Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	government_n	kingdom_n	3,695	5	5.8013	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62890	The rebels plea, or, Mr. Baxters judgment concerning the late wars in these particulars : viz. the originall of government, coordinate and legislative power in the two Houses, third estate, force upon the Houses in 1642, principles the Houses went by at the beginning, destructive to monarchy, covenant, reasons for submitting to the late government.	Tomkins, Thomas, 1637?-1675.	1660 (1660)	Wing T1838; ESTC R32811	35,816	50

read that the Prophets ever exhorted the People to such attempts But no remedy ●here is men must be undone unless● they will swear with hands lifted up to Heaven this matter of fact though they do not know it to be so nay though they know it not to be so and which is prodigiously strange One of the first argu●ents that commended it to the world is a direct contra●iction to this assertion when the Covenant with a Narrative tells us that there never was such a Thing seen in the world before It might be observed that Errour is far incorporated with her Tenents that what is true in it self is false when they speak it as almost the very first word All living under one King according to the Declaration of May 26. 1642. and the ●octrine that ●ustified the War from being Treason though against the King be●ause he was not King in his Personall but Politique capacity i. e. the two Houses to war against whom by that law was Treason according to this I say we have three Kings in as much as we have three Parliaments in the three Nations and in my weak judgment appointing all Officers Declaring who are Offenders and uncapable of mercy resolving to reform Church and State according to their own modell against the Kings expresse Will and Command are no great evidences of living under him The first Article is To endeavour the preservation of the Religion of the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Discipline c. The Reformation in England Ireland according to the word of God the best example of the best Reformed Churches and to endeavour to bring the three Kingdomes to uniformity in Church Government c. By those words according to the word of God They use to mean prescribed in it upon which where do you finde such or such a Ceremony was the common Question But so the forms of worship in Scotland used in Marriage Burial Preaching Discipline by Classes Assemblies higher and lower are not so well known in England muchlesse so clear in the word of God that every Artisan can in an instant be so assured that they are there as to swear it in judgement this Oath is by so much the more oppressive intolerable that it is not satisfied with a quiet submission to and a patient enduring of their intollerable insolencies in which respects it is more barbarous than the Engagement but obliges every man zealously and constantly to premote it There is in this Article more jugling then is tolerable in so sacred a thing as an Oath their friends being of so severall parties neither of which would be content the Church should be reformed according to the others modell There are several words put in which that party which wit or strength or accident shall set uppermost at last may interpret to their own sense i● e● advantage To please the Presbyterians The Church of Scotland Doctrine and Government is sworn to be preserved and all the three Kingdomes to be brought to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in Confession of ●aith Church-Government Directory c. Now this can be compassed no otherwise then by reducing all to the pattern of Scotland that being before sworn to be preserved But that the Sectarian Brethren of no sort may be displeased the word of God is expressely said to be the rule by which each Sect were sure of carrying the cause their own way and if any had a peculiar fancy to New-England or any other Church he thought better of the term of the best reformed Church secured him to them and he was by that assured the day was approaching wherein the men of his perswasion should triumph That the Covenant was taken in the various senses and with different hopes every one knows and that the ambiguous penning gives each party ground for it it is fondnesse to deny To please those who were for Church-government they Covenanted against Schism but least they should displease those who were against Church Government they could never be brought to proscribe nor while they had use of them to fight against the King so much as to tell who were Schismatick Surely Conscientious men who had sworn to extirpate Schisme Heresie and whatever was contrary to godlinesse would have thought Antinomians Ana●aptists c. or some other of those hard names that then swarmed about the City to have come under that head but in the same sense as fighting against the King is being for him being against Schismaticks is putting Armes and Offices into their hands The Common enemies this Oath engageth men against must not be explained too far least it discourage their best friends Papists and Prelatists may safely be named for the rest Mr. Henderson explicated them to be the Syrians and the Babylonians The second Article is to extirpate Archbishops Bishops c. whom there being no need I shall not at present plead for only this That Government in the judgment of very many Covenanters Clergy and Lay was inexpedient onely and not unlawfull upon