Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	bring_v	edward_n	king_n	4,327	5	3.9702	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37433	The poor man's plea to all the proclamations, declarations, acts of Parliament, &c. which have been or shall be made or publish'd for a reformation of manners and suppressing immorality in the nation.	Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.	1698 (1698)	Wing D841; ESTC R26079	12,740	33

THE Poor Man's PLEA To all the Proclamations Declarations Acts of Parliament c. WHICH Have been or shall be made or publish'd for a Reformation of Manners and suppressing Immorality in the Nation The Second Edition Corrected LONDON Printed for A. Baldwin near the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-Lane MDCXCVIII THE PREFACE REformation of Manners is a Work so Honourable and at This Time so absolutely necessary that like the Reform of our Money it can be no longer delayed The Ways by which the present Torrent of Vice has been let in upon the Nation and by which it maintains the Tyranny it has usurp'd on the Lives of the Inhabitants are too plain to be hid The following Sheets aim at the Work by leading to the most direct means Viz. Reformation by Example Laws are in Terrorem Punishments and Magistrates Compel and put a Force upon Mens Minds but Example is Persuasive and Gentle and draws by a Secret Invisible and almost Involuntary Power If there can be any Remedies proposed more proper to bring it to pass they that know them would do well to bring them forth In the mean time the Author thinks Conscience in the Minds of Men Impartially Consulted will give a Probatum to the following Proposal and to that Iudgment he refers all those who Object against it D. F. THE Poor Man's PLEA TO All the Proclamations Declarations Acts of Parliament c. which have been or shall be made or publish'd for a Reformation of Manners and suppressing Immorality in the Nation IN searching for a proper Cure of an Epidemick Distemper Physicians tell us 't is first necessary to know the Cause of that Distemper from what Part of the Body and from what ill Habit it proceeds and when the Cause is discover'd it is to be removed that the Effect may cease of it self but if removing the Cause will not work the Cure then indeed they proceed to apply proper Remedies to the Disease it self and the particular part afflicted Immorality is without doubt the present reigning Distemper of the Nation And the King and Parliament who are the proper Physicians seem nobly inclin'd to undertake the Cure 'T is a Great Work well worthy their utmost Pains The Honour of it were it once perfected would add more Trophies to the Crown that all the Victories of this Bloody War or the Glories of this Honourable Peace But as a Person under the Violence of a Disease sends in vain for a Physician unless he resolves to make use of his Prescription so in vain does the King attempt to reform a Nation unless they are willing to reform themselves and to submit to his Prescriptions Wickedness is an Ancient Inhabitant in this Country and 't is very hard to give its Original But however difficult that may be 't is easy to look back to a Time when we were not so generally infected with Vice as we are now and 't will seem sufficient to enquire into the Causes of our present Defection The Protestant Religion seems to have an unquestion'd Title to the first introducing a strict Morality among us and 't is but just to give the Honour of it where 't is so eminently due Reformation of Manners has something of a Natural Consequence in it from Reformation in Religion For since the Principles of the Protestant Religion disown the Indulgencies of the Roman Pontiff by which a Thousand Sins are as Venial Crimes bought off and the Priest to save God Almighty the trouble can blot them out of the Account before it comes to his hand common Vices lost their Charter and men could not sin at so cheap a Rate as before The Protestant Religion has in it self a natural tendency to Virtue as a standing Testimony of its own Divine Original and accordingly it has very much suppress'd Vice and Immorality in all the Countries where it has had a Footing It has civiliz'd Nations and reform'd the very Tempers of its Professors Christianity and Humanity has gone hand in hand in the World and there is so visible a difference between the other Civiliz'd Governments in the World and those who now are under the Protestant Powers that it carries its Evidence in it self The Reformation begun in England in the days of King Edward the sixth and afterwards gloriously finished by Queen Elizabeth brought the English Nation to such a degree of Humanity and Sobriety of Conversation as we have reason to doubt will hardly be seen again in our Age. In King Iames the First 's time the Court affecting something more of Gallantry and Gaiety Luxury got footing and Twenty Years Peace together with no extraordinary Examples from the Court gave too great Encouragement to Licentiousness If it got footing in