Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A77545
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Britannia, passionately and historically, remembring her misery and happinesse in former ages, and declaring her calamities, and expectations now.
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1644
(1644)
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Wing B4816; Thomason E29_8; ESTC R3422
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7,896
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8
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of blood from the Martyrdome of those Saints and congealed them into rubies and Corall and made me dressings and Jewells of them oh the radiant flames of those fires which gave more lustre unto my Kingdom then all the luminaries of heaven then either Sun or stars oh the glory of that age and suffering the lights of heaven the day it selfe was darkned and occlipsed with those fires and the ashes of those Saints were an ornament and rich covering upon me these were troubles of a fresher complection the tears that were then shed I preserved in channells and it pleased me to looke upon such streams such holy lamentations were musick to my hills and valleys and the Psalmes which carried up the souls of my dying Martyrs were the sweetest harmony that ever the Trees of my Forrest ecchoed But these waves in a short time left raging Queen Elizabeths time and run in a smooth current and now the stormes gave way to a more peaceable and quiet feason and a Lady enters upon my Throne attended with graces and honours with peace and flourishings and this time I enjoy a composed and undisturbed condition pleasures abound in my palaces and cities and wealth and riches and all plenties flow in all my habitations now I am courted from abroad and other Kingdomes send me Ambassadours and wooes my favours and acquaintance not any noise of War is heard in my land and when at any time a cloud was gathering against me either from abroad or at home I saw a Divine breath dispersing and blowing it away and thus I passed years of pleasure and my Peace and happinesse lengthens Now a new Prince comes in King James his time and to make me more blessed and compleatly glorious he brings with him a people of his owne and a kingdom too and now I am returned to my ancient Liberties and enlargements now I am Britaine againe and my dominions wider and I hear not now a murmuting or the least whisper of any trouble though there were some endeavourings by night yet it was onely in a few treasonable and personall practises but oh I had a strange misgiving then me thought my peace was but a prodigious and boding calme and I prophesied to my self that surely a tempest was not far off and no sooner had a few years rowled over my head but another King is seated in my throne and as he sat downe some drops of blood sprinkled upon the Seat and stained the robes which made me fear such a purple inauguration would be followed with as red a revenge and with streams of blood hereafter While I was triumphing some years in my new glory King Charlâ—s his time enjoying the prosperity of a full throne adorned with a Garland from France feasting and banqueting at home and abroad with forraigne States me thought I felt a dâ—stemper of alteration running an my veines I begun to be fensible of new Ceremonies and dressings and paintings in my Religion of new oppressions new exactions in my State my Court grew full of pride gallantry ambition lust and wantonnesse my tribunalls full of iniustice of unrighteousnesse or bribery my Cities full of deceits cheatings extortions usuries my Countries full of oppressions ignorance prophanesse covetousnesse uncharitablenesse my King grew credulous my Courtiers Tyrannous my Nobles and Gentry many of them vitious and while these things were thus carried on there begun some strivings in my Northerne parts and the troubles gathered and in a short time were so many that I felt two Armies in my bosome struggling but they were soon appeased and when I thought I had seen the returne of a peace a new difference flames out my King and subiects contend together and from paper to powder from pen to pistoll and now behold a generation is risen up destroying my Religion my Lawes my Liberties my Parliament my inhabitants my Cities my Countries my Palaces I that have inriched them how do they impoverish me how do they consume my cattell my wealth how do they give my glory to the tramplings and scornes of my enemies how do they persecute my onely darling the conservatory of my peace the Cabinet of my prosperity how is it broken up Parliament how is that Parliamentary honour laid in the dust how have they emboldned and encouraged those that durst not appear in my ruine before those that I had curbed with laws and chained with my nationall power how have they have violated all and taken off their fetters and brought them out to be the persecutors Papists the tormentors the murderers of my dearest subiects how have they complied with other Nations strangers to me in Religion in Lawes in Liberties and these must be landed upon