whom the guilt of Perjury lyes very heavy for breaking their former Oaths leavying War against their King disturbing the peace of the Nation turning so many gallant men convict of no crime but their lands which other men had a minde to be guilty of and they had as good a right to as the law of England could give and all upon the sole point of inexpediency Into this point I shall dive no further but take some small notice of the reason here rendred for this certainly illegall Act of pulling down that Government of the Church without the Kings Authority lest they be partakers of other mens sins I doe not apprehend that ever I read words more destructive to every Government and to the peace of every Nation in the world they sound thus Whensoever there is a Government or form of worship in the Church which we doe not believe to be according to the word of God we are bound in Conscience nay they of another Nation are as the Scots were to us who upon this Reason Vow to extirpate our Bishops to take up Arms though it be against our King and reform for if we doe not we make our selves guilty of other mens sins A proposition that creates a perpetuall Apology for crafty men and justifies nay necessitates the vilest attempts of deluded ones The Anabapt●●s in Germany did the Separatists in Queen Elizabeth's dayes attempted no more then this warrants If this Doctrine were true I wonder the Prophets and Priests of old that lived under Idolatrous Princes were nor carefuller of their own souls and lift up their voice like a Trumpet in another sense than the Scripture mentions them to have done There cannot easily be imagined greater occasion for such irregular proceedings if they are at all justifiable in any Nation then in the Jewish their Princes being so often and so strangely guilty of Idolatry a crime clearly by their law described and forbidden yet we

kept in the Irish Rebells declared for the King we should have been butchred by them when they had conquered Ireland The Right of the people to resist their Prince having been examined we now come to the reasons upon which they did it 1. Shipmoney Not to insist upon the frequent practises of our Kings in that nature the consent of so many venerable judges the abundant care the King took to be informed the employments of it to those worthy ends for which it was raised were enough with al ingenuous minds if there were any miscarriages in the getting at least to excuse them But some men with their Loyalty put of their good nature with their Religion loose their civility But Mr. B. ought to have known that the King had relinquished his claim to Shipmoney before the Warr and therefore that could not be a cause of it Kings may confesse and forsake their faults yet some sub●ects will not forget them Praticall serious godlinesse was a scorne That was not part of the kings cause but it was very suspicious to see men solemnize a few fasts and think that entiled them to eat other mens bread all their lives after to scruple at being like prophane Absalon who wore long hare yet immitate that good man Absalon that could pay his vow and Rebell devoutly The new Orders in the Church amount to no more then this Those to whom the administration of Ecclesiasticall affairs belong to by the Laws of this land observing some neglect order rudeness in the performance of divine service appointed for its future decency some ceremonies neither commanded nor forbidden in the word of God but some of them were used in the Church of Rome whereupon they were esteemed or at least wise called Popish All that can possibly be said against this is that it is unlawfull to use any thing in Divine Service for which there is neither command nor example in Scripture when by the way the latter confutes the former supposing there may be imitable examples in Scripture of things uncommanded there which would make the black and white caps as much Antichristian as the square one Or secondly it is lawfull to use it but not if it be enjoyned but this cannot be said by Mr B. who pleades for the Civill Magistrates Power in matter of Religion though I think he is scarce resolved to allow him any thing may be called Power but that sure is of a strange nature that ceases to be lawfull when it is commaded by a lawfull Magistrate Or thirdly The being used in the Church of Rome makes it unlawfull to be used in the Church of England A very pretty principle truly we must differ from them when we have reason and when we have not reason when they reproach us with separation out of pride humour novelty the most rationall way to acquit our selves sure is to make it appeare we gladly will come as neare to them in Doctrine and Discipline as they will to Truth and pure Antiquity We did not in those things conform to Rome but to the Primitive Church and reduce those things as it were ex postlimino to their native innocent usage from which no additionall corruption of any abroad can rationally debarre us The last is a trim devise That the King would have destroyed us by the Irish Rebels who professed to raise Armes for the King Sect. 10. I suppose Mr. Baxter can tell of some in England who professed to fight for the King yet never had his Commission It seems the King must suffer as the Earle of Strafford was said to doe not for what he had but what he possibly might have done hereafter The War against the Parliament was just upon as good a ground we feared they would undo the Church and State with