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
A91242	A plea for Sr George Booth, and the Cheshire gentlemen Briefly stated in a letter to Sir Arthur Hesillrigge. / By an unbiassed friend of truth and peace.	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.; Hesilrige, Arthur, Sir, d. 1661.	1660 (1660)	Wing P4031; Thomason 669.f.23[1]; ESTC R211477	2,659	1

A PLEA FOR Sr GEORGE BOOTH And the Cheshire Gentlemen BRIEFLY Stated in a Letter to Sir ARTHVR HESILLRIGGE By an unbiassed Friend of Truth and Peace SIR TO drive furiously without fear or wit will never render you a good Statesman and partially to distribut● your acts of justice and of mercy cannot recommend you to the world as a good Christian If in both you would approve your self you ought seriously to weigh and as one saith Deliberately taste your words and designes before you can digest and prepare them for action And to let you know that the Countrey hath observed your precipitation in the one and partiality in the other these lines do now salute you The Act of Indemnity to the Officers of the Army and your rigorous proceeding with Sir George Booth and his Party do most visibly demonstrate that you and your fellow-Members have banished all thoughts of justice or consideration in all your resolutions and how you will answer it either at the Court of Heaven or of the next ensuing Parliament is past my weak imaginations to conceive and therefore give me leave according to my usuall plaineness to present you with my thoughts in relation to this so unparalleld diversity of your proceedings And in the first place let me reflect upon Sir George Booth and his Party and in your language admit them Rebels against you and were not Fleetwood Lambert Desborough and the rest of the Army Officers so too And what Logical or rational Statesman can include those within the predicament of passion and exclude these 'T is said that the fear of them was the over-hasty wombe that gave birth unto their Indemnity and therefore your power over the other hath made you so severe against them but how unsuitable is this to a true Roman spirit which delights to make chaines and fetters rather then open and unconquered rebellion the subject of its mercy This is the effect of a timorous cowardly soul the other the most certain product of every truly generous and noble nature But all this I hint supposing the equality of their crimes then which nothing can be a more gross and palpable mistake wherefore Sir if you would deliberate upon these two actions in their authours and in their ends and in the circumstances of both you will finde the one a Gnat the other a Camel and how you should swallow this and stumble at that I know no reason unlesse it be that of our Saviours to the Pharisees However now let 's compare them and take a short view of their differences Sir George Booth and his Party but endeavoured and affected to fill up your House with its own supposed most Legal Members The Army-Officers have attempted and effected the subversion of you or if you will the one would destroy the part of the body to preserve the major part sound the other would destroy the part that we should never hereafter have a whole or part of a Parliament The one would have perfected you and made you compleat in all your integrall parts the other would not have the least part of a Parliament In a word one would have a Parliament but not the minor part thereof the other from their hatred of the peoples power abhorred the very name of both The one were Acted by their Oathes and Covenants to assert and defend the freedome and priviledges of Parliaments And so their actions may seem to be at most the result of an erring Conscience The other had no visible impulsive cause but their own boundless ambition and insatiable lust after domination The one would have defended and confirmed the other would have confounded and subverted all our Laws Liberties and Religion The one were Gentlemen of ancient and considerable Families and could not better themselves by a Warre the other upstarted Mushroms and could not have risen but by a Warre The Estates of the one are the bitter-sweet fruites of cruelty and bloud The Lands of the other the gifts of peaceable Laws and Justice The one you had provoked by a forcible secluding their Members from their Priviledges in Parliament The other after your resurrection in May last you had lately pardoned and after preferred these were your slaves and servants Commissionated by your Authority paid by your Treasuries and therefore obliged at all times both day and night to be at your absolute command and obedience The other free from all such severe obligation and strict inducements to subjection The one did rise 150 miles distant from you hoping that you would consider of a mediation by a present restoring of them to their most undoubted rights in Parliament and so have prevented any further mischief But the other immediately flew at your very faces and had the confidence of some saucy and rebellious Servants to take you by the head or throat and most insolently drag'd you out of your own House and shut your own doores against you their Soveraigne Lords and Masters Lastly The one were and I dare say still are most universally beloved and esteemed the true though unfortunate Patriots of their Countries Laws and Liberties The other the very butt or mark against which all true English men do direct and level the Arrowes of their hatred and most just deserved indignation Sir weigh seriously all these but hinted considerations and inlarge them in your own more judicious thoughts And then let me ask you whether any prudence reason or conscience can honourably perswade you to affront the whole interest of this English Nation by ruining their friends and pardoning their enemies And how shall the people believe that you will ever trust the Governement in them by succeeding Parliaments if thus you heighten and inrage their spirits against you Sir Be you confident that never any kept his interest from sinking by swimming against the streame Nor was there any that advantag'd himself by a Diametricall opposition to the generall humour or genious of the people And therefore it hath been the prudence of Antiquity even in full Parliaments themselves to sedate and compose the spirits of the Nation rather by a favourable compliance with them then by an express and open contradiction unto them Hence it is you have a Parliament Roll stiled Rotulum Contrarientium The reason whereof was because Thomas Earl of Lancaster a man singularly beloved taking part with the Barons against King Edward the second in hatred of the Spencers It was not thought safe for the King in respect of their power and interest in the affections of the people to name them Rebels and Traitors but Contrarientes True it is he that despiseth the peoples power knowes not his own weakness and therefore by the neglect of the one and ignorance of the other suddenly makes himself obnoxious to the miseries of a popular rage and confusion To conclude then if it be impossible to have any succeeding Parliaments though the Royalist be excluded therefrom that will approve and confirme this your late Act concerning Sir George Booth and his Party the possibility or impossibility whereof I leave to your own thoughts Is it not prudence to look before you leap and to ground your actions upon the popular interest and not upon any particular faction which like an Ignis fatuus the contrary windes of private Parties will easily tumble and tosse with a perpetual agitation and inconstancy Whereas the brightnesse of a true publick interest will keep its native splendour and glory maugre all those clouds and storms of opposition which the blustering spirits of private and partiall concernments can raise either to eclipse or weaken it the undoubted experience whereof the revolution of a few monthes will I hope demonstrate unto as well your self as unto Your Humble Servant W. ●