Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A67444
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P. W's reply to the person of quality's answer dedicated to His Grace, the Duke of Ormond.
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Walsh, Peter, 1618?-1688.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing W640A; ESTC R222373
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129,618
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178
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every of them And hereunto I subscribe my Name And I shall give the Reader that pure that holy Oath indeed the Solemn League and Covenant which was the Head-spring of those others and the Fountain of all Evills that overflowed the three Nations WE Noblemen Barons Knights Gentlemen Citizens The Solemn League and Covenant Burgesses Ministers of the Gospel and Commons of all sorts in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland by the Providence of God living under one King and being of one Reformed Religion having before our eyes the Glory of God and the Advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the Honour and Happiness of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity and the true publick Liberty Safety and Peace of the Kingdoms wherein every ones private Condition is included And calling to mind the treacherous and bloody Plots Conspiracies Attempts and Practices of the Enemies of God against the true Religion and Professors thereof in all places especially in these three Kingdoms ever since the Reformation of Religion and how much their rage power and presumption are of late and at this time increased and exercised whereof the deplorable Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Ireland the dâ—stressed Estate of the Church and Kingdom of England and the dangerous Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland are present and publick testimonies We have now at last after other means of Supplication Remonstrance Protestations and Sufferings for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter ruine and destruction according to the commendable practice of these Kingdoms in former times and the example of Gods people in other Nations after mature deliberation resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and solemn League and Covenant wherein we all subscribe and each one of us for himself with our hands lifted up to the most High do Swear 1. That we shall sincerely really and constantly through the Grace of God endeavour in our several Places and callings the Preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government against our common Enemies The Reformaâ—â—on of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of God and the Example of the best Reformed Churches And shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Coâ—fession of Faith Form of church-Church-Government Directory for Worship and Catechising that we and our Posterity after us may as Brethren live in Faith and Love the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us 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 Chancellours and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-Deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Prophaness and whatsoever shall be found to be 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 the three Kingdoms 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 Parliaments 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 Kingdoms That the World may bear witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just power and greatness 4. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any faction or parties amongst the people contrary to this League and Covenant that they may be brought to publique Tryal and receive condign â—unishment as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve or the Supreme Judicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient 5. And whereas the happiness of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms denyed in former times to our Progenitors is by the good Providence of God granted unto us and hath been lately concluded and setled by both Parliaments We shall each one of us according to our place and interest endeavour that they may remain conjoyned in a firm Peace and Union to all Posterity and that Justice may be done upon the wilfull Opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article 6. Wee shall also according to our places and callings in this common Cause of Religion Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof and shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination perswasion or terrour to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed Union and conjunction whether to make defection to the contrary part or to give our selves to a detestable indifferencie or neutrality in this Cause which so much concerneth the glory of God the good of the Kingdoms and honour of the King but shall all the days of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition and promote the same according to our power against all lets and impediments whatsoever And what we are not able our selves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known that it may be timely prevented and removed All which we shall do as in the sight of God And because these Kingdoms are guilty of many Sins and provocations against God and his Son Jesus Christ as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers the fruits thereof We profess and declare before God and the World our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins and for the sins of these Kingdoms especially that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof aâ—d that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts nor to walk worthy of him in our Lives which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us And our true and unfeigned purpose desire and endeavour for our selves and all others under our power and charge both in publick and in private in all duties we owe to God and Man to amend our lives and each one to goe before another in the example of a real Reformation That the Lord may turn away his wrath and heavy indignation and establish these Churches and Kingdoms in Truth and Peace And this Covenant we make in the presence of Almighty God the
