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A62888
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The modern pleas for comprehension, toleration, and the taking away the obligation to the renouncing of the covenant considered and discussed.
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Tomkins, Thomas, 1637?-1675.
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1675
(1675)
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Wing T1836; ESTC R4003
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94,730
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270
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not less than absolutely inconsistent with Liberty of Conscience and as hard thoughts soever as the smaller Sects have entertained concerning the Bishops they are much more concerned to secure themselves against not a few nor the least Considerable among their own dear Brethren ARTICLE 2. That we shall in like manner without respect of Persons endeavour the Extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-Government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine and the Power of Godliness lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their Plagues and that the Lord may be One and his Name One in these Kingdoms As to the former part of this Article that which concerns the overthrow of the established Government of the Church I shall only say this that the Modesty of these men is in this case very admirable and there is no doubt to be made but that in any other Kingdom it would be thought to be so in that they do expect to be admitted into the Preferments of the Church and to be allowed to be publick Preachers in it and yet at the very same time they do desire to be excused from declaring that they are not of a Perswasion that there doth ly an obligation by Oath upon them themselves the whole Nation or to say no more at least upon some other Person who ought to be nameless to overthrow the whole frame of the Government of that Church which they desire to be admitted into the Preferments of and particularly of that Bishop by whose hands they are admitted I would fain know whether there be any other Part of the World where any Persons dare to demand of the present establishment that it would for their sakes so far relax it self in order to their admission into it Sure these menimagine that the Church is in a very great necessity of them that it cannot stand one moment without them when in the very Terms of their Admission they do demand no less than this that a new Law should be made on purpose whereby they may be privileged from declaring whether or no it is lawful for them to suffer the Church to continue two moments longer than there shall arise an opportunity wherein they may be able to overthrow it As for the remaining Part of the Article concerning Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine or the Power of Godliness c. I shall leave that to our Friends of the Presbytery and their Separating Brethren to dispute about it And it is clear enough that they are altogether as unlike to agree in those Particulars as I am with either of them As lovingly as ever they may look upon one another at present I am sure that the Covenant when opportunity serves will be found to be levelled as directly against the Conventicles as against the Cathedrals I shall observe no more in this Article besides the great Charitableness of the Conclusion That the Lord may be One and his Name One in the Three Kingdoms As if the Church of England followed after strange Gods and that those ordained by her were really no other than as they are often stiled according to the good manners which the People learn of too many such Preachers the Priests of Baal ART 3. We shall with the same Sincerity Reality and Constancy in our several Vocations endeavour with our Estates and Lives mutually to preserve the Rights and Privileges of the Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdoms and to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority in the Preservation and Defence of the True Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom That the World may hear witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts and intention to diminish his Majesties Iust Power and Greatness This Article hath been very much and very much insisted on and gloried in for the seeming Loyalty of one Expression in it But in order to a right understanding let us consider how Affairs stood at that time It is well known that the Compilers and Enjoyners of this Covenant were at that very time in actual Arms I hope that it is no offence if I say in actual Rebellion against the King This very Covenant was a great Instrument by which they did carry on their Design then on foot against Him The King was betrayed and sold by one part of the Covenanters those from Scotland he was bought imprisoned and in effect deposed by another part of the Covenanters those in England and by the most Loyal of them even the Lords and Commons Assembled at Westminster who by their Votes of Non-address Febr. 17. 1647. which let us note was long before the Seclusion by the Army did declare First That they will make no farther Addresses or Applications to the King And in the fourth Vote That they will receive no more Messages from the King and do enjoyn that no Person whatever do receive or bring any Message from the King to Both or either Houses of Parliament or to any other Person which Votes they published with a Declaration wherein they lay down some few of those many Reasons as they express it why they cannot repose any more Trust in Him Nay long before that time when the Scots complained of some rigours used towards His Majesty as being contrary to the Covenant the House of Commons did return them this Answer Novemb. 18. 1646. We observe that you mention the Defence of the King twice from the Covenant but in both places you leave out in the preservation of the true Religion c. A main Clause without which the other ought not to be mentioned Which very Answer themselves did afterwards receive from their own Army in a Declaration from St. Albans Novemb. 18. 1648. Where they reminded their Masters of their own Doctrine The Defence of the King say they is to be understood with this restriction In the Preservation of c. or otherwise the whole Proceedings of Both Kingdoms in makeing and maintaining War against Him in Defence of Religion and Liberties are questionable for breach of Covenant since that way of preserving did probably tend to the destruction and was without any safe provision either for his Person or that Authority which can properly be called His or understood in Conjunction with His Person but that therein His Person might probably have been destroyed under the Sword or by a Bullet yea was ordinarily endeavoured to be so as well as the Persons of others in Arms with Him and that Authority of His was certainly opposed and endeavoured to be destroyed thereby instead of being defended Remonstrance from St. Albans P. 55. Indeed about the time of the King's Murther many of the Covenanters did declare themselves a
