Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	discipline_n	government_n	3,314	5	6.9877	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A21016	Certaine arguments and motives of speciall moment propounded to the consideration of our most noble King and state tending to perswade them to abolish that unhappy and unhallowed government of our church by bishops, and in stead thereof to set up the government of the Lord Iesus Christ and his holy ordinances in their purity and power.		1634 (1634)	STC 739; ESTC S5086	18,494	38

Subject more then would suffice to pay to our King two or three Subsidies every yeere And what becommeth of all this It maintaineth a company of idle Belly-gods and a number of ungodly and ungratious persons which are unprofitable burdens of the earth and are onely whips in Gods hand to scourge and chastise his people withall whose service when the Lord hath used a while for that purpose hee wil then most certainely throw his Rods into the fire Esay 10.5.12 And if in the meane season our most wise and judicious King would bee pleased to sqeaze them and to take from them that thick clay wherewith they are overladen hee should do a worke acceptable to God and such as wherein his soule might take a great deale of comfort here and which would much further his reckoning in the day of the Lord Iesus when hee shall come with power great glory to judge both the quick the dead 6 His Majestie shall do a worke of singular charity and mercy to the soules of these Bloud-suckers if hee will bee pleased in compassion and commiseration of their deplored and desperate condition to pluck them out of those pestilentiall places which they do unjustly usurpe and most tyrannously abuse to the provocation of the wrath displeasure of the great God of heaven to the opening of the mouthes of the enemies of the Gospel who by the exorbitancies and insolencies of these proud men take occasion to blaspheme and speake evill of that sacred truth which wee professe and to traduce and maligne our government to the dishonour of our nation and the disgrace of our King and countrie both at home and in foraine parts Most certaine it is that if they bee let alone in their course they go on desperately in a way that leadeth to death the issue whereof will bee hell and eternall woe and misery in another world whereas if their prefermets with which they are even fatted and glutted above measure might bee taken from them and they put upon the worke of the Ministery which they were bredde and brought up to it might please God that that might bee a meanes to pluck them out of the fire and to save the soules of some of them if amongst that cursed company there be any that belong to the election of grace whereof I confesse there is a great deale of question to bee made For the most of them do maliciously and despitefully oppose the truth and do with a high hand set themselves against the good waies of God do most furiously and fiercely persecute all those poore Christians that set their faces towards Sion and indevour to walke with their God in the truth uprightnes of their harts will not bee drawne for feare or favour to conforme themselves to those shamefull corruptions in doctrine and discipline which they multiply daily presse hotely upon men without either feare or witt to the ruine of our Church and the supplanting and undermining of our most holy heavenly Religion the bringing in of which not many yeeres since cost a great deale of bloud And as for those few of them in whom there is any sparke of goodnes the eye of whose understanding is not yet quite put out that which they in the course of their government do against the truth and servants and cause of God they do it against the perswasion of their owne harts and against the checks of their consciences which pursue them so close and do so terrify affright them that without all boubt they can have little or no peace at all having such an adversary within them as will never suffer them to bee quiet but is still accusing tormenting them whether they sleepe or wake Which made one say wittily long agoe that of our Bishops the best were the worst because that which they did they did cleane against the haire and knew right well that they sinned against God in the doing of it which is a fearfull aggravation of their iniquity Hee that was Bishop of London when that lamentable havock and spoyle was made amongst our Ministers about the beginning of King Iames his raigne after that hee had in the Consistory suspended and deprived some of the Ministers of London was the whole night following in such a heate and sweate it beeing then a cold season of the yeare about the beginning of February that although there was a good fire in his chamber they which attended him plyed him with hote clothes as fast as they could possibly warme them at the fire bring them to him lying then in his bed yet could they not all that night with all that they could do coole him and dry up his sweate as some yet alive can testify who then waited upon him in his chamber Hee was so perplexed and terrified with the thoughts of that which hee had done that hee could take no rest nor did hee ever claw it off but died very quickly after it Within a few daies after for hee lived not many hee said openly at his table that the Persecutions of those times were worse then those in Queene Maries daies One who sate at the table with him then a Deane now a Bishop hearing him say so spake to him in latine prayed him to forbeare such speeches telling him that if they came to the Kings eare they would bee ill taken For answere whereunto hee said againe in english with a great deale of vehemency and earnestnes that the present Persecutions were greater and farre more grievous then those in Queene Maries dates were hee gave his reasons for it For then saith hee men were quickly dispatched out of the way whereas now they are forced to live in misery and a languishing life every man knoweth to bee a lingering death Then men were permitted to speake freely for themselves whereas now at the first dash saith hee the Oth is tendered to them which if they refuse to prison they go without any mercy or pity no baile will serve the turne What would this man have said if hee had lived to see these times A strange kinde of creatures these Bishops bee they are neither fish nor flesh nor yet good red herring as the old Proverb is A man cannot tell what to make of them Papists they would not bee thought to bee yet many of them are little better Good Protestants surely very few of them bee Those amongst them which bee not downe-right Papists looke shrewdly that way maintaine many of their grosse and absurd opinions and make no bones to affirme openly that there is not such a distance betweene them and us but that wee may meete them in the midway nor such a discrepance difference betwixt their religion and ours but that they may bee easily reconciled if men were peaceably minded And accordingly some of them have mediated most shamefully both in Pulpit and in Print for a Pacification

