Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	law_n	liberty_n	parliament_n	4,902	5	6.1958	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46843	King Charles I, no such saint, martyr or good Protestant as commonly reputed, but a favourer of Papists and a cruel and oppressive tyrant all plainly proved from undeniable matters of fact : to which are added Dr. Burnet's, now Bishop of Salisbury, and other reasons, against the keeping up any longer the observation of a fast on the 30th of January : as also short answers to these three questions, I, what is the occasion of the clergies pride and lording it over the laity, II, why they and many of the laity cry up this king for a saint, martyr, &c., III, what is the true reason that the generality of the clergy, and many of the laity, both lawyers and others, are constant advocates for kings, tho never so wicked, and sacrificers of the people.	D. J.	1698 (1698)	Wing J7; ESTC R444	18,954	30

unhappy for his Kingdom And were such persons as these fit to be trusted by the people Men that laboured all they could to make the King a powerful Tyrant and his Subjects a miserable enslaved people Besides could rational men think it safe to permit such a King and his Evil Counsellors to carry on those their Arbitrary Designs apparently destructive to the happiness and welfare of England If they had permitted these Evils to come upon them they ought not only to be beg'd for Fools or Madmen but deserved to lose the privileges of a Free People But God be praised for inspiring and assisting them with greater Wisdom and Courage than foolishly and tamely to suffer their Religion Laws and Liberties to become a Sacrifice to that Tyrant or his Crew His governing ad Libitum Regis by his own arbitrary Lust and Will and not per Legem Terrae and calling but three Parliaments in all his Reign which to the sorrow of England was almost twenty four years must naturally create enemies against him To conclude this Head His whole Reign was such a continued piece of Popish Tyranny and Oppression that the people of England with the greatest chearfulness ran the hazard of their Lives and Fortunes to free themselves and posterity from them both and I challenge the greatest Advocates for this pretended Saint and Martyr to disprove the least matter in this Book laid to his charge nay I 'll go farther I challenge them to give me or any one else a satisfactory account of one good Act he ever did for the glory of God or the good of his three Kingdoms except constrained by his people thereunto For a conclusion of this Discourse I shall make a few Remarques which I hope if well observed may be very useful not only to this present age but to posterity 1. I shall give a short Answer to this Question Why do the generality of the Clergy and Laity so much adore and idolize all Monarchs whether good or bad above the People The Reason is plain The People have nothing material in a Monarchical Government to bestow upon these Court Parasites for the Kings have the disposal of the Bishopricks Deanaries Prebendaries Archdeaconries and most other great Livings and also most of the Temporal beneficial Places as Chancellors Judges and other great Offices from such a sort of men as these nothing but Court-Doctrines can be expected for they are well assured should they preach or write for the Rights or Privileges of the People in Arbitrary Reigns it would be the ready way to dash all their hopes of preferment into pieces And here I cannot but make a melancholy Observation as to the Clergy in general of the late Reigns viz. That by all I could hear or read they have been so far from being Christian Advocates for the Rights and Privileges of millions of people that they have in a most wicked manner promoted and preached up those Doctrines that plainly tended to make them miserable and lasting Slaves Indeed I must confess some few of them have signalized themselves for the good of the People and against Popery Particularly that incomparable Phoenix of our Age Mr. SAMVEL JOHNSON a person that by his sensible Conversation and his golden Works hath done more service to rescue England from Popery and Slavery and secure English mens Rights and Privileges than most if not all the Bishops and Clergy-men ever did since the Reformation His Works are so excellent and highly valuable that they will preserve his Fame long after he is dead and will make good that Motto Vivit post funera virtus And I could wish the Nobility and Gentry would encourage by subscriptions some Bookseller or Printer to reprint all this great Man's Works in one Folio that the Divine and Noble Truths therein contained might be handed down for the publick good to posterity I am extreamly well pleased that our Gracious King WILLIAM hath in some measure tho not so much nor so soon as I could wish tho he had merited more than others rewarded his inhumane sufferings and eminent services for these Kingdoms I would never have a good man have the least cause to say Virtus laudatur alget and that Aude aliquid brevibus gyaris aut carcere dignum Si vis esse aliquid Was the right way to preferment 2. What occasions the Clergy's usurping one Province more than belongs to them viz. the Law when God knows they have work enough to preach the Gospel as they ought to do that their Flocks might be well fed with the Milk of God's Word 1. Want of that true Piety that would keep them closer to their duties to God and men 2. As I hinted before they pick up scraps of Law to make Princes great that they may get promotion thereby tho to the sacrificing of their Country