Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	england_n	king_n	lord_n	3,923	5	3.9670	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51062	The moderate Independent proposing a word in season to the gathered churches, the Episcopal and Presbyterian parties tending to their humiliation for what is past, to be reconciled to each other for the time to come, and joyntly to acquiesse in the determinations of this present Parliament, as to the government of church & state / by Salem Philalathes ...	Philalathes, Salem.	1660 (1660)	Wing M2325; ESTC R16471	30,990	34

do but compare the Covenant with these Qualifications you will I suppose be of my mind that it calleth rather for your Humiliation than your Ratification of the same Perusing some of your Proofs to these Particulars I find Gen. 24. 2 3 5 6 8. Before that Abrahams Servant would swear unto his Master though the Oath was plain and short he puts in a Peradventure v. 5. What if the woman will not come with me into the Land Shall I then be discharged of my oath v. 8. Surely if ye had feared an Oath ye might have propounded many doubts and scruples before you had taken the Covenant your selves or so harshly imposed it upon others under such severe penalties Quest 1. What if the Church of Scotland whose Doctrine Discipline and Government I understand not will alter their way of Government c. whether I will or no Am I then discharged of my Oath 2. What if the Government of the Church by Arch-Bishops Bishops c. being setled by the Law of England cannot be removed without a Law made by the Three Estates in Parliament consisting of King Lords and Commons Is it not unlawful for me to swear the extirpation thereof And does a new Oath imposed without the Authority aforesaid bind me to observe it 3. What if the Parliament whose Rights and Priviledges I swear absolutely to preserve shall introduce Popery Heresie and Prophaneness which is not to preserve and defend the true Religion am I not then discharged of my Oath seeing my Covenant ties me to defend his Majesties Person and Authority only with this * Which limitation of our loyalty to Kings no further then they preserve the true Religion neither the Word of God the Oath of Allegiance or the Protestation which ye all took before this Covenant doth not in the least mention or allow for therein ye protested according to the duty of your allegiance to maintain and defend his Majesties royal Person and Estate limitation in the preservation and defence of the true Religion Many other things might have been suggested to this purpose You should do well to consider whether you did not force many not only to swear but to lie also in affirming that they entred into this Solemn League and Covenant after other means of Supplication Remonstnance Protestations and sufferings when they never had the least hand in any of them but meerly to prevent or mittigate their Sufferings under your hands And also whether the greatest number of those that took the Covenant willingly could be perswaded of that which they did avouch as truth that they entred into this Covenant according to the commendable practise of these Kingdoms in former times Or whether it were not rather a manifest untruth For except what was done in former times by the Kirk of Scotland the Chronicles of England or any other History give no testimony to what you affirm It appeareth therefore from these Considerations and by the swallowing down of this Covenant so rashly your selves and imposing it so harshly upon others that to one scruple of Conscience there was a pound of worldly wisdom and carnal policy and that the design of this Oath was to oblige men more to a Party than to Duty I have spoken the more freely and largely of this business concerning the Covenant and its non-obliging power because that I have observed many Ministers much bewail the backwardness of people to Covenant-Reformation and the great guilt of Covenant-breaking they lie under Yet never heard any to bewail the taking of it Though by what hath been suggested there is as much cause for the one as the other And therefore be perswaded I beseech you in stead of a maintaining what you have done truly to repent for what is past especially for your great severity in imposing it upon many others who did as truly scruple that as some of you did the Engagement and I suppose many of you would have done the often attempted Oath of Abjuration Sirs ye are now brought to the Touch-stone whether ye be indeed such as ye have publickly professed your selves to be in your Apologetical Declaration your serious Representation and Vindication of your selves from the irregular actings of the Independent Party That you were Friends to a Regulated Monarchy to a Free Parliament that you never intended the subversion and change of the Fundamental Lawes and Government of this Nation that it may appear that these were not the male-contented evaporations of a disappointed Faction as some are still apt to judge by the violence of many of your spirits now you are again on the rising side Let the sense of those miseries and calamities which ye brought upon the State by your violent attempts and endeavours totally to subvert and change the Government of the Church before the Treaty at the Isle of Wight the experience you have had of the great unpleasingness to all Parties but your selves of the way that you propound And as ever ye desire to prevent the letting in of a sweeping destruction at the gates of our Divisions which are never like to be composed while you violently pursue that wherein the Divine Providence hath so signally crossed you now prevail upon you to lay aside your eager contention for an absolute Presbytery And humbly as becometh Christians professing Godliness to be subject to Authority acquiesce in the determinations of this great Council the Parliament which God hath so wonderfully brought together in reference to the Government both of Church and State And to this purpose as I have in particular addressed my self to the Episcopal Clergy so I also shall conclude with a word or two unto you of the Presbyterian Ministry It is most evident that your work as Ministers of the Gospel is to be instrumental in turning not only of the hearts of men unto God but also to turn and reconcile the hearts of men unto one another It was prophesied of John the Baptist who was a burning and a shining light that he should turn the hearts of Parents to their Children and of Children to their Parents Mal. 4. Luke 1. 17. I desire you to consider whether in stead of doing this good work ye had not a great hand formerly in turning the hearts of Children from their Parents both Natural and Civil when from your Pulpits ye sounded those Allarmes to this Civil War and so mightily provoked young people who understood not the Quarrel to leave both their Masters and Parents without their consent and to adventure their lives in the high places of the field for the Cause of Christ I beseech you therefore now be as forward in turning the hearts of Children to their Parents again Take heed of raising and fomenting jealousies and fears whereby to alienate and turn away the hearts of people from Affection and Subjection to the Fathers of their Country And as John the Baptist did this by the preaching of Repentance by an impartial pressing of every

