Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	law_n	liberty_n	parliament_n	4,902	5	6.1958	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75429	An ansvver to the cities representation set forth by some ministers of the Gospel, within the province of London. Concerning the proceedings of the army. By a Presbyterian patriot, that hath covenanted to preserve the rights and priviledges of Parliaments, and the Kings Majesties person and authority; in the preservation, and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms; and not otherwise. February 7. 1648. Imprimatur Gilbert Mabbot.		1649 (1649)	Wing A3399; Thomason E541_23; ESTC R205927	13,928	26

to cry up the ends and decry the means how to suppresse tyranny and not Tyrants is a hard lesson The most excellent Mathematicians are to seeke when they goe to Sea Theory and Practise are two things one may better make a Vtopia then manage a Commonwealth Book learned men are apt to thinke it as easie for others to do as for them to think But Statesmen and Souldiers know better then Students what belongs to settlement and finde it not so easie to bring both ends together as these Divines imagine and therefore are forced to doe like Alexander cut the knot when they cannot unlose it for the peace and safety of the Kingdome must not alwayes hang in the briars It is to be hoped that though the House be pulled downe there will be provision made we shall not lye out of doors but a mean be found out betwixt Tyranny and Anarchy and more then meer private persons to bear rule The next thing insisted on is the obligation that lyes upon us by Oath and Covenant Pag. 8. To preserve the Rights and priviledges of Parliaments the Kings Majesties person and authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and liberties of the Kingdome This last conditionall clause In preservation of Religion and Liberties is made to serve but as a cypher in the Covenant the Scots Commissioners were wont to leave it out the better to blinde the people and cite the preceding part without it These Divines do tant ' amount for though they cite them joyntly yet they urge the other abstractly and as superiour to this never telling us how these may be provided for in case the other should not be granted notwithstanding the apparent inconsistency of them both For the King in whom the present Government of Lords and secluded Members are involved they voting a settlement upon his non-concessions and refusing that of non-addresses and bringing him to justice thereby to put a period to delayes both in liberty and restraint hath twice put Religion and Liberties to such an hazard as had not God miraculously preserved them they had perished irrecoverably and we with them in lives and estates and no better can be expected from him justifying his wayes now at his Triall at last as at first labouring to confront and not to relent which is a mercy of God that he retains his nature without dissembling it lest the hypocrite should reigne and so the people be insnared These Oaths were never intended by maker or taker against the Laws and duty of God and Nature which indeed no oaths can violate The reason is rendred why we swore the preservation of his person to wit to expresse our Loyalty that those wars were not undertaken upon any rebellious or personall purposes but of necessity in respect of Religion and Liberty upon the point to be utterly subverted and that we were ready to lay downe Armes and receive him with those respects belonged to him whensoever it did appear that those might be secured which never did yet since those oaths were taken and therefore notwithstanding them the Parliament went on to fight him to the just hazard of his person and now judicially to proceed against him as not otherwise able to discharge that great trust that lyes upon them touching the wellfare of this and succeeding generations Page 9. They say They dare not by the violation of this oath provoke the wrath of God But put case your advice should be followed as to the King and Parliament priviledges dare you thereupon affirme the oath to be kept if Religion and Liberties should suffer and the Kingdome be undone thereby our Oath is not categoricall but hypotheticall so that if the keeping of the one part be the breaking of the other for so is our case then the question is which must be kept and which must be broken whether to satisfie you we should keep it on the Kings part or to satisfie our own reason and conscience we should keep it on the Commonwealths part and if in your sense it doe binde so strictly for the Kings preservation why did you suffer war to be made upon him without like advice wherein his person might have perished nay did perish as to the oath he running the like hazard with other men without difference or distinction so that rationally in the use of means though not actually his person was destroyed notwithstanding the Parliament it selfe had sworne to preserve him and no fault found In the same Page they dehort the Army from proceeding any further I will not say a Jesuit is in it and tell them they were once Honourable with them and others whilst they kept in Gods way and within their sphere there lay their fault indeed but they have eclipsed their own glory brought a cloud over all their excellencies It seems these Divine thinks the Country to be spirited towards the Army like the City Indeed the Malignants and Newters thinke as hardly of them for this as they can wish but the godly and sincere I meane those of no faction and without byasse who in conscience to God and with publicke spirits undertooke this cause for Religion Liberty and to bring Delinquents to condigne punishment doe blesse them in the Name of the Lord in this and for this as a deliverance equall to the first or second Warre and are not a little afflicted in spirit to see you to bee become the rejoycing of the Cavaliers and the lifter up of the heads of those prophane wretches in the day that God hath humbled them and glorified himself upon them God keep your own glory and the Gospell engaged in you from being eclipsed and your excellency from being beclouded in the wayes of contradiction that you are in neither helping the Lord nor strengthning them that doe Be more sensible of the City sins over-looke not their faults that are under you their defection and backsliding from publicke principles setting up the worst men in the best places pressing the Parliament with clamorous and menacing Petitions to destructive purposes imprisoning the whole House in the House till they had voted the King to London and threatning worse things if they came againe forcing away the Speaker and the faithfullest Members refusing to aid their honest Major Generall against the common Enemy though as it were at Townes end and scoffing those few that did barely looking on and worse at the siege of Colchester Why then beholdest thou the more that is in thy brothers eye but considerest not the beame that is in thine owne eye Are these and such like veniall in your owne Parishioners and mortall in the Army judge with righteous judgement The Ministers goe on in the same Paragraph and say We feare you are opening a doore to desperate and damnable Errours and Heresies Truely I doubt so too but never the more for suppressing the King and secluding the Members one thing I am confident of that it will not be a