Lastly The imprudent familiarity the Nobility and Gentry have with them many of whom are poor ignorant impious and scandalous fellows that arise from being Parish Boys c. which makes them so proud as to strut and lord it over the People to a prodigious degree I would by no means be thought by this to be an enemy to pious good Clergy-men that as Christian Ministers discharge their duties for I solemnly profess I have the highest value and esteem for all such holy men And I observed in my Travels in Holland that the Dutch did highly respect their Ministers whom I must really confess I believe to be famous for good Lives and Conversations far beyond the generality of the English Clergy Yet they kept these good men at a due distance not suffering any of their Ministers to be seen at any time in an Ale-house Tavern or in a Coffee-house except on their Travels where refreshments must be had to support nature And if any of them shall transgress in this matter they immediately forfeit their reputation and esteem with the people And if they should in their Pulpits presume to meddle with State-affairs and the Magistrates hear of it they send them a pair of Shoos and order them to be gone If Mountague Sybthorp and Manwaring of old Pelling Sherlock Cartwright White Lake Watson Crew Thompson Collier Snet Cook Hawkins Hicks Wilson Long Thompson of Bristol Hollingworth Milbourn Birch and a great many more of the same stamp in the late Reigns had been dealt with according to their deserts I know what would justly have become of most of them 'T is observed that the People of England are famous for punishing little Rogues such as Pick-pockets c. but carelesly and imprudently pass by those Clergymen and Lawyers that have to the greatest degree robb'd them of their undoubted Birthrights and greatest Privileges by whole-sale and endeavoured to establish a Government over them as absolute as the Grand Seignior's 3. I shall take notice of the Observation of the 30th of January in that solemn manner as now kept and if I make some close Remarks thereon I hope

many years His intending to bow or break his People to perswade or force them to slavery is so clear by the whole course of his Reign that 't is amazing that men even of the highest stamp of Toryism should have Front enough to deny it He turn'd the Lord Conway out of his Secretary's place because he would not make the necessary advances to Rome but refused to receive the Sacrament in Henry VII's Chappel after Popish Laud's way which was not in Bread but in Wafers His undermining our Religion and Government his raising an Army of English Scots Germans and bloody Irish Papists to subject his Peoples Fortunes to his Will and Power and make good the Breaches upon the Liberties of England That never was inclined to Parliaments nor to call them but for a greedy hope of a whole National Bribe his Subsidies and never loved never fulfil'd never promoted the true End of Parliaments the Redress of Grievances but still put them off and prolonged them whether gratified or not gratified That caused Court Letters and Intimations to be sent to deter the People from their free electing the best affected to their Religion and Countries Liberties That could not forbear declaring that the execution of Strafford stung his Conscience and no marvel when he was the chief Author of those Misdeeds he suffered for This Stafford was one of the boldest and most impetuous Instruments that the King had to advance any violent or illegal Design He had ruled Ireland and some parts of England in an arbitrary manner he had endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws to subvert Parliaments and incense the King against them He had endeavoured to make Hostility between England and Scotland he had counsel'd the King to call over that Irish Army of Papists which he had cunningly raised to reduce England as appear'd by good testimony then present at the Consultation For which and many other Crimes proved against him in 28 Articles he was condemned of High-Treason by the Parliament This pious Martyr could highly demonstrate his remorse for the Blood of Strafford that all good Men acquitted him of but not the least sorrow for setting up his Standard and causing a Sea of innocent Blood to be spilt by the Civil War occasion'd by his Male Administration That according to his own confession violated the Privileges of the Commons by going in an Arbitrary way into their House That as his Cabinet Letters declare call'd them a mungrel Parliament that vext his Queen with their base and mutinous Motions A special Bargain of such a Queen at whose landing at Dover the 25th of June New-stile 1625 the Sun withdrew its Beams as being unwilling to shine upon a Descent so mighty fatal to this Nation and the Night hid the Miseries which that Day were brought into this flourishing Island upon her arrival On the 26th the Queen with the King made their entry to London having among others in her Train A Roman Catholick Bishop on whom King Charles was obliged to settle a Pension of 4000 l. a Year Four Abbots under the Title of Almoners on each a 1000 l. Two Chaplains Priests 1400 l. Two Clerks of the Chappel two Grooms Moreover 12 Priests of the Oratory on whom 6000 l. were to be settled for their subsistence and maintenance But besides all the Ecclesiastical Persons the Queen not to trust to Protestants brought over with her a Train of Roman Catholicks whereof she form'd her House and as it after prov'd a Seminary in the Kingdom four Ladies of Honour for her Bedchamber six Ladies of Honour with their Governante and one under