Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A48761
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Animadversions on the Scotch covenant Wherein all may receive satisfaction as to the illegality of it, and be easily perswaded to the renunciation thereof. By J. L.
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J. L.
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1662
(1662)
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Wing L26; ESTC R216515
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18,797
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31
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great import But I must pray you not to call them the Proceedings of the Kingdome For it was but the proceedings of a Faction in that Kingdom a Multitude being driven in to them meerly out of Fear to secure themselves from their Violences and how much you and your Brethren here have sinned in violating Mens Consciences by your imposing upon them the Covenant you have reason to know in part already and will one day know more when you shall come before an impartiall Judge That the late King as you call him but the blessed MARTYR you might did in a hostile way set himself to over throw Religion Parliaments Laws and Liberties is most false For all the world knows he died for their Preservation You go on to shew us next that For every Breach of Covenant Subjects should not lay aside a King That is to speak plain depose him Except the Breaches be such as overthrow the Fundamentals of the Covenant with the People Why what then you doe not say in terms they may depose him in that case but you imply it For you say Except the Breaches be such So if they be such or you judge them such it seems they may Yet afterwards you think you make amends by charging private persons To be very circumspect about that which they doe in relation to the Authority of Kings It seems they may doe something only they must be circumspect in it Yet Page 24. so inconstant is he to himself that he honestly saith the Conspiracy of Subjects against their Kings is a wicked Course And he thinks he acquits them very highly that those Godly Pastors as he calls them in King James his time did not intermedle in shewing their judgement that the King should be suspended from the exercise of his Royall Power though they suffered persecution for their Honesty and Freedome That is for their bold and unreasonable Discourses before the King But what the judgment was both of them and of their Master before them J. Knox is to be seen in his Writings and theirs I will not spend time in transcribing many passages out of Knox his Treatises are to be had and in them it is to be seen that he is for more then Deposing but for that plain in his History Page 37â— Princes saith he for just Causes may be Deposed but what those just Causes are he keeps close in his own breast for an angry Assembly they conceive may determine that Knox to England and Scotland Fol. 78. If Princes be Tyrants against God and his Truth their Subjects are free from their Oaths of Obedience which if then they as well as the Estates may suspend and what not Buchanan de jure Regni pag. 61. Populus Rege est praestantior melior Populo jus est ut imperium cui velit deferat And Viretus complains much in his third Dialogue of white Divels Fol. 252. That so much Power is put into the civill Magistrates hands whereupon he calls them Temporall Popes Why doth he complain of these Men amongst us for the practice of Regicide when they and their Masters have given them the Principle These are wayes to set all the world in combustion for when ever any discontented Party shall say the King is a Tyrant to God and his Truth then they may fall upon him and Depose him and we know there was never much time between the Deposition of Kings and their being Murdered Pag. 11 In the top of the 11. Page you are to be minded that you recite a Text against Resisting the lawfull Power and in the 10. you are expresly For resisting by Arms. You complain that the Sectaries cover their Destroying of Kings with Christ's Interest And we complain some Sectaries cover their keeping under and resisting of Kings with Christs Interest The Author of the Ecclesiastical Discipline J. C. and generally all of them divide the Church into two Moyeties viz those that are to govern as Pastors Doctors and Elders and those which are to obey as Magistrates of all sorts and the people And Beza against Erastus speaks plainly and tells us that Princes have no more to doe with matters of the Church then Ministers have with the Affairs of the Commonwealth Briefly Submittere Sceptra Christo is with the Romane Catholick Ponitifici with these Men as the Learned Bishop in his Tortura Torti Page 34 observes Presbyterio which Beza is bold to call Tribunal Christi and this Author Page 24. The Kingdome of Christ more then once Pag. 12 Prayers you say Are to be made for Kings that are not in Covenant I and active Obedience to All in all lawful things is to be performed where that cannot be passive must be yielded You say you do not count these Enemies who professe Repentance and declare themselves for the Cause and Covenant Are the Cause and Covenant two distinct things you should have said for the Cause of the Covenant though indeed there be no cause for the Covenant It is strange you should commend to Christians Repentance for doing their Duty Pag. 14 For the Malignants he tells them Little Good is to be expected from them well and how much good have the Covenanters done Every one can tell you they have begger'd three Kingdoms and are not yet quiet but would quite destroy them though they find their Discipline and Government of this Nation as incurrent as Parallels Pag. 15 Prayers saith he are not much in request at Court He cannot forbear a fling at King or Court for ought I know there are the best Prayers where are the best Subjects For never tell us of Obedience to God whom you have not seen if you be deficient in the Expression of it to Men whom you have seen He sayes They deceive Kings that make them believe Presbyteriall Government cannot suit with Monarchy King James who knew these Men Intus in cute was wont to say No BISHOP no KING and we have seen the sad Truth of the Apothegme in our days so soon as they had gotten out One they sought to destroy the Other Pag. 16 You confound things so strangely that it is hard where to take you but yet it is plain that you would have Kings to have Nothing to doe in the Government of the Kirk in this true Romanists yet for a shift you can decline them to For your Brethren at the Conference at Hampton Court complained of the Bishops that they were not Friends to the Kings Supremacy yet I believe none Greater none have maintained it more stoutly Indeed we do not allow to Kings Sacerdotalia Officia but the ordering the establishing of all things that concern Religion must proceed from Him He is mixta Persona cum Sacerdote and so we see that Moses gives the Ceremonies not Aaron David orders the courses of the Priests Levites and Singers by those Councils were called Edicts made about Religion and the Affairs of the Church You tell the King he is
