Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	house_n	king_n	time_n	12,858	5	3.5925	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26679	Allegiance vindicated, or, The takers of the new oath of allegiance to K. William & Q. Mary justified and the lawfulness of taking it asserted, in its consistency with our former oaths, and also with the doctrine of the Reformed Church of England, concerning non-resistance & passive obedience / by a Divine of the Church of England.	A. B.	1690 (1690)	Wing A957; ESTC R23002	31,180	38

those times to his Majesty K. C. II. advanced to the Bishoprick of Lincoln Now these things they could not have done especially with the allowance of such Spiritual Guides had the Principles of the Church of England been then understood to be so rigorous in Matters of this Nature as those of our present dissatisfied Brethren in their Casuistical Divinity are The very Engagement but now mentioned which was then generally swallowed by those that would have taken it very ill to have been thought no true Sons of the Chureh of England and divers of whom were notwithstanding even when rigorous Conformity was at the highest after the Return of K. C. II. thought worthy to be advanced to some of the most eminent Bishopricks and other Dignities of the Church of England was thought then by those that by it lost their Places out of Conscience of their Duty to the King to be unlawful as being a new Promise of Allegiance to Vsurpers and if it were so as they apprehended was certainly such an one with a witness as we use to speak in comparison of that which the present Oath requires For the Obedience by this Oath required is expressed by its proper Name the Notation whereof imports a limited legal Obedience only whereas the words True and Faithful in the Engagement ran so large as not to insinuate the least Intimation of any legal Bounds to the Duty promised This is to a K. and Q. that to a Common-wealth this can only at the worst be supposed to be Injurious to the Right of one King by transferring it to another Whereas that overthrew the Throne it self and destroyed the Right of all future Kings yea and Parliaments too by excluding out of the Government them and the whole House of Lords And by consequence it is probable in an high Degree that those who allowed and defended the taking of that Engagement in the Circumstances of those Times as not inconsistent with the Principles of this Church would if they were now alive do no less in favour of the taking this Oath especially by such as are of our Brethrens Principles and so cannot be supposed to take it in the more rigorous when the words will fairly bear a milder and more moderate Sense which the said Dr. Sanderson allows to the takers of the Engagement even though the Imposers intended it so long as they declared not that they did so in another of a more disputable nature and higher Obligation And now having dispatched this Proposition also I proceed to the Tenth and last which is X. That the Primitive Christians not only in our Saviours and his Apostles days as had been made evident by many learned Pens but also for several Ages after them have governed themselves in point of actual Allegiance by these Measures That our Saviour and his Apostles did so even when the Titles both of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Governors Bishop of Sarum his Pastoral Letter were either notoriously Faulty or at best suspicious enough is abundantly proved by the learned Pen of a reverend Bishop of this Church lately And for the Christians of subsequent Ages if what Tertullian says of them be true That throughout the Empire the Christians were so numerous that they filled the Cities Isles Castles Camp Senate c. to that Degree that as he tells the Persecutors the very Secession or Departure of so many Persons from the Societies to which they belonged into any place out of the Roman Territories though they did nothing else to their prejudice would have made a vast Solitude such as would have endangered the Roman Empire Supposing I say this to be true it is a great Evidence to me that in all the Contests which then fell out sometimes every other or at least every third or fourth year betwixt several Pretenders to the Imperial Throne so that divers times the several Armies in several Provinces set up Two or Three at once the Christians who inhabited those Provinces did take the Military Oath and pay their Allegiance each of them to that Person who was invested with the Imperial Robes in the Parts where they severally lived when once he assumed that Dignity and did not trouble themselves to enquire whether any that was set up in any other Province had a better Title than their own Emperour had Which is that as I conceive which Tertullian elsewhere means when he tells Scapula the Lieutenant of the Emperour who then lived in Africa that none of the Christians were ever convicted to have been Albinians or Nigrians or Cassians in all those Turns which fell out under those Competitors for the Crown from whom their Partisans were so named He means not certainly that none of them were in the Garisons or Armies of Claudius Albinus or Pescennius Niger who strugled with the Emperour Severus or of Avidius Cassius who contested with the Emperour Verus for this had been contrary to what he asserted elsewhere that they filled their Garrisons and Armies as before but only that they were none of the Contrivers or Plotters of those Wars which were by those Competitors set on foot nor active Sticklers for the Parties then made for those says he that were upon that account called Albinians and Nigrians c. were the Men of their own Heathenish Religion that Swore by the Genius of their Emperours which Christians refused to do And when any of the several Competitors conquered though possibly his Right were more disputable then that of the Pretender who was overcome yet they adhered even to him when once setled upon the Throne And for this I think I have evident proof from the view of the Emperours whose Cause Tertullian owns in that Defence of his but now quoted especially one of them Severus who raised the Sixth Persecution against the Christians It is evident that Tertullian commends the carriage of the Christians in their Obedience to Severus because he mentions Pescennius Niger and Claudius Albinus as the Heads of those Factions which for opposing him were then odious to Severus and denies the Christians to have been their Partisans against him Whence it is plain that they acquiesced in Severus his Title although it be evident that his Title till Conquest confirmed it was the worst of two of his Competitors For Herodian tells us that immediately upon the Death of Pertinax Julian First and then Pescennius Niger were chosen Emperors and set in the Throne by their Souldiers before Severus his Title was set on foot by his Troops So that Severus himself was while the Contest lasted more truly a Rebel against Niger then Niger against him But whilst Niger delays and revels at Antioch Severus coming to and mastering Rome the Senate confirmed him Emperour and then all the Christians acquiesced in him and became peaceably his good and loyal Subjects Whence it appears plain that the Principle of the Christians then was That they were obliged to be Subjects to whatever Prince God by his

