Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	england_n	reform_a	4,212	5	9.5265	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87760	King Charles his farewell Left as a legacy to his deare children; written a little before his death. Containing many excellent admonitions and directions how to demeane themselves in all estates and conditions. With his prayers in the time of his troubles.; Eikon basilike. Selections	Gauden, John, 1605-1662.; Charles I, King of England, 1600-1649, attributed name.	1649 (1649)	Wing K552; Thomason E1410_2; ESTC R209521	13,170	35

KING CHARLES HIS FAREWELL LEFT As a Legacy to his deare CHILDREN Written a little before his Death Containing Many Excellent Admonitions and Directions how to demeane themselves in all Estates and Conditions WITH His Prayers in the time of His Troubles LONDON Printed for SKG 1649. KING CHARLES HIS FAREWELL SON if these Papers with some others wherein I have set downe the private reflections of my Conscience and my most impartiall thoughts touching the chiefe passages which have been most remarkable or disputed in my late troubles come to your hands to whom they are chiefly designed they may be so farre usefull to you as to state your judgement aright in what hath passed whereof a pious is the best use can be made and they may also give you some directions how to remedy the present distempers and prevent if God will the like for time to come It is some kinde of deceiving and lessening the injury of my long restraint when I finde my leisure and solitude have produced something worthy of my selfe and usefull to you That neither You nor any other may hereafter measure My Cause by the Successe nor my Judgement of things by my Mis-fortunes which I count the greater by far because they have so far lighted upon You and some others whom I have cause most to love as well as my Selfe and of whose unmerited sufferings I have a greater sense than of mine Own But this advantage of wisdome You have above most Princes that You have begun and now spent some yeares of discretion in the experience of troubles and exercise of patience wherein Piety and all vertues both Morall and Politicall are commonly better planted to a thriving as trees set in winter then in the warmth and serenity of times or amidst those delights which usually attend Princes Courts in times of peace and plenty which are prone either to root up all plants of true Vertue and Honour or to be contented only with some leaves and withering formalities of them without any reall fruits such as tend to the publique good for which Princes should alwayes remember they are born and by providence designed The evidence of which different education the holy Writ affords us in the contemplation of David and Rehoboam The one prepared by many afflictions for a flourishing Kingdom the other softned by the unparaleld prosperity of Solomons Court and so corrupted to the great diminution both for Peace Honour and Kingdom by those flatteries which are as unseparable from prosperous Princes as Flies are from fruit in summer whom adversity like cold weather drives away I had rather you should be Charles le Bon then le Grand good then great I hope God hath designed you to be both having so early put you into that exercise of his Graces and Gifts bestowed upon you which may best weed out all vitious inclinations and dispose you to those Princely endowments and employments which will most gain the love and intend the wel-fare of those over whom God shall place you With God I would have you begin and end who is King of Kings the Soveraign disposer of the Kingdomes of the world who pulleth downe one and setteth up another The best Government and highest Soveraignty you can attain to is to be subject to him that the Scepter of his Word and Spirit may rule in your heart The true glory of Princes consists in advancing Gods Glory in the maintenance of true Religion and the Churches good Also in the dispensation of civill Power with Justice and Honour to the publique peace Piety will make you prosperous at least it will keep you from being miserable nor is he much a loser that loseth all yet saveth his own soule at last To which Center of true happinesse God I trust hath and will graciously direct all these black lines of affliction which he hath been pleased to draw on me and by which he hath I hope drawn me nearer to himselfe You have already tasted of that Cup whereof I have liberally drank which I look upon as Gods Physick having that in healthfulnesse which it wants in pleasure Above all I would have you as I hope you are already well grounded and setled in your Religion The best profession of which I have ever esteemed that of the Church of England in which you have been educated yet I would have your own Judgement and Reason now seal to that sacred bond which education hath written that it may be judiciously your own Religion and not other mens custome or tradition which you professe In this I charge you to persevere as coming nearest to Gods Word for Doctrine and to the primitive examples for Government with some little amendment which I have otherwhere expressed often offered though in vaine Your fixation in matters of Religion will not be more necessary for your souls then your Kingdoms peace when God shall bring you to them For I have observed that the Devill of Rebellion doth commonly turne himself into an Angel of Reformation and the old Serpent can pretend new Lights when some mens Consciences