Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	christian_a	prove_v	true_a	6,151	5	5.4132	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94101	The subjects sorrow: or, Lamentations upon the death of Britains Josiah, King Charles most unjustly and cruelly put to death by His own people, before His Royal Palace White-Hall, Jan. the 30. 1648. Expressed in a sermon upon Lam. 4. 20. Wherein the divine and royal prerogatives, personall vertues, and theologicall graces of His late Majesty are briefly delivered: and that His Majesty was taken away in Gods mercy unto Himselfe, and for the certain punishment of these Kingdoms, from the parallel is clearly proved.	Brown, Robert, fl. 1668, attributed name.; Juxon, William, 1582-1663, attributed name.	1649 (1649)	Wing S6106B; ESTC R206110	26,786	95

which never was theirs to deny God which God gave them him to acknowledge and worship him These must needs be sorrowes and sufferings as beyond expression so above our conception most terrible tests and trials of all his virtues certainly no man had ever more and more strict examinations of Gods graces in him all which he fully answered with a learned and invincible piety for in all these who ever heard him murmure repine or charge God foolishly who ever heard him accuse raile at or threaten his most confirmed Foes with Job Job 16.20 his eyes still powred out tears unto God whose justice in their greatest injustice he acknowledged and although he vindicated his owne Innocency having wherwith to justisie homselfe before man from theirs yet not before God he cleared the equity of his judgement upon him for acting against his Conscience in the Earle of Straffords death But it was the great and crying guilt of these Nations sinnes Englands principally which made this righteous man fall into the pits of his Adversaries to ripen Gods judgment upon this Nation by that great addition of guilt the shedding of his innocent bloud who had so many characters of Gods supreme power and spirituall graces upon him as must needs make this Crime committed against God draw his speedy and unavoidable vengeance upon them for it God usually punisheth one sinne by suffering Sinners to fall into others and those customary sinnes accompanied with senslessnesse and impenitency which fills up the measure of sin brim-full for judgment to take it off so that this pious Prince fell in the very corruption of Christianity which is of farre more maligne aspect and hath a more malicious influence of impiety upon the actions of men then Atheisme it selfe for then men professe that they know God yet in their works they deny him using the name of God and Religion as Conjurers in their Incantations to perpetrate those things are most contrary unto God and destructive unto Religion for as the Devill never doth more hurt then when he appeares in the likenesse of an Angel of light so are men never so mischievous as when they drive on wicked designes under the shew of Godlinesse Englands former sins which caused this Gods just dereliction the abandoning them up unto greater were their exceeding luxury in turning the grace of God temporal favours into wantonnes the long continuance of their peace the increase of their Trade riches and plenty begot in them a generall insolency and pride so that whē they waxed fat like Jesurun they kicked against God in the Authority and regard due unto his principall Officers the Prince and the Priest Hence the people of England in their generality became self-willed heady high-minded and incorrigible they slandered the footsteps of Gods Anointed smote him with the tongue contended with Gods Priests and usurped that sacred Jurisdiction which God had delegated unto them as those Conspirators did Ye take too much upon you ye Sonnes of Levi since all the people of the Lord are holy under pretence of the Ambition of the Clergy and being like Elihu's new bottels ready to burst with that liquor of flatuous and superficiall knowledge instilled into them by the giddy preachments and undigested swelling and tedious prayers of their Lecturers who reduced all Religion unto lip-worship and canting Scriptures Hence came it to passe that contemning the old paths the truth of the reformation in the Protestant Religion they contended unto bloud to corrupt by their phanatick Alterations the pure Doctrine Evangelical discipline established in the Church of England to effect which with the more ease they adventure upon sacriledge to carry on that they must pull down Episcopacy the fence of the Church and here the King as a nursing Father interposing they render Him unable by encroaching upon his Prerogatives quarrelling him seize upō his Strenghs Arme fight against him imprison and then Murther Him which last Act of Rebellion though the greatest part of the first Engagers may be thought never to have intended yet they may see the first violation of their Obedience due unto His Majesty punished by a guilt thus farre of his Innocent bloud that that power which they raised spilt it So dangerous it is to vary from a Christian Principle or to do evil that good may come of it God onely having power to direct limit and determine any evill action so that look over the pedigree of Englands sins through the severall descents thereof and you will find it thus Peace begot wealth that plenty that pride that vanity that curiosity