Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	liberty_n	papist_n	protestant_n	1,212	5	9.6046	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38667	The Established test in order to the security of His Majesties sacred person, and government, and the Protestant religion against the malitious attempts and treasonable machinations of Rome.		1679 (1679)	Wing E3344; ESTC R229328	28,913	58

assist the Government manifest their own innocency and detect the guilty by endeavouring to promote the Common Security yet one would think that which they call their Religion and Conscience should oblige them to submit to this or any other way of Trial and discrimination they may hope for indulgence from Protestants though of differing opinions but they must not hope for the least crums of Indulgence or favour from Papists not all the services they have done them will be remembred with the least gratitude or tenderness no consideration of tender Consciences is able to soften those hearts who are more obdurate then Marble and Adamant and as Charles the Ninth of France in whose Reign the Massacre of Paris was executed said to the Prince of Condé Mass Death or the Bastile so would they say to all Protestants whether Dissenters or others Turn or burn For unless they be secret Papists which no body can tell but they are if they will not submit to a way of Trial and unless they resolve to be open and professed ones upon the first opportunity they cannot expect any favour or Clemency from prevailing Popery it is stream so rapid and violent that it drowns all that will not swim down the furious torrent and should that inundation break our banks all Protestants must either make Shipwrack of their Lives and Fortunes or of their Faith and a good Conscience for they would verifie their rule to a letter Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus No safety in any sence is with them to be found expected or so much as hoped for out of the Ark of their Church For though the Church of England as that which stands the main pillar of Truth be what they chiefly hate and endeavour to ruine yet in the fall thereof they would certainly crush all other Pretenders to Reformation of what names or distinction soever In extraordinary Cases of such impendent danger people do not use to be so critically scrupulous whatever they may be at other times but every mans fear is his own Pope and can grant dispensations for matters of greater scruple then this can be if any persons can think themselves secure or out of danger not onely at this time but at all times so long as England is infested with such Wolves and Tygers it must be such people as either have no Religion and so care not what is uppermost but like empty clouds can ride upon any wind and change into any form or such as desire the Romish Religion may again prevail and be established in these Nations or else such as are not sensible that the Doctrines and Practice of that Church teach and authorize Sedition Rebellion Murder and the utter extirpation of all Heretiques by all or any ways or methods whatsoever To convince people of this there is nothing more clear and evident not onely from the Writings of private Doctors among them but from several Bulls of former Popes and from the Decrees of their Councils which would be too long here to insert and are already notoriously known to all learned men and for those who want either opportunity or ability to peruse their Writings they may read enough in the Bloody Rubricks of their Actions to convince them of the reality as well as greatness of their danger nor need they seek for Foreign Examples who will not credit those before given our own Country and this City Renowned over all the habitable World will afford the most unlettered People instances more then enough both of former times and yet fresh and bleeding date Smithfield will never forget the cruel Bonfires of Queen Maries short life and Reign and what treatment our Fathers were to have received from the Invincible Armada of Eighty Eight had it proved more then an unluckly boast the whips chains shackles knives daggers and other Instruments of cruelty with which and Savage Butchers that Navy made the Ocean groan are certainly able to instruct the dullest or the weakest capacities Nor are the Jesuits grown more mild or gentle by the f equent disappointments which our merciful and gracious God had in compassion to us given them but rather more furious and exasperated and since Heaven refuses to favour their Treasons they have made a Covenant with Hell and an agreement with Death to take their part I will not repeat the confident and beyond all former things audacious Murthers which they have committed even since the discovery of their intended Conspiracy there is not a child in the Streets but can give a Narrative of the Tragedy so unrelenting and incorrigible are they even when the Rod of God is upon them and so blinded with the rage of cruelty and revenge that they will not see that the hand of God is gone out against them and what would they do then should God permit them to ride in triumph over our heads certainly their proud waters would have gone even over our soul they would have swallowed us up quick when they were so wrathfully displeased at us And whenever the bottom of this dark design shall be opened when these chambers of Death and habitations of Cruelty shall be exposed to the light of the Sun which it is to be hoped a little time will do the whole World shall be witness that there is little reason to doubt a syllable of what I have written There is but one thing more which at present I would propose to the Consideration of People and especially those of this City which is justly celebrated as the most noble Emporium or Mart of the World That our greatness strength and power our Riches and trade and in a word the well-being plenty and prosperity as well as the Peace of our Nation does in the greatest measure depend upon our Maritine strength there will not be found any who can deny That this strength at Sea depends upon the encouragement and support of Traffick and Navigation will likewise be agreed on all hands That it is therefore and ought to be the design of every good Subject and Citizen as well as it is of the King and Government to promote these will by an undeniable Consequence follow from these premises How invidiously all our Neighbours especially those of the Roman Religion look upon this great power of our Nation at Sea and how ingrateful that Vniversal Traffique which we maintain throughout the World is to them is easily to be observed by their endeavouring to come in with us for a share they know little of the affairs of France who do not take notice how industrious that Monarch and his great Ministers of State and particularly Monsieur Colbert are to encourage and extend the arms of their Foreign Trade and to discourage all besides the Natives of France and how Considerable within this few years they have have themselves in comparison of former times and whoever shall view the Ports of Thoulon Marseilles Brest Rochel c. And see them proud with their stately Castles

