Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	catholic_a	church_n	faith_n	6,104	5	5.7683	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A05597	The totall discourse, of the rare adventures, and painefull peregrinations of long nineteene yeares travailes from Scotland, to the most famous kingdomes in Europe, Asia, and Affrica Perfited by three deare bought voyages, in surveying of forty eight kingdomes ancient and modern; twenty one rei-publicks, ten absolute principalities, with two hundred islands. ... divided into three bookes: being newly corrected, and augmented in many severall places, with the addition of a table thereunto annexed of all the chiefe heads. Wherein is contayed an exact relation of the lawes, religions, policies and governments of all their princes, potentates and people. Together with the grievous tortures he suffered by the Inquisition of Malaga in Spaine ... And of his last and late returne from the Northern Isles, and other places adjacent. By William Lithgow.; Most delectable, and true discourse, of an admired and painefull peregrination from Scotland, to the most famous kingdomes in Europe, Asia and Affricke	Lithgow, William, 1582-1645?	1640 (1640)	STC 15714; ESTC S108592	306,423	530

that one of our Kings subjects should be troubled by your Inquisition but as you have murdred me for alledged Treason so you meane to Martyr me for Religion And you Governour as you have Tortured and hunger-starved this helpelesse body consumed with cold and Vermine to the last of my life the Almighty God who revealeth the secrets of all things although I be never relieved will certainely discover it to my Countrey and to the World And is this the best of your good deeds you repay to our mercifull King who then being onely King of Scotland in the time of your just over-throw of Eighty Eight gave secourse to thousands of your Ship-wracked people for many moneths and in the end caused transport them safely to their desired Ports Leaving to the Worlds memory an eternall stampe of Christian Bounty Mercy and Royall Charitid and your acquittance to him is an imputation of ●reachery to his Fleete detaining and mis-regarding his Letters and Seales and now imposing to a tormented Innocent your lawlesse Inquisition To which the Governour answered all tha● was true but it was done more through feare then love and therefore deserved the lesser thankes but intrim wee will follow the uttermost of our ends And the Jesuite Predicator to confirme his words said there was no Faith to ●ee kept with Heretikes which directly or indirectly is the sublime policy of Conquerours which our mighty and innumerable Nation evermore taketh notice of and observeth Then the Inquisitor arising expressed himselfe thus Behold the powerfull majesty of Gods mother Commander of her Sonne equall to the Father Wife to the Holy-Ghost Queene of Heaven Protector of Angels and sole Gubernatrix of the Earth c. How thou being first taken as a Spye accused for Trechery and innocently Tortured as we acknowledge we were better informed lately from Madrile of the English intention yet it was her power her Divine power which brought these judgments upon thee it that thou hast wrote calumniously against her blessed miracles of Loretta an● against his Holinesse the great agent and Christs Viccar on Earth Therefore thou hast justly falne into our hands by her speciall appointment Thy Books and Papers are miraculously translated by her speciall providence with my owne Countrey-men wherefore thou maist clearely see the impenetrable Mysteries of our glori●us Lady in punishing her offenders and for a humble satisfaction Repent thee of thy wickednesse and bee converte● to the Holy mother Church And after many such like exhortations of all the foure the Inquisitor assigned mee eight daies for my Conversion saying that he and the Tiatines would twice a day visite mee in that time intreating me to bee advised againe the next morning of these doubts and difficulties that withstood my Conscience Then in leaving me the Jesuite Predicator making a Crosse upon my crossed brest said My sonne behold you deserve to be burnt quick but by the grace of our Lady of Loretta whom you have blasphemed wee will both save your soule and body Spewing forth also this Faeminine Latine Nam mansueta et misericordiosa est Ecclesia O Ecclesia Romana extra quem non est salus They gone and I alone all this night was I instant with my God imploring his grace to rectify my thoughts illuminate my understanding confirme my confidence beatifie my memory to sanctifie my knowledge to expell the seruile feare of death and to save my soule from the intangling Corruption of any private ends illusions or mundane Respects whatsoever The next morning the three Ecclesiastickes returned and being placed with Chaires and Candles the Inquisitor made interrogation of what difficulties errours or mis-beleefe I had To whom ingenuously I answered I had none neither any difficulty errour nor mis-beliefe but was confident in the promises of Iesus Christ and assuredly believed his revealed will in the Gospell professed in the Reformed Catholike Church which being confirmed by Grace I had the infallible assurance in my soule of the true Christian Faith To these words hee answered thou art no Christian but an absurd Hereticke and without conversion a member of perdition whereupon I replyed Reverend Sir the nature of Charity and Religion doe not consist in opprobrious speeches wherefore if you would convert