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
A89919	A project for an equitable and lasting peace. Designed in the year 1643. when the affairs stood in ballance before the second coming of the Scots into this kingdom, from a desire to have kept them out then. With a disquisition how the said project may now be reduced to fit the present conjuncture of affairs, in a letter sent to divers prudent persons of all sorts. For preventing the Scots bringing an army into England a third time, or making themselves umpires of our affaires. By a cordiall agreement of the King, Parliament, City, Army, and of all the people in this kingdome among our selves.	Nethersole, Francis, Sir, 1587-1659.; England and Wales, Army.	1648 (1648)	Wing N498; Thomason E459_16; ESTC R203019; ESTC R205087	17,014	32

devised for the sure binding them to give their Votes according to their consciences in all things put to the question And that for the further security and comfort of your people your Majesty would be graciously pleased not onely to give free admittance to such Committees of both Houses of Parliament as may be chosen by them humbly to represent the reasons of their Resolutions to your Majesty and to give satisfaction to any doubts your Majesty upon advisement with your Privy or Learned Counsel may have about them before the giving of your conclusive voice but that of your Princely grace you would condescend so farre as to oblige your self likewise by a voluntary Oath not to deny any thing that to the best of your understanding so informed as aforesaid shall be really for the good of your Subjects and that may advance the true Protestant Religion oppose Popery and Superstition secure the Law of the Land upon which is built as well your Majesties just Prerogative as the proprietie and libertie of the Subject confirme all just power and privilege of Parliament and render your Majesty and your people happy by a good understanding which are your Majesties owne gracious words of engagement in two of your Messages from Notingham That because the desires and mindes of the Commons of this kingdome cannot certainely be understood by the Votes of their Representants in any one Parliament upon which and many other prudent considerations it hath been by our wise Ancestors provided that the Parliament ought to be held at least once every year after the making of which provisiō it was long before any Parliament was continued to a greater length That it may be agreed that immediately after the establishment of all things abovesaid in the manner aforesaid this present Parliament shall be dissolved by the free consent of both Houses But that before the dissolution thereof there may be an Act passed for the assurance of an annuall Parliament in the same manner that a trienniall is now assured with these necesary sup plementall additions thereunto 1. One for the regulating of Elections in such a manner that they may be more free and lesse chargeable as well to the Countrey as to the persons in competition and that returnes may not be so wholly in the power of the Sheriffe and of that party he favoureth as hitherto they have bin and that some more ready easie and certaine way may be devised for the judgement of the lawfulnes and truth of returnes then hath beene in use of late to the manifest hazard of the publique liberty if there should be such a conspiracie of Sheriffes as may be imagined 2. Another for the safe conducting of the Members of both Houses of Parliament to the place appointed for the holding of the Parliament and for their like safe return into their Countries by the Sheriffs of the respective Counties through which they are to passe being therunto required But this only as oft as the Parliament may happen to be assembled without any signification of the personall pleasure and command of the King for the time being 3. And a third as well for the prevention of the unseasonable dissolution of Parliaments without the consent of both houses as for the assurance of the dissolution of every Parliament within the space of one yeere and for the making of two Sessions thereof at such times as by the two houses shall be thought most convenient That if it shall be made appeare upon sufficient proofe that your Majesties sacred person was in any apparent danger or hazard by those tumults at Westminster which have been alleaged for the reason of your departure from thence that in that case it may be publiquely declared and recorded that your Majesty was not to blame in withdrawing your selfe from your Parliament there the rather because your Majesty hath since been pleased to make many gracious offers to give a meeting again to your Parliament if they would adjourne to any other place and this as well before as after the beginning of the late unnaturall Warre But if upon due examination it should be found that your Majesties beliefe of the malice of certaine persons against your sacred person which you thought you had too great reason to feare they intended to seize and of the evident danger not your selfe onely but your Royall Consort and the Princes your children were in by the tumults raised and countenanced by the said persons hath been grounded only upon misinformation and that the failer of the timely discovery of the falsehood and maliciousnesse