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	law_n	liberty_n	6,707	5	6.5575	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30370	A letter, containing some reflections on His Majesties Declaration for liberty of conscience dated the fourth of April, 1687	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.; Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.	1689 (1689)	Wing B5815; ESTC R22971	10,147	10

upon the Crown to assure them that they should be well used than these can pretend to The Nation has scarce forgiven some of the Church of England the Persecution into which they have suffered themselves to be cosened tho now that they see Popery barefaced the Stand that they have made and the vigorous Opposition that they have given to it is that which makes all men willing to forget what is past and raises again the Glory of a Church that was not a little stained by the Indiscretion and Weakness of those that were too apt to believe and hope and so suffered themselves to be made a Property to those who would now make them a Sacrifice The Sufferings of the Nonconformists and the Fury that the Popish Party expressed against them had recommended them so much to the Compassions of the Nation and had given them so just a pretension to favour in a better time that it will look like a curse of God upon them if a few men whom the Court has gained to betray them can have such an ill Influence upon them as to make them throw away all that Merit and those Compassions which their Sufferings have procured them and to go and court those who are only seemingly kind to them that they may destroy both them and us They must remember that as the Church of England is the only Establishment that our Religion has by Law so it is the main body of the Nation and all the Sects are but small and stragling parties and if the Legal Settlement of the Church is dissolved and that body is once broken these lesser bodies will be all at Mercy and it is an easy thing to define what the Mercies of the Church of Rome are XIII But tho it must be confessed that the Nonconformists are still under some Temptations to receive every thing that gives them present ease with a little too much kindness since they lie exposed to many severe Laws of which they have of late felt the weight very heavily and as they are men and some of them as ill Natured men as other people so it is no wonder if upon the first surprises of the Declaration they are a little delighted to see the Church of England after all its Services and Submissions to the Court so much mortified by it so that taking all together it will not be strange if they commit some Follies upon this occasion Yet on the other hand it passes all imagination to see some of the Church of England especially those whose Natures we know are so particularly sharpned in the point of Persecution chiefly when it is levelled against the Dissenters rejoyce at this Declaration and make Addresses upon it It is hard to think that they have attained to so high a pitch of Christian Charity as to thank those who do now despitefully use them and that as an earnest that within a little while they will persecute them This will be an Original and a Master piece in Flattery which must needs draw the last degrees of Contempt on such as are capable of so abject and sordid a Compliance and that not only from all the true Members of the Church of England but likewise from those of the Church of Rome it self for every man is apt to esteem an Enemy that is brave even in his Misfortunes as much as he despises those whose minds sink with their Condition For what is it that these men would thank the King Is it because he breaks those Laws that are made in their Favour and for their Protection and is now striking at the Root of all the Legal Settlement that they have for their Religion Or is it because that at the same time that the King professes a Religion that condemns his Supremacy yet he is not contented with the Exercise of it as it is warranted by Law but carries it so far as to erect a Court contrary to the express words of a Law that was so lately made That Court takes care to maintain a due proportion between their Constitution and all their proceedings that so all may be of a piece and all equally contrary to Law They have suspended one Bishop only because he would not do that which was not in his Power to do for since there is no Extrajudiciary Authority in England a Bishop can no more proceed to a Sentence of Suspension against a Clergy-man without a Tryal and the hearing of Parties than a Judge can give a Sentence in his Chamber without an Indictment a Tryal or a Iury and because one of the Greatest Bodies of England would not break their Oaths and obey a Mandate that plainly contradicted them we see to what a pitch this is like to be carried I will not Anticipate upon this illegal Court to tell what Iudgments are coming but without carrying our Iealousies too far one may safely conclude that they will never depart so far from their first Institution as to have any regard either to our Religion or our Laws or Liberties in any thing they do If all this were acted by avowed Papists as we are sure it is projected by such there were nothing Extraordinary in it but that which carries our Indignation a little too far to be easily governed is to see some Pretended Protestants and a few Bishops among those that are the fatal Instruments of pulling down the Church of England and that those Mercenaries Sacrifice their Religion and their Church to their Ambition and Interests this has such peculiar Characters of Misfortune upon it that it seems it is not enough if we perish without pity since we fall by that hand that we have so much supported and fortifyed but we must become the Scorn of all the world since we have produced such an unnatural Brood that even while they are pretending to be the Sons of the Church of England are cutting their Mother's Throat and not content with Judas's Crime of saying Hail Master and kissing him while they are betraying him into the hands of others these carry their Wickedness further and say Hail Mother and then they themselves Murther her If after all this we were called on to bear this as Christians and to suffer it as Subjects if we were required in Patience to possess our own Souls ând to be in Charity with our Enemies and which is more to forgive our False Brethren who add Treachery to their Hatred the Exhortation were seasonable and indeed a little necessary for humane Nature cannot easily take down things of such a hard digestion but to tell us that we must make Addresses and offer Thanks for all this is to Insult a little too much upon us in our Sufferings and he that can believe that a dry and cautiously worded promise of maintaining the Church of England will be Religiously observed after all that we have seen and is upon that carried so far out of his Wits as to Address and give Thanks and will believe still such a man has nothing to excuse him from believing Transubstantiation it self for it is plain that he can bring himself to believe even when the thing is contrary to the clearest Evidence that his senses can give him Si populus hic vult decipi decipiatur POSTSCRIPT THese reflections were writ soon after the Declaration came to my hands but the Matter of them was so tender and the Conveyance of them to the Press was so uneasy that they appear now too late to have one effect that was Designed by them which was the diverting men from making Addresses upon it yet if what is here proposed makes men become so far wise as to be ashamed of what they have done and is a means to keep them from carrying their Courtship further than good words this Paper will not come too late FINIS

