Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	christian_a	great_a	life_n	2,755	4	4.1264	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86878	The humble representation of the committee, gentry, ministry, and other well affected persons, in the county of Leicester: to His Excellency Thomas Lord Fairfax, and the Generall-Councell of officers of the Army. In reference to the agreement of the people, tendred to the kingdome, as touching religion.	England and Wales. Army.	1648 (1648)	Wing H3641; Thomason E545_22; ESTC R202478	5,100	16

The Humble REPRESENTATION OF THE Committee Gentry Ministry And other well affected Persons in the County of LEICESTER To His EXCELLENCY THOMAS Lord Fairfax and the Generall-Councell of Officers of the ARMY In reference to the Agreement of the People tendred to the KINGDOME as touching Religion March 1st LONDON Printed for Henry Hood in St Dunstans Churh-yard MDCXLVIII The humble REPRESENTATION of the Committee Gentry Ministry c. of the County of Leicest Sheweth THat the many great and glorious blessings which the Lord of Hosts hath bestowed upon this shattered and almost ruinated Nation by the remarkable Valour and fidelity of your Excellency and the Army under your Command ascending from one high degree of service to another with many cleare evidences of your Loyalty to the Nation together with the Candor of your Excellency and Councell of Warre as it were inviting all Persons in your draught of the Agreement of the People to give in their apprehensions and reasons of approving or dissenting from any thing contained therein And knowing that it is in the Nature of the very best of Men to be subject to frailty and errour which we ought seriously to bewaile in our selves and others sometimes by Mistaken Zeale carryed beyond its proper limits and often by an Exorbitant Charity giving more Latitude to tendernes and pitty then can well stand with Divine Truths God in his wisdome having set bounds to both whose lawes challenge in all things exact obedience especially in so high a point as concernes the salvation of soules These considerations have moved us humbly to present our thoughts to your Excellencies perusall review about some things of greatest weight as concerning the glory of God the preservation of Religion and the Peace and happinesse of the Reformed Churches And we most humbly desire that the things so proposed by us may be taken into your grave examination without prejudice against us as if we were over-byassed by the Example of Others or any sinister ends of our owne Wee shall take leave to professe our selves unsatisfied concerning some Particulars in the Ninth Article of the Agreement First that Christian Religion which we justly account the greatest happinesse Deut. 32.47 Prov. 3.13.19 1 Sam 4 12. the very life and glory of a People is not reckoned as any of the Fundamentals of our Common rights and freedomes Notwithstanding our Possession thereof so many yeares and that we have found it the Parent of all our cheifest blessings and Priviledges And farther we think it strange that the said Christian Religion is only to be Recommended as the Publique profession in the Nation and not Established as the Publique profession of the Nation Yea it is not so much as Actually recommended it s only Intended to be recommended Secondly that the care of the preservation of the said Christian Religion in its purity is not at all recommended to the Christian Mugistrate but he to be devested of all power in things touching Religion notwithstanding the Gospell promise so well knowne Isa 60.16 17 18. Isa 60.16 17 18. Isa 1.26 Isa 1.26 as also those eminent glorious examples of Moses Samuel Ioshua Asa Iehosaphat Hezekiah Iosiah Ezra Nehemiah c. All which were famous in their times for the exercise of their power for restoring Religion to its purity Thirdly that instructing of the People in the said Christian Religion by able and faithfull Teachers is but barely allowed and tolerated Notwithstanding the necessity thereof for the salvation of soules the Religious care of Iehosaphat and others who sent sorth and encouraged Levites to instruct and teach the People and Pauls weighty charge to Timothy I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ Preach the Word c. together with Christ his treble charge to Peter Iohn 21.15 Fourthly that although the Gospel hath been long planted in this Nation and the People have universally engaged to the Profession thereof It is neverthelesse propounded as a Fundamentall right of the People that they should in no wise be Compelled to hold fast the said profession or attend the Ordinances for instruction therein whereby as we conceive a wide doore is opened to damnable Apostacy yea even to brutish Heathenisme and Atheisme for prevention whereof no provision is made or mentioned in the said Articles notwithstanding cleare and pregnant Scriptures for constraining those who had received the true Religion to continue in the Profession and practice therof 2 Chr. 15.13 2 Chro. 34.32 Ezra 7.26 27. Fifthly whereas in darker times wholesome and Christian lawes have bin made against Idolatry