Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	kingdom_n	majesty_n	parliament_n	4,862	5	6.6563	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46777	A proposition for the safety & happiness of the King and kingdom, both in church and state, and prevention of the common enemy tendered to the consideration of His Majesty and the Parliament against their next session / by a lover of sincerity and peace.	Lover of sincerity & peace.; Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.; Jenkins, David, 1582-1663.	1667 (1667)	Wing J601; ESTC R26145	22,405	102

A PROPOSITION FOR The Safety Happiness of the King and Kingdom both in Church and State and prevention of the Common Enemy Tendered to the Consideration of his Majesty and the Parliament against their next Session By a lover of Sincerity Peace The Interest of England lies in holding a firm Union in it self and the advancement of the Protestant Religion For England is a mighty Animal which can never die except it kill it self The Duke of Roan in his Treatise of the Interest of the Princes and States in Christendom London Printed in the Year 1667. A PROPOSITION for the safety and happiness of the King and Kingdom IT hath pleased Heaven to visit us of late with his heavy and astonishing Judgments The year before he swept away our Citizens from their houses The last year he swept away our houses from the Inhabitants And this year who knows what and who may be swept away by that divastation which accompanieth the Sword If there be not a spark as there is not a Sparrow lights on the House or the Mast top without the Divine Will methinks it will neither be unseasonable to lay his Providences to heart nor unsuitable to make use of them unto acts of mercy and commiseration of others I am a person that am not very careful how I appear to you and if it were a light matter I had to speak about you might turn away your ear from it and regard me as little But if it be a business of the greatest consequence as I am perswaded it is that can be tendered at this present for a healing of the Nation I hope you will both spare me a reasonable hearing and a candid interpretation There hath passed of late some Acts whereby you have been very severe against many innocent persons that fear God and do you no harm I am loth to declare my resentments in particular unless I have further necessity But I will pursue in the general those ends I have in my purpose which are the happiness of our State the peace of the Church the safety of the King and preservation of the Nation not in that way which hath been trodden hitherto in late proceedings but in the paths of moderation which some have not known and some will not know who have already perhaps imposed too much and would not I hope be imposing more on us It shall be an Argument good enough for me from this late calamity on the City and upon our Ships to alarm you to the quenching those Flames which we have helped to enkindle by the over-rigour of such Acts in the hearts of the Nation God Almighty's righteous dealings towards us may bring our own toward others into remembrance and his severity teach us indulgence It can neither be an unchristian or unwise admonition when our Churches with other buildings are laid in heaps to look after our Religion to prevent the ruine which therein also doth threaten us by beginning our repentance in those ashes I shall be clear and plain I desire to be faithful to my Country to my King and to my God I hope though I know not how I shall approve my self in the delivery In magnis pejus est illud non voluisse quam quomodo facias non intelligere We are at this time involved in Warrs abroad with our neighbours and we are incompassed as our Island is with a Sea of intestine dangers amidst our selves in the divisions of our people There is the subtilty of the Jesuite with those many too much to be feared advantages of that party and there is on the other side the wildness of the Sectary with their multitudes and high exasperations Both these are as it were the upper and nether jaw of destruction opening her mouth upon us If we do not finde out a way to reconcile the sober Protestant that we may have their combined strength to oppose these extreams in case of inundation I know not how soon these jaws may shut upon us and overwhelm us in our confusion The Motion therefore I have to make is for moderation in the business of Religion first seriously debated and then prudently concluded in an Act of Accommodation between the Conformist and Nonconformist that are sober in their principles and Indulgence toward others who are so in their lives So far I mean as ever it will stand with the Rules both of Civil and Religious Prudence and the good Order of the Land I am sensible of what a pause there will be on some mens spirits at this Motion I am with Coesar at the flood of Rubicon and the Dye is cast I will confess ingenuously I know not how it fares with others but there is a company of people about us in the Country of different perswasions who meet sometimes many hundreds together that our Justices have been in perplexity what to do The most of them for ought I perceive are certainly inoffensive persons and they have really no more against them than Pliny against the Christians of old when he sent to Trajan about them that is only that they meet and preach and pray together And if that excellent Prince was ashamed after this report he gave him of them in his Epistle to have these good men sought out any more unto punishment I cannot but favour those inclinations which are averse from the like inquisition I profess to God it is such an ungentleman-like thing methinks to trouble ones Neighbors that I should be glad to rid modest men of that work It were better all these Acts suffered at once a due and Christian Regulation than we should be still put upon this untoward dragging innocent folks thus to prison for doing nothing in earnest but endeavouring to save their souls In the name of God take you your Psalter and let them say their prayers as they will I have made my Proposition I shall now offer you my Arguments Visa est enim mihi with the forementioned Author res digna consultatione maximè propter periclitantium numerum Multi enim omnis aetatis omnis ordinis utriusque sexus etiam vocantur in periculum vocabuntur Neque enim Civitates tantùm sed viros etiam atque agros superstitionis istius contagi● pervagata est quae videtur sisti corrigi posse My Arguments may be reduced to these heads The course you have taken in your former Acts will not reach the End you have designed in them The way I propose in this Act is liker to do it The present consideration and exigency of affairs requires the same of us One more The present juncture of affairs and conscience toward our Brethren requires it These heads I will wrap together in my discourse and leave the Analysis to your acuter Judgments If it were not a time to speak now we might lay our hands upon our lips and our mouthes in the dust I said Dayes should speak and years teach wisdom But there is a spirit

