Selected quad for the lemma: blood_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
blood_n	best_a	bread_n	great_a	36	3	2.1273	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54132	England's present interest discover'd with honour to the prince and safety to the people in answer to this one question, What is most fit ... at this juncture of affairs to be done for composing ... the heat of contrary interests & making them subservient to the interest of the government, and consistent with the prosperity of the kingdom? : presented and submitted to the consideration of superiours.	Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1675 (1675)	Wing P1279; ESTC R1709	45,312	70

Relief and by their Help freed all their Cities from the sharp Bondage of their Natural Lords The State of Sparta was grown Powerful and opprest the Thebans they though but a weak People yet whetted the Despair and the Prospect of greater Miseries by the Athenians deliver'd themselves from the Spartan Yoak Nor is there any other considerable Reason given for the Ruin of the Carthagenian State then Avarice and Severity More of this is to be found in W. Raileigh's History of the World lib. 3. who hath this witty Expression in the same Story l. 5. of a severe Conduct When a forced Government saith he shall decay in Strength it will suffer as did the old Lion for the Oppression done in his Youth being pintcht by the Wolf goar'd by the Bull and kickt also by the Ass This lost Caesar Borgia his New and Great Conquests in Italy No better Success attended the severe Hand held over the People of Naples by Alphonso and Ferdinand 'T was the undue Severity of the Sicilian Governours that made the Syracusans Leontines and Messenians so easie a Conquest to the Romans An harsh Answer to a petitioning People lost Rehoboam Ten Tribes On the contrary in Livy Dec. 1 l. 3. we find that Petilia a City of the Brutians in Italy chose rather to endure all Extremity of War from Hannibal then upon any Condition to desert the Romans who had govern'd them moderately and by that gentle Conduct procur'd their Love even then when the Romans sent them Word they were not able to relieve them and wisht them to provide for their own Safety N. Machiavel in his Discourses upon Livy p. 542. tells us that one Act of Humanity was of more Force with the Conquer'd Falisci then many violent Acts of Hostility which makes good that Saying of Seneca Mitius imperanti melius paretur They are best obeyed that govern most mildly 9. And lastly If these ancient Fundamental Laws so agreeable with Nature so suited to the Disposition of our Nation so often defended with Blood and Treasure so carefully and frequently ratified shall not be to our great Pilots as Stars or Compass for them to steer the Vessel of this Kingdom by or Limits to their Legislation no Man can tell how long he shall be secure of his Coat enjoy his House have Bread to give his Children Liberty to work for Bread and Life to eat it Truly this is to justifie what we condemn in Roman-Catholiks It is one of our main Objections that their Church assumes a Power of assuring People what is Religion thereby denying Men the Liberty of walking by the Rules of their own Reason or Precepts of Holy Writ To which we oppose both We say the Church is tyed to act nothing contrary to Reason and that Holy Writ is the declar'd fundamental Law of Heaven to maintain and not to usurp upon which Power is given to the true Church Now let us apply this Argument to our Civil Affairs and it will certainly end in a reasonable Limitation of our Legislators that they should not impose that upon our Understandings which is inconsistent with them to embrace nor offer any the least Violation upon the Fundamental Law of the Land from whence they derive their Power to prosper such Attempts Do the Romanists say Believe as the Church Believes Do not the Protestants and which is harder Legislators say so too Do we say to the Romanists at this rate Your Obedience is blind and your Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion Is it not also true of our selves Do we object to them This makes your Religion sluid as the Rivers one Thing to Day and another to morrow any Thing the Church saith or doth Doth not our own Case submit us to the like Variation in Civils Have we not long told them that under Pretence of obeying the Church and not controling her Power she hath raised a Superstructure inconsistent with that Foundation she pretends to build upon And are not we the Men in Civils that make our grand Priviledges to depend upon Men not Laws as she doth upon Councils not Scripture If this be not Popery in Temporals what is It is humbly beseecht of those Superiours that it would please them to consider