Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A48206
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A Letter to a noble lord at London from a friend at Oxford upon occasion of the late covenant taken by both Houses.
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Friend at Oxford.
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1643
(1643)
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Wing L1691; ESTC R36362
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10,224
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15
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Lordship and many more of your good friends who for quietnesse sake have done much mischiefe would have prevented these troubles But why are you lesse ashamed to be couzened still then to confesse you have bin so you expressed well in your own honest Speech how much you have been deceived trust them no more that deceived you much of that is fallen out you then foresaw the rest will follow ' is a misery to foresee and not to prevent at least bearing a part in doing the mischiefe which you foresee must destroy the Doers Remember you were told there was no Designe against Bishops to alter the Government of the Church you see they are now inconsistent with the Protestant Reformed Religion and a new way must be found out of Government and then as M. Martin and M. Morly use you now M. Case and M. Calamy will use you then between both you will be a great Lord Remember you were promised when this Army was first raised there should be no fighting no Resistance and in truth when you saw Votes could enable you to raise Armies who had no power 't is no wonder you believed they could keep the King from raising any who had Power that the King should be brought gently up to you and you should have what Places you pleased There hath been fighting and resistance the King is not yet broughtup to you I do not find the Places are like to be disposed as you desire You were assured all possible regard was to the safety of the King you were your self required by your Protestation to promise to defend His Person you have since been assured in what danger His Person hath been by the assault of your Army and you are now compelled to sweare you will assist that Army against Him When will you think your selfe conzened enough to abhorre these men do you not yet apprehend that these men every day whilest they perswade you they intend a Peace doe somewhat to make Peace impossible Is the imprisoning the Kings Messengers who come to move you to Peace the accusing the Queen of high Treason for loving Her Husband and for doing that for which the present Age must reverence and posterity will envy Her the Murthering the two good men of Bristoll in cold Blood a Murther that will call for Vengeance from God and Iustice from the King till a full expiation and this new sacred Vow excellent ingredients towards a Peace Are you awake and doe not see those things throwne in only to make Peace impossible but content your selfe with a Vote that yout Armes are defensive when all the distractions and all the Violence throughout the Kingdome are the effects of those Armes The next Article of your Creed is that these godly Forces of yours are for the defense of the true Protestant reformed Religion This indeed hath alwayes been your care and your Reputation but give me leave to tell your Lordship I much feare you rather hate that which is not the Protestant Religion then love that which is I will not grieve your memory by representing to you the happy flourishing State of the Protestant Religion in this Kingdome till your Counsells disturbed and endeavoured to deface it Let Vs only consider what you have acted and what you have designed towards this defence and to use your owne phrase of your Covenant in order to the Security and preservation of this Religion There is not a Godly Learned Orthodox Divine in England whom you have not traduced imprisoned or eminently reproached and discountenanced even those whose Learning and Integrity first gave credit and reputation to your great Reformers you have not only disused and suppressed that Excellent Book of Common-Prayer the first and glorious instance in this Kingdome of the true Reformed Protestant Religion but scurrilously and prophanely reviled and scoffed at it to the scandall of Christianity you have carried your selves with such impious and debosh behaviour in Churches and Consecrated places committing such horrid and Beastly outrages that the Heathen themselves would tremble at the mention of them and all this out of pure zeale to the true Reformed Protestant Religion This you will say is done without your consents by the disorderly Souldiers whom you cannot restrain By your Lordships favour you have very pretty Votes of one or both Houses which directly encourage those Souldiers to most of this What Remedy have you provided for these disorders if the King concurred with you in all you propose to your selves you have presented Him a Bill to pull downe the whole Fabrick of Church Government to leave Heresie Incest Blasphemy and Adultery as unpunishable as any other Acts of good fellowship to take away His Supremacy and so cancell the Oath you have all taken to Him and to take away Bishops and so cancell the Oath He hath taken at His Coronation to defend and protect them and have not yet so much as fancyed amongst your selves into what shape you will lick that monstrous Chaos you would produce this you leave to your Synod of such men as most of them no Schooles or Nurseries of Learning ever knew men never knowne or heard of but by their Faction Treason and Rebellion such who never had title or subsistance in the Church of England till your Votes as Patron and Ordinary imposed them upon Parishes and over Cures in the places of those whose Religion was not Rebellion Oh my Lord can you forget the excellent times in which you were borne and the happy times in which you have since lived the flourishing State of Religion here in Doctrine and Discipline in the Lives and Learning of so many Reverend Divines famous throughout Christendome can you so much forget this to beleeve these courses the way to defend the true Reformed Protestant Religion If you were a Protestant two yeares since I am sure they are none whose directions you now follow Is the countenancing and joyning with Anabaptists and Brownists names as odious to you and so mentioned by you even in your last Letter as the Papists to advance the Protestant Religion But 't is no wonder when you take your Rules of Allegiance and Fidelity from Traitors and Rebells that you should take your directions of Religion from Hypocrites and Schismatiques I doe not know your face better then your heart in this point you are no more of my Lord Sayes mind in Religion then Bishop Wren is when you have recovered the Courage to love Truth againe this Clause if there were nothing else in your Covenant will take your Sleep from you and leave you no comfort but in the Charity of those you have endeavoured to destroy A word now of the Liberty of the Subject the last pretence of your Army and I have done In so sad an Argument I should not be merry with you and say that by this Liberty of the Subject you meane Liberty in every Subject to doe what he list which indeed seemes to be
