Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	great_a	king_n	majesty_n	3,331	5	6.0086	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37365	A declaration of the army of England upon their march into Scotland as also a letter of His Excellency the Lord Generall Cromwell to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland : together with a vindication of the aforesaid declaration from the uncharitable constructions, odious imputations, and scandalous aspersions of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, in their reply thereto : and an answer of the under-officers and souldiers of the army, to a paper directed to them from the people of Scotland.	England and Wales. Army.; Cromwell, Oliver, 1599-1658.	1650 (1650)	Wing D636; ESTC R31359	33,504	46

the Kings Interest and constitution of Parliament the last and these with subordination one to another The Covenant tyed us to preserve Religion and Liberty as the ends of it even when these were inconsistent with the preservation of the Kings Interest and the frame of Parliament because when the means and the end cannot both be enjoyed together the end is to be preferred before the means Now that there was a real inconsistencie between the end and the means and that the le●●er did fight against the greater is your own judgement who a Book of yours called A necessary and seasonable Testimony against Toleration say thus of the two Houses pag. 12. And doubtlesse the Lord is highly displeased with their Proceedings in the Treaty at Newport in reference to Religion and Covenant concerning which they accepeed of such Concessions from His Majesty as being acquiesced in were dangerous and destructive to both Had we not then appeared against these Concessions and l●kewise against those of both Houses who acquiesced in them had not Religion and Liberty both been destroyed which now by the blessing of God are preserved And if that action concerning the Parliament deserve a Charge yet least of all from your selves who when you saw the Parliament which sent Duke Hamilton with an Army into England proceed in ways destructive to Religion and Liberty you countenanced and acted with those that rose up for publique Safetie though cont●ary to Acts of Parliament and called a new one excluding whom you thought fit all which was done by vertue and autho●itie f●om the Committee of Estates then sitting at Edinburgh which indeed was no Committee if you respect formalities the breach whereof you so often charge upon us being constituted of such persons as by Act of the fore going Parliament had not legal right to fit or act therein they not having taken the Oath for faithful discharge of the Trust reposed in them in reference to the late Engagement against England injoyned by that Parliament to be taken by every Member of the Committee at his first sitting or else to have no place or vote therein as is fully set down in the Commission for the constituting of that Committee of Estates We could more particularly set forth how the Committee of Estates there sitting according to the literal sense of the afore mentioned Commission was broken and driven away by that force raised and acted by you as aforesaid but we spare not seeking to justifie our actions by yours but to shew that you have done the same things for preservation of Religion and Liberty which you so highly charge as evil upon us And therefore we further desire you seriously to consider That the inconsistencie of our Religion and Liberties with the Kings Interest and former constitution of Parliament did not arise from our jealousies or pretences but from the hardnesse of the Kings heart and the backsliding of the greater part of those that were intrusted in the Parliament by their acquiescing in those Concessions and endeavouring immediatly to bring in the King upon them We therefore reckon it no breach but a Religious keeping of the Covenant according to the equity thereof when our Parliament for Religion and Liberties sake and the Interest of the People did remove the King and Kingship As also we assert our selves Keepers of the Covenant when the competition hath been between the form and substance if we have altered some forms of the Government in part for the substance sake As for the Presbyterial or any other form of Church Government they are not by the Covenant to be imposed by force yet we do a d are ready to ●mbrace so much as doth or shall be made appear to us to be according to the Word of God Are we to be dealt withall as Enemies because we come not to your way Is all Religion wrapt up in that or any one Form Doth that name or thing● g●ve the difference between those that are the Members of Christ and those that are not We think ●ot so We say Faith working by love is the true Character of a Christian and God as our witnesse in whomsoever we see any thing of Christ to be there we reckon our duty to love waiting for a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit of God to make all those Christians who by the malice of the World are diversified and by their own carnall mindednesse do diversifie themselves by severall Names of Reproach to be of one heart and one minde worshipping God with one consent We are desirous That those who are for the Presbyterial Government should have all freedom to enjoy it and are perswaded That if it be so much of God as some affirm if God be trusted with his own means which is his word powerful●y and effectually preached without a too busie medling with or engaging the Author ties of the World it is able to accomplish his good pleasure upon the mindes of men to produce and establ sh h s purposes in the World concerning the Government of his Church And as for the Blasphemies and Heresies wherewith some Stat●sts amongst you have laboured to brand us We ca● say That we do own those sound Grounds and Principles of the Christian Religion preached and held by the general●ty of godly Ministers and Christians of these later times alhorring from our hearts and being ready to bear our witnes against any d●testable Blasphemies and Herenes la●●ly broken out amongst us we have already punished some amongst us for Blasphemie and are further ready to do it but how un●●genuously we have bin dealt with by some amongst you and of our own Countrymen● in heaping Calumnies upon our heads ●o render us vile ●nd odious to our Bre hren yea and the whole world we leave ●o God to judge who w ll we trust in due ●ime make these things manifest But were Presbytery thus to be contested for and that in u●holding it all religion did and would flourish yet how improbabl● it is That the course taken by those in Author ty with you will produce the things you desire to say no more let your own experiences a little minde you What pretenders were some Lords and other persons in the North of Ireland whilst they mi●gled the Presbyterian w●th the Kingly I●terest and the Ministers by their preaching seduced the people from their Obedience to England under the same pretence But no sooner had those persons got the power into their own hands but they shook off the Ministers by threatnings causing some of them to quite the country and in generall discouraging the exercise of the Government there declaring plainly by their actions that it was but a device to draw on the Royall Interest and those very persons that did get power into their hands under those pretences immediately joyned with Owen Roe O Neal and those bloody Irish Rebels upon the Kingly Interest It will not be unfit to minde you also how the Nobility and

