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	government_n	worship_n	3,428	5	7.3798	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96540	The declaration of His Highnes William Henry, by the grace of God Prince of Orange, &c. of the reasons inducing him, to appear in armes in the kingdome of England, for preserving of the Protestant religion, and for restoring the lawes and liberties of England, Scotland and Ireland.; Declaration of His Highness William Henry, by the grace of God, Prince of Orange ... of the reasons inducing him to appear in arms for preserving of the Protestant religion and for restoring the laws and liberties of the ancient kingdom of Scotland	William III, King of England, 1650-1702.	1688 (1688)	Wing W2328; ESTC R220170	11,912	4

PROT RELIGION AND LIBERTY IE MAINTIENDRAY THE DECLARATION OF HIS HIGHNES WILLIAM HENRY By the Grace of God PRINCE OF ORANGE c. Of the reasons inducing him To Appear in Armes in the Kingdome of England for Preserving of the Protestant Religion and for Restoring the Lawes and Liberties of ENGLAND SCOTLAND and IRELAND IT is both certain and Evident to all men that the Publike Peace and Happines of any State or Kingdome can not be preserved where the Lawes Liberties and Customes established by the Lawfull authority in it are openly Transgressed and Annulled More especially where the alteration of Religion is endeavoured and that a Religion which is contrary to Law is endeavoured to be introduced Upon which those who are most Immediatly Concerned in it are Indispensably bound to endeavour to Preserve and maintain the established Lawes Liberties and Customes and above all the Religion and worship of God that is Established among them And to take such an effectuall care that the Inhabitants of the said State or Kingdome may neither be deprived of their Religion nor of their Civill Rights VVhich is so much the more Necessary because the Greatnes and Security both of Kings Royall families and of all such as are in Authority as well as the Happines of their Subjects and People depend in a most especiall manner upon the exact observation and maintenance of these their Lawes Liberties and Customes Upon these grounds it is that we cannot any longer forbear to Declare that to our great regret wee see that those Councellours who have now the chieffe credit with the King have overturned the Religion Lawes and Liberties of those Realmes and subjected them in all things relating to their Consciences Liberties and Properties to Arbitrary Government and that not only by secret and Indirect waies but in an open and undisguised manner Those Evill Councellours for the advancing and colouring this with some plausible pretexts did Invent and set on foot the Kings Dispencing power by vertue of which they pretend that according to Law he can Suspend and Dispence with the Execution of the Lawes that have been enacted by the Authority of the King and Parliament for the security and happines of the Subject and so have rendered those Lawes of no effect Tho there is nothing more certain then that as no Lawes can be made but by the joint concurrence of King and Parliament so likewise lawes so enacted which secure the Publike peace and safety of the Nation and the lives and liberties of every subject in it can not be repealed or suspended but by the same authority For tho the King may pardon the punishment that a Transgressour has incurred and to which he is condemned as in the cases of Treason or Felony yet it cannot be with any colour of reason Inferred from thence that the King can entirely suspend the execution of those Lawes relating to Treason or Felony Unlesse it is pretended that he is clothed with a Despotick and Arbitrary power and that the Lives Liberties Honours and Estates of the Subjects depend wholly on his good will and Pleasure and are entirely subject to him which must infallibly follow on the Kings having a power to suspend the execution of the Lawes and to dispence with them Those Evill Councellours in order to the giving some credit to this strange and execrable Maxime have so conducted the matter that they have obtained a Sentence from the Judges declaring that this Dispencing power is a Right belonging to the Crown as if it were in the power of the twelve Judges to offer up the Lawes Rights and Liberties of the whole Nation to the King to be disposed of by him Arbitrarily and at his Pleasure and expressly contrary to Lawes enacted for the security of the Subjects In order to the obtaining this Judgment those Evill Councellours did before hand examine secretly the Opinion of the Judges and procured such of them as could not in Conscience concurre in so pernicious a Sentence to be turned out and others to be substituted in their Rooms till by the changes which were made in the Courts of Judicature they at last obtained that Judgment And they have raised some to those Trusts who make open Profession of the Popish Religion tho those are by Law Rendred Incapable all such Employments It is also Manifest and Notorious that as his Majestie was upon his coming to the Crown received and acknowledged by all the subjects of England Scotland and Ireland as their King without the least opposition tho he made then open profession of the Popish Religion so he did then Promise and Solemnly Swear at his Coronation that he would maintain his subjects in the free enjoyment of their Lawes and Liberties and in particular that he would maintain the Church of England as it was established by Law It is likewise certain that there have been at diverse and sundry times severall Lawes enacted for the preservation