Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	heart_n	incline_v	mercy_n	16,797	5	10.2482	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96590	The discovery of mysteries: or, The plots and practices of a prevalent faction in this present Parliament. To overthrow the established religion, and the well setled government of this glorious Church, and to introduce a new framed discipline (not yet agreed upon by themselves what it shall be) to set up a new invented religion, patched together of Anabaptisticall and Brownisticall tenents, and many other new and old errors. And also, to subvert the fundamentall lawes of this famous kingdome, by devesting our King of his just rights, and unquestionable royall prerogatives, and depriving the subjects of the propriety of their goods, and the liberty of their persons; and under the name of the priviledge of Parliament, to exchange that excellent monarchicall government of this nation, into the tyrannicall government of a faction prevailing over the major part of their well-meaning brethren, to vote and order things full of all injustice, oppression and cruelty, as may appeare out of many, by these few subsequent collections of their proceedings. / By Gr. Williams L. Bishop of Ossory.	Williams, Gryffith, 1589?-1672.	1643 (1643)	Wing W2665; Thomason E60_1; Thomason E104_27; ESTC R23301	95,907	126

these infernall instruments to insinuate their assistance unto the Scots and their allurements of them to invade our Kings Dominions to ensnare the Irish and to provoke the Papists to such a Rebellion as hath been the utter ruine and destruction of many millions of men to obscure the glory of this noble Kingdome to alter the Discipline and corrupt the Doctrine of the most glorious and the purest Church that professeth the Name of Christ and to bring us all and all our posteritie to extreme miseries to suffer yet more then we have endured or that can be hitherto imagined and considering those bloody Treasons that have beene publikely uttered and openly practised against the sacred Person of our Soveraigne I may justly say that as the sinnes of the Israelites and their impetuous calling for a King moved the Lord to send them a King in his anger so our sinnes and our impatient crying for a Parliament made our God to send us a Parliament in his wrath that will never turne for our blessing till we returne to God from our sinnes for when I consider on the one side the pietie and goodnesse of our King the justnesse of his cause and the most ready and cordiall valour as well in the common Souldiers as the Commanders of a full and sufficient Armie and on the other side the multitude of disloyall and seduced Subjects the vigilancie and subtiltie of their Commanders with their unlimited wayes to get monies and on both sides the desire of too many not for the honour of the King nor the peace of the Kingdome to end the War but to continue the same for their own advantage untill the wealth of Lawyers Clergy and Gentrie be transplanted to the possessions of other Masters I am affraid it wil prove an heavie judgement and therfore lest our obstinacie in our sinnes should procure the continuance of Gods anger which being removed will soone remove all our miseries let me perswade all conscientious men especially the Gentry and all other understanding men howsoever the Citizens that deceive the Kingdome of their wealth delight to be deceived in their faith that would not be cheated of their Religion by these factious Mountebankes and that would not provoke God to say I have no pleasure in them to turne from their rebellious courses to listen no longer to those furious fire-brands that out of their now Divinity contrary to the Doctrine of all the ancient Fathers and all the Orthodox and grave Preachers of this Kingdome do incite the People unto this unnaturally bloody War and to slander the foot-steps of Gods Anointed because they know him not and to remember the Oathes of their Allegiance and Supremacie together with their late Protestation whereby they stand obliged to their uttermost power to maintaine his Majesties Royall Person Crowne and Dignity against all treacherous practices that may any waies dishonour or impaire them and then I presume their consciences will disavow the proceedings of these Proj●ctours protest against all their Ordinances that are made against or without the Kings consent advise all the Knights and Burgesses to Vote no more against their Soveraigne and to make no further use of the trust they reposed in them to murder us and our fellow Subjects under the pretence of shedding the bloud of the ungodly or if they still goe on to abuse that trust to make us yet more miserable to withdraw themselves and their trust and power of representation from them and to joyne their uttermost assistance unto his Majesty to protect him that he may be enabled to protect us and to overwhelme the Robels into the same pit which they have made for us And this may be by dissolving the knot of factious members wherein we see our miseries involved and to make elections of new members into their places that with the rest of the Lords and Commons which were faithfull both to the Church King and Kingdome shall call them to a strict account for betraying our trust interrupting our peace opposing his Majestie and violating all our ancient liberties Or if a better way may be found let us follow the same to Gods glory and to produce the peace and happinesse of this Kingdome lest if we persist obstinately in this wilfull rebellion to withstand Gods Ordinance to oppose his anointed and to shed so much innocent blood we shall thus fighting against heaven so far provoke the wrath of the God of