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	great_a	rome_n	5,301	5	6.4962	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54759	The character of a popish successour compleat in defence of the first part, against two answers, one written by Mr. L'Estrange, called The papist in masquerade, &c., and another by an unknown hand.	Phillips, John, 1631-1706.	1681 (1681)	Wing P2081; Wing S2671_CANCELLED; ESTC R23102	48,706	43

boiles highest And if so and Birth-right be still unforfitable then to the strongest Temptation here 's the least danger and the greatest Encouragement for gratifying that lust and accomplishing all such tempting desires So that upon this position who so arm'd for a Traitor as he that 's Born to a Crown and who so unsafe as he that wears it But surely 't is inconsistant with that particular care that God takes for the Preservation of Kings to entail that Ius Divinum upon them that places them infra statum Humanum However to give a little clearer light into this great point of Succession I shall trouble my Reader with one instance more It cannot be disputed but that either Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth did succeed to the Imperial Crown of England not by Divine Right of Succession since Queen Elizabeth was Born whilst Queen Katharine the Mother of Queen Mary was living but one of them must undoubtedly enjoy the Crown Iure Parliamentario if the latter as cannot be denyed and that Succession is Iure Divino then she was an Usurpess upon the Right of the House of Scotland and what then is the consequence of all this First it shakes and strikes at the Foundation of the Church of England which derives all its Power and Authority from the Crown which began in King Henry the 8ths and were more fully confirmd by Queen Elizabeth and therefore the Church of England was setled by a Princess de facto and not de jure insomuch that it undermines the very basis of the Hierarchy and Ecclesiastick power and the order of the whole Clergy who derive their Distinctions and Ordinations from that Queen 2ly It may call in Question all the Grants of that Queen which have not been confirmed by the Scottish Line and destroy the many and great Priviledges conferr'd on both the Universities 3ly According to the Rule of Ius Divinum it may raise a Question hereafter of what validity those Honors are which that Queen was pleased to confer upon several great and eminent Families Lastly it would well become many worthy and learned Men seriously to consider whether they do not labor to do the Work and Drudgery of the Church of Rome who assert so fatal a Principle whereby they make Queen Elizabeth an Usurpress and build the superstructure of the Protestant Religion the right of the Church and the Legality of the whole Clergy of England upon such a sandy and ruinous Foundation as the High and Mighty Ius Divinum But if we will allow that Princess our lawful Queen which I hope no Man will have the Impudence to deny then the disposal of the Crown by Parliament is just But if Ius Divinum that lay buried 44 Years together must make a Resurrection in our present Distractions of England and both Honor and Conscience render an exclusion Bill unlawful how came the proposition of making a Popish Successor but a Nominal Prince and setling the Administration in Protestant hands If that may be then here 's Ius Divinum quite laid aside for Divine Right of Birth entitles a Prince to the power as well as the name of a King and if that right be sacred and inviolable no one part of it more than another ought or can lawfully be alienated But if the greatest part of it be by the greatest Authority allow'd justly Alienable by Act of Parliament there 's an end of all Divine Right and a concession of the Iurisdiction of Parliaments insomuch that if they may legally take away the Kernel and leave only the Husk of Succession by the same Authority they may as well take away both and a total Exclusion is no more repugnant to Honor or Conscience then an Exclusion in part But if any Man has a curiosity to examine the Effects of Exclusions in part viz. Limitations and Restrictions that have been put upon the English Crown I will only advise him cursorly to run over the contests between King Iohn and the Barons Henry the 3d Edward the 2d and Richard the 2d and their Barons and the troubles of Henry the 6th and the several Agreements made between him and the D. of York and he 'le easily satisfie himself that notwithstanding the several Agreements Restraints and Limitations put upon the Crown and those confirm'd not only by Acts of Parliament but solemnly ratifyed in the Face of Heaven by many Oaths and dreadful Excommunications by the Church yet none ever held but so soon as those Parliaments were dissolved or the first opportunity or advantage happen'd those Kings by the ill advice of their Favourites and Minions broke all whereupon both parties flying to Arms the King accusing them of Treason and they Him of Perjury the rise of all those long and bloody Civil Wars had no other ground but this But to back his last six Arguments in defence of the Succession we find him for the next three or four Pages together corroborating his Opinion with the practice of the primitive Christians First he tells you 'tis a Gospel precept not to do ill that good may come of it such as the unwarrantable devesting of a Prince of his Birthright though for any safety or preservation whatever So that in