Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	king_n	liberty_n	parliament_n	4,708	5	6.3048	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92055	The armies remembrancer. Wherein they are presented with a sight of their sinnes and dangers. And also with a Scripture expedient for their preservation. / By a cordiall friend to the kingdomes welfare, Rr.	Rr.	1649 (1649)	Wing R2166; Thomason E537_6; ESTC R14971	36,097	40

and open violence upon many of the most cordiall and truly Godly Members of the House of Commons by which the Priviledges and Freedome of Parliament were transcendently broken by you Besides this I say and your intentions by force to put a speedy period unto this Parliament I beseech you search into your Consciences and seriously examin your selves whether you have not a more sinful and sacrilegious design against the Parliament having forced them to rob and ravish them of their Coercive power in spiritualls in things pertaining to Religion though you doe pretend that you have faithfully remonstrated your Grievances with the Remedies yet your dissimulation is without comparison in that though not a word in your Remonstrance concerning Tolleration as declaring it to bee the rise or ground of these your present Commotions yet is it evident by your present agitations That the Magistrats of your making shall neither have Coercive or Restrictive power in matters of Religion and that by Club-law you would deprive this present Parliament of the fame which I beseech you to weigh seriously and consider the guile and the guilt of this design which is aggravated by what you doe acknowledge page 20. Your Remonstrance That it is the Parliaments interest in plaine english that which doth belong to them To protect and countenance Religions men and godlinesse in the power of it to give freedome and inlargement unto the Gospel to take away those corrupt formes of an outside Religion and Church-government All which by the abuse of that power they have put in your hands you would now wrest out of their shires which with many other sinnes against the Parliament in that horible contempt that you have cast upon them If but brought home by a sound conviction must needs make you acknowledge in this respect there are with you even with you sinnes against the Lord your God in relation to the Parliament 3. But thirdly are there not with you even with you sins against the Lord your God in relation to the whole Kingdom Besides the miseries contracted upon the Kingdom since your refusall to disband at the command of the Parliament in the extream expences and charges you have drawn upon them by taxes and free-quarter wherein you have shewed but little publick-spiritednesse or love unto the Common wealth Though you have pretended to a great deal of bleeding of soule that you should be forced to take Free quarter for want of pay But that your dissimulation is great in this particular and so your sin answerable against the Kingdom You have almost doubled the burthen even upon those that would willingly have paid you the States pay per diem either for horse or man to be freed from such troublesome and uncomfortable Guests But alas what is this to what you have done against the whole Kingdome in your late transactions How doth this Remonstrance demonstrate that there are with you even with you sins against the whole Kingdom You doe pretend unto Salus Populi and that extremity of publich danger hath put you upon these extraordinary wayes you have taken But hath the Kingdom sensible of this their Publick danger invested you with any power to stir up these commotions in their behalf Are you in the condition of Representatives for the Kingdom Why then doe you so deceitfully pretend unto publick danger when as that by your walking out of Gods way you are like to be the only instruments of danger unto the Publicke as well as your selves Hath the Kingdom called upon you in their Names to cry out for Jastice to interrupt the Treaty to muster up so many Arguments against the goodnesse and safety of it which you have presented in so many sheets of paper in your Remonstrance containing more of the Serpents Subtlety then the Doves Innocency Are your Proposals therein for the altering the fundamentall Constitutions of the Kingdome are these injunctions laid upon you by the Originall of all power as you pretend the People of the Kingdome Alas they know none of these things so as to approve of them not one of a hundred will own what you doe set down for the Publick Interest Nor subscribe unto that Agreement that you speak on pag. 66. And yet such is your Arrogancy Injustice and sublimed Tyranny that though but an inconsiderable part of the Kingdome and that a diseased one but a Member of the body Politique in comparison of the whole and that a dislocated one yet how cruelly would you indeavour to force the whole body of the Kingdome to an agreement with your dis-joynted part to rack and torture their consciences with a subscription unto your intended Tolleration and Confusion And yet without this Subscription though none can take away the Kingdomes liberties without their personall or represertatives consent yet have you so proposed or rather imposed it upon the Parliament in your remonstrance that none shall either elect their Representatives who shall not joyne in agreement to this settlement page 66. or be Elected unto any office or place of publique trust without expresse accord and subscriptions to the same page 67. Certainely Sirs your injustice and cruelty to the Kingdome will cry loud in the eares of God against you Especially considering the aggravations of it even in relation to the Kingdome that you deale so injuriously withall That when a Kingdom by the first Remonstrance of their Representatives in Parliament made sensible of their danger both in regard of Spirituall and Secular Interests and withall assured in the same of the reallity of their intentions to prevent it without the change of the frame of the civill Government or letting loose the golden reines of the Ecclesiasticall and upon satisfaction given by the Magistracy and Ministery of the lawfulnes of opposing the Kings Arbitrary power without the breach of the Oath of Allegiance unto his Person as is evident by the first Protestation May 5. 1641 the chief Subject of it being to maintain and defend Religion his Majesties Royall Person Honour and Estate according to the duty of our Allegiance as also the power and priviledges of Parliament with the lawfull Rights and Liberties of the Subject And the ground of it being but a suspicion of endeavours to subvert the fundamentall Laws and to introduce the exercise of an Arbitrary and Tyrannicall government by most pernicious and wicked counsells and plots amongst which is instanced their jealousie of being forced by that English Armie then on foot Which were then strong Arguments to incourage the Kingdome generally to enter into that ingagement and after that to proceed further to the opposition of the Kings forces in a defensive wat which in the second vow was clearly expressed to be their intent of raising Forces Viz. For the defence of the true Protestant Religion and Liberties of the Subject against the Forces raised by the King That now the Forces so raised by the Parliament for the Kingdoms good should after crowned with successe

