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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	world_n	write_n	writer_n	64	3	7.7052	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29535	Seasonable reflections on a late pamphlet entituled A history of passive obedience since the Reformation wherein the true notion of passive obedience is settled and secured from the malicious interpretations of ill-designing men.	Bainbrigg, Thomas, 1636-1703.	1690 (1690)	Wing B474; ESTC R10695	44,461	69

as not to distinguish between Honoring the King and Obeying Father Petre and that tho all the Protestant Preachers had talked of nothing else but Passive Obedience For Preachers can do no more than tell the People their Duties and they must tell them all their Duties but if they stretch beyond and require more than they ought the People will find it out and will not part with their Rights for a Word tho it sound never so well But they did their Duty they preached Passive Obedience not Slavery they would have Men to be true to their King but not false to their God or false to their Country this was understood and their Doctrine was received kindly and practised faithfully Thence it came to pass that all Sorts and Orders of Men prepared themselves for Suffering some of all ranks actually did it for Nobles Judges Magistrates Gentlemen Citizens Burgesses every where took up the Cross and chose rather to Suffer than to Obey that is do what by Law and Reason and Conscience they ought not to do This was well But others went beyond these for tho they suffered much yet they seem at this day to be grieved that they did not suffer more They had so fixed their Thoughts upon the performance of this Duty that with a Scrupulosity not to be presidented they take no pleasure in their Deliverance because they have lost the opportunity of dying for their Religion to gratifie no very commendable Humor of their Prince These are very extraordinary effects of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and such as may be accepted but some Men will be satisfied with nothing for our Historian is angry and it is likely the Politicians of the late King his Jusuits and his Priests are angry too inasmuch as their Expectances are not answered they have not all which they designed and hoped for the Nation is not enslaved they have it not in their power to cast Church and State into a new Model and to give Laws to the People of England as well as they did to the late King This is cause enough to make Men angry for they have lost a rich Booty and such Advantages as they are never like to get again besides they have lost their Credit and Reputation so as never before happened to Men of their fineness in Sophistry and Contrivance and that by a despised clot pated People such as had no higher reach than to do their Duties to God and to their King Thus Righteousness God be blessed must sometimes triumph in this World Honesty and Probity have their Successes as well as Slight and Craft and may they always have so But tho the Jesuit had cause to be angry at this yet why should our Historian we know him not and cannot guess what Designs he had nor how his Plots are defeated but yet he is angry and as much as if he had lost a good Bishoprick or a good Deanery He gives us a History and sets a Preface before it and a Conclusion at the End of it the Head and the Tail are his he frowns and bites with the one and then he stings with the other He tells us that he finds Passive Obedience much in Writings little in Practice That we must acknowledge to our shame that this with other Doctrines are more illustrious in our Books than in our Lives Preface p. 2. But then in the seventh Page of his Preface he has a long sharp biting Character of certain Persons which is to be read one way and to be understood another for tho it seems to say no ill but to provide for the Acquittal of all yet it is so phrased that according to the modern Figure called Innuendo some Readers will find in it a very severe Reproof and others a mere Calumny All this comes from Anger and something worse and it shews that the design of our Historian was not to teach the Doctrine of the Church in this point what it was in it self how it ought to be stated by whom it had been owned and by what Arguments it had been proved and who had best cleared it from Objections Mistakes and Misapprehensions This had been a Work worthy of an Historian But this was none of our Author's Business they are the Writers upon this Subject that have offended him he would do them a mischief shoot at them in the dark and wound them in secret he would have the World to think that they and their Writings their Lives and their Books do not agree he desires nothing else but this and seems resolved to have his Point whether his Reader grant it or no. At the first Onset in his Preface he says it boldly and says it with Advantage That they ought to be ashamed it is so Then he gives us a large Catalogue of the Sayings of excellent Persons transcribed out of their Books but does not give us one Word of their Lives nor does he tell us whether all of them are alike guilty or only some nor does he give us any one Action of any one of their Lives to justifie his Reproof This is certainly a gross dull way of calumniating should another imitate it with that Indignation would he read and despise the Author For suppose another should take for his Theme Murder or Adultery or Drinking or Swearing or Lying and gather together out of his Writings and out of all his Friends his Acquaintance or Neighbors Writings and many others too all they have said against any one of them suppose it be Lying only and compose as large a History as this and then say in a stout scornful Preface That we must acknowledge to our shame that a sense of the Sin of Lying is more illustrious in our Books than in our Lives Such a thing as this might be done but when it is done it can tend to no other end but to beget an Opinion in the Readers that such and such Writers all of them were a pack of lying Knaves Now this were basely done our Author would think it so were it his own case Horace makes an instance of a like Treatment and with Indignation says of the Practice that it was meer Canker and Venom Hic nigrae succus Loliginis haec est Aerugo mera Ser. Lib. 1. Sat. 4. Had our Author annexed to his History the due Praises of those who had performed their Duties of which sort he might have found many amongst the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and amongst the Commons too and then given us the Grounds upon which he judged that others failed in theirs he would have deserved Thanks for his Remarks as well as for his History for then his Book might have done good by exciting some to repent for what was past and others to be more cautious for the future But to give a stop to this sort of Discourse let Anger be gone and all unwarrantable Passion laid aside I will now endeavour fairly to consider our Author's Notion of