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	faith_n	hold_v	3,740	5	6.0925	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89046	E.M. a long imprisoned malignant, his humble submission to the Covenant and Directory: with some reasons and grounds of use to settle and satisfie tender consciences. Presented in a petition to the Right Honourable the Lords assembled in Parliament, in Whitsun-week, in the year, 1647.	E. M.	1647 (1647)	Wing M17; Thomason E393_27; ESTC R201607	5,118	8

E. M. A long imprisoned Malignant HIS HUMBLE SVBMISSION TO THE COVENANT and DIRECTORY With some Reasons and Grounds of use to settle and satifie tender Consciences PRESENTED IN A Petition to the Right Honourable the LORDS assembled in Parliament in Whitsun-week in the Year 1647. Eurip. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Printed in the Yeare 1647. To the Right Honorable the Lords assembled in the high Court of Parliament The humble Petition of E. M. Prisoner in the Right Honourable the Lord Peters House in Aldersgate-street Sheweth THat whereas your Lordships humble Petitioner upon Remonstrance of his case that hee hath been these five years Prisoner to this Honourable House in which time having suffered the often Plunder of his goods to the very clothes on his backe and Sequestration from any benefit of livelihood or maintenance and being unmarried is thereby excluded from plea to so much as any fifth part did thereupon prefer his humble Petition that your Lordships would be pleased either to allow him some necessary sustenance out of his owne Estate or such liberty upon Baile to appeare before this Honourable House upon any terme to be limited by your Lordships whereby he might be enabled to seeke and find some end of his extreame miserie either by some poore honest life or death In answer to which Petition your Lordships were pleased to returne that for maintenance out of his owne Estate it was not in your Honourable power to allow it and for liberty upon Baile your Lordships were ready to grant it but only upon condition of his taking the Covenant before-hand Hereupon your Lordships humble Petitioner makes request first of all that he may present to your Honourable Remembrance that there was a Convocation of this Church representative summoned and called by the same Authority together with this present Parliament now sitting and that the Members of that Convocation by the Statute of 8. Hen. 6. are to enjoy the same immunities as touching their Persons and personall Attendants from imprisonment that any Peeres in the House of Lords or Members of the House of Commons for themselves and theirs doe challenge to that effect May it then please your Lordships to give your humble Petitioner leave to present to your honourable Notice that himselfe is actually at this time a Member of that Convocation howsoever he shall not insist any further upon this then your Lordships please but submits both this and the law and Statute it selfe to your honourable arbitrement and pleasures how far it is to be regarded or superseded and craves onely leave of your Lordships that he may without offence expresse his sense and minde in certain considerations upon the sole condition whereon his liberty and livelihood at this present depends 1. First he findes this Covenant for many intrinsecall inordinations in the same which by divers learned men have been worthily and weightily pressed and may further be amplified and noted as your Petitioner is ready to declare whensoever by your Honours he shall be thereunto required so opposite to his Religion Faith and all his duties to God and man that daily he doth humbly beseech Almighty God to strengthen him with grace that he may endure and embrace any extremity of torture or death rather then in any sense of his own or others take or seeme to have taken that which for ought he can any wayes informe himselfe and other meanes of information in this long and strict durance he can have none must needs run him into a desperate hazzard of all the good he can hope for in this or any other world 2 Next he desires to present to your honourable considerations that those Recusants in this Kingdom who professe themselves of the Communion of the Church of Rome are very seldome if at all pressed or urged by any House or Committee to their great commendation be it ever mentioned to that Covenant upon supposition that they are so farre honest and true to their owne soules and consciences that they will never sweare that which is inconsistible with their Faith May it then please your Lordships to consider that the Church of England as it stood established by divine and humane Lawes and still stands to all those men upon whose consciences Lawes have any obligation wherein your humble Petitioner was made a Member of Christ hath received such sensible impressions of Gods grace as obliges him to perseverance therin against all the temptations of the World the Flesh or the Devill May it please your Honors to consider assuredly to beleve that this our Church of Christ may by Gods Grace breed nourish men every whit as honest and true to their soules and consciences and as constant to their Faith and