her besides Servants 18 Gentlemen six Valets de Chambre a Chamberlain a Secretary five Chambermaids Semstresses Laundresles a Physician an Apothecary Chirurgions a Pantler Cup-bearers Cooks Potagers Roasters Bakers Stewards Coachmen and all the Officers of her Stables At her coming up to London almost all the People of that great City went before her just as heretofore the Trojans did the Horse that was the cause of their destruction in triumph into their City with demonstrations of joy But to their great sorrow these Halcion days lasted but a short time for they soon found the Queen's numerous Train of Ecclesiasticks caused no small clamours and murmuring amongst the People all over the Kingdom for these Vipers were in perpetual motion and continually running from House to House under pretence of Conversion-work openly boasting they had already converted many thousands in the little time they had been in England Whereupon the King received divers Complaints as well from Protestant Bishops and Ministers as from the Masters of Families who accused those Priests not only of perverting their Servants but their Children and that by their wicked instigation unknown to their Parents several of them were gone away beyond Sea to be put into Colleges and Convents for their more commodious being bred up in the Romish Religion But upon all matters that happened as to that subject the Queen still stept into the Breach to prevent by her Credit any Mischiefs that should have fallen on the Priests But the Complaints of the People against these Vermin the Queen brought with her were so great that the King was necessitated to send them back into France which was done in August the same Year he was crown'd But at the same time to prevent their complaining the King heaped Favours Benevolences and Present upon all the Fry of Clergy to reward their labour of the Tares they had sown and left behind them in England However all this Liberality of the King was not sufficient to hinder their Complaints nor their Sollicitations in the Court of France to return into England to gather as they said the Fruits of their Labour The Queen on the other hand saw her self forestall'd of her desire to propagate the Catholic Faith especially in her Kingdom of England and being push'd on by her Confessor and others of the same brood did not fail to write of this matter very smartly to Lewis XIII her Brother but particularly to the Queen Mother And the King of France being pushed on by the Queen Mother took as a very great and sensible Affront the sending back of all the French that belonged to the Retinue and were the Domestick Servants of the Queen his Sister The Cardinal that was absolute Governour of the King was so angry to see the French returned for that grievously broke his Measures in England and prevailed so much on the King his Master that he got him to send over an Embassador Extraordinary to confer with the Queen and to make his complaints of it to the King And that Minister did his business so effectually that those who had been dismissed and obliged to leave the Kingdom return'd to their former Post about the Queen their Mistress and began their old trade of perverting people to the Romish Religion which lasted as long as the Queen continued in England Whilst the King was thus govern'd by his

Papist Queen and France how could poor England think of being happy or free from Popery and its natural Consequence Tyranny That instead of praying for his People as a good King should do he pray'd to be delivered from them as from wild Beasts Inundations and raging Seas that had overborn all Loyalty that is would not let him be according to his Will a great Tyrant Modesty Laws Justice and Religion God save the People from such Intercessors That the petitioning for removal of Evil Counsellors and redressing Grievances in Church and State was to him an intolerable Oppression His sending an Agent to Denmark with Letters to that King requiring Aid against the Parliament besides the 8000 Irish raised by Strafford which with a Scotch and French Army were to join the English he then had He encouraged the Scots by telling them what Money and Horse he was to have from Denmark yielding to the hireling Army of Scotland rather than to the reasonable Requests of his Parliament His stopping and way-laying both by Sea and Land to his utmost power those Provisions and Supplies which the Parliament sent to relieve the miserable Protestants of Ireland clearly demonstrates he was desirous of having them sacrificed to his Irish Friends who were bloody Cut-throats Ireland being as Ephraim the strength of his Head Scotland as Judah was his Law-giver but over England as over Edom he meant to cast his Shoe His being so false in all his Treaties as to follow his grand Maxim viz. Always to put something into his Treaties which might give colour to refuse all that was in other things granted and so make them signify nothing a way of treating that no way became a Crown'd Head much less an honest pious Prince who ought to be sincere in all his Undertakings That was so full of Revenge upon the Parliament that he sent his violent Queen who with the greatest willingness went to Holland where she by his order pawn'd and set to sale the Crown Jewels a Crime heretofore counted treasonable for no other use but to raise an Army of Horse and Foot with Arms c. a very pious Design to bring in a wicked parcel of Foreigners to cut his English Subjects Throats This was a Martyr with a witness by whom the Nation had been swallowed up with Blood and Ruin had not his Strength fail'd