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	subject_n	3,003	5	6.4581	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47844	Discovery upon discovery in defence of Doctor Oates against B.W.'s libellous vindication of him, in his additional discovery, and in justification of L'Estrange against the same libell : in a letter to Doctor Titus Oates / by Roger L'Estrange.	L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.	1680 (1680)	Wing L1239; ESTC R30937	35,956	42

Services celebrating the good Offices you have rendred the Church as well as the State in your plain-dealing with Fanatiques and Papists alike But yet I am afraid Doctor that you are a little too easie of Belief 'T is a great wrong to mee and a greater yet to your self This way of taking things upon Trust For Truth should be as Sacred in a Word as in an Oath I have at This Instant before my Eyes all the Inconveniences that can possibly arise from This way of Exposing my Vindication First I know that you are apt enough to take Fire of your self Sir and that you do not want Malevolent Spirits neither to push you forward I do know very well also your Power and Interest with all the Ill Consequences that can attend it I know likewise the Rancour of a Company of little Prostigate Wretches that will be forward enough to cover their Malice under your Name and Protection and in my Conscience to give the men their due will not stick out at any thing to do my business Fellows that will make no more of Kissing a Book then of Kissing a Back-side But Sir I shall oppose my single Honesty to all these Difficulties and value their Swearing as little as I do their Lying tho' I am well assured that they are conferring Notes upon That point already And remember what I tell you Sir if ever they come to Agree upon 't That Perjury will be found allmost the fairest part of their Practice There is another sort of Malignants that please themselves mightily in the Contemplation of having L'Estrange Run down as they call it at the next meeting of Parliament I shall take my time likewise to vindicate That Honourable Assembly from the Scandal of That Character which these People would give them in the world As if we were now coming to be Govern'd by Ordinances again and that Honest men for discharging their Duties to their Prince and Country were now a Second time to be Sacrific'd to a Faction No no Sir I have no Apprehension of any hard measure from that Illustrious Assembly to the degree of Oppressing me Contrary to Law and I have as little Apprehension from the Dint of any Known Law that I have Transgrest Give me your favour Doctor but for One word more My believing of the Plot under certain Restrictions and Qualifications is by B. W. exhibited against me as a great Enforcement of my Charge Now upon my Faith Sir I am perswaded that I believe every Tittle of the Real Plot but you must give me leave yet to Suspend my Faith in many Cases where there is a Plot pretended and Aggravated and the supposed Principals not one jot concern'd in 't What do you think Sir of the quality of those Inflaming Papers that are publisht in the Witnesses Names and yet are only the Contrivances of a Knot of Booksellers for their own Advantage Papers of manifest Scandal against the Royall Family some of the Loyall Protestant Nobility and in Generall against his Majesties most Faithfull Subjects Papers composed for the Tumultuating of the Rabble and if the Citizens had not been too Honest and too Sober to be transported with those Libells they had been sufficient to have engaged them in Blood Papers that allmost from One end to the Other of them are in effect the very Coppies of two Libells which I had formerly seiz'd my self And shall This now be called a dis-believing of the Plot which is only the not giving Credit to the most Shamelesse and Insolent Impostures that ever were put upon any Government No pardon me Doctor Those Mercenaries are the Defamers of the Kings Evidence that publish Lies and Scandalls in Their Names And pray'e take notice withall that these pretended Asserters of Religion and Government are men of Notorious and Pestilent Principles against both Church and State I do not know Sir what Construction you may make of the good Office I have done you as the Kings Evidence in This way of asserting you to be a Loyall Subject and a Good Church-man or in my Freedom of telling you that in your Personal Capacity you have not us'd me kindely If you take the Latter amiss I 'le leave it to Time to reconcile me to your better Thoughts But for the Other part Doctor is you will needs misunderstand me I shall however content my self in This as well as in Other Cases that I have render'd a Duty and a Service to the Publique without any Profit to Sir Your Disobliged but Unchangeable Servant Roger L'Estrange P. S. I shall here present you Sir with the Papers I promised you in my Vindication from the mistake imposed upon you as if I had gone over from the King to Cromwell In 1659. Lambert was upon his March toward Sir George Booth and Sir Henry Vane had listed the Separatists in and about London to be in Readinesse At which time I Publisht This following Paper under the Title of The Declaration of the City to the Men at Westminster Gentlemen WE have waited for the good you have promised us with a ridiculous Patience but we find you Men of the Originall and to be read backward We are for the Religion of the Heart not that of the Nose and for the Law of the Land not that of the Sword we are likewise for the Charter of the City and for the Liberties of Free-born Englishmen with which we are resolv'd to Stand and Fall It is high time for us to look to our selves when we are coming under a Guard of your Chusing and when we have only this Choice left us whether we will Adventure to destroy You to Day or be sure to be destroyed our Selves to Morrow That 's the short of the Case for a Massacre is not only the Design but the Profession of the Party you have Arm'd against us 't is their very Exchange-talk at noon day But the work will be either too hot or too heavy for my Masters we are determined to suffer these affronts no longer we are now come to understand one another The Ruine of the Nation is Your Interest the Peace and Preservation of it Ours and the mischief of it is your destruction is as Easie as 't is Necessary for every Creature which either Loves God or his Countrey Hates You. You have not so few as 200000 Enemies in This Town to dispute the Quarrell with some half a dozen of you not to multiply words your Practices are such as a Generous Nature cannot Brook and your Power so despicable that a Coward needs not Fear it You have made the City but a Cage of Broken Merchants Tradesmen are ready to Perish for want of Businesse and their Families for want of Bread nor have the Poor any other Employment than to Curse you Those few amongst you that have any thing are but Cover'd with the Spoiles of the Nation and out of the Scum of the People you have composed your inconsiderable Rest. Well