accuse them for Sedition and Faction they stop its mouth with the name and noise of Religion when Piety pleads for peace and patience they cry out Zeal So that unlesse in this point You be well setled you shall never want temptations to destroy you and yours under pretensions of reforming matters of Religion for that seemes even to worst men as the best and most auspicious beginning of their worst defignes Where beside the Noveltie which is taking enough with the Vulgar every one hath an affectation by seeming forward on an outward Reformation of Religion to be thought zealous hoping to cover those irreligious deformities whereto they are conscious by a severitie of censuring other mens opinions or actions Take heed of abetting any Factions or applying to any publick Discriminations in matters of Religion contrary to what is in your Judgement and the Church well setled your partiall adhering as head to any one side gains you not so great advantages in some mens hearts who are prone to be of their Kings Religion as it loseth you in others who think themselves and their profession first despised then persecuted by you Take such a course as may either with calmness and charitie quite remove the seeming differences and offences by impartiality or so order affaires in point of power that you shall not need to feare or flatter any faction for if ever you stand in need of them or must stand to their courtesie you are undone The Serpent will devour the Dove you must never expect lesse of loyalty justice or humanity then from those who engage into religious Rebellion Their interest is alwayes made Gods under the colours of Piety ambitious policies march not onely with greatest security but applause as to the populacy you may heare from them Jacob's voyce but you shall feele they have Esau's hands Nothing seemed less considerable than the Presbyterian

palliations for any designes as other men so that you study really to exceed in true and constant demonstrations of goodnesse piety and vertue towards the people even all those men that make the greatest noise and ostentations of Religion so you shall neither feare any detection as they doe who have but the face and mask of goodnesse nor shall you frustrate the just expectations of your people who cannot in Reason promise themselves so much good from any Subjects novelties as from the vertuous constancy of their King When these mountaines of congealed factions shall by the Sunshine of Gods mercy and the splendor of your vertues be thawed and dissipated and the abused Vulgar shall have learned that none are greater Oppressours of their Estates Liberties and Consciences than those men that entitle themselves The Patrons and Vindicators of them onely to usurpe power over them Let then no passion betray you to any study of revenge upon those whose own sinne and folly will sufficiently punish them in due time But as soone as the forked arrow of factious emulations is drawn out use all princely arts and clemency to heale the wounds that the smart of the cure may not equall the anguish of the hurt I have offered Acts of Indemnity and Oblivion to so great a latitude as may include all that can but suspect themselves to be any way obnoxious to the Laws and which might serve to exclude all future jealousies and insecurities I would have you alwayes propense to the same way when ever it shall be desired and accepted let it be granted not onely as an act of State policy and necessity but of Christian charity and choice It is all I have now left Mee a power to forgive those that have deprived Mee of all and I thank God I have a heart to doe it and joy as much in this grace which God hath given Me as in all My former enjoyments for this is a greater argument of Gods love to Me than any prosperity can be Be confident as I am that the most of all fides who have done amisse have done so not out of malice but mis-information or mis-apprehension of things None will be more loyall and faithfull to me and you than those Subjects who sensible of their Errours and our Injuries will feele in their own Souls most vehement motives to repentance and earnest desires to make some reparations for their former defects As your quality sets you beyond any Duell with any Subject so the Noblenesse of your minde must raise you above the meditating any revenge or executing your anger upon the many The more conscious you shall be to your own merits upon your people the more prone you will be to expect all love and loyalty from them and to inflict no punishment upon them for former miscarriages You will have more inward complacency in pardoning one than in punishing a thousand This I write to you not despairing of Gods mercy and My Subjects affections towards you both which I hope you will study to deserve yet We cannot merit of God but by his own mercy If God shall see fit to restore Me and You after Me to those enjoyments which the Laws have assigned to Us and no Subjects without an high degree of guilt and sin can devest Us of then may I have better opportunity when I shall be so happy to see you in peace to let you more fully understand the things that belong to Gods glory your own honour and the Kingdoms peace But if you never see My face again and God will have Me buried in such a barbarous Imprisonment and obscurity which the perfecting some mens designs require wherein few hearts that love me are permitted to exchange a word or a look with Me I doe require and entreat you as