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
A51058	A moderate and most proper reply to a declaration, printed and published under His Maiesties name, December 8 intended against an ordinance of Parliament for assessing, but indeed animating and encouraging the malignants, and delinquents, in their violent courses, for the maintenance of themselves, and their malignant army.	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.	1642 (1642)	Wing M2320A; ESTC R41506	9,253	8

Neither hath the Lord Major with a faction told the houses that that they will have no Accomodation or peace but with the Sheriffs and Aldermen hath advanc'd and assisted a Petition to His Majesty for peace True it is they desire a sound and durable peace accompanyd with Truth and piety neither can they be much blam'd if they feare pretences of peace that may cover such designes of mischiefe and massacry as lately appeared at Branford But it seemes the notes were taken in short hand which were sent to this Writer concerning Sir Sidney Mountague for if the story had been written in words at length and the whole matter declared it might have been known That Sir Sidney Mountague besides refusing the Oath if it must be so called of Association drew forth a Declaration and vouched the authority of it for calling them Traytors that had taken the same And let these men judge whether it were any part of the vertue of patience that the house which had entred entred that Association should indure the word Traytor to be cast upon the face of it or whether it were not a more commeudable vertue of curtesy to dismisse and separate a person of that opinion from the dangerous and infectious society of Traytors And now follow some mistaken figures of rhetorick which should run on this manner These are the men that have sent to the states to treate with them that they permit not Souldiers and Armes to come from their provinces to make and maintain War against the Parliament of England These are the men that have sent into Scotland where Murrey is labouring to kindle a fire to consume this Nation to cast water upon that fire and withall to intice our Brethren of Scotland now the papists are up in Armes to seek the peace of this Kingdom and the safety of Religion agreeable to the Act of pacification And not only for that Act but for their own security it being an unquestionable Truth That if Ireland be the breakfast of the papists and England their Dinner Scotland is likely to be their supper In a word these are they that have made a preserving Ordinance to save the Parliament Religion Lawes and Liberty which were in danger to be devoured by illegall Commissions of Array as illegall Sheriffs Armies of papists and other ill-affected persons But the words which follow that an Army was first raysed by the Parliament are so manifestly untrue that it is strange how they could leave of the lest remnant of Conscience to utter-them and of loyalty to utter them under His Majesties Name It is possible they may have heard of a Bible and therein of one David that like the Parliament was accused of rebelling against the King and these were hunted like a Partridge But that which I would say to them is according to the speech of that David to Abner yee are worthy to dy because yee have not kept the King neither his life nor honour The life of the King hath been exposed to danger by bringing him into the Battell and his honour by making his Name a cover to notorious falsities For were not the beginnings of an Army raysed in Yorke * and did not a papist there come forth and say let the sword try it before the Parliament either made Votes That the King seduced by evill Counsell intended a War against the Parliament which Votes were also before the beginning of the Army of the Earle of Essex And yet if the Parliament had raysed Forces that may beare the name of an Army to bring Delinquents to Justice who can lay any blame upon the Parliament or who can thence gather a reason why the King may justly rayse an Army against the Parliament Yet is the raysing of this Army for defence of the Parliament or of the power and authority of it over delinquents more then once in the last leafe termed a Rebellion To this I will fetch an answer out of Bodin Bodin having written much in favour of Kings though degenerated into Tyrants and so much that he confesseth he was tax'd for it yet at last lights on this story and thereupon gave his sentence The Earle of Flanders befieged his subjects in Gant with an Army of fourty thousand men The Army within the City was but five thousand Upon this disadvantage they humbly sued for pardon The Earle answered them they must come forth with halters about their neckes and then he would tell them his mind Hereupon not having any assuraude of mercy they issued forth and defeated his great Army with a litle one and the Earle was forced for his own safty to hide himselfe under the Bed of a poore woman who sent him forth in a shape far below his degree But hereupon this Author inferres Then did it appeare That there is nothing morevaliant then a subject brought to despaire nor any war more just then that which is necessary I only adde if the Parliaments War be necessary and a necessary War is just certainly a just War cannot justly be called a Rebellion FINIS * And the Earle of New-Castle too * Though it is constantly affirmed that the word plundeting is not in the warrant See the last Declaration * Did not Sir Francis Wortley draw his sword there and cry for the King for the King Bodin de Rep. lib. 3.