Hearts no manner of zeal for or against any Form of Religion any farther than as theiâ— other Ends and Designs were carried on by it I shall readily grant it him â—ay I shall say this farther That besides Religion the Civil Rights of the Nation were but plausible Colours by which the Leading Men of that Party did set off their other Ends such as Revenge Humour Discontent Covetousness and Ambition And this they were told publickly by one whom they knew to be able to make it good in the excellent Declaration of Aug. 12. 1642. Themselves know what Overtures have been made by them and with what Importunity for Offices and Preferments what great Services should have been done for us and what other undertakings were even to the saving the Life of the Earl of Strafford if we would confer such Offices upon them But that Religion was the thing which they did make shew of and by which they drew abundance of well meaning but deluded People to their assistanâ—â— is so plain and known so publickly that it is no little wonder that any should offer to outsâ—â—â— the Nation in so noâ—â—â—ious a Case Did not every Press and every Pulpit declare against Episcopacy Liturgy and Cereâ—onies Did not the Lords and Commons by their Votes of March 12. 1642. resolve upon the Question That an Army be forthwith raised for the Safety of the Kings Person c. and PRESERVING THE TRUE RELIGION c. Did they not in Iuly following put forth a Delaration concerning the miserable Distractions and Grievances this Kingdom now lieth in by means of JESUITICAL and wicked Cousellours now about his Majesty wherein they tell us over and over again of the Protestant Religion a great Change of Religion That they should be for ever earnest to prevent â— Civil War and those miserable Effects which it must needs produce if they may be avoided without the Alteration of RELIGION c. And in their Resolutions to live and die with the Earl of Essex they tell us That their Army was raised for the MAINTENANCE of the TRUE PROTESTANT RELIGION The Plaâ—e Wedding-rings Thimbles and Bodkins had never been brought in if it had not been that the Cause was so often called the Cause of God Let any man read the Remonstrances and Declarations of the Two Houses and then see whether Religion was not one of those things which they all along declared their Zeal for and accordingly in all the Parliaments Quarters the poor Surplice the Organs and the Common Prayer-book were the first Objects of all their Fury But because this present Design of Comprehension is particularly intended to gratifie some Clergy-men let us enquire under what name they recommended the War unto the People Was it not under the name of Gods Cause the setting Christ on his Throne fighting the Lords Battels There is a Collection of their Sermons Printed which will not suffer any Man to doubt of this out of which there is enough gathered to this purpose in Evangelium Armatum And This Mr. Baxter hath in a late Book confessed as to himself When the Wars began though the Cause it self lay iâ— Controversies between King and Parliament yet the thoughts that the Church and Godliness it self was deeply in danger by Persecution and Arminiaâ—isâ— did much more to byass me to the Parliaments side than the Civil Interest which at the heart I little regarded This Author likewise confesseth That whatever was the Cause at the first it soon became a War for Religion And Mr. Love a Person mentioned by this Author as one of great Merit in his Sermon at the Vxbridge Treaty complains of the so long letting alone the Two Plague-sores of Episcopacy and Common Prayer-Book The Seventh Proposition is this That the Parliamentarians in the beginning of our Troubles declared to abhorr and detest all Designs of deposing and murthering his Late Sacred Majesty That they did declare against any such thing I readily grant and amongst other Reasons for this laid down by our Author That it had been else impossible for them to have gained the people as they did But that there were among the chief Contrivers of the Wars Those who had a design upon the Kings Crown and Life is a thing where of there is great Evidence If it be lawful to fight with a King why is it not lawful to kill him Swords and Bullets are Things which are by no means to be used against that Person which we think we ought not to destroy And of the great danger which his Majesties Person was in at the Battel at Edge-hill himself hath informed us in a Declaration on that Subject And in the Remonstrance of May 26. 1642. the Lords and Commons did plainly assume to themselves a Right to depose the King in these words If we should make the highest Precedents of former Parliaments our Patterns there would be no cause to complain of want of Modesty and Duty in us when we have not so much as suffered those things to enter into our thoughts which all the World knows they put in act In which words there is thus much plainly contained That whatever former Parliaments have done they take themselves to have a Right to do Now former Parliaments have been over-awed into the deposing of Kings Now that they had their Eyes upon those particular Proceedings of former Parliaments appears by those Words All the World knows what they put in act His Majesty in His Answer to that Declaration of theirs tells us of two Gentlemen who said publickly unreproved in the Parliament House one That the Hâ—ppiness of this Kingdom did not depend upon Him or upon any of the Royal Branches of that Root Another That He was not worthy to be King of England And as for the Royal Power it was plainly demanded from him in the Nineteen Propositions The Eighth Consideration is this That the Non-conforming Presbyteriâ—â—â— had both their hearts and hands in the Restauration of His Majesty to His Royal Throne for which Mr. Love and Mr. Gibbons lost their Heads Of all things I should least have eâ—pected that the Advocates for the Presbyterians should have insisted upon their Merits to His Majesty or the Royal Family for which their best Apology is the Act of Oblivion and if they would have insisted yet however methinks they should of all men not have made Mr. Love the Person to have insisted on As for that Party of the Scots which he corresponded with it is no Part of their Wisdom to remind His Majesty of the Usage which he found from them As to Mr. Love the Learned Author of Saâ—aritanism hath informed us p. 152. That at the Execution of Archbishop Laâ—d he uttered these Words with great Triumph Art thou come Little Will I am glad to see thee here and hope to see the nest of the Bishops here e're long and having dipped his Handkerchief in his blood he rode with it to Vxbridge and used these Words Here is the