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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	king_n	law_n	subject_n	4,732	5	6.6515	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75567	The Declaration and apology of the Protestant people that is, of the noblemen, barrons, gentlemen, burgesses, and commons of all sorts, now in armes within the kingdom of Scotland.	Argyll, Archibald Campbell, Earl of, 1629-1685.	1685 (1685)	Wing A3677; ESTC R230114	9,451	8

and absurd pretexts of inevitable intercommunings and reset both in their crimes and punishments The setting up of the most violent and obnoxious of men to be Ministers of the Law and Packing juries and assizes most partially for their worst ends The straining streaching and wreasting of Law not only in prejudice of every one suspected to be dissaffected to their evil courses but the violation of all right for spoiling and robbing cities and incorporations of their ancient and undoubted priviledges The transporting of freemen as slaves to forreine plantations for not making faith to answer against law super inquirendis as also for not dilating men upon Oath according to a most impious Law lately made against Nonconformists in matters where in the party put to swear judges them to be in their duty without exception of his nearest relations The arbitrarie imprisonings and detainings of free subjests without either bringing them to trial or allowing them any hearing The torturing of several persons even fyve times more of conscientious non conformists within these tuenty yeares then of all sorts of fellons and malefactors in Scotland these hundered yeares by past and that without either just previous grounds regarding of Legal methods or observing the measures of common humanity The eliciting by promises of indemnity and the publick faith interposed for that effect voluntary confessions of some as of Mr. Iames Mitchill c. and then not only retracting and dissowning the promise condition upon Oath in face of the justice court but further witnessing the confession to the poor mans condemnation not with standing the bookes of council containing the aforsaid indemnity were produced and laid open before and at the very time of their swearing Lyke as of Late after most cruel and exquisit tortures practised upon Mr. Spens Mr. Carstairs and a full ample promise there after made them with an act upon it that neither they nor their evidence should ever be made use of to their or to any other mens hurt they never the less cause produce and do sust●ine Mr. Carstairs deposition Against Bailzie of Iarviswood for an adminicle or aid to their lame and defective probation The making men offenders yea traitours for words and these true fair and innocent As the Earl of Argyl for declaring before the Council after leave given and with submission and only for exonering his own conscience that he believed the Parliament intended no contradiction in the test and therefore was willing to take it in their sens viz for securing the Protestant Religion and that he did not thereby mean to bind up him self from endeavouring Lawfully in Church and State what Religion and Loyaltie might obleidge and allow him to do for which words nevertheless he was tryed and condemned as a traitour in the loss of his life lands and goods and stands de facto deprived of both Lands and goods having only saved his life in the extremitie by a gracions providential escape The cruel executing to the death of several hundreds within these tuenty yeares besids many hundreds more that have either fallen in the fields or been made to perish in their imprisonments or transportations and that for the alone cause or on the occasion of their conscientious non conforming And some of them of which number several poor women for their bare opinion about the Kings breach of trust never before by them vented but simply declared upon examination and most part of them dispatched with that barbarous inhumanity as that after no better example then that of the bloody Duke of Alba they were by beating of Drumms hindered to speak to the people their last and dying words And some of them contrair to the perpetual custom of Scotland and all the formes used in the Christian world and as if it had been on design to destroy both their souls and bodies tryed sentenced and put to death in one Day yea the time and hour of their Death industriously concealed from them that they might be cut of by a more mortal surprise The condemning some to death others to the boring of their tongues and syning many in most exorbitant summes even to 100000 pound Sterling for calling the Duke of Yorke a Papist notwithstanding the notoriety of the matter to all men and his recusancie sound and declared by a grand jurie and expressly Supposed by an exception in his favours contained in an Act of parliament and that now he goes openly to the mass and marches in solemn processions to the horrour of all good Protestant subjects The loosing and exempting the Kings Sones and brothers from what themselves conceaved to be the best fence and greatest securitie for the Protestant religion The imposing and pressing of Oaths without Law manifestly contradictorie and that by terrible menacings violent beatings rigorous imprisonings and irreligious swearings no less barbarous then what was practised by the Spanjards in Christianising the wilde Indians The eating up of men by free quarters or otherwise falling on them by dounright violence as dryving with drawen Swords to constrain them to hear whom in their conscience they judged unsent and uncalled Curats to the effaceing of all