Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	great_a	king_n	parliament_n	3,205	5	6.3516	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62285	A serious inquiry into the means of an happy union, or, What reformation is necessary to prevent popery and to avert God's judgments from the nation written upon the occasion of the fast, and humbly offered to the consideration of the Parliament by William Saywell.	Saywell, William, 1643-1701.	1681 (1681)	Wing S805; ESTC R25119	28,144	52

evil learn to do well If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land but if ye refuse and rebell ye shall be devoured with the sword Is a. 1. CHAP. IX Comprehension the certain way to greater Division HAving seen the Causes of our Distractions we are to inquire after the means of an Happy Uninion which all ought to wish and pray for yet how to expect it I do not see but by requiring strict Conformity to the Religion of the Church of England as it is now established wherein ten thousand Clergy-men and most of the Nobility and Gentry are agreed For the Independents Anabaptists and Quakers desire no Union with us neither will their Principles admit any unless the Church will perfectly go over to them which can never be done As for the Presbyterians they never did nor never will like the Common Prayer as long as they can be flattered by Enthusiastick Preachers in Conventicles though they can and often do joyn with it after their careless manner So that all the Union that can be hoped for by changing of the present Laws of Subscription Declaration and the like will be to bring in forty or fifty of these Enthusiastick Preachers into the Church and then besides the Schisms without amongst the Fanaticks they will breed a Division also within the Church amongst those that will call themselves the Conformable Clergy for their Enthusiastical way will be onely admired by the Vulgar and all the sober judicious Divines will be slighted as unprofitable Preachers Besides having stood out twenty years in defiance of all Subscriptions and Declarations to testifie their Approbation of the Common Prayer and willingness to uphold the Government in Church and State as it is now established they will upon the taking away these Obligations not onely think themselves at liberty but bound in honour and duty to endeavour the extirpation of both at best will keep men up and further them in contempt of the publick Prayers and Orders of the Church and so spoil all serious Devotion That neglect and contempt they have brought already upon the publick Prayers and Sacraments has been no small profanation of Gods Name and the great ground of all other Profaneness so that if they gain this point to be taken into the Church upon their own terms after they have cast such contempt upon it they can readily then tell the people what good effect their resolution and clamours have had and encourage them to persist in their demands and there is no doubt but they shall be able to take the whole Constitution of the Church away And if they cannot effect that yet what a miserable case will it be when the publick Prayers and Sacraments Fasts and Feasts shall be thought by these that will call themselves the Godly Party the Misery and Grievance of the Nation Those that daily see and hear how Gods publick Worship is contemned by that Party cannot but with bleeding hearts and sorrowful groans lament for the sad condition of the Nation and fear greater evils yet from that they call Comprehension But these matters must be left to your Wisdom to consider of and in all former Ages it was the custom to advise with the Bishops and Clergy in their Synods about settling Religion Thus did the pious Roman Caesars in their times and our Kings and Parliaments hitherto and we cannot doubt the like from you who by fasting and prayer do seek to God for direction However this must never be forgotten when we endeavour after a Union we must not separate from the whole Church of God nor hope to keep out Popery by upholding Ignorance and Profaneness But if ever we expect Gods blessing and an Happy Union it must be by settling sound Religion and true Piety in the Nation for while Heresie and Schism Ignorance and Profaneness are suffered without controul we must look for Plots and Conspiracies Miseries and Confusions to attend us Having therefore shewed by plain matter of fact from the Confessions of Protestant Churches and also by the Tradition and Decrees of the Catholick Church that the Quakers and Anabaptists do teach manifest and condemned Heresie and that the Papists Presbyterians and Independents that keep Conventicles are undoubted Schismaticks and that Heresie and Schism are heinous offences in the sight of God the first step to publick Reformation and a Happy Union is effectually to take away all their Conventicles and at least make them all rest satisfied with a private Worship in their own Families And because under their shelter abundance of ignorant and profane persons have grown up amongst us at the same time the utmost endeavour must be used to compell all the ignorant sort at least to hear sober Instruction and by severe penalties to restrain Blasphemy Swearing Drunkenness Uncleanness and all manner of Vice and Wickedness And if these things be carefully provided against as far as is possible by publick Authority men that are not reformed by such means shall perish for their own sins but God will accept our humiliation and hearken unto our