Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	faith_n	good_a	work_n	6,774	5	6.2905	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37887	The ordinance and declaration of the Lords and Commons for the assessing all such who have not contributed sufficiently for raising of money, plate &c. with His Majesties declaration to all his loving subjects upon occasion thereof.	England and Wales. Parliament.	1642 (1642)	Wing E1767; ESTC R29749	10,604	18

Reputation of the severall Counties of England are now imprisoned without any objection against them but suspition of their loyalty How many of the gravest and most sustantiall Citizens of London by whom the government and discipline of that City was preserved are disgraced robbed and imprisoned without any processe of Law or colour of accusation but of obedience to the Law and Government of the Kingdome whil'st Anabaptists and Brownists with the assistance of vitious and deboshed persons of desperate Fortunes take upon them to break up and rifle houses as publike and avowed Ministers of a new invented Authority How many godly pious and painfull Divines whose lives and learning hath made them of Reverend estimation are now slandered with inclination to popery discountenanced and imprisoned for discharging their Consciences in instructing the people in the Christian duty of Religion and Obedience whilst Schismaticall illiterate and scandalous preachers fill the Pulpits and Churches with blasphemie irreverence and treason and incite their Auditory to nothing but murther and rebellion We passe over the vulgar charm by which they have captivated such who have been contented to dispence with their Consciences for the preservation of their estates and by which they perswade men chearfully to part with this twentieth part of their estate to the good work in hand for whoever will give what he hath may escape robbing They shall be repaid upon the publick faith as all other monies lent upon the Propositions of both Houses It may be so but men must be condemned to a strange unthriftinesse who will lend upon such securitie The publick Faith indeed is as great an earnest as the State can give and engages the Honour Reputation and Honesty of the Nation and is the Act of the Kingdome it is the security of the King the Lords and Commons which can never need an Executour can never die never be Bankrupt and therefore We willingly consented to it for indemnitie of Our good Subjects of Scotland who we hope will not think the worse of it for being so often and so cheaply mentioned since But that a Vote of one or both Houses should be an engagement upon the publick faith is as impossible as that the Committee of the House of Commons for Examinations should be the High Court of Parliament And what is or can be said with the least shadow of reason to justifie these extravagances We have not lately heard of the old fundamentall Laws which used to warrant the Innovations this needs a Refuge even below those foundations They will say they cannot manage their great undertakings without such extraordinarie wayes We think so too but that proves onely they have undertaken somewhat they ought not to undertake not that it is lawfull for them to do any thing that is convenient for those ends We remembred them long ago and We cannot do it too often of that excellent Speech of M. Pyms The Law is that which puts a difference betwixt good and evil betwixt just and unjust if you take away the Law all things will fall into a confusion every man will become a Law unto himself which in the depraved condition of humane nature must needs produce many great enormities Lust will become a Law and Envy will become a Law Coveteousnesse and Ambition will become Lawes and what Dictates what Decisions such Lawes will produce may easily be discerned It may indeed by the sad instances over the whole Kingdome But will Posteritie believe that in the same Parliament this doctrine was avowed with that Acclamation and these instances after produced That in the same Parliament such care was taken that no man should be committed in what case soever without the cause of his Imprisonment expressed and that all men should be immediately bayled in all Cases baylable and during the same Parliament that Alderman Pennington or indeed any body else but the sworn Ministers of Justice should imprison whom they would and for what they would and for as long time as they would That the King should he reproached with breach of Priviledge for accusing Sir John Hotham of high treason when with force of Arms he kept him out of Hull and despised him to his face because in no case a Member of either House might be committed or accused without leave of that House of which he is a Member and yet that during the same Parliament the same Alderman should commit the Earl of Middlesex a Peer of the Realm and the Lord Buckhurst a Member of the House of Commons to the Counter without reprehension That to be a Traitour which is defined every man understands should be no crime and to be called a Malignant which no body knows the meaning of should be ground enough for close imprisonment That a Law should be made that whosoever should presume to take tunnage and poundage without an Act of Parliament should incurre the penaltie of a Premunire and the same Parliament that the same imposition should be laid upon Our Subjects and taken by an Order of both Houses without and against Our consent Lastly that the same Parliament a Law should be made to declare the proceedings and judgement upon ship-money to be illegall and void and during that Parliament that an Order of both Houses shall upon pretence of necessitie inable foure men to take away the twentieth part of their estates from all their Neighbours according to their discretion But Our good Subjects will no longer look upon these and the like results as upon the Counsels and conclusions of both Our Houses of Parliament though all the world knows even that Authority can never justifie things unwarrantable by the Law they well know how few of the Persons trusted by them are present at their consultations of above 500 not 80. and of the House of Peers not a fifth part that they who are present enjoy not the Priviledge and Freedome of Parliament but are besieged by an Army and awed by the same tumults which drave Vs and their fellow-Members from thence to consent to what some few Seditious Schismaticall Persons amongst them do propose These are the men who joyning with the Anabaptists and Brownists of London first changed the Government and Discipline of that City and now by the pride and power of that City would undoe the Kingdome whilst their Lord Major a Person accused and known to be guilty of high Treason by a new Legislative power of his own suppresses and reviles the book of Common-prayer robbes and imprisons whom he thinks fit and with the rabble of his Faction gives Laws to both Houses of Parliament and tells them they will have no Accommodation whilst the Members sent and entrusted by their Countreys are expelled the House or committed for refusing to take the Oath of Association to live and die with the Earl of Essex as very lately Sir Sidny Mountague These are the men who have presumed to send Ambassadours and to enter into treaties with forrain States in their own behalfs having at this time an Agent of their own with the States of Holland to negotiate for them upon private instructions These are the men who not thinking they have yet brought mischief enough upon this Kingdome at this time invite and sollicite Our Subjects of Scotland to enter this land with an Army against Vs. In a word these are the men who have made this last devouring Ordinance to take away all Law Libertie and Property from Our people and have by it really acted that upon Our people which with infinite malice and no colour or ground was laboured to be infused into them to have been Our intention by the Commission of Array We have done what power and Authority these men have or will have we know not for Our self we challenge none such We look upon the pressures and inconveniences Our good Subjects beare even by Vs and Our Army which the Army first raised by them enforced Vs to leavy in Our defence and their refusall of all offers and desires of Treaty enforceth Vs to keep with very much sadnesse of heart We are so far from requiring a twentieth part of their estates though for their own visible preservation that as We have already sold or pawned Our own Jewels coyned Our own Plate so We are willing to sell all Our own Land and Houses for their relief yet We do not doubt but Our good Subjects will seriously consider Our condition and their own duties and think Our readinesse to protect them with the utmost hazard of Our life deserves their readines to assist Vs with some part of their fortunes whilst other men give a 20th part of their estates to enable them to forfeit the other nineteen that they wil extend themselves to Us in a liberal free proposition for the preservation of the rest for the maintenance of Gods true religion the Laws of the Land the Liberty of the Subject and the safety and very being of Parliaments and this Kingdome for if all these ever were or can be in manifest danger it is now in this present Rebellion against Vs. Lastly We will and require all Our loving Subjects of what degree or quality soever as they will answer it to God to Vs and to posterity by their oathes of Allegeance and Supremacy as they would not be looked upon now and remembred hereafter as betrayers of the Laws and Liberty they were born to that they in no degree submit to this wilde pretended Ordinance and that they presume not to give any encouragement or assistance to the Army now in Rebellion against Vs which if notwithstanding they shall do they must expect from Vs the severest punishment the Law can inflict and a perpetuall Infamy with all good men FINIS