Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	day_n	lord_n	sabbath_n	19,256	5	10.0267	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84179	The evill spirit conjur'd, and cast out of the Parliament		1653 (1653)	Wing E3555B; ESTC R225958	12,767	54

are in good hands and we may no wayes doubt but those who have so well begun will not be wanting to the perfectioning of them FINIS To the Supreme Authority of this Common-wealth of England The Honourable Court of Parliament now sitting The humble Petition of several of the Godly party in the County of Salop Sheweth THat we cannot omit the acknowledgment of all those various Providences God hath made his people in this Nation partakers of in owning our Armies and making them both formidable to and victorious over our Enemies at Sea and Land in staining the glory of the proud dedegrading unprofitable men from their stations and planting you in their room whose beginnings begin to revive our hopes That our Lord Iesus Christ will yet have in England men executing judgement and speaking the truth Certainly if you go on we doubt not but the children that are to be born will have cause to call you blessed as the repairers of our Breaches the restorers of paths to dwel in and you will render your selves of more worth and value than thousands so that your precedency of Honour and Grace will transcend your predecessors and in all probability God will establish you as so many Luminaries in your stations to shine more and more unto the day of our deliverance In hopes whereof as also of your real inclinations to hearken to the desires of the meanest Saint and of those that wish well to Truth Peace amongst the other large endeavours of others we have taken the liberty of presenting the small mite of our Proposals which we hope will be looked at amongst the thousand of Israel 1. That as God hath trusted you in a special manner with the guarding of the Truth and Gospel you will have a special eye to the propagation thereof And because there ar many idle ignorant scandalous malignant Ministers permitted that endeavour the subversion thereof as apears to many of the dear Saints of Christ to the great grief of their spirits We humbly desire that some speedy course may be taken for the ejection of such men and the setling of those that are fit and faithful for so great a work and that those may not be suffered as Preachers thereof who hate to see it prosper and stand like the Red Dragon ready to devour the child Grace as soon as born 2. That notwithstanding the sufferings of many of the People and the great deliverances vouchsafed them yet they scarcely know them as by the effects of them in any encouragement they have yet received more than the most notorious and bitterest of your Enemies It is proposed that you will have a special regard to your friends above your enemies Had the late King prevailed his friends had received large rewards as appears by his own Ingagements you and yours threatned with total destruction Oh then why should you not countenance your friends as well as your enemies theirs we hope you will not tread in the paths of your predecessors to reward evil for good but will give the right child to the right mother and suffer those now to rejoyce with you who have formerly mourned with you and will still while you are for God live and die with you 3 Because we hear many Souldiers complain who have ventured their lives from the beginning and want imployment since their willing submission to former commands of Disbanding we humbly propose That a deep inspection may be made in your Army for the ejection of those that would not be listed for you so long as they could find an Army with which to fight against you and the number may be made up again by those who have been your constant friends 4. That whereas many men by their fawning flatteries lie at your doors out of sinister ends to beg for places we desire that none may be admitted to any place of trust either in the Army or Common-wealth but such as are known to you for men of fidelity and integrity or else commended to you by the Certificate of five or six of your Friends that so things may be carried on more by the publick spirit of the Saints than the private spirit of any whatsoever 5. That whereas we hear many of our Nation saying to you as the children of Israel to Rehoboam take away our burthens take away our taxations we further propose That the burthen of Contribution may be laid upon those who have been the grand Incendiaries and Contrivers of the War we mean the Cavaliers it being unjust as we humbly conceive that they should cut out the work and we bear the burthen they double the tale of Brick and we do the Task O let the right child have the right Mother it will make them more willing to sit still 6. That whereas many take liberty of keeping Wakes setting up Morice Dances and other prophane Sports against which there is no particular Law we humbly desire some positive Rules may be framed for suppressing thereof 7. In regard it it generally observed