conscience and oppen scorn of God and that pure and free religion which he only accepts The compelling the heritors of Shires to assesse them selves and the free subjects within their bounds a thing expresly denyed by Law to the King himself and only reserved to Parliaments The Sorning upon harrassing and destroying the best parts of the Country by four extraordinary circuits upon one and the same subject of Bothwel bridge on purpose as it were to justify his highness judgment to his late majesty That it would not be well with Scotland untill the South of Forth the better and more substantial halfe of that Kingdom were turned to a hunting field And to verify the late Chancellor the Earl of Aberdeen his affirmation at the Council board that there was not a loyal subject west ward of the Castle of Edinburgh The industrious stifling hindering or eluding the detection of all popish plots The Shamming of Mock plots upon good Protestants The suborning of witnesses hounding out and encouraging of Assassins to murder and cut the throats of honest men And generally in the studied and constant ensnaring or ruining upon every Shaddow of pretence all esteemed either fixed to the protestant interest or well affected to their Countries libertie This wicked mysterie wee Say and conspiracy of Popery and Tyrranny inseparablie twisted both in experience and reason in all their attempts upon these great and mighty Nations so unanimously united and firmly fixed in their contrarie Profession rights liberties having made so great a progress by the steps abovementioned is now at length evidently disclosed and brought to full maturity by the most suspicious though with all most ungrate cutting off of the late King as having indeed very unhappily acted all that part of which the conspirators did judge him capable

The Declaration And APOLOGY of the PROTESTANT PEOPLE That is Of the Noblemen Barrons Gentlemen Burgesses and Commons of all sorts Now in Armes within the Kingdom of Scotland PSAL LXVIII V. 1. 2. Let God arise let his enemies be scattered let them also that hate him flee before him as smoke is driven away so drive them away as wax melteth before the fire so let the wicked perish at the presence of God Reprinted more exactly then formerly conform to the True Copye The Declaration and Apology of the Protestant People That is of the Noblemen Barrons Gentlemen Burgesses And Commons of all sorts now in Armes within the Kingdom of Scotland with the concurrence of their true and faithful Pastors and of several Gentlemen of the English Nation joyned with them in the same cause For defence and releif of their Lives Rights Liberties and recovery and reestablishment of the true Protestant Religion in behalfe of them selves and all that shall Joyn with and adhere to them They must be altogether strangers or very litle concerned in the Christian world who after all that the Nations and Churches about have Seen of the Lords mighty hand and streatched-out arm in the late wars betuixt King Charles the First and his People and Parliaments of Scotland England Irland Against the then Conspyreings of Popery and Tyranny to the ruine of true Religion and Liberty The wonderful advancement of the Gospel and Kingdom of our Lord Jesus within these Kingdomes that therupon ensued With the general refreshment joy and security of all the Protestant Churches abroad that thence redounded And the no less rooted and firm Loyalty of the same people who notwithstanding of their long bloody and fatal contendings with the father Did Yet upon reasonable fair and just treaties concluded with all the assurance that either Religion honour or gratitude could promise call back and restore Charles the 2d his sone to his thron and empire Are not fully convinced and satisfied that considering the perpetual contradictings and counteractings of all these sacred and solemn engadgments that imediatly and ever since have been practised the whole reign of the aforsaid Charles the 2d through the sinistrous and subtile influences of a wicked and popish party now manifestly discovered was a constant uniform course of perjury apoftacy and violence Begun with open rebellion against God The rescinding not only of particular lawes but by an un-paralled most un-politick and pernicious device of whole unexceptionable parliaments for the space of tuenty seven yeares preceeding notwithstanding both our Religion and liberties were therein expresly legally and well provided for and the cruel shedding of the best Protestant blood in the most unjust execution of the Late Marquis of Argyll and many other worthies contrar to all Law and reason Carried on by the smiting and casting out of more faithfull and pious Pastors and scattering and dissipating more true flockes and followers of Christ than was done in most of the ten primitive persecutions and the diludgeing of these Lands with all villanous debauchries and abominable licentiousness to the very profligating of conscience morality and common honesty from among men And thence forward accomplished by a most un-relenting persecution and appression of the generality of Gods people in their consciences Persons Estates with vexations and rigours almost incredible and that for no other reason but because they could not actively comply with these notorious Perfidies and the manifold profanations and mischeifs where with they are attended But this hellish mystery of Antichristian iniquity and arbitrary Tyranny imposing upon many at home too willing through their love of ease to be abused and deluding the Protestant churches abroad in that woefull and visible indifferency that