unlesse we should thus retort it The purpose of the Scots is not for publique Liberty and common Safety but something that concerns themselves and therefore the great wheel of their Design is A Pretence of Religion and Reformation The next is like unto it charging them with A seeming holinesse and a reall treading under foot the Truth and Ordinances of God giving us full assurance That Conscience and a Christian spirit were very little consulted withall in this Reply in comparison of that cursed Maxim C●lumniare fortiter aliquid adhaerebit which seems to be the sole Rule walked by by them All the particulars of this parting charge being the issues of Envie Uncharitablenesse and Evill speaking Neither is the fifth of any better temper then those before about their conjunction with all sorts of persons for the pursuit of common Safety and Liberty and therefore bearing with different Judgements and Opinions in the things of God which being charged on them by those who have actually closed with him and admitted him to the Exercise of Regall Power amongst them by whom are imployed all sorts of profligate wretches blood-guilty Rebels Popish Idolators with whom the Assembly of the Kirk is now in actuall conjunction for the pursuit of one Design is not of any great weight unto us and as we could easily discharge them of this Imputation so far as to take off all just offence yet we cannot but declare That we think it much better to exercise-mutuall forbearance in some lesser Differences whilest the foundation is held and kept entire then to have amongst us an outward Uniformity as the issue of an Ecclesiasticall Tyranny which we wish the Assembly to free their Kirk and Nation in Further The Army hath neither usurped on or trodden under foot the Ancient Government of England which in the sixt place is charged on them but in their places have assisted to remove all Usurpations upon the Liberty of the People of England restoring it into the hands of the Peoples Trustees to whom of Right it doth belong actually leaving it instated in the hands of that Parliament wherein it was at the beginning of these troubles And as to the moulding of Scotland to the same frame mentioned in the last place the truth is That saving the earnest desire of our Souls that all who belong to Christ ●n that Nation may enjoy the Liberties and Priviledges purchased for them by Christ with our own Security from designed Evils We should be very indifferent into what mould or fashion that Nation be framed Thus having laid open the manifold Mistakes Falsities unjust Charges politick Insinuations unchristian Censurings and the like not onely Ungospel-like carriages but also uncivill Railings of this Paper of the Generall Assembly We shall close with our hearty Suppli●●t●ons That the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ would in his due time cast down all the earthly combinations of all sorts of men that set up themselves and their own corrupted Interest in the room of that Scepter of Righteousnesse which he hath given into the hands of his Son With this foregoing we have also seen an Answer of the Generall Assembly to the Declaration of the Parliament of England which also in due time the Lord assisting shall receive a full Reply That an Ecclesiasticall Assembly conveened for the Reiglement of the House of God should account it their duty as such to put forth Manifesto's and make Reply's to States and Armies in things of Civil Concernment relating to the publique Affairs of Nations would seem strange unto us were we not in some measure acquainted with the Constitution actings and assumed Power of the Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland which make them justly to be recko●ed to have a place among the Powers of this world and therefore called to this Imployment But that such a Frame and Structure of Ecclesiasticall Authority as is at present in Scotland erected such Administrations of Censures with corporall Penalties and an absolute subserviency of the Secular Power of their Nation for their pursuit and setting on that such a worldly Jurisdiction over the men of the world as is there exercised amongst them is the genuine issue of Reformation according to the Word of God we are not as yet able to apprehend rather it seems to savour of the old Babylonish Leaven which in due time the Lord will remove And we professe sincerely That although our hearts have been often pained within us for the many Errors and Misperswasions about the things of God with Blasphemies and Reproaches of his Name that have broken forth amongst us which we hope through his goodnesse are already in a great measure abated yet we cannot apprehend any such danger from them to the true Interest of the Lord Christ and the Gospel as from such Politicall Combinations to persecute and destroy all breaking forth of Light Truth that suit not their present apprehension Is it not from the misguiding of such an Interest that their Kings taking the Covenant is cryed up as such an acceptable Service and Worship of God when their own hearts know full well That he submitted unto it as a hard Imposition in a Civill Treaty for the change of his condition from Banishment unto a Crown which whither it may be looked on as the performance of a Duty in a Gospel-way We doubt not but the Assembly will one day be able to d●scern To the People of SCOTLAND Especially to those amongst them that know and fear the Lord from whom yesterday we received a Paper Intituled From the People of Scotland To the under-Officers and Souldiers of the English Army We the under-Officers and Souldiers of the English Army do send greeting AT the beginning of the late great and wonderful workings of God in these two Nations of England and Scotland we the under-Officers and Souldiers of the English Army now in Scotland were most of us if not all men of privat Callings and not at all interested in matters of Publique and State affairs but yet very many of us in whom the Lord had begun to reveal himself in the face of Jesus Christ were sensible of the Antichristian Tyranny that was exercised by the late King and his Prelates over the Consciences Bodies Estates of the true spiritual Church of Jesus Christ namely those that were born again and united to him by his Spirit who were then by that Antichristian Crue termed Puritans Sectaries Schismaticks c. and for not conforming to all the Canons Ordinances of their National Church were frequently imprisoned banished otherwise grievously molested at the pleasure of those that then ruled amongst us Under these sad sufferings of the People of God our souls mourned and understanding by the manifold gracious promises in the Word of God that a time of Deliverance was to be expected to the Church of Christ Destruction and ruine to Babylon our hearts together with all the truly godly in England were