Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	great_a	part_n	time_n	3,297	5	3.1639	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74856	A discourse, or parly, continued betwixt Partricius and Peregrine (upon their landing in France) touching the civill wars of England and Ireland.	Howell, James, 1594?-1666.	1643 (1643)	Thomason E61_14; ESTC R11789	18,497	28

such unexampled destructive taxes by stopping the ordinary processes in Law and awing all the Courts of Justice by unheard of forced oaths and Associations and a thousand other acts which neither president Book case or Statute can warrant whereof if the King had done but the twentieth part hee had been cryed up to be the greatest Tyrant that ever was Pereg. Sir I am an Alien and so can speake with more freedome of your Countrey The short time that I did eate my bread there I felt the pulse of the people with as much judgement as I could and I find that this very word Parliament is become a kind of Idoll amongst them they doe as it were pin their salvation upon 't it is held blasphemie to speake against it The old English Maxime was The King can doe no wrong another Nominative case is now stept in That the Parliament can do no wrong nor the King receive any And whereas there was used to be but one Defender of the Faith there are now started up amongst you I cannot tell how many hundreds of them And as in the sacred profession of Priest-hood wee hold or at leastwise should hold That after the Imposition of hands the Minister is inspired with the Holy Ghost in an extraordinary manner for the enabling of him to exercise that Divine Function so the English are growne to such a fond conceit of their Parliament members that as soone as any is chosen by the confus'd cry of the Common people to sit within the walls of that House an inerring spirit a spirit of infallibility presently entereth into him so that he is thereby become like the Pope a Canon animatus though some of them may haply be such flat and simple animals that they are as fit to be Counsellors there as Caligula's Horse was to be Consull as the Historian tells us Patr. Touching Parliament there breaths not a Subject under Englands Crowne who hath a higher esteeme of it then I it makes that dainty mixture in our government of Monarchie Optimacie and Democracy betwixt whom though there be a kind of co-ordination of power during the sitting of Parliament yet the two last which are composed of Peers and People have no power but what is derived from the first which may be called the soul that animates them and by whose authority they meet consult and depart They come there to propose not to impose Lawes they come not to make Lawes by the sword they must not be like Draco's Lawes written in blood Their King calls them thither to be his Counsellors not Controllers and the Office of Counsell is to advise not to inforce they come thither to intreat not to treat with their Liege Lord they come to throw their Petitions at his feet that so they may find a way to his heart 'T is true I have read of high things that our Parliaments have done but 't was either during the nonage and minority of our Kings when they were under protectorship or when they were absent in a forraigne war or in time of confusion when there were competitors of the blood-royall for the Crowne and when the number of both Houses was compleat and individed but I never reade of any Parliament that did arrogate to it selfe such a power Paramount such a Superlative superintendence as to checke the Prerogative of their Soveraigne to question his negative voyce to passe things not onely without but expresly against his advice and royall command I never heard of Parliament that would have their King being come to the meridian of his age to transmit his intellectualls and whole faculty of reason to them I finde some Parliaments have been so modest and moderate And moderation is the Rudder that should steere the course of all great Councells that they have declined the agitation and cognizance of some state affaires humbly transferring them to their Soveraigne and his privie Counsell a Parliament man then held it to be the adaequate object of his duty to study the welfare to redresse the grievances and supply the defects of that place for which he served the Burgeois of Linne studied to find out something that might advance the trade of Fishing he of Norwich what might advantage the making of Stuffe he of Rye what might preserve their Harbour from being choaked up with Sand he of Taveston what might further the Manufacture of Kerseyes and they thought to have complyed with the Obligation and discharged the consciences of honest Patriots without soaring above their reach and roving at randome to treat of universals to bring Religion to their barre to prie into the Arcana Imperii the cognizance of the one belonging to the King and his interne Counsell of State the other to Divines who according to the Etymologie of the word use to be still conversant in the exercise and speculation of holy and heavenly things Pereg. I am clearely of your opinion in these two particulars for secrecie being the soule of policie matters of State should be communicated but to few and touching Religion I cannot see how it may quadrat with the calling and be homogeneous to the profession of Laymen to determine matters of Divinity who out of their incapacity and unaptnesse to the worke being not pares negotio and being carried away by a wilde kind of Conscience without Science like a Ship without a Helme fall upon dangerous quick-sands so that whilest they labour to mend her they mar her whilst they thinke to settle her they confound her whilest they plot to prevent the growth of Poperie they pauce the way to bring it in by conniving at and countenancing those monstrous Schismes I observed to have crept into your Chruch since the reigne of this Parliament so that one may justly say These your Reformers are but the executioners of the old project of the Jesuits the main part whereof was and is still to hurle the ball of discord and hatch new opinions still 'twixt the Protestants to make fractions and scissures betweene them and so render their Religion more despicable and ridiculous But me thinks matters are come to a strange passe with you in England that the Iudges cannot be trusted with the Law nor the Prelats with the Gospell whereas from all times out of their long experience and yeeres these two degrees were of men used to be reverenced for the chiefe Ttruch-men and unquestionable Expositors of both which another power seemes now to arrogate to it selfe as the inerring Oracle of both but I pray God that these grand Refiners of Religion prove not Quacksalvers at last that these upstart Polititians prove not Impostors for I have heard of some things they have done that if Machiavell himselfe were alive he would be reputed a Saint in comparison of them The Roman ten and Athenian thirty were Babies to these nay the Spanish Inquisition and the Bloet-Rade that Councell of blood which the Duke of Alva erected in Flanders when he swore That hee would