that contention that hate of the Clergy that Sacriledge that the downfall of Bishops that the contempt of the KING that War that imprisonment and that the murther of the King a murther the most horrid murther that ever the Sun saw for Subjects to take away their King's life without the prescription of a single example or a law nay even against all laws divine and humane to Try him after the form of a Judiciary proceeding this is to entitle God unto the greatest sin to establish iniquity by a Law Joh. 19.7 and to make God such as themselves Thus the Jews dealt with our Saviour We have a Law and by that Law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God although there was no such Law but a new-made Law a Juncto-law Straffords law Canterburies law the King's law consequent Laws Laws without names or cognizance made because he was KING Neither doth their power any more prove the equity of this Fact the great scandal of the Christian name and height of Anabaptistical fury than the Devils power which is from God doth justifie his malice which is from himself They have now indeed made King Charles a glorious King prov'd him glorious in his personal Vertues glorious in his divine Graces but most glorious in the Christian Constancy of his glorious Sufferings for Gods Cause the true Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of the three Kingdomes thus hath God extorted a truth from them for this spake they not of themselves but God forceing their testimony they prophesied As we have seen His Majesties sufferings and their causes our sins so let us reflect upon their punishments as the Springs from which our sorrows should arise The exceeding avarice and hypocrisie two noted Court-sins with which the greatest Christian Prince Constantine was abused of the State-Grandees Vit. Const l. 4. c. 29. the deep pits wherein they laid the fatall snares into which pious King CHARLES fell will be visibly punished for God will not be mocked The pride vanity sacriledge rebellion and the cruel murther of His Majesty will have particular judgments levell'd against these sins every mans sin even of those who have fought for His Majesty who have yet fought against him by their sins hath given force unto this great stroke and wound given unto these Kingdoms in His Majesties death

with more judgement bethought those things that were to be spoken or who ever fitted his Consult thoughts with a more handsome and cleane apparell of speech and maturity of weighed words This Age shewes not a man able to take up his Princely pen his style may well be the object of mens wishes never of their imitation unto an equality of like perfection This his princely prudence receives likewise further illustrations from his Justice in the free and equall administration thereof unto all some surreptions and corruptions in particular Officers of State as they are not to be defended so whilst men are men they will hardly be avoided but the sweet influence of His Majesties justice upon all appeares in the Peace of His Kingdomes the serenity of His people the tranquility of Publique affaires the increase of Trade the growing riches of His Subjects and the universall happinesse of His Government these three Kingdomes being thrice happy untill the Helme of Government was wrested out of His sacred hands and now we see since these State-emperiques have practised upon the body politique with what strong convulsions and mortall maladies it is affected The best experienced Physician under Heaven and He onely who could have cured England from the diseases of her distemper without opening her veines is taken away from her she lies now in the hands of young and desperate Practitioners it is to be feared unlesse God prevent their violent administrations and corrosive potions with Antidotes of mercy in stead of mending her they will end her health life and liberty Look upon this true Christian fortitude in the magnanimity of his carrying on with Constancy of Resolution his weightiest Affaires even in their greatest difficulties in his confidence with Gods assistance to overcome them in his exceeding patience in a tollerance free from despondency in the greatest molestations and pressures to compose them and in his matchlesse and Kingly perseverance even in the fornace of affliction and hottest flames of adversity as Gods Cause to maintaine them He went unto the Scaffold tanquam Apis ad Alveare as a Bee unto his Hive with our Saviour as a Lamb unto the slaughter and cheerfully undrest himself unto his spirituall repose Observe his great temperance his exemplary chastity so rare a vertue in a Prince of so active firme a constitution so farre free from uncleannesse that it had a refined purity from all lasciviousnesse of either gesture or speech his abstinence in his feeding gave unto him constancy in health and readinesse unto action and his sobriety in drinking whom the Sun nor all the Sons of Men ever saw overcome or disguised by ingurgitations of strong Liquors made him unconquerable by Wine or Women His divine clemency even in the heat and cruelty of the bloudy rage of his Adversaries is a contemplation will raise us up unto the very top of admiration whose life after they had butchered his dearest and nearest Servants did he take away how many of his most active resolved Enemies in his power did he dismisse with our Saviours