mee as you say convince mee by Argument if not all your threatnings of Fire Death nor Torments shall make mee shrink from the truth of Gods word in Sacred Scriptures Where upon the mad Inquisitor clapped mee on the face with his foote busing mee with many Raylings and if the Jesuits had not intercepted him hee had stabbed me with a knife where when dismissed I never saw him more The third day insuing and having broake their promise the two Jesuits returned and after a frowning silence the Superiour asked mee of my resolution I told him I was resolved already unlesse hee could shew mee good reasons in the contrary Whereupon having past with me some few superficiall Arguments of their seven Sacraments Intercession Transubstantiation Images Purgatory Miracles Merit c. he begun to brag of their Church her Antiquity Vniuersality and Vniformity Ancient no said J for the Profession of my Faith hath beene ever since the first time of the Apostles And Christ had ever his owne Church howsoever obscure in the greatest time of your darknesse So Rome foure hundred yeares and upward was the true Church but afterward falling in apostacy by meanes of her corrupt leaders wee have left her in nothing but what shee hath left her former selfe Universall no alhough shee assumeth a Catholike name was not the Church in the East a greater Church than yours in the West for hundreds of yeare● and I pray you what are now the Oriental Churches in Asia besides the Greeks and the Aethiopian Africans that doe not so much as know or heare of your pope far lesse his profession With no small adoe Boniface the third ●btained of Phocas the Emperour to bee called universall Bishop which was assisted afterward by Pippin the Frenh King and ratified by Paleologus the Father of Constantine who lost Constantinople And what long controversies about this new power was between your Popes and the Councells of Carthage Calcedon Ephesus Alexandria and Nice Uniformable no some of your Priests give the Sacrament onely in Bread for reall flesh and blood some in wine without bread and some in both The Bavarians in their own language sing the Psalms in prose at their Masses and not else where done The second Commandement goeth currant amongst some of your Catholikes in France yet not in Britaine nor Provence so doeth it in Austri● and Bavaria but not in Italy and Spaine It is most evident what your former Popes have confirmed the succeeding Popes have disanulled and daily doe as their present lives and your ancient Histories beare a true record And was there not at one time three Popes in three severall places and oftentimes two at once One professing one Heresie and

feast of Easter day being about 6000 persons from this curious carved Chappell wee returned through the Church to Mount Calvary To which wee ascended by 21 steps 18 of them were of Marble and three of Cedar-wood where when we came I saw a most glorious and magnifick roome whose covert was supported all about with rich Columnes of the Porphyre stone and the over-seelings loaden with Mosaicke work and over-gilded with gold the floor being curiously indented with intermingled Alablaster black shining Parangone On my left hand I saw a platform'd Rock all covered with thick and ingraven boards of silver and in it a hole of a cubits deep in which say they the Crosse stood whereon our Saviour was crucified And on every side therof a hole for the good and bad thieves were then put to death with him Descending from Mount Calvary we came to the Tombe of Godfrey du Bulloine who was the first proclaimed Christian King of Ierusalem and refused to be crowned there saying It was not decent the servants head should be crowned with gold where the Masters head had been crowned with thorns having this Inscription ingraven on the one side Hic jacet inclytus Godfridus de Bullion qui t●tam hanc terram acquisivit cultui divino cujus anima requiescat in pace And over against it is the Tombe of King Baldwine his brother which hath these Verses in golden Letters curiously indented Rex Baldevinus Judas alter Machabeus Spes patriae Vigor Eccl●siae Virtus utriusque Quem formidabant cui dona tributa ferebant Caesar Aegypti Dan ac homicida Damasus Proh dolor in modico clauditur hoc Tumulo The other things within the Church they shewed us were these a Marble Pillar whereunto say they our Saviour was bound when hee was whipped and scourged for our sakes the place is a low Celler about fourteene stone degrees under the ground where the Crosse was hid by the Iewes and found againe by S. Helen the place where Christ was crowned with thornes which is reserved by the Abasines and where the Souldiers cast lots for his Garment the place where he was imprisoned whiles they were making of his Crosse and where the Crosse being laid along upon the ground our Saviour was nailed fast to it the Rocke which as they say rent at his Crucifying which is more likely to be done with hammers and set one peece a foote from another for the slit lookes as if it had bin cleft with wedges and beetles And yet the sacred Scriptures say that it was not a Rock but the Temple that did rent in two from the bottome to the top wherein these silly soule-sunke Friers are meerely blinded understanding no more than leying traditions perfiting this their nationall Proverb Con arte et con inganno ci vivono medzo l' anno Con inganno et con arte ci vivono l' altera parte With guile and craft they live the one halfe yeare With craft and guile the other halfe as cleare And