Selected quad for the lemma: nation_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nation_n	according_a	government_n	law_n	1,213	5	4.7274	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79504	New-Englands Jonas cast up at London: or, A relation of the proceedings of the court at Boston in New-England against divers honest and godly persons, for petitioning for government in the common-wealth, according to the lawes of England, and for admittance of themselves and children to the sacraments in their churches; and in case that should not be granted, for leave to have ministers and church-government according to the best reformation of England and Scotland. Together with a confutation of some reports of a fained miracle upon the aforesaid petition, being thrown over-board at sea; as also a breif [sic] answer to some passages in a late book (entituled Hypocrisie unmasked) set out by Mr. Winslowe, concerning the Independent churches holding communion with the reformed churches. / By Major John Child.	Child, John, Major.	1647 (1647)	Wing C3851; Thomason E384_5; ESTC R201443	15,799	25

of fidelity thereunto seeming notwithstanding to be evil-affected to the Government here established In and upon the 18. day of the first Moneth last past at Hingham aforesaid in the presence of about thirty persons did utter divers speeches which are upon record tending to sedition and contempt of the said Government contrary to the law of God and peace and welfare of the Country Upon which Return of the Jury the Court fined him Twenty pounds and bound him in Forty pounds to be of good behaviour and to appeare at next Quarter-Court and Mr. Peck bound himself in twenty pounds for the good behaviour and appearance of Mr. Peter Hubbard at the next Quarter-Court Increase Nowel Secret The Court on this Triall was kept by these persons Mr. Winthrop Governour Mr. Dudley Deputy-governour Mr. Pe●●im Mr. F●m Mr. Hibbins Mr. Nowel Mr. Bellingham Mr. Broadstreet Only Mr. Bellingham and Mr. Broadstreet required their Dissent to be recorded To the Worshipfull the GOVERNOUR the Deputy-governour and the rest of the Assistance of the Massachusets Bay in New-England together with the Deputies of the generall Court now assembled in Boston The Remonstrance and humble Petition of us whose Names are here under-written in the behalf of our selves and divers within this Jurisdiction HUmbly showeth That we cannot but with all thankfulnesse acknowledge your indefatigable pains continuall care and constant vigilancie which by the blessing of the Almighty hath procured unto this Wildernesse the much desired fruits of Peace and Plenty while our native Land ye● the Christian world is sharply afflicted with the devouring Sword and the sad consequents of Intestine wars And further That you whom the Lord hath placed at the helm of these Plantations and endowed with eminent gifts fit for such honourable callings are best able to foresee the clouds which hang over our heads the 〈◊〉 and tempests which threaten this poor Handfull here planted and timously to amend them Notwithstanding those who are under 〈◊〉 being at present unfit for higher imployments may perceive those Leaks which will inevitably sink this weak and ill compacted Vessell if not by your Wisdoms opportunely prevented We therefore in the behalf of our selves and divers of our Countrymen laying our hands on our breasts and seriously considering That the hand of our good God who through his goodnesse hath safely brought us and ours through the great Ocean and planted us here seems not now to be with us nay rather against us blasting all our designs though contrived with much deliberation undertaken with great care and proceeding with more then ordinary probability of succesfull events by which many of good estates are brought to the brinks of extreme poverty yea at this time laying His just hand upon our families taking many away to himself striking others with unwonted malignant sicknesses and noysome shamefull diseases Have thought it convenient with all respectivenesse to present these our sincere requests and Remonstrance to this honoured Court hoping we have found out the speciall Leaks which concurring with the many and great Sins of this place which our Consciences know and our Brethren of England are not ignorant of are the speciall causes of the Lords turning his face from us leaving us to our selves and consequently to strife contention unfaithfulnesse idlenesse and other lamentable failings not blessing us in any of our endeavours so as to give us any great hopes of Staple-commodities and consequently of comfortable subsistence though we to the utmost of our powers these many years even to the exhausting of our estates and spirits have endeavoured the same but contrariwise all things grow worse and worse even to the threatning in our apprehensions of no lesse then finall ruine Not doubting but you will receive these our Requests and Remonstrance with the same candor of mind which we not aiming at novelty and disturbance but at the glory of God our allegiance to the State of England and good of these poor Plantations if our hearts deceive us not present them unto you though for want of skill and other necessary helps roughly drawn up and hope that you will be more diligent in an ending then we in the searching out the causes of these our present calamities 〈◊〉 Not to trouble you who are imployed in the most serious affaires of