caveat unto the blind man Sinne no more His Majesty in this divine clemency which yet some interpreted a cruelty unto Himselfe imitating the Father of mercies who maketh the Sunne of his favour equally to shine upon the just and unjust being so farre from procuring or desiring the death of his Enemies unto which he wanted not inciting animosities from others that he often wished that he could recover those that were already dead Neither are there wanting egregious Monuments of his Kingly munificence and liberality the great acquisitions of his Servants under him shew it from many of whom notwithstanding he had the unhappy returnes of ingratitude desertion and disloyalty And as unto his own Servants he was munificent so especially unto those who were set apart for the service of God whom with those religious Kings Hezekiah Josiah and Constantine he encouraged by giving the portion of God and our pious Auncestors unto them to recover which out of the hands of sacrilegious persons he used many pious endeavours and propounded Compensations which would onely have entrenched upon his owne profit when former Grants from the Crowne of Impropriations for years determined His Majesty alwaies restored them unto the Church conceiving his best and most royall right unto the Goods of the Church which he was otherwise by the Lawes of this Realme invested of to be that of Patronage and Disposition and from this Princely munificence doe I with all the devotion of an humble and hearty thankfulnesse acknowledge to have received a particular encouragement in my profession the Rectory of Sligo This nursing Father of the Church knew the best way to support that was by Church maintenance so that by his bounty the Churches in the three Kingdomes were lifted up out of the mire of contemptible poverty and Clergy-men of noted piety and greatest abilities of learning daily increased so that setting aside some few either illiterate wandring cockbrain'd discontented or unconscionable Levites who were in the great reserve of the sacrilegious and rebellious Jeroboams of our time to secure those two Calves of their Government and Worship which they fought for no Kingdomes of the World were beautified with so many Lights of learning and piety as these Kingdomes Observe the divine graces of this glorious King the unmoveable stability of his faith a firme Rocke which no stormes of popular rage no swelling surges of the multitude nor all the proud billowes of his insulting Adversaries could alter or unsettle in his pious purpose to preserve the Protestant Religion and the Lawes of this Realme how great was the intention of his sacred hope and of what exceeding latitude was his charity which included and enclosed his fiercest and most mortall Enemies But the lively features and faire lineaments of his graces and virtues are best and more largely drawn out by his owne Pencill His works praise him in the Gate his writings present unto us the heavenly pourtraicture of his divine large and grasping Soule these what they are wanting in volume recompensing an hundred fold in worth are the Repertory of all his Actions and the truest Index of his virtues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Book is the quintessence of knowing zeal the store-house of the ripe choice fruits of Christian piety there are the principles of Religion perfectly digested into holy practice there is the true Princely Image of King Charles that Golden Manuall being a stately building of Meditations Consultations Essayes Debates and Devotions raised upon emergent occasions with such judicious artifice of grace adorned with so rich furniture of piety enlarged with so many faire roomes and convenient receipts for grace that it shews his Body was the Temple of the Holy Ghost that there was no corner or vacuity in his great and glorious Soul I doubt not without the height of an Hyperbole to affirme that in what we have of this holy Kings

draught we are abundantly repaired in the losse of Solomons physiques for here is a shop full of heavenly medicines for all the maladies of the soule by so much then is their sinne the greater whose malice hath deprived us of those other later pieces of His Majesty What already we have is the greatest monument of piety of any Kings after theirs whose writings become authentique from God as being Pen-men of his own divine dictates since the Creation and shall have continuall and unwearied travailes made unto it in all Languages and Kingdomes by all Men and Women who know love and honour piety prudence and all divine and morall graces and virtues every of which hath its severall atchievement and particular Trophy erected in this one work which will be as long liv'd as Time I conclude this short and generall survey of His Majesties personall virtues worthy of a just Volume and exceeding the limits of a Sermon with that Eulogy and Honour of Praise given unto Constantine the Great by Eusebius De vit Const l. 1. c. 1. he was most deare unto God and proposed by him a great and excellent example of an holy and religious life for all mens imitations The memory of his piety and glorious reputation of his virtues shall be for ever precious Hugh Peters 2 Sam. 16.9 and whatever Dogs barke against it alwaies remaine a fixed and shining Starre of the greatest magnitude in the firmament of Honour And thou carnall Prophet