of such information happened also through your Majesties owne default in not having taken the course by Law directed to that end that in this case your Majestie of your owne meere motion may be graciously pleased to acknowledge and command this to be publiquely recorded as an errour for the preventing of the like in future times That if all or any of the Lords Knights Citizens and Burgesses who before or after the beginning of the late Warre withdrew themselves from the Parliament cannot make it evidently appeare that they could not continue there with such safety of their persons and plenary freedome of voting as all members of Parliament of right ought to enjoy that in this case they or such of them as shall faile in full proof of the point abovesaid may for ever be disabled to fit againe in this or any future Parliament in this kingdome and may be further censured in such a manner as to the wisedome of the respective Houses of Parliament shall seeme just and meete And that howsoever no such Member of either House may be readmitted without making a publique acknowledgment of and submission for their faults no danger how great or certaine soever being sufficient to excuse them for having failed in their duty to their King country either by concealing their minds or by deserting their stations before any one of them lost any one drop of his bloud which hath been the occasiō of so much bloudshed of their fellow subjects It being visible that there could have been no breach between your Majesty and your two Houses of Parliament if all their respective Members had continued at Westminster and had there avowed their be●ng of the same judgement which they have since discovered otherwhere That the publique debt contracted by occasion of the charges of the late warre may be borne by the partakers therein on that side which cannot make it appeare that they had just cause to take up armes because they could not obtaine justice by the Law of the Land in some thing that was either of absolute necessity to be maintained for the publique weale or at least of such importance as was worthy to be contended about by arms there being no other sufficient cause for the beginning of a civill Warre even by them that have unquestionable authority to make one And if both parties should chance to faile in the proofe

advantage he hath above other men doth entirely depend although divers be given out in the whispers of that party to be favourers of that wild designe Whom I hereby pray not to despise this advertisement but to take some occasion speedily to declare against it before it to be too late And as for the Levellers themselves and their quondam Agitators in Army City or Countrey since they allow of extemporary Lay-preaching I hope they will take no offence at my having given them a text not to talk but to think upon which I wish them in their most serious thoughts to compare with that other 1 John 4.20 and then to aske themselves whether upon the same reason it be not a certain truth that he who saith he feareth God and yet feareth not the King i.e. the Soveraign Power of what kind soever which God hath set over him whether in one or few or many is you know what For he that feareth that is honoureth not the King whom he hath seen how should he feare God whom he hath not seen In despising those whom God hath placed in authority and in that respect called gods the authority of God himselfe is despised They have not rejected thee but they have rejected Me that I should not reign over them said God to Samuel when the people of Israel had an itching to be altring the Government But I will here break off this discourse wherein my Love to the mens persons and souls though I hate their opinions and practises hath a little impertinently engaged me to fill up this spare Paper A Part of the Armies DECLARATION of the 14. of June 1647. NOw having thus far cleared our way in this businesse we shall proceed co propound such things as we do humbly desire for the setling and securing of our own and the kingdomes common right freedome peace and safety as followeth 1. That the Houses may be speedily purged of such Members as for their delinquency or for corruptions or abuse to the State or undue Elections ought not to sit there whereof the late Elections in Cornwal Wales and other parts of the kingdom afford too many examples to the great prejudice of the peoples freedom in the said Elections 2. That those persons who have in the late unjust and high proceedings against the Army appeared to have the will the confidence credit and power to abuse the Parliament and Army and endanger the kingdome in carrying on such things against us while an Army may be some way speedily disabled from doing the like or worse to us when disbanded disperst and in the condition of private men or to other the free-borne people of England in the same condition with us and that for that pu●pose the same persons may not continue in the same power especially as our and the kingdoms Judges in the highest trust but may be made incapable thereof for future And if it be questioned who these are we thought not fit particularly to name them in this our Representation to you but shall very speedily give in their names and before long shall offer what we have to say against them to your