Sabbath-breaking Blasphemy and Prophanenesse and some of these Lawes revived and enlarged by this present Parliament that notwithstanding so many Prayers Teares and humble endeavours to bring on reformation and also the heavy hand of God upon the Kingdome in this intestine Warre with other fearefull judgements yet by this Ninth Article the Mounds will be broken downe and the flood-gates opened to all manner of impiety and profanenesse by repealing and making voide all Lawes of restraint to the great dishonour of God the heart-breaking of many deare Christians throughout the Kingdome and opening the mouthes of Gods enemies to blaspheme deride and triumph Sixthly that as if the sinnes of our owne Nation were not yet enough to draw downe more and heavier Judgements from heaven upon us incouragement is hereby implicitly given to Idolaters Turks and Heathens to come in and exercise their grosse Idolatries amongst us against which practices Deut. 7.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Deut. 12.30 31 32. Rev. 2 20. the Lord from Heaven hath declared as the highest abominations and upon these very grounds straightly charged his People of old to drive them out from amongst them lest they should learn their waies and the land be defiled Which grounds we conceive to be Moral and Perpetuall Lev 18.25.27 28. and if the Land Spued them out for these abominations O let not us lick up the vomit And although we may thinke our selves out of danger of such infection yet the fearefull example of Solomons Apostacy and Israels defection upon Admissions of like nature do deterre us from entertaining such perilous temptations to our selves and all posterity And if the Lord require us to come out from amongst them 2 Cor. 6.16 ●7 how shall we invite or permit them to come in to us Seventhly whereas we have eves seen and at the present feele the sad effects of the destructive principles of Popery both upon our selves and our neighbour Nations in Murders and Massacres of all manner of persons by all manner of meanes Witnesse two Kings successively murdered upon the same account in France their many bloody designes upon Queen Elizabeth that horrid attempt of blowing up the Parliament these late barbarous Murders and Massacres in Ireland all which may stand as unanswerable arguments for the rooting up of that pernicious profession which hath been found to grow up and spread in this Nation

under the sharpest lawes enacted against it yet in your third particular concerning Religion wherein you would seem to make some provision against it you have so slenderly and obscurely provided and upon the matter not at all if not held forth as the Publique Profession in the Nation that it fils us with amazement Hab. 3.1.6 makes our bellies to tremble and rottennesse to enter into our bones Eightly by the third clause all that doe professe faith in God by Jesus Christ as Papists Socinians Familists c. will pretend to do have liberty to professe their faith and exercise their Religion in any place whatsoever even in such places as are appointed for Publique worship if they may have but leave Which liberty being granted although it should not disturbe the Civill peace yet may prove infinitely pernicious and destructive to many thousands of ignorant and unstable soules as we already finde by sad and deplorable experience even now before this liberty be granted What strange and woefull issues may we then expect when not onely boundlesse liberty but as we humbly conceive most unwarrantable Protection is to be provided So that hereby Errors are under as safe powerful a shelter as truth and the most corrupting sedueers as the soundest and most Religious Christians which seemes extremely against the very current of Scriptures which tell us that seducing will eate as doth a Gangrene and overthrow the faith of some 2 Tim. 2.16 17 18. Deut. 13. And if God commanded such false Prophets to be put to death how then may we dare to give protection to them And besides all this casting our eyes further upon the Agreement we perceive that you intend not onely to settle it for the present but now at once to forme it into an Irrevocable Establishment which as farre as it relates to Religion being our businesse in hand addes heavinesse unto our spirits against which we humbly offer these ensuing reasons First some things therein appeare dangerous as hath in part been here presented others at least dubious and so not to be immutably established Secondly because many of these things were never found safe by the experience of any Church or State and to establish immutably in matters of high concernment such untried expedients we conceive cannot be so suitable to piety or prudence Thirdly because to settle such irrevocable establishments seemes to be inconsistent with a common principle of reason obliging us to endeavour and awaite the increase of light and knowledge in things both Civill and Religious in which through mercy we have found much increase of late yeeres and so have no ground to conclude that we are now growne up to such perfection in them as may not yet receive additionall and future improvement