to those which set their faces that way What a rent have they lately made in our church by their strict pressing of people to come to their owne Congregations when there is no preaching and by their urging of crouching and cringing at the name of Iesus before their Altars and other such like trumpery What a number of our best and most judicious Christians do they daily drive out of the land by their harsh and base and uncivill usage of them Sith therefore the Gospel is so much opposed and oppugned troden downe by these Antichristian Prelats what a blessed and worthy worke would it bee and how acceptable a service to God if it would please our most gratious King to depose thrust our these proud usurpers who have too too long domineered and tyrannised over Gods heritage and to set the Lord Iesus Christ upon his Throne and to take order that hee may rule his churches according to his owne will revealed in his word Which glorious and happy enterprise if his Maiestie would seriously set upon and go through with I dare be bold to say that the Lord would make good to him and this state as much as hee once promised and did accordingly performe to the people of the Iewes upon their onset and first beginning to sett forward the building of his Temple Hag. 2.18.19 Hee would from that very day remove all those heavy judgments which have these many yeeres waited upon that cursed government of Bishops and in stead of them hee would shower downe such abundance and variety of his choysest mercies and blessings upon our King and his kingdomes as would make all the world to wonder and to stand amazed at it Oh that his Maiestie would but try what the Lord would do in that case England would then bee as Ierusalem sometime was the praise of the world the perfection of beauty and the ioy of the whole earth Then would the Lord dwel amongst us and bee a father unto us and hee would rejoyce over us and delight in us to do us good Then would our exiles returne the poore despised and dispersed and distressed servants of God would sing for joy of hart and the voice of weeping would bee no more heard amongst us nor the voice of crying for these Wolves and Leopards Lions beeing throwne out of those places wherein they do daily such a world of mischiefe there would bee none to hurt or destroy in Gods holy Mountaine our land would then bee full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea 4 Whereas his Maiestie hath at this time much use and many imployments for mony if hee would bee pleased to turne these brute creatures a-grazing and seize upon their Bishopricks and take into his hands the Cathedrall Churches as King Henry the eighth sometimes did the Abbies and those irreligious houses hee might to his owne harts content bee plentifully supplied at the present for all his occasions and have a large yeerly Revenue comming in sufficient to maintaine an Army in the field to suppresse subdue all the enemies of his Crownes and Kingdomes and to helpe downe with that man of synne who is drunke with the bloud of Gods Saints And why will our renowned Soveraigne suffer such a happy and golden opportunity to slip out of his hands It is thought by some that if King Iames had lived hee would have done it and would have tasted their flesh And why should not our noble and religious King who in other things is an imitatour of his fathers vertues effect that which his father so much affected had a good minde to do if time had served for it What should hinder him I confesse freely I know not These Lordly Prelats never did any good in the Church of God nor do they any at this time nor will they ever hereafter do any but a great deale of mischiefe Idle they are above measure and many of them grossely and palpably ignorant and they are growne to such an extreme height of pride and ambition and tyranny that it is a great wonder how the State can thus long beare them Most odious they are both to God and man and the very name of a Bishop beginneth now to stinke in the nosethrils of all the people of the Land that savour the things of God or have any relish of Religion though they looke not towards syncerity nor beare any love to it And for their Collegiate Churches what bee they for the most part but dennes of theeves and cages of uncleane Birds There is a great deale of superstitious and false worship nourished and maintained in them to the dishonour of Almightie God to the scandall of that holy Religion which is professed amongst us and to the reioycing encouraging of Papists who laugh in their sleeves and are in good hope to have their Ronish religion one day sett up againe in this Kingdome seeing wee retaine such monuments of their Idolatry and superstition still in the midst of us and do re-edify repaire them with such zeale as if therein wee did God good service What pitty is it that such an infinite masse of mony as is raised yeerely out of these Bishopricks and the livings belonging to those Cloysters should bee so vainely and basely and irreligiously consumed and devoured by such useles and worthies persons as are good for nothing but to cleave wood with their heads when as in the meane while our deare and dread Soveraigne wanteth it for better purposes What an advantage would it bee to our King and what an advancement of the revenue of the Crowne if the increase and profit which ariseth issueth out of these large and ample possessions which is now meerely and wholly to no purpose wasted might bee brought into his Maiesties Treasury there to bee preserved to his use and to bee alwaies in a readines to bee disposed of by him according to his godly wisdome to the glory of God and in the service of the State and might bee there carefully stored up as a meanes of supply and as a stock of provision for the accommodating of his Maiesty when and as often as hee shall have use of it and for the fitting and furnishing of those many necessary and just occasions which hee hath to imploy and expend the same upon 5 It would bee a marvellous ease for this Kingdome if by the mercifull goodnes of our God it might once bee freed from these Antichristian Prelats their Courts which robbe his Maiesties subjects of an exceeding great summe of mony every yeere One would not imagine how much they extort from Ministers Churchwardens and the rest of the people of the land for fees and by meanes of those unjust vexations which they put them continually unto Many men are perswaded that they and their Chauncellours Commissaries Officials Doctours roctours Registers Pursivants Apparitours and others of that cursed crew do rake and scrape from the