the case of England supposing it would come at last to a down-right persecution under a Popish Successor yet to stand upon our Guards to prevent it would be more than ever the primitive Christians did under the ten Persecutions and we have not only their Example but their express Doctrine against it And therefore as he says in another place 't is our Duty to bless God for the Peace and Happiness we now enjoy and rather wait his farther pleasure with thankfulness and resignation then with murmuring and a●●trust to Anticipate future Evils and Prejudge Providences to come Now never was any thing more plausibly managed to so little purpose for the Correspondence between ours and the primitive Christians case is here so incoherently Ballanced that never were Arguments more Sophistical The primitive Christians preacht Obedience to Nero yes and they had forfeited their Christianity if they had done otherwise but what was that Nero an absolute Monarch and what those primitive Bishops not such as ours they were not a part of the Legislative Power of the Nation as our Prelates are If Nero invented Wracks Tortures and Gibbets for persecuting or murdering the poor Christians he did it by his own uncontroulable Authority nor were those primitive Bishops call'd to make Laws and therefore had not the lawful power of the least Vote in Moderation of Neroes Cruelty or in Redress of the Christians Torments I am sure if they had had any such voting or law-making Power and yet out of a base principle of cowardly Fear on one side and like fordid Sycophants out of a servile Flattery of Neroes barbarous Inclinations on the other side had neglected the means as much as in them lay of preventing those Persecutions they had been rather Wolves then

they had a fair list for a Toleration And in case of such a Toleration in the next Kings Reign under a Popish Successor wha'rs that less than Sigismunds erecting of Popish Churches and with them no doubt placing Popish Governors in all Forts and Castles Popish Ministers in all offices of trust with Popish Generals and Popish Admirals upon occasion encouraging and countenancing no other perswasion and striving by all Acts imaginary of setting up the Romish Religion and all this dayly pusht forwards farther and farther higher and higher by Degrees Alas the Character never design'd to sham such a ridiculous impossible supposition on the world that the Persecuting fury of a Popish King shall falt down upon us like Fire from Heaven all of a suddain and no less miraculously or that Popery or Arbitrary Power should grow up like Ionas Goad in a Night Alas Smith field Stakes Lollards Towers and Inquisition Houses are the work of time and therefore where as yet open Hostility cannot march nor greater Conflagrations be attempted they must have redress to less Games in the mean while the use of smaller Fire-Brands and Foxes Tailes to tye 'em to In the next page he continues very smart upon the Character part of which to be better understood I must be forced to repeat Char. Speaking of a Popish successor executing the Laws A very pretty chimera which is as much as to make this Popish King the greatest Barbarian of the Creation a Barbarian that shall cherish and maintain the Dissenters from Truth and punish and condemn the pillars of Christianity and proselytes of Heaven which is no other than to speak him the Basest of men and little less then a Monster Besides at the same time that we suppose that King that dares not uphold nor encourage his own Religion we render him the most deplorable of Cowards a Coward so abject that he dares not be a champion even for his God And how consistent this is with the Glory of a Crown'd Head and what hope England has of such a Successor I leave all men of sense to Iudge Mr. Lestrange Behold here 's the upshot of his high flown paragraph A Popish Prince that puts the Laws in execution for the punishing of Papists and for the countenancing and protecting of Protestants is little less then the basest of monsters How comes it then that the Crown of France has not treated the Protestants there as this Pictur-drawer pronounces that a Popish Successor would treat his subjects here The Protestants have now and then been severely handled I know in France as the Papists upon some junctures have been in England and now of late wors then usuall All which hath been influenced as well by reasons of state as by impulse of Religion But shall we pronounce the most Christian King the greater monster for his better usage of us c. Now I dare defie the world to find me out that author that ever wrackt his Brains to labour out such mormoes as this a discourse soe intirely mal a Propos and altogether soe little to his purpose what can he intend or what would he argue from this is there any resemblance between the State of England and France is the French King as the character says bound to condemn the pillars of christianity and proselytes of Heaven or has he any Laws to put in execution against the Papists doe his Laws uphold no other Religion but the Protestant and in defence of that declare Popery Treason and oblige him to hang every Popish Priest in his Kingdom Is there therefore the least compulsion upon him to render him that Barbarian or Coward mentioned in the Character Nay on the quite contrary is not Popery there the Establisht Lord of the soyl and the Protestant Religion only an inmate by toleration Is there any more Hugonot Churches to