King Iames the First 's time it took a deep Root in the Reign of his Son and the Liberty given the Soldiery in the Civil War dispers'd all manner of Prophaneness throughout the Kingdom That Prince though very Pious in his own Person and Practice had the Misfortune to be the first King of England and perhaps in the whole World that ever establish'd Wickedness by a Law By what unhappy Council or secret ill Fate he was guided to it is hard to determine but the Book of Sports as it was called that Book to tolerate the Exercise of of all sorts of Pastimes on the Lord's Day tended more to the vitiating the Practice of this Kingdom as to keeping that Day than all the Acts of Parliament Proclamations and Endeavours of future Princes have done or perhaps ever will do to reform it And yet the People of England express'd a general sort of Aversion to that Liberty and some as if glutted with too much Freedom when the Reins of the Law were taken off refused that Practice they allow'd themselves in before In the time of King Charles the Second Lewdness and all manner of Debauchery arriv'd at its Meridian The Encouragement it had from the Practice and Allowance of the Court is an invincible Demonstration how far the Influence of our Governors extends in the Practice of the People The present King and his late Queen whose Glorious Memory will be dear to the Nation as long as the World stands have had all this wicked Knot to unravel This was the first thing the Queen set upon while the King was engaged in his Wars abroad She first gave all sorts of Vice a general Discouragement and on the contrary rais'd the value of Virtue and Sobriety by her Royal Example The King having brought the War to a Glorious Conclusion and settled an Honourable Peace in his very first Speech to his Parliament proclaims a New War against Prophaneness and Immorality and goes on also to discourage the Practice of it by the like Royal Example Thus the Work is begun nobly and regularly and the Parliament the General Representative of the Nation readily pursues it by enacting Laws to suppress all manner of Prophaneness c. These are Great Things and well

the practice of it out of the Neighbourhood they would not be backward or asham'd to detect Vice to disturb Drunken Assemblies to disperse those Plantations of Leachery the Publick Bawdy-Houses which are almost as openly allowed as the Burdelloes in Italy They would be willing to have all sorts of Vices Suppress'd and glory in putting their hands to the Work they would not be asham'd to appear in the detecting Debauchery nor afraid to embroil themselves with their Rich Neighbours 'T is Guilt of the same Fact which makes Connivance and till that Guilt be removed the Gentlemen of England neither will not can indeed with any kind of Honour put their hands to the work of Reforming it in their Neighbours But I think 't is easy to make it appear that this difficulty of Informing may be removed and there need not be much occasion for that Scandalous Employment 'T is in the power of the Gentry of England to Reform the whole Kingdom without either Laws Proclamations or Informers and without their Concurrence all the Laws Proclamations and Declarations in the World will have no Effect the Vigour of the Laws consists in their Executive Power Ten thousand Acts of Parliament signify no more than One single Proclamation unless the Gentlemen in whose hands the Execution of those Laws is placed take care to see them duly made use of and how can Laws be duly Executed but by an Impartial Distribution of equal Rewards and Punishments without regard to the Quality and Degree of the Persons The Laws push on the Justices now and they take care to go no faster than they are driven but would the Justices push on the Laws Vice would flee before them as Dust in the Wind and Immoralities would be soon Suppress'd but it can never be expected that the Magistrates should push on the Laws to a free Suppression of Immoralities till they Reform themselves and their Great Neighbours Reform themselves that there may be none to punish who are too big for the Magistrate to venture upon Would the Gentry of England decry the Modishness of Vice by their own Practice would they dash it out of Countenance by disowning it that Drunkeness and Oaths might once come into disesteem and be out of Fashion and a man be valued the less for them that he that will Swear and be Drunk shall be counted a Rake and not fit for a Gentleman's Company This would do more to Reforming the rest of Mankind than all the Punishments the Law can inflict the Evil encreased by Example and must be suppress'd the same way If the Gentry were thus Reform'd their Families would be so too No Servant would be Entertain'd no Workman Employ'd no Shopkeeper would be Traded with by a Gentleman but such as like themselves were Sober and Honest a Lewd Vicious Drunken Footman must Reform or Starve he would get no Service a Servant once turn'd away for his Intemperance would be entertain'd by no body else a Swearing