my shoares and mixed with my inhabitants a nation whom their own Kingdom have vomited out as unworthy to tread upon the soyle and these must come over into my habitations with hands besmeared in the blood of so many thousand Saints O all ye that have any commiseration in your soules any bowells of compassion go fall down at the Throne of my Prince speak to him with tears and sighes to stop the bleeding of his Kingdom to put away those purple Councellors that dash my people so together that are never weary with contriving new engines and devices of blood and calamity O pray him by his own obligations to me his oath so solemnly taken to preserve me pray him by all his former and many Protestations to defend my Religion my peace and Liberty pray him by the comforts and endearments of the precious blossomes upon his Throne pray him as he regards the preservation of his Crowne of his Parliament of his Kingdom nay of all his Kingdoms O tell him the miserable and unfortunate glory of such a Conquest the unhappy and unnaturall triumph in such spoiles O call to those Princes that are about him call to their chariots to stay before they drive into irrecoverable ruine call to their swords before they 〈◊〉 drunken in the blood of those that have no crime but Religion upon these soules O call to the Divines there before they recover the bankes of Tyber call to them to returne from Idolatry from Superstitions call them home again before they arrive at those shadowes of desolation which are in Babylon O call unto the people that are in Armes about him that they will remember their Liberties and look back and see them swimming down in the blood of their Ancestors call to them to thinke upon their posterity that they may not twist such cords for to binde themselves make wit hs to tie their generations after them O call to them to come out of the mist they fight in hold before their eies the Kingly Parliamentary power they fight against cal to them to bring home the person of their King to the Throne that wants him hold forth your Religion your Reformation which you received from other ageâ— and desires only to improve it to the generation after ye hold forth the Likerties the immunities of England aske them if they be digging a Sepulchre to bury their grand Charter in before they die and if they fight to make the 〈◊〉 of their Prince a King And if still they go on in these contentions they must know I shall receiver my Liberties against their swords the ghosts of England will rise up and fight against them those that have gone down to their graves in this defence both in this age and in the ages before heaven is ingaged for me and my people fight against an enemy whose idolatries whose blood guiltinesse whose blasphemies and prophanations will take their part in destroying them and now is the time of my Reformation come behold the many divine assistance the many heavenly deliverances the many miraculous evidences my people have had since the beginning of these wars behold those eternall truths which are hastning their accomplishment behold the Propheticall declination of Rome behold how my people are returned home to me again who have waâ—dred abroad seeking sanctuaries from persecutions as if they were sent before hand to wait for some new blessings these are my certaine and undeniable comforts my assurances my expectations and on the pillow of these I shalâ— rest my wearied and distressed and complaining soule FINIS Printed according to Order by G.B. and R.W.
BRITANNIA PASSIONATELY AND HISTORICALLY Remembring her Misery and Happinesse in former Ages and declaring her Calamities and Epectations now O Stay and consider I conjure ye by the being and originall you have from me I conjure ye by all your native relations Her adjuration by the blood which is so warme in your veines and heats you into such famous Resolutions for your Religion and Countrey I conjure yee by all the peace by all the happinesse and prosperity by all the pleasures I have afforded you by all those terrene blessings those glorious habitations and Cities by all those goodly Territories by all that can be deare or precious or honourable I conjure yee by my sufferings by my troubles my slaughters Her complaint by my present desolations and distractions by the purple streames that flow down every Province and County by my torne and dishevell'd Laws Priviledges Immunities by the mutuall wounds and discords by all the disorders and rapines by all the tyrannies and wofull oppressions by all the violations and disturbances by all the expressible or imaginable sorrows of a State and Kingdome by my owne teares and sighes behold and consider my meditations and powre forth your passions with me O let us contribute our lamentations and consociate our griefes and let us lay our sorrows together and make up a rich and solemne lamentation there is a glory in calamity and a grandeur in distresses O let ue sit down and reason together let us remember our former sorrowes and call up the ghosts of ancient calamities and recover the miseries of other Ages from their Sepulchres let us sit a while in the Region and shadow of