in man Great men are not always wise neither do the Aged alwayes understand Judgement I am sorry to understand such a reverend silence to have been on the spirits of both Houses at the present prevailing Counsels of some great Persons which if I may speak it with lowliness to them as with zeal unto God and my Prince are not good at this season nor will answer their entendments I wonder really in whose Shops they have bought their Spectacles not of Menante I believe or Tacitus that they can see this great thing Unity of folks spirits in Uniformity and the establishment of old Foundations in new Impositions It is a principle of the serious tender Christian which he layes as a Rule to himself for practice That he will not do any thing for fear which he would not out of conscience And it is a deadly temptation against present Injunctions that they have a penalty annexed to them For besides that the sense of the unreasonableness and cruelty of such Acts are effectual wires upon the affectious There is a spirit in man and resolution of integrity Not to do evil that good may come of it as forestalls the mind with a steeling against it instead of submission If therefore in lieu of proposing such a piece of Banishment to fright the Non-conformists into the late Oath enjoyned in the Act at Oxford there had been offered a Liberty of the Ministry on that condition without any penalty the Act had been perhaps to purpose Conscience upon Conscience would do something when Force upon Conscience will do nothing Have we never read the Ecclesiastical Story or heard at least of the ten Persecutions how the Church grew in those times and what was the Seed of it I will tell you a way that a Politick Prince took in ill doing that you may take in doing better The great Julian that wise Apostate and cursed brave man when he saw that all the cruelties of predecessors did but encrease the vigour and life of Christianity The more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew and they were grieved because of the Children of Israel He took this course he would not let any Christian have Dignity or State-preferment no not so much as to be one of his Souldiers unless they came over to his Religion they might have their liberty to use their Consciences to themselves without persecution but they should have none of his Favour or Countenance By this means he did so starve any brave attempt of Christian Sufferings and kept them so low and out of heart in their Profession that it is judged he made more waste upon Christianity in a few years than all the Sword Fire and Torments could before in two or three Ages Lo here a line of Chalk after which your Timber must be cut that goes to the building the Ecclesiastical State in this Nation If there be any can cut it better by aim of his own head I am mistaken Vis Concilii expers mole ruit su● Vim temperatam Dii provehunt 〈◊〉 majus There are but two wayes resolve upon it In the Kingdom of Japan I heard lately there was some Jesuites had crept in and planted the Christian Religion Their King hearing this sends a present terrible Persecution whatsoever man is found Christian they execute him presently This not serving the turn they do not execute the man only but all the house where he was found to be harboured This not rooting them quite out neither the King commands that both that house and the next two houses on both sides of it should be all put to execution The terrible dread hereof seizing upon all there is not a man can escape the discovery and the Sect is immediately extirpate Could your hearts now endure to do this or could your hands serve you Lay that right-hand on your breasts weigh what I say You must either come to this if you see to the end or you must come to an Accommodation And what are those things I● pray you would have of them or destroy them It is not the● Dignity of the Bishops their Lordships and Revenues It is not their Cathedrals Organs and their Divine Service in what state and magnificence they please I● is not Comman-Prayer no no● any Ceremony of the Church whatsoever for all its significancy if it be but a circumstance of worship and no more that could hinder most of the judicious and sober Non-conformists to come over to you but it is these Declarations Subscriptions and Oaths which you impose on them in your Acts as for which I will shew you they are one of the worst ways that could be devised ●o take or hold any I will convince you There is nothing under the Sun makes such a bruit and stir in the hearts of People ●s these Declarations and Oaths when it is no less than the Concience of a Lye before the face of God and men in a case too of Confession and the fear of Perjury with it that makes them leave their Livings and Ministry rather than keep them on such conditions and yet when all is done be they taken or be they not taken it signifies nothing I will make this appear And that not onely because there is no hole whereout a man can creep that has taken a former Oath but he can get out of the same or find another like it in any new Oath you put upon him but because there is nothing that is a man's duty or unlawful before he hath taken the Oath but it remains a● it was after he hath taken it and he will be obliged neither more nor less I speak as to the thing ● not degree whether he take i● or not take it Let a man be convinced in his conscience that Episcopacy is Antichristian and tha● it is much for the Glory of God and his Duty to extirpate it root and branch let him take a thousand Oaths yet so long as he retains his Principles and he accounts his Conscience stands bound by a former Obligation ●he latter Obligation can hold him nothing What is the Covenant to an Episcopal judgment that hath taken it and what will be the late new Oath to a contra●y judgment What but a few new Wit hs on Sampson's hands that brake like Tow when the Philistine comes upon him Again there is another thing ●pon this that is a dreadful thing ●nd that is When a man hath ●osned the reins of his Conscience a little too slack in swallowing a forced Oath there is nothing so like to imbitter his sou● as this against those that impose it Like a Lion in a chain which not only holds no longer than he can break it but Wo be to the● he meets next when it is broken A certain plain honest Neigh● bour of mine coming to Church constantly as others did it cam● to his turn to be chosen Church● warden He goes to the Court a● long with others when he come