these Plantations with many wor●● wee shall briefly referre them to those Heads 1. Whereas this place hath been planted by the incouragements next under God of Letters Patents given and granted by His Majesty of England to the Inhabitants hereof with many priviledges and immunities viz. Incorporation into a Company liberty of choosing Governours setling Government making Laws not repugnant to the Laws of England power of administring the Oath of Allegiance to all c. as by the said Letters Patents more largely appeareth Notwithstanding we cannot according to our judgements cleerly discern a setled form of Government according to the Fundamentall lawes of England which may seem strange to our Country-men yea to the whole World especially considering we are all English Neither do we so understand or perceive our own Lawes or Liberties or any Body of Lawes here so established as that thereby there may be a sure and comfortable enjoyment of our Lives Liberties and Estates according to our due Naturall rights as Free-born subjects of the English nation By which many inconveniences flow into these Plantations viz. Jealousies of introducing Arbitrary Government which many are prone to believe construing the procrastination of such setled Lawes to proceed from an over-greedy spirit of Arbitrary power which it may be is their weaknesse such proceedings being most detestable to our English Nation and to all good men and at present a chief cause of the intestine War in our dear Country Further it gives cause to many to think themselves hardly dealt with others too much favoured and the scale of Justice too much bowed and unequally ballanced From whence also proceedeth feares and jealousies of illegall Commitments unjust Imprisonments Taxes Rates Customes Levies of ungrounded and undoing Assesments unjustifiable Presses undue Fines unmeasurable Expences and Charges of unconceivable dangers through a Negative or destructive Vote unduly placed or not well regulated in a word of a Non-certainty of all things we enjoy whether lives liberties or estates as also of undue Oaths being subject to exposition according to the will of him or them that gives them and not according to a due and unbowed rule of Law which is the true Interpreter of all Oaths to all men whether Judge on Judged Wherefore our humble desire and requesti●● That you would be pleased to consider of our present condition and upon what foundation we stand and unanimously concurre to establish the Fundamentall and wholsome Lawes of our native Country and such others as are no way repugnant to them unto which all of us are most accustomed and we suppose them best agreeable to our English tempers and your selves obliged thereunto by the Generall

Charter and your Oaths of Allegiance neither can we tell whether the Lord hath blest many in these Parts with such eminent Politicall gifts so as to contrive better Lawes and Customes than the Wisest of our Nation have with great consideration composed and by many hundred years experience have found most equall and just which have procured to the Nation much honour and renown amongst strangers and long peace and tranquility amongst themselves And for the more strict and due observation and execution of the said Lawes by all Ministers of Justice that there may be a setled Rule for them to walk by in cases of Judicature from which if they swerve there may be some Power setled according to the Lawes of England that may call them to account for their Delinquencie which may be a good means to prevent divers unnecessary Appeals into England 2. Whereas there are many thousands in these Plantations of the English Nation free-born quiet peaceable men righteous in their dealings forward with hand heart and purse to advance the publike good known friends to the honourable and victorious Houses of Parliament lovers of the Nation c. Who are debarred from all Civil imployment without any just cause that we know not being permitted to beare the least office though it cannot be denied but some are well qualified No not so much as to have any Vote in choosing Magistrates Captains or other Civil or Military Officers notwithstanding they have here expended their youth born the burthen of the day wasted much of their estates for the subsistence of these poor Plantations paid all assesments taxes rates at least equal if not exceeding others Yea when the late War was denounced against the Naragauset Indians without their consent their goods were seised on for the service themselves and servants especially forced and imprest to serve in that was to the hazarding of the things most neer and dear unto them Whence issue forth many great inconveniences secret discontents murmurings rents in the Plantations discouragements in their callings unsetlednesse of minde strife contention and the Lord only knows to what a name in time it may kindle also jealousies of too much unwarranted power and dominion on the one side and of perpetuall slavery and bondage to them and their posterity on the other and which is intolerable even by them who ought to love and respect them as brethren c. We therefore desire that Civil liberty and freedome be forthwith granted to all truly English equall to the rest of their Country-men as in all Plantations is accustomed to be done and as all Free-borne enjoy in our native Country we hoping here in some things to enjoy greater liberties then elswhere counting it no small