Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	bishop_n	church_n	time_n	3,265	5	3.4917	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30370	A letter, containing some reflections on His Majesties Declaration for liberty of conscience dated the fourth of April, 1687	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.; Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.	1689 (1689)	Wing B5815; ESTC R22971	10,147	10

upon the Crown to assure them that they should be well used than these can pretend to The Nation has scarce forgiven some of the Church of England the Persecution into which they have suffered themselves to be cosened tho now that they see Popery barefaced the Stand that they have made and the vigorous Opposition that they have given to it is that which makes all men willing to forget what is past and raises again the Glory of a Church that was not a little stained by the Indiscretion and Weakness of those that were too apt to believe and hope and so suffered themselves to be made a Property to those who would now make them a Sacrifice The Sufferings of the Nonconformists and the Fury that the Popish Party expressed against them had recommended them so much to the Compassions of the Nation and had given them so just a pretension to favour in a better time that it will look like a curse of God upon them if a few men whom the Court has gained to betray them can have such an ill Influence upon them as to make them throw away all that Merit and those Compassions which their Sufferings have procured them and to go and court those who are only seemingly kind to them that they may destroy both them and us They must remember that as the Church of England is the only Establishment that our Religion has by Law so it is the main body of the Nation and all the Sects are but small and stragling parties and if the Legal Settlement of the Church is dissolved and that body is once broken these lesser bodies will be all at Mercy and it is an easy thing to define what the Mercies of the Church of Rome are XIII But tho it must be confessed that the Nonconformists are still under some Temptations to receive every thing that gives them present ease with a little too much kindness since they lie exposed to many severe Laws of which they have of late felt the weight very heavily and as they are men and some of them as ill Natured men as other people so it is no wonder if upon the first surprises of the Declaration they are a little delighted to see the Church of England after all its Services and Submissions to the Court so much mortified by it so that taking all together it will not be strange if they commit some Follies upon this occasion Yet on the other hand it passes all imagination to see some of the Church of England especially those whose Natures we know are so particularly sharpned in the point of Persecution chiefly when it is levelled against the Dissenters rejoyce at this Declaration and make Addresses upon it It is hard to think that they have attained to so high a pitch of Christian Charity as to thank those who do now despitefully use them and that as an earnest that within a little while they will persecute them This will be an Original and a Master piece in Flattery which must needs draw the last degrees of Contempt on such as are capable of so abject and sordid a Compliance and that not only from all the true Members of the Church of England but likewise from those of the Church of Rome it self for every man is apt to esteem an Enemy that is brave even in his Misfortunes as much as he despises those whose minds sink with their Condition For what is it that these men would thank the King Is it because he breaks those Laws that are made in their Favour and for their Protection and is now striking at the Root of all the Legal Settlement that they have for their Religion Or is it because that at the same time that the King professes a Religion that condemns his Supremacy yet he is not contented with the Exercise of it as it is warranted by Law but carries it so far as to erect a Court contrary to the express words of a Law that was so lately made That Court takes care to maintain a due proportion between their Constitution and all their proceedings that so all may be of a piece and all equally contrary to Law They have suspended one Bishop only because he would not do that which was not in his Power to do for since there is no Extrajudiciary Authority in England a Bishop can no more proceed to a Sentence of Suspension against a Clergy-man without a Tryal and the hearing of Parties than a Judge can give a Sentence in his Chamber without an Indictment a Tryal or a Iury and because one of the Greatest Bodies of England would not break their Oaths and obey a Mandate that plainly contradicted them we see to what a pitch this is like to be carried I will not Anticipate upon this illegal Court to tell what Iudgments are coming but without carrying our Iealousies too far one may safely conclude that they will never depart so far from their first Institution as to have any regard either to our Religion or our Laws or Liberties in any thing they do If all this were acted by avowed Papists as we are sure it is projected by such there were nothing Extraordinary in it but that which carries our Indignation a little too far to be easily governed is to see some Pretended Protestants and a few Bishops among those that are the fatal Instruments of pulling down the Church of England and that those Mercenaries Sacrifice their Religion and their Church to their Ambition and Interests this has such peculiar Characters of Misfortune upon it that it seems it is not enough if we perish without pity since we fall by that hand that we have so much supported and fortifyed but we must become the Scorn of all the world since we have produced such an unnatural Brood that even while they are pretending to be the Sons of the Church of England are cutting their Mother's Throat and not content with Judas's Crime of saying Hail Master and kissing him while they are betraying him into the hands of others these carry their Wickedness further and say Hail Mother and then they themselves Murther her If after all this we were called on to bear this as Christians and to suffer it as Subjects if we were required in Patience to possess our own Souls ând to be in Charity with our Enemies and which is more to forgive our False Brethren who add Treachery to their Hatred the Exhortation were seasonable and indeed a little necessary for humane Nature cannot easily take down things of such a hard digestion but to tell us that we must make Addresses and offer Thanks for all this is to Insult a little too much upon us in our Sufferings and he that can believe that a dry and cautiously worded promise of maintaining the Church of England will be Religiously observed after all that we have seen and is upon that carried so far out of his Wits as to Address and give Thanks and will believe still such a man has nothing to excuse him from believing Transubstantiation it self for it is plain that he can bring himself to believe even when the thing is contrary to the clearest Evidence that his senses can give him Si populus hic vult decipi decipiatur POSTSCRIPT THese reflections were writ soon after the Declaration came to my hands but the Matter of them was so tender and the Conveyance of them to the Press was so uneasy that they appear now too late to have one effect that was Designed by them which was the diverting men from making Addresses upon it yet if what is here proposed makes men become so far wise as to be ashamed of what they have done and is a means to keep them from carrying their Courtship further than good words this Paper will not come too late FINIS