that Great City Paris then one stragling one like our Pancras for all the Protestants in that Populous Town And now what if Mr. L'estrange would bring no less then 20. precedents of good natured French Kings that have not molested the Hugonots under them Has not their own Religion the ascendant of the Nation does it not flourish and triumph in Pomp State and Glory whilst the poor Hugonot perswasion only humbly truckles beneath it and what then if their Royal mercy does not persecute the Protestants is there any thing in that mercy so monstrous or so unnatural or is their any Laws Restrictions or Clogs upon the French King that can give such a shock to the soul of a Papist as the Protestant Laws of England I confess Mr. Lestrange in one clause before was much in the Right where he affirm'd the continuing a Protestant to the Eye of the World had been a means of gaining the point and 't is no less a truth that showing the Cards before the playing has often endanger'd the Game And indeed I have heard some smart sort of People a little Satyrical upon this Subject I remember a passage of this kind I read to'ther day being an invective against Machiavel for an unlucky Miscarriage in one of his great Designs which translated into our own English runs thus Oh! that our shallow thoughtless Machiavel should have so much zeal and so little Brains to manage it Such a Bigot such Principles such Resolution such Infatuation Impenetrable to all foolish effeminate thoughts of humanity a temper as rough and as brutal as a second Ajax untainted with remorse or pitty that hates all thoughts of gratitude friendship and fidelity as much as Rome loves greatness as deaf to a Kings interest and a Kingdoms Groans as Romes own wish could form him That excellent matchless engine for our work had not this only wretched ill conduct blasted all and crack't the whole foundation Had he but play'd the sly and wise Ulysses till under his disguise he had stoln their fatal Palladium and left their ruind Troynovant guardianless and defenseless our Glory had been compleat How might our great our adorable Machine have succeeded had not this unlucky Marr-al ruind it How might the reaking Gore of Butcher'd Infidels have fatten'd the Land and with the Steam perfumed the Skies and smelt sweet in the Nostrils of the Saints We had a time we had a day a favourable smiling Courting Hour the morning Dawn to our great Iubile But oh that dear that blest Minute 's gon A Curse of all unthinking greatness How might this mighty Hunter have pursued the glorious Game like the immortal Roman Tullia that drove her Chariot over her murder'd Fathers heart and Rod tryumphant o're the crackling Bones of Majesty had he not so rashly pull'd off the Vizard too soon thus senselesly turn'd up his Cask and show'd the fatal Face within it And by that only accurst unfortunate Act waken'd a whole alarum'd Nation to snatch the Reins from this bold Rider and cry stop Iehu Well but Mr. Lestrange through almost all his whole Pamphlet is still

lines For indeed as he says a Prince that 's guilty of all this must be both unman'd unchristian'd and an Excommunicate to humane Nature c. if the Gospel and Christianity be truth for the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles will pronounce him such a one But all this while the Reader is to observe that this great Truth is urged by Mr. L'Estrange in favour of his great Mecaenas designing it not so much to set this Brand upon a Popish Successour's perfidy in such a case as to let us understand 't is a picture of a Popish Successour so strangely deform'd and so extravagantly monstrous that 't is not to be matcht or copy'd in Flesh and Bloud and indeed has no being in Nature But not to let him carry it off so what does he think of Sigismond King of Sweden crown'd in the year 1580. who in the very exact parallel to our present state of England being privately bred by his Mother a Roman Catholick unknown to his Father and afterwards being elected King of Poland openly profest the Romish Religion but upon his Fathers death return'd to his Hereditary Swedish Kingdom where with much difficulty he was received but under all the solemn conditions and engagements that could possibly be made between Prince and Subject of his maintaining and upholding their Lutheran Religion But on the contrary no sooner were the Reins in his hand but with all the fiercest Career of Infidelity as if Hell drove him he presently erects Popish Churches places Popish Governours in all his Forts and Castles encourages and countenances no other Perswasion but striving by all Arts imaginary to bring in the Romish Religion Upon this notorious Perjury his Subjects gave him the Reward which Mr. L'Estrange has elegantly allow'd such Perjury deserv'd they excluded him from all the Offices and Benefits of mankind for accusing him of breach of Faith and mischievous practices against the Government they deposed him And this was done by Lutheran Protestants neither Presbyterian nor Independent Fanaticks yet with offer of crowning his Infant-son Vdislaus provided they might have the breeding of him in their own Belief which he refusing after seven years Treaties and other Endeavours for accommodation all in vain in the year 1607. they crown'd his Uncle Charles the third Son of his Grandfather Gustavus Errichson Now how many Bejesuited Fanatical Rebellious Covenanting Trayterous Holy-leaguing Dissenting Psudoprotestants would