losse of liberty to be as it were banished from our native home and enforced to lay our bones in a strange wildernesse Without imposing any Oaths or Covenants on them which we suppose cannot be warranted by the Letters Patents and seem not to concurre with the Oath of Allegiance formerly enforced on all and later Covenants lately imposed on many here present by the honourable Houses of Parliament or at least to detract from our native Country and Laws which by some are stiled Foraign and this Place termed rather a Free State then a Colony or Corporation of England All of us being very willing to take such Oaths and Covenants as are expressions of our desires of advancing the glory of God and good of this place of our duties to the State of England and love to our Nation being composed according to the laws and customes of other Corporations of England But all of us are exceedingly unwilling by any policies whatsoever to be rent from our Native country though far distant from it valuing our free Denizations the Immunities and Priviledges which we and our posterity do and we hope shall alwayes enjoy above the greatest Honours of this Country not cemented to the State of England and glory to be accounted though but as Rushes of that Land and yet that we may to 〈◊〉 to write that we and ours are English Or at least we intreat that the Bodies of us and ours English subjects possesing here no priviledges may not be imprest nor Goods forcibly taken away lest we not knowing the justnesse of the war may be ignorantly and unwillingly inforced upon our own destructions And that all Assesments Taxes Impositions which are many and grievous if Civil liberty be not granted may be taken off that in all things we may be Strangers otherwise we suppose our selves in a worse case here and lesse free then the Natives amongst whom we live or any Aliens Further that none of the English nation who at this time are too forward to be gone and very backward to come hither be banished unlesse they break the known Lawes of England in so high a manner as to deserve so high a punishment And that those few that come over may settle here without having two Magistrates hands which sometime not being possible to obtain hath procured a kind of banishment to some who might have been serviceable to this place as they have been to the State of England c. 3. Whereas there are divers sober righteous and godly men eminent for knowledge and other gracious gifts of the Holy Spirit no ways scandalous in their lives and conversations Members of the Churches of England in all Ages famous for piety and learning not dissenting from the late and best Reformation of England Scotland c. Yet they and their posterity are detained from the Seals of the Covenant of Free-grace because as it is supposed they will not take these Churches Covenants for which as yet they se● no light in Gods word neither can they cleerly perceive what they are every Church having their Covenant differing from anothers at least in words yea some Churches sometime adding sometimes detracting calling it sometime the Covenant of Grace sometime a Branch of it sometime a Profession of the Free-Covenant c. Notwithstanding they are compelled under a severe Fine every Lords day to appeare at the Congregation and notice is taken of such who stay not till Baptisme be administred to other mens children though denied to their own And in some places forced to contribute the maintenance of those Ministers who vouchsafe not to take them into their Flock though desirous of the Ordinances of God c. yet they are not accounted so much as Brethren nor publikely so called nor is Christian vigilancie commanded to all any way exercised to them Whence as we conceive abound an ocean of inconveniences Dishonour to God and his Ordinances little profit by the Ministery increase of Anabaptism and of those that totally contemn all Ordinances as vain fading of Christian graces decrease of Brotherly love Heresies Schisms c. The whole body of the Members of the Churches of England like sheep scattered in the wildernesse without a shepherd in a forlorne sad condition We

the Isles of Silly upon the throwing of that Writing over-board for that was thrown over long before at least 14 dayes Also the error is the more in this That the report is that it was the petition to the Parliament that was thrown over-board and it was only a Copy of a Petition to their own Court at Boston and the Petition to the Parliament was still in the ship together with another Copy of that which was thrown over-board and other Writings of that nature some of which are printed in this book and were as well saved as their lives and other goods and are here in London to be seen and made use of in convenient time POST-SCRIPT THere is a book lately set-forth by Mr. Edward Winslow of New England against Samuel Gorton intituled Hypocrisie unmasked in which there is a deep and subtle Plot against the Lawes of England and Liberties of English Subjects and the Gentlemen that are now suffering in New-England This man being a principall opposer of the Lawes of England in New-England One who is usually in place of Government in New-Plimouth there Now in N. England there are many several Governments distinct and independent one from and on the other and none of them have ever since they came into that Country governed by the Lawes of England but by an Arbitrary government of their own nor indeed can they