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tradition_n faith_n reason_n scripture_n 2,267 5 6.0519 4 true
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A47150 Help in time of need from the God of help to the people of the (so called) Church of Scotland, especially the once more zealous and professing, who have so shamefully degenerated and declined from that which their fathers the primitive Protestants attained unto ... / writ by George Keith, prisoner for the truth in Aberdeen in the latter end of the year 1664. Keith, George, 1639?-1716.; Jaffray, Alexander, 1614-1673. 1665 (1665) Wing K173; ESTC R36221 73,094 85

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which ye so hate us and stir up the Magistrate against us as the Priests did against your fathers and they could not suffer any man to reprove them for their covetousness And I read of a poor man in the History of the Reformation in Scotland who but through his sleep said The Devil take the Priests for they are a greedy pack and the poor man was pursued for his life and made to burn his Bill and though we were silent would not the stones rise up and witness against your covetuousness and do not the poorest idiots in the Land see it and is it not a Proverb among the people the Kirk is greedy Oh what a dishonour have ye brought upon the Name and Truth of Christ And were it not for a livelihood and worldly honour and respect would so many betake them to such a work and does not your gain from your quarter which you so punctually exact and they that will not put into your mouths ye prepare war against them and your removing from one Parish to another where ye can have a fatter stipend manifestly prove ye are moved thereto rather from a principle of covetousness then from any desire of doing good to the souls of the people and how came many of you to be Teachers was it not the design of your Fathers and Relations who saw it a ready way for them to put you in a livelihood and sent you to Schools to learn the Calling as ever the Shoo-maker or other Tradesmen past his Apprentiship and then becomes free to use the Trade the thing is well known and I speak it with regret and have not many of your selves sometime a day intreated the Lord that he would send a purge and put away out of his house such buyers and sellers and now the Lord is come to make the purge and who of you can abide the day of his coming the purge goes so deep its like to scourge you all out at doors and e're yee be put out yee will rather hold in who are in and seek to uphold one another but yee shall all fall together And whereas yee plead that he who preaches the Gospel should live of the Gospel so say I but I certainly know if the Magistrate would but take away his force whereby he compells the people to put into your mouths and if your selves would forbear your cursing excommunicating them all which is rigid law and far from Gospel your Gospel could never maintaine you and many of you would be let starve 10. Your Fathers the Primitive Protestants professed themselves against Traditions and all whatsoever that had not a warrant in the word of God in the matter of his worship Iohn Knox said that every thing though not contrary yet if besides the word of God in his worship was to be denyed and yet this day has discovered several things which they kept to have been but the traditions and inventions of men but they knew not so much and professed themselves against all traditions whatsoever and what was not warranted of God and now have yee not shrunk from them herein and taken up many things they did cast from them as traditions and you say the light of Nature or humane reason and prudence may supply what is wanting in Scripture to teach men at least some Circumstances in the worship of God for order and decency which is the Doctrine of your Church confession of Faith Oh have yee not thus shouldered Christ off his Throne if he by his spirit is to direct men as to the substance of Worship will he be wanting in the lesser to teach the Circumstances also and the order and decency does not all true order and decency come from the Lords Spirit who is the God of Order and is this to do in Faith to follow the direction of the light of Nature which is stark blind in the things of God and humane reason and prudence cannot step one right step herein and have not hundreds of the Popish supperstitions crept in under this mask of order and decency and is not this the Prelates plea at this day for his service book and Organs and Surplice and Altars and sign of the Cross lo how have yee given away your cause in this also 11. And your Fathers the Primitive Protestants were against all observations of dayes and called them supperstitious who observed them and your Ministers preaches up the observation of such days namely that called Christs Birth-day which within these three or four years they preached down which breeds no small admiration to poor people as if they had changed their God but I know well generally they have kept to their God all along very constantly among all their changes being such the Apostle mentions generally whose God is their belly and this master they have served and do serve very faithfully making every change answer its design And though yee lay such stress upon the observation of the first day of the week for a Sabbath yet one of your Fathers Calvin denyed the observation of that or any other day since the coming of Christ to be commanded of God and so many hundreds of Protestants and is it not a great abomination which may make the very Sun to blush whose day yee call it to profess to keep a day holy unto God wherein yee ought not to think your own thoughts nor speak your own words nor take your own pleasures and yet spend it so as yee do in gluttony and drunkenness sporting gaming buying and selling worldly communication quarreling and fighting and will not the Minister who in the Pulpit hath been telling you yee should not speak your own words in that day but so soon as he comes forth falls as fresh to the worldly discourse as any other which I have oft observed to the grief of my heart as many others have done 12. And your Fathers the Primitive Protestants were against Prelates and Lording Bishops It 's true in Queen Maries dayes in England there were some Bishops who did bear a measure of testimony against Popery according to the knowledge of that day and sealed it with their blood and the Lord had regard unto them according to their faithfulness to what they saw but such who came after saw further into mystery Babylon and it was discovered unto them by the light and they discerned Prelacy to be a limb of Antichrist and so called it and but of late dayes it was covenanted to God against Again and again and did yee not your selves vow to God against the same So that herein ye have not only apostatized from your Fathers but from what yee were of late your selves Oh what is become of all your zeal now for that Covenant which yee accounted the glory of your Nation have not many of you trampled it under foot as a dunghill which once was a Crown unto you and yee think shame of it as it had been a whores brat