of those Rights and Liberties and of the Protestant Religion and among other Securities it has been enacted that all Persons whatsoever that are advanced to any Ecclesiasticall Dignity or to bear Office in either University as likewise all other that should be put in any Imployment Civill or Military should declare that they were not Papists but were of the Protestant Religion and that by their taking of the Oaths of Allegange and Supreamacy and the Test yet these Evill Councellours have in effect annulled and abolished all those Lawes both with relation to Ecclesiasticall and Civill Employments In order to Ecclesiasticall Dignities and Offices they have not only without any colour of Law but against most expresse Lawes to the contrary set up a Commission of a certain Number of persons to whom they have committed the cognisance and direction of all Ecclesiasticall matters in the which Commission there has been and still is one of His Majesties Ministers of State who makes now publike profession of the Popish Religion and who at the time of his first professing it declared that for a great while before he had beleeved that to be the only true Religion By all this the deplorable State to which the Protestant Religion is reduced is Apparent since the Affairs of the Church of England are now put into the hands of Persons who have accepted of a Commission that is manifesty Illegal and who have executed it contrary to all Law and that now one of their chieffe Members has abjured the Protestant Religion and declared himselfe a Papist by which he is become Incapable of holding any Publike Imployment The said Commissioners have hitherto given such proof of their submission to the directions given them that there is no reason to doubt but they will still continue to promote all such designs as will be most aggreable to them And those Evill Councellours take care ta raise none to any Ecclesiasticall dignities but persons that have no zeal for the Protestant Religion and that now hide their

may justly look on their Pretended Sentences as having no more force then the Sentences of any private and unauthorised person whatsoever So deplorable is the case of the Subjects who are obliged to answer to such Judges that must in all things stick to the rules which are set them by those Evill Councellours who as they raised them up to those Imployments so can turn them out of them at pleasure and who can never be esteemed Lawfull Judges so that all their Sentences are in the Construction of the law of no Force and Efficacy They have likewise disposed of all Military Imployments in the same manner For tho the Lawes have not only Excluded Papists from all such Imployments but have in particular Provided that they should be Disarmed yet they in Contempt of these Lawes have not only armed the Papists but have likewise raised them up to the greatest Military Trusts both by Sea and Land and that Strangers as well as Natives and Irish as well as English that so by those means having rendred themselves Masters both of the affairs of the Church of the Government of the Nation and of the course of Justice and subjected them all to a Despotick and Arbitrary power they might be in a Capacity to maintain and Execute their wicked designs by the assistance of the Army and thereby to enslave the Nation The dismall effects of this subversion of the established Religion Lawes and Liberties in England appear more evidently to us by what wee see done in Ireland Where the whole Government is put in the hands of Papists and where all the Protestant Inhabitants are under the daily fears of what may be justly apprehended from the Arbitrary power which is set up there which has made great numbers of them leave that Kingdome and abandon their Estates in it remembring well that Cruell and Bloody Massacre which fell out in that Island in the year 1641. Those Evill Councellours have also prevailed with the King to declare in Scotland that he is clothed with Absolute power and that all the subjects are bound to obey him without Reserve upon which he has assumed an Arbitrary power both over the Religion and Lawes of that Kingdome from all which it is Apparent what is to be looked for in England as soon as matters are duely prepared for it Those great and insufferable Oppressions and the open Contempt of all Law together with the apprehensions of the sad Consequences that must certainly follow upon it have put the subjects under great and just fears and have made them look after such lawfull Remedies as are allowed of in all Nations yet all has been without effect And those Evill Councellours have endeavoured to make all men apprehend the losse of their Lives Libertys Honours and Estates if they should goe about to preserve themselves from this Oppression by Petitions Representations or other means authorised by Law. Thus did they proceed with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops who having offered a most humble petition to the King in termes full of Respect and not exceding the number limited by Law in which they set forth in short the Reasons for which they could not obey that order which by the Instigation of those Evill Councellours was sent them requiring them to appoint their Clergy to read in their Churches the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience were sent to prison and afterwards brought to a Triall as if they had been guilty of some enormous Crime They were not only obliged to defend themselves in that pursute but to appear before Professed Papists who had not taken the Test and by Consequence were men whose interest led them to condemne