A LETTER Containing some REFLECTIONS On His MAJESTIES DECLARATION For LIBERTY of CONSCIENCE Dated the Fourth of April 1687. SIR I. I Thank you for the Favour of sending me the late Declaration that His Majesty has granted for Liberty of Conscience I confess I longed for it with great Impatience and was surprised to find it so different from the Scotch Pattern for I imagined that it was to be set to the second part of the same tune nor can I see why the Penners of this have sunk so much in their stile for I suppose the same men penned both I expected to have seen the Imperial Language of Absolute Power to which all the Subjects are to obey without reserve and of the cassing annulling the stopping and disabling of Laws set forth in the Preamble and body of this Declaration whereas those dreadful words are not to be found here for instead of repealing the Laws His Majesty pretends by this only to suspend them and tho in effect this amounts to a repeal yet it must be confessed that the words are softer Now since the Absolute Power to which His Majesty pretends in Scotland is not founded on such poor things as Law for that would look as if it were the gift of the people but on the Divine Authority which is supposed to be delegated to His Majesty this may be as well claimed in England as it was in Scotland and the pretention to Absolute Power is so great a thing that since His Majesty thought fit once to claim it he is little beholding to those that make him fall so much in his Language especially since both these Declarations have appeared in our Gazettes so that as we see what is done in Scotland we know from hence what is in some peoples hearts and what we may expect in England II. His Majesty tells his people that the perfect Injoyment of their Property has never been in any Case invaded by him since his coming to the Crown This is indeed matter of great Incouragement to all good Subjects for it lets them see that such Invasions as have been made on Property have been done without His Majesties knowledge so that no doubt the continuing to levy the Customes and the Additional Excise which had been granted only during the late Kings Life before the Parliament could meet to renew the Grant was done without His Majesties knowledge the many Violences committed not only by Soldiers but Officers in all the Parts of England which are severe Invasions on Property have been all without His Majesties knowledge and since the first Branch of Property is the Right that a man has to his Life the strange Essay of Mahometan Government that was shewed at Taunton and the no less strange proceedings of the present Lord Chancellour in his Circuit after the Rebellion which are very justly called His Campagne for it was an open Act of Hostility to all Law and for which and other Services of the like nature it is believed he has had the reward of the Great Seal and the Executions of those who have left their Colours which being founded on no Law are no othet than so many Murders all these I say are as we are sure Invasions on Property but since the King tells us that no such Invasions have been made since he came to the Crown we must conclude that all these things have fallen out without his Privity And if a standing Army in time of Peace has been ever lookt on by this Na●ion as an Attempt upon the whole Property of the Nation in gross one must conclude that even this is done without His Majesties knowledge III. His Majesty expresses his Charity for us in a kind wish that we were all Members of the Catholick Church in return to which we offer up daily our most earnest prayers for him that he may become a Member of the truly Catholick Church for Wishes and Prayers do no hurt on no side but His Majesty adds that it has ever been his Opinion that Conscience ought not to be constrained nor people forced in matters of meer Religion We are very happy if this continues to be always his sense but we are sure in this he is no obedient Member of that which he means by the Catholick Church for it has over and over again decreed the Extirpation of Hereticks It encourages Princes to it by the Offer of the Pardon of their Sins it threatens them to it by denouncing to them not only the Judgments of God but that which is more sensible the loss of their Dominions and it seems they intend to make us know that part of their Doctrine even before we come to feel it since tho some of that Communion would take away the Horror which the Fourth Council of the Lateran gives us in which these things were decreed by denying it to be a General Council and rejecting the Authority of those Canons yet the most learned of all the Apostates that has fallen to them from our Church has so lately given up this Plea and has so formally acknowledged the Authority of that Council and of its Canons that it seems they think they are bound to this piece of fair dealing of warning us before hand of our Danger It is true Bellarmin sayes The Church does not always execute her Power of deposing Heretical Princes tho she always retains it one reason that he assigns is because she is not at all times able to put it in execution so the same reason may perhaps make it appear unadviseable to extirpate Hereticks because that at present it cannot be done but the Right remains entire and is put in execution in such an unrelenting manner in all places where that Religion prevails that it has a very ill Grace to see any Member of that Church speak in this strain and when neither the Policy of France nor the Greatness of their Monarch nor yet the Interests of the Emperour joyned to the Gentleness of his own temper could withstand these Bloody Councils that are indeed parts of that Religion we can see no reason to induce us to believe that a Toleration of Religion is proposed with any other design but either to divide us or to lay us asleep till it is time to give the Alarm for destroying us IV. If all the Endeavours that have been used in the last four Reigns for bringing the Subjects of this Kingdom to a Unity in Religion have been ineffectual as His Maj. says we know to whom we owe both the first beginnings and the progress of the Divisions among our selves the Gentleness of Q. Elisabeth's Government and the numbers of those that adhered to the Church of Rome made it scarce possible to put an end to that Party during her Reign which has been ever since restless and has had credit enough at Court during the three last Reigns not only to support it self but to distract us and to divert us from apprehending the danger of