your Father and your KING that you never suffer your heart to receive the least check against or dis-affection from the true Religion established in the Church of England I tell you I have tryed and after much search and many disputes have concluded it to be the best in the world not onely in the Community as Christian but also in the speciall notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the pomp of superstitious Tyranny and the meannesse of fantastick Anarchy Not but that the draught being excellent as to the main both for Doctrine and government in the Church of England some lines as in very good figures may happily need some sweetning or polishing which might here have easily been done by a safe and gentle hand if some mens precipitancy had not violently demanded such rude alterations as would have quite destroyed all the beauty and proportions of the whole The scandall of the late Troubles which some may object and urge to you against the Protestant Religion established in England is easily answered to them or your own thoughts in this That scarce any one who hath been a beginner or an active Prosecutor of this late Warre against the Church the Laws and Me either was or is a true Lover Embracer or Practiser of the Protestant Religion established in England which neither gives such rule nor ever before set such examples 'T is true some heretofore had the boldnesse to present threatning Petitions to their Princes and Parliaments which others of the same Faction but of worse Spirits have now put in execution but let not counterfeit and disorderly zeal abate your value and esteeme of true piety both of them are to be known by their fruits the sweetnesse of the Wine and Figtree is not to be despised though the Brambles and Thorns should pretend to beare Figs and Grapes thereby to rule over the Trees Nor would I have you to entertain any aversation or dislike of Parliaments which in their right constitution with freedome and honour will never injure or diminish your greatness but will rather be as interchangings of love loyalty and confidence between a Prince and his People Nor would the eveats of this blacke Parliament have been other than such however much byassed by Factions in the Elections if it had been preserved from the insolencies of popular dictates and tumultuary impressions The sad effects of which will no doubt make all Parliaments after this more cautious to preserve that Freedome and Honour which belongs to such Assemblies when once they have fully shaken off this yoak of Vulgar encroachment since the publique interest consists in the mutuall and common good of both Prince and People Nothing can be more happy for all than in fair grave and Honourable wayes to contribute their Counsels in Common enacting all things by publique consent without tyranny or Tumults Wee must not starve our selves because some men have surfeited of wholsome sood And if neither I nor you be ever restored to our Rights but God in his severest justice will punish My Subjects with continuance in their sin and suster them to be deluded with the prosperity of their wickednesse I hope

Faction in England for many yeares so compliant they were to publique order nor indeed was their Party great either in Church or State as to mens judgements But as soon as discontents drave men into Sidings as ill humours fall to the disaffected part which cause inflamations so did all at first who affected any novelties adhere to that side as the most remarkable and specious note of difference then in point of Religion All the lesser Factions at first were officious servants to Presbytery their great Master till time and military success discovering to each their peculiar advantages invited them to part stakes and leaving the joynt stock of uniforme Religion pretended each to drive for their party the trade of profits or preferments to the breaking and undoing not onely of the Church and State but even of Pesbytery it selfe which seemed and hoped at first to have ingrossed all Let nothing seeme little or despicable to you in matters which concerne Religion and the Churches peace so as to neglect a speedy reforming and effectuall suppressing Errours and Schisms which seem at first but as a hand-bredth by seditious Spirits as by strong winds are soon made to cover and darken the whole Heaven When you have done justice to God your own soul and his Church in the profession and preservation both of truth and unitie in Religion The next main hinge on which your prosperitie will depend and move is That of civill Justice wherein the setled Laws of these Kingdoms to which you are rightly heir are the most excellent rules you can govern by which by an admirable temperament give very much to Subjects industry liberty happinesse and yet reserve enough to the Majesty Prerogative of any King who owns his people as Subjects not as slaves whose subjection as it preserves their prosperity peace and safetie so it will never diminish your Rights nor their ingenuous Liberties which consists in the enjoyment of the fruits of their industry and the benefit of those Laws to which themselves have consented Never charge your Head with such a Crown as shall by its heavinesse oppresse the whole body the weaknesse of whose parts cannot return any thing of strength honour or safety to the Head but a necessary debilitation and ruine Your Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting rather then exacting the rigor of the Laws there being