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	doctrine_n	england_n	6,989	5	6.3346	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85989	The prelatical Cavalier catechized, and the Protestant souldier incouraged. By a missive sent to King Charles in the name of the Protestants beyond seas. Wherein these three questions are resolved. Viz. First, how inconsistent a prelaticall government is with the true Protestant religion, and with the peace and welfare of this kingdome. Secondly, how absolutely necessary it is for King Charles and his associats, to entertain peace with the Parliament at any hand, if ever he hopeth to recover or enjoy any glory or splendour of his royalty. Thirdly, which are the best means King Charles, &c. can use for obtayning an honourable peace for the present, and improving and continuing the same in time to come. Much conducing to encourage and confirme all true Protestants in the truth of the Protestant cause, especially all souldiers that are for King and Parliament. ... Presented to the Honorable Councels of Great Britain, now sitting in Parliament; and the rest of the Kings Majesties subjects. / By Eleazer Gilbert, a minister of Gods Word. Printed, and published according to order.	Gilbert, Eleazer.	1645 (1645)	Wing G706; Thomason E296_28; ESTC R200215	22,248	25

in the inheritance of Christ Jesus every one to his Tents ô Israel so that while as both of you seem to strive about one Religion there is in effect betwixt you both as much as no Religion Religion it self is almost lost through the quarrels and questions for Religion it faring with her as it did with the woman in Plutarch who having many Suitors when every one could not have her to himself they cut her in pieces that so none might have her For certainly if our information fail not there be almost as many false brethren and professors of the one side as there be abettors of the Prelacy and Papacy on the other yea and as obstructive and obnoxious to the Protestant Cause though both of them be eq●ally enemies to peace being not onely contentious but lovers of content on However we conceive the separating Schismaticks to be the most dangerous they being so wedded to their own phantasies and onthusiasmes that whatsoever opinion they once lay hold on let it be never so contrary to the analogie of faith or the rules of charity in the communion of Saints these men we say are so zealously confident in their way that they had rather there should be no Protestant Religion at all in the world then that opinion or phantasie which they have conceived of it should not prevail atque hinc illae lachrymae From hence your Kingdoms have received a double blow one from your professed Friends another from your professing enemies whom because nec verit ati nec paci cedere norunt they neither can nor know how to give way to a true Protestant peac● we will leave to themselves and proceed unto the second motive which should incline your Highnesse and your confederates to peace And this is the respect you should have to the Procestant Religion where by a Protestant Religion we understand not a profession of Christianity which is reformed onely an part such as is that of the Lutherans and your late Hierarchie in England which though as is aforesaid it was purged by the care of godly and orthodox Princes from the heresies of the Romane Church in matters and points of doctrine yet did it in matters of discipline retain diverse exorbitant scandalous and corrupt customs and superstitious ceremonies which made the English Church although not the same yet to resemble and be too too like that which is mayntained by the Roman Antichrist but by the Protestant Religion we understand such a profession of christianity as is reformed in both these so far as the excellencie perfection and purity of a militant Church may subsist withall without any excessive or corrupt mixture of humane inventions or superstitious customes and ceremonies either in doctrine or discipline such as we believe your self will confesse if you know any thing of a presbyterian government to be this day amongst all Europian Christians most candidly and incorruptible mayntained and practised by the Presbyterian Protestants This is that Religion which is in every godly and decent respect most consistent with the truth and purity of the Gospell and which ought to be mayntained preserved and cherished by Protesiant Princes and States with as much eagernesse and industry as the Jesuiticall Pentificians have to mayntain their Romish Idoll which an all probability can never be done by war especially by such a war as that is which is abetted by your Highnesse and Confederates for hereby if we be not much deceived you doe what you can to encourage and hearten the Papists against the Protestants and proclaim as it were with open mouth to the wide world that you are turned Apostates from the Protestant Religion For what greate cause or occasion can your Highnes and your associates give unto the Papist to work the finall overthrow and ruine of the Protestant Churches and States then to entertain and harbour prejudicate and inreconcilable affections against your Protestant Subjects and brethren this is all they seek for ●●fer if your Italie Gallico Haspamol●sed Austrian Papists can have but such a strong foundation to build upon as the distance and estrangement of Protestant Spirits either opposed or alienated one from another in points of Religion then are they perswaded and so in all humane reason they may well be that neither their Counsels nor intentions can neither fundamentally nor essentially concur and conscquently no confederation nor conjenction in real endeavours will ever be