Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A59965
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A short memorial of the sufferings and grievances past and present of the Presbyterians in Scotland particularly of them called by nick-name Cameronians.
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Shields, Alexander, 1660?-1700.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing S3434; ESTC R25753
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49,050
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63
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unto followed Such as had not served the Enemy in destroying nor engaged by Oaths and Tests to destroy the cause now to be sought for and defended But that they should be well affected of approven Fidelity and of a sober conversation Having also declared That the cause they were called to appear for was the service of the Kings Majesty in the defence of the Nation Recoverie and preservation of the Protestant Religion and in particular the work of Reformation in Scotland in opposition to Popery Prelacy and Arbitrary Power in all its Branches and Steps until the Government of Church and State be brought to their Lustre and Integrity established in the best and purest times Upon these terms we offered to compleat two or three more Regiments if it had been accepted But before we offered to be Souldiers we had first made an offer to be Subjects And because we did not look upon our selves as Subjects to the Late King who treated us as Enemies We made therefore a voluntary Tender of our Subjection in a peculiar Petition by our selves which we purposed to have given in to the Meeting of Estates at their first sitting down We shewed it to several Honourable Members but by their Advice it was delayed until the Meeting prevented the purpose of it by Proclaiming the King and Queen The Tenor whereof here Follows TO THE MEETING of ESTATES Of the Kingdom of SCOTLAND THE NOBLEMEN BARONS and BVRGESSES Lawfully Called and Chosen now Assembled at Edinburgh for Establishing the Government Restoring and Securing the True Religion Laws and Liberties of the said Kingdom The Humble PETITION of the poor People who have Suffered Grievous Persecution for their Revolt from and disowning the Authority of James the VII Pleading for the devolving the Government upon the Prince of Orange now King of England SHEWETH THat the sad effects of the Late Arbitrary and Tyrannical Course of Government which these Nations and we in a special manner have been groaning under these years past From which to Relieve them the Most Serene and Illustrious Prince of Orange was induced by the Propitious Conduct of a very Glorious Providence to Undertake this Noble and Heroick Enterprise And for Redressing which This Honourable Convention is Called and Conveened Together with the revived hopes since His Highness Auspicious Arrival that all honnest men have begun to conceive and entertain of getting their Grievances freely Represented and Redressed The denyal whereof these several years hath been to us and many others a Grievance very grievous Have necessitate incited invited and encouraged us among others tho of the meanest Figure and lowest Interest in this great Affair Yet as persons pressed to declare and oppressed for declaring their Consciences Sentiments and Resentments of the Late abused Government to take the Boldness now to open our hearts to this Great and Honourable Meeting And with all humility as becomes to Represent to Your Honours That as we conceive we wanted not Right and Reason upon Consciencious Grounds to decline the Illegally extorted and Arbitrarly imposed acknowledgement of our Allegiance unto Iames the VII Whose Authority we could never own because of his Illegal Investiture without taking or being in Capacity to take the Oath of Coronation while addicted to Poperie contrare to the Laws of God and Man because of his Advancing the Prerogative unto an Illimited and most Despotical Absolutness which all were required to obey without Reserve And because of his Arbitrary abusing it to the undermining and overturning our Religion Laws and Liberties and intended Introduction of Poperie and Slaverie at the opened gap of the Prelatical Hierarchy Erastian Supremacy and the Late vastly extended Toleration And because we could not own it our Sufferings have been very great known to this and other Nations and we are confident will not now be condemned by any that have espoused the Cause and have been honoured to concur in the Enterprise of Rescuing these Nations from the Unsupportable Yoke of the Late Popish Domination upon the same or equivalent grounds on which we durst not own it So we prostrate ourselves yet sorrowing under the smart of our still bleeding wounds at your Honours Feet who have a Call a Capacity and we hope a good mind to cure them And offer this our Petition enforced by all the formerly felt presently seen and for the future feared Effects and Efforts of this Throne of Iniquity and the mischief thereby framed into Law and practised or projected against all Law by the Cry of the Blood of our murdered Brethren by the slavery of the banished free born Subjects of this Realm by all the miseries that many forefeited disinhereted harassed and wasted honest Families have been redacted to their Estates and Lives being at the mercy of incensed Souldiers for adhering unto the Ancient Covenanted Establishments of Religion and Liberty And by all the Arguments of Justice Necessity and Mercy that ever could conciliate Commiseration among Men of Wisdom Piety and Vertue humbly Beseeching Requesting and Craving of your H Now when GOD hath given you this opportunity to Act for His Glory the good of the Church and Nation your own Honour and the Happiness of Posterity Now when this Kingdom the Neighbouring and all other Nations of Europe have their Eyes upon you expecting you will acquit your selves like the Representatives of a free Nation in redeeming it from Slaverie otherwise ineluctable following the Noble footsteps of your Renowned Ancestors and the present Precedent and Pattern of this Honourable Convention and Parliament now sitting in England That you will proceed without any farther Procrastinations alwayes especially now Dangerous when Papists and other Malignant Enemies are openly attempting to raise a Rebellion against the State to declare the late Iniquous Government dissolved the Crown Vacant and Iames VII whom we never have and resolve with many Thousands never again to owne to have really Forfeited and rightly to be deprived of all Right and Title he could ever pretend thereunto And to provide that it may never be in the Power of any succeeding Governour for the time to come to aspire unto or arrive at such a Capacity of Tyrannizing Moreover since Anarchy and Tyranny are equally to be detested and the Nation cannot subsist without a Righteous Governour and none can have a nearer Right nor fitter Qualifications than his Illustrious Highness whom the Most High hath signally Owned and Honoured to be our deliveror from Popery end Slavery We Cry and Crave that King William now of England may be Chosen and Proclaimed King of Scotland and that the Regal Authority be devolved upon him with such necessary Provisions Limitations and Conditions of Compact as may give Iust and Legal Securities of the Peace and Purity of our Religion Stability of our Laws priviledges of Parliaments and Subjects Liberties Civil and Ecclesiastick and make our Subjection both a clear Duty and a comfortable Happiness And because Kings are but Men mortal mutable and