them and the Judges that gave their opinion in their favours were thereupon turned out And yet it can not be pretended that any Kings how great soever their power has been and how Arbitrary and Despotick soever they have been in the exercise of it have ever reckoned it a crime for their Subjects to come in all Submission and Respect and in a due number not exceeding the limits of the Law and represent to them the Reasons that made it impossible for them to obey their orders Those Evill Councellours have also treated a Peer of the Realme as a Criminall only because he said that the subjects were not bound to obey the orders of a Popish Justice of Peace tho it is Evident that they being by Law rendred incapable of all such trusts no regard is due to their orders This being the security which the people have by the Law for their Lives Liberties Honours and Estates that they are not to be subjected to the Arbitrary procedings of Papists that are contrary to Law put into any Employments Civîll or Military Both Wee our selves and our Dearest and most Entirely Beloved Consort the Princesse have endeavoured to signify in termes full of respect to the King the just and deep Regret which all these Proceedings have given us and in Compliance with his Majesties desires signified to us Wee Declared both by word of mouth to his Envoy and in writing what our Thoughts were touching the Repealing of the Test and Penall Lawes which wee did in such a manner that wee hoped wee had proposed an Expedient by which the Peace of those Kingdomes and a happy aggreement among the Subjects of all Persuasions might have been setled but those Evill Councellours have put such ill Constructions on these our good Intentions that they have endeavoured to alienate the King more and more from us as if Wee had designed to Disturb the quiet and Happines of the Kingdome The last and great Remedy for all those Evills Is the Calling of a Parliament for securing the Nation against the evill practises of those wicked Councellours but this could not be yet compassed nor can it be easily brought about For those men apprehending that a lawfull Parliament being once assembled they would be brought to an account for all their open violations of Law and for their Plots and Conspiracies against the Protestant Religion and the Lives and Liberties of the Subjects they have endeavoured under the specious Pretence of Liberty of Conscience first to Sow divisions among Protestants between those of the Church of England and the Dissenters The designe being laid to engage Protestants that are all equally Concerned to pteserve themselves from Popish Oppression into mutuall quarrellings that so by these some advantages might be given to them to bring about their Designes and that both in the Election of the Members of Parliament and afterwards in the Parliament it selfe For they see well that if all Protestants could enter into a mutuall Good Understanding one with another and Concurre together in the Preserving of their Religion it would not be possible for them to compasse their wicked ends They have also required all Persons in the severall Counties of England that either were in any Imployment or were in any Considerable Esteem to declare before

hand that they would concurre in the Repeal of the Test and Penael Lawes and that they would give their voices in the Elections to Parliament only for such as would concurre in it Such as would not thus Preingage themselves were turned out of all Imployments And others who entred into those engagments were put in their places many of them being Papists And contrary to the Charters and Priviledges of those Burroughs that have a Right to send Burgesses to Parliament they have ordered such Regulations to be made as they thought fit and necessary for assuring themselves of all the Members that are to be chosen by those Corporations and by this means they hope to avoid that Punishment which they have Deserved tho it is apparent that all Acts made by Popish Magistrates are null and Void of themselves So that no Parliament can be Lawfull for which the Elections and Returns are made by Popish Sheriffs and Majors of Touns and Therefore as long as the Authority and Magistrary is in such hands it is not possible to have any Lawfull Parliament And tho according to the Constitution of the English Government and Immemoriall Custome all Elections of Parliament men ought to be made with an Entire Liberty without any sort of force or the requiring the Electors to choose such Persons as shall be named to them and the Persons thus freely Elected ought to give their Opinions freely upon all Matters that are brought before them having the good of the Nation ever before their Eyes and following in all things the dictates of their Conscience yet now the People of England can not expect a Remedy from a free Parliament Legally Called and Chosen But they may perhaps see one Called in which all Elections will be carried by Fraud or Force and which will be composed of such Persons of whom those Evill Councellours hold themselves well assured in which all things will be carried on according to their Direction and Interest with out any regard to the Good or Happines of the Nation Which may appear Evidently from this that the same Persons tried the Members of the last Parliament to gain them to Consent to the Repeal of the Test and Penal Lawes and procured that Parliament to be dissolved when they found that they could not neither by promises nor Threatnings Prevail with the Members to Comply with their wicked Designs But to Crown all there are Great and Violent Presumptions