Mr. L'Estrange have call'd these Lutherans were his Pen retain'd against them and what Volumes would he publish in vindication of Iure Divino and unalterable Succession c. with all the Curses of Bell Book and Candle against them as he has done against the Popish Character for making so slight of that indispensable Duty Passive Obedience though as ill luck would have it certainly the busie Spirit of Mr. L'Estrange was not then in the world for there are no such vilruent Records against them either in any of the Historians of that Age or indeed ever since Now one Remark I would make upon this Sigismond to continue the parallel to our Case He was a Prince in his nature as Heroick as we have or can have a Popish Heir worthy of all those praises that either of these two Answerers have given the last and in short to use one of their own words A Prince for every thing else bating his Perswasion brave to admiration Which one thing must more particularly witness for him his being elected King of Poland a Nation which we all know make their choice for a King out of the gallant famous and illustrious Worthies of all the Princes and Nobility through the whole Christian world And yet we fee neither Magnanimity Justice all the Cardinal Vertues that adorn'd him nor all the promising Perfections and Accomplishments of Nature strengthen'd with all the Bonds of Protestations Oaths or Sacraments could hold the head-strong Violence of his Religion But to return to Mr. L'Estrange in answer to the Character 's proving how improbable nay impossible 't is to suppose we may have a Roman Catholick King That shall discountenance Popery cherish Protestantism and effectually deter all those that shall endeavour to undermine or supplant it he says As to the Influence which a Popish Suceessor may have upon Ecclesiastick Matters As in the Character There needs no more to be said in 't then this that the King has been Gratiously pleased to offer the passing of any Bill for securing the Protestant Religion without Barring or diverting the Succession And such expedients have been also framed to that effect as have been by great Authority judged competent for the obviating of that difficulty The first part of this Assertion all the world knows to be truth but if such Competent Expedients have been framed either the Framers of them have been the Unkindest Men in Christendom or the three last Parliaments the Unluckyest The first in either never producing or publishing those expedients for the Nations service in this time of exigence or the last in never having the good fortune to meet with them for if the Parliament at Oxford were not damnably mistaken or very lewdly forgetful they have declared Nemine Contradicente that neither they nor their Predecessors have ever heard or seen one syllable of such a Frame of Expedients offered them so that with Mr. Lestranges Pardon his above named Great Authority has been greatly unkind in this Matter or else their expedients were like one of the Virtuosoe's Engines never design'd for use But he goes on As to the rest I will not deny but that it is a hard thing for a Prince to teize and persecute a people of his own Religion purely Eonomine for their being so And it is very probable too that he will connive as Men of that perswasion in many cases where the Law directs a Punishment And what is there more in this than what has been done already more or less from the Date of the Statutes themselves to this very Day And what is done by the Government it self towards the Nonconformists at this Instant Where is the great Crime now upon this Admittance in not punishing the Papists so long as the Protestants are not persecuted Here the Reader by the by may take notice that these two Answerers did not confer Notes for one says a Popish Successor will be a second part of the Immortal Brutus and the other that he will be a quite contrary manner of Man But here I would beg Mr. Lestrange to explain himself if he means by a Popish Successors conniving at Men of his own perswasion to be no larger an extent of Royal favor than what that party have received in the two last Kings Reigns the priviledge perhaps of no more than a Queens or an Embassadors private Chapple for the visible worship of the whole party throughout all England then he contradicts the confessions of all the late Popish Martyrs for amongst all their plot silence they unanimously confess

upon the impossibility of Popery and Arbitrary Powers advance into England Page 82. he says take the matter as they suppose it a King upon a Throne that 's principled for Arbitrary Government and Popery but so clogg'd and shackled with Popular and Protestant Laws that if he had never so great a mind to 't there 's not one Subject in his Dominions that would dare to serve him in his Design Now the King of France we see has made himself absolute and that as I take it by the help of his Subjects and why English Men should not dare to do any thing that the French have done before them I cannot understand Neither do I find but a Popish King might not only have good Irish Hands out of his Dominions but good English ones too upon that occasion for besides his Popish Friends we have but too many of all Religions but more of no Religion at all whose desperate Fortunes would make their hearts leap at so pleasing a motion and push for a change at any rate to fish in troubled Waters and that too notwithstanding the hazard of their Necks upon a