brought to any setled purpose or period either in Great Britain or elswhere And to this purpose wee cannot admire enough of your Highnesse and your Great Councell that you should take so shall notice of the Spanish King and the German Emperour who are so fast vying stakes with the French King which of them should soonest by this means engrosse unto themselves the European States and erect a Catholike Christian Monarchie to which purpose they omit no way or means to make the Protestant Princes and States fall by the eares together and keep their Houses and Territoires in perpetuall division To omit Germany and other places where we have not been so well accuainted wee appeal to the verdict of your own Countrymen Merchants that travell into Denmarke Sweden Poland Russia amongst almost an innumerable multitude of Lutheran Protestants who if they understand or have taken notice of the practice or preaching of these Luther Priests and Ministers cannot but acknowledge and testifie how carefully and industriously the Jesuits especially in Poland and Prussia doe foment and hire unconscionable Divines to mayntain pretences of a fundamentall difference in Religion betwixt us and them which in truth and substance is but all one giving unto the Lutherans many promises and priviledges which they will not so much as profer unto the Evangelick Protestants that separation being made between the Lutheran Protestant and the Reformed Evangelick Protestant the occasion of Disputes envy strife rayling and evill ●●mising might never be wanting amongst them and that as well for temporall and worldly as for heavenly and spirituall respects The third motive to induce your Highnesse unto peace is the Obligation which God and Nature hath laid upon you to mayntain the Rights of your Sister and Nephews whose parents if they had been either Papists or Neuterals might have this day been sitting in their Castle or Wittenbergh For although ambition was the cause pretended yet who knoweth not that knoweth any thing that their Religion was the cause intended For had they complyed so much as some other Princes do that beare the name of Protestants with the Spanish King and the Germane Emperour neither had their Confederates so miserably flinched from them us they did nor they liad been so rigidly and cruelly ejected out of their own inheritante us they were But because Gods judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out for who knoweth Gods mind or who hath been his Counsellor and also because no man can discerne Gods love and hatred in this respect by this

all contenteth himself with a part even with such a part as he may quietly and honourably possesse with the suffrages of his people for if the greedy appetite be not satiated a poore shepherd shall finde more hearts case in a beggars cottage then a great Emperour if ambitious in a Princely Palace Let Kings therefore consider that the more they abound with worldly wealth the more doe abound their cares for when goods increase they are increased that eat them and the best way for a King to be rich is to know when he hath enough and not to improve his revenues through pilling and polling his Subjects by sordid and unnecessary Taxations and Monopolies for hereby hee doth not strengthen his Crowne but bewray his tyranny nor increase his honour but call in question that love which he oweth to his people O what great grief it is to loyall and loving Subjects to see their Sovereigne undoe himself for the enriching a company of unworthy temporizing and self-seeking Parasites Who perhaps if his back should be at the wall would turn their backs upon him and like a shadow follow him no longer then the Sun shineth or if he should stand in need of their counsell could give him none better then that of Achitophel That any Prince should thus mistarry is grievous and lamentable but for such a King as your Highnesse should be who have so often smarted through the Machiavillick impostures of the Roman Antichrist and his Abettors for such kind of men expose yourself your posterity and Crowns to such extream exigencies Quis talia fando temp●ret à lachermis Be wise therefore ye Kings and be learned yee Judges of the earth be carefull as to have the wicked removed so also to have your desires moderated seek no more then is enough either for your selves or others for then certainly you shall finde in your Thro●e more cares then comforts and in your Crowns more thorns then Diamonds for he that loveth silver shall never be satisfied with silver nor he that loveth abundance with increase as wealth cannot fill mans heart so cannot grace his purse naturall desires are finite but the desires of the soul are infinite which when they are not watched but let goe loose roving up and down and not composed and limited according to the rules of godlinesse have brought men even Kings and Princes into infinite labyrinths and anxieties witnesse that insatiable conquerour whose unlimited ambition the Poet thus bemoneth Unus Pellaeo Juveni non sufficit orbis Aestuat infoelix angusto limite mundi And many also of the Roman Caesars whose time wee may read in their insatiable affections and whose covetousnesse hath brought their Titles and Diadems unto their uttermost period of whom we may almost say etiam perire animae that little of them that is left is perished in a word therefore happy is the man be he King or Subject that delighteth more in piety then in pelfe in heavenly goodnesse then in worldly goods Cui paternum Splendet in mensa tenui salinum Nec leves somnos timor aut cupido Sordidus aufort Secondly for the obtaining an honourable and lasting peace and performing this work of righteousnesse your Highnesse must