Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	great_a	king_n	year_n	21,498	5	5.0090	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97094	The bloody proiect, or a discovery of the new designe, in the present war. Being a perfect narrative of the present proceedings of the severall grandee factions, for the prevention of a just peace, and promoting of a causelesse warre, to the destruction of the King, Parliament & people. Whereunto is annexed several expedients for an happy accommodation tending to the satisfaction of all parties, without the further effusion of blood. / By W.P. Gent.	Walwyn, William, 1600-1681.	1648 (1648)	Wing W681; Thomason E460_4; ESTC R3843	10,073	16

hoped that both Lawes and Lawyers and the proceeding in all Courts should have been abreviated and corrected and that you should never more have seen a Begger in England You have seen the Common-wealth enslaved for want of Parliaments and also by their sudden dissolution and you rejoyced that this Parliament was not to be dissolved by the King but did you conceive it would have sat seavn yeares to so little purpose or that it should ever have come to passe to be esteemed a crime to move for the ending thereof Was the perpetuating of this Parliament and the oppressions they have brought upon you and yours a part of that Liberty of the People you fought for Or was it for such a Priviledge of Parliament that they only might have liberty to oppresse at their pleasure without any hope of remedy If all these put together make not up the cause for which you fought what was the Cause What have ye obtained to the People but these Libertyes for they must not be called oppressions These are the fruits of all those vast disburstments and those thousands of lives that have been spent and destroyed in the late War And though the Army seemed to be sensible of these grosse juglings and declared and engaged against them and professed that they tooke not paines as a mercenary Army hired to fight for the Arbitrary ends of a State but in judgement and conscience for the preservation of their own and the Peoples just Rights and Libertyes Yet when they had prevailed against those their particular opposers and accomplished the ends by them aymed at all these things were forgotten and those persons that appeared for the Peoples Freedoms by them esteemed and proceeded against as Mutineers or Incendiaries In like manner the present Ruling Party of Presbyterians make a great shew of their apprehensions of the great slavery and servitude brought upon the People by the exercise or an Arbitrary power in the Parliament and by the jurisdiction of the Sword in the hands of the Army They tell us that by this meanes the Trade of the Nation is destroyed and that without the removall of these things the peace of the Nation cannot be secured And it is exceeding true But I beseech you consider whether they do not revive the same Play and drive the same Designe which was acted by the Parliament at first and by the Army the last-Summer First they cry out against the exercise of an arbitrary power in the Parliament and yet labour to invest it in the King nay challenge the exercise of it by themselves for what greater arbitrary power can there be in the world then that a Priest or two and a few Lay Elders under the name of a Presbytery should have power to bind or loose bring in or cast out save or destroy at their pleasure and enforce all persons within the limits of their jurisdiction to beleeve as they beleeve and submit to whatever they command or else to be by them delivered over to Sathan Nay if you looke into those of that party of the Magistracy of this City that are the great promoters of the present worke do there any men in the wo●ld exercise a more arbitrary power Do not many of them act only by the Rule of will and pleasure and have they not openly prosessed themselves to be obliged to observe no other Rule then Discretion And though they decry agaitst the power of the Sword in the hands of the Independents yet do they not with all their might labour to get it into the hands of the Presbyterians and being there will they not do that themselves which they complain of in others will they not say that there are gain-sayers whose mouthes must be stopt and with the Sword rather then faile and though Royal sts or Independents may not use the Sword to enforce their Principles yet Presbyterians may as if all knowledge of the truth were centred in a Presbytery consisting of halfe Scotch halfe English part Puritan part Cavalier luke-warm christianity neither hot nor cold zealous for the truth which they know not only by heare-say and only because they love not Jndependency that being to pure nor Episcopacy that being too prophane they will be between both but not in a golden Meane for that were well but more zealons then either in outward performances but for the power of godlines I cease to judge but we say we may know the tree by the fruit and certain I am that Thistles never bore Figgs But if you shall examine what grounds of freedome they propose in all their Papers what equall Rules of justice they offer to be insisted on as a sure foundation for a lasting peace Surely if you looke bur seriously into the bottom of their design you will find that the peace they aime at is only their own not the Nations and that their own ease honour and dominion is the only thing they pursue and so they could enjoy ease and plenty and stretch themselves upon Beds of Down they would never care what the poor Country should suffer To be short all the quarrell we have at this day in the Kingdome is no other then a quarrel of Interests and Partyes a pulling down of one Tyrant to set up another and in stead of Liberty heaping vpon our selves a greater slavery then that we fought against certainly this is the Liberty that is so much strove for and for which there are such fresh endeavours to engage men but if you have not killed and destroyed men enough for this go on and destroy kill and sley till your consciences are swoln so full with the blood of the People that they burstagen and upon your death-beds may you see your selves the most horrid Murtherers that ever lived since the time that Cain kild his brother without a just Cause for where or what is your cause Beleeve it yee have a heavy reeckoning to make and must undergo a sad repentance or it will go ill with you at the great day when all the sophistry of your great Reformers will serve you to little purpose every man for himselfe being to give an account for the things which he hath done in the body whether they be good or evill Then it will serve you to little purpose to say the King Parliament Army Independents Presbyterians such an Officer Magistrate or Minister deluded me no more then it did Adam to say the woman whom thou gavest c. It being thus decreed in heaven the soule which sinneth shall surely dye And though what is past cannot be recalled yet it must be repented of and speciall care taken for the future that you sin no more in in this kind and either stand still or go right for the Future to which end let these following directions be your guide 1. You are to know that a People living under a Government as this Nation hath done and doth cannot lawfully put themselves into Arms or engage in