Commissioners wherein we hope so to carry our selves as that the world shall see we aim at nothing of private revenge and animosities but that justice may have a free course and the kingdom be eased and secured by disinabling such men at least from places of judicature who desiring to advantage and set up themselves and their party in a generall confusion have endeavoured to put the kingdom into a new flame of war then which nothing is more abhorrent to us But because neither the granting of this alone would be sufficient to secure our own and the kingdoms rights liberties and safety either for the present age or posterity nor would our Proposals of this singly be free from the scandall and appearance of Faction or designes only to weaken one party under the notion of unjust or oppressive that we may advance another which may be imagined more our own we therefore declare That indeed we cannot but wish that such men and such only might be preferred to the great power and trust of the Common-wealth as are approved at least of morall righteousnesse and of such we cannot but in our wishes prefer those that appear acted thereunto by a principle of conscience and religion in them And accordingly we do and ever shall blesse God for those many such Worthies who through his providence have beene chosen into this Parliament and to such mens indeavours under God we cannot but attribute that Vindication in part of the Peoples Rights and Liberties and those beginnings of a just Reformation which the first proceedings of this Parliament appeared to have driven at and tended to though of late obstructed or other diverted to other ends and interests by the ☞ prevailing of other persons of other principles and conditions But yet we are so far from designing or complying to have an absolute or Arbitrary power signed or setled for continuance in any persons whatsoever as that if we might be sure to obtaine it we cannot wish to have it so in the persons of any whom we could most confide in or who should appear most of our opinions or principles or whom we might have most personall assurance of or interest in But we do and shall much rather wish that Authority of this kingdom in Parliaments rightly constituted that is freely equally and successively chosen according to its originall intention may ever stand and have its course And therefore we shall apply our desires chiefly to such things as by having Parliaments setled in such a right constitution may give most hopes of justice and righteousnesse to flow down equally to all in that its antient channel without any overtures tending either to overthrow that foundation of Order and Government in this kingdom or to ingrosse that power for perpetuity into the hands of any particular persons or party whatsoever And for that purpose though as we have found it doubted by many men minding sincerely the publick good but not weighing so fully all consequences of things it may and is not unlike to prove that upon the ending of this Parliament and the election of new the constitution of succeeding Parliaments as to the persons elected may prove for the worse many waies yet since neither in the present purging of this Parliament nor in the election of new we cannot promise to our selves or the king alone an assurance of justice or other positive good from the hands of men but those who for present appear most righteous and most for common good having an unlimited power fixed in them during life or pleasure in time may become corrupt or settle into parties or factions or on the other side in case of new elections those that should so succeed may prove as bad or worse then the former We therefore humbly conceive that of two inconveniences the lesse being

persons among which Articles these two were the principall That they have traitorously indeavoured to subvert the very Rights and being of Parliaments and that for the compleating of their trayterous designes they have indeavoured as farre as in them lay by force and terrour to compell the Parliament to joyne with them in their other trayterous designes and to that end have actually raised and countenanced tumults against the King and Parliament yet this heavy charge against the said persons being themselves members of Parliament was not further prosecuted against them neither was the suggestor thereof made knowne through whose default it belongeth not to your Petitioners to inquire or judge otherwise than in our private consciences so farre as the said default is one of the hinges upon which the justice of the late Warre hath been and ought to be turned But as one the one side we humbly conceive that either justice ought to have been prosecuted against the said accused persons and the suggestor of the said Articles according to the Lawes already in being or if upon this occasion there were any defect found in the above-recited Lawes and Declarations of Law then some sufficient provisionall Ordinance in amendment of that defect might have been devised and applyed to the present case by the wisedome and authority of your Majesty and your Parliament that justice might have proceeded So on the other side we hope we may presume to say because in truth we think that no inconvenience which might have occurred through any legall proceeding either against the