applied unto But as Magistrates ought to interpose their Power for extruding and easing the people of Intruders so when they abuse it to the re inforcing of these intrusions honnest and zealous people can as hardly be restrained from resisting such Invasions and Impositions against the Laws of GOD and Man as they can be kept from withstanding a violent Invader of their Property or Intruder on their Heritage For our part as we thought it a seasonable duty to take the opportunity of the Interregnum before the settlement of a Government that we could subject our selves to for cleansing the Western Shiers of these Creatures which was done with all the discretion that the confusions of that time and the feared shortness of that opportunity could admitt And whatever clamour they make of their Persecutions in their Late Printed Account and Information to the Church of England stuft with Lies we defy them to give an instance of any hurt done by us to any of their Persons or Families or to charge us with one Six-pence worth of their Goods If any have let it be proven and punished which if others in other places had imitated in that season with the like discretion the Nation might have been much eased and the Government prevented of a great deal of trouble So tho we are not for Persecuting them who were our greatest Persecuters nor rendering them any evil for their evil farther than to restrain them from coming back again to Persecute us and from Intruding where they have no Right Yet we are resolved through Gods Assistance to endeavour by all approven means to hold them out now when they are out And sooner to die and venture the loss of all things temporal than to suffer any of them to repossess themselves of the Churches whence they are thrown out or any other within our reach untill after sufficient Evidences of their remorse they shall come in at the door of CHRISTS Appointment If in this we Offend the Malignants in the Parliament or Council we cannot help it it is not the first time nor perhaps the last But for the Noble Honoured Patriots among them who are well affected to the Cause of Reformation the Nations good and his Majesties Honour and Happiness we are confident they will construct of our ingenuity in good part as flowing from conscience and Candor And we are hopeful his Majestie will Compassionat us in this matter and consider the Case that it is more for his Honour and Interest to have respect to the Consciences of so many People than to the humor and haughtiness of a few debauched Lords and Gentlemen who delight in these vexations and who by Custom as it were have it for their Element to impose upon poor Peoples Consciences And we hope his Majesty will think upon the Redressing of this Grievance of the Continuance of these Episcopal Curates who took notice of this as one of the Grievances in his Declaration that he came to relieve the Nation from In the netxt place as to the State tho we desire to be more abstract from these Administrations that are above our reach yet it is obvious and Grievous to all that desire the Establishment thereof in Righteousness and Peace that the settlement of Church and State both is Retarded and Obstructed by the frequent Adjournments of Parliaments in so Critical a Season when the Government is not well settled the Enemies thereof are prevailing the Friends thereof are sore discouraged and devided and the Forces have no Maintenance If ever there 〈◊〉 of Parliaments now it must be when the greatest Interests 〈◊〉 King and People are in so eminent Hazard And yet it is more Grievous that when they Conveen and have opportunity to Act for the good of the Nation the settlement of the Church Government and the Redress of Grievances the Disputes of divided Factions about things of lesser Moment do hinder their Establishing of those things that all agree are Absolutely necessary Time might be afterwards spared for many of these Debates with which the present precious opportunity is wasted and they might with more Advantage and Facility be Adjusted and Composed afterwards if once the Establishment of the Church and the Security of the Nation were provided for and these things for which they have his Majesties Instructions were Settled and Enacted But we fear these Differences are much Fomented by Self-seeking Malignant Incendiaries who love to Fish in troubled Waters and to pursue their selfish and sinistrous ends of Undermining the Church supplanting the King's Interest and betraying the Countries Liberties from whom these Disorders and Grievances have proceeded which are now desired to be Rectified and Redressed and from whose Influence all these Retardments and Disapointments do flow which the Nation so much complains of For as the open and avowed Enemies of the King and Country owning the late King Iames his Interest all consisting either of the Popish or Prelatical and Malignant Faction not so much as one Presbyterian being among them are very many Insolent and Prevalent not only in the Highlands but in all the hires of the Kingdom and no doubt have their Active Agents Correspondents and Abetters in the Parliament Council and all the Supreme Judicatories of the Kingdom so there are far moe secret undermining Enemies who for the time are not appearing in opposition to the Government that are as great Enemies to the King and Country and all Righteous Interests as any that do most appear who are now desiring Places and ingyring themselves into publick Trust not to serve King William whose Advancement to the Throne they opposed with all the Power and Policy they had nor simply to satisfy their Insatiable Ambition but to put themselves in better Capacity to serve King Iames in Retarding all Righteous Establishments Rending the Parliaments and Ruining Us all Yea however some may account it Policy it is not only a Grievance but a Sin dishonouring God and destructive to the Nation and a dangerous Politick threatning hazard to Religion and Liberty and the Government that many wicked Malignants Enemies to Reformation are admitted imployed in the publick Administrations as Officers of State Members of Council Parliament and other Judicatories and places of Trust who not only were our cruel Persecuters and Murderers of our Bretheren whose Blood cries for Vengence against them but were the professed and sworn Tools of the late Tyranny and Instruments of the Nations Slavery Ministring to King Iames and cooperating with him in all his Encroachments upon our Religion Laws and Liberties as absolute Vassals of his Despotical Will under Oaths and Pensionary Obligations to obey without reserve and to this day are either evil Counsellours to perswade the King to some degrees of Arbitrariness or very disaffected to the Government Counsellers to Encouragers of or Connivers at Rebellion against it It had been worthy Service to the Nation to have at first exposed these Men in their own