but generally to the Woods and Forrests nor there how to supply the necessities of Nature having nothing left them but their lives and no way of securing those long from the importunities of Cold and Famine thus did they languish out a few miserable hours till faint and weary they became a prey to the Wolves or fell into the paws of the Tories the less merciful beasts of the two How many mournful and desolate Widows how many distressed and miserable Orphans were then exposed to all the miseries of lif● before they knew what it was to live and compelled to suffer all Extremities before they had done good or evil Oh Injustice and uncomiserating Cruelty Oh more then brutish Inhumanity And if the Romish Religion command encourage and reward such execrable barbarity to be exercised upon the Innocent what kind of Revenge can we imagine will they nor invent for those who dare oppose them what torments what lingring and retail deaths would they think enough for such grand Heretiques as have slain their Apostles whom they have employed to convert us to the Catholique Faith Suetonius reports of Tiberius Caesar one of the Popes predecessors in the Roman throne that he was a person so extraordinary cruel that when a condemned person made it his importunate request that he might be dispatched quickly he gave him this bitter Sarcasm in answer Nondum tecum redii in gr●tiam No Sir by your favour you and I are not yet come to be such good friends Certainly not onely Romulus but Rome her self her Kings Emperors and Popes have been nursed by Wolves for sure the breasts of any thing that has humane shape must instill sentiments more tender and compassionate There is not the most guilty head that shall suffer deserved Death for this Execrable Conspiracy but will be esteemed a Saint and Martyr in the Romish Church Their great St. Thomas of Canterbury so famous for his Shrine and Miracles and the infamous Prayers made to him as a Rival of the Son of God who was by the account we have of Him in our History as ungrateful a Rebel to his Prince as can be imagined may abundantly satisfie us in that particular and if ever they come to reckon with us for such precious blood it may be easily conjectur'd at what rate we must pay for those Canonizations let us be assured that a thousand fold would not be look'd upon as a Compensation for the lives of such as though we justly think Monsters they believe to be Miracles of men while they lived and would perswade their blind Votaries that their very shrines can do Miracles after their Death The Pope and his Ministers of Cruelty will never be so far reconciled to any Protestants that shall come within their power as to let them die at once but would be as gratious to them as Caligula another Heathen Pope or Emperor was to such as by his Tyranny were condemned to die and that as the Historian relates was that he was used to command them to be so executed ut se sentirent mori He would not have them lose their lives by Leger de main and a slight of hand but they must die by inches and be sensible of every slow degree of approaching death What pen can describe the terrible dresses of uncommon deaths which would be invented for us What tongue is able to express its ghastly shapes and the new fashion'd garments of Cruelty or the rage of prevailing Popery What heart can think of them and of suffering them without the extremest horror If death in his mildest and most natural appearance be so dreadful as to deserve the title of the most terrible of all Terribles what must he be when he is accompanied with all the Inventions of Tyranny Who that saw them or that heard the sad Relation can remember London in her raging Flames without astonishment who can think upon her dismal Ruines and ashes without amazement how did all faces gather blackness how were they pained what tremblings of heart at the flying Rumors of a Massacre then intended What horror Confusion and astonishment would lay hold upon us if we should see our Enemies break in upon us like an overflowing fire a fire devouring before them and behind them a flame burning the land as the Garden of Eden before them and behind them a desolate wilderness and no possibility of Escaping but they who fled from the fire must fall upon the glittering Sword they who escaped the drawn sword must perish by Famine and is it possible there should be any persons who will not contribute all they can to prevent these which are not only imaginary but real dangers Can it be look'd upon as a thing so indifferent that people should run all these hazzards that a whole Nation should lie at Stake and perish rather then they will abate a foolish scruple or a rigid opinion to preserve them rather then go to the places dedicated to the service of God and receive the holy Sacrament thereby to dec are their own Innocence and detect the Authors of our danger the Enemies of our Peace and Safety Sure it is much easier to kneel at the holy Table out of Reverence not adoration of the Bread and Wine then to have the choice either to kneel and adore a Consecrated Wafer or to kneel at a Stake in Smithfield Is it not far better to wash our hands in innocence and offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiving then to be guilty of the blood of so many as should suffer by our being accessory to the accomplishment of the Traiterous designs of the Jesuits and Sacrifice a Nation and many succeeding generations many people of other Nations to the Romish cruelty meerly out of obstinacy to our own prejudices and it may be Fancies which these very Jesuits and Seminaries have put in our heads Certainly all those who would not be thought and in the Eye of the Law Esteemed Recusants and Papists ought not to make the least scruple to use this or any other lawful and necessary expedient that shall by the publick Wisdom be thought necessary for our common preservation Nor will it be satisfactory that they shall in words disown the Church of Rome and declaim against it or disavow all Confederacy or Complotting with the Papists the arrantest Jesuit in England will do this upon occasion to save his own life and endanger ours and if they hinder the building up of the Walls of our Jerusalem what does it signifie how much they either say they do or hate the Church of Rome since whether they conspire with the Papists or not if they assist them in accomplishing their intended Design of Ruining the Protestant Religion it is the same thing only with this difference that what the one party does with Design the other does with their folly And though men should not value their Estates Lives or Liberties which some people seem willing to part with rather then