Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	bishop_n	clergy_n	king_n	3,253	5	3.7031	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66133	The first declaration of His Highness Willam Henry, by the grace of God Prince of Orang. &c., of the reasons inducing him to appear in arms in the kingdom of England for preserving of the Protestant religion and for restoring the lawes & liberties of England, Scotland, and Ireland.	William III, King of England, 1650-1702.	1689 (1689)	Wing W2332A; ESTC W17402	11,763	18

suspended the Bishop of London only because he refused to obey an order that was sent him to suspend a Worthy Divine without so much as Citing him before him to make his own Defence or observing the common Forms of Process They have turned out a President chosen by the Fellows of Magdelen Colledge and afterwards all the Fellows of that Colledge without so much as Citing them before any Court that could take legal Cognisance of that Affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a Competent Judge and the only Reason that was given for turning them out was their Refusing to choose for their President a person that was recommended to them by the Instigation of those evil Councellors to the Right of a Free-Election belonged undoubtedly to them But they were turned out of their Free-holds contrary to Law and to that express provision in Magna Charta that no man shall lose life or goods but by the Laws of the Land And now these evil Counsellours have put the said College wholly into the hands of Papists tho as is above said they are incapable of all such Imployments both by the law of the Land and the Statutes of the Colledge These Commissioners have also cited before them all the Chancellors Arch-Deacons of England requiring them to certify to them the names of all such Clergy men as have read the Kings Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and of such as have not read it without considering that the Reading of it was not enjoined the Clergy by the Bishops who are their Ordinaries The Illegality and Incompetency of the said Court of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was so notoriously known it did so evidently appear that it tended to the Subversion of the Protestant Religion that the Most Reverend Father in GOD William Archbishop of Canterbury Primate Metropolitan of all England seeing that it was raised for no other End but to Oppress such Persons as were of eminent Vertue Learning and Piety refused to fit or concur in it And tho there are many express Laws against all Churches or Chapels for the excercise of popish Religion and also against all Monasteries and Convents and more particularly against the Order of the Jesuits yet those evil Counsellors have procured Orders for the Building of several Churches and Chapel for the Exercise of that Religion they have also procured diverse Monasteries to be erected and in contempt of the Law they have not only set up several Colledges of Jesuits in diverse places for the Corrupting of Youth but have raised up one of the Order to be a Privy Councellor a Minister of State By all which they do evidently shew that they are restrained by no rules of Law whatsoever but that they have subjected the Honours and Estates of the Subjects and the Establish't Religion to a despotick Power and to arbitrary Government In all which they are served seconded by those Ecclesiastical Commissioners They have also followed the same Methods with relation to civil Affairs for they have procured Orders to examine all Lord Lieutenants deputy Lieutenants Sherriffs Justices of the peace and all others that were in any publick Imployment if they would concur with the King in the Repeal of the Tests Penal Laws and all such whose Consciences did not suffer them to comply with their designs were turn'd out and others were put in their places who they believed would be more compliant to them in their designs of defeating the Intent Execution of those laws which had been made with so much care caution for the Security of the Protestant Religion And in many of these places they have put professed Papists tho the Law has disabled them and warranted the Subjects not to have any regard to their Orders They have also invaded the Priviledges and seised the Charters of most of those Towns that have a right to be represented by their Burgesses in Parliament and have procured Surrenders to be made of them by which the Magistrates in them have deliver'd up all their Rights and Priviledges to be disposed of at the pleasure of those Evil Counsellors who have thereupon placed new Magistrates in those Towns such as they can most entirely confide in and in many of them they have put popish Magistrates notwithstanding the incapacities under which the law has put them And whereas no Nation whatsoever can subsist without the Administration of good impartial Justice upon which mens Live liberties honours estates do depend those evil Counselors have subjected these to an arbitrary and despotick power In the most important affairs they have studied to discover before hand the Opinions of the Judges and have turned out such as they found would not conform themselves to their Intentions and have put others in their places of whom they were more assured without having any regard to their abilities And they have not stuck to raise even professed Papists to Courts of Judicature notwithstanding their incapacity by law and that no regard is due to any Sentences flowing from them They have carried this so farr as to deprive such Judges who in the common Administration of Justice shewed that they were govern'd by their consciences and not by the directions which others gave them by which it is apparent that they design to render themselves the absolute Masters of the lives honours estates of the subjects of what rank or Dignity soever they may be and that without having any regard to the equity of the cause or to the Consciences of the Judges whom they will have to submit in all things to their own will and pleasure hoping by such ways to intimidate those who are yet in imployment as also such others as they shall think fit to put in the rooms of those whom they have turn'd out and to make them see what they must look for if they should at any time act in the least contrary to their good liking and that no failings of that kind are pardon'd in any persons whatsoever A great deal of blood has been shed in many places of the Kingdom by Judges guided by those evil Counsellors against all the Rules and Forms of Law without so much as suffering the persons that were accused to plead in their own Defence They have also by Putting the Administration of Justice in the hands of Papists brought all the matters of civil Justice into great uncertainties with how much exactness and Justice soever that these Sentences may have been given For since the Laws of the Land do not only exclude Papists from all places of Judicature but have put them under an incapacity none are bound to acknowledge or to obey their Judgments and all Sentences given by them are null and void of themselves so that all persons who have been cast in Trials before such popish Judges may justly look on their pretended Sentences as having no more force than the Sentences of any private unauthorised person whatsoever So