lastly they take upon them below Calvary to shew us where the head of Adam was buried These and many other things are so doubtfull that I doe not register them for truth I meane in demonstrating the particular places but onely relates them as I was informed There are seven sorts of Nations different in Religion and Language who continually induring life remaine within this Church having incloystered lodgings joyning to the walls thereof their victuals are brought daily to them by their familiars receiving the same at a great hole in the Church doore for the Turkes seldome open the entry unlesse it be when Pilgrimes come save one houres space onely every Saturday in the afternoon and at some extraordinary Festivall days and yet it doth not stand open then but onely opened to let strangers in and shut again For this purpose each family have a Bell fastned at their lodging with a string reaching from thence to the Church-doore the end whereof hangeth outwardly By the which commoditie each furnisher ringing the Bell giveth warning to his friends to come to receive their necessaries for through the body of the Church they must come to the porch-doore and returne from it to the Cloyster The number of those who are tied to this austere life are about three hundred and fifty persons being Italians Greeks Armenians Aethiopians Iacobins a sort of circumcised Christians Nestorians and Chelfains of Mesopotamia The day before the Resurrection about the houre of mid-night the whole Sects and sorts of Christians Orientall that were come thither in Pilgrimage and dwelt at Ierusalem convened together which were about the number of sixe thousand men women and children for being separated by the Patriarchs in two companies they compassed the Chappell of the Holy Grave nine times holding in their hands burning Candles making the beginning pittifull and lamentable regreetings but in the ending there were beating of Kettle-drums sounding of Horn-trumpets and other instruments dancing leaping and running about the Sepulchre with an intollerable tumult as if they had been all mad or distracted of their wits Thus is the prograce of their procession performed in meere simplicitie wanting civilitie and government But the Turkes have a care of that for in the midst of all this hurley burley they runne amongst them with long Rods correcting their misbehaviour with cruell stroaks and so these slavish people even at the height of their Ceremonious devotion are strangely abused But our Procession begun before theirs and with a greater regard because of our Tributes The Turkes meane while guarding us not suffering the other Christians to be participant in the singular dotage of the Romish folly being after this manner First the Guardian and his Friers brought forth of a Sacrastia allotted for the same purpose the wooden portracture of a dead Corps representing our Saviour having the resemblance of five bloody Wounds the whole body of which Image was covered with a Cambrick Vaile Where having therewith thrice compassed the Chappell of the Holy Grave it was carried to Mount Calvary and there they imbalmed the five Timber holes with Salt Oile Balme and odoriferous perfumes Then the Guardian and the other twelve Friers kneeled downe and kissed each one of the five Suppositive Wounds the Turkes meane while laughing them to scorne in their faces with miserable derision Thence they returned and laid the senslesse blocke upon the Holy Grave whence being dismissed the Papall Ceremony ended Truly hereupon may I say if the Roman Jesuites Dominicans and Franciscans there Resident in certain speciall parts of the Turkes Dominions had onely behaved themselves as their politick charge required and dismissed from the Paganisme eyes onely their idolatrous Images veneration of Pictures Crosses and the like externall superstitious Rites These Infidels I say had long ago without any insight of Religion beene converted to the Christian Faith For besides all this blindnesse what infinite abominable Idolatries commit they in

bruised Latine seldome or never expressed unlesse the force of quaffing spew it out forth from their empty Sculs Such I say interclude their Doctrine betweene the Thatch and the Church-wall tops and yet their smallest stipends shall amount to one two three or foure hundred pounds a yeare Whereupon you may demand mee how spend they or how deserve they this I answer their deserts are nought and the fruit thereof as naughtily spent for Sermons and Prayers they never have any neither never preached any nor can preach And although some could as perhaps they seemeing would they shall have no Auditour as they say but bare Walles the plants of their Parishes being the rootes of meere Irish. As concerning their carriage in spending such sacrilegious Fees the course is thus The Alehouse is their Church the Irish Priests their Consorts their Auditors be Fill and Fetch more their Text Spanish Sacke their Prayers carrousing their singing of Psalmes the whiffing of Tobacco their last blessing Aqua vitae and all their Doctrine sound drunkennesse And whensoever these parties meet their pa●ting is Dane-like from a Dutch Pot and the Minister still Purse-bearer defrayeth all charges for the Priest Arguments of Religion like Podolian Polonians they ●uccumbe their conference onely pleading mutuall forbearance the Minister affraid of the Priests Wood-Carnes and the Priests as fearefull of the Ministers apprehending or denoting them contracting thereby a Gibeonized