Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	kingdom_n	law_n	parliament_n	3,975	5	6.2994	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67049	A word of advertisement & advice to the godly in Scotland by a Scotch man, and a cordiall vvelwisher to the interests of the godly in Scotland, both in civils and spirituals.	Scotch man and a cordial wel-wisher to the interest of the godly in Scotland.	1651 (1651)	Wing W3553; ESTC R23487	15,778	24

whether the generality of the Parliament and General Assembly of Scotland hath been any other upon a true accompt but heathen Iudges in respect of the appearances of God in them in their publick actings or private walkings I leave it to your serious consideration And I appeal to your selves whether you have not in an implicite way for the most part f llowed their Iudgements especially the Kirk and how by so doing you have been entangled and ensnared if you will not see you shall see Consider how the Lord condiscends to your weakness by writing in great Letters your sin and your snare in these by discovering to you what I have asserted both of Kirk and State You are not strangers to proceedings at St. Johnston how these men are now not ashamed to profess their wayes before the Sun all their fair pretences whereby they have ensnared you are now coming out in their own colours I need not name the particulars they being so evident these men that have heightened prejudices between you and your Brethren in England upon fair pretences who were Iudges and Parties whose guilty conscierces told them they deserv'd to be so dealt with as their brethren had been dealt with by the Godly in England whom the Lord had so strangely raised up for that Work and did clearly see they should be so dealt with by you when you should come to understand your own interest and the true interest of that which you had primarily engaged your selves unto And therefore notwithstanding they did make use of you and did entangle you with good pretences yet your selves know they were always jealous of you and did hate you in their hearts and for the Kirk what they are become I mean the generality of them how great Traitors to their own Professions and Declarations Preachings Warnings and Remonstrances to the interest of all the Godly in Scotland is evident passing all other things by their sense of the Westland Remonstrance and their going along with that Parliament at St. Iohnston and by their late Warnings Remonstrances Declarations and Acts and all these under the pretence of good Patriots which is an evidence that their interest is worldly and not Spirituall and hath the Mark of the Beast upon it Dear Freinds I humbly suppose it does not become you to be implicite in receiving any thing of consequence from the best of men much less from such as these have been and are ye who have Iesus Christ to be your Light and Councellor and the anointing from above and should know that all men are lyars and ready to be byassed with Interest How unbeseeming is it for you especially in these days to be implicite in your belief or in receiving any thing off mans hand without examination How much this hath prevailed amongst you and how ye have loved tohave it so is obvious and how these lords over the conscience have pursued its being so as hath also appeared in their peremptoriness in acts questionable in themselves their naming all the English Army Sectaries and Blaspemous without exceptions Enemies to the People of God and to godliness Their bitter way of expressing of this without clearly or scarce at all refuting their Error or shewing what they held their laboring to wrest every thing to the worst sence or to put such a construction for the which there was not the least shaddow of a ground their giving it as the note of a Sectary in him that should question their way in these or should forbear to go along with them or should question the matter or whether that which they did assert to be Error was so or no calling these problematique questions tending to rend the Church and for Professors notwithstanding it be a duty prescribed unto and commended in the people of God especially into a day of darkness and difficulty to speak often one to another to exhort to rebuke to be free one with another yet I appeal to one and all of you if their hath not been and is such a spirit even amongst you that you could not nor cannot bear any thing differing from your own opinion or rather the opinion of the Kirk whether in Doctrine Discipline or the business of the time notwithstanding the most of you give me leave in Christian freedom to speak without offence could not give a reason for what you held or practised especially in these things relating to the times but were implicitely led by other mens judgements which is your reproach your sin and your snare this day and hath not had I dare confidently say it the least hand in bringing you into the posture you are at present Doth not the language of all these call upon you to seperate from worldly interests and carnal men as much as you can and from an implicite carnal blinde way of fearing or trusting man Is it not evident that it hath been the design of God from the beginning of this work to have it so Have not all his dispensations from time to time signified this yea does not as hath been said your own principles and practices hold out so much Hath not your opposing of this by your laboring to joyn the seed of the Woman and of the Serpent together and to mingle their Interests again and again brought contempt and disappointment upon you Have they not constantly pretend what they will laid you by and set up themselves and if this hold in Civil things how much more in Spiritual And do not you clearly see it cannot be otherwise Is it not as clear as the light that if this Parliament at St. Johnston were desolved and another called according to the Laws of the Kingdom I dare say and it is known to you it might well be worse it could not be better the result of so many years professing and fighting for a Covenant chiefly relating to Religion a Nation wholly almost overgrown with Malignants Enemies to you and to what the Covenant chiefly drives at And for the Kirk I offer it to your consideration whether the generality of them be not godless self-seeking men I do not onely mean this Commission that goes along with the present State but any Assembly that hath been or is likely to be in haste and for such as are godly I shall wish that too many even of these have not more an eye to the upholding of an Arbitrary Power unto their medling in Civil matters then to the holding forth of Iesus Christ and the interest of the People of God Hath it not been a snare to themselves and to all honest men in Scotland especially to such as were in Iudicatories and Armies Ministers though good men medling so much in the business of the time their way being when they were disaffected with the State to declare out of the Pulpits their faults as also to put forth Declarations thereanent which at the best did tend to nothing but to make the State Hypocrites and to the