death and aske the way into the land of forgetfulnesse and converse with the hoary spirits of our Ancestors and contemplate those rivers of blood which run in the channells of those ages and are now overflowing into our own let us aske after the golden times and prosperities which have made our forefathers happy in the enioying and would almost make us miserable in the remembring I was at first glorious in the name of Britaine The first britaines and though I had no King or Monarch but was divided into severall States and governments yet I was a pleasant and pregnant soyle greene and springing with meadowes vartegated with flowers shaded with trees and white with harvests and painted with inhabitants and undeflowred with aliens unviolated either with the languages usages or fashions or dispositions of forrainers I enioyed my selfe in my own banks girded with waters abounding and flourishing and like the map of another world as if Providence had made all over againe in me in a lesser Globe and divided me from the rest and walled and secured me with Seas I knew none mightier then Cassevalaunus who had onely a temporary administration and rule here was no Tyranny no oppression no divisions but of provinces till some Merchants having onely a Maritine knowledge of me gave Caesar so much information as sent him over and then factions encreased at home and my inhabitants enflamed against one another made breaches for the Romane enemy to enter then my peace wasted and my glory declined and I became a tributary to another nation till Voadicia that famous Queene spirited with a British vertue would needs forget her Sex and constitution and turn masculine for the redeeming of her Country and having rallied many thousands of my inhabitants defeated the Romane forces yet being of a Sex too weak for a victory was forced to let it fall out of her hand againe and Suetonius a Roman Generall tooke it up then was I more miserable than before my oppression heavier Thus hath the Tyranny of Rome been ever fatall and grievous to me unto this day yet I confesse I bad some calmes and peaceable distances even then but my Northerne enemies broke in upon me while my Romano governours were absent and then I sent Ambassadours abroad unto them but had no redresse my people were taken from me and in those mighty factions of Rome spent and I wofully depopulated this was the complexion of my misery then and yet in all these oppressions my inhabitants have ever been mindfull of their ancient liberty and have struggled against the Tyrannies of those ager and writ their Nationall vertues in drops of blood unto Posterity And now my troubles grew to be more numerous The Saxons and my factions potent and Vortigern stands up in a supremacy and being not strong enough to support such a glorious advancement he calls in a ravenous and rude enemy who though they landed upon my soile as Stipendaties yet there flowed in such numbers and streames of people by the interest they obtained in a doting Prince enamoured on a Saxon beauty that they soon spred over into my Northerne Provinces and thus possessed on such large Territories they breake out into insolencies and they rage upon my inhabitants who still retaining their Native excellency combine and fight with these usurpers under the Standard of a famous King Arthur and now my Kingdom looks red again with new slaughters and my people after many bloody contentions are conquered and spoiled and I left in a deplorable condition rent and divided into so many parts and Dominions every grand Saxon holding up a Scepter and my poor inhabitants with all their Lawes Religion and Liberties entombed in a generall desolation all my delicacies not regarded but trampled on by a cruell and barbarous nation Now I am distracted again and fresh Calamities succeed The Danes new stirres and broiles inflame me every day and there comes over by degrees another Nation fierce and Martiall and those arrive upon my coasts and the ride of blood flowes higher than before I was now in as sad a condition as ever and I had nothing to comfort me in these tumults of the Danes and Saxons but the light of the Gospell breke in upon me and gloriously shone upon my white cliffs and now I felt a new happinesse me thought Augustine the Monk springing within my nation now I conceited my selfe neerer heaven then before now my shadowes fled away and I saw and discovered further and yet I am able to say now my beame was not so pure then darting upon my eyes but through a cloud of superstition yet I had little peace for those that wasted and spoiled my first people they are now declining into a subject of revenge themselves and the Britains sufferings must now be required at the hands of their oppressors and they must now let out their bloods for expiation the Danes flow in like a crimson inundation upon the land and I must now submit to another desolation and be ruin'd over again Nor am I long in this affliction but things a little composed The Normans I am looks upon again by a new Conquerour and thus exposed to an inevitable invasion the Normans come over and possesse me and clothe me in purple