their Army of Sectaries whom they countenanced when he did not the Rebels in Ireland If the King had made use of the money raised for the relief of Ireland in the War at home when the poore Protestants were like to starve for want of it as the two Houses did he might have been thought to have abetted that Rebellion The Parliament could make such an inhumane Order for divertion of that money from the use it was raised for and when the King sent to them to revoke it for their own credits sake if not for the lives of his poor Irish subjects they according to their usuall rant Voted his messuage a breach of priviledge and made use of that mony to fight against him and yet they would be thought friends to the Protestants in Ireland If inferiour Courts of justice may prosecute the execution of their sentence in severall cases against the Kings will and the Sheriff may raise the power of the County to assist that execution much more may the highest Court but the former is true ergo The Argument is this If the Sheriff may raise the posse Commitatûs when by the law he is enabled so to do ergo the two houses may though the Law doth not enable them raise the posse regni Courts of judicature may use such force as doth not disturbe the peace of the Nation ergo the two houses may raise a war is a far fetcht consequence Again The house of Peers is solely the Court of Judicature the major part of which were evidently with the King The summe of the next three leaves is The warr was not against the Kings person or authority nor to change the Government of King Lords c. nor to take away the magistrates power in matters of Religion as appears by Protestation solemne league Covenant Declarations When I consider their Declarations for the King and their actions against him all I can gather is that notwithstanding their bitter remonstrances of the State of the Kingdome their unworthy unexampled ripping up and publishing to the vulgar all the faults and infelicities of his raigne which Parliaments were in a greater measure the cause of in not yeelding seasonable supply without taking any notice of the satiafaction made and care taken by him for prevention of the like for the time to come or the happy dayes men now remember they then enjoyed by which wayes it is easily to render any Government odious to the credulous and undiscerning populacy notwithstanding all this and the seditious invectives of Pen and Pulpit The King stood so clear in the eyes of all men that the being against him was a thing that they durst not own Though they spoyled him of his goods and endeavoured to do so of his good name ruined his friends preferred his most enraged enemies chased him from place to place they said to bring him to his Parliament when they caught him would not let him come thither though they deprived him of all authority as a King by taking it into their own hands his liberty as a man by imprisonment as an husband by keeping him from his wife as a father from his Children as a Christian

Parliament The Covenant is lyable to more exceptions then at present I am willing to take the very designe was extreamly scandalous and as great a blow to Religion I am perswaded as it ever recei●ed in the world as representing it to be the parent of the worst of vices rebellions sacriledge and perjury some men have adventured to teach that God is the author of all sin these men come very neer them that can do the worst of Villanies upon his score fear God and break his commandements and all upon the newly revealed Doctrine of Piety and Plunder Surely Humility Patience self-deniall taking up the Cross loving enemies praying for persecutors are things commended only to pusillanimous and morrall men Hath the spirit that came down upon Christ in the forme of a Dove appeared since in the shape of a Vulture or a Roman Eagle was it weaknesse not religion that kept the primitive Ch●●stians obedient must whatever they said about Rebelion be construed with this tacite reserve untill we have an opportunity We read in Scripture of a blessing laid up for those who in defence of Christ and his truth part with their Lands Houses or Life but not of any for those who upon that score invade other mens That there were no rewards appointed for those who killed Tyrants Buchanan esteemed it as a defect in policy and it is one in religion too He might as easily observed it to be an omission in the Law of God as man The quarrel was not then about Doctrine so much as discipline our articles were esteemed Orthodox our discipline not appostolick enough Their discipline in terminis in Scripture and as a command to introduce it with fire and sword in defiance of Prince and Laws are surely to be found in the same chapter These tender Consciences are very prety things that dare not conform to an indifferent Ceremony in obedience to all the authority the law of England takes notice Civill or Ecclesiasticall without an expresse command or example of Christ or his Apostles and yet without either can take up arms against their Soveraign plunder and slay all whose Consciences are not of the same size The Covenant not to mention upon what grounds they who at first Idolized it do now look upon it as an abominable Idoll lyes open to very just and very many material Ob●ections It being my businesse onely by the by I shall onely intimate those that are so obvious that they cannot escape a very ordinary observer First It is directly contrary to the Oath of