every where reigns by the vain pretext of the mere notion of our courts empty and simulat protestant profession having of a long time under the late King made most remarkable advances in the following particulars and many more that might be enumerated all too evidently seen and heavily felt to need any explicite proof or demonstration As 1. not only in the abovementioned open and avowed revolting from God by breach of Sworn treaties Covenants and coronation oaths and slighting and despiscing spontaneous promises and proclamations the overturning the very foundations of Parliaments and ranversing at one blow our best and most legal establishments The ungrate as well as unjust putting to death of most innocent and faithful men upon absurd pretences convelled by the Laws and customs of nations and in the time of Gods greatest indulgence towards the authors The desolating of the Churches and changing of the ordinances of God for setting up the frivolous and superstitious inventions of men the countenancing and encouraging of all vice and profanity and the violent and griveous persecuting of all conscience and conscientious men But nixt and more particularly in the conniving at Papists their meetings and Idolatrous masses while in the mean time all Protestant Nonconformists are persecuted with endless severities The raising of standing forces the very bane of all civil and Lawful Government and that without any other measure save what the indigence of Court Luxury and profusion did necessarly put unto it The declaring and appointing all Iudges and Officers to enjoy their places only during pleasure on purpose to make them more souple and complyant to all their masters designes The abusing of the great trust of calling and dissolving Parliaments the most high and necessary courts of the Kingdomes by iniquous Packing unseasonable proroguing pernicious discharging and insolent baffling them at pleasure The exalting of the Kings supremacy under the colour of his pretended right and power about the external Government and Policy of the Church to an express and absolut power of enacting statuting in all Church meetings and matters as he in his wisdom shall think fitt a ready prepared tool to bring us back not only to Popery but to Paganism The strange perversion of the high trust of the Militia committed to his Majesty expressy for the protection of good subjects and the assistance of all our protestant friends abroad only to the invading and oppressing by lawless hosts of the worst of high landers and low landers in times of profound peace the best parts of the Kingdom purposly to ruin them because too Protestant by free quarter and other illegal exactions ' and the making warr most causlesly and obstinatly against the States of the united Neitherlands our best nighbours and the strongest bulwarck of the Protestant interest The forcing of poor people by the extream rigours of exorbitart finings imprisonings beatings stigmatizins spoilings banishments and other violences for the simple cause of Nonconformity to take armes in their own defence as at Pentland and Bothwel bridge and then demeaning and executing them what in fields what on scaffolds as the most desperat of traitours and at the same time involving whole countryes upon the most slender

The ascending of James Duke of York a notorious apostat and bigot Papist to the throne notwithstanding his being thrice excluded by the Commons of England And that he neither hath given nor can give without an hypocritical and damning cheat repugnant to his Profession and contemptible to all ingenuous men the oath and security indispensably required of him before and at his entrie to the government I 6. P. 1. c. 8. The approaching of two Parliaments both called by him one in Scotland by his own vigilant Providence in procureing it to be enacted in the last Parliament held by him in that Kingdom That for the future not only all members of Parliament but also all their electors should take that contradictorie and irreligions oath commonly called the Test which no man owning conscience or careing for any religion can possibly approve long since prepared for all his pleasure And the other in England packt caballed and returned by all the arts and methods that either fraud or injustice could invent to render it plyable to his intentions and which no doubt he will cajoll with all the faire promises and Large offers of Laws that can he desired for securing both the Protestant Religion and their liberties Providing they will but give money which answers all things and will as assuredly frustrat and ranverse all these vain cautions The persueing with indefatigable malice even without the bounds of the Kingdoms and in all forreign parts all honest men escaped for their lives and that either by Publick addresses or privat violences so that they are necessarly reduced to that fatal dilemma either to do or dy The entering into entertaining more closs correspondences then at any time before with popish Princes and States Especially the King of France a most notorious enemie both of the true religion and liberty of mankind And lastly by all that may be already seen in the changes and alterations he hath lately made and that for here-after may be apprehended from a false and bloody Religion alwayes breathing forth and practising fire and fagot murders and massacres and a provock'd and inraged mind Possessing and reigning in the most determined of Princes unquestionably capable and ready to execut all these bloody cruelties Which things being all of them either palpable perversions or utterly inconsistent with the true