Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	church_n	england_n	king_n	3,792	5	4.0738	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56561	A discourse of penal laws in matter of religion endeavouring to prove that there is no necessity of inflicting or continuing them : first delivered in a sermon ... occasioned by His Majesties late gracious declaration for liberty of conscience, and now humbly offer'd to the consideration of the publick / by James Paston ...	Paston, James, d. 1722?	1688 (1688)	Wing P665; ESTC R915	15,251	41

This that good King had too much cause to say for He had found it true by a woful Experience and this our present Gracious Sovereign seems to consider For He tells us in His Declaration not only that Conscience ought not to be constrain'd but that He is confirm'd in this Oppinion the more by the Reflections He has made upon the Conduct of the four last Reigns for after all the frequent and pressing endeavours that were used in them to reduce this Kingdom to an exact Conformity in Religion it is visible that the Success has not answered the Design and that the Difficulty is invinsible So that His Majesty in Granting a Toleration does no more than what His Brother did no more than what His Father Advised no more than what His Royal Wisdom by weighing the precedent management of Publick Affairs sees to be expedient and necessary Nay some of those very Men who so Zealously exclaim against it have themselves resolv'd in Parliament as I have been inform'd and with a nemine contradicente that the Penal Laws were grievous to the Subject gave advantage to Popery and were destructive to the Protestant Religion and why therefore should these Men especially be displeased that the King has suspended such Laws as themselves thought so pernicious Why should they envy the King the Pleasure and the Honour of thus mercifully easing His Subjects of their Grievances and thereby securing that Religion which these Patriots would seem so tender of the Reason is too shameful to be mention'd and therefore I shall pass it over in silence And besides let us but consider what good such Severities have done what advantage the Church has made of putting the Penal Laws in Execution It may be some very few by this means have been brought to a real Conformity whilst none knows but that Gentleness might have won more But then many have thereby been scar'd into Hypocrisy and have entered under the Sacred Roofs only for shelter not from meer Excommunication no this they accounted but Brutum fulmen But from the danger which followed to consume their Goods and Estates They chose to go to Church to keep from going to Goal Whilst many thousands to avoid both transplanted themselves and Families in Foreign Countreys to the ruine of Trade and impoverishing the Kingdom and others who stay'd though devided among themselves yet united against the Church of England which the several Dissenters look'd upon as their Common Enemy and under that notion it was ruin'd in the time of Charles the First and its overthrow has been contriving by them ever since This has made the Peace of the Kingdom unsettled and render'd the Estates and Lives of its Inhabitants continually unsafe And if the Dissenters from her should meet with as fit a Juncture as Mr. Fox did to Write a Book of Martyrs to set forth in frightful representations the Proceedings of Ecclesiastical Courts and describe with such horrid ugliness the Chancellors Commissarys and Apparitors with the Imprisonments Pillorings and Banishments with the Starvings of Families the Burnings the Hangings and Quarterings which have been inflicted since the Reformation doubtless it would cause as great a Dread and Abhorrence of the Church of England as ever Mr. Foxe's Book did of that of Rome For People have and do conspire against their Persecutors or Prosecutors whoever they be and are provok'd by severities from whence soever they proceed and when they are so provok'd the danger is too great to be slighted where the Malecontents are numerous For there never want Men Men of no Religion to make their advantage of the Religious Discontents in the mistaken tho well-meaning Dissenters So the House of Bourbon to revenge themselves for the supposed wrong which they had offer'd them in the Court of France according to the subtile advice of Admiral Coligny made use of the Hughonots who were discontented for being deny'd a Toleration to work its dreadfu Revenge and dreadful I may call it for by this means that wretched Kingdom groan'd under the dismal misery of a Civil War for the space of almost Forty years Davila's Hist of the Civil Wars of France lib. 1. pag. 18 19. Printed in the Year 1678. So our Ambitious Commonwealths-Men made use of our Dissenters to destroy Monarchy when these Dissenters also were discontented for want of a Toleration and gall'd with the Penal Laws in the Reign of Charles the First and by their help they subverted the Government both of Church and State. In the doing of which what Blood was spilt what Rapine what Sacriledges what Murder was committed But our Gracious King has prevented such horrid Miseries has secur'd His Subjects from the like civil Ruins and Devastations for by suspending the Penal Laws he has obstucted the pernicious Designs of these wicked and Commonweal-principled-Men It is in vain now for these Politicians to think to destroy the Government and Usurp the Rights of their King and their fellow Subjects by those that want a Toleration for none want one So that for my part I see no reason why we should not think ourselves why every Party should not think it self more safe now than at any time for many years before nor can I imagine since the Church of England in her publick Canons and Constitutions owns so much Power in the King why her Members should forbear thanking His Majesty for His Gracious Promise to make use of this Power to Potect this Church although Himself be of another why when all Parties return their grateful acknowledgments of His Royal Favour they should generally persist in their Non-Addressing humour and come behind even those whom they have tax'd with Dis-loyalty It will make some imagine and they do object it that the reason why the Dissenters have been Dis-loyal is only because Kings have endeavour'd to suppress them and the reason why the Members of the Church of England have been Loyal is only because Kings have endeavoured to support them by suppressing all that are not of her Communion But what Cause have any of her Members to murmur and complain the King takes not from her any of those means by which Christianity at first prevail'd nay he protects her in the Exercise of her Religion in the Injoyment of her Honours and Revenues He suffers her not indeed to disturb any for matters of meer Religion But then he suffers none to disturb her for himself under the great King of Heaven is the Gracious and common Defence of all My humble advice is therefore that none would follow the Humours of mistaken interested and revengeful Men who care not though they Sacrifice the publick Peace to their own private Advantage and froward Discontent It is but reasonable that all sorts of Men endeavour to make His Majesties Government easie for all enjoy the benefit of it and that by a Peaceable and quiet Behaviour and though there be difference in Religion yet let there be one and the same Loyalty in all for it is Due from all and that upon the account of Interest as well as Duty For according to that saying of Caarles I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 15. Different Professions in point of Religion cannot any more then in civil Trades take away that Community of Relations either to Parents or Princes And before in the same Chapter Differences of Persuasion may easily fall out where there is the sameness of Duty Allegiance and Loyalty I wish with all my heart that it were not seasonable to advertise some Men that as it is unlawful to take up Arms so also even the Tongue or Pen against the King upon any pretence whatsoever That the same Duty Allegiance and Loyalty not only obliges us to tye up our Hands from Striking but to restrain the Pen from Writing and that as sharp Instrument the Tongue from making any Invectives any keen Reflections upon the Actions of his Sacred Majesty who is the common Parent of his Country commonly the one is but a preparative to the other and Reflecting and Murmuring but more wary steps to Rebellion Let us not therefore upon any pretence whatsoever take up so much as these Weapons and I am sure as yet we have no colourable pretence to do so and I really believe we never shall have any Let us live in that peace which the Spirit of meekness recommends and indispensably injoyns And let our main contention be who shall most adorn His Christian Profession by true Piety to God the King of Kings by true Loyalty and Obedience to his Vicegerent King James the Second May whose Gracious Reign continue over Us till any Party shall desire its own Suppression by its Adversary FINIS