covenant yea and for more submissions sake hee will give way to the Priest to mumble Masse in his Church where he in all his life made never Prayer nor Sermon Loe there are some of the abuses of our late weak and stragling Ecclesiasticks there and the soule-sunk sorrow of godlesse Epicures and Hypocrites To all which and much more have I beene an occular Testator and sometimes a constrayned consociate to their companionry yet not so much inforced as desirous to know the behaviour and conversation of such mercenary Iebusites Great God amend it for it is great pitty to behold it and if it continue so still as when I saw them last O farre better it were that these ill bestowed Tythes and Church-wall Rents were distributed to the poore and needy than to suffocate the swine-fed bellies of such idle and prophane Parasites And here another generall abuse I observed that whensoever any Irish dye the friends of the defunct besides other fees paying twenty shillings to the English Curat shall get the corpes of the deceased to bee buried within the Church yea often even under the Pulpit foote And for lucre interre in Gods Sanctuary when dead who when alive would never approach one enter the gates of Sion to worship the Lord nor conforme themselves to true Religion Truely such and the like abuses and evill examples of lewd lives having beene the greatest hinderance of that lands conversion for such like wolues have beene from time to time but stumbling blocks before them regarding more their owne sensuall and licentious ends than the glory of God in converting of one foule unto his Church Now as concerning the conscionable carriage of the Hybernian Cleargie aske mee and there my reply As many of them for the most part as are Protestant Ministers have their Wives Children and Servants invested Papists and many of these Church-men at the houre of their death like Dogs returne backe to their former vomit Witnesse the late Vicar of Calin belonging to the late and last Richard Earle of Desmond who being on death-bed and having two hundred pounds a yeare finding himselfe to forsake both life and stipend send straight for a Romish Priest and received the Papall Sacrament Confessing freely in my audience that hee had beene a Roman Catholicke all his life dissembling onely with his Religion for the better maintaining of his wife and children And being brought to his burial place he was interted in the Church with the which he had played the Ruffian all his life being openly carried at mid-day with Jesuites Priests and Friers of his owne Nation and after a contemptible manner in derision of our profession and Laws of the Kingdome Infinite more examples of this kinde could I recite and the like resemblances of some being alive ●ut I respectively suspend wishing a Reformation of such Deformation and so concludeth this Cleargicall corruption there Yet I would not have the Reader to thinke that I condemne all our Cleargie there no God forbid for I know there are many sound and Religious Preachers of both Kingdomes among them who make conscience of their calling and live as Lanthornes to uncapable Ignorants and to those stragling Stoicks I complain of condemnatory Judges for it is a grievous thing to see incapable men to juggle with the high mysteries of mans salvation And now after the fastidious ending of a tempestuous Raine sacking toyle I imbarked at Yoghall in Munster February 27 1620 in a little French Pinke bound for Saint Mallo in Bretagne Where when transported I set face to Paris where I found the Works of two scelerate and perverse Authours the one of which had disdainfully wrote against the life and Reigne of Queene Elizabeth of sempiternall Renowne the other ignominiously upon the death of our late Queene Anne of ever blessed memory The circumstances whereof I will not avouch since Malaga detaineth the notes of their abjured names and perfidiate pains A just reward may I say refounded upon these fond conceits you have of the fantasticke French Especially these superstitious straglers here who when they have sucked the Milke of their self-ends and your lavish Liberalities without desert returne a kicke with their heeles like to the Colt of an Asse in your teeth againe And there your meritorious thankes and their shamefull slanders in acquittance of your vaine Expence Tell mee if you be tied like Apes to imitate their ever-changing humours And can you draw from them in any Art or carriage a greater draught then they draw from the Italian for first they be Imitators next Mutators thirdly Temptators and lastly your Plantators in all the varieties of vanity Have you a desire to learne modestly to Dance skilfully to Fence dexteriously to manage Great Horses view Forraine Sights learn Languages Humane policies and the like conducements Then rather reach the Fountain whence they flow Whence Science Arts and Practice lively grow Than suck the streams of separate distasts He well derives his labour never wasts Fond Fools affect what foolery Fools effect The sequell sight than sense doth more infect Besides these two infamous Authors what hath Edee the Idea of a Knave and Gentleman of the French privy-chamber done who like a Wood-weather-cock and giddy headed Foole full of deficient Vapours hath shamefully stained with his shamelesse pen the light of this Kingdome which now I omit to avouch till a fitter time Thus they fondly Write thus they prattle thus they sing thus they dance thus they brangle thus they dally in capritziate humours and