Legislative Power seems Indispensable it is in those Oaths of Allegeance and Tests that are thought necessary to Qualify men either to be admitted to enjoy the Protection of the Law or to bear a share in the Government for in these the Security of the Government is chiefly concerned and therefore the total extinction of these as it is not only a Suspension of them but a plain repealing of them so it is a Subverting of the whole Foundation of our Government For the Regulation that King and Parliament had set both for the Subjects having the Protection of the State by the Oath of Allegeance and for a share in places of trust by the Tests is now pluckt up by the roots when it is declared that these shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken or subscribed by any persons whatsoever for it is plain that this is no Suspension of the Law but a formal Repeal of it in as plain Words as can be conceived IX His Majesty says that the Benefit of the Service of all his Subjects is by the Law of Nature Inseparably annexed to and inherent in his Sacred Person It is somewhat strange that when so many Laws that we all know are suspended the Law of Nature which is so hard to be found out should be cited but the Penners of this Declaration had b●st let that Law lie forgotten among the rest for there is a scurvy Paragraph in it concerning self Preservation that is capable of very unacceptable Glosses It is hard to tell what Section of the Law of Nature has markt out either such a Form of Government or such a Family for it And if His Majesty renounces his Pretensions to our Allegeance as founded on the Laws of England and betakes himself to this Law of Nature he will perhaps find the Counsel was a little too rash but to make the most of this that can be the Law of Nations or Nature does indeed allow the Governours of all Societies a Power to serve themselves of every Member of it in the cases of extream Danger but no Law of Nature that has been yet heard of will conclude that if by special Laws a sort of men have been disabled from all Imployments that a Prince who at his Coronation Swore to maintain those Laws may at his pleasure extinguish all these Disabilities X. At the end of the Declaration as in a Postscript His Majesty assures his Subjects that he will maintain them in their Properties as well in Church and Abbey-Lands as other Lands but the Chief of all their Properties being the share that they have by their Representatives in the Legislative Power this Declaration which breaks thro that is no great Evidence that the rest will be maintained and to speak plainly when a Coronation Oath is so little remembred other Promises must have a proportioned degree of Credit given to them as for the Abbey Lands the keeping them from the Church is according to the Principles of that Religion Sacriledge and that is a Mortal Sin and there can no Absolution be given to any who continue in it and so this Promise being an Obligation to maintain men in a Mortal Sin is null and void of it self Church-Lands are also according to the Doctrine of their Canonists so immediatly Gods Right that the Pope himself is only the Administrator and Dispencer but is not the Master of them he can indeed make a truck for God or let them so low that God shall be an easy Landlord but he cannot alter Gods Property nor translate the Right that is in him to Sacrilegious Laymen and Hereticks XI One of the Effects of this Declaration will be the setting on foot a new run of Addresses over the Nation for there is nothing how Impudent and base soever of which the abject flattery of a Slavish Spirit is not capable It must be confest to the reproach of the Age that all those strains of flattery among the Romans that Tacitus sets forth with so much just Scorn are modest things compared to what this Nation has produced within these seven years only if our Flattery has come short of the Refinedness of the Romans it has exceeded theirs as much in its loathed Fulsomness The late King set out a Declaration in which he gave the most solemn Assurances possible of his adhering to the Church of England and to the Religion established by Law and of his Resolution to have Frequent Parliaments upon which the whole Nation fell as it were into Raptures of Joy and Flattery but tho he lived four Years after that he called no Parliament notwithstanding the Law for Triennial Parliaments and the manner of his Death and the Papers printed after his Death in his Name have sufficiently shewed that he was equally sincere in both those Assurances that he gave as well in that Relating to Religion as in that other Relating to Frequent Parliaments yet upon his Death a new set of Addresses appeared in which all that Flattery could Invent was brought forth in the Commendations of a Prince to whose Memory the greatest kindness can be done is to forget him and because his present Majesty upon his coming to the Throne gave some very general Promise of Maintaining the Church of England this was magnified in so Extravagant a strain as if it had been a Security greater than any that the Law could give tho by the regard that the King has both to it and to the Laws it appears that he is resolved to maintain both equally since then the Nation has already made it self sufficiently ridiculous both to the present and to all succeeding Ages it is time that at last men should grow weary and become ashamed of their Folly XII The Nonconformists are now invited to set an Example to the rest and they who have valued themselves hitherto upon their Opposition to Popery and that have quarrelled with the Church of England for some small Approaches to it in a few Ceremonies are now solicited to rejoyce because the Laws that secure us against it are all plucked up since they enjoy at present and during pleasure leave to meet together It is natural for all men to love to be set at ease especially in the matters of their Consciences but it is visible that those who allow them this favour do it with no other design but that under a pretence of a General Toleration they may Introduce a Religion which must persecute all equally it is likewise apparent how much they are hated and how much they have been persecuted by the Instigation of those who now Court them and who have now no game that is more promising than the engaging them and the Church of England into new Quarrels and as for the Promises now made to them it cannot be supposed that they will be more lasting than those that were made some time ago to the Church of England who had both a better Title in Law and greater Merit