look well to the rightnesse of Religion viz. that the Religion which you establish be made choice of not according as to the eye it seemeth gayest but as it is most free from and most contrary to all corruption of mans life and manners such as is grounded not upon mens invention but divine direction That your Highnesse give way to such a kinde of divine worship as is not according to the nature and will of man but according to the will of God who being a Spirit loveth best to be worshiped in spirit and truth and not in or by any painted or graven images outward pomps gaudie cloaths or superstitious representations of any thing that is in heaven above or in earth beneath such as all false Religions abound withall and whereby hereticall and Idolatrous Priests delude and dazle the eyes of simple people who are naturally inclined to affect that soonest which to the eye seemeth gayest making them believe that these dumb shews and pictures are lay mens books in the mean time hiding from them the power of Christ in the work of the ministry And seeing there is no difference between your Highnesse and us in points of doctrine the word of God being preached by us both in as great purity and orthodoxnesse as can be consistent with a militant Church our request unto your Highnesse is as you tender either your own or our peace to admit with us the same reformation and purity in matters of discipline as is implyed in the premises for certainly Sir solong as the discipline of your Church remaineth unpurged the members and professors thereof can never properly be said to be of the true Protestant Religion well they may be called Protestants and said to be of a Protestant Religion viz. comparatively as they have relation to Eutherans or Nicholuitans or some other sect of Protestanisme but to be Protestants indeed that is true Protestants of the true reformed Protestant Religion they cannot because their Religion is reformed onely in part viz. in matter of doctrine the discipline remaining and being retained in the same corruption and superstition as they received it from the Roman Church whereas the true Protestant Religion exercised in the Presbyteriall government is equally reformed as well in discipline as in doctrine depencing absolutely upon the word of God without any excessive or scandalous mixture other then accords with Christian simplicity decencie and charity of humane inventions or superstitious innovations But if you Highnesse will needs maintain some disparity amongst Ministers preferring some before others who in respect of their eminent parts may seem to deserve better we will not discommend it providing that your Highnesse remember well your Fathers Councell in his Basilicon Doron pag 44. viz. so to charge and change them with such bonds as may preserve them from creeping into corruption A third mean to procure an honourable and lasting peace is to unite the people as well as the Countreys of England and Scotland which can never be effected by your Highnesse so long as you stand in opposition to the Parliament But and if you can be so happy as to come in then we conceive it may easily be wrought in this manner viz. First by making an universall act of oblivion in both Parliaments for all Nationall quarrels and deadly feuds which have been a prohibition from all which in time to come may acrew betwixt the natives of either Kingdome by reason of any occurrence or passage of preceding or future times Secondly by abolishing the respective names of English or Scotish men which in respect of the great controversies and differences which have been between the two Kingdoms doe still continue names of prejudice to the great exasperating of the affections of both sides and possessing them with rigid and implacable mindes one against another upon the least and most slender occasionall distastes and that all the inhabitants of this one Island may be called by one name of East West South or North Britains with some aditionall title of the Shire or County prefixed for disinction sake Thirdly by engaging an equall number of both Kingdoms in their fellowship at armes in some publick and fortunate lawfull war beyond the Seas where their honour and danger may be equally divided and no jealousies nor contention arise amongst them but of wel doing certainly one victory obtained by the sound valour of the Scots and English wheresoever it be so it be not at home let it be in Bohemia France Spain or where your great Councell will think fiting will make a stronger and more indissoluble knot of union both between them and your Highnesse and amongst themselves then ever your Highnesse could make by choosing your Minions alternatively out of each Nation or by making Scotch men Lords of England English men Lords of Scotland or yet by mixture of marriage for although marriage may make two persons one yet can it not make two people to be one certainly all these are too weak ingrediences to compound a love-potion for them that were wont to thirst after one anothers blood it must be something more energeticall and vertuous that must qualifie and chain the different humors of these two Nations and make them forget whose fortune it was to be envied and whose to be contemned in times past and to speak ingenuously never had King a fairer oportunity to effect this as your Highnesse hath now all the Kingdoms in Christendome almost being now by the ears together especially if in this your day your Highnesse would resipiscere and come to your self and so much tender your own health and welfare as to apply unto your almost gangreen and incurable wounds a salving playster of Parliamentary Union FINIS Transilvania France Ireland Aristot Ethic. lib. 5.