me of the Kingdome after him Soe I may come to lose it which if I waite Gods leisure I shall be sure of in Gods good time But where doe these Divines finde that when a wicked King of Israel was by the Magistrates or people for his owne wickednesse and publique good taken away though they also were the Lords Anoynted that ever they were blamed for it I am sure neither for Athaliah nor Amaziah nor I doe not remember any else though I know many private persons are condemned for doing so for base and unwarrantable ends And as not by Providence so nor is it safe they say to be guided by impulses of spirit against the Rule to wit rightly understood and they desire the Army to consider whether if there be upon Record any example of an impulse of spirit upon multitudes of persons putting them to act against morall Precepts When the Israelites saved Jonathan against their owne Vow and the Authority of Saul this seemes something like one but whether it will be allowed I know not when the Londoners told the Parliament they must take such courses as God and Nature put into their hands What call you this and were they blamed for it Then by the way upon occasion Page 14. They tell the Army they themselves confesse their wayes to be irregular and not justifiable wherein the Armies ingenuity is commendable and their Cause never the worse for a thing may be irregular and not justifiable by the Letter of the Law and formallity of Rule that yet is lawfull enough Have yee not read in the Law how on the Sabbath dayes the Priests in the Temple prophane the Sabbath and are blamelesse Politicks and Judicialls must yeeld to moralls municipall Lawes to Religion and safety Order is good till it become disorderly and then corruptio optimi est pessima no such oppression as Authority corrupted and abused when Government is poynted at the Governours and not at the governed driving sinister interests by vertue of their Offices neither fearing God nor hating covetousnesse In matters of reall publique concernment as to Politicks God will have mercy and not sacrifice safety preferred above Formes and Lawes of Nature above those of Art and Pollicy But then it followes that no necessity can oblige a man to sinne but when by vertue of necessity it becomes lawfull then it is no sinne as in the foregoing instances of Davids eating the shewbread and the Priests prophaning the Sabbath necessity justified our partaking with the minor against the major in Scotland which yet was breach of priviledge Further Pag. 15. they say that if a Precept of God may be dispenced upon a necessity yet it must be absolute present and cleare not doubtfull uncertaine and conjecturall as that which is aledged in your case must needs be it being discerned only by your selves and your owne party it being apparent to us that there was no necessity the Parliament till forced by you being full and free acting what was covenanted for Doe they meane by absolute necessity that the Scots must be come as far as Lancashire before we ought to beleeve they will invade us or that Wales Kent with the adjacent parts and the ships at sea must Rebell actually and revolt declaratively before we ought to beleeve that the King when in restraint can do us any harme when they say it must be present mean they it must be Acted before it be prevented in matters of war and businesse of State if they stay for present and absolute necessity it is the way to be deprived of remedy Though David was hungry and the Apostles when the one eate the shewbread and the other rubbed the eares of corne yet neither of them probably was upon the point of famishing their necessity was not absolute Shall the Army never be allowed to be wise onely valiant still put to play after games and God to worke miracles by our imprudence know wee not yet what manner of men we deale with hath not the King and his Parliamentary complices yet made necessity cleare There are none but you and your party as you say by the Army that thinks otherwise but what they meane by the Army and their Party is as little intelligable as are these three foresaid properties of necessity do they meane by party the Parliament now sitting of whom this Representation takes no notice or doe they meane the unbiassed godly and true hearted Patriots in the Land for I thinke their party goes no further The King and his Members the Cavaliers and Londoners being indeed no Partizans of the Army nor competent Judges of the Kingdomes necessity which is absolute enough if thereby bee meant important These Divines themselves looking with London spectacles say they saw none it s well for you you did not and it s as well that others did since you l admit of no necessity to be cleere but what 's absolute and present that 's as much as to say you will never see till your eyes be out I am confident had our State or Army seazed on Barwicke and Carlile and pleaded necessity for it before the Cavaleers and Scots were possessed of them you would have condemned it as neither absolute nor present and so a cleere breach of agreement notwithstanding the overtures of invasion made in Scotland by preparations thereunto Nor doubtlesse did you see any prevaricating in the Scotch Commissioners when they were in England but thought it a meere Artifice to suspect them in so much as I have seene a booke licensed by that saies their memory was sweet for their keeping Covenant when to others they stunke above ground for breaking it Nor did you see a need of the Armies refusing to disband it may be that 's it you meane when you say this necessity pleaded is contracted by their owne miscarriages if you do meane so there are not many out of London of your minde except some that came from thence and thereabouts for it is absolutely uncleare to others that are not of the Kings party that the disbanding of the Army is the securing of the Kingdome In a word it seemes you will allow no Eye of Reason onely that of Sense They say there was no necessity the Parliament being free till forced by the Army and not by the Londoners and Acting what was Covenanted for to wit a settlement of the Kingdomes Peace upon his Majesties noncon-cessions of abolition of Bishops and bringing Delinquents to condigne punishment Then they tell the Army they engaged themselves by Oath to preserve His Majestios person and the Priviledges of Parliament yea and the liberties of the people too but that 's not here and it seemes is not worth regarding compared with the other two for its apparent their advice tends to break this by keeping those severall interests at such a distance and contrariety being impossible to be preserved the very preservation of the one being the destruction of the other Now say they