Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	king_n	kingdom_n	parliament_n	5,178	5	6.3666	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88228	The opressed mans opressions declared: or, An epistle written by Lieut. Col. John Lilburn, prerogative prisoner (by the illegall and arbitrary authority of the House of Lords) in the Tower of London, to Col. Francis West, Lieutenant thereof: in which the opressing cruelty of all the gaolers of England is declared, and particularly the Lieutenant of the Tower. As also, there is thrown unto Tho. Edwards, the author of the 3 vlcerous Gangrænes, a bone or two to pick: in which also, divers other things are handled, of speciall concernment to the present times.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1647 (1647)	Wing L2149A; Thomason E373_1; ESTC R201322	33,049	40

upon And good Mr. Gangrena is it not as just and as man-like in me if I be set upon by you when I have no better weapons to cudgell you with then your own to take them from you knock your pate as to make use of my own proper weapons to cut you soundly or any other man that shall assault me to the hazzard of my Being this is just my case that you count such a disgrace unto me But say you there I have owned their legislative power and their judicative power over Commons Therefore you draw an inference to condemn me from mine own practise Alas man may not I lawfully seek or receive a good turn from the hands of any man and yet as lawfully do my best to refuse a mischief from him But secondly I answer what though the 4. of May 1641. I stooped to a tryal at the Lords Barre upon an impeachment against me by the King doth that ever the more justifie their Authority or declare me to be mutable and unstable No not in the least for you cannot but know the saying of that most excellent Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 13.11 When I was a child I spake as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things So say I to you five or six yeares ago I knew nothing but the Lords Jurisdiction was as much more above the House of Commons over Commons as their Robes and Grandeur in which they sate was above them especially seeing at all Conferences betwixt both Houses I see the members of the house of Commons stand bare before the Lords for which action I now see no ground for especially having of late read so many bookes which discourse upon the Lords jurisdiction which was upon this ground about a moneth or six weeks A Gentleman a Member of the house of Commons and one that I believe wisheth me well bid me look to my self for to his knowledg there was a design amongst some of the Lords the grounds of reasons of which he then told me to clap me by the heeles and to fall so heavie upon me as to crush me in pieces or else make me at least an example to terrifie others that they should not dare to stand for their Rights And being thus fore-warned I was half armed which made me discourse upon every opportunity with any that I thought knew any thing of the Lords Jurisdiction and I found by a generall concurrence that the 29. Chap. of Magna Charta was expresly against the Lords Jurisdiction over Commoners in all criminall cases And upon that ground I protested against them and then upon further inquiry I found Sir Edward Cookes Judgment expresly against them and is before recited which book Mr. Gangraena I must tell you is published since my first tryall before the Lords and was not publikely in being when I then stooped unto their Jurisdiction and then coming prisoner to the Tower one of my fellow-prisoners very honestly told me of the fore-mentioned Record of Sir Simon de Bereford which presently with all speed under M Colets hand I got out of the Record-Office All which just and legall authorities and testimonie makes me so stiffe against the Lords as I am and I hope I shall continue to the death against them in the thing in question betwixt us as unmoveable as a brazen Wall come hanging come burning or cutting in pieces or starving or the worst that all their malice and the ulcerous Gangrena Priests put together can inflict For all that I principally care for is to see if the thing I engage in be just and if my conscience upon solid and mature deliberation tell me it is I will by the strength of God if once I be engaged in it either go through with it or dy in the midst of it though there be not one man in the world absolutely of my mind to back me in it But lastly admit in former times I had been as absolute a Pleader for the Lords Jurisdiction over Commons as now I am against them Yet truly a man of Mr. Gangraenaes coat is the unfittest man in the Kingdom to reprove me for it For his Tribe I mean of Priests and Deacons those little toes of Antichrist now called reformed Presbyters are such a Weather-cock unstable generation of wavering minded men as the like are not in the whole Kingdome For their Predecessours in Henry the 8. dayes were first for the Pope and all his Drudgeries and then for the King and his new Religion and then 3. in his time returned to rheir vomit again and then 4. in Edward the 6. dayes became by his Proclamation godly reformed Protestants and then 5. in Queen Maries dayes by the authority of her and her Parliament which Parliament I do aver it will maintain had as true a ground to set up compulsive Popery as this present Parliament hath to set up compulsive Presbytery became for the generality of them bloudy and persecuting Papists And then 6. by the Authority of Queen Elizabeth and her Parliament who had no power at all no more then this present Parliament to wrest the Scepter of Christ out of his hands and usurpedly to assume the Legislative Power of Christ to make Lawes to govern the Consciences of his people which they have nothing at all to do with He having made perfect compleat and unchangeable Lawes himself Esa 9.6 7 and 33.20 22. Acts 1.3 and 3.22 23. and 20.26 27. 1 Cor. 11.1 2. 1 Tim. 6.13 14. Heb. 3 2 3 6 became again a Generation of pure and reformed Protestants and have so continued to this present Parliament But now like a company of notorious forsworn men who will be of any Religion in the world so it carry along with it profit and power after they have for the generality of them taken and sworn six or seven Oaths that the Bishops were the only true Church-government and that they would be true to them to the death Yet have now turned the 7th time and ingaged the Parliament and Kingdom in an impossible-to-be-kept oath and Covenant to root up their ghostly Fathers the Bishops as Antichristian from whom as Ministers they received their Life and Being Yea and now the 8th time haue turned fallen from that Covenant and Oath by which they made all swear that took it not onely to root out Bishops but all Officers whatsoever that depend upon them in the number of which are all themselves having no other ordination to their Ministery but what they had from them and so are properly really and truly dependents upon them and yet now of late have by themselves and instruments as it were forced the House of Commons to passe a vote to declare themselves all forsworn that had a finger in that vote and so a people not fit to be trusted For by their late Vote no man what ever must preach and declare Jesus Christ

