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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	die_v	time_n	year_n	9,015	5	4.8371	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65235	Two letters to a friend, concerning the distempers of the present times	R. W.	1686 (1686)	Wing W104; ESTC R222551	25,813	36

TWO LETTERS TO A FRIEND Concerning the DISTEMPERS OF THE Present Times LONDON Printed for Charles Brome at the Gun in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1686. THE FIRST LETTER CONCERNING COMPREHENSION Written 1667. Good Cousin I Am sorry that the Parliaments casting out the Bill of Comprehension should so much concern you as to put you into such a passion as you exprest against them and me at our last nights meeting Sure the Company you now converse with and the strange Principles with which they have now possest you have alter'd your nature and turn'd your former reason into prejudice and unbelief if not you would have believed what I did so seriously affirm to be a known truth namely That this Age is not more severe against the disturbers of the settled Peace and Government of the Church and State than they were in the very happy days of our late and Good Queen Elizabeth Some of the Reasons why I said so I do with very much affection tender to your Consideration and to your Censure too and that the last may be the more charitable and you not apt to make the errours or failings of your Governours seem more or greater than indeed they are let me intreat that you remember what I have very often said to you namely That malicious men of whom really I do not take you to be one are the best Accusers and the worst Judges And indeed I fear it would prove to be a very bitter truth if some did attain that power which too many labour for in these days in which Schism and Sedition are taken to be no sins even by men who pretend a tenderness of Conscience in much smaller matters And that I may keep some order and you be the better satisfied in what I intend in this Letter I earnestly intreat that you will at your next leisure read in Mr. Cambdens true History of the Life and Reign of our Good Queen Elizabeth in which you may find what care was then taken to prevent Schism and the sad confusion that attends it and how the Contrivers of Libels and dispersers of them have been severely punisht many of them even to death as namely Henry Barrow and many of his Sectaries for disturbing the publick peace of the Nation by scattering abroad their monsterous Opinions as also for affirming the Church of England to be no true Church and the like Which you may find written by the said Mr. Cambden in the thirty-sixth year of that Good Queens Reign But I commend more especially to your Consideration the story and sad death of Hacket and his Adherents as namely of Wigirton Arthington and Copinger all Schismaticks and of one Sect and Brotherhood But I say I do most seriously commend to your Consideration the beginning and death of the said Hacket who was first a pretender to a tenderness of Conscience but a Schismatick and stopt not there but became by degrees so fully possest by the evil spirit the spirit of pride and opposition that he publickly reviled the Queen the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellour and being transported with a furious Zeal did at last become from a Schismatick to be so infamous an Heretick that he was condemned to death for his abominable Errors at which time he reviled and curs'd his Judges and died blaspheming and reproaching his Creator This you may read in the Thirty-fourth year of Queen Elizabeth as it is written by honest learned Mr. Cambden who concludes this sad story of Hacket with this observation Thus doth the enemy of Mankind bewitch those men whom he seeth are not content to be wise unto sobriety These stories I say and too many like them you may find in Mr. Cambdens History of Queen Elizabeth and you may find the like in Bishop Spotswoods History of the Church of Scotland and also find the like in Mr. Fullers History of the Church of Great Brittain in which you may observe what labour hath been used by the discontented Non-conformists to unsettle the Government of the Church of England and consequently of the State and may there also find how severely many of them have been punished So that you need not wonder at what I said last night nor think these the only times of persecuting men of tender Consciences And for the better confirmation of what I now write I will refer you to one testimony more in the time of our late peaceful King James Which testimony you may view in the second Volume of the Reports of Judge Crook a man very learned in the Law But I shall first tell you the occasion of that Report which was this The Non-conformists which are in that Report called by the name of Puritans had given out that the King had an intent to set up or give a Toleration to Popery and they had also compos'd a large Petition complaining of the severity of some usage and of some Laws that concerned themselves and desired that the severity of those Laws might be mitigated these and other like desires were in the said Petition to which they had procured not less than seven hundred hands and the close of the Petition was That if these desires were not granted many thousands of his Subjects would be discontented Which indeed was not a threatning but was understood to be somewhat like it This report of his Majesties intent to set up or tolerate Popery begot many fears and discontents in the Nation and to prevent greater disturbances the King did appoint many of his Privy Council and all the Judges of the Land to meet together in the Star-Chamber in which Assembly the Lord Chancellour declared to them the occasion of this their publick Convention and asked the Judges this following question As you may read it in the very same words in the said learned Judges Reports in the second year of the Reign of King James Whether it were an offence punishable and what punishment they deserved who framed Petitions and collected a multitude of hands thereto to prefer to the King in a publick cause as the Puritans had done with an intimation to the King that if he denied their Suit many thousands of his Subjects would be discontented Whereto all the Judges answered that it was an offence finable at discretion and very near Treason and Felony in the punishment for they tended to the raising Sedition Rebellion and Discontent among the People To which Resolution all the Lords agreed And then many of the Lords declared That some of the Puritans had raised a false rumour of the King That he intended to grant a Toleration to Papists Which offence the Judges eonceived to be bainously finable by the Rules of the Common Law either in the Kings Bench or by the King and his Council or now since the Statute of the Third of Henry the Seventh in the Star-Chamber And the Lords severally declared How much the King was discontented with the said false rumour and had made but the day