The Bloody Proiect Or a discovery of the New Designe in the present War BEING A perfect Narrative of the present proceedings of the severall Grandee Factions for the prevention of a just Peace and promoting of a causelesse Warre to the destruction of THE KING PARLIAMENT PEOPLE Whereunto is annexed Several Expedients for an happy Accommodation tending to the satisfaction of all Parties without the further effusion of blood By W. P. Gent. Printed in this Yeare of dissembling 1648. The Bloody Project OR New design in the present War discovered IN all undertakings which may occasion war or bloodshed men have great need to be sure that their cause be right both in respect of themselves and others for if they kill men themselves or cause others to kill without a just cause and upon the extreamest necessity they not only disturbe the peace of men and familyes and bring misery and poverty upon a Nation but are indeed absolute murtherers Nor will it in any measure satisfy the Conscience or Gods justice to go on in uncertainties for in doubtfull cases men ought to stand still and consider untill certainty do appear especially when killing and sleying of men the most horrid worke to Nature and Scripture is in question Far be it from any man hastily to engage in any undertaking which may occasion a War before the cause he is to fight for be rightly and plainly stated well considered and throughly understood to be just and of absolute necessity to be maintained nothing being more abom●nable in the sight of God or good men then such persons who run●e out to shed blood for money or to support this or the other Interest but neither consider the cause for which they engage nor ought el●e but pay interest honour c. such are they who so eagerly endeavour to support the interest of a King by the destruction of the Peoples Interest the Interest of the Scots against the Interest of the English the Interest of the Independents by the ruine of the Presbyterians and because it best consists with their present honour profit or humours make it their busines to pick quarrels and encrease divisions and jealousies that so they may fish in the waters which they themselves have troubled But let such know who ever they be that though they may and do for a while brave it out and flourish yet a time is comming and draweth on apace when for all the murthers they have caused and mischiefs they have committed they shall come to judgement and then their Consciences will be as a thousand witnesses against them But especially let men pretending conscience take heed how they either engage themselves or perswade others to engage to fight and kill men for a cause not rightly stated or not throughly understood to be just and of necessity to be maintained for it is one of the most unreasonable unchristian and unnaturall things that can enter into the mind or man though it be to be feared that more then a few that have of late both in the Citie and Country and at present are active to engage in killing and sleying of men cannot acquit themselves of this abomination I beseech you you that are so forward and active to engage in the defence of the Kings Presbyterian or Independent interest and yet know no just cause for either consider was it sufficient that the King at first invited you in generall termes to joyn with him for the defence of the true Protestant Religion his own just Prerogatives the Privileages of Parliament and the Liberty of the Subject but never declared in particular what that Protestant Religion was he would have defended or what Prerogative would please him what priviledges he would allow the Parliament or what Freedoms the People Or was it sufficient thinke you now that the Parliament invited you at first upon generall termes to fight for the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion the Libertyes of the People and Priviledges of Parliament when neither themselves knew for ought is yet seen nor you nor any body else what they meant by the true Protestant Religion or what the Liberties of the People were or what those Priviledges of Parliament were for which yet neverthelesse thousands of men have been slain and thousands of Familyes destroyed It is very like that some of you that joyned with the King upon his invitation thought that though the King had formerly countenanced Popery and Superstition had stretcht his Prerogative to the oppression and destruction of his People by Pattents Projects c. yet for the future he would have been more zealous for the truth and more tender of his People and not have persisted notwithstanding his new Protestations to maintain his old Principles And so likewise many of you that joyned with the Parliament who had formerly seen felt or considered the persecution of godly conscientious people by the Bishops and their Cleargy with the reproaches cast upon them and their grievous and destructive imprisonment did beleeve the Parliament under the notion of Religion intended to free the Nation from all compulsion in matters of Religion and from molestation or persecution for opinions or non-conformity and that all Lawes or Statutes tending thereunto should have been repealed But since you find by killing and destroying their opposers you have enbled them to performe all things that might concern your freedome or be conducible to the peace of the Kingdome But do you now find that they do mean that or the contrary And will your consciences give you leave any longer to fight or engage in the cause of Religion when already you see what fruits you and your friends reap thereby And no doubt many of you understood by the Liberties of the People that they intended to free the Commons in Parliament the peoples Representative ftom a Negative voyce in King or Lords and would have declared themselves the highest Authority and so would have proceeded to have removed the grievances of the Common-wealth And when you had seen Pattents Projects and Shipmoney taken away the High Commission and Starchamber abolished did you ever imagine to have seen men and women examined upon Interrogatories and questions against themselves and imprisoned for refusing to answer Or to have seen Commoners frequently sentenced and imprisoned by the Lords Did you ever dream that the oppressions of Committees would have exceeded those of the Councel-table or that in the place of Pattents and Projects you should have seen an Excise established ten fold surpassing all those and Shipmoney together You thought rather that Tythes would have been esteem'd an oppression and that Trade would have been made perfectly free and that Customs if continued would have been abated and not raysed for the support of domineering factions and enrichment of foure or five great men as they have been of late times to the sorrow and astonishment of all honest men and the great prejudice of the Trade of the Nation Doubtlesse you