and great ends of government rendering our common Wealth our Common calamitie and him who pretends to be its protector it s most hostile enemie and consequently importing no less then a totall dissolution of all the bonds of Subjection which the rulers have first so wickedly broke and cut assunder and the liberating and alloweng all distressed subjects whither those already overwhelmed by or who may justly for hereafter fear to be involved in these miseryes that undoubted right and power which both God and nature with comon reason and the constant custom of all Nations have given us for recovering defending and maintaining our lives and liberties and above all the inestimable blessing of our pure Religion to the effect that the same pure Religion with our just rights and liberties so valiantly asserted by our ancestors may be by us faithfully transmitted to our posterities We have been are obliged and constrained by extream necessity and for common safety the suprem laws To take up just and necessary arms in the name fear of the Great God and the confidence of his mercie and assistance for our own and our Countries releif from the aforsaid most griveous and intolerable Tyrannies and oppressions The defence and reestablishment of the true and pure Christian Religion commonly called Protestant in opposition to that Antichristian Roman Religion commonly called Papistical and the recovery and reestablishmene of all our just rights liberties and priviledges according as wee Stand indispensably obliged there to both before God men And that against the said James Duke of Yorck and all other his accomplices our most unnatural and wicked enemies and oppressours Desyring in the first place to be deeply humbled each of us before God for our manifold sins and provocations Especially our false heartedness and unsteedfastness in revoltings from our great and manifold engadgments to him that alone have brought upon us all these sad mischeifes earnestly and with our whole hearts supplicating that he would cease from his anger Cause his face to Shine upon us and save us for his own names sake And in the nixt place declaring lyke as we hereby expresly declare that our sincere and single ends and designes in this our undertakeing are First the restoring and setling of the foresaid true reformed Protestant Religion in its power and puritie and with such a just comprehension of pure Christian charitie as may thorow the good hand of our God upon us be truly satisfieing to all that fear him and love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Renouncing and detesting as well imposings as errours in all matters of Conscience and trusting that after the many teaching experiences we have had we shall be for here after preserved from all unhappy missunderstandings But rather thorow the Spirit of truth love and peace graciously led into all the paths thereof 2ly The suppression and perpetual exclusion of antichristian Popery with all its idolatrous superstitions and falshoods as also its most bitter root and of spring prelacy with its new and wicked head the supremacie and all their abuses that so not only the Gospel and work of God may be revived in these lands but also all the Churches of Christ abroad thereby refreshed and strengthened And 3ly The restoring of all men to their just rights and liberties especally the recompensing of all sufferers whether unto blood or loss of liberty and goods the releif of such who are in present distress the removing of all oppression and establishing such righteous Laws and methods of Government as may be most for securing of liberty and property with the greatest ease and equalitie Which things as wee purpose and hope to accomplish only thorough the presence of our God with us and his blessing upon us So we are most willing and resolved that they be all setled and perfected by a free full just and Sonveraign representatife of all the present undertakers and such as shall Hereafter sincerly concurre and take part with us and that in such formes and wayes as God by his good providence can only most happily direct and conduct us unto declaring and protesting further that since such have been and are the manifest perfidy treachery and falshood of our adversaries not only in their treaties and Convenants but also in their pardons indemnities and indulgences as that they leave no ground or tolerable assurance of faith and trust to be given to them we will never enter into any termes of Capitulation treaties or conditions with them as to the great ends of this undertaking but on the contrary prosecut the same with all reality constancie and vigour without any

separation division or backdrawing untill they be perfectly and finally obtained Upon which grounds and for which ends abovementioned we not only hereby most sincerely and firmly protest and declare as in the presence of God constantly and perpetually to assist and maintain one another to the uttermost against all deadly But do more-over freely and heartily resolve and engadge our selves to countenance and concurr with all our persecuted and oppressed bretheren and freinds in England and Irland who from the Like reasons and motives shall be induced and stirred up to the like undertaking for the same or the like Ends. Wherefore we most seriously and humbly beseech and obtest in the bowels of our lord I Christ all that love his truth and this our righteous cause nonne excepted though either formerly litle concerned for favourable to us these interests or even still in actual opposition against us and them their sincere repentance being at all times to God most acceptable