Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	england_n	king_n	kingdom_n	4,625	5	5.7154	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34703	An answer made by command of Prince Henry to certain propositions of warre and peace delivered to His Highnesse by some of his military servants whereunto is adjoyned The French charity, or, An essay written in French by an English gentleman, upon occasion of Prince Harcourt's coming into England, and translated into English by F.S.J.E.	Cotton, Robert, Sir, 1571-1631.; Evelyn, John, 1620-1706. French charity.	1655 (1655)	Wing C6477; ESTC R32525	69,823	112

accounted heretick either by the Church of Rome or any other way to do contra formam Tractatus contrary to the form of Agreement how much more must their jealousie be to us And therefore in a Consultation in Henry the 8s time a whether with best security we should confederate with France or Spain it was resolved that either of them may slip off their advantage by colour of our Separation from the Church of Rome if there be no better hold in their Honesties then in their Bonds For it will be held not onely worthy dispensation but merit to break all Leagues with the enemies of that Church by the Doctrine of that See which teacheth all Contracts with any Catholick Prince to be instanti dissolved because we are by them ranked in the list of Hereticks which holds proportion with the Rule and Direction that Urban the sixth sent by b Bull to Wenceslaus King of Bohemia and Charles then Emperor before the Councill of Constance declaring all Confederations Leagues and Conventions to be Lege Divina temerariae illicitae ipso jure nullae etiamsi forent fide data firmatae aut Confirmatione Apostolica roboratae to be by the Law of God invalid void and in law null although confirmed by the plighting of faith nay though strengthened by confirmation Apostolicall if the parties were separatae ab Unitate sanctae Ecclesiae separate from the Unity of Holy Church when the league was made or si postea sint effecti if they become so after What assurance can there then be either with France who is received by his Rebenediction into the Bosome of the Church and his sonne made Adoptivus Filius Ecclesiae an adopted Son of the Church or against him with Spain who being Protector and Champion of that See Apostolick submitteth himself as he hath ever done to the Popes pleasure and designe and must not onely forsake but aide against us in any warre we should there undertake Danger by difference in Religion in respect of the Subjects Besides it is considerable howsoever all sides of our own will joyn in point of defence to a mutuall aide whether they will so in a forrain Invasion especially when the party assailed shall be of their own Religion For when the Interdiction of the Pope could draw against Iohn King of England a Lewis the 12. a side of their own Subjects as it did after in the same Kingdome against Hen. 3. though all 3. conformable in points of Religion to that See how much more will it work with the people devoted to their opinions in a State divided from their obedience For amongst us the Catholick Church hath many Iesuites to raise Faction and divert people from duty the Recusants many and Malecontents not few all which with warre will discover themselves but now by this happy calm unassured of assistance lock up their riches in security their hearts in silence And therefore by any enterprize it is not with the rule of Seneca safe concutere felicem statum For provoking of some adversary in respect of Papall protection they pick advantage to ground a quarrel of Religion then the sancta Expeditio the holy expedition against Lewis will be made Bellū Sacrum a holy Warre against us But admitting no lesse then in former times an easiness to attempt it is not a meditation unnecessary to think in generall of the dangers and impossibilities to retain For first we must more then transgresse Limites quos posuerunt Patres the Bounds which our Fathers owned Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos And Britans from the world wholy divided and relinquish that defence of Nature wherewith she hath incirculed divided and secured us from the whole world a Te natura potens Pelago divisit ab omni Parte orbis tuta ut semper ab hoste fores From all the Earth Nature hath parted thee With Seas and set thee safe from Enemy and commit our Frontiers had we never so much upon the next Continent to the protection of an Army which besides the continuall Charge if we give Ambitious and able Commanders as unable for our Interest we will not how ready shall it be in such a Leader and backt if he please to give Law to his own countrey For Trifles will be quarrels good enough for such as can make them good by Power And whensoever means and Ambition leads any to trouble the State he will be sure to colour his pretext with honest Titles b Alii sicuti Iura populi defenderent Pars quo Senatus authoritas maxima foret bonum publicum simulantes some declaring to maintain the rights of the People others to uphold the authority of the Senate all pretending to act for the publick good Hence was it that Augustus c refused to add any more of the Barbarous Nations to the body of his Empire which with great facility he might have done d and to restrain that infinite and unsafe desire of enlarging left in Charge to his Successors that especiall point of advice a coercendi intra Terminos Imperii to keep the Empire within due fitting bounds The like moderation from the same ground was in the late Queen who refused the soveraignty of the Netherlands b so often and earnestly offered to her fore-seeing well that as her State should grow more respective by addition of People and augmentation of Territory so Factions and Discontents a common accident in worldly affaires would arise from superfluity Besides the State that may best admit increase is that unto which addition may be on every part indifferently Such was the advantage of Rome by being situate in the middest of Europe whereas we are thrust out of the world to which we have no other contiguity then an unsure element of fluxible foundation the Sea subject to tempest contrariety of wind and more commodious for a potent enemy to intercept then our selves to secure For how large soever any Kingdome is all great directions move from one place commonly from one man as the Heart in the Body It is therefore necessary that the seat be so placed that as well Intelligence as Dispatch may safely passe with indifferency and assured Speed And those Forms are most quick and easy in motion whose extremes are all equally distant from the Centre for the more different from the Circle the more slow and hard Rome may sufficiently example this For so long as the Orbe of that Empire so moved about her all things kept on their course with order and ease but after the Seate was by c Constantine removed to an extremity of the Circle it stood a while still and in the end dissolved For either through the masse of Business the limitedness of any mans sufficiency or impossibility to consider all due Circumstances but in re praesenti there must fall out infinite defects in the directions Or if