nothing worse than legall tyrannie In these two points the preservation of established Religion and Laws I may without vanity turn the reproach of my sufferings as to the worlds censure into the honour of a kinde of Martyrdome as to the testimony of my own Conscience The troubles of my Kingdomes having nothing else to object against me but this That I prefer Religion and Lawes established before those alterations they propounded And so indeed I do and ever shall till I am convinced by better Arguments than what hitherto have been chiefly used towards Me Tumults Armies and Prisons I cannot yet learn that lesson nor I hope ever will you That it is safe for a King to gratifie any Faction with the perturbation of the Laws in which is wrapt up the publique Interest and the good of the communitie How God will deal with Me as to the removal of these pressures and indignities which his Justice by the very unjust hands of some of my Subjects hath been pleased to lay upon Me I cannot tell nor am I much solicitous what wrong I suffer from men while I retain in my soule what I beleeve is right before God I have offered all for Reformation and Safety that in Reason Honour and Conscience I can reserving onely what I cannot consent unto without an irreparable injury to my own soule the Church and my people and to you also as the next and undoubted Heire of my Kingdoms To which if the divine Providence to whom no difficulties are insuperable shall in his due time after my decease bring you as I hope he will My Counsell and Charge to you is That you seriously consider the former reall or objected miscarriages which might occasion my troubles that you may avoyd them Never repose so much upon any mans single counsell fidelity and discretion in managing affairs of the first magnitude that is matters of Religion and Justice as to create in your self or others a difference of your own judgement which is likely to be alwayes more constant and impartiall to the interest of your Crown and Kingdom than any mans Next beware of exasperating any Factions by the crossnesse and asperity of some mens passions humours or private opinions imployed by you grounded onely upon the differences in lesser matters which are but the skirts and suburbs of Religion Wherein a charitable connivence and Christian toleration often dissipates their strength whom rougher opposition fortifies and puts the despised and oppressed party into such Combinations as may most enable them to get a full revenge on those they count their Persecutors who are commonly assisted by that vulgar commiseration which attends all that are said to suffer under the notion of Religion Provided the differences amount not to an insolent opposition of Laws and Government or Religion established as to the essentials of them such motions and minings are intolerable Alwayes keep up solid piety and those fundamentall Truths which mend both hearts and lives of men with impartiall favour and Justice Take heed that outward circumstances and formalities of Religion devour not all or the best incouragements of learning industry and piety but with an equall eye and impartiall hand distribute favours and rewards to all men as you finde them for their reall goodnesse both in abilities and fidelities worthy and capable of them This will be sure to gaine you the hearts of the best and the most too who though they be not good themselves yet are glad to see the severer waies of vertue at any time sweetned by temporall rewards I have You see conflicted with different and opposite factions for so I must needs call and count all those that act not in any conformity to the Laws established in Church and State no sooner have they by force subdued what they counted their common Enemy that is all those that adhered to the Laws to Me and are secured from that feare but they are divided to so high a rivalty as sets them more at defiance against each other than against their first Antagonists Time will dissipate all factions when once the rough horns of private mens covetous and ambitious designes shall discover themselves which were at first wrapt up and hidden under the soft and smooth pretensions of Religion Reformation and Liberty As the Wolfe is not lesse cruell so he will be more justly hated when he shall appeare no better than a Wolfe under Sheeps cloathing But as for the seduced Traine of the Vulgar who in their simplicity follow those disguises My charge and counsell to you is That as you need no

God will give Me and You that grace which will teach and enable Us to want as well as to wear a Crown which is not worth taking up or enjoying upon sordid dishonourable and irreligious terms Keepe you to true principles of piety vertue and Honour You shall never want a Kingdome A principall point of your honour will consist in your deferring all respect love protection to your Mother My Wife who hath many wayes deserved well of Me and chiefly in this that having been a means to blesse Mee with so many hopefull Children all which with their Mother I recommand to your love and care Shee hath been content with incomparable magnanimity and patience to suffer both for and with Me and You. My prayer to God Almighty is what ever becomes of Me who am I thank God wrapt up and fortified in My own innocency and his Grace that he would be pleased to make you an Anchor or Harbour rather to these tossed and weather-beaten Kingdomes a Repairer by your wisdom justice piety and valour of what the folly