Scheame of Law which he proposes Pag. 40 to be form'd for that purpose Nay that Scheame of capital Laws should serve for an incentive to their Resolution and make 'em wade the deeper the more unsafe and dangerous it should be to retire In the foregoing Page he says Mr. Lest. that possibly there may be a Popish King that may not have the will to change the Government in respest of the immorality of inclinin to such a violation of his trust and word but most certainly not in regard of so manifest an inability to bring it to pass Now 't is evident the Plotters and Jesuites have not believed it such an impossible exploit and why may not a Prince of their own Opinion and their own Industry for Rome upon the presumption of whose principles and for whose sake their whole Machine moved with a Crown on his head and a Sword in his hand believe as they do So that were there a real inability in the case yet if the blindness of zeal and the over-sight of Ambition shall not distinguish that inability to be manifest till the event fatal success has proved it so what shall that hinder his endeavors in attempting and prosecuting it and then where 's the certainty of his will against it And these endeavors once prosecuted amidst all the violent Inrodes or subtle Attaques that shall be made for Popery and Slavery no God ha' mercy to his Kindness for 't it is none of his fault that he lays his Bones by the seige and does not live it out to put us to Storm And I need not insist how far the Peace Prosperity and Freedom of this once flourishing Kingdom will suffer under such a seige and how far they will be dayly harass'd and gall'd with so potent and so pressing an Enemy At best they must expect to have their Laws snapt asunder as often and as fast as Sampsons cords and their City gates in the scuffle twing'd off and if at last they play the Philistians and live to pick out both his Eyes for 't the end of all must terminat in Sampsons fate they 'll have an old heavy roof pull'd down both upon his head and theirs together The next thing Mr. L'estrange falls foule upon are the Acts of Parliament recited in the character and here he either tells the Reader they are nothing to the characters purpose or if they are he finds such flaws in the Law-makers that made them that they are unreasonable and consequently void in themselves as you shall hear anon And so he fairly trips up the heels of Kings Lords and Commons at once and makes their whole authority insignificant because their Laws are against Mr. L'estranges inclination First he 's very angry with the character for advancing the Popish Succesour first from the Possibility of a good man then from bad to wars and at last to a downright Traitor and that from a statute of Queen Elizabeth that declares every subject of England that shall take absolution from Rome or own the Popes supremacy or pay any Fealty to the See of Rome guilty of High Treason And then he answers this by saying there are two provisoes in the Act that makes the case somwhat different from what the Characteriser has Stated it viz. 1 Provided alway that for as much as the Queens Maiesty is otherwise sufficiently assured of the faith and loyalty of the temporal Lords of her high Court of Parliament Therefore this Act nor any thing therein contained shall not extend to compell any Temporal Person of or above the degrée of a Baron of this Realm to take or pronounce the Dath abovesaid viz. of Supremacy nor to incur any penalty limited by this Act for not taking or refusing the same c. 2. Provided also that if any Péer of this Realm shall hereafter offend contrary to this Act or any Branch or Article thereof that in that and all such case and cases they shall be Tryed by their Péers in such manner and form as in other cases of Treasons they haue used to be tryed and by no other means Now I would defie any impartial Reader to Judge if ever any thing was so weakly and so impertinently urged as these two Provisoes The first tells you that the Queen was so assured of the Loyalty of her Nobility that she would not put them to the trouble of Swearing to confirm it as the Law required from her Inferior Subjects but on the other side the second Proviso tells us that notwithstanding that if any of them offended against the Law or any Branch or Article of it they should find no more Mercy than the meanest Commoner in her Kingdom but be equally Tryed for High Treason Now what he drives at by this objection or what favor these Provisoes make for a Popish Heir I declare I cannot Imagine neither do I believe he knows himself Upon this he comes to a touch of Conscience and says It would be well if every man that presses with this unprecedented rigor upon the Person here in Question would lay his hand upon his Heart and say if the King has Pardoned me Ten Thousand times more than this comes to with what reason or Conscience can I Importune His Majesty thus bitterly against his Brother Ten Thousand times more than this comes to is a very great disproportion But thus much I am certain for the Heir of a Protestant Kingdom and the Son of a Protestant Martyr to be perverted to the Religion and Interest of Rome so notoriously destructive to the English Government and thereby to be the cause of all those Distractions in the Nation that tye up the Hearts and Hands of the Subject from their Duty to the best of Princes and weaken both his greatness at home and his Alliance abroad and not only this but to be