prayers and not onely deliver our Nation from the great danger of Popery but from all other publick evils and calamities But if Quakers and Anabaptists be still permitted to propagate their Heresies and Presbyterians and Independents to uphold their Schismatical Conventicles Papists will lurk among them Ignorance and Profaneness will more and more increase and so God will retain his displeasure and be more provoked against us and what can we expect then from an angry God and a sinful People but Popery Misery and Desolation POSTSCRIPT SInce the writing of these Papers the Reverend and Learned Dean of S. Pauls has published a great and elaborate Book where he does largly prove and further confirm what I could but briefly mention in this short Inquiry and in pag. 45. he says Pref. p. 45. My judgment being that a causless breaking the peace of the Church we live in is really as great and as dangerous a sin as Murder and in some respects aggravated beyond it And herein having the concurrence of the Divines of the greatest reputation both ancient and modern Would they have me represent that as no sin which I think to be so great a one or those as not guilty whom in my conscience I thought to be guilty of it Would they have had me suffered this sin to have lain upon them and not reproved it Would they have had me found all the soft and palliating considerations to have lessened their sense of it No I had seen too much of this already and a mighty prejudice done thereby to men otherwise scrupulous and conscientious that seem to have lost all sense of this sin And then after he had more seriously weighed and examined all their reasons to justifie themselves from this Guilt he concludes his Book thus Although I make no such Appeals to the Day of Judgment as others do yet I cannot but

in Christendom wherein I have not onely demonstrated that the Corruptions of the Church of Rome condemned in the Church of England have no foundation in the Law and Tradition of the Catholick Church and many of them are against both and answered the Objections made by the Author of The Guide in Controversie and other Papists against our Reformation but also proved that the Doctrine and Government of the Church of England as it is now established are according to the Laws and Tradition of the Ancient and Catholick Church and approved of by the greatest part of all Christian Churches in all Ages and even at this very day to which Treatise I refer the Reader for further satisfaction So that when we have a truly Orthodox Religion generally approved of in all Ages established amongst us and ten thousand Clergymen many of them men of as great Piety and Learning as ever were in any Age to propagate and uphold it if Conventicles which distract the Common People were effectually taken away the Body of the Nation would quickly embrace it and so we should see an Happy Union and that would procure the blessing of God and for ever keep out Popery from settling in our Nation And since Mr. Coleman and the Lord Stafford did both confess before their death that their Church did hope to bring in Popery by Toleration and keeping up Conventicles surely we ought in all reason to conclude the taking them away must be the readiest means to keep it out Thus as a Divine and hearty Welwisher to the peace and happiness of my Native Countrey I have endeavoured to lay open the Causes and Remedies of our Distractions though with the utmost peril of my Life or Welbeing whether I respect the Papists or other Dissenters Had I therefore either consulted my advantage or my safety I had better have spared my pains than thus to have provoked their hatred against me but I thank God I had other Motives to persuade me than any temporal Concerns of my own for the Honour of God the Peace of his Church and the present and eternal Welfare of so many thousand Souls do depend upon the right Settlement of Religion which is the thing I now propose not out of my own Fancy or upon any private models and conjectures but upon that sure immovable foundation of the Ancient and Catholick Church in all ages which will quiet the minds of all sober people take a way those heats and animosities that are stirred up amongst Christians and certainly secure our Nation from destruction I know this will be thought a vain Assertion by many but with all serious persons that mind Religion it is an undoubted truth that the onely way to obtain peace and quietness is by religious performing of our duty to God and since there are so many pretenders to Religion that go about to devour and destroy one another till there be found some way to undeceive these erroneous Pretenders not onely Gods commands but the peace of Christendom will be little regarded and consequently we must lie exposed to perpetual Wars and Massacres Now all these Divisions are kept up upon the opinion of the great Sanctity and Authority of their several Upholders unless therefore we can urge their Followers with a greater Authority and more undoubted Argument of Holiness than they lay claim to we can never hope to undeceive them And these will most certainly appear in that way which I defend the Church of England for what Authority can be greater than the Church of God in all ages in opposition to a particular Church or a few private persons Or who can give better evidence of their Holiness than the Holy Catholick Church FINIS ERRATA Pag. 10. l. 11. dele in p. 23. l. 14. r. c. 27. p. 25. l. 33. after figure adde as