him more than his Will His admiring those Ministers that strengthened his Hands and hardened his Heart and applauded him in his wilful ways against the Good of his People to whom he was a Constantine They were as dear and pleasing to him as Amaziah the Priest of Bethel was to Jeroboam for they had learnt not to prophesy against Bethel for it is the King's Chappel the King's Court But his hating those good and pious Ministers the Parliament sent him proceeded from their telling him plain Truths what was his Duty and Interest and preaching up Repentance for what he had done His most wrongfully pretending that he must kill or be killed is so notoriously false that nothing can be clearer it being very manifest that never was King less in danger of any violence from his Subjects till he unsheath'd his Sword against them Nay long after that time when he had spilt the Blood of thousands they had still his Person in a foolish veneration His own Letters taken at the Battel of Naseby were of great importance to let the People see what Faith there was in all his Promises and solemn Protestations they discovered his good Affection to Papists and Irish Rebels the strict Intelligence he held the pernicious and dishonourable Peace he made with them not sollicited but rather solliciting which by all Invocations that were holy he had in publick abjured See the Articles of Peace abridged in the Defence of the Parliament of 1640 c. These Letters revealed his Endeavours to bring in Foreign Forces Irish French Dutch Lorainers and our old Invaders the Danes upon England These were visible to all men under his own hand and were ordered by the Parliament to be printed for publick Information These his own Letters discovering his Grand Mystery of Iniquity this holy Man was not a little concern'd at their being made publick for they pull'd off his Mask and shew'd the World what sort of a Man he was Having I hope beyond all doubt given clear Demonstrations that King Charles the First could be no Saint Martyr nor a true Protestant but on the contrary a favourer of Popery a wicked and oppressive Tyrant I have little or no occasion to proceed to my second Proposition which was to vindicate the Parliament of 1640 and all those Noble Patriots that joined with it against that King and his Evil Counsellors however I shall briefly defend them from the impudent Charge of Rebels tho I am heartily sorry that the ignorance of some prejudice and self-interest of others should give the least occasion for this Defence especially in these our days when God be praised Men can speak and write English Truths without being hang'd for them as in the late wicked Reigns when Villains declared it for Law that Scribere was Agere In prosecution of this Defence I shall shew you 1. Who did rise and oppose this Prince and his Evil Counsellors 2. What were the Reasons that induced so great an Opposition 1. The Parliament and their Adherents consisted of the best of the Nobility and Gentry Men eminent for Piety and Justice viz. The Earls of Bedford Manchester and Essex c. Lords Paget Mandeville Wharton Hollis Brook c. Commoners Sir Thomas Fairfax Mr. Hambden Mr. Pymm Sir Arthur Haslerig Mr. Strode Sir John Elliot Sir John Heveningham Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston Sir John Strangeways Sir William Earl c. and many more too many to be herein mentioned It was also evident that the most worthy of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of the Kingdom did most heartily engage with them in this most Righteous Work of delivering England and tho by Blood yet God gave them success against that Tyrant 2. For what Reasons did the Parliament and People presume to resist the Lord 's Anointed I answer let those that desire satisfaction in this point but read over carefully and impartially this small Book and that called A Defence of the Parliament of 1640. c. and they will have no cause to enquire further so many real matters of Fact being therein contained almost enough to convince even Thomas a Didimus But to be short they were necessitated thereunto being in the greatest danger of losing the Protestant Religion their Laws their Lives and Liberties Was it not high time to stand up when all that was dear to Free-born Englishmen was at stake Was not the King a great favourer of Papists and lover of Tyranny Was he not ruled by his violent Popish Queen a wicked corrupt and Arbitrary Nobility Gentry and Clergy many of them of mean fortunes that were unhappy for Himself but more

factus est Rex ac Comites Barones qui debent ei Fraenum ponere The King of England hath for his Superiors both the Law by which he is constituted King and which is the measuring of his governing Power and the Parliament which is to restrain him if he do amiss Bracton l. 2. c. 16. Fleta l. 1. c. 17. That the King by his Coronation Oath hath a power to rule his People for their best advantage to administer to every man his just rights to confirm such Laws that the People make conducing to the Common Good c. And no other Authority can he with justice claim That it is against the Moral Law that a Kingdom should suffer it self to be unkingdom'd ruin'd and destroy'd having power in their hands to save themselves self-preservation being natural even to brute beasts when disturbed That God doth sometimes require that One should suffer for all but never that All should suffer for One. That Rebellion consists in resisting of just Governors in their just Government and not in defending legal rights against a Tyrant That it is unlawful to keep any Oaths Vows and Covenants to