endure the Laws of Eng. This New Plimouth where M. Winslow is a Magistrate was the first Plantation in New-England and as the rest that came after them thither followed them in their Church-ways so they follow them in their Arbitrary government And now he is come over hither being sent as an Agent for the rest that the may get strength from the Parliament here to maintain what they have begun made so great a progresse in They have made a Law that it shall be death for any there to attempt the alteration and subversion of their Frame of Polity or Government as it is apparent by those Lawes in Print set forth by themselves the Copy whereof is in pag 16. of this Book set forth and also proceeded to the Fining and Imprisoning of some well-affected English whom they fear will complain of this their Arbitrary government that so none may dare to seek for a remedy from the Parliament We have cause heartily to pray That as Mr. Baily sets forth in his book of Disswasive from the Errors of the times as from New-England came Independencie of Churches hither which hath spread over all parts here that from thence also in time Arbitrary Government in the Commonwealth may not come hither Now if any man ask how 't is evident there is such a Plot laid down in that Book I answer to be very briefe I shall give the Reader this light into this designe In his Epistle before the book which he dedicates to the Honourable Commissioners for Forraign Plantations he makes five Requests to them the fourth of which is That they will take into consideration how destructive it will be to their Plantations and proceedings there which saith he are growing into a Nation to answer to complaints here See and observe Reader how he seeks to stop all Appeals from all their unjust Sentences whatsoever they may be contrary to the Lawes of England Secondly he would make their Honours to be the Instruments to stop the Currant of the greatest Liberty of English subjects there he would engage the Parliament in it and what a desperate businesse this would prove every wise man may easily see For being begun at this Plantation by the same rule others might seek it should extend to all other Plantations and then why not to Ireland and why shall not example custome and fair pretences bring it into Wales and Cornwal so over England And by the way Reader mark his great boasting that they are growing into a Nation high concel●s of a Nation breeds high thoughts of themselves which makes them usually term themselves a State cal the people there Subjects 〈◊〉 four Governments together without any authority from the King and Parliament and then term themselves the United Colonies are publikely prayed for by that title not giving forth their Warrants in his Majesties name no not in time of his most peaceable government neither taking the Oath of Allegiance before they take upon them their Government nor ever giving it to any of his Majesties subjects c. Now Reader observe their policie they take the advantage of promoting this designe by beginning to write against Gorton a man whom they know is notorious for heresie that so behind him they may creep and get a shot at a better game may beget a good opinion in the Honorable Comissioners by writing against such a evill man as also that they may wash away the opinion that good men heretofore have had of them that they are Separatists and Schismaticks Mr. Winslow their Agent insinuates severall things of the good agreement communion that the Independents in New-England hold with Presbyterians and the Reformed Churches of which he had discoursed with some godly Presbyterians since his comming over into England and saith he was earnestly requested by some of the Presbyterian party to publish to the world as much pag. 97. and thereupon tells a long story of the Church of New-Plymouth belonging to Mr. Robinson of Leyden holding communion with French and Dutch churches yea tendring it to the Scots as also pag. 93. how the rest of the Churches in New-England do suffer Presbyterians and have offered all liberty and priviledges to Presbyterians p. 99. 100. But for answer I say there is a great deal of fallacie in this discourse and the contrary is too well known and daily practised among the Independents both there and here not admitting the most godly men into communion among them not to the acts wherein they hold communion stands properly keeping Communion with them in Word and Prayer which they admit to their Indians too And let them instance if they can among many hundreds yea some thousands of Independents that have come from New-England and Holland that have come to the Lords supper in our Churches or done any act among us in which they hold Church-communion properly stands 2. Rather then Mr. Winslow will fail of his purpose he will make the world believe that the Reformed Churches are as much Separatists as themselves are by describing them with the same description that the Separatists describe themselves p. 96. That they are a People distinct from the World and gathered into a holy Communion he should have said Covenant which is his sense and not National churches and that the sixth person is not of the Church meaning amongst them which falshood of his he boldly affirms thinking that many will believe because he saith it but the contrary is well known to those that know them for in Holland they refuse not to baptize any of their Country-mens-children who bring them to