Sir nor as I am a Christian did I come to the Knowledge of This directly or indirectly from any Member of the Family Why will you suffer a violent Passion to carry you thus beyond all bounds of Decency and Consideration It takes away your Reason Doctor and in these Fits rather then not do me a Mischief you care not what you say For you do no more believe me to be as you have represented me then I believe you to be the Ghost of Thomas Aquinas I have not deliver'd one syllable here without a due Respect both to what I say and to Whom I speak and if every Particle in This paper should be put to the Torture to force an Evidence from it against the Authour 't is no more then I look for But so secure am I in the Conscience of my own Integrity and so well satisfi'd in the Title I have to the Common Right of defending my self that I am not at all sollicitous about the Event of This Freedom And to shew you that I have not enter'd rashly upon This Undertaking I 'le give you a clear prospect of my Thoughts upon the Question with submission to be better inform'd where I 'm mistaken You cannot but observe Doctor that the stresse of B. W's Charge upon L'Estrange lyes with its whole weight upon These Four Poynts viz. that he Favours the Papists Lessens the Blot Disparages the Wittnesses and Arraigns the Government And all this serves only as a Common-place to work upon when any man is to be render'd Odious to the People For 't is a thing easily sayd greedily swallow'd of Violent Operation and hard to be disprov'd which is a very great disadvantage when a man comes to be arraign'd for his Thoughts without any possibility of clearing himself It is a thing that extreamly Confounds and Misleads us in This Affair the Governing of our selves by the Common Forms of speaking and according to the Vulgar understanding of the matter in hand As for the purpose we make a Favourer of the Plot a Favourer of Popery and a Favourer of Papists to signify for the most part one and the same Thing And 't is no matter which comes out First when we would throw Dirt at a man Whereas in Truth and Equity there is a great difference betwixt them as will better appear by taking them apart and distinguishing the One from the Other By the Papists is properly intended the whole Party among us of That Perswasion By Popery the Opinions or Religion of That Party By the Plot is to be understood the Conspiracy which is a Third Consideration separate from the Other Two So that a man may be a Favourer of the Plot against the King and Government and yet an Enemy to the Opinion of the Papists and to the Party For we see That the same Designe has been formerly Carry'd on and Executed by men of Opposite Iudgements And likewise a man may have a Kindnesse for the Opinion and yet be an Enemy to the Plot As in Despite of Detraction we have seen many Instances And Lastly a man may have a Tendernesse and Charity for the Party without Leaning at all to the Opinion and with a perfect detestation of the Execrable Confederacy Well Doctor but you will tell me that This Popish Plot is a Complicated Plot and not barely a Plot upon the Government but a Plot also supported upon Popish Principles and carry'd on by a Popish Party for the Extirpation of the Protestant Religion It is not Sir to extenuate the Guilt and the Foulnesse of This Plot if I tell you that the Fanatical Revolution matcht it in every point There was First a Confederacy and then a Design layd a Change of Government resolv'd the Lawfullnesse of it Debated and Asserted and the Instruments that carry'd it on were the Fanatical Party And all Terminated in the Snppression of the Protestant Religion That is to say if the Church of England was Protestant Or if Otherwise and if they that destroy'd This Glorious Church were Protestants Themselves from such Protestants good Lord deliver us But you will say Sir that Prelacy Ceremonyes Habits and set Forms of Prayer are not to be accounted matters of Religion I beseech you Sir what Religion is there in a Messe of Porridge or in looking out at the Window to see what a Clock ' t is And yet I take it to be a very material Transgression in point of Religion to throw That Porridge in the face of my Father in the One case or to resuse upon his command to look out at the Window on the Other For Religion consists in Doing as well as Believing and in the Conservation of Unity and Order The Resemblance betwixt the Face and the Glasse is scarce liker then these Two Cases and I do not know why the same way of Reasoning may not hold as well too upon things so agreeing betwixt Themselves The Popish Plot is Impious for so much as concerns the destroying of the King and the laying of the Nation in Confusion and bloud And so was the Schismaticall Plot too And This is a poynt that all men even of all Perswasions in Religion that have either Honour or Brains will easily accord But you 'l say that This Plot is prov'd by Witnesses and Iudgments and give me leave Doctor to tell you that the Other was also prov'd by Fact and the Final Execution of a Fore-layd Design Well but you 'l say Sir that the Iesuits Principles are Bloudy and Dangerous As That of Keeping no Faith wiih Heretiques and the Doctrine of Absolving Subjects from their Obedience to such Princes These are Hellish Positions 't is true but in the History of our Late Troubles and in That of the Kirks Proceedings in Scotland you I find these Maxims taught in the very Schools and Pulpits Nay and warranted too by the most Eminent States-men and Divines and not only so but authoriz'd by General Assemblyes and the Votes and Declarations of a Mock-Representative of the Commons of England Nay and it went further yet for all these diabolicall Illusions were put in practice They sought the Lord for a Complement of the Wickednesse they put the King to Death as by a Revelation and glory'd in the thing done as a favourable Dispensation of Providence Once again Sir There were none but Papists you 'l say in This Plot there were none but Schismatiques in the Other so that vou see the streights of the Church of England betwixt these two Extreames and the Danger is as mortal on the Right hand as on the Left And give me leave to think Doctor that as the Danger is Equall so the Affliction is much bitterer from those of our Own Family then from strangers the Prophet David himself seem'd to stagger a little under the weight of it If it had been an Open Enemy he could have born it but to be wounded by Those with whom he had taken Counsell and walkt in the House