Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	death_n	king_n	treason_n	2,352	5	9.2422	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63246	The speech of Charles Trinder, recorder of Gloucester at his entrance upon that office, January the 8th, 1687/8.	Trinder, Charles.	1688 (1688)	Wing T2283; ESTC R37902	12,670	19

those Penal Laws by which either her self or Successors have endeavour'd to maintain the Church of England by depressing all others Twelve Pence a Sunday is a mere Trifle in the eye of a thoughtless rich man who perhaps is in no danger of paying it But how supportable to a poor Labourer perhaps lame too or blind old or sick and with a Family to maintain and at last for his dissent alone excluded from the relief even of a morsel of Bread from the Parish The Twenty Pound a Month is no great matter from men of large Estates But how impossible to be paid by him that has less and yet Body Lands and Goods must all go to make it out The two Thirds of a Dissenter's Lands must indeed needs pinch close even upon the greatest for men of Estates are Educated to suitable Expences and are generally under as great difficulties to keep within their bounds as those of smaller Fortunes How then can they subsist after two Thirds are lopt off But all this thô tending to the ruine and famishing not onely of the Offender but of his innocent Wife Children and Posterity yet you may say it breaks no bones nor extends to life But the end is not yet No man doubts but that a Roman Catholic is a Christian and also a Member of the True Church thô he as also every one is Erroneous in the opinion of every man that differs from him Yet by a Statute of 13 Eliz. If any man shall reconcile another or be reconciled himself to the Church of Rome both Reconciler and Reconciled shall be punished as Traytors and that without any regard whether the person Reconciled were before Pagan Turk Jew or Atheist No Man denies that a Priest of the Roman Church is rightly Ordained for the Exercise of Spiritual Functions Yet if any such being a Subject of this Kingdom do but set his foot on English Ground his Native Country without other Offence he shall suffer as a Traytor 27 Eliz. chap. 2. It is known that the Exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion cannot be without the help of Priests yet if any Entertain or but Relieve any such he shall be punisht with Death as a Felon 27 Eliz. chap. 2. Many about us have felt the smart of the Laws against Conventicles But by the Statute of 35 of Q. Eliz. we find that if any absenting from Church a Month shall afterward resort to a Conventicle he shall be committed to Prison and if he Conform not within three Months he shall abjure the Realm or suffer as a Felon without Benefit of Clergy These one would think were somewhat severe and that any tolerable degree of Truth thus guarded might be of sufficient force to resist the Batteries of all Opposers And yet in so dreadful a manner has this unhappy Land been ever since haunted with Panick and Imaginary Fears that notwithstanding all this and whatever more the Wit and Art of Man have been able to do or invent for the securing of their Church they have been always calling for more as oft as there is a Sessions of Parliament Out of which Fear have at last sprung up their Two Darling Acts The first of the 25th of the late King Entituled An Act to prevent the Danger arising from Popish Recusants And thereby All that shall not take the Sacraments Swear and Declare as is therein required are Excluded His Majesty's Service The other in the 30th of the late King Entituled An Act for the more effectual Preservation of the King's Person and Government And this Excludes from Parliament All and from the King's presence Many that shall not Swear and Declare as is therein required As these are Acts of Parliament they ought to be Treated with Respect and Understood in such a Sence as may Consist with Loyalty and the Being of Government that is that That Great and Wise Body had no other intent then what the Title and Preamble of those Acts seem to import viz. The King's Security from the Danger of Admitting into his Service Council or Presence by Surprize or Inadvertency such as they then conceived not likely to be faithful to him Yet not meaning to thrust from him any of whose Truth and Abilities he himself should be assured and as occasion required should call and by his Royal Dispensation enable to serve him But in the Sence to which These Acts have been since Commonly I may say Andaciously Wrested that is so to Tye up the King's hands that he shall by no Means nor on any Extremity be capable of receiving Aid Succour and Service from so many Thousands of his Subjects how Faithful or Able soever as shall believe it either not lawful to Swear at all or not to Do Swear and Declare as is required or whatever their Judgments be shall neglect to do it when required This were to raise up the Acts into a Mortal War against themselves and to pervert The more effectual Means of the King's Preservation and Government Pretended into a more Real and Certain Ruin and Destruction of Both Intended And surely it were but a sorry Compliment to so many Great Men as were concern'd in the Passing of these Acts to tell them at this time that this was indeed their very Meaning We all know Gentlemen that by the Act of the 25th of Edw. 3. To Compass or Imagin the Death of the King is High Treason But this Compassing is not restrained to the narrow Compass of Designing ●●●sent Execution by Poyson Dagger Screwed Guns and Chewed Silver Bullets only No our Laws interpret this Compassing to a far more extended sence Sir Edw. Cook tho' then no friend to the Prerogative tells us that he that declares by Overt act to Depose the King does enough to prove he Compasses the King's Death And so it is to Imprison or Take the King into his Power For there is but a small distance between Deposing or Imprisoning the King and his Death So that whosoever Compasseth the one virtually and obliquely thô not directly Compasses the other also In the Case of the R. Reverend Father Dr. Plunket Lord Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland who fell one of the Victims to the late celebrated Plot An Intention to raise Rebellion was by my late Lord Chief Justice Pemberton declared Treason because Rebellion does include an Intention of the King's Death So in the late Lord Russel's Case an Intention of Seizing the King's Guards was adjudged Treason because Depriving the King of his Defence does imply a Compassing of his Death So to detain the King's Fortresses or Ships of War is a Compassing the King's Death because so considerable a part of that strength which is to defend his Life is withheld from him And I my self have heard our present King most admirably and rightly observe that that Monstrous Treason and Rebellion here in England against his late Glorious Father began not in 42 as is vulgarly supposed but long before by the

