Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	good_a	king_n	prince_n	3,500	5	5.4628	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61431	Letters and papers concerning some matters in the last Parliament relating to the commou [sic] rights of all the Commnns [sic] of England, fit to be considered in the next, and by all the said Commons in the mean time.	Stephens, Edward, d. 1706.	1704 (1704)	Wing S5428C; ESTC T63879	15,509	21

what hath been offer'd What I have written lately for the Service of our Great Master and your Selves hath been ill requited by the Prudential A name not imposed but assumed very properly Latitudinarian Bishops with False Reports and Calumnies no less than of Madness and Popery like the False Prophets of old and the Incendiaries of the late Civil Wars And what I have offer'd to the House for the same purpose both formerly and now again hath been so treated as is very inconsistent either with their Duty or our Right For these things I appeal to the Righteous Judgment of Almighty God to your own Consciences and to the next Parliament and to a Convention of the Clergy as to what concerns the Bishops and the false Charge of Popery These Gentlemen who set up themselves for our Masters receive all their Authority from Us and under our Hands and Seals and if we do not let them know they are our our Servants and accountable to Us for their Behaviour We our selves are justly answerable for their Misbehaviour before God and Man And if we do not appear as well for the Honour of the King when there is occasion as for the Rights of the Subject we do not discharge our Duty to our Country perform our Oath to the King or are Worthy of the Benefit of so Noble a Government I hope you will look better to your Election the next time and send up such Persons as have more sense of Religion and their Duty to God of the true English Government and the Honour of the Ring of your Rights and the Trust reposed in them and fit to enquire into the Miscarriages of these To Sir Richard Cocks Sir Richard AS I am a Commoner of England it is as I told you before my Right and my Duty to take notice and complain to the House of Commons of all or any such matters of publick Concern as are proper for the Inquiry or Consideration of that House And as I am a Christian I am much more obliged to use that Right and discharge that Duty when they are such as do affront or do Contempt to the Christian Religion which is the Religion of the Nation and so Essential a part of this Constitution that it is one of the Fundamental Principles of our Laws that what-ever Laws are enacted in any thing contrary to this Religion they are so far void and null This is the common Right and Duty of every Commoner of England But besides all this I have been for some Years by the special Providence of Almighty God engaged in his more immediate Service and without limitation to any special Charge so that where-ever I have opportunity for his Service I am obliged saithfully to discharge it And besides all this I am obliged by Oath to be faithful to the present King which I intend by the Grace of God faithfully to perform tho' for special and I think good Reasons I refuse to take it again These are great Obligations and such as I cannot discharge without taking notice and complaining of what I observe greatly amiss in Both Houses of Parliament And I shall do it first to you as my proper Representative and by you desire it may be represented to the House as you will answer it to your Country for which you serve In your House I observe such abominable Impiety and Contempt of Religion as greater hath rarely been known I have heard it complained of by Members of the House that a Man can hardly mention any thing of God or Religion there but he shall be in danger to be ridicul'd or laught at And when I have asked why no body moved the House that some of them might be called to the Bar and made Examples the common Answer hath been It would be to no purpose Which is the Shame of the whole House and notorious Evidence of their Impudence and Ignorance of what becomes such Assemblies in one part of them and of such Baseness as makes them unworthy of the Name of Christians in the rest as if the generous Discharge of so great and noble a Duty was not of it self a thing to great purpose as if the Fearful or such as are ashamed of Christ or his Words are not to have their part with Infidels and Unbelievers that is with such as the rest of their Fellow-Members of whom they complain as if their Baseness might not reasonably be imputed by the others to Infidelity and Disbelief of the Religion which they profess to the Scandal of Religion and Hardening those poor Creatures in their Impiety It is no wonder if the whole-Nation abound in Infidelity and all kind of Wickedness when there is no more Religion in those who should correct it among the Commons and the Of their Prudentials I have long since noted one remarkable Instance in Reflections on the Action at Sea p. 29 30 31 and another lately in my Narrative besides others elsewhere Latitudinarian bishops among the Lords And now I appeal to the Consciences of all who have any Sense of Religion and to the dreadful Tribunal of Almighty God whether these things be not true and whether there be not more danger to the Nation from such a House of Commons and such Bishops than from Popery and from all the Priests and Jesuites in the Nation if they were as many more as they are And where there is no more Fear of God it is no wonder if there be not that Honour and Respect for the King that there ought to be Freedom of Debates in Parliament is undoubtedly the Right of the Subject But if under pretence of Freedom of Debates any Members shall do acts of Insolence and Disrespect to the King that is no part of their Right but a Violation of Duty to the King and tending to the Dissolution of the Government and ought to be corrected That your late Votes grounded upon a false and foolish Letter to a Member of Parliament was such is believed by many to get an advantage against the King and to prevent that 'tis likely many did comply in their Votes who did not see any other reason for it and the Choice of the Chairman for that Committee a Person who was turn'd out of her Service by the late good Queen hath declared openly in your Lobby to my self that he thought Vice ought to be encouraged and is reported to have expressed no little disrespect to the King in your House before now is a considerable Aggravation of the Indignity How such things can be consistent either with Conscience and Religion Civil Duty to our Country and one of the best Governments in the World or their Oaths of Fidelity to the King I do not understand Nor so much as with common Prudence for themselves and their own Rights The King hath shewed himself a Prince of great Courage and of as great Prudence and Conduct Almighty God has by him as his Instrument in Confederacy with divers of the