Papists are will best be found in the Muster-Rolls of both Armies you have had whole Troopes of that Profession and no fault found with their Religion till they have given over being Rebells whilest they are with you they defend the true Reformed Protestant Religion but when they revolt to their Allegiance they are Papists and ought to be disbanded indeed you take the course to compell the King to doe His duty by driving them to Him for Protection which he cannot deny to His Subjects but you keep them from performing their duty in assisting their Prince by stripping Plundring and leaving them naked to the World In good faith I ask pardon of Discretion and Truth for being startled your consident discourses of Popish Armies and Supplies from Papists made me once imagine the King might in truth receive some notable Supplies from the persons of that profession and it was not hard for me to beleeve that that party which felt so much rigour cruelty from you and were sure to suffer an utter extirpation if you prevailed should willingly sacrifice all they had to that Soveraigne Power which might mercifully allay that fury and preserve them still in the number of His Subjects but I find there is a narrownesse a vulgar spiritednesse and a scandalous parsimony in all Religions even these men will have the comfort of being starved with Mony in their Purses for I am assured by those who are conversant with those Accounts that all the Mony His Majesty hath received from all the Papists of England since He hath been put to raise and continue these Forces is not halfe so much as is in truth due to Him by the Law upon those moderate Compositions made with them And for any Assistance He hath by their personall service you have long agoe heared and I have reason enough to beleeve that the Papists in all His Armies will not make one Regiment how many more you have and how many more you would be glad to have your Lordship can better judge then I. Well there hath been a treacherous and horrid design lately discovered to surprize the Cities of London and Westminster and God knowes what and you doe abhorre and detest that wicked and treacherous Designe 'T is well done whether you know it or not but what may this treacherous Designe be that Mr Pym sayes would have destroyed the City and the Kingdome and in their Ruines have buried Religion and Liberty another Gunpowder Treason like that of the Protestation against the first Remonstrance The King hath sent a Commission for now 't is printed all the World knowes what it is to certain persons to use their utmost power to suppresse those who are in Rebellion against Him and assist those who are oppressed by them Is there one Popish or Popishly affected person in that Commission or to be imployed in the whole Design Is there one Clause in it on the behalfe of Papists or against the Liberty of the Subject Indeed it may seem strange that the King should so much consider that Apostate City where the Rage of some and the Tamenesse of others have made up one generall Guilt as to offer them any countenance to releeve themselves but that it should be a horrid treacherous Design when you have in all the Counties of England Commanders of your Militia and Commissioners even at this present to assesse rate and collect Money for the maintenance of your Rebellious Army for the King to be willing to have an Army in London or Middlesex whereby all other Armies and that too might be speedily disbanded will need an Orator no lesse powerfull then M. Pym or his Excellency himselfe who in these nice Arguments is the better Orator to make evident to the World Beleeve it my Lord whilst there is one honest man left in that City there will be alwayes a Plot to reduce it to its Loyalty and to destroy this wicked Rebellion neither will that unparallell'd Act of Inhumanity executed upon the two famous Citizens of Bristoll who will live gloriously in the Annalls of this Nation as the stout Champions and Martyrs of Allegiance when the name of their Murtherer Fiennes shall not be mentioned but with Infamy so farre fright good men from their Duty that your wild fury will rage long uncontrouled Another of your propositions is that you doe beleeve in your Conscience that the Forces raised by the two Houses of Parliament are raised and continued for their just defence and for the defence of the true Protestant Reformed Religion and Liberty of the Subject against the Forces raised by the King does your Lordship in truth beleeve this take it in peeces The two Houses of Parliament being convened by the Kings sole Writ to advise with Him about the great Affaires of the Kingdom formed their Counsells with such successe that in above fifteen Moneths time enough to have reformed and repaired all former mistakes and irregularities in Church and State they never found the least nonconcurrence with them from His Majesty in any particular proposed for the ease or benefit of the Common-wealth what was during that time done by His singular Iustice and excesse of Bounty is so well and so particularly known to all the World that if your Treason and Rebellion were away there would be ingratitude enough left to make you odious to the present and infamous to succeeding Ages When did the first Act of your defence begin not till you came to Edge hill then I must confesse you were put to it for it cannot be denied the King went eight Miles out of His way to find you from thence you took your stile of defensive Armes except you will needs date them from the tenth of Ianuary when you had been overrun by the Law if that defensive Army of the City had not been raised to rescue and preserve the good Lord of Kimbolton his five pretious Members from a legall proceeding In this sense you have I confesse been much upon the defensive part otherwise you never pretended ground or Argument for your taking Armes but Feares and Iealousies no danger of an assault from an active Enemy except some few Papists under ground whom your vigilancy hath kept still there When you first voted your great Generall and raised your wanton Army 't was to fetch up the King to you from Yorke not to defend your selves against Him and you cannot but know you were so farre from being in danger to be assaulted that setting aside your acts of Hostility in your Votes and Ordinances by which you had surprized Forts Townes and the whole Navy when you had a formed Army of Horse and Foot I believe much greater then you have now the King had not so many Muskets as you had Cannon nor so many Swords as you had Companies and on my Conscience I will so farre excuse you from intending it should come to this if you had thought He could have got any your