending to reformation and preservation of the Kingdome could not passe currant no place could be found for the punishing of Delinquents and the like their impunity proving a kinde of immunity to advance their Crest to such a heigth of insolency as it is now growne intolerable if not incurable Yet notwithstanding all this see how miraculously the Lord worketh for us For hath hee not caused all the machinations of that miscreant and malignant party to make against themselves and for us What got the Prelates by their bold Remonstrance against all the Proceedings of this Parliament as meere nullities Were they not thereupon cast out as nullities in Parliament and by this occasion each House better united in it selfe and both Houses better accorded and more firmely combined together What have they gained by attempting of Hull by solliciting by flattery or force simple and credulous poore soules by gathering Forces against the Parliament and the loyall Subjects of the Kingdome but thereby to discover to the world what truth there is in all their Protestations and faire false pretences to the contrary so that the trecherons intentions and bloody projects and beastly practises of that selfe-damning Crew might be found the more worthy every day to be hated and abhorred both of God and men So as it is apparent that our God hath given up our enemies to be self-blinded their hearts being hardned to their confusion That in all their disasters and our deliverances all along we might sing with Moses Who among the Gods is like unto thee O Lord Who is like thee glorious in holinesse fearfull in praises doing wonders Thus hitherto we have seene the many miraculous things which are so many miraculous deliverances of the Church and so many steps and degrees unto a greater and a more miraculous deliverance yet to come all which have in part answered to the interpretation of the miraculous Rainbow above mentioned I say in part because the great miraculous deliverance is yet to come And there is no surer signe of this great miraculous deliverance of Gods Church then the fury and rage of Satan and Antichrist with all their confederate faction making open warre against the Kingdome and Gospel of Christ And now is this warre begun professedly in Ireland by the Rebels there who have their Authors Factors and Abetters both in Rome and England for the rooting out of all Protestants and the Protestant Religion which warre they intended to perfect in England and Scotland So as this outragious warre in the ●ebellion of Ireland and in the raising of Popish forces in England against the true Protestants under the infamous name of Round heads which warre is fomented by all Papists and popishly affected within the Land and without among whom our Prelates with their Priests are not the least incendiaries and bellowes-blowers seducing also their blind-folded Ignorants to make a party with them to destroy themselves and families together with their native countrey and all the honour of it This warre I say so furiously and universally by them prosecuted is a most certain immediate fore-running sign of the imminent ruine of the whole Kingdome of the Beast which is spiritually called Egypt even as the power of the Kingdome of Egypt Pharoah and his Host pursuing Israel to the red Sea with resolution utterly to destroy the Lords people was that which led them to their owne dismall destruction in that Sea For the enemy had said I will pursue I will overtake them I will divide the spoile my lust shall be satisfied upon them I will draw my Sword my hand shall destroy them The very language of our Antichristian enemies at this time the Cavaleers at Yorke divided among themselves the streets houses and spoyles of London they threaten the utter extirpation of all Round-heads as they call them to wit all Protestants even all such as cannot away with Popery Therfore certainly the ruine of this cursed faction is neere at hand which shall be with a fearefull destruction forasmuch as they make open warre against the Lord and his anointed people So as that which is prophecied of those Kings Rulers in the second Psalm who with their heathenish rage and tumultuous troops warre against the Gospel the bands and cords whereof they indeavour to burst in sunder to cast away from them hastneth now to be verified of them the Lord that sitteth in Heaven laughes at their proud and vaine attempts and with his iron Rod shall he breake them in pieces like a Potters Vessell And even as Pharaoh with his Egyptians would not be warned nor humbled with those 10. terrible plagues which the Lord sent upon Egypt one after another but their hatred against Israel still continued till at last the Lord utterly rooted them out so seeing none of all these defeats which the Lord hath sent upon the desperate designes of our new Egyptians one after another disappointing them and delivering us will reclaime them or appease their fury but after all they doe still seek to extirpate the people of God and all true Religion The like destruction must needs overtake them that overtooke the old Egyptians As the Prophet saith O Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but they shall see and be confounded for their envy