Heaven as that the glory of Israel shall be darkned the honour of this nation shall be troden under foot and be made the scorne of all other nations round about us and the light of our Candlestick shall be extinguished and we shall all become most miserable because we would not hearken to the voyce of the Lord our God which I hope we will doe and do most earnestly pray that we may doe it to the glory of God the honour of our King and the happinesse of this whole Kingdome through Iesus Christ our Lord to whom be praise and dominion both now and for ever Amen AN APPENDIX THe man of God speaking of transcendent wickednesse Deu. 32.2 saith Their Vine is of the Vine of Sodome and of the fields of Gomorrah their Grapes are grapes of Gall their Clusters are bitter their Wine is the poyson of Dragons and the cruell venome of Aspes and I beleeve never any wickednesse des●rved better to be clad with this elegant expression then that threefold iniquity 1. The unparallel'd Vote 2. The intolerable Ordinance 3. The damnable Covenant which the rebellious faction in Parliament have most impiously contrived to make up the full measure of their impiety since the writing of my discoveries for 1. Omitting that horrible practice of those rebellious blood-thirsty Soul lie's that did their best to murder their owne most gracious Queene this faction seeing how God prevented that plot voted this most loving and most loyall wife to be impeached or High Treason for being faithfull to doe her uttermost endeavour which will be her everlasting praise to assist her most deare and Royall husband their owne Liege Lord and Soveraigne King in his greatest extremities against a virulent mighty faction of most malicious Traytors the strangest Treason that ever the world heard of 2. They made an Ordinance for the composing and convocating of such a Synod whereof I said somewhat before of Lay men ignorant men factious men traiterous men and such concretion of heterogeneall parts like Nebuchadnezzars image gold brasse and clay all mixed together and all so ordered limited and bridled as it is expressed in the 5. and 6. page of their Ordinance by the power of both Houses where there are such abundance of Schismaticall and seditious members that I should scarce put the worst sensitive soule to professe that erraticall faith or any bruit beast to be guided by that Eccl●…asticall discipline that such factious Traytors as some of th●… are like to be proved should compose or cause to be co●posed 3. They composed a forme of a sacred Vow or Covenant 〈◊〉 they terme it or as it is indeed the Covenant of Hell a Covenant against God to overthrow the Gospel of Christ under the name of Christ which Covenant is the Oyle that swimm●… uppermost upon the waters that is the Oyle of Scorpions or as Moses saith the poison of Dragons so lately wringed and d●…fused farre and neere to defile and destroy millions of soules when forgetting their faith to God and the Oathes of their Allegiance so often and so solemnely taken by many or most of them to be faithfull unto their King they shall be compelled which is one degree worse then the vow of them that bound themselves with a curse neither to eate nor drinke till they had killed Paul so hypocritically so perjuredly so rebelliously 〈◊〉 horribly and so bloodily to make such a fearefull Vow and such an abominable Covenant so wickedly contrived that without great and serious repentance spitteth forth nothing but fire and brimstone and can produce nothing else but hell and damnation to all that take it especially to them that will co●pell men to be thus transcendently wicked as if they would send them with Corah quicke to Hell All which triplicity of evil I shal leave to some abler and more eloquent pen to be set forth more fully in the right colours that being suff●ciently displayed they may be throughly detested of all good men Amen O Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to to keepe thy Lawes ERRATA Page 24. lin 11. for malicious read heavy pag. 98. lin 1. rea● somewhat like him c. FINIS

Hannibal could not invent to effect this hard talke what to perswade mildnesse to become severe or to cause a just and most clement Prince so full of mercy so prone to pardon where there is a fault and so loth to punish but where he must by the Law of Justice the greatest fault to yeeld to put him to death that was in many things so excellent in his life the taske was to procure his assent to passe this Bill and how shall this be done as the Man of God could not be perswaded by any man but by a Man of God a Prophet by a Prophet so now the Bishops that were good men men of conscience and set apart by God to resolve and satisfie weake and tender consciences are thought fit to be sent unto this good King to perswade him as men supposed that to prevent a greater mischiefe he might justly passe this Bill and either 6. or 4. of the prime Prelates are requested by the Lords to goe unto the King to assay how far they can prevaile with him herein and so they went and how they dealt with His Majestie I do not fully understand but am informed by some that went that they assured him he ought to satisfie himselfe in point of Law by his Judges and of State by his Councell how they did any otherwise in any other thing rectify his Conscience in point of divinitie which belonged unto themselves I cannot tell But though I thinke no man can justly lay the least tittle of blame upon the just King no not the Earle himselfe as himselfe professed for yeelding to such and so earnest perswasions of I know not how many reverend Bishops wise Counsellours grave Judges and the flower of all his people to passe that Bill whatsoever it was Yet to say what I