Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	allegiance_n	oath_n	subject_n	1,037	5	6.8350	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40420	Free thoughts of the penal laws, tests, and some late printed papers touching both in a letter from a person of quality.		1688 (1688)	Wing F2123; ESTC R33793	11,219	18

utterly impossible to preserve either Peace or Government allowing Liberty to all pretences of Conscience for this is to allow Liberty to Faction and Villany And by reason of the aforesaid invisibility of Conscienee it will be also impossible to allow perfect Liberty of Conscience except we together allow Liberty to the pretences of Conscience From hence it seems necessarily conclusible that they who will consult the publick safety and the Interests of Government even abstracted from the interest of Religion must allow some restraint upon the exercise of Conscience and consequently some standing Penal Laws But to take in a little the Interests of Religion whether a Christian Prince allowing such a qualified Liberty to the Exercise of Conscience as may consist with the security of Government ought to allow men Liberty to have no Conscience or to be of no Religion or even to be of such an one as does overthrow the Common Christianity will be another Question worthy of Consideration which yet I think every Christian man will resolve in the Negative Distinctly I mean that tho we grant men are not to be compelled to the exercise of any one Religion yet may they not be allowed openly to profess Atheism that is no Conscience nor to Blaspheme and in the same breath allow Religion to be true and yet endeavour to scoff it out of the World nor yet to Profess or Practice that is to propagate such a Religion which is apparently inconsistent with the Common Christianity as Judaism Mahometanism Paganism and if there be any other like them as I think Muggletonism and somewhat a kin to it The sum then of what we have said is this That some Penal Laws ought to stand against Irreligion Blasphemy and such apparently ill Religions as these mentioned Again If there be any Sect of Christian Religion at large so called the Fundamental and Characteristical Principle of which consists not with the Security of Civil Government such as I think is the Doctrine essential to the Fifth-Monarchy-men of the Reign of King Jesus and his Saints alone which is also the Opinion of several of the Anabaptists and was of many of the Quakers in the year 1660. and will be struck for whenever these Sects are powerful enough and how desperately Venner with his forty men against the Train'dbands of the City and His Majesties Life-Guard will be an eternal Instance Such Sects ought not to be allowed the free Exercise of their Conscience for that as before said is the propagating their Religion and therefore against these Sects Penal Laws ought to stand at least in some measure for the restraint of their free Exercise of their Conscience as they will pretend or call it I mean for the restraint of their assembling to hold forth and propagate these accursed destructive Doctrines And now we are come to the Point that has long pinched and perhaps still does Whether the Religion of Thorow-papists as some distinguish them that is of those who hold the Popes full Supremacy over Princes even within their own Dominions be any more consistent with the Security of Civil Government generally taken that is let the Prince be of what Religion he shall than that of the Millenaries or of any other like sort and consequently whether Penal Laws ought not to stand against such Papists or Catholicks as they will call themselves It seems to me that those of them who think their Religion well consistent with Civil Government in general be the Prince of whatsoever Christian profession he shall be suppose a Protestant those I say should not be against or contend for the laying aside or not having an Oath of Supremacy as to Temporals at least for whosoever appears against such an Oath manifestly professes thereby his Religion will not suffer him to be obedient even in Temporals to that Governor whose Supremacy in Temporals he avows he cannot or which is the same refuses to acknowledg It is sure both the Body of the * Distinct 22. c. Omnes sive Ubi etiam vide glossam Er Dist 96. Duo sunt Et 1. Qu. 4. Quia Praesulatus Canon Law asserts and some † Nicolaus Gelasius Leo IV. ubi supra aliique Popes have expresly decreed the Supremacy of the Chair of St. Peter even in Temporals to be of Divine right and matter of Faith so as that to believe the Contrary is Heresy and damnable Sin. And whatever some do believe or declare as I have heard some of them swear that should their Father Confessor or the Pope himself command them to take Arms against their King they would not obey yet it is also sure that many Roman Catholicks and perhaps more Orders of their Religious than one do to this day so believe and tho many of their Confessers may not press the Popes Supremacy in Temporals on the Consciences of their Devotes yet no doubt others except they are for sworn do it Further the said * XV Qu 6. c. Alius item Et c. Nos Sanctorum Et c Jurator milites Canon Law allows the Pope may Absolve Subjects and Soldiers from their Oath of Allegiance and Duty to their Kings or Commanders and several † Gelasius Zacharias Gregor VII Urbanus II. locis proximè jam citatis aliique Popes have decreed as much otherwise it could not have come into the Body of the Canon Law nay they have actually done it Wherefore it would seem tho not for Religions sake in general yet for the sake of Civil Government Penal Laws ought to stand against such a strain of Religion also at least against the free Exercise of it Whether this will conclude Jesuits and those whom some call Jesuited Popists themselves best know I will not now insist on their fourth Vow The Result of all is that an absolute Repeal of all Penal Laws in the case of Religion or even of such Penal Laws which affect either Catholicks or pretended Protestant Dissenters taking Catholicks and Dissenters for all that call themselves so is not safe for the Government nor agreeable to Christian Conscience but a Qualification of such Laws or some explanatory and mitigative Act which might secure all peaceable conscientious men of whatsoever Perswasion those Antichristian and Turbulent ones before mentioned being excepted in their Estates Lives and Liberties while they Worship God according to their Conscience were to be desired and is to be endeavoured by all who would approve themselves genuinely Christians And I am not without hopes that those who declare themselves so much for the Repeal of the Penal Laws will acknowledg this to be their Sense But as I have hitherto endeavoured to be in general just both to the King Religion and all Parties concern'd in my impartial considering and stating the case of all in reference to the Liberty desired So I must be yet more in particular just to those who are in Possession of an Establishment by Virtue of the Laws and consider while