but he that is ordained that is to say unlesse they be depending on the Bishops by Ordination or else on the Presbyters who are no Presbyters unlesse they depend on the Bishops for their Ordination for they have no other and what is this else but to punish every one that shal truly endeavour the true and reall performance of the Covenant Truly we have lived to a fine forsworn age that men must be punished and made uncapable to bear any office in the Kingdome if they will not take the Covenant And then if they do take it it shall be as bad if they will not forswear themselves every moment of time that the Assembly shal judg it convenient and the house of Commons vote it And truly there is in my judgment a good stalking-horse for this practise in the Assembly of Dry-vines alias Divines Deut. 32.32 33. Esa 44.52 Exhortation to take the Covenant in these words and if yet there should any oath be found into which any Ministers or others have entred not warranted by the Lawes of God and the Land in this case they must teach themselves and others that such Oaths call for rapentance not particularly in them that is to say that neither the Covenant nor any other Oath whatsoever that they have before or hereafter shall take binds them any longer then the time that they please to say it is not warrantable by the Lawes of God the Land and so by this Synodian Doctrine a man may take a hundred Oaths in a day and not be bound by any of them if he please Besides I would fain know if by the Parliaments so eager pressing of the Covenant they do not presse the hastening of many of their own destructions For by the Covenant every man that takes it is bound thereby to maintain and preserve the fundamental lawes of the Kingdome with us every day troden under foot by some of the members of both Houses arbitrary practices not onely towards Cavaliers for which they have some colour by pleading necessity but also towards those of their own party that have as freely and uprightly adventured their lives to preserve the lawes and liberties of the Kingdome as any of themselves for justice and right effectually they have scarce done to any man that is a suiter to them And therefore I here chalenge all the Members of both Houses from the first day of their sitting to this present houre to instance me that man in England that is none of themselves nor dependance upon themselves that they have done effectuall justice to though they have had thousands of Petitioners and Complainants for grand grievances before the Parliament some of which have to my knowledge even spent themselves with prosecuting their businesse before them and run themselves many hundred pounds thick into debt to manage their businesse before them and yet to this houre not one peny the better and yet they can finde time enough since I came prisoner to the Tower to share about 200000. l of the Common-wealths mony amongst themselves as may clearly be particularized by their owne newes bookes licenced by one of their own Clerkes O horrible and tyrannicall wickednesse Was a Parliament in England ever called for that end as to rob and poll the poore common people and to force those that have scarce bread to put in their mouthes to pay excise and other taxations or else to rob and plunder them of all they have and then share it amongst the members of both houses as 10000. l to one man 6000. l to another 5000. l c. to another and this many times to those that never hazarded their lives for the Weal-publique no nor some of thē never intended I am cōfident of it good to the generality of the people but that they should be as absolutely their vassals slaves if not more as ever they were the Kings O thou righteus and powerfull Judge of Heaven and Earth that of all the base things in the world hatest abhorrest dissemblers hypocrites Jer. 7.9 10 11 12. to 16. Matth. 23 deal with these the greatest of Dissemblers thy self who like so many bloudy and cruell men have ingaged this poor Kingdom in a bloudy and cruell war pretendedly for the preservation of their lawes and liberties when as God knowes by a constant series of actions they declare they never truly and really intended any such thing but meerly by the bloud and treasure of the people to make themselves tyrannicall Lords and Masters over them So that for my part if I should take the Covenant I protest it before the God of Heaven and Earth without fear or dread of any man breathing I should judge it my duty and that I were bound unto it in duty in conscience by vertue of my oath to do my utmost to prosecute even to the death with my sword in my hand every member of both houses that should visibly ingage in the destruction of the fundamentall Lawes Liberties of England and prosecute them with as much zeal as ever any of them prosecuted the King for tyrannie is tyrannie exercised by whom soever yea though it be by members of Parliament as well as by the King and they themselves have taught us by their Declarations and practises that tyrannie is resistable and therefore their Arguments against the King may very well serve against themselves if speedily they turn not over a new leaf for what is tyrannie but to admit no rule to govern by but their own wils 1 part col declar pag. 284 694. But Tho Gangrana one word more to you your threatning to write a book against liberty of Conscience and toleration of Religion I pray let me ask you this question if the Magistrate quatenus as Magistrate be Judge of the Conscience and thereby is indowed with a power to punish all men that he judgeth conceiveth or confidently believeth are erroneous and hereticall or because in Religion he differeth from the magisterial Religion in the place where he lives Then I pray tell me whether all Magistrates quatenus as Magistrates have not the very same power And if so then doth it not undeniably follow that Queen Mary and her Parliament did just in her dayes in making a law to burn those Heretiques that dissented from her established Religion who were as grose in their tenents in the then present Magistrates eyes as any of your Sectaries tenents are now in the present Magistrates eyes and if you and your bloody-brethren of the Clergy-Presbytery shal ingage the present Parliament and Magistracie to prosecute the Saints and people of God under pretence of heretical Opinions I wil upon the hazzard of my life justifie and prove it against you and the present Parliament that you and they thereby justifie Q. Mary in murdering and burning the Saints in her dayes yea and all the bloudy-persecuting Roman Emperors that caused to be murdered thousands of the Saints for bearing witnesse to the