what Reflection such severity justly brings upon their Proceedings and remember that in their ancient Delegations it was not to define resolve and impose Matters of Religion and sacrifice Civil Priviledges for it but to maintain the Peoples Properties according to the ancient Fundamental Laws of the Land and to super-add such Statutes only as were consistent with and preservative of those Fundamental Laws To conclude this Head My plain and honest Drift has all along been neither more nor less then this to show that Church Government is no real Part of the old English Government and to disintangle Property from Opinion the untoward Knot the Clergy for several Ages have tyed the which it is not only the Peoples Right but our Superiours Interest to undo for it gauls both People and Prince For where Property is subjected to Opinion the Church interposes and makes something else requisite to enjoy Property then belongs to the Nature of Property and the Reason of our Possession is not our Right by Obedience to the common Law but Conformity to Church-Law a thing dangerous to Civil Government for 't is an Alteration of old English Tenure a suffering the Church to trip up supplant the State a making People to owe their Protection not to the Civil but Ecclesiastical Authority For let the Church be my Friend and all is well make her my Foc and I am made her Prey Let Magna Charta say what she will for me my Horses Cows Sheep Corn Goods go first my Person to Goal next and here 's some Church Trophys made at the Conquest of a peaceable Dissenter This is that anxious Thing May our Superiours please to weigh it in the equal Scale of Doing as they would be done by Let those Common Laws that fix and preserve Property be the Rule and Standard Make English Men's Rights as inviolable as English Church Rights Disintangle and distinguish them And let not Men sustain Civil Punishments for Ecclesiastical Faults but for Sins against the ancient establisht Civil Government only that the Natures of Acts and Rewards may not be confounded so shall the Civil Magistrate preserve Law secure his Civil Dignity and Empire and make himself Belov'd of English Men whose Cry is and the Cry of whose Laws has ever been Property more sacred then Opinion Civil Right not concerned with Ecclesiastical Discipline nor forfeitable for Religious Non-conformity But though an inviolable Preservation of English Rights of all things best secureth to our Superiours the Love and Allegiance of the People yet there is something further that with Submission I offer to their serious Consideration which in the second place concerns their Interest and the Peoples Felicity and that is their Discord about

other ill then that for Non-conformity in Matters of Religion they bear Indignities patiently To be short If all the Interruptions Informations Fines Imprisonments Exiles and Blood the great Enemy of Nature as well as Grace hath excited man in all Ages to about Matters of Worship from Cain and Abel's time to ours could furnish us with sufficient Presidents that the Design proposed by the Inflictors of so much Severity was ever answered that they have smother'd Opinions and not Inflamed but Extinguisht Contest it might perhaps at least prudentially give Check to our Expectations and allay my just Confidence in this Address But since such Attempts have ever been found Improsperous as well as that they are too Costly and that they have procured the Judgments of God the Hatred of Men to the Sufferers Misery to their Countries Decay of People and Trade and to their own Consciences an infinite Guilt I fall to the Question and then the Solution of it in which as I declare I intend nothing that should in the least abate of that Love Honour and Service that are due to you so I beseech you do me that Justice as to make the fairest Interpretation of my Expressions for the whole of my Plain and Honest Design is to offer my Mite for the Increase of your True Honour and my dear Country's Felicity The QUESTION WHat is most Fit Easie and Safe at this Juncture of Affairs to be done for Composing at least Quieting Differences for Allaying the Heat of Contrary Interests and making them Subservient to the Interest of the Government and Consistent with the Prosperity of the Kingdom The ANSWER I. An Inviolable and Impartial Maintenance of English Rights II. Our Superiours governing themselves upon a Ballance as near as may be towards the several Religious Interests III. A sincere Promotion of General and Practical Religion I shall briefly discourse upon these Three Things and endeavour to prove them a sufficient if not the only best Answer that can be given to the Question propounded Of ENGLISH-RIGHT THere is no Government in the World but it musteither