that the foul Sins of Adultery and Fornication are too frequently unpunished more than before the day of our deliverance for which our Enemies reproach us sich the Act only limits the punishment to the testimony of two Witnesses that a mock may not be made of such foul sins We desire a way may be found and some special Law instituted for the punishmet thereof 8. That in regard of the freedom given to Saints in their several Churches and meetings on the Lords day is abused so that Papists and other prophane persons take liberty of contemning the Sabbath and publick Ordinances and spend the day vainly and idly in their houses or else walking in the Fields we propose That some special course may be taken of restraint that the freedom of the Saints may not be turned to the prophanation of the Lords Day 9. That the Excize may be taken away in the oppressive manner of farming it that poor people may not be bought and sold in this Nation as too frequently they are and some raise vast estates by the bargain 10. That the poor which dayly swarm in England both in City and Country begging in the Highways and at our houses to the great dishonour and prejudice of the Nation may in some due way be provided for and not suffered to wander as Vagabonds upon the face of the earth And your Petitioners shall pray c. Animadversions ON THE PETITION THere is nothing more specious than the name of Reformation and nothing less than the thing it self I mean that which the vulgar magnifie and cry up so much the disease of mens minds rather than of the Times untill their Imagination fools them into a real malady and never lets them recover afterwards the Itch of Good Times and the Ulcer of Ill most pernicious to Kingdoms and Commonwealths as alwayes Enemy to present Government Every one who would trouble the State taking it for their pretext till

to have made a crime and an offence wisely admitted them by divers Treaties to Composition and lastly by the Act of Oblivion to the common Freedom and Liberty with the rest which now to infringe were no lesse dishonourable than dangerous But in the 8th their main Combat is against the Papist who is alwayes the Giant these doughty Sir Lancelots and Don Quixots must overcome and like old Calianax in the Play beat over and over when any else hath offended them whom they dare not meddle with The poor Papist by perpetual ill usage having been so cow'd and cowarded as he lies quaking and trembling and dares do nothing but pray that no body may molest him he accounting it obligation to those who but strike him only when they have power to kill He is the Dogg that 's always beaten in the Lions presence and be the fault whose it will he is sure to undergo the blame and punishment so as if Persecution be no the nighest way to Heaven certainly he goes the farthest way about Their Adversaries such as these Petitioners always crying out against them like cunning Thieves who joyn with the Hub-bub and follow True men with Hue and Cry the better to escape themselves And truly I do not know why all your new sale-made Religions though differing among themselves should joyn so unanimously and with so great Animosity against the Papist unlesse perhaps for fear they should marr their Market just like that bungling Painter who having painted a Cock most monstrously ill set his Boy to keep away all Cocks from about his shop for fear lest in comparison with them the deformity of his work should more manifestly appear they advantaging the Papist the whilst by making people imagine that there is somwhat extraordinary in their Religion rendring it incompatible with all other Sects and make this dilemma that either all Religions professing Christ are true or but only one if all why not the Papist amongst the rest if but one why are not the rest as much persecuted as he And here I cann't omit a plesant saying of K. James That the Papist was his honest Ass on whom he might impose what burthen and load he pleased and hee 'd grunt and grunt but patiently bear it still wheras the Puritan was like a skittish Jade which kicks and winces at the least load laid on him crying out before he was hurt to keep off danger still far enough from him which skittishnesse of his hath render'd him so resty and pampered as none dare hazard the breaking and backing him but only the Army to whom nothing is difficult and impossible the enterprizing of taming which wild and head-strong Bucephalus to their perpetual fame and felicity like another Alexander seeming only to be reserv'd to them Mean while whosoever out of these unworthy timid respects does tolerate them shall find as your Kings have done by dear Experiment at last that they are in Kingdoms and Commonwealths just like your Hedge-hoggs brood which when the Damn finds prickly in her womb she shrinks up and dares not inforce her self to be delivered of it till deferring it from day to day they becom so grievous and intolerable at last as they cannot be delivered of them but with their lives and all And here comes well to purpose to the Army and the