Principles as your Lordships conceive the Church of Rome doth where notwithstanding Dispensations and mentall Reservations we are sure we may say without offence to any man are more impetrable and allowable then with us And therefore may it please your Lordships to vouchsafe that Christian men of this our Church wherein your very Lordships have held and professed Communion may finde so much credit and countenance from your Honours as those of the Church of Rome daily doe and may be thought possibly so farre true and fast to their Principles and Faith that they cannot admit their soules into a Sacrament and Covenant wholly destructive to their Religion and indeed more individually and immediately penned meant and intended by the Authors of it against their Church Doctrine and Government then against the Church of Rome there being no mention therein of any singular thing proper to the Church of Rome but either common to us with them or proper to us alone 3. May it likewise please your Honours to consider that all our late Parliaments in England and most of all this wherein your Honours are now sitting have professed alwayes great severity and made strict inquisition against all men that should intend practice or endeavour by word or writing any alteration of Religion or Innovation in Doctrine or Worship as a capitall offence and indeed what phantasie can be more derogatory and contrary to all Christian Religion then that men should be of any Religion that in these last days is to be set up wherefore when your Petitioner daily sees and considers men that endeavour professe Print and practice Innovations and Alterations in the Church Doctrine Worship and Government in the very Creed in the 39. Articles of our Confession in all the Ecclesiasticall Canons Muniments Ceremonies Sacraments and in the whole substance of Religion the Publike Service of God and Liturgy of the Church sealed in the blood of so many Martyrs and setled by the sanction of so many Parliaments And when he sees such men goe about every where not onely with indemnity and without question but also rewarded with Preferments Immunities Priviledges for their Apostacie from that Faith which they have so often subscribed preached practised and whereunto before God

Angels and men they have plighted their troth When he sees againe men constant to their Religion and to their Foundation persecuted and brought to nought himselfe especially not onely with totall and finall Sequestration but also with a destinie of perpetuall Imprisonment without all necessaries even to famine unles he will for sweare and renounce that his Religion to which if he were not by his owne inclination education breeding but chiefly by the feare of God obliged yet the severe proceedings of all Parliaments this especially against the introducers of Innovations in Religion were sufficient to keep him and awe him or any man else to his Rule and Conformity When hee sees such a time of Jubilee and Indulgence on the one side and when hee beholds such a time of hot persecution on the other side he cannot entertaine a more honourable opinion of your Lordships then to conceive that your Lordships in a zealous prudence as Jehu once served Baals Prophets have a desire to sift and winnow this populous Kingdome and by such a seeming distribution of rewards and punishments do intend only to find out and to root out all those worshippers of Baal those false hypocriticall adulterate pretenders to a Religion who manifestly give sentence upon themselves that either they have all this while formerly notwithstanding all their subscriptions Oathes and Professions lived and gone in a wrong way or else that they will now swear themselves into a wrong way for their advantage Neither can your Petitioner any wayes beleeve that it can possibly be your Lordships will Honorable pleasure that either he or any constant Christian who cannot but abhominate such hypocrisie false dealing and Merchandise in Religion should by perjury seem to be what he is not 4. Besides may it please your Lordships to give your Petitioner leave to mention that too which your Honours know and understand best of all that there is a great deale of difference between Christian and Pagan Allegeance Pagan Allegeance is a vertue actuated out of the habit of prudence and Morall goodnesse acceptable to God and most commonly rewarded with the temporall goods only and benefits of this life but cannot of it selfe alone preferre a man any higher Christian Allegeance is a vertue incorporate in the other good workes of a Christian Faith wrought out of the supernaturall principles of Gods Grace and Word A pagan may be loyall to his King because the rule of Prudence and Moral vertue prescribes him so to be A Christian must be loyall to his King above all men because the Word of God above all rules of Moral prudence commands him so to be And so it comes to passe that Christian Allegeance issuing from the supernaturall powers of Gods Word Spirit and Grace is an act and work of Faith in Christ and efficatious to preferre the Subject to a supernaturall happinesse in life eternall Now your Petitioner being obliged by Sacrament no lesse then 