must be defended and to defend the Parliament money must be raysed So to take part of mens goods to defend the Parliament is to defend property even in the roote of it if the branches be cropt to preserve the roote the branches may againe he supplyed and renewed by the roote but if the roote be pull'd up which these men endeavor the branches perish for ever And this is their griefe that this roote of property is preserved And can they take a care of the branches of property who would pull up property by the roote which being pull'd up not onely the twentieth part which is their complaint but the other nineteene are utterly lost But neither doth this Ordinance enjoyne the taking of the twentieth part that number being named to set a bound to the Taxe which the Assessors may not passe They may take the fourtieth part if they thinke fit And it had beene a deed of charity if these men that finde fault with the taking of the twentieth had left the twentieth at Branford and the places which they have ransackt and spoyl'd And now comes the Committee of examinations it selfe to be examined The Questions are why so called and how such power Surely it should not seeme strange to any that knowes Parliaments to call a Committee by the name of the worke of it no more then to call a man that makes shoes a Shoomaker And except there were a resolution to be angry at all that the Parliament does is it impossible to deny a power in the two Houses to imprison And not to dispute the power of the House of Commons alone or a Committee of that House which those men unseasonably at this time do question the power of imprisoning is from the Ordinances of both Houses and by the same the Committee is to name the place and time So the naming of the time and place is not by the power of a Committee but of the Ordinance of Parliament And it cannot be unknown that there is in Parliament a power not only of liberty and imprisonment but of life and death And if it must be called a slavery to be subject to this power upon this occasion surely it is first thus farre a voluntary slavery that they may free their persons if they will by a voluntary contribution Secondly the end of this imprisonment thus term'd slavery is to fright them from a perpetuall slavery But that any Members of the House of Commons should be excluded from being present at the Counsells of the Committee of eximinations is an untruth so notorious and corpulent that it is to be wondred how the Scribe of this Declaration should have an ignorance or malice bigge enough to conceive and bring it forth Especially since so many malignants from which he might have had better intelligence have past through that Committee who waiting at the doore while Counsells were taking of their Causes might well know and observe that the Members of the House were not excluded from being present at those Counsells And yet upon this fained accusation is grounded a tragicall and dolefull exclamation As if all Parliaments were utterly destroyed because a Committee doth exclude the members of the House of Commons which indeed are not excluded Neither doth it follow as a necessary truth that because men are to be imprisoned by the Committee therefore they shall be separated from their Wives and Children For though these are to be removed from London and Westminster the Subburbs and Counties adjacent yet the husbands being sent to prisons remote from London and Westminster the Suburbs and Counties adjacent they may all very well meete And certainly it may well be thought that the Parliament hath at least as great cause to remove far the malignants and there Families the disease of malignancy commonly in this case most affecting the Head and thence flowing into the body of the Family But be it for ever reserved by speciall priviledge to Arch prelaticall Tyrany to banish men into remote Ilands and by Parliament commands to teare their friends Wives and children from them And here againe flowes from this Writer a huge tide of passion But as tides use to turne may not this tide thus returne upon him Is there now any liberty left but to those that would destroy the Parliament and there with peace liberty property and Religion Is not a violence offered to mens Consciences when they are terrifyed by Proclamations of Treason extremities of Warre for keeping their Protestation whereby they have vowed to defend the priviledges of Parliament and those that defend them And is it any way contrary to the Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance or the Protestation tö defend the Parliament against those that would destroy it or by force to bring Delinquents to Parliamentary Justice and to leade captive those that leade His Majesty captive and strive to separate the Head from the body to the ruine of both How many persons of Honour Quality and Reputation of the severall Counties of England have beene turned out of their Offices places houses goods and lives how many are now in prison onely for their faithfulnesse to the parliament and Kingdome How many substantiall Citizens of London have beene seduced to set hands to petitions of dangerous consequence and to withdraw their hands from assisting the defence of Parliament and Kingdome How many papists blasphemers and men of dersperate fortunes are met in the Armies that fight against the Parliament yea how many papists in these times of Warre are authorized against Law by his Majesties Commission to buy and take up Armes when as the Protestants in divers Counties have beene totally disarmed and their Armes taken away notwithstanding their property in them How many godly pious and painfull Divines are now robbed and plundered their bookes and writings spoyl'd and defac'd and themselves driven to London as to a City of refuge And withall how many of those Ministers that preach against the Parliament are found to be the same that were heretofore questioned by the Parliament for scandalous vitious and abominable lives And not to put from London over hastily is there not a cause to secure dangerous persons in London and that those of London should be forced to defend London when as neare as London was to Branford so neare in cleare probabilities was London to the state of Brainford For is it to be thought that the Cavaliers would have changed their minds in the riding of eight miles and that cruelty at Branford would have turned into mercy in London would they have spared the substantiall Citizens at London who did not spare the very Beggers at Branford would they have asked the Rich men at London whether they were for the King who made no such question to the Beggers at Branford Surely it is most likely that as now London may be seene in Brainford so then Brainford would have beene seene in London Neither is it unworthy of the Name of publike