conceive with their favour The Bishops right to vote in any cause of my brethren the Bishops in the prosecution of this cause I am perswaded that they had no reason to withdraw themselves from the House and to desert their owne right when the Bill or the Iudgment was to passe against the Earle upon this slight pretence alleaged against them by the haters of the Earle and no lovers of the Bishops that a Clergie-man ought not to have any vote or to be present at the handling of the cause of bloud or death for they might know full well when my Lords grace of Yorke did most clearely manifest this truth that the first inhibition of the Clergy to be present and assistant in causa sanguinis or judicio mortis in the Canon of Innocent the third as I remember for I am driven to fly without my bookes was most unjust onely to tie the Bishops to his blinde obedience to the apparent prejudice of all Christian Princes by denying this their service unto them and it is no wayes obligatory to binde us that are by the Lawes of our Land not onely freed but also injoyned to abandon all the unjust Canons that are repugnant to our Lawes and derogatory to our Kings and to renounce all the usurped authority of the Pope for I would faine know what Scripture or what reason Pope Innocent can alleadge to exclude them from doing that good service both to God and their King which in all reason they can or should be better able to do then most others and I am sure that neither in the old nor in the new Testament nor yet in the Primitive Church untill these subtle Popes began thus to incroach upon the rights of Princes to take away the prerogatives of Kings and to domineer over the consciences of men this exclusion of them from the highest act of Justice was never found The Prophets and Apostles judged in the case of life and death for did not Moses Joshua Samuel Eliah Elizaus Jehoida and others of the Priests and Prophets of the Old Testament and S. Peter also the Prince of the Apostles in the New Testament judge in the case of bloud and pronounced the sentence of death against Malefactors as when Ananias and Sapphira were suddenly brought unto their end by the judgement of the Apostle and if they be able and fit to judge of any thing then why not of this If you say Ob. because they are the advocates of mercy the procurers of pardon the preachers of repentance and men that are made to save life and not to put any one to death or to bring any man unto his end I answer Sol. that they are therefore the fittest men to be the Judges both of life and death for who can better and more justly judge me to death then he that doth most love my life It is certaine he will not condemne me without just cause even as God that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the father of mercies and even mercy it selfe is the fittest and most righteous Judge that can be found both of death and damnation because his mercy and goodnesse towards his creatures will not permit his severity against sinne though never so detestable to his purity Clergy how fit to be Judges to doe the least injustice to their persons so our love of mercy and pitty will not suffer us to doe any thing that shall transcend the rules of justice and equity and as our inclination to mercy prohibits us to condemne the innocent so our love to justice and our charge to preserve it will not permit us to justifie the wicked for the Scripture teacheth us that he which justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the innocent that calleth the evill good and the good evill that spareth Agag and killeth Naboth are both alike abominable unto the Lord. And therefore notwithstanding this unjust Canon I never finde in any of our Histories that the Bishops did ever withdraw themselves and quit their votes in this case either before or after save onely from the 10th yeare of Richard the 2d unto the 21th yeare of the raigne of the same unfortunate King which they did not because they could not justly be present but because they had just reasons to be absent as you may finde it in the Annales of his time therefore I know not how to palliate their facility of yeilding way to those Non-Canonicall Lords to produce those non-obliging Canons Non Canonicall Lords which they abhorred in all that made not for the furtherance of their designe to exclude them from doing this which was one of their chiefest duties for who knoweth not the Lord Say and Lord Brooke and others of the Lords to hate all Canons even the old Canons of the Apostles as inconsistent with their new rules of independent government and yet herein to exclude the Bishops votes in the judgement of this man and the passing of this Bill which being admitted might perhaps have turned the scales they will take hold of the unjustest Law and alleadge one of the worst of Canons a Canon against reason and most repugnant