this enough and too much yet they rest not here for they are so accustomed to revile the living both present and absent that they spare not the very Dead as you may see in this Author page 4. There are many sins upon our King and his Family a little after I desire the King be truly humbled for his own sins c. the sins of his Fathers House which have been great Page 19. He accuses King James of making a foul defection and in a few lines after sayes that He laid the Foundation whereupon his Son our late King did build much mischief to Religion all the dayes of his life Os impudens was there none that had loyalty enough to stop that black mouth or is it so customary with you that it is to be esteemed a Scotch Elegancy In good earnest that blessed Saint shall hear a Martyr when the Name of such railing Rabshakaes shall either be forgotten or remembred with abhorrency Again Page 22. Sir There is too much iniquity upon the Throne by your Predecessors who framed mischief by a Law And Page 24 I may say freely that the chief cause of the Judgement upon the Kings House hath been the Grandfathers breach of Covenant with God the Fathers following steps in opposing the work of God his Kirk within these Kingdoms What will you disturb the Grave and arraign sentence the Ashes of the Kings how can we expect any Piety where there is a want of that Charity which covereth the multitude of Offences nay where there is that radicated malice that makes offences where there are none and that is not satisfied with a verbal aspersing the Dead but by the Presse indeavours the transmitting these Calumnies to Posterity Aut hoc non est Evangelium aut hi non sunt Christiani 't is the Apostles rule Titus 3. v 2. To speak evill of no man you have not the Authority of the Writers of the Canon of Scripture in censuring the Lives of your KING' 's though you take it Page 2 In the Circumstances of Coronation prefixed to the Sermon you may take notice that assoon as ever the Lord Chancellor had signified their desire of his being Crowned with the same breath he desires the Maintenance of Religion conforme to the Nationall Covenant League and Covenant So it seems Religion must conform to that not that to Religion this is that which they make the top of the Crown its Crosse and then if this be done what will they doe he tells you that They will bestow Land Life and what else is in their power for the maintenance of Religion and the safety of his Majesties person I like well that God should be set above the King and so doth his Majesty too But what the aim of these Men is in prefixing of Religion to the safety of his Majesties sacred Person we know by sad experience and find here in their words Religion conform to the Nationall Govenant would you understand what Religion is in their sense the sum totall is the National Covenant the League and Covenant which being their own device and an unwarrantable composure how little reason there is that either that should be the comprehensive of Religion or Religion under that Notion stand before his Majesty let all sober and discreet Men judge Page 3 In the Sermon to let alone his Conjectures about Joash when he comes to make the Parallell betwixt him and the King he tells you Pa. 3. That the wicked Men have risen up and usurped the Kingdom And who were these wicked men were they not all or most of them Covenanters did they not all swarm out of the Hive of Presbytery and what did your own Country men doe in the dayes of his great Grandmother and by what Principles were they acted and who set them a work and what were the Pretences we are well pleased you should condemn these amongst us as much as you will but desire that you would passe the same Censure upon all that lie under the same Guilt what ever covering they throw over it For we agree fully with you That who ever rises up and Usurps the Kingdome deserves the Title of wicked and as you say in the words following we say also that They put to Death the last King most unnatually but who brought him low and made the way for his Murder who did unnaturally murder him in his Repute and good Name and so prepared him for their Cruelty If you be not able to answer these Questions every Child can with us for the vail is taken off and you must never think these many Ages to deceive so much as the Plebeians with the NAME of RELIGION in your sense before mentioned Page 4 You say Page 4. That there are many sins upon the King and his Family the unhandsomnesse of this expression is took notice of before and now must add that which is proper as it lies here what so young and yet so many sins what are they personal can they see so many and all the world besides admire they can find so few What were they sins in Government why he never yet came to it here when these words were spoken and how long had he governed with you or how much did he govern though you put away most of his Friends from him yet we are not ignorant He that will charge others so Magisterially should look a little into himself and those that side with him and shall we find him or their Assembly spotlesse So much hath been printed so much is known of your wayes and proceedings that you had need to bewail your own Trible ere you charge his Majesty so rudely and violently and if we may trace you in your own way of censuring I think we may say The Event hath shewed that the Lord hath had a Controversie with you as well as you say he hath with the Royall Family Page 5 Page 5 He is not content to strike at the present King and his dead Ancestors but he must discover their wonted dissafection to Kings in Generall for there he gives them this lash Kings use to be so taken up with their Crowns that they despise their People They are alwayes engrafting in the stock of the people a bad opinion of Kings which with the heat of their Sermons they can at pleasure make sprout out into a Rebellion and therefore I shall only tell him to this Passage that He and his Faction are so taken up with their novell Discipline that they despise Crowns and speak evill of Dignities and encourage the People to doe the like as thinking it very safe to speak the Pulpit language That which followes in the same Page is to me very strange when he so confidently affirms I know nothing that is good in Government but a King may learn it out of the Book of God It is a great sign you know not much The end which the Scripture proposeth as to us is to