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	majesty_n	parliament_n	3,897	5	6.3360	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57691	The bounds & bonds of publique obedience, or, A vindication of our lawfull submission to the present government, or to a government supposed unlawfull, but commanding lawfull things likewise how such an obedience is consistent with our Solemne League and Covenant : in all which a reply is made to the three answers of the two demurrers, and to the author of The grand case of conscience, who professe themselves impassionate Presbyterians.	Rous, Francis, 1579-1659.	1649 (1649)	Wing R2013; ESTC R15008	51,239	74

a supreame law there But at that time the supreamest humane law which according to these gentlemens opinions was ever made in England or Scotland or perhaps in all the world was made without the King in those Kingdomes and against his dissent For which reason the Covenant engages not so positively for King or Kingly Government as for the Vnion of the Covenanters in any forme and against any opposition Whereupon the Presbyterians when it was as most conceiv'd in their power to restablish King or Kingly Gove●nment they omitted both for many dayes of their lives without question because they conceiv'd it not a Government absolutely necessary by Covenant When D. Hamilton entred England so hostilely for that end and as he thought by vertue of Covenant yet he was excommunicated for it by the Oracles of the Covenant Lastly The reigne of the Covenant since the first day of its birth and obligation was never yet a R●gall reigne no not for one day anywhere so that the change which is is not determinatly contrary to that principle out of which according to the circumstances of security any Government may be moulded for any place For which reason if I should grant you that the Covenant were not expir'd and had not beene so palpably broken as it was betwixt the Nations yet Scotland if they had pleas'd might have beene Govern'd by a King and England by a free State yet both consonantly enough to Covenant and without any contrariety because the circumstances of securitie in one might have been different from the circumstances of security in the other which though different might as well have been mutually maintained as their discipline differing from ours might have beene preserv'd by us From all which it appears that that Oath is Cloudy in the positive or set Government which we ought to have and so cannot be justly called it's owne interpreter besides a reformation according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches supposes such a latitude of Logick as would if all sides should be heard give us as much exercise as all our wa●res have And certainly the Covenant is alike undefin'd in Religion and in civill Government For we swore to bring the Church Discipline in the three Kingdoms to as neer a similitude as the constitution of the places would bear not into the very same and as for the civill Government it was to receive its forme in the security of that just as water doth receive not onely the figure of the Pot or Glasse into which it is put but its conservation from being totally lost and spilt But how then will you free your selfe from this contradiction in asserting that the civill State is unalterable by Covenant when that of the Church which formes the other is so much alterable and seeing that of the State receives from this not only its form and being but what ever else you alone please to attribute to your security in it From whence I conclude again that a change of Government is consistent with Covenant that a submission to it in lawful things is much more and consequently it ingages not to any one determinate Government and so is not against this of ours I beleeve it hath been a frequent observation of many who have calmely converst with our Divines and others zealous for Presbytery That they have found them little satisfied with that sort of Presbytery which our Parliament modelled for us of this Nation as having little affinity with the Couenant My beliefe is that they in that discernd not the consequence of their own dissatisfaction For if their consciences regulated by Covenant can admit no civill Government but the Kingly which they so much argue for here and if the Covenant and a Scotch Presbytery whose right they hold to be Divine be essentially linkt together Then we and they may all of us learne not onely from direct inferences but from the declar'd experience of the Sonne the Father the Grandfather and great GrandMother that is of the three last Scotch Kings and one Queene That if the Scotch Presbitery come out of the Covenant then Kingly government cannot derive from it because they are jurisdictions incompatible and inconsistant in the same place and if one can conserve it then may we say as much of the other How much Mary Queene of Scotland experienced of this let the world judge by that which she wrote both with inke in her Letters and with her blood on the Scaffold For how came she to be Beheaded in England but by Mr. Knox and the Kirkes having done little better than put her into the hands of those who could not keepe her long alive with security to themselves King Iames hath writ and argued largely concerning his dangers sufferings under it it is yet remembred in what Dialect they of the Presbytery were wont to Preach and Pray against him to his face and he not know how to remedy it or by what right to top theirs When he came into England he profest his deliverance from that subjection not of small satisfaction to his minde and therefore at this di●tance he contrived how to extinguish or check that ●ate there after some progresse in that worke he himselfe dyed peaceably in a milder Country But K. Charles with that Crown inherited the consequences of that undertaking for his first troubles began in the controversie of that Presbytery and what a preservation he thought the Covenant from which it seemes their Presbytery is so inseparable might be to him and what his fate was and who helpt it on nay who diverted him from agreement here all the world knowes and in his writings likewise he hath showne to the world that he himselfe was not ignorant of it This only is the wonder that in the midst of this their specious zeale for Kingly Government the Covenant should be so silent concerning Royall Posterity or for their succession in case the Scots or English Souldiers had kill'd the King casually before he had given them the satisfaction which they required the consideration of all this with some other lately offer'd to the young Prince at the Hague by the Scotch Commissioners and the satisfaction which they in their late Declaration require from him as they did from his Father have questionlesse made him scruple so long at his adventure into that Country though so much invited For they told him p. 14.15 That for longer then these eight yeares yea ever since that Queene Mary their fundamentall priviledge hath beene to assemble in Parliament and to conclude there of themselves either without King or Kings Commissioners and that if his Majesty refuse those their reasonable desires they shall be constrained in so great an extremity to doe what is incumbent on them to preserve Religion and the Kingdom from ruine Here they plainly acknowledge and assume that supreame power and right