Commonwealth into whose number these would so fain insinuat themselves the Fable of the Hare and Hedge-hogg who in a cold winters night came to the form or muset of the Hare desiring to shelter there against the rigor of the season to whom the Hare at first answered wisely that her form was but strait and narrow and he so prickly as without her much Incommodity she could not admit nor harbour him when he craftily replyed That for his prickles as he could bristle them up against an Enemy so for a Friend he could couch them so close unto his back as they should feel them no more than as if they were down or feathers which the Hare simply believing admitted him into her form where he was no sooner come but he began to bristle so gor'd the poor Hare as she cried out for pain when the Hedge-hogg gave it only this comfort and answer for all its hospitality That those who found themselves agrieved might quit the place and here I leave to each one the Application to come to the examining what grievous crime they charge the Papist with as 't is most commonly no less than the Invasion of the Land or the blowing up the Thames c. to the destruction both of fish and flesh For that Papists c. say they take liberty of contemning the Sabbath and publique Ordinances and spend the day vainly and idlely in their houses or else walking in the fields we propose That some special course may be taken of restraint c. And what unreasonable people are these that will not permit them to go to Church nor tarry at home to remain in their houses nor to walk abroad in the fields what they would have of them else I do not know unless they would inforce them to work on the Sabbath day more unreasonable would they be yet to seek to enforce them to go to other Churches besides their own If they think they be so idle at home why do they search their houses so oft to find them at Mass and what restraint they intend I do not see unlesse they mean to pound them when they catch them in the fields In fine their condition is lamentable the whilst they will not permit them the liberty of their own houses nor so much as the benefit of common air But of this enough The next whom they fall foul upon in the 6th are your Wakes and Moris-dances meaning quite to overthrow the Hobby-horse horse and man holding him litle better than the beast and maid Marian the whore of Babylon Mean time what harm the poor Moris-dancers do unto them I do not see but only that the melancholy Devil which possesses them is enemy of all mirth and harmlesse Recreation which makes the poor souls in sighing wish for the merry devil of Edmonton again and the days of Puck and Robin-goodfellow as I doubt not but their wisdoms who govern the Commonwealth wil shortly grant them u'm restore them their former sports again which as they during the Time of our late Calamities did prudently debar them of when indeed all mirth had been unseasonable so that time once over they will suffer them no doubt to return unto them again and consider that as the Poet said Pane Circense give them but sports and bread enough and you may rule them at pleasure whereas take from them but those outward amusements of their minds and you but convert their thoughts inwards to meditate on nothing but their grievances and discontent for which Reason perhaps these men would prohibit and abridge them of them that so they might only study mischief like themselves Mean time such as these would make rare Governors of the Commonwealth who whilst they should be making Acts for the overcoming of our Enemies abroad and rendring us formidable to all the world would be making Acts against Moris-dancers and Hobby-horses to render us ridiculous unto every one And thus much may suffice to shew the malice and foppery of their Petition which I know wil fret and vex them to the very hearts much good do 't their good hearts with it to see the secrets of their Cabal discovered and their designs laid open so pernicious to the present Government of the Commonwealth It being the Religion of the common fry and such brown-bread spirits of the same batch with them they making the Rabble their only Rabbins and inviting them to liberty which in effect is nothing else but licentiousnes and Shrovetide-Ryot such having nothing to lose being sure to gain by each change and mutation The more deserving the Magistrates care and coertion the more numerous and indigent they ar Mean time 't shall never repent me to be an Enemy of those are Enemies to my Country and Religion and I 'm sure the Army Republique will thank me for 't these men being the greatest Enemies they have as their many vain Attempts to change the Government of the one and fight against the other sufficiently declare To conclude all men are to admire the rare temper and wisdom of the State to admit of all Petitions and yet be moved with none but such as may be salutarie for the Commonwealth and rejoice in the Liberty the people of England enjoy the while they can deliver such Petitions as these without being sent to Bedlam for their pains FINIS