Inducing us to Beleeve that those Evill Councellours in order to the carrying on of their ill Designes and to the Gaining to themselves the more time for the Effecting of them for the encouraging of their Complices and for the discouraging of all Good Subjects have published that the Queen hath brought forth a Son tho there have appeared both during the Queens pretended Bignes and in the manner in which the Birth was managed so many just and Visible grounds of suspicion that not only wee our selves but all the good Subjects of those Kingdomes doe Vehemently suspect that the pretended Prince of Walss was not born by the Queen And it is notoriously known to all the world that many both doubted of the Queens Bignes and of the Birth of the Child and yet there was not any one thing done to Satisfy them or to put an end to their Doubts And since our Dearest and most Entirely Beloved Consort the Princesse and likewise wee Our Selves have so great an Interest in this Matter and such a Right as all the world knows to the Succession to the Crown Since also the English did in the year 1672. when the States Generall of the United Provinces were Invaded in a most Injust warre use their uttermost Endeavours to put an end to that Warre and that in opposition to those who were then in the Government and by their so doing they run the hasard of losing both the favour of the Court and their Imployments And since the English Nation has ever testified a most particular Affection and Esteem both to pur Dearest Consort the Princesse and to Our selves WEE cannot excuse our selves from espousing their Interests in a matter of such high Consequence and from Contributing all that lies in us for the Maintaining both of the Protestant Religion and of the Lawes and Liberties of those Kingdomes and for the Securing to them the Continual Enjoyment of all their just Rights To the doing of which wee are most Earnestly Solicited by a Great many Lords both Spirituall and Temporall and by many Gentlemen and other subjects of all Ranks THEREFORE it is that wee have thought fit to goe over to England and to Carry over with us a force sufficient by the blessing of God to defend us from the Violence of those Evill Councellours AND WEE being desirous that our Intentions in this may be Rightly Understood have for this end prepared this Declaration in which as wee have hitherto given a True Account of the Reasons Inducing us to it So wee now think fit to DECLARE that this our Expedition is intended for no other Designe but to have a free and lawfull Parliament assembled as soon as is possible and that in order to this all the late Charters by which the Elections of Burgesses are limited contrary to the Ancient custome shall be considered as null and of no force and likewise all Magistrates who have been Injustly turned out shall forthwith resume their former Imployments as well as all the Borroughs of England shall return again to their Antient Prescriptions and Charters And more particularly that the Ancient Charter of the Great and famous City of London shall again be in Force and that the Writts for the Members of Parliament shall be addressed to the Proper Officers according to Law and Custome That also none be suffered to choose or to be chosen Members of Parliament but such as are qualified by Law And that the Members of Parliament being thus lawfully chosen they shall meet and sit in Full Freedome That so the Two Houses may concurre in the preparing of such Lawes as they upon full and free debate shall Judge necessary and convenient both for the confirming and executing the Law concerning the Test and such other Lawes as are necessary for the Security and Maintenance of the Protestant Religion as likewise for making such Lawes as may establish a good aggréement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters as also for the covering and securing of all such who will live Peaceably under the Government as becomes good Subjects from all Persecution upon the account of their Religion even Papists themselves not excepted and for the doing of all other things which the Two Houses of Parliament shall find necessary for the Peace Honour and Safety of the Nation so that there may be no more danger of the Nations falling at any time hereafter under Arbitrary Government To this Parliament wee will also referre the Enquiry into the birth of the Pretended Prince of

unconcernednes for it under the specious pretence of Moderation The said Commissioners have suspended the Bishop of London only because he refused to obey an order that was sent him to suspend à Worthy Divine without so much as citing him before him to make his own Defence or observing the common formes of Processe They have turned out a President chosen by the fellows of Magdalen Colledge and afterwards all the Fellows of that Colledge without so much as citing them before any Court that could take legall cognissance of that affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a Competent Judge And the only reason that was given for turning them out was their refusing to choose for their President a Person that was recommended to them by the Instigation of those Evill Councellours Tho the right of a free Election belonged undoubredly to them But they were turned out of their freeholds contrary to Law and to that expresse provision in the Magna Charta that no man shall lose life or Goods but by the Law of the land And now these Evill Councellours have put the said Colledge wholly into the hands of Popists tho as is abovesaid they are Incapable of all such Employments both by the Law of the Land and the