quiet the Distempers which then began to spread But the Lords Justices whose Design was not to be carried on with Mercy and Indulgence to prevent submissions Imprisoned and Indicted by a Jury which did not consist of Free-holders those so submitting and put the said Mr. Barnewall of the age of sixty six years to the torture of the Rack This notwithstanding the Noblemen and Gentry inhabiting the Country next to Dublin applyed themselves humbly by their Letter to the Lords Justices Which when the Earl of Castle-haven a Nobleman of English Birth who freely before that time had access to Dublin came to present he was made Prisoner Wherefore when the Nation observed That their Advice in Parliament was not only thought unnecessary but themselves involved in a general distrust That neither the Parliaments nor the Marquess of Ormonds offer to suppress the Rebellion would be accepted That the enforced complying of the Nobility and Gentry of the Pale with a powerful Army which was Master of their Lives and Fortunes was imputed to them as a malicious aversion from the English Government That the blood of innocent Husbandmen was drawn and the heads of men were grown an acceptable spectacle in Dublin That the publick Faith was broken and mens Houses particularly enabled to claim benefit by it pillaged and burnt That all wayes were obstructed by which they might implore his Majesties mercy and represent their Conditions That the favourable Intentions of the Parliament of England and his Majesties Gracious Pardon which was meant should extend to all save such as were guilty of blood was so limited by them as no Estated man could receive benefit by it That those who notwithstanding their restrictions cast themselves freely upon his Majesties mercy were Imprisoned Indicted and some of them Rackt That the Earl of Castle-haven might have found it a Capital Crime to mediate in their behalf if he had not made his escape after twenty weeks Imprisonment That the King 's sworn Servant was Rackt and his Ministers whose duty it was to have been zealous of the honour of their Master endeavoured to asperse it and to render him and his Royal Consort odious to his People by striving to extort from a tortured man some testimony by which they might be accused of raising and somenting that Rebellion When these and many other Arguments of this kind which lest we should be too prolix we omit had convinced the Catholicks of Ireland that the Lords Justices and that part of the Council which adhered to them became unfaithful to his Majesty and had designed the ruine of that Nation and the extirpation of their Religion That Law which moves the hand by interposing it self to bear off a stroak aimed at the head convened an Assembly of these who were exposed to those so eminent dangers in which they modelled a Goverment in order to their natural defence obliging themselves by such an Oath to his Majesty his Heirs and Successors as well shewed their affection to the Crown and their unalterable resolutions to maintain his Majesties Rights and to follow his fortune Between these divided Governments there have been Battels fought Cities and Forts besieged and much Christian blood spilt which will one day lye at some mens doors And who these are the Eternal Wisdom best knows and the Reader is left free to determine 10. All which and all whatsoever else I Print I am very well content may fall or stand as that is true which P. W. averrs in this passage of the Duke of Ormond's Country-men Pag. 3. if indeed he averrs the Supposition at all or the Irish to be such that is of the same Country with his Grace whether they be really so or no And I no less desire that all our Person of Quality writes on this subject may stand or fall as that Proof he brings in his Parenthesis to ground his own wish for me is true or false For his Grace sayes he is neither his he should have more properly said their Countryman by Birth Religion or any other Pag. 3. relation to which that name is applyable Certainly the name of Roman was appliable to Constantine the Great even then when first he was Christian that is of a different Religion from the State Senate People and Army of Rome though he was born at York in Great Britain To Theodosius and Seneca though born in Spain As likewise to so many thousands more where-ever begotten or born or of what Religion soever who enjoyed the Rights Privileges and Title of Roman Citizens Nor can he deny the name of an Englishman to that Prince was of purpose brought in his Mothers belly to Carnarvan to appease the warlike humour of the Welshmen by giving them a Prince of their own Country Extraction and the Communion of Blood and Laws and Titles of Honour and the Freedom of Citizens gave these the name of Roman though they ceased not therefore to be Britains Spaniards Welsh c. by their birthright And shall not the Duke of Ormonds Blood extracted from the Loins of the most Noble Irish Catholick Families during the succession of so many Ages these four or five hundred years his Predecessours born there his great Demains and Estate there his Titles of Honour and those of his fore-Fathers too of Baron Viscount Earl and lastly his own of Marquess and Duke all there shall not so many other Barons Viscounts and Earls descended from the House of Ormond all Buttlers and Irish and Catholicks too so many Baronets and Knights so vast a number of Squires and other Gentlemen all of that Nation and Communion besides all the almost numberless number of his Allyes in all the four Provinces of Ireland of all the most antient and most illustrious Families of that Kingdom and Religion Shall not I say all these Considerations besides the Community of the same Laws Rights and Privileges not to regard that of Education or Language entitle the Duke of Ormond to the name of Irish or their â—ountryman or to any Relation to which that name is appliable Doubtless the Topick à majori ad minus will conclude here our Person of Quality in the affirmative notwithstanding all his Logick And his own Claim besides to Ireland or England or both will conclude him And all Historians that distinguish the People of Ireland into antient Irish and antient English evict this Confession from him being these do never the more cease to be Irish Finally The Opinion of the World and Custom of England in particular reputing and calling those Irish who have in many regards less right to the name than the Duke of Ormond hath force this acknowlegdement from any Contradictor albeit England with much reason challenge him as English withall by his more antient Extraction from and his own Birth among them and by so many other Titles which makes their Claim very just while they bereave not others of their own as none doth that I know but my two