Debauch'd Labourer or Workman must Reform or no body would Employ him the Drunken whoring Shopkeeper must grow Sober or lose all his Customers and be Undone Interest and good Manners would Reform us of the poorer sort there would be no need of the Stocks or Houses of Correction we should be sober of course because we should be all Beggars else and he that lov'd his Vice so dearly as to purchase it with the loss of his Trade or Employment would soon grow too poor for his Vice and be forced to leave it by his own Necessities there would be no need of Informers a Vicious Fellow would be presently Notorious he would be the Talk of the Town every one would slight and shun him for fear of being thought like him by being seen in his Company he would expose himself and would be punish'd as unpitied as a Thief So that in short the whole Weight of this Blessed Work of Reformation lies on the shoulders of the Gentry they are the Cause of our Defection which being taken away the Effect would cease of course Vice would grow Scandalous and all Mankind would be asham'd of it 2. The Clergy also ought not to count themselves exempted in this matter whose Lives have been and in some places still are so Vicious and so loose that 't is well for England we are not subject to be much Priest-ridden 'T is a strange thing how it shou'd be otherwise than it is with us the poor Commonalty when the Gentry our Patern and the Clergy our Teachers are as Immoral as we And then to consider the Coherence of the thing the Parson preaches a thundering Sermon against Drunkenness and the Iustice of Peace sets my poor Neighbour in the Stocks and I am like to be much the better for either when I know perhaps that this same Parson and this same Iustice were both Drunk together but the Night before It may be true for ought we know that a Wicked Parson may make a good Sermon and the Spanish Proverb may be true of the Soul as well as the Body If the Cure be but wrought let the Devil be the Doctor but this does not take with the downright ignorant People in the Country a poor Man gets Drunk in a Country Ale house Why are you not asham'd to be such a Beast says a good honest Neighbour to him the next day Asham'd says the Fellow Why should I be asham'd Why there was Sir Iohn and Sir Robert and the Parson and they were all as Drunk as I. And why a Beast Pray I heard Sir Robert say That He that Drinks least Drinks most like a Beast A Vicious Parson that preaches well but lives ill may be like an unskilful Horseman who opens a Gate on the wrong side and lets other Folks through but shuts himself out This may be possible but it seems most reasonable to think they are a means by that sort of living to hinder both themselves and others and would the Gentry and Clergy of England but look back a little on the Guilt that really lies on them as Gentlemen by whose Example so great a part of Mankind has been led into and encouraged in the Progress of Vice they would find Matter of very serious reflection This Article of the Clergy may seem to lie in the power of their Superiors to rectify and therefore may be something more feasible than the other but the Gentry who are Sui juris can no way be reduced but by their own voluntary practice We are in England exceedingly govern'd by Modes and Customs The Gentry may effectually Suppress Vice would they but put it out of Fashion but to Suppress it by Force seems impossible The Application of this rough Doctrine is in short both to the Gentry and Clergy Physicians Heal your selves if you will leave off your Drunkenness and Lewdness first if we do not follow you then set us in the Stocks and send us to the House of Correction and punish us as you please if you will leave off Whoring first then Brand us in the Foreheads or Transport or Hang us for Fornication or Adultery and you are welcome but to preach against Drunkenness immediately after an Evening's Debauch to Correct a poor Fellow for Swearing with the very Vice in your Mouths these are the unjustest ways in the World and have in themselves no manner of tendency towards the Reformation of Manners which is the true Design of the Law 'T is acknowledge'd there are in England a great many Sober Pious Religious Persons both among the Gentry and Clergy and 't is hoped such cannot think themselves Libell'd or Injur'd in this Plea if there were not Laws would never have been made against those Vices for no men make Laws to punish themselves 't is design'd to reflect upon none but such as are Guilty and on them no farther than to put them in mind how much the Nation owes its present Degeneracy to their folly and how much it is in their power to Reform it again by their Example that the King may not publish Proclamations nor the Parliament make Laws to no purpose but that we might live in England once more like Christians and like Gentlemen to the Glory of God and the Honour of the present King and Parliament who so publickly have attempted the great Work of Reformation among us though hitherto to so little purpose FINIS