Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	child_n	father_n	life_n	5,155	5	4.4801	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45068	The humble petition of the Protestants of France to the French-King, to recall his declaration for taking their children from them at the age of seven years		1681 (1681)	Wing H3576; ESTC R659	5,012	4

The Humble PETITION OF THE Protestants of France TO THE French-KING To Recall His Declaration for taking their Children from them at the Age of Seven Years SIR YOUR Majesties Protestant Subjects of the Reformed Religion most humbly represent to your Majesty That the registring of your Majesties Declaration of the 17 th of June last plunges them into a Desolation which scarcely leaves them the free use of their sences Yet they presume to address to your Majesty perswaded that being as they are most Humble and Loyal Subjects the access to your Majesties Justice will not be denied them and that your Majesty will not reject their Complaints therein imitating God whose Ears are always open to the Cries of the Distressed In this Confidence Sir prostrate at your Majesties Feet with all the humble Reverence they are capable of they beseech your Majesty to consider That this Declaration is directly contrary to the Edict of Nants under which they live and which was given them as a perpetual and irrevokable Law For besides that this Edict of Nants necessarily supposes that they should enjoy all the Rights both Natural and Civil that are common to all your Majesties Subjects and that among these Rights that which makes Parents Masters of the Education of their Children till they attain ripeness of age is one of the most Sacred and Inviolable it is upon the account of these Articles also their due and indisputable Right The 18 th Article expresly forbids that any of their Children who are of the said Religion should either by force or perswasion contrary to the will of their Parents be taken away from them to be Baptized or Confirmed in the Roman Catholick Church Without all contradiction this prohibition extends beyond seven years of age since that none are Confirmed till after that age and if it be not precisely set down till the age of 14. that is to say during all the time that Children are not of years of consent and have no legal will the reason is because it was presupposed as a Maxim which was never yet called into question It is in the same sense that the 38 th Article is concerning the particulars which gives to the Parents professing the said Religion liberty to provide such Tutors for their Children as they think good and substitute one or more either by Wills or Codicels or other Declarations past in the presence of Notaries or written and signed with their own hands Your Majesty Sir is most humbly prayed to weigh exactly this term of Tutors even after the death of their Fathers for it clearly demonstrates that the Edict had respect to the Right of Parents over their Children not only during their own lives Inviolable but as a Right extending it self after their Death which no zeal of Religion or other pretence whatsoever can infringe and far from being limited to the age of seven years it maintains and keeps it self in force during the whole course of their Education which scarcely begins at that age and is very much restrained when it is confined within the term of 14 years the age of natural ripeness Sir the Edict of Nants was not the first Law in this Case By the Petition answered in the year 1571. in the Reign of King Charles IX a time in which those of the Protestant Reformed Religion were most afflicted the Rights of Parents over their Children were so Inviolable that it was said in the 24 th Article that they should not be molested in the Instruction of their Children in their own Religion according to their Consciences and that after the death of the Fathers those Children should be bred up in the same Religion till they accomplished 14 years of age at which time they should be at liberty But none of your Majesties Predecessors have more established the Authority of this Law than your Majesty For besides several Orders given in your Majesties Council of State in the years 1663. and 1665. which are full and plain in the Case the Declaration of 1669. doth expresly forbid all sorts of persons whatsoever not only to take away by force or stealth any of the Children of the said Religion but also to presume to instruct them or to perswade them to make any Declaration of the change of their Religion before the Males arrive to to the age of 14. and the Females of 12. and in the mean time before they accomplish this age that the Children born of Fathers of the said Religion should remain in the hands of their Kindred of the said Religion and all those that should detain them should be constrained to render them by the usual ways and means of recovery The same thing was confirmed by a Determination which the Archbishop of Rhemes caused to be set forth in the month of August 1676. by which he judged and and declared That no Maid should be received into the House of the Propagation of the Faith at Sedan till she had fully accomplished 12 years of age and that she had plainly shewed a true desire of Conversion presupposing that there could not be an effective Conversion before that age If yet Sir your Majesty will condescend to hear the most humble Remonstrances of your Supplicants let it please your Majesty to permit them to set before you that there will be a vast difference found between your Majesties own Declaration in 1669. and this The first left unto Nature its Priviledges and unto men the liberty of acting according to their Consciences No ways thwarted the Principles of Civil and Canon-Law nor hindred Parliaments from proceeding according their ordinary Rules This gave to strangers a pattern worthy of their imitation and to the Roman Catholick Religion the glory of preserving measures of Equity conformable to the practice of all the ancient Churches But on the other hand this Law no ways agrees with all these Noble Characters Nature will suffer violence when Children shall be torn from the Bosoms of those to whom she had at seven years of age more especially committed them then before because that at that age they begin to be capable of Instruction and their Fathers then actually enter into possession of their Right to give it them The Consciences of your Petitioners will thereby be brought into the most extream perplexity that can be imagined in as much as the right exercise of the paternal authority is one of the strongest and most indispensible Duties of which man is to render an account to God whereby the Father is made responsible before him for all the Actions of his Children as a Trust reposed in him by Nature as long as they continue under his Direction Civil and Ecclesiastical Rites further plead for the Supplicants for if Children are capable before their ripe age of choosing a Religion which is the most Important Action of the whole life why are they not allowed either to make Wills or to bear any valuable Testimony in the Courts of Justice or