in our troubles should now apply their cares for our repose and that after they have cast us down headlong they should reach us a plank for to come ashore Let the wise Reader here whilst I determine nothing allow me at least a little distrust it is the Mother of Safety The Trojans who could not be overcome by Armes perish't by a pledge of peace All the French civilityes are faire and good but in the bottome Quicquid id est timeo Gallos dona ferentes Let us see what reasons can oblige them to interest themselves so passionately in our agreement Is it Religion surely no for that which they professe is contrary to that of this Kingdome and the little Charity they have for their own ought not to perswade us that they have much for ours Is it for the inclination they have to peace surely no for if they esteemed it a benefit they would seek it first for themselves It is perhaps for an acknowledgement of their obligations to us in the late warres and for the assistance we gave to those of Rochel I this would be truely Christian indeed to render us good for evill They will say that they are the bands of blood and parentage which bind them to the Queen and yet they have let the Mother beg her subsistence and retreat among strangers which she could not find with them and having beheld her without pitty and succour in her greatest extremities they advise to offer her a remedy upon the declining of her ill But if this be the reason of their admittance I conceive them no lawfull nor indifferent Mediators since they are so much concern'd in one of the parties They will whisper us in the eare that the designe is to pacify us and to ingage us in a league with them against the Spaniard although at the same time they designe Ambassadours for Munster to endeavour a peace with him O we should wrong them very much to believe it though they might seem in an humour to desire it of us They are too gallant spirited to pretend it they know that we are better advised then to serve them to pull their Chesnut out of the fire that a body recovering health from a long sicknesse ought not to expose it self to a violent agitation that the State will find it self loaden with debts and the Subject exhausted by Contributions that we ought to preferre the evident profit of traffick before the uncertain vanity of a conquest that Iealousies being not yet removed nor aemulations supprest all kind of arming would be suspected by the State fearing least some under pretense of a forrain warre might study private revenge or the oppression of the publick liberty that in the end it will be our gain to see them deal with Spain and to make our advantage of their troubles or not to meddle at all with them unlesse by adding secretly according to the revolution of affairs a little weight to them that shall be found the lighter If then it be none of these motives it remains that it must be either Generosity or deceit O Generosity that hast so long since withdrawn thy self to heaven there to keep company with the faire Astraea or rather who wer 't buried in France in the Sepulchre of Monsieur Gonin is it possible that thou shouldst be risen again or that France should have recall'd thee with her exiles since the death of her King and that the first labour she should put thee to should be in favour of England against whom but few dayes since she shewed such violent resentments for an offence received by a pretended violation of the treaties which had past between us Truely if it be she we must reverence her with extraordinary respects but before we give her the Honours due unto her we must know her for feare of Idolatry in adoring her masque for her self or embracing a cloud in stead of a Goddesse Let us give a thrust with our launce into the Trojan horse to see if there be no ambush within In walking lately with some French Gentlemen as this nation is free enough of their discourse a word escaped from one of the company without making reflexion as I think of what Countrey I was That amongst their Prophets there was one which said That the Conquest of England was promised to their young King This thought cast into the aire though inconsideratly seemed to me very considerable and having given me an occasion to reflect upon all things both past and present it served me as a light to guide me in the obscurity of this Labyrinth upon which before I had reasoned but superficially From thence being returned to my lodging I opened accidentally a book of Monsieur de Rohan intitled The interest of the Princes of Christendome and I fell presently upon a passage where he said That one of the surest wayes to make ones self Master of a State is to interpose and make himself arbiter of its differences I had no need of any other Oedipus to expound to me the riddle of the Prophesy these first motives of suspicion having cast me into more profound thoughts I revolved in my mind how France had managed the whole business both before since the beginning of our troubles and weighed all the circumstances of this Ambassage Why such a solemne Ambassage in a time when all things seem most exasperated and furthest from accommodation Why then not sooner while differences were not yet irreconcileable between the two parties Why such a warlike Prince who is not experienced in the affaires of this Kingdome to manage a negotiation of a peace the most nice and intricate that the world at this time affords Why at the same time levying of Souldiers in Normandy when all the other troops are in their quarters Why therefore should they supply one of the parties with mony when they come to act the persons of mediatours if not to cast wood and oyle into the flame Why at the same time an Agent in Scotland who propounds to them openly a League with France Why begin they onely to turn their cares upon England when they are upon the point of concluding a peace with Spain May not we well judge that it is to prepare themselves for a new employment since they themselves confesse that their boiling and unquiet temper hath need of continuall exercise and that the onely means to prevent troubles at home is continually to furnish them with matter whereupon to evacuate their choler abroad Why doth onely France afford us this so suddain and unexpected Charity after all the fresh wounds which bleed yet among them because of the expulsion of the Capuchins after the continuall cares she hath taken for so many years to lay the foundation of our troubles by the secret negotiations of the Marquis of Blainville by the intriques of the cardinal of Richelieu with Buckingham by the long plots in Scotland and by the open sollicitations of