Supremacy formerly taken wherein they swear the King to be the o●ely supream Governour in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Temporall which power they there swear to defend and by resolving to reform the Church without nay against his direct Command they now as absolutely with an Oath too deny it Secondly It is contrary to the Oaths of Canonical obedience to their Ordinary Bishops Chancellors c. which those of them which had entered into Orders took and conscienciously observed by swearing their utter exterpation a Government they by subsciption testified to be lawfull which judgement many of them were known never to change till it was their interest the late usuall season of conversion so to do And some think a good Bishoprick would seduce many of them to their old errour again Thirdly Ecclesiasticall affaires never were nor can be by the law of England which they broke even in this very act of Covenanting for the laws as they said consulted on in Parliament but onely to have the civill Sanction and that after the law is expresse they have been determined by the Clergy in Convocation See The Reformation of the Church of England Justified a whole book to that purpose Now whether the Assembly of Divines being not called by the King who alone hath power by the Law to do it nor elected by the Clergy who alone have power to send the true Convocation not dissolved may be called The Clergy in Convocation I will leave to any one to determine and onely observe that as in other illegall Acts the late Powers proceeded according to their example so in this particularly Their naming what members they pleased without Election of the Clergy to sit in the Assembly was a fit President for Oliver Cromwel to call whom he pleased without choice of the Country to sit in the little Parliament The State and Church was pulled down the same way Fourthly The Covenant could not be imposed according to the Doctrine of the long Parliament who Ex Col. p. 859. tels us Men are not to be compelled to be sworn without an Act of Parliament which certainly the Votes of the two Houses are not I shall not prosecute these things any further but observe some few particulars in the Covenant it self and onely wonder with what face not to say with what Conscience men the professed Champions of our Liberty and of no part so much as our Consciences in regard of Oaths imposed even by an unquestionable Authority could on the sudden use such barbarous rigour toward the freeborn people of England for not taking that Oath which themselves had according to the fore-cited Doctrine no power to impose and the others had the ●ommand of the Prince Law and unanswered Reason to refuse at least they could say what themselves once thought enough it was against their Consciences We shall now examine whether there is any amends made in the Materiall Cause for the faultinesse of the Efficient and there is a presumption that it is so sure such good men would not involve their Country in the miseries of a War resist their Prince but in an order to a thing that was very excellent if not necessary That assertion in the Preface which gives chief countenance to the undertaking is a most horrible falsity that it was according to the Commendable practise of these kingdomes in former times and the example of Gods people in other Nations England hath behaved her self so commendably that it is impossible to make it out to have been her practise whosoever swears it to have been untill he can produce his instances if he doth not meet with very charitable persons will be looked upon as one horribly Perjured The Churches of God if there were any before Presbytery Rebelled into a being whose examples may be Rules to us must be either the holy men before the law under the law or the Primitive Christians beofore Religion was made a Bawde to Interest He that thinks there can be a thing fetcht from their doings in favour of this league let him serve that cause so far as to attempt The History of Covenants and see how many examples he can produce of Fighters with their Prince for not introducing a form of Worship they better liked of than what was by law established The Covenants we read of in Scripture were not against the King but with the King nor when the Kings refused doe we

doe not finde that the People ever thought themselves or the Prophets ever told them they were obliged to attempts of that nature I will use my pen no longer in this Argument because it ought to be confu●ed by the sword of the Civill Magistrate sure I am it will pull down every Government that doth not pull down it More especially by reason of that clause in the Conclusion wherein each private man swears to go before other in the work of Reformation words of very horrid import as obliging every man to disturb the Nation in pursuit of his own or anothers dreams if he could but fancy it to be a Reformation their full latitude might have been understood if Wallingford house men had continued much longer possibly not to the good liking of the first contrivers but sure to their eternal infamy who first infused into men such pernicious doctrine and then because the horridnesse of it would affright men of any good nature from it bound them to it by an Oath and lastly gave them swords into their hands to justifie the most desperate conclusion the maddest can draw and all this As they shall Answer it at the great Day A little after they expresse a right Presbyterian