and wickednesse of some men have so far ruined as to leave nothing intire in Church or State to the Crown the Nobility the Clergy or the Commons either as to Laws Liberties Estates Order Honour Conscience or lives When they have destroyed Me for I know not how far God may permit the malice and cruelty of My Enemies to proceed and such apprehensions some mens words and actions have already given Me as I doubt not but My bloud will cry aloud for vengeance to Heaven so I beseech God not to powr on t his wrath upon the generality of the people who have either deserted Me or engaged against Mee through the sartifice and hypocrisie of their Leaders whose inward horrour will be their first Tormenter nor will they escape exemplary judgements For those that loved Me I pray God they may have no misse of Me when I am gone so much I wish and hope that all good Subjects may be satisfied with the blessings of your presence and vertues For those that repent of any defects in their duty towards Mee as I freely forgive them in the word of a Christian KING so I beleeve you will finde them truly zealous to repay with interest that loyalty and love to You which was due to Me. In summe what good I intended doe you performe when God shall give you power much good I have offered more I purposed to Church and State if times had been capable of it The deception will soone vanish and the Vizards will fall off apace This mask of Religion on the face of Rebellion for so it now plainly appears since My restraint and cruell usage that they fought not for Mee as was pretended will not long serve to hide some mens deformities Happy times I hope attend you wherein your Subjects by their miseries will have learned that Religion to their God and Loyalty to their King cannot be parted without both their sin and their infelicity I pray God blesse You and establish your Kingdomes in righteousnesse your Soule in true Religion and your honour in the love of God and your People And if God will have disloyalty perfected by my destruction let My memory ever with My name live in you as of your Father that loves you and once a King of three flourishing Kingdoms whom God thought fit to honour not onely with the Scepter and government of them but also with the suffering many indignities and an untimely death for them while I studied to preserve the rights of the Church the power of the Lawes the honour of my Crown the priviledge of Parliaments the Liberties of my People and My own Conscience which I thank God is dearer to Me than a thousand Kingdomes I know God can I hope he will yet restore Me to My Rights I cannot despaire either of his mercy or of My Peoples love and pity At worst I trust I shall but goe before you to a better Kingdom which God hath prepared for me and Me for it through My Saviour Jesus Christ to whose mercies I commend You and all mine Farewell till We meet if not on Earth yet in Heaven Munday 29. January 1648. A true Relation of the KINGS Speech to the Lady Elizabeth and the Duke of Gloucester the day before His Death HIS Children being come to meet Him Hee first gave His blessing to the Lady Elizabeth and bad her remember to tell her Brother James when ever shee should see him That it was his Fathers last desire that he should no more look upon Charles as his eldest Brother onely but be obedient unto him as his Soveraign and that they should love one another and forgive their Fathers Enemies Then said the King to her Sweet heart you 'l forget this No said she I shall never forget it while I live And powring forth abundance of Teares promised him to write downe the Particulars Then the King taking the Duke of Gloucester upon his knee said Sweet-heart now they will cut off thy Fathers head upon which words the Childe looked very stedfastly on him Mark Childe what I say they will cut off My Head and perhaps make thee a King But mark what I say you must not be a King so long as your Brother Charles and James doe live For they will cut off your Brothers heads when they can catch them and cut off thy head too at the last and therefore I charge you doe not be made a King by them At which the Childe sighing said I will be torn in pieces first Which falling so unexpectedly from one so young it made the King rejoyce exceedingly Another Relation from the Lady Elizabeths own hand WHat the King said to Me the 29. of January 1648. being the last time I had the happinesse to see him He told Me He was glad I was come and although He had not time to say much yet somewhat He had to say to Me which he had not to another or leave in writing Because he feared their Cruelty was such as that they would not have permitted him to write to me He wished me not to grieve and torment My selfe for Him for that would be a glorious death that he should dye it being for the Lawes and Liberties of this Land and for maintaining the true Protestant Religion He bid me read Bishop Andrewes Sermons Hookers Ecclesiasticall Policy and Bishop Laud's Booke against Fisher which would ground me against Popery He told me he had forgiven all his Enemies and hoped God would forgive them also and commanded Us and all the rest of my Brothers and Sisters to forgive them He bid me tell my Mother That his thoughts had never strayed from her and that his love should be the same to the last Withall he commanded mee and my Brother to be obedient to her And bid me send his Blessing to the rest of my Brothers and Sisters with commendations to all his friends So after he