Subjects Liberty and Property received Confirmation from the glorious Ancestors of our present Reigning Monarch What Spot of Ground is there thrô the whole circumference of the Earth where the Subject lives so free so plentiful and so secure from any sort of Oppression as in this our truly fortunate Island What man so low as not offending the Laws to need fear his most potent Neighbour Again What Nobleman so Great as to dare either by force or treachery to attempt either upon the Royal Authority or Publick Peace Lastly What Throne so fix'd and unmoveable as Ours Since the Royal Prerogatives are so inalienable from the Crown that even the most solemn Acts of our Kings when found inconsistent with their personal safety and Government and the good and safety of their Subjects are of no manner of force to restrain the exercise of their Regal Power This appears by the King's Declaration in the 15th of Edward 3d Printed with the Statutes and by many other instances which might be produced After such Foundations laid after such regular and well-polish'd Architecture in the whole Frame of this our happy Government when moreover our Kings have at their Call the most August Senate in the World whose Duty it is to strengthen the Hands of the Soveraign by their Counsels and the Kingdom 's Treasure as Emergencies arise How comes it to pass that we have seen and felt effects not only far short but even contrary to such glorious Causes to pass by our ceasing now for a long time to advance our Nations Glory by Acquisitions abroad tho' we have not wanted Princes of great Abilities and Inclinations that way How comes it to pass that we have with much difficulty conserved our own from Forreign Encroachments Nay lastly how has it come to pass that we have suffered such fatal Convulsions at home among our selves by which the whole Frame of our Government hath been shaken in pieces nothing to be seen but Horrour and Confusion nothing to be expected but utter Ruine and Destruction To answer these important Queries thô private Malice Pride Lust and Avarice be the immediate incentives of all who are Authors or Fomenters of all Civil Dissension yet manifest it is that this so great decay from the Ancient vigour of our Government and the many Difficulties in which it is of late so deeply involved have arisen principally if not purely from the Cause of Religion 'T was a memorable saying that of my late Lord Chancellour Clarendon to the two Houses of Parliament soon after his late Majesty's happy Restauration It is said he a mournful subject and that which has cost the King many a Sigh many a sad Hour to consider that that very thing which was appointed by God as a Cement of Affection betwixt Strangers and Enemies Religion should now become the fiercest Incentive to Strife between the dearest Friends and nearest Relations This Consideration carries me back to examine from what time and from what cause this unhappy effect of Religion had its first rise For were it indeed to be found in the Root or Essence of Christianity it self I should conceive the Reception of such a Religion into the World and it s so long continuance amidst so many Nations to be a greater Miracle than any that was ever wrought for its Birth or Propagation But I take the fact to be far otherwise For upon the first Planting of Christianity the Apostles inspired with the Holy Ghost all taught one and the same Truths which their Disciples held themselves obliged to believe and for ever keep inviolate and intire as proceeding all from one and the same eternal Verity and when afterwards any difference arose concerning what was so taught or what not The general practice of Christians was to submit to the determination of their Pastors either Single or in a Provincial National or General Council as the exigency of the matter required and the circumstances of the time and place allowed Which left no room for pertinacy in Dissention at least not any possibility of disturbing the publique Peace And by this means Christianity remained in this Kingdom unshaken from its first entry until about the 24th year of K. Henry the 8th when that unhappy Prince not finding from his long and chargeable Addresses to Rome a passage to the Enjoyment of a second Wife the first then living breaks that Power he was not able to bend and levels whatever opposes to his unbridled Appetite and maugre Magna Charta which in the first place grants that the Church of England be free and all her Rights and Liberties inviolable the Treasures and Revenues of the Church nay it s very Foundations and Lands are no longer spared than that King's Profusions needed not fresh Supplies To this end by an Act in the 26 of his Reign the King is declared Head of the Church of England in Spirituals and that under the Penalty of High Treason to deny it But this Sounding Monstrous Novel many of the most eminent for Learning and Piety who could not believe what they had never before heard nor pretend to believe what really they did not lost their Lives and Fortunes and that with all the outward marks of Infamy The Fence being thus broken down whereby Unity had been thus long preserved no wonder if way was soon made for multiplying of Opinions For People being once persuaded they had been taught one untruth and that in a point of so great importance as the Headship of the Church in Spirituals how could they forbear to doubt whether they were not imposed upon and taught Untruths in many others also since both the one and the other depended on the same Authority And to what other Oracle could they then possibly resort for the solution of their Doubts but either to the mere Letter of the Scriptures on all hands admitted to be God's Word or else every man to his own Interpretation for himself Since if the Church it self had been so foully deceived therein and therefore forsaken by them certainly no other could pretend Authority to deliver the true Sence so as to oblige others to the belief of it But the King himself having lookt upon that Power as intolerable which had been ever before Superiour to him in Spirituals could now less brook any control or contradiction from His own Subjects over whose Souls and Consciences He assumed a more absolute Dominion than ever any Pope had done before or any King of England over their Bodies or Estates By this absolute Spiritual Power he thought to put a stop to that great difference of Opinions which multiplied every day and backing the said Spiritual Power with Authority of Parliaments which he had always at his beck and ready for his turn he began first to think of some means of Reducing Dissenters by Acts of Vniformity and then to make Tests much like to our Modern ones as to the meekness of their Stile thô a little point-blank as to