to the best of Gods Properties which though they be all equall in themselves summè perfectissimè yet are theynot so perceived by us but his mercy is over all his workes But you will say was this man so just that he was unjustly condemned to death did all men so untruly complaine against him and was he good notwithstanding all the evill that was proved against him I answer that I dare not and I doe not say that he was unjustly adjudged to death or that the Bill it selfe was unjust but this I assure my selfe The Earle's vertues that he was a very wise and understanding man and indued with many rare heroicke vertues and most excellent graces as among the rest with those two incomparable indowments that cannot easily be found among many of the Nobles of this world 1. Faithfulnesse to his Prince to whom as I conceive he shewed himselfe a true servant and most trusty in his greatest imployments save in what was and I know not that justly proved against him and I believe he would never have taken Armes as some others of the Lords doe now against his Soveraigne 2. Love unto the Church and Church men to whom though others thinke it their glory to oppresse them and a vertue to contemne them yet he was a true friend a most noble benefactor and most just unto his death as his very last speech unto his dearest Sonne doth sufficiently testifie unto all posterity which speech was to this effect and I would to God it were indelebly imprinted in the memory of all our Nobility that as he regarded his fathers blessing or expected a blessing from God upon what his father left him so he would be carefull never to take away or in any wise to diminish any part or parcell of the goods or patrimony of the Church which if he did would prove a canker to wast and consume all that he had Yet it may be he was which in truth I cannot imagine as the Philosopher saith of Marcus Antonius a man of that composition that his vices did equalize if not exceed his vertues and his-offences cloud all his graces and obscure all his glory and as the saving of one mans life cannot save him from suffering that doth unjustly put another man to death so the rarest vertues cannot justifie the man that committeth so many horrible offences How a malefactor may be unjustly condemned as his accusers conceived this man did to which it may be well replyed that a notorious malefactor though I apply not this to him may be unjustly condemned and so he may be justly condemned and unjustly executed as when he is not condemned for the fault committed or condemned not according to the Law which condemneth that fact for though a murderer deserveth death yet any one may not presently be the death of that murderer nor the Judge condemne him for robbery and though I should commit many offences worthy of death yet if the Law doth not condemne me I ought not to die for any of them for as the Apostle saith Where there is no law there is no sinne because sinne is the transgression of the law therefore the Earle of Strafford might be an evill man and doe many things that in the sight of God and good men were worthy of death yet if our Law made not those crimes capitall or if the Law made them capitall and not treason we ought not for treason to adjudge him unto death so in summe the result is this that he might justly deserve death and yet be very unjustly condemned to death And it seemed to some of his friends that so he was especially because they had no plaine unquestionable Law but were faine in some kind to make a Law to take off his head and when his head was off this new manner of proceeding should end and be no Law for any other that came after and a Declaration must be made that the course prosecuted for his punishment shall not afterwards be drawne into an example it must be produced for no patterne but for him alone and none other lest perhaps if the same course should be still practiced Complaint to the House of Commons p. 6. the contrivers of this plot might have the like payment to fall ere long upon their owne heads therefore some say this may well draw a suspicion upon the justice of the sentence though I will not censure any man for any injustice therein But as the Earle said at his death The Earle's words at his death which he undertooke like a good Christian full of charity and no lesse piety it was an ill omen to this Nation that they should write the frontispiece of this Parliament with letters of bloud which if unjustly done or unduly prosecuted I feare may with Abels bloud cry for vengeance in the cares of God against the contrivers of this mischiefe to produce our miseries and the God of Heaven doth onely know how much of the bloud of this Kingdome must be squeezed out to expiate all the mis-proceedings and the fearefull projects of our people God Almighty turne his anger from us and let not the righteous perish with the wicked not the sinnes of some few be laid upon us all This was the first impediment that was to be removed before they could proceed any further in this Tragedy and thus it was most artificially acted and I say he was a great and a very great impediment of their designe which made me the larger in the prosecution thereof because he was a person of that great ability and so great fidelity both to the Church and State and the taking off of his head made a very wide gap for our enemies to enter into the vineyard of Christ and a large breach into the Citie of God to deface the Church and to destroy this Kingdome CHAP. III. Sheweth how they stopped the free judgement of the Iudges procured the perpetuity of the Parliament the consequences thereof and the subtle device of Semiramis 2. The second impediment of their designe THe next let that might hinder their designe was the great learning long experience and free judgement of the grave Judges to declare what is truth and what is law in every point for these men being skilfull in the Lawes and Statutes of our Land knew how contrary to the same and how repugnant to the fundamentall Constitutions of our government the erecting of a new Church and the framing of a new Common wealth would be and their judgement being to be inquired in any emergent doubt might prove very prejudiciall unto their plots and a hinderance of their designe except it were diverted by some course Therefore to stop this streame How they stopped the free judgement of the Judges to put a gagge in their mouthes to imprison all truths that might make against them and to make these Judges yeild to whatsoever they doe or at least not to contradict any