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	majesty_n	subject_n	3,135	5	6.4839	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38911	An Exact copy of the petition of the protestants in France to their sovereign Lewis XIV for redress of their present oppressions / faithfully translated from the French.		1680 (1680)	Wing E3636; ESTC R27973	3,667	10

AN EXACT COPY OF THE PETITION OF THE Protestants in France To their Sovereign LEWIS XIV For Redress of their present Oppressions Faithfully Translated from the French LONDON Printed in the Year 1680 A Petition presented to the King by those of the Reformed Protestant Religion SIR YOur Subjects of the Reformed Religion throw themselves at Your Majesty's Feet with a profound Respect to represent to Your Majesty the great Number of Mischiefs that are heapt upon us from time to time and to supplicate most humbly that Your Majesty will be pleased that we may find the Effects of Your Justice and Goodness The Edicts of the Kings your Predecessors and particularly those of Harry the Great and Lewis the Just which Your Majesty confirm'd Authentickly at your happy coming to the Crown and after that by several other Declarations have had a special regard to those of the said Religion as being such that make a considerable part of the People which God hath submitted to your Power As such they were not onely admitted into Imployments to practice Arts and follow Trades without which your Subjects are not able to gain their Livelyhoods but also to Charges and Honours which are the Recompence of Merit and Virtue They had together with the Liberty of their Consciences the free Exercises of their Religion and Church-Discipline in all places allotted by the same Edicts Besides these Commissioners were authorized to hinder all Obstructions that might impead the same There were Chambers set apart to the end that those of the Religion might assure themselves of impartial Justice as well in reference to their Persons as Estates The Gentlemen particularly had Right and Possession to put Officers whether of the one or the other Religion into their Fees In short Your Majesty's Suppliants enjoyed to all intents and purposes almost the same Happinesses and the same Advantages as the rest of Your Majesties Subjects It is true Sir That they were the Concessions of the Kings your Predecessors and of Your Majesty it self but such Concessions as were established by the tenor of the same Edicts and render'd as a perpetual and irrevocable Law to keep Your Majesties Subjects both of the one and the other Religion in a firm and lasting Amity Your Majesties Subjects may say That they have always lived under the Laws of those Concessions and that they never had the misfortune to render themselves unworthy of that Favour On the other side they have had this advantage that Your Majesty has been most graciously pleased to make a publick and solemn Declaration of the entire Satisfaction which Your Majesty has received from the Zeal and Loyalty which your Suppliants have always made appear in times of greatest jeopardy and hazard Notwithstanding Sir not to look back toward times far remote how much is the present Condition of your Suppliants different from that wherein they were established some years since They are not onely no longer admitted to publick Charges and Imployments as they were before but deprived of those wherein they were invested and wherein they had served with Honour and Reputation They have taken from us the Party-Authority and the Municipal Imployments in those Cities where your Suppliants are most numerous and where they have the most Interest in Political Administration and in the Management of that Money which is imposed upon them They are no longer admitted to the meanest publick Imployments in divers places nor to the practice of Arts nor the profession of Trades which are the onely means of their Subsistence They can reckon near 300 Churches that have been ordered to be pulled down in less than ten years some of which were expresly named in the Edict of Nantes or at least comprehended in the tenor of the same Edict The Commissioners who are always ready to hear the pretended Controversies and Disputes which are imputed to your Supplyants refuse to take Cognizance of those of which your Suppliants complain or if they do they never pronounce Judgment but such as tend to partiality Many times the Catholick Commissioners give judgment against your Supplyants without advising or consulting the Commissioners of your Supplyants Religion They who cannot find Repose of Conscience without the Limits of their Religion after they have first quitted it and would return again are exposed at present to the most Rigorous punishments under the notion of a Relapse being farther Menac'd That their Ministers and Consistories shall be supprest which is sometimes actually performed If others have a desire to go from the Catholick to the Reformed Religion they disturb those of the Reformed Religion who make their Addresses for the satisfaction of these Scruples or for a Declaration of their Faith and pretend it to be an effect of Subornation The Chambers of Edict are not onely Incorporated into the Parliaments as it was the Sence of the Edict that they might be but wholly extinguisht and supprest In short it is come to this That your Supplyants Children though born in the Reformed Religion are taken from their Parents before they have attained the Age agreed on and consented to in the said Edicts for them to choose their Religion If upon this they make their applications to your Majesties Intendants as charged with the Execution of the said Edicts either they refuse to take Cognizance of the same or else they Ellude as for many years they have done all the Complaints which we bring before them They would reduce those of the Reformed Religion to have no more then one School where there are about two or three Thousand Children as if one Master were sufficient to teach so many Children There is a Declaration come to your Supplyants hands which informs them of a Change intended of altering the form of holding their Synods by the intermixture of Catholick Commissioners which is altogether contrary to the Tenor of the Edicts and the Declaration of Lewis the Thirteenth in the year 1633 and the Custom always observed And all this under pretences quite contrary to the Honour and Reputation of your Supplyants and the Fidelity they have always manifested for your Majesties Service The Bishops under pretence of their Visits by a Decree of your Council assume to themselves to hinder the Exercise of our Religion several weeks together The Catholick Ecclesiasticks going to the Reformed Churches to hear their Sermons lay to the charge of our Ministers those things which they never said or else take occasions from Scholastical Terms of Theologie which cannot be avoided in Controversie to prosecute us Criminally before Judges incensed against our Religion while the same persons forbear not to make use against your Supplyants of Terms positively forbid by the said Edicts The Chief Judges of places to whom it never belonged to take Cognizance of the said Edicts assume to themselves a power by ways of proceeding unheard of to interdict and silence the Ministers of whole Provinces At length it is come to this that they have Published