From all benefit whereof We by this Agreement conceive our selves from henceforth for ever excluded Fourthly by such Establishment we conceive we shall under the pretence of liberty but inthrall Posterity and tie them fast with a Gilded Chaine And therefore we are unsatisfied concerning the immutablenesse of the Establishment proposed And lastly although we doe exprofesso in this addresse decline such things proposed in the said Agreement as are meerely of Civil Concernment wherein we shall resigne up our selves to the determination of those in whom the great trust and supreme authority of the Kingdome doth reside as we hope your selves and others will which is our earnest desire yet forasmuch as the way proposed for setling and determining the Civil interest and also that of Religion is one and the same viz. by offering the same forme of Agreement to the People to be established or laid aside as it shall be received or disliked by the Generality of them We humbly conceive that gathering Subscriptions in the way you suggest and which as we understand is already practised may be of dangerous consequence for dividing the Kingdome especially the godly and well affected therein who being already Generally ingaged by the Nationall Covenant to maintaine the power and priviledges of Parliament in the maintenance of true Religion and the fundamentall lawes of the Kingdome must needs by such intended subscriptions for and against your Agreement be dangerously ingaged in such oppositions one of another as may greatly advantage the designes of the Common Enemy hazard the ruine of the honest party and hinder the settlement of the Nation in Peace and Safety Thus having briefely plainely and sincerely summed up our thoughts of the premises we now leave them in your bosomes with our Prayers and Teares from Hearts and Eyes lifted up to Heaven for a spirit of wisdome and holinesse to direct you in all your proceedings referring thereunto Beseeching you would not repute us among the number of those whose souls can mingle with none however Godly but such as in every point concurre in Judgement with themselves For as we know Christs owne Heart and Armes are open to weake Saints so by his grace are ours and ever shall to conscientious Brethren as farre as the word allowes though in matter of Discipline they may differ from us or in other points also that shake not the foundation of faith or enervate the power of Holinesse Nor are we such as have been backe friends to your Excellency and the Army No God knoweth we are of them that have loved and honoured you for what we have seen of God in and upon you and have often ●efended you from the strife of tongues Ye● 〈◊〉 ●●●se many prayers and praises are laid up in Heaven for you Pardon us therefore we beseech you Noble Sirs if we have been somewhat bold in this our humble addresse unto you for our businesse concernes our owne immortall soules and our Posterities yea the very foundations of precious Truth the least whereof laid in the balance is more weighty then the lives of many It is this we now plead for and God will beare us record it is truly this and not any private Interest of our owne You are Gentlemen that are tender to consciences we beg it that you will tender ours and many thousands more of the Godly in the Nation who we are confident might a true estimate be had are clearely of out mindes herein Other things might have been mentioned referring to Religion and particularly that no mention is made of the function of the Ministery which Christ hath undoubtedly established in the Church and greatly prospered in his worke which hath been ever mainely opposed by Sathan and is by many in these times But that Ordinance being so clearely founded by Christ in the Holy Gospell and hoping that your intentions are more full for that and other things then your words in that Agreement expresse we forbeare to insist further thereon In short these particulars are most considerable 1 That Christian Religion is not asserted as a fundamentall of our safety See Agreement Artic. 9. part 1. With the form of subscription in the close 2 That protection of Errors and Heresies is declared as a fundamentall Artic. 9. part 2. 3. with the form of subscription 3 That all the declared fundamentalls in this Agreement are irrevocably to be established Artic. 8. limitation 6. 4 That the fundamentalls and onely they shall be maintained to the uttermost as God shall enable See the form of subscription So that by this Agreement tendred to the People we feare naturall Liberty is endeavoured to be set up above divine prescripts and the ever-binding Lawes of God THis Humble Representation was presented to the Lord Generall his Excellency upon Thursday the 22 of Febr. 1648 by divers Gentlemen of the Committee and some Ministers in the name of many others well affected of the County of Leicester and was received with Noble Candor His Excellency promising to take it into consideration to communicate it to his Generall Councell of Officers and to endeavour the satisfaction of these and all other well-affected in the Nation Imprimatur Iob Downham Febr. 23. 1648.