Selected quad for the lemma: state_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	government_n	king_n	people_n	3,798	5	4.6583	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93855	The apology of Socrates Christianus, or, A brief and plain narrative of his honest endeavours for the service of his country and of the dishonest practices, which have been used to suppress them, and oppress him, with false reports and calumnies : in a letter to a very worthy and generous friend.	Stephens, Edward, d. 1706.	1700 (1700)	Wing S5418A; ESTC R42652	6,300	8

THE APOLOGY OF SOCRATES CHRISTIANVS Or a Brief and Plain NARRATIVE OF HIS Honest Endeavours for the Service of his Country and of the Dishonest Practices which have been used to Suppress them and Oppress him with False Reports and Calumnies In a Letter to a very Worthy and Generous Friend Honoured Sir THough I have not been Ignorant for some time that I have been much injured by False Reports industriously spread abroad by the Practices of some Persons of truly Latitudinarian Principles in express terms that I am a Mad Man am turned Papist and that I Wrote what I have of late Printed through the Instigation or Perswasion of Priests and Jesuites yet have I hitherto Dispised them all because I thought the Folly of the first sufficiently manifest by what I have so lately Written and Printed the Falsity of the next both by my Profession of Faith lately Printed and by what I daily do in the presence of sufficient Witnesses in the Celebration of the Christian Sacrifice and Administration of the Holy Sacrament with common Bread in both kinds in a vulgar Language in a Form of English Composure in the Reign of Edward VI. and recommended to the Church of Scotland by English Bishops in the Reign of King Charles I. and which I Printed and Presented to the Arch-bishop and other Bishops and have formerly used in a publick Church in the Heart of the City for between two and three Years together and the Unreasonableness of the last of it self a silly Surmise and utterly improbable easily perceivable by Men of Learning in the Differences observable in my Writings from those of the Romanists both in several Opinions and in the manner of treating those wherein we come nearest to Agreement Yet since you have been pleased not only to do me Right very generously in my absence upon all Occasions but often pressed me to do Right to my self and my own Cause if not for my own Sake at least for the Service of his Majesty and my Country for which such Reports though False might somewhat disable me This last Consideration together with the respect I ought to have for so Generous a Friend have prevailed with me to give you a brief and plain Account in Writing of the Occasions of all this Noise and Clamour and indirect and shameful Practices of the Authors of it against me I have long since upon good Consideration of all I could meet with pertinent to the Question been well satisfyed of the Truth of the Christian Religion and by reading the Writings of the Ancient Christians from my Youth together with the Holy Scriptures well satisfied what is the True Genuine Primitive Catholick Christianity By this means I have been long sensible of great Corruptions and Abuses not only in what is truly and properly Popery but also in what is vulgarly cry'd up for Reformation And these no less pernicious and distructive to the Rights and Interest of the Church and Kingdom of Christ upon Earth and to the Power and Efficacy of true Religion than the other but much more subtile and plausible and savouring of the Craft of the Serpent and truly Antichristian And as much as this I have said before now in Print without any such Noise and Clamour against it Indeed I have long complained of these things and for this seven Years last past since I was more specially engaged in the more immediate Service of God I have been indeavouring for the Reformation but of some of them which I thought both most necessary and most easy to be effected by private Applications for some time till being grieved at the hardness of their Hearts and insuperable Restiness and Unconcernedness for such things which I observed in such as ought to have been the first and principal Movers in such Occasions it provoked me to a Review of the Roots and Original of this Religion Mr. Baxter calls it the Nominal mistaken Reformation called the Reformation which brings forth no better Fruits And therein I observed yet more Abuses than I had observed or sufficiently considered before This Work I had scarce finished when we had the welcome News of the present Peace concluded which had been more welcome to me had it not been damped by my Sense and Apprehension of the Mischiefs of these unhappy Differences in Religion which had been the Occasion of such Wars and Confusions already and were as like to be so still if some good Care was not taken in time to compose them And upon this I renewed my former Applications by Letter to such as I thought most proper for me to apply to and desired that the CONVOCATION might be permitted to sit and consider of these things otherwise if we might not have the opportunity to propose matters of such importance to the Church Collective in a Synod there would be a necessity of doing it to the Church Diffusive from the Press But could get no other answer but that the King would not permit it Which I take to be no less injurious to his Majesty than it is to all the Clergy and whole Church and Nation For it is certain that the King and in him the Church and Nation and his Government too hath been much abused by ill Advice or Misinformation both of his Right and Duty and concerning the Major part of the Clergy and Convocation by some Factious Persons if it be true that he will not permit the Convocation to sit and Act or by that Pretence if it be not so indeed This may easily be demonstrated beyond all contradiction And the Truth of it is like to break out erelong beyond all opposition to the shame and confusion of those who with their Latitudinarian Prudentials have made no scruple to betray the Rights of Christ's Church and of their own Order and the mutual Confidence between the King and People which is the Principal means of a happy Government by such Flattery as no Party of Christians in this Nation or rarely any where else are guilty of besides themselves and their despicable Party But as there is no Evil but is capable of improvement to Good by such as know how to make their Advantage of it so these Evil Practices have given a just occasion to a Wise and Magnanimous Prince to demonstrate the Sincerity and Justice of his Intention and Resolution to Govern according to the Noble Principles of the true English Government by Restoring to the Church those Rights which as to any real advantage to the State are lighter than a Feather in his Cap but heavier than Lead in their mischievous Consequences while they are usurped and detained both to King and People but would be of incredible advantage to him if he after all would resolve to be the Prince who should generously restore them After I had waited for the Sitting of the Convocation till the next Sessions of Parliament and saw it again past hopes I began to think of Printing and made choice of