Allegiance required by K. W. and Q. M. of the Clergy at least in particular contain in them nothing but what they may lawfully do during the ceasing Obligation of Obedience to K. J. For those Acts according to the former Distribution must be either Bearing of Arms at their Command or assisting the Forces they raise by sending in Militia Soldiers or Payment of Taxes imposed by them in the legal Methods or Preaching or Praying for them Now the first of these bearing Arms in Person no Clergy-man as was before said can by Law be required to do and therefore they may be assured that will not by their Majesties who are engaged to govern by Law be demanded of them And as to the furnishing out such of the standing Militia appointed by Law as their Ecclesiastical or Temporal Revenues render them liable unto as the Law it self justifies him that by Command doth it so doth it by Penalties enforce those that refuse so to do And so that Assistance will come under the Consideration of the third Particular the Payment of Taxes in form of Law imposed And the Payment of such may by the plenary Possessor of the Throne be exacted from all Subjects with all the Penalties incurred by refusing in case any one deny them So that besides the Liberty left any one to deny them if he will run the hazard the quiet Payment of them amounts indeed to no more in a conscientious as well as prudent Consideration than the purchasing our own ease and compounding for a less Sum out of our Estates with those who may upon refusal enforce from us a far greater And we had somewhat above Forty years since a Case of the same nature though with far less colour of Law than this at present wherein the doing of this was universally allowed by the severest Assertors of Allegiance to K. C. I. and II. and therefore thence in Reason I think be now less disputable as to its lawfulness to those who have received the strictest Principles they argue from in the present Circumstances from them as will appear anon more largely in the handling of the Ninth Proposition And yet withal I conceive there is more to be said for such Payments now then at that Time there was Partly upon a Military Account because the end for which the Soldiery are to be maintained though it be true that in that War a dispossessed King was kept out of his Throne as in this is far more justisiable now than at that time it was For those Arms were taken against a Protestant Prince and upon false Imputations of his Inclinations to Popery only whereas in this case those Fears are really made good both as to the Person and his Designs And those great Concerns of our Religion Laws and Liberties were only then concluded to be in danger from remote Consequences of some suspicious Acts which are now bare-facedly undermined And partly upon a Civil Account The Laws have now their Free Course whereas then all Law was trampled on by the conquering Party either by Military Force or by Arbitrary Courts Whence it is but meet that that Law and the Administrators of it should be maintained by all those who receive the Benefit and Advantage thereof Nor is it certainly more inconsistent with the Obligations of any former Allegiance to pay for the Support of that Power that maintains me in my Right than to appeal to its Courts of Justice for legal Relief against any that would deprive me thereof The next Particular Preaching for them as the Persons actually invested with Supreme Authority can as required of us import no more than that which is our Duty at all Times by the Apostles Rule Tit. 3. 1. The putting our People in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates That is actively or passively to obey those Laws with the actual Administration whereof they are intrusted by the actual Possession of that Supremacy whence they are derived For as to the Title by which they hold that Supremacy as they will not allow us to maintain that of the dispossessed Prince in the Pulpit So neither do they there require us to maintain their own And it is well this is not imposed upon us for if it were we might have some colour to reluct seeing it is justly disputable whether it were ever any part of our work to dispute the Titles of Princes in the Pulpit or by asserting of them in divided Congregations to occasion them to be disputed by others whatever our private Judgment may be concerning them For if it were so it is beyond all doubt to me that our Saviour and his Apostles or some one of them would have left us such certain Measures as might have governed our own and enabled us to satisfie all other Mens Judgments in the Resolution of such various Cases of Conscience as on that account must in all Nations be supposed ever and anon to be started from the different Pretensions of Competitors Nor was it indeed expedient that our Lord should clog that Religion which he was first to recommend to the World universally prejudiced against it at that time upon other accounts with such a Doctrine as would have been more obnoxious to prejudice than any of the rest Such indeed as would probably have rendred all Princes jealous of the Progress of it seeing it would have endangered the exposing all their Titles to the Disputes of its Professors and rendred them determinable according to the Issue of them A Prejudice which he hath wisely prevented by leaving his Followers some general Rules only for their Deportment under such Princes and Governours as they found in present Possession who are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13. 2. and thereby reconciled his Doctrine to the Interests of all actual Superiors by what Title soever they hold their Authority Lastly As to Praying for them it seems but reasonable that seeing we cannot expect to lead quiet and peaceable Lives in all Godliness and Honesty while they that are possessed of Authority over us lead unquiet and unpeaceable ones therefore that being the means by God directed as most proper and effectual to that end I cannot see how it can be rationally doubted whether we may nay rather it follows in my Judgment that we must make Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of Thanks for Kings and all that are in Authority and so for their Majesties at present which may through Divine Grace enable them to promote that end And accordingly the People of God anciently made no scruple to pray euen for the Kings of Babylon who by no other Claim then the Success of their Arms could pretend to Jurisdiction over them Ezra 6. 12. Jer. 29. 7. And the Primitive Christians as Tertullian who also gives us the heads of the Petitions they offered on their behalf abundantly testifieth for these Roman Emperors whose Title was never a jot better as will anon be more fully