you unquestionable confirmation of it at our next meeting It has been longer than I intended and I beg your pardon and beg you also to consider with what inconsiderable zeal you and your Party rush into Schism and give just cause of Scandal by opposing Government and affronting that Church in which you were born and baptized and I hope confirmed by a Bishop I think the doing so requires your sad and serious consideration For if there be such sins as Schism and Scandal and if there were not they could not have names in Scripture then give me leave to tell you I cannot but wonder that you and the scruple-mongers of your Party should rush into them without any tenderness or scruple of Conscience And here let me tell you the Church of England which you oppose enjoyns nothing contrary to Gods Word and hath summed up in her Creeds and Catechism what is necessary for every Christian to know and to do And can you that are a Shop-keeper or private man think that you are fit to teach and judge the Church or the Church fit to teach and judge you Or can you think the safety or peace of the State or Church in which you live should depend upon the scruples and mistakes of a party of the Common People whose indiscreet and active zeal makes them like the restless Scribes and Pharisees Mat. 13. 15. who compass Sea and Land to get Parties to be of their opinions and by that means beget confusion in both No doubtless Common reason will not allow of this belief for a liberty to preach and persuade to your dangerous Principles would enflame the too hot and furious zeal of so many of your Party and beget so many more restless and dangerous contentions that there could be neither quiet or safety in a Nation but by keeping a standing Army * Witness the late murther of the Scotch Bishop which I know you detest and from the cause of which God deliver us I have told you often that Samuel says 1 Sam. 15. 23. Rebellion is like the sin of Witchcraft and I cannot tell you too often that Schism is too like that mysterious sin for when the fire of Schism and Rebellion is kindled no man knows where it will end Consider this and remember that St. Jude accounts them that make Sects to be fleshly and not to have the Spirit of God which too many of your Fraternity pretend to And now after so long seriousness give me liberty to be so pleasant as to tell you a Tale by which I intend not to provoke you but to explain my meaning There was a North-Country man that came young and poor to London to seek that which he call'd his fortune and it proved to be an Hostler in an Inn of good note in that City in which condition he continued some years and by diligence and frugality got and saved so much money that in time he became the Master of that Inn. And not long after his arrival to that happiness he sent for three of his Necces one to serve him in his Kitchin and the other two did serve for some years in a like condition in other houses 'till mine Host their Unkle died who at his death left to each of them a hundred pound to buy each of them a North-Country Husband and also to each of them ten pound to buy new Cloaths and bear their charges into the North to see their Mother The three Sisters resolved to go together and the day being appointed two of them bought very fantastical Cloaths and as gaudy Ribbands intending thereby to be noted and admired but the third was of a more frugal humour yet aimed at admiration too and said she would save her money wear her old Cloaths and yet be noted and get reputation at a cheaper rate For she would hold some singular new fantastical opinion in Religion and thereby get admirers and as many as they should and it proved so And doubtless this is the Ambition of many Women Shop-keepers and other of the Common People of very mean parts who would not be admired or noted if they did not trouble themselves and others by holding some odd impertinent singular opinions And tell me freely do not you think that silence would become our Cosin Mrs. B than to talk so much and so boldly against those Clergy-men and others that bow at the Altar she says to the Altar and use other like reverence in Churches where she and her Party are so familiar with God as to use none And concerning which let me tell you my thoughts and then leave you to judge Almighty God in the Second Commandment says he would have none to bow down or worship a graven Image Intimating as I suppose a Jealousie lest that reverence or worship which belongs only to him be ascribed or given to an Idol or Image But that reverence and worship does belong to him and was always paid to him is to me manifest by what the Prophet David says Psal 5. I will in thy fear worship towards thy holy Temple And again I will praise thy name and worship towards thy holy Temple And again Psal 132. 138. O let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord. These and many more might be urged out of the Old Testament And in the New you may see it is a duty to worship God First St. Paul says Heb. 13. 10. We have an Altar And you may note Rev. 22. 9. where the Angel that had shewed St. John a Vision forbad him to fall down to him but bad him fall down and worship God And again Chap. 14. 7. Worship him that made heaven and earth I omit more Testimonies which might be multiplied and shall tell you next that Churches are sacred and not to be used prophanely For you may note that our Saviour did with a divine indignation whip the money-changers out of the Temple for polluting it and said His house should be called the house of Prayer And let me tell you that in the Primitive times many of those humble and devout Christians whose sudden Journeys or businesses of present necessity were such as not to allow them time to attend the publick Worship and Prayers of the Church would yet express their devotion by going into a Church or Oratory and there bow at the Altar then kneel and beg of God to pardon their sins past and to be their director and protector that day and having again bowed toward the East at the Altar begin their Journey or business and they thought God well pleased with so short a Prayer and such a Sacrifice Much more might be said for bowing at the Altar and bowing toward the East But I forbear And now let me ask you seriously Do you think this which I think to be a duty ought to be forborn because our Cosin and her Party are scandalized at it Or do you think when I in a late discourse told her