necessity must go before Repentance even Consideration before Conversion Psal 119. I considered my waies and turned my feet c. Now therefore let me entreat you to consider The Nation being as I have said before divided into three Parties which of them have longest persisted in those waies that Mr. Sedgwick chargeth upon the Army and in the justification of them which of our Gathered Churches declared the trouble of our hearts and our great dislike of the Armies disobedience to the Authority of the Lords and Commons that raised them that bewailed the great severity and John of Leyden-like cruelty they afterwards exercised when fire came out of the Bramble and consumed the Cedars of Lebanon which of us professed with Holy Jacob Gen. 49. 6 7. Into their secret let not my Soul come my Glory be not thou joyned with their Assembly Cursed be their wrath for it was fierce their anger for it was cruel But rather blessed them and God for it joyning with them in daies of Rejoycing and Thanksgiving accounting the other Parties refusing but old and new Malignants I desire you also to consider what Party have enriched themselves with the spoil which Mr. Sedgwick speaketh of That have as I said before not only bid the Army God speed and so are partakers of all their evil deeds but have joyned with them and have owned them in all those woful changes and Revolutions that our eyes have seen we have been for all Governours and Government but the right except a few fifth Monarchy men that are only for King Jesus We have been for a Common-wealth without King and House of Lords for a Protector and his Son for a Common-wealth again and then for that most dangerous Committee of Safety erected by the Souldiery that did so much threaten the Ruine and Eradication of the Magistracy and Ministry of this Nation and last of all for the last Sediment of the House of Commons also many of us unnaturally complying with them in their horrid violence upon the City for declaring for a free Parliament To which Free Parliament also how much we have shewed our aversness and how well we have wished to Col. Lambert and his Party whom many of us hoped would interrupt their Meeting together is notorious to the world otherwise I should not have spoken so freely thereunto Let us therefore upon these Considerations take shame to our selves get our proud hearts humbled our Soules softned our Spirits cooled the heates and animosities of our minds abated and make all our harsh censuring judging and accusing of others to terminate in the accusing judging and condemning of our selves And let us in these dayes wherein of late we have seen our selves so much neglected by the Nation so few of us being put either into the Militia in City or Country or by the people of this Nation chosen for their Representatives in Parliament let us be so far from censuring and judging of them for prophane and ungodly in so doing imputing it only to the enmity that is in the hearts of all unregenerate and unconverted men to the power of Godliness But let us who have so much denied the Power of it as we have done judge and condemn our selves for that Cruelty Injustice and Usurpation of ours over them of which we have given them just occasion to be so sensible of for these many years I do profess it is that which much saddens my Spirit to observe that we that do profess our selves to be Saints and to be of such scrupulous and tender Consciences that in the Circumstantials of the Worship of God we will do nothing without an express Command though it be no where forbid but all must be according to the Pattern in the Mount dare not communicate with any at the Lords Table but such as we account for Saints like our selves though Christ did with Judas or baptize our young Infants because we find no express Command for it in the New Testament Many of which Judgment renouncing the Ministry of this Nation as coming from the Pope and yet that many of us should carry on the * See Mr. Strongs Serm. Preached at Pauls Nov. 5. 1653. Pag. 19. Papists designs all this while and act from their Popish and Antichristian Principles against Magistrates because Hereticks or ungodly and go against the express Precepts and Presidents of our Lord and Master Christ I say this should very much humble us especially to consider That such as make not that high Profession with us should stumble at the Scandals we give and they take at our Principles and Practises in reference to Civil Government And that the Prophane Rabble of the world Swearers Drunkards and Sabbath-breakers Whoremongers and such like Flagitious Sinners should exceed us in Loyality to our Native Prince when as the Scriptures even the New Testament is as clear and express in the charging of that upon our Consciences as to hear to pray to meditate to walk with God and to fear his Dreadful Name And therefore we shall find that to fear God and honour the King are joyned together by the Holy Ghost 1 Pet. 2. 17. Giving us to understand that the contempt of this Precept which answers to the Fifth Commandment is not only inconsistent with the true fear of God but also drawes after it the Breach of all the rest of the Commandments of the Second Table Rebellion Treason Regicide Paracide and all kind of Murder Injustice Cruelty and Oppression the slanderous defaming and devouring of our Neighbours Good name of all which I could wish that our own times did not give too full proof and evidence of the same Let us therefore upon all these Considerations be moved to the exercise of Repentance as to these particular sins To think upon Restitution without which as one of the Fathers hath it non remittitur peccatum nisi restituetur ablatum And let us be perswaded to give over the reproaching of such who are for a regulated Monarchy that desire the Throne may be established in Righteousness I say let us no longer revile them with the odious Name of Cavee and Malignant which words ye know are frequent amongst us with which now we are apt to brand all that are not of our Party Whereas if we would look into the first remonstrance of the Parliament we should find the Malignant Party to be described to be such as would introduce erroneous Doctrines into the Church endeavour to subvert the Fundamental Lawes and Government of the Nation to erect an arbitrary power to distemper the Army that then was in the North and to bring it up to overaw the Parliament By all which Characters my Friends I fear the Name doth most properly belong to our selves And let us now get out of these Extreams into which we have so madly run for some misse-governments in the King to cut him off and cast off all Kingly Government and upon selfish designs to erect a