have taken without any Commission but the abuse of that power put into your hands Set the King at liberty deliver him up into those hands out of which you took him I know that this may be recented as a Malignant motion but having given you my ground for it and answered yours against it it will appear otherwise As for your arguments against the Covenant in that part of it as not perpetually obliging the taker to endeavour the preservation of the Kings Person and authority I must confesse that having seriously weighed them I find them to be but as broken reeds that will peirce those with perjury that lean upon them and therefore I dare not Whereas you say that this Covenant as it is drawne hath not left the takers without an honest way out page 54. I grant it if you mean only of this Article in relation to the preservation of the Kings person with the restriction that is expressed in the same Covenant to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and liberties of the Kingdome But not to preserve and defend the Kings person and Authority when he is in the way to all these as was implyed in the last free vote of the House in reference to his last Message but rather to make him vile and seek the destruction of his Person Is such a breath of Covenant and dis-loyalty that the world that we call to witnesse with our Consciences of our loyalty and that we have no thoughts and intentions to diminish his just power and greatnesse must needs take notice of our perfideous treachery as men to be abhorred But now as you affirme p. 54. that if the Covenant had not been drawn up that yet through the providence of God the snare is broken and they may escape Though it be a very strange thing yet I doe not much wonder that you ascribe perjurie unto Gods providence Saying the snare is broken by the providence of God or as God hath ordered the businesse pag. 51. it doth not now obliege you before God or Man I say I doe not much wonder that you should grant a dispensation for perjurie calling it an honest way to get out of an oath which is the maine pillar of humaine society with securitie and safetie when that to procure a Toleration for sins as grieving to the spirit of truth you care not for shaking the pillars of the land and breaking the beautifull staves of magistracy and ministry asunder As for your argument of nulling the Covenant as to the preservation of the Kings person upon his refusall to take it there being no mutuall agreement It may have an easie inervation If it were as you suppose nay confidently affirme it to be a Covenant between man and man in the civill parts of it pag. 57. there were some strength in your argument but it is clear that the Covenant is between God and man for it was with a hand lifted up to the most high God that wee did swear and not unto man that wee did ingage our selves and therefore there is more in it then the calling of God to witnesse the truth of our intentions pag. 59. For it is not said that we did swear with our hands lifted up before the most high God but to the most high God hee it was to whom we did sweare and with whom we did enter into Covenant and that in the civill parts of it that we might be the more strongly ingaged by Covenant to doe what wee were bound unto by the law of God which warrants every article in it and this of the preservation of the Kings Person with the restriction And therefore the Kings not taking the Covenant or agreement with it is of no more force to absolve the taker of it from perjury and breach of Covenant with God Then if a person sencible of strong temptation to take away his fathers life should therefore make a Vow and Covenant that he would according to his duty preserve it and yet after the same to conclude dis-ingagement in the sight of God upon his fathers not agreement with him in the same Which I humbly conceive is the case of our pater patriae de jure though not de facto And that the state in the drawing up of that part of the said Covenant were not either without a sense of some strong temptation to disloialtie Or more then ordinary carefull to prevent the scandall of it from the world is evident therefore did so draw it up as more solemnly to ingage the taker to the preservation of the Kings Person and authoritie with the restriction then to anyother part of the Covenant and they adde that by keeping the Covenant in this point according to the restriction we may satisfie the world which they imply was jealous of them and therefore in the Covenant it runs that although the world bee not called to witnesse for us in relation to any other article in the Covenant yet to this of the preservation and defence of the Kings Majesties person and authority in the preservation of the true Religion and the liberties of the Kingdome we appeale to the whole world That the world may beare witnesse with our Consciences of our loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to deminish his Majesties just power and greatnesse Now before I leave the Covenant I shall onely be your Remembrancer once againe of your owne Chaplaines opinion in this point of breach of Covenant who having charged you with it in relation unto the Kings person pag. 39. hear what he saith of you just Remon pag. 41. That you are not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accusers and at this you are exquisite But Truce-breakers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against accommodation no Treaty nor agreement or breakers of Covenant and he addes Solemne Oathes and Covenants are able to hold most mens consciences but men heightened by Religion into the formes of the spirit doing things by immediate direction from God carrying a glorious presence of God before them affirming that they are called by God to do some especiall worke in the world these can easily mount above the highest sorts of oathes Men that have tasted of these high things and begin to make them serviceable to worldly ends they are such cunning Pick-locks that they can find the way through any doores to come to the treasures of power and authority And then he goeth on in the same page lines 30. Such wicked spirits are now abroad like those Ezek. 21.31 Brutish men skilfull to destroy Brutish spare not the holiest nor honourablest things Kings Lords Ministers Scripture-Ordinances Oathes Covenants lay all waste and yet in the greatest brutishnesse Skillfull though there be the most sensuall and beastly Confusion yet they shall doe it artificially skilfully say t is for God Justice Religion and that they doe it by the power of Christ and the power