stand upon Will and Power or Condition and Contract The one rules by Men the other by Laws And above all Kingdoms under Heaven it is England's Felicity to have her Constitution so impartially Just and Free as there cannot well be any thing more remote from Arbitrariness and jealous of preserving her Laws by which all Right is maintain'd These Laws are either Fundamental and so immutable or more Superficial and Temporary and consequently alterable By Superficial Laws we understand such Acts Laws or Statutes as are suited to present Occurrences and Emergencies of State and which may as well be abrogated as they were first made for the Good of the Kingdom For Instance Those Statutes that relate to Victuals Cloaths Times and Places of Trade c. which have ever stood whilst the Reason of them was in Force but when that Benefit which once redounded fell by fresh Accidents they ended according to that old Maxim Cessante ratione legis cessat l●x By Fundamental Laws I do not only understand such as immediately spring from Synteresis that Eternal Principle of Truth and Sapience more orless disseminated through Mankind which are as the Corner Stones of Humane Structure the Basis of reasonable Societies without which all would run into Heaps and Confusion namely Honeste vivers alterum non loedere jus suum cuique tribuere that is To live Honestly not to Hurt another and to give every one their Right Excellent Principles and common to all Nations Though that it self were sufficient to our present purpose But those Rights and Priviledges which I call English and which are the proper Birth right of English men may be reduced to these Three First An Ownership and Undisturbed Possession That what they have is rightly theirs and no Body's else 2dly A Voting of every Law that is made whereby that Ownership or Propriety may be maintained 3dly An Influence upon and a real Share in that Judicatory Power that must apply every such Law which is the Ancient Necessary and Landable Use of Juries if not found among the Brittains to be sure practised by the Saxons and continued through the Normans to this very day That these have been the Ancient and Undoubted Rights of English men as three great Roots under whose spacious Branches the English People have been wont to shelter themselves against the Storms of Arbitrary Government I shall endeavour to prove 1. An Ownership and Undisturbed Possession This relates both to Title and Security of Estate and Liberty of Person from the Violence of Arbitrary Power 'T is true the Foot Steps of the Brittish Government are very much over-grown by Time There is scarcely any thing remarkable left us but what we are beholden to Strangers for either their own Unskilfulness in Letters or their Depopulations and Conquests by Invaders have deprived the World of a particular Story of their Laws and Customs in Peace or War However Caesar Tacitus and especially Dion say enough to prove their Nature and their Government to be as far from Slavish as their Breeding and Manners were remote from the Education and greater Skill of the Romans Beda and M. West minster say as much The Law of Property they observed and made those Laws that concern'd the Preservation of it The Saxons brought no Alteration to these two Fundamentals of our English Government for they were a Free People govern'd by Laws of which they themselves were the Makers that is There was no Law made without the Consent of the People de majoribus omnes as Tacitus observeth of the Germans in general They lost nothing by transporting of themselves hither and doubtless found a greater Consistency between their Laws then their Ambition For the Learned Collector of the Brittish Councils tells us That Ethelston the Saxon King pleading with the People told them Seeing I according to your Law allow what is yours do ye so with me Whence Three Things are observable 1st That something was theirs that no Body else could dispose of 2dly That they have Property by their own Law therefore they had a Share in making their own Laws 3dly That the Law was Umpier between King and People neither of them ought to infringe the Law limited them This Ina the Great Saxon King confirms There is no Great Man saith he nor any other in the whole Kingdom that may abolish written Laws It was also a great part of the Saxon Oath administred to the Kings at their Entrance upon the Government to Maintain and Rule according to the Laws of the Nation Their Parliament they called Micklemote or Wittangemote it consisted of King Lords and People before the Clergy interwove themselves with the Civil Government And Andrew Horn in his Miror of Justice tells us That the Grand Assembly of the Kingdom in the Saxon time was to confer of the Government of