have not our Antagonists whether they would or no observ'd them in these cases of worldly rights and interests to have as oppositly yet as peremtorily differ'd one from another as people of any family ever did The Devill not being able to get the Text on his side by his wiles oft got the commentary so that we are to be excus'd if we hold many things in Church-men to be but as an Apohrypha at best which yet for esteem sake is alloted a place before anything else next after the genuine Text Having thus openly stated the scruples of my own and of many more consciences and to take off maskes not from the faces but from the consciences of these three and the multitude of other Scotch Casnists who have talkt so speciously for our Covenant Vindication of an Heirs just Title our submitting to it and joyning with others immediately least right suffer wrong one day I cannot I say but aske the same men plainly What difference in effect they find● betwixt the Titles and right of the Prince of Wales and of the n●w King of Scotland notwithstanding all their obligation of Covenant to submit to him as such It is not enough by Covenant to preserve an aery Title onely to a Prince and by the same Covenant to suspend all the rest of his solid power and right certain●ly his Royall commands notwithstanding all this talke are no more obey'd in Scotland now then the Episcopall commands of our Countryman the Bishop of C●alcedon are now obey'd in Turkey But what hinders him from exercising any Kingly right in Scotland as yet The Covenant which is not yet satisfied How is it then that some of our Presbyterians say that the same Covenant indispensably opens the doore to him here If the ●ing aske the Scots why they put the Law of the Covenant so to his obedience 〈◊〉 the first thing which determines all his other rights afterwards They can onely say that they swore it in his Fathers raigne and it is now eternall Though I censure nothing here yet I cannot but conclude-hence That they of themselves as well as our Parliament have made a Law above all other Lawes and more then a reformable Magna Charta For the Government of the Kingdome which may be exercised according to it without Kings and against Kings The first thing which was ever offer'd to him from the Kingdome of Scotland was an authority by far transcending his own viz. that of excommunication For as their late proceedings with him at the Hagu● shew hee was by that subtilty tryed whether he would refuse first to acknowledge Iames Graham alias Montrosse or that great power of the Churches by which he might be awed to greater things afterwards To backe this likewise the Commissioners of the Synode said p. 22 that they negotiated with him in a capacity altogether distinct from the Commissioners of Parliament as being persons commissioned by the Kirke which is commisioned with a Iusdivinum Our Bishops certainly never undertook such a jurisdiction supremacy and unlesse these had witnessed so much of themselves to all the world no one would believe that in such a poore Country and so much forme of Religion there could be such high passions of ambition Besides if it be a true rule That he who is the maker ought to be the interpreter of a Law then let all the world observe one thing That the Kirk having made the Covenant as the principle of all supream rights both of State and Religion then they alone ought to give the interpretation of it from time to time as they de facto did not onely last yeare contrary to the interpretation of their owne Parliament but also for many yeares together have peremptorily prest it upon ours So that it makes a fundamentall change of Government there though differently from what our Parliament hath made here the jus publicum both of Religion and security of State with them lying in the Covenant and that lying in the brests of Churchmen chosen by one another and our's lying in the power of Laymen chosen by the People and judging by the Common Lawes of equity and necessity and of the word of God It were in vaine to say the Kirke onely recommends their interpretation to the State For last yeare they did it with a Penalty upon the Parliament their whole Army and the body of the people which obey'd them if it be a penalty to bee given to the Devill and to bee put into a State of eternall death Wherefore they there are or else none are anywhere the true judges of right who make themselves judges of wrong and of punishment To conclude how practicable soever the Covenant was at first or how erroneously soever we may now conceive it to be extinct or to be a principle fitted to justify a change of Kingly Government which was actually made first of all by it and their Presbytery in Scotland yet it being originally but a Politicall or condition all Oath relating to our former Unions when Warre w● and to our cooperation under our respective Magistrates only not in a way contrary to the fifth Commandment and that all the Magistracy which we enjoy and by whom we are now fully possest if they have not laid it aside yet call us not out to act the remaining part of it and that it interprets not it selfe so that each private man is not made by it his owne Magistrate and that there is no penal Article in it obliging us private men to pursue a publique Warre upon the Magistrates or any other mens bare neglect or misinterpreting it to themselves who therefore can contrary to all this peremptorily warrant us now yea necessitate us to begin or assist to the desolation of warre and bloodshed upon it especially seeing it is made very dubious at least whither we be now tyed to it at all or no Further more how good so ever it was at first yea though that other Nation had not given it it 's mortall wound when they attempted to give us ours both in England and in Ireland which was the cause of this effect of change of Government here yet if when it was in force it should any other way have received a bad tincture of passion or ambitious policy among our selves why might it not by our Magistrates order have been as well carried out of our Churches as the brazen Serpent was out of the Temple after it was unhappily perverted to its wrong end If otherwise and that it must at all hazards be indirectly made a snare to peaceable consciences even after it is extinct as hath been proved I shall desire any pious spirit to judge whither it doth not in such a case deserve much of Campanellas censure which he gave upon the Spanyards India Treasury that it was gotten in blood sailes home in a sea of blood and never rests till it be all laid out in