The FIRST DECLARATION of HIS HIGHNESS WILLIAM HENRY By the Grace of GOD PRINCE of ORANG c. Of the REASONS inducing Him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England for Preserving of the Protestant Religion and for Restoring the Lawes Liberties of England Scotland Ireland IT is both certain and evident to all men that the Publick Peace Happiness of any State or Kingdom cannot be preserved where the Laws Liberties Customs established by the lawful Authority in it are openly transgressed annulled More especially where the Alteration of RELIGION is endeavoured and that a Religion which is contrary to Law is endeavour'd to be introduced Upon which those who are most immediately concerned in it are indispensably bound to endeavour to preserve and maintain the establish't Laws Liberties and Customes and above all the Religion Worship of God that is established among them and to take such an effectual care that the Inhabitants of the said State or Kingdome may neither be deprived of their Religion nor of their Civil Rights Which is so much the more necessary because the Greatness and Security both of Kings Royal Families and of all such as are in Authourity as well as the Happiness of their Subjects and people depend in a most especial manner upon the exact Observation and maintenance of these their Laws Liberties and Customs Upon these Grounds it is that we cannot any longer for bear to Declare that to our great Regret we see that those Councellours who have now the chief Credit with the King have overturned the Religion Laws and Liberties of those Realmes and subjected them in all things relating to their Consciences Liberties and properties to Arbitrary Government and that not only by secret indirect waies but in an open undisguised manner Those evil Counsellours for the advancing and colouring this with some plausibe pretexts did invent and set on foot the Kings Dispencing Power by virtue of which they pretend that according to Law he can suspend and dispense with the execution of the Laws that have been enacted by the Authority of the King and Parliament for the Security and happiness of the Subject and so have rendred those Laws of no effect Tho there is nothing more certain than that as no Lawes can be made but by the joint Concurrence of King Parliament so likewise Lawes so enacted which secure the publick peace safety of the Nation the lives liberties of every Subject in it cannot be repealed or suspended but by the same Authority For tho the King may pardon the Punishment that a Transgressoor has incurred and to which as is condemned as in cases of Treason or Fellony yet it cannot be with any colour of Reason inferr'd from thence that the King can entirely suspend the Excution of those laws relating to Treason or Felony unless it is pretended that he is clothed with a despotick or arbitrary Power and that the lives liberties honours estates of his Subjects depend wholly on his good will pleasure and are entirely subject to him which must infallibly follow on the King's having power to suspend the Execution of the Laws and to dispence with them Those evil Counsellours in order to the giving some Credit to this strange execrable Maxime have so conducted the matter that they have obtain'd a Sentence from the Judges declaring that this dispensing Power is a Right belonging to the Crown as if it were in the power of the twelve Judges to offer up the Laws Rights and liberties of the whole Nation to the King to be disposed of by him arbitrarily at his pleasure and expressly contrary to Laws enacted for the security of the subjects In order to the Obtaining this Judgment those evil Counsellours did before hand examine secretly the Opinion of the Judges and procured such of them as could not in conscience concur in so pernicious a Sentence to be turned out and others to be substituted in their rooms till by the Changes which were made in the Courts of Judicature they at last obtained that Judgment And they have raised some to those Trusts who make open Profession of the popish Religion tho those are by law rendred incapable of all such Employments It is also manifest notorious that as his Majesty was upon his coming to the Crown received acknowledged by all the Subjects of England Scotland Ireland as their King without the least Opposition tho he made then open Profession of the popish Religion so he did then promise solemnly swear at his Coronation that he would maintain his Subjects in the free enjoyment of their laws liberties and in particular that he would maintain the Church of England as it was established by Law It is likewise certain that there have been at diverse and sundry times several laws enacted for the preservation of those Rights liberties of the protestant Religion and among other Securities it has been enacted that all persons whatsoever that are advanced to any Ecclesiastical Dignity or to bear Office in either University as likewise all other that shall be put in any Imployment Civil or Military should declare that they were not Papists but were of the Protestant Religion and that by their taking of the Oaths of Allegiance Supremacy and the Test yet these evil Counsellors have in effect annulled abolished all those Laws both with relation to Ecclesiastical and Civil Employments In order to Ecclesiastical Dignities and Offices they have not only without any colour of Law but against most express Laws to the contrary set up a Commission of a certain number of persons to whom they have committed the Cognisance and Direction of all Ecclesiastical matters in the which Commission there has been still is one of his Majesties Ministers of state who makes now publick Profession of the popish Religion and who at the time of his first professing it declared that for a great while before he had believed that to be the only true Religion By all this the deplorable state to which the Protestant Religion is reduced is apparent since the Affairs of the Church of England are now put into the hands of Persons who have accepted of a Commission that is manifestly illegal and who have executed it contrary to all Law and that now one of their chief Members has abjured the Protestant Religion and declared himself a Papist by which he is become incapable of holding any publick imployment The said Commissioners have hitherto given such proof of their Submission to the directions given them that there is no reason to doubt but they will still continue to promote all such designs as will be most agreable to them And those evil Counsellors take care to raise none to Ecclesiastical Dignities but persons that have no Zeal for the Protestant Religion and that now hide their Unconcernedness for it under the specious pretence of Moderation The said Commissioners have