who walkest by the light of thine own eyes and callest thy darknesse light thou who as the Jewes unto our Saviour didst reach the Vineger and Gall unto Gods Anointed in the Agony of his sufferings offered'st that false furious Isa 14.18 19 20. and forc'd application of Scriptures which thy counsels must fill up with an interpretation as the event shewes know that there is a lying and seducing Spirit in thee Acts 13.10 that thou wrestest the Scripture unto thine owne damnation thou Sorcerer and chief Witch of these times full of all subtility and all mischief thou child of the Devill thou Enemy of all righteousnesse wilt thou not cease to pervert the right wayes of the Lord Thy Epicurean and sublunary Divinity cannot admit that a violent death should be a singular testimony of Gods favour yet here thou seest it in Josiah wilt thou have all temporall judgments to be punishments due unto sinne will not thy triumphant wickednesse let thee know that some afflictions are for Tryals and the additions of grace and glory unto Gods Children Rev. 2.10 and therefore the chief marks of Gods favour As in our gracious King Charles Dan. 12.10 who was also taken away from the evill to come in Gods mercy unto him which thou even thou unto the shame and confusion of thy face although thou hast hardned it shalt see in the approaching day of Englands calamity which in a great part is procured and hastned by thy infernall counsels thou needst not to have given that Scripture such a violent stretch so to streine it as to make it reach from Assyria unto England or to travaile so farre for a reason why His Majesty should not have a royall interment with His Auncesters the causes were nearer thee Let me assigne them First it had been a Condemnation of your selves to have allowed him solemne and Kingly Funeralls unto whom you gave so unjust and cruell a death that were to build up what you were resolved to destroy Next you could not but know that the neighbourhood of his sacred earthly remains must needs refricate the scarce skinn'd sorrowes of London when they should have such a standing and still present Monument of their former happinesse in His Majesties peaceable Government and of their new misery in your Tyranny which would serve also this being the place of the greatest confluence to recrude the griefe of the whole Kingdome and probably beget such compunction and reluctancy in both City and Kingdome as would testifie it selfe by their attempt to cast you downe headlong from your new and wickedly acquired Dominion Another reason was lest the nearnesse of his Body whom you murthered might too frequently offer unto you the horror of your Guilt and redouble unto you those inward cheques and lashings of your Consciences which you cannot be without and so impede and trouble your Counsels Theod. l. 3. c. 9. The Devill at the Oracle of Apollo of Daphne could not give his Answers unto Julian the Apostate who sent to consult him about his undertakings against the Persians so long as the body of the Martyr Babylas lay by him so it is to be presumed that the same Spirit which the Apostle saith Eph. 2.2 powerfully worketh in the Children of disobedience might be hindred in his cooperation and influence upon those unto whom he hath consigned the chief exercise of his power in our English world if King Charles his sacred reliques were lodged so nigh unto them as Westminster and therefore Windsor was neare enough But from the view of His Majesties undeniable matchlesse Virtues let us passe on unto that of His sufferings Sinfull envie never failes to give a malicious attendance upon virtue which by how much the more it is illustrious with so much the greater rancour doth she dog and persecute it and therefore many are the troubles of the righteous and no meer man had ever more then righteous King Charles behold and see if any sorrows and suffrings were like unto His. See one of the most potent Monarchs of Europe loved at home and feared abroad most injuriously and strictly Imprisoned debarred from the most deare society of the most virtuous and best Wife from the converse and sight of his most sweet hopefull Children from the attendance of his most faithfull Servants from Gods house from Gods publique worship all Gods Servants forc'd to cohabite with Beasts brutish savage and wicked Men these to be made the Instruments of their cruelty unto him who were his sworne Subjects and Servants upon whom all civill and divine obligations of duty and affection unto His Majesty rested and that upon pretensions of Religion and liberty of which He was the truest and most undoubted Defender to lie under the weight and wounds of so many scandals reproaches wants and miseries besides the most grievous sense of the sufferings of his Kingdoms and best Subjects to be daily tortured with so many iterated unreasonable Propositions and insolent Demands to be racked out of his undoubted Royal Rights to make so many Concessions such great Condescentions in his propensness unto peace which notwithstanding his Enemies never meant to be tormented if it were possible unto perjury sacriledge and Atheisme and to have no other Conditions propounded for the Enjoyment of his Crownes and Kingdomes then that which the Devill made unto our Saviour All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall downe and worship me to offer his owne that