Treatie with the King and were likely to close in a way wherewith they were dis-satisfied and that they had left out Scotlands interest The proceedings against the King the taking of his life must be also protested against notwithstanding his continued and confirmed obduredness in his ways al the Justice the Covenant tyes to against Delinquents and the execution of Justice upon severals of our own acting only by vertue of his Commissions and that he were himself oft by us declared a Murtherer the grand Murtherer guilty of all the Innocent blood had been shed in the three Kingdoms that we had no ty upon us for the preservation of his Person by the Covenant otherwise then as in the defence and preservation of Religion and Libertie If it be objected that they were not a free constituted Judicatory that did the thing and so upon that accompt it was murther Let it be considered upon the same consideration if it may not be as strongly cleared that Iames Grahame and all that died upon a Scaffold since 1648. were murthered since it may be made appear that according to the strict accompt of the Lawes of this Nation there has not been a free nor right constituted Parliament since 1648. as appeares by what is aforesaid concerning the constituting of the Parliament that sat down the fourth of Ianuary 1649. As a dutie the King that now is behooved to be proclaimed immediatly though then engaged and running head-long in his Fathers steps Commissioning Prince Rupert Iames Grahaem Ormond making an open and avowed Peace with the Irish Rebels to which height his Father never came Commissioners are sent to him and though at that time through the strength of his passion to the way his heart was engaged unto and the apparent hopes in Ireland whether he also sent his goods he was kept from any seeming condescendence to their desires Yea though they were exceedingly baffled and slighted yet the Lords seeing no consistencie at all betwixt those in England and their Prerogative Interest as Lords and finding a spirit of levelling as they named it beginning to break out honest men beginning to think and to make it appear they thought the Lords interest to be exorbitant and tyrannicall and that the most of them were enemies to Pietie and pious men and to motions tending to the countenancing of both and that they were friends to the getting in and keeping in naughtie men in places of trust with a design to uphold their interest and greatnes and beginning then to look after their libertie in those things that great men had encroched upon them these considerations though so slighted as aforesaid did move them under the notion of duty to presse a second addresse In which many Godly men were ensnared by condescending unto it upon this attempt that they were desirous to shun the scandal of being complyers with these they called Sectaries who had declared against Monarchy hovv that business vvas carried on many of you know better then my self An Express being sent to the Isle of Iarsey to the King by his return a Treaty was desired at Breda the King writing to the Committee of Estates naming them so which he had not formerly done though then only with a Proviso in order to that Treaty The same day and place that the King wrote to the Committee of Estates he did write to James Graham relating the former Commission given him to come into Scotland giving him an accompt of all passages between him and them in Scotland and pressing him vigourously to prosecute the business and the rather because he thought his coming to Orkney had occasioned the sending of that second address unto him and he was hopefull his vigourous prosecuting of that which he had intrusted him with should be a means to make the Committee fall lower in their conditions And though the Copy of this Letter came to Scotland and was known by the Committee of Estates before they fell upon their Instructions notwithstanding of all this these who had projected the business would go on and did prosecute it with so much heat and earnestness that the business both in Instructions and Commissioners was concluded by the Committee of Estates although the Parliament were to sit down vvithin four or five dayes after Those of you that were upon publique business may remember how the whole matter was carried being hudled over and over-hasted so as might have rendred the businesse suspitious to any that were not much left of God to some it did clearly appear to be carryed on by way of designe Though the shenning of scandall made some honest men go along in it yet I think that which partly did entangle severalls was the expectation they had that the King would not agree to the Instructions As for the carrying on of the Treaty and the managing of it in Holland I refer that to the causes of the Commissions Fast appointed when they sate at Sterling and to the Westland Remonstrances of Kirk and Army My designe in all this is that you may take notice how a party and faction even of those whom the Lord had separated from the rest of the Nation pretending as highly as ever has carried aside and entangled the Godly and undermmed you And when in part your snare is discovered unto you though with the price of many sorrows to your selves and much misery to the Land now they begin to appear in their own colours My dear Friends Give me leave in a Christian freedom to expostulate with you and from what I have laid down before you either as matter of Fact or as your received principles to speak freely my own heart unto you what my thoughts reach unto concerning your present low condition as what may have had a great hand in the Providence of God to make your condition as it is I think it may appear unto you from what hath been said though I should adde nothing that there is a distinct interest of the People of God from all worldly interests that it does also clearly appear that your mingling yours therewith and your complying and joyning with Malignant and carnall Instruments in prosecution thereof hath had no small influence in bringing you to so low a condition as you are at this day Yea and which is a greater abomination and also exceedingly tending thereto when you and your brethren in England did fall into mistakes and differences together have you not strengthened the hands of your and their enemies by declaring one anothers Infirmities to the world and not only so Have not you the people of God sided with the men of the world in their way of reproaching your Brethren Yea have not you made them Judges of the differences between you and them which is contrary to that of the Apostle even in Civill things betwixt such as are Saints indeed that they should not bring their causes before the Heathen Judges much less their spiritual differences And