14. severall times to this Christian Allegeance and profession of his Kings Supremacie overall persons in England whatsoever or howsoever and having likewise as often declared upon Sacrament of Oath that he doth not beleeve that any Dispensator in the world no not the Pope himself the greatest pretender that way that he ever yet heard of is able to free or absolve him from that obligation Now this Covenant quite dissolving that Bond of Christian Allegeance and obliging him cleane contrary wayes though he will not judge much lesse condemne other men yet if he should take it all circumstances considered he could not but judge and condemn himself apostatiz'd from his Christian Allegeance which is a great part of that Christian Faith in which he hath hitherto lived and wherin he desires God to grant him strength and grace to dye 5. Moreover may it please your Lordships seriously to consider how detestable to all posterity the memory of those Gunpowder Traytors is who took the Covenant to extirpate our Religion root and branch by taking away our King Queene Prince Royall issue Lords Commons Arch-Bishops Bishops Deanes Deanes and Chapters Arch-Deacons all the rest of our Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy and all persons in whom our Religion was conserved There was nothing in the persons destined to destruction neither Blood Nobility nor any other Malignancie offensive to the Covenanters and Conspirators but the Doctrine Worship and Government of this Church and that only of this Church not that of Scotland Geneva or any to be set up for those were not in any being here at that time but prohibited and proscribed by the same Lawes and penalties wherby that of the Church of Rome was eff●ned and our whole Nation by a solemn Decree hath devoted already to God Almightie the perpetuation of the 5. of November throughout all Generations to an Anniversary Thanksgiving for that his preservation of this Doctrine Worship and Government in these blessed persons without whose conservation Posterity had never come to see this light and in this Thanksgiving all men of this Church for these 42 yeares have ingaged their soules to Almighty God either cordially or at least hypocritically your humble Petitioner for his part professeth cordially with what face or heart then can he possibly sweare to the extirpation of that Religion for the preservation whereof before men Angels he hath so often given God hearty thankes Or with what devotion can he ever againe upon the 5. of November enter into Gods House to give God thankes and praise for the preservation of that Religion which God sees him entred into a Covenant to extirpate Nay your humble Petitioner appeales only to your Honourable Lordships whether the blood of our fore-Fathers and Ancestors shed and ready to be shed in Martyrdome for the Profession and maintenance of 〈◊〉 Faith Worship and Government and not that of Scotland or Geneva would not cry to Heaven for vengeance against their Posteritie that should now justifie their Persecutors and sweare themselves into the Office to extirpate all without any exception of King or Parent if addicted to that Religion for which they so readily laid down their lives And whether the blood of those Gun-powder Conspirators can bee silent against these men that enter into Covenant now adayes to extirpate that Religion for the attempting whereof the mouthes of the new Confederates even to this day give sentence upon those Gun-powder Covenanters that they justly deserved those shamefull deaths and executions which by legall judgements came upon them Your Lordships Petitioner is therefore confident that in your Honourable and Noble Bloods there cannot be any desire that either he or any true Christian Englishman should give the world an instance of such degenerous unworthinesse 6. Last of all seeing that your Lordships humble Petitioner after the losse of all in this world at your Honourable pleasure hath passed the probation of 5. yeares in 6. Gaoles by land and by water with plunders Sequestrations necessities want of all meanes and support save that onely which at this blessed time we solemnly celebrate the mission of God the Comforter into the hearts of faithfull Christians the publike commemoration of that too by the consequence of this Covenant should your Petitioner take it he must sweare for ever hereafter to abandon and seeing that all these Sufferings have not been of force to impugne that grace of God by which only and not by any strength or ability of his own he professes himselfe to outstand May it therefore please your Honours that this 5. yeares probation of extremities may suffice to give your Lordships indubitable satisfaction that your humble Petitioner cannot by any meanes of life or death bee moved to enter into this Covenant and therefore that your Honors would be pleased to thinke of any other course for the expiation of your Lordships displeasure upon him rather then to order him to perpetual imprisonment even to death and that by want and Famine too only for the preservation of that Faith in which he hath with unspeakable comfort engaged his Soule to Almighty God And Your Petitioner shall pray c.