Conspiracy of a most wicked Faction of Apostates Deists Socinians and Latudinarians to subvert the Government under pretence of Preserving the Rights of the People and to cast out Christianity under pretence of Securing the Protestant Religion And how little there is of true Religion amongst any of them all is Notorious by their Actions in the two last Parliaments upon the Letters in Print to Sir Richard Cocks and to the Knights Gentlemen and Freeholders and Commons of England What a Charge of Impiety is there upon the whole House of Commons And what a silly and impious Vote was pass'd upon it And how Hypocritically and Scandalously have this last deservedly short-liv'd House of Commons behaved themselves in their Formal Address for a Solemn Day of Fasting and Prayer for the Blessing of God upon their Consultations and yet not one of them all so much as open his Mouth for a due Correction of so great Impiety It is certain and unquestionable that being ashamed of Christ or his Words and giving Offence or Scandal to Religion are Two Capital Crimes in the Laws of the Gospel and terrible and severe Judgments denounced against them And nothing can be more Scandalous to Religion than for a Man to make a high Profession of Religion and be ashamed or afraid to speak for it when there is so just and necessary occasion So that the Sin and Danger of such Persons in the House I take to be the greatest of all and that which is like to seal up some Judgment of God upon the whole Nation if some proper Course be not speedily taken to prevent it God hath already answered them in their own kind for he hath the Hearts of Kings in his hands and turns them as the Rivers of Water And if the People have not now a Care that they choose none of them again they who do otherwise may possibly find the Curse cleave to themselves and to those they choose And as the King has done well to Dissolve them so if he please to consult his Judges and the Learned in the Law it is like he will find matter enough to Correct the Insolence of some of the most active Conspirators And then it may be hoped we may see a true English Parliament again And then it may also be hoped we may see the Decays which have been too long neglected effectually repaired Part of the Letter to Sir RICHARD COCKS In your House I observe such abominable Impiety and Contempt of Religion as greater hath rarely been known I have heard it complained of by Members of the House that a Man can hardly mention any thing of God or Religion there but he shall be in danger to be ridicul'd or laught at And when I have asked Why no body moved the House that some of them might de called to the Bar and made Examples The common Answer hath been It would be to no purpose Which is the Shame of the whole House and notorious Evidence of their Impudence and Ignorance of what becomes such Assemblies in one part of them and of such Baseness as makes them unworthy of the Name of Christians in the rest as if the generous Discharge of so great and noble a Duty was not of it self a thing to great purpose as if the Fearful or such as are ashamed of Christ or his Words are not to have their part with Infidels and Unbelievers that is with such as the rest of their Fellow-Members of whom they complain as if their Baseness might not reasonably be imputed by the others to Infidelity and Disbelief of the Religion which they profess to the Scandal of Religion and Hardening those poor Creatures in their Impiety It is no wonder if the whole Nation abound in Infidelity and all kind of Wickedness when there is no more Religion in those who should correct it The Letters at Large with other Papers may be had at the New-Inn Coffee-House Printed in the Year 1701. To the Knights Gentlemen Freeholders and Commons of England Gentlemen and Fellow-Commoners THO I have given sufficient Demonstration to all those few who know me of my good Will Readiness and Resolution for your Service yet such has been the Malice of some wicked men to defame me which I could have born patiently did it not disable me to serve you as I would that I'm compel'd as St. Paul was to say those things for my self but for your sake which nothing less should have extorted from me I have liv'd now in the World above the ordinary Age of Man My principal Study from my Youth has been the Service of God and of my Country upon all Occasions which I always look'd upon as Calls to me I always hated Knavery and Falshood and was zealous for Truth and Righteousness tho I have sometimes been mistaken in matters of fact of others yet never in my Principles that I remember or varied from them in deliberate Actions so as to be justly charg'd by Man tho I dare not justify my self before the strict Justice of God I have spent my Life in this Service without soliciting for Preferment or so much as accepting what has been offer'd me both in Church and State And to say nothing of former times I prov'd my self a Faithful Monitor to the late King and Queen and to my Country all his time from first to last and so as I doubt not but Posterity will approve whatever the present Generation doth and should have done the like in the present Reign had I had the like Opportunities nor have I been wanting in what I could do I drew a Specimen of a Declaration against Debauchery before the Prince came to London which being approv'd by considerable Persons was soon after deliver'd to him and the Care of it recommended to one whose Advantages were no less than his Duty to have promoted it After he came to the Crown I presented him with a most faithful Admonition of what most concern'd him and not only then complain'd in print of the shameful neglect of the Propagation of Religion in Foreign Parts and of Reformation of Manners at home but some time after actually begun that necessary Work and had undoubtedly brought it to a good Effect speedily had not such as were actually engag'd in it and such as were most of all oblig'd to promote it unworthily deserted it and set up a little superficial Formality instead of it which hath more expos'd it to Contempt by great Ones than promoted it among Inferiours I gave you not only Notice but Example too how to correct the Miscarriages of your Trustees in Parliament and to make them know that they are not your Masters but your Servants but such as are most like to undo you if you look not better to them and consider their Behaviour at your County Courts and General Quarter Sessions Considering of how great importance it is to have a Good Cause in all Differences and how much Religion is really concerned or