spirit a vehement desire to see all Christendome in a flame That Their proceeding may be encouragement to other Christian Churches growing under or in danger of the yoake of Antichristian Tyranny to joyn in the same or like Association or Covenant In which words all people whose Princes are Papists or something else which they did not stick formerly to call Antichristian are absolved from their obedience and encouraged to Rebell and those who are not under the yoke yet if they are in danger of being so and how small a thing creates such a danger England may remember they may be rid of that and their Allegiance together and provide for their security as they please Here is a great want of Prudence to give Forraign Princes such timely notice of such projected Rebellions and of the men they are in danger of And a great want of charity to Forraign Churches to represent them all as enemies to the State whereby they may be put out of their good esteem if not protection But some men have Preached and Printed not onely down-right Po●ery but Prelacy also and Ceremonies also to be an Antichristian yoke and to be in danger of it hath been formerly accounted to tolerate some things now used what in their judgment is to be done in such a case I must not repeat least they should say I had a design to ●ender them suspected and so odious to the present Government I shall conclude this point with this one note The Doctrine that allows private men to resist Magistrates upon the score of Religion is in it self so horrid black in its consequences that none dare own it that can defend themselves any other way accordingly the fancy of the coordinate Power of the two Houses was entertained with mighty applause by the Brethren of the Presbytery because it salved this grand Objection of Rebellion a sin which after that happy discovery of their being free from they disclaimed against no men more Prove the King Supream and then I will yeeld myself a Rebell so Mr. Baxter in his Preface And so they all acknowledging it unlawfull for Subjects to resist their Soveraign contrary to language of the former Pamphlets Rebellion they gladly acknowledged to be a sin in all men but themselves But that device of coordination suiting onely to this particular juncture of affaires by no means serving to acquit the Scots tumults or Armies or to incense their brethren beyond Sea they having no Parliament or of no such pretence of share in the Government and very like to oppose such designes if they had any such power the Covenant revives the former Doctrine and advises the Churches beyond ●ea to set themselves free as if errour in points of belief did deprive Princes though it doth no man else of his natural or civill power or rights Thus are they loath any one Nation should be peaceable or prince happy We shall now examine that clause of the Covenant themselves so much boast of viz. that concerning the preservation of the Kings person To preserve the Kings Person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdome That they deprived the King of all Authority is proved already That his person was not the King themselves acknowledge and contend for ●rgo he is not at all provided for in this Article That the putting the King to death was no breach of Covenant I might prove many wayes but I shall refer Mr. Baxter to Mr. Goodwin his fellow-labourer in the War and Word who in the defence of the Honourable Sentence argues thus shrewdly I think ad homines p. 53. He was not then a King but a Subject and so lyable to processe of law for that blood they so often preached him guilty of Deposed he was saith he by themselves and their party when they denyed subjection to him withdrew their obedience from him acknowledged a power superiour to him viz the Parliament leavyed War against him as a Traitor as an Enemy to the Kingdome chased him from place to place and at last imprisoned his person and there was no clause in the Covenant for the preservation of a person that onec was King Nor doth this Article promise us any thing better when they shot their Cannons directly at the place where their treacherous Informers discovered the King to be they said it was in his defence because in the defence of the two Houses where his Authority forsooth resided Another cast of the same Logick may make it out that deposing nay killing the King if in the defence of true Religion shall be preserving him too because in defence of that where his Person may as properly be said to reside as his Authority where they placed it This Article at the best is but conditionall if he defends what they please to think or call the true Religion and the Liberties of the Kingdome And what his performance was in their judgement I might cite almost all their Sermons Pamphlets Declarations but I will content my self till further provocation with the Admonition of their gude brethren of the Kyrke of Scotland May Hist. p. 108 That he was very much guilty of Idolatry Prophanenesse of the Murder of many thousands of his best Subjects with much more to that purpose If I delighted to render the Presbyterians odious here I might do it to purpose but transcribe some of their Sermons and the work were done I shall for this time forbear and onely use a little which is necessary to my purpose and commonly known and already taken notice of by Mr. Goodwin whose book lying under so publick a Censure is very like to be read by most Mr. Love in his Sermon at Vxbridge told