statutes of the Colledge These Commissioners have also cited before them all the Chancellours and Archdeacons of England requiring them to certifie to them the names of all such Clergymen as have read the Kings declaration for Liberty of Conscience and of such as have not read it without considering that the reading of it was not enjoined the Clergy by the Bishops who are their Ordinaries The Illegality and Incompetency of the said Court of the Ecclesiasticall Commissioners was so notoriously known and it did so Evidently appear that it tended to the Subversion of the Protestant Religion that the Most Reverend Father in God William Archbishop of Canterbury Primate and Metropolitan of all England seeing that it was raised for no other end but to oppresse such persons as were of Eminent Vertue Learning and Piety refused to sit or to concurre in it And tho there are many expresse Lawes against all Churches or Chapells for the exercise of the Popish Religion and also against all Monasteries and Convents and more particularly against the order of the Jesuites yet those Evill Councellours have Procured orders for the building of severall Churches und Chappels for the Exercise of that Religion They have also procuted diverse Monasteries to be Erected and in contempt of the Law they have not only set up severall Colleges of Jesuites in diverse places for the corrupting of the youth but have raised up one of the Order to be a Privy Councellour and a Minister of State. By all which they doe evidently shew that they are restrained by no rules or Law whatsoever but that they have subjected the Honours and Estates of the subjects and the Establisht Religion to a Despotick power and to Arbitrary Government In all which they are served and seconded by those Ecclesiastical Commissioners They have also followed the same methods with Relation to Civill affairs For they have procured Orders to examine all Lords Lieutenants Deputy Lieutenants Sheriffs Justices of Peace and all others that were in any Publike Imployment if they would concurre with The King in the Repeal of the Test and Penal Lawes and all such whose Consciences did not suffer them to comply with their designes were turned out and others were put in their places who they beleeved would be more Compliant to them in their Designes of defeating the Intent and Execution of those Lawes which had been made with so much care and caution for the Security of the Protestant Religion And in many of these places they have put professed Papists tho the Law has disabled them and warranted the subjects not to have any regard to their Orders They have also invaded the Priviledges and seised on the Charters of most of those Towns that have a right to be represented by their Burgesses in Parliament and have procured surrenders to be made of them by which the Magistrates in them have delivered up all their Rights and Priveledges to be disposed of at the pleasure of those Evill Councellours who have thereupon placed new Magistrates in those Towns such as they can most entirely confide in and in many of them they have put Popish Magistrates notwithstanding the Incapacities under which the Law has put them And wheras no Nation what soever can subsist without the administration of good and impartiall Justice upon which mens Lives Liberties Honours and Estates doe depend those Evill Councellours have subjected these to an Arbitrary and Despotick power In the most important affairs they have studied to discover before hand the Opinions of the Judges and have turned out such as they found would not conform themselves to their intentions and have put others in their places of whom they were more assured without having any regard to their abilities And they have not stuck to raise even professed Papists to the Courts of Judicature notwithstanding their Incapacity by Law and that no Regard is due to any Sentences flowing from them They have carried this so far as to deprive such Judges who in the common administration of Justice shewed that they were governed by their Consciences and not by the directions which the others gave them By which it is apparent that they designe to render themselves the absolute Masters of the Lives Honours and Estates of the subjects of what rank or dignity soever they may be and that without having any regard either to the equity of the cause or to the Consciences of the Judges whom they will have to submit in all things to their own will and pleasure hoping by such waies to Intimidate those who are yet in Imployment as also such others as they shall think fit to put in the Rooms of those whom they have turned out and to make them see what they must look for if they should at any time act in the least contrary to their good liking● and that no failings of that kind are pardoned in any persons whatsoever A great deale of blood has been shed in many places of the Kingdome by Judges governed by those Evill Councellours against all the rules and forms of Law without so much as suffering the persons that were accused to Plead in their own Defence They have also by putting the administration of justice in the hands of Papists brought all the matters of Civill Justice into great uncertainties with how much exactnes and Justice soever that these Sentences may have been given For since the Lawes of the Land doe not only exclude Papists from all places of Judicature but have put them under an Incapacity none are bound to acknowledge or to obey their Judgements and all Sentences given by them are null and void of themselves so that all persons who have been cast in Trialls before such Popish Judges