said accused persons or their secret accuser can any way countervaile the many mischiefes which have ensued upon the interruption thereof For in your Petitioners poore observation grounded on divers Declarations of your Majesty and of your two Houses of Parliament particularly that of your Majesties of the twelfth of August 1642. and that other of the Lords and Commons of the beginning of the said moneth the obstruction of justice in this case first hath been the scandalous occasion whether given or taken of a like stoppage in the case of many other offenders and more especially of some not long before and of others soon after by Parliament accused of the same horrid crime of having intended force against the Parliament which accusation notwithstanding was not further prosecuted against them And this unluckie disturbance of the due course of justice in the supreme Court and Councell of the kingdome occasioned a fatall division in it and them and was the true rise of the two actions at Warre the one between your Majesty and your Parliament and the other between the Parliament and your Majesty which hath since overrun this whole Land with such violence that no preeminence of the Crowne or liberty of the Subject how well established soever have been able to stand before it But force throughout prevailing above right a sea of confused disorder brake in upon us and a face of barbarous anarchy for a time covered this whole Realme In tender consideration whereof and prevention of that utter desolation which must needs speedily overwhelme this miserable kingdome if an other like floud of civill warre should rise upon it your Petitioners humbly prostrate at your Majesties feet do there implore your gracious protection And do most humbly pray your Majesty as they do also your Parliament that due and speedy justice may passe upon all persons of what degree or quality soever that may be found guilty of any intention of over-awing or over-ruling your Majesty or your Parliament before or since the beginning of the late War the cursed issue of that highest misdemeanour and treason can be devised against your Majesty and this your kingdome and respectively declared to be such by your Majesty and by your two Houses of Parliament Or if this in which there seemeth to have been some difficulty in time of peace should now be grown lesse possible after so long a warre That then for the time past your Majesty of your owne Princely clemency and by authority of your Parliament would be pleased to passe an act of oblivion and to grant your full and free pardon to all the aforesaid respectively accused persons and to all other that may be guilty of the same misdemeanour and treason as also to all those that have been involved in the late warre through the failer of due and timely justice in those originall and criticall cases And howsoever that for the time to come the Militia of the kingdome may by act of Parliament be for ever setled in such a way as may safegard the Parliament and all the Members of both Houses thereof and above all your Majesties sacred person aswell against all tumultuary assemblies of the people as from all attempts by way of force though under pretence of authority from the King Which we humbly conceive is not impossible to be done without making a divorce between the Scepter and the Sword which have been for so many ages joyned in marriage by the providence of God and Law of the Land And that in and by the same act of Parliament severe defences may be made against all other unlawfull practises that may be found to be any way to the prejudice of that intire freedome which ought to be maintained in all Parliamentary proceedings by all that wish well to their King or Countrey That immediately upon the passing of this Act the whole souldiery in this kingdome may be disbanded the Committees for the safety of the respective Counties dissolved and that your Majesty thereupon returning to Westminster all other matters either now in difference between your Majesty and your Parliament or between the two Houses thereof or mentioned in your Majesties most gracious Message of the twentieth of January 1641. or in any other Propositions and desires either of your Majesty or of the Lords and Commons especially those which concern the purity of Religion of the Worship of God and right government of his Church may by the united authority of your Majesty and of your Parliament be setled in such a manner that the Throne of the kingdome of Jesus Christ may be erected in the due height thereof in this Realme and the Throne of his Vicegerent therein may not be abased nor any liberty of any the freemen of this kingdom infringed in the least degree without your Majesties and their free and full consent in Parliament it being as we humbly conceive altogether unjust and unlawful and therfore clearly cannot be either profitable or durable for the Kings or Subjects of England to attempt the making of any change even to the better of the Lawes and present Government in any other fashion That as the most probable and powerfull meanes to put an end to all strife and to prevent all partialitie or suspicion of partialitie in these supreme Resolutions all the Members of both Houses of Parliament may by an Ordinance be enjoyned to take such an Oath as may be