and not to be better witnessed before men then by a contrarie and vigorous amendement to come and joyn with us for Gods Glory and Gospel our country lives rights and liberties and our posterities and all our hope Against an apostat Papist an usurping and persecuting Tyran by the most sacred article of his Religion our mortal enemy under the pain of his own Damnation and by the fundamental and express laws of the land I. 6. P. 1. c. 9. P. 20. c. 5. incapable of the meanest office within the Kingdom and in effect a declared enemy and rebell I. 6. P. 3. c. 47. And who even by the Act lately made by himself for pathing the way to his succession Ch. 2. p. 3. c. 2. can have no shaddow of pretence to the benefite thereof Unless he first instruct him self both to be the Lawfull and the immediat and nearest heir of the croun which without satisfieing the old Law Ia. 6. p. 1. c. 8. at the same time ratified Ch. 2. p. 3. c. 1. by swearing to embrace and maintain the true reformed Protestant Religion he can never possiblie be as was then distinctly understood and declared by the principal framers of that Act. And against his adherents and pertakers a perjured revolted and self condemned generation Upon whom the Lord who will not give his glory to another hath formerly got him self a name and renoun before all the Nations whom our sins only have exalted and whose hearts can never endure or their hands be strong when the Lord 〈…〉 who is on our side and hath a perpetual indignation against all the wicked in the earth shall arise and deal with them And this our most earnest call and request we confidently hope shall be the more readily hearkened unto and heartily and seriously complyed with that in the issue thorow the blessing of God it assuredly promises not only the restitution of truth prosperity and glory to these long misgoverned harassed and disgraced Nationes but the sure defence and protection of true Religion and liberty every where Brittains certain and great interest of late most shamefully abandoned and even the depression of Antichrist and the advancement and exaltation of the Kingdom of our Lord Iesus Christ in all the earth Let us therefore be of good courage and play the men for our people and for the cause of our God And the Lord do that which Seemeth him good THE DECLARATION of ARCHIBALD Earl of ARGYLE Lord Kintyre Cowall Campbel and Lorn Heritable Sheriff and Lieutenant of the Shires of Argile and Tarbett and Heritable Justice General of the said Shires and of the West Isles and others With his Order to his Vassals and others in the said Shires and under his Jurisdiction to Concurr for Defence of their Religion Lives and Liberties I shall not mention my Case published in Print in Latine and more largely in English nor mean I to repeat the Printed Declaration emitted by several Noblemen Gentlemen and others of both Nations now in Arms but because the Sufferings of me and my Family are therein mentioned I have thought it fit for me to declare for my self That as I go to Arms with those who have appointed me to Conduct them for no private nor personal end and only for those contained in the said Declaration which I have concerted with them and approve of so I do claim no interest but what I had before the pretended Forfeiture of my Family and have sufficient right to And that I do freely and as a Christian forgive all Personal Injuries against my Person or Family to all that shall not oppose but Join and Concur with us in our pre sent Undertaking for the ends mentioned in the said Declaration And hereby I oblidge me never to pursue them in Iudgement nor out of Iudgment And I do further declare That obtaining the peaceable and quiet Possessio● of what belonged to my Father and my self before our pretended Forfeitures I shall satisfie all Debts due by my Father and my self as any Heir or Debitor can be obliged And as my Faithfulness to his late Majesty and his Government hath sufficiently appeared to all unbiassed Persons void of Malice so I do with Grief acknowledge my former too much complying with and connyving at the methods that have been taken to bring us to the sad condition we are now in though God knows never concurring in the design I have now with Gods strength suffered patiently my unjust Sentence and Banishment three years and a half and have never offered to make any Uproar or defence by Ar●● to disturb the Peace upon my private Concern But the King being now Dead and the Duke of York having taken off his Mask and having abandoned and invaded our Religion and Liberties Resolving to enter into the Government and Exercise it contrary to Law I think it not only Just but my Duety to God and my Country to use my outmost endeavors to oppose and repress his Usurpation and Tyranny And there fore being assisted and furnished very nobly by several good Protestants and invited and accompanied by several of both Nations to lead them I resolve as God shall enable me to use their assistance of all kinds towards the ends exprest in the said Declaration And I do hereby earnestly invite and obteste all honest Protestants and particularly all my Friends and Blood Relations to concur with us in the said Declaration And as I have written several Letters so having no other way fully to intimate my mind otherwise I do hereby require all my Vassals any where and all within my several Jurisdictions with their Fencible Men within their Command to go to Arms and to join and concur with us according to the said Declaration as they will be answerable on their peril And that they obey the particular Orders they shall receive from me from time to time