or for the King that are against the good of the Kingdom for the performing or keeping them would be an adding sin unto sin wickedness unto wickedness that is to do Evil as well as to promise the doing thereof He that covenants to do things unlawful covenants with Hell must therefore the League of Hell and Death be maintained These things one would think should have some weight with our Nonswearing Jacobites who choose rather to break the solemn Oaths they took to feed their Flocks than to comply with swearing Faith and true Allegiance to that Prince that Providence in a most miraculous manner raised up to deliver these Three Kingdoms from the Egyptian slavery it groaned under A Prince who by his own Merits and the Peoples Election can justly claim the best Title that ever any King of England had let the Fools and Knaves who madly dote on the Divine Right of Succession c. say what they will to the contrary That the Oath of Allegiance is not made to the King Warring or any ways Acting against the welfare of the Kingdom but to him as Governing for good according to the Laws of the Land That the Oath of Supremacy doth not allow him to be the Supreme Legislative Power of the Kingdom and that he is in all Cases the sole Judg and over all persons an absolute Lord unto whose Will and Pleasure the People are bound to be subject Actively or Passively for such a Power becometh only those that are perfect as God himself is perfect That all Oaths Vows Covenants and Compacts whatsoever are conditional reciprocal and mutual the King being as well bound to the People as the People to the King That the King 's voluntary and plenary breach of his Agreement with the People doth ipso facto discharge the People from their Vows and Covenants until such time as the Agreement and Compact between the King and People be again renewed and united The Nobility Gentry and Clergy have in their noble assistance in the late Revolution justified this Position to the height and also that Kings are accountable to their Subjects for their Male Administration That the People of England cannot give the Parliament a power to enslave themselves for thereby they would be Self-betrayers and in a degree Self murderers Neither can the People de Jure make Laws destructive to the Common-safety or give any Power to others to the making of such Laws That what King James the First told the Lords and Commons in the Year 1609. is certainly true viz. That he is no King but a Tyrant that governs not by Law That there is a very great and dangerous defect in the constitution of the Government of England if the same Power that gave the Coronation Oath cannot judg whether the said Oath be kept or not and call to an account for the violation thereof Bracton Fleta the Parliament of 1640. and the late Revolution seem clearly to allow Kings being accountable c. That Kings and all Magistrates ought to be Nursing Fathers not Bloody Tyrants to make their People miserable to reward Virtue and not to encourage Injustice Oppression and Vice That if they would answer the end of Government which is the Publick Good they ought to study the happiness and welfare of their Subjects equally with their Own Lastly That if they will not govern thus according to Law and Justice they must not think the People of England will be such Fools as to stay for their accounting in the other World for they do not love the Welshmans reckning which was to let her alone till the last Judgment and then her would account fairly for all her Rogueries c. I am very well satisfied let the wretched Advocates for Tyranny and Arbitrary Power say what they will to the contrary That these Doctrines or Maxims cannot destroy Government because they will not permit Governors to destroy the People Nay they will establish a Just Government by rooting out the Unjust The Throne will be established by Righteousness but ruined by Wickedness Those Doctrines that rectifie Governors in the administration of Common Right and Justice do fasten the Crowns of Government upon their Heads for by doing every man right their Throne is set up in every man's Heart and not only so but the promised Presence of an Infinite Power will ever secure and prosper such Administrations These pious Doctrines do not implead Government but the Evils thereof and are all included in this The Safety of the People is still the chiefest Lord Rule Reason and Law These Divine Truths will I hope be highly acceptable in this age of light and knowledge tho Laud Sibthorp Manwaring Mountague and other wicked Clergy-men of those and later times have unjustly esteemed them Rebellious I could produce many more Instances to inform the deluded part of mankind that this adored Prince was far from being a pious One but for the present shall give but one more clear Demonstration that is His causing a Declaration to be published and read in all Churches that all Sports c. whatsoever were lawful on the Sabbath-day How agreeable this most wicked Act can be to Religion I cannot conceive and I am of opinion it will puzle all those that in a blasphemous strain call him a Saint and Martyr to defend him from this horrid impiety See the Declaration at large printed in the Book called A Vindication of the Parliament of 1640. Neither can I see for what Reasons any of his adorers can make him a Martyr for the word Martyr in the Greek Martur signifies Testis a Witness In Ecclesia dicitur Testis Confessor Veritatis Verbo Dei patefactae singulariter autem ille qui propter Confessionem Evangelicae veritatis sustinet Afflictiones ipsamque adeo Mortem Our pretended Martyr God