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A62888
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The modern pleas for comprehension, toleration, and the taking away the obligation to the renouncing of the covenant considered and discussed.
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Tomkins, Thomas, 1637?-1675.
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1675
(1675)
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Wing T1836; ESTC R4003
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94,730
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270
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be so in the Opinion of its greatest Adversaries In the next place therefore we are to consider whether any reasonable Plea for Separation can be drawn from any just Exception which may be taken against the Liturgy and here there are two sorts of men to be considered First those who dislike all Forms of Prayer in general Secondly those who are only disgusted at some particular things in ours As to those who are against all Forms of Prayer I believe that the number of them among considering Persons is not so great as that any great regard ought to be had unto them and this must needs be so for a reason which can never fail For it cannot choose but seem strangely absurd and infinitely unbecoming the great distance which is between us and Almighty God and that great awe which we ought to bear unto him that all the Expressions of the Publick Devotion of every Congregation in the whole Nation should be left to the arbitrary and especially the extemporary conception of each single Person who is bold enough to venture upon the taking so much upon him It were very strange if this Kingdom should at this day be ignorant how very frequently Folly Heresie nay and Blasphemy hath been uttered in such kind of Prayers and it is utterly impossible that upon the indulgence of any such Liberty such Extravagancies can with any security be provided against And it is not unlikely that the greatest Pretenders to the highest Attainments in that way would be not a little out of Countenance If so be that their own Prayers were faithfully taken from their Mouths and after some reasonable space of time when they might be supposed to have forgot them presented to their view And that which renders this evil utterly intolerable is this that these Prayers which either really are extemporary else only pretended to be so are under that pretence recommended and regarded by the People as the only way of praying by the Spirit and by that very means the ever blessed Spirit is as far as these mens endeavours can be succesful entituled to all the Follies Vanity and Weaknesses all the Sin and Errour and even those very Blasphemies which are every day committed against him And I think all good Christians are concerned to endeavour that if a Liberty must be given to these Persons to go on and to abuse the People yet however that it may be done some other way and they not permitted to bely the Holy Ghost As for Forms of Prayers the great reasonableness and even necessity of them is very apparent and in Scripture it self there are Examples enough to be produced and if any man pleaseth to enter upon that Argument I no way doubt but there will be those found who will debate it with him It shall suffice at present only to say that our Saviour Christ did compose a Form of Prayer and gave it to his Disciples to use Now if as great numbers of the People are brought to believe that there is no praying by the Spirit besides praying Ex tempore then no man ever did or ever could say Christ's Prayer by the Spirit of Christ. Now as to the other sort of Persons who have some exceptions against some expressions in our Liturgy those things have been so fully examined that of late we have heard very little of them And the matter of it is all along so clearly unexceptionable and so fitted for the common use of all Christians that all controversial Expressions were designedly avoided Insomuch that I do not know of any considerable Sect amongst us which may not joyn with us in every expression in it except the Socinians Now here perhaps some Jealousies may arise in the minds of men that if there were not some real exception against the Liturgy then so many good Teachers would not lay it aside nay and not only so but as far as mens Intentions can be guessed at by their words and actions very much abhor it Now as to the behaviour of our dissenting Brethren in this particular I shall desire their admirers to remember this one thing that His Majesty not long after His Happy Restauration did put â—orth a Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affaires wherein He did very graciously indulge much to the dissatisfied Part of the Clergy in hopes thereby to win upon them and in that Declaration He did propose this unto them as a way whereby they might shew their Gratitude for so great a Condescention That they would read so much of the Liturgy as themselves had no exception against But with many of them He could not prevail for so much as one Syllable not one Collect no nor so much as one Chapter according to the Rubrick So much doth yielding work upon that good-natur'd Generation Now whether this Refractoriness as to the whole Book and every part and parcel of it could possibly proceed solely and altogether from Conscience and not very much if not altogether from Design or Humour let their best Friends speak In the next place now as to the Canons I do not know that there doth or canâ—ly any Objection against them which our present Debate is concerned about because they are no immediate Parts of the Publick Worship and therefore can be no cause of the present Separation especially as to the People As to the Canons made in the year 1640. I must needs confess that the Scotch Commissioners did complain much against them and some English Gentlemen made witty Speeches upon them but they had both of them the ill luck to confess the real cause of the Pique which they had against them viz. The acknowledgement of His Majesties Authority as being Independent and above all Coercion either Papal or Popular A Doctrine which I must needs say was very inconsistent with those Designs which those angry Patriots were at that time carrying on And I am very much mistaken if at this very day a great part of that Quarrel which is taken up against the Church be not founded upon this that it is too faithfully devoted to the Interests of the Crown and that many Persons are Presbyterians Independents Fifth-Monarchy-men c. as so many sanctified disguises under which they act the Part of Common-wealths-men In the next place come we therefore to the Ceremonies and there indeed the noise is very great An Excellent Person who for his pious labours upon a noble Argument and much more worthy of his Pen deserves much honour hath in this part of the Question exprest much more Concern than I hope himself upon a serious review will admit the Cause to bear in a Book entituled Liberty of Conscience upon its true and proper Grounds asserted and vindicated c. hath thus expressed himself p. 49. How may we lament over the present Imposition of the Ceremonies now enjoyn'd among us in England which are no part of divine Truth nor any of Christ's Institutions but things perfectly Humane in their Creation
little dissatisfied with that way of Proceeding against Him and did how reasonably upon their own Grounds I know not urge the Covenant for His Preservation But of their Behaviour in this Case I shall give only the Account of an Author who lived in those times when they had opportunities enough to have taken what account of Him themselves pleased His Words are these in a Book entituled A short View of the Life and Reign of King Charles the First Monarch of Great Britain pag. 94. The Presbyterians carried on this Tragedy to the very last Act from the first bringing in of the Scots to the beginning of the War and from the beginning of the War till they had brought Him Prisoner to Holmby-House and then quarrelled with the Independents for taking of the Work out of their hands and robbing them of the long expected fruit of their Plots and Practices They cried out against them in their Pulpits and clamoured against them in their Pamphlets for that of which themselves were at least parcel-guilty Et si non re at voto saltem Regicidae c. On the other side the Independents who washed their hands in the blood of the King seemed as desirous as the Presbyterians to wash their hands of it By them it was alleadged more calmly that they had put Charles Stuart to death against whom they proceeded as the Cause of so much bloodshed but that the King had been muthered a long time before by the Presbyterians when they deprived Him of His Crown His Sword His Scepter of His Crown by forcing from Him those Prerogatives which placed Him in a Throne of Eminency above His People of His Sword by wresting the Militia out of His hands by which He was made unable to protect them and of His Scepter in divesting Him of His Power of calling Parliaments and of His Negative Voyce in making those Laws by which He was to govern all Estates of Men under His Dominion And more than so they had deprived Him of His Natural Liberty as a Man of the Society of His Wife as he was a Husband of the Conversation of His Children as He was a Father of the Attendance of His Servants as He was a Master and in a word of all those Comforts which might make Life valued for a Blessing So that there was nothing left for the Independents to do but to put an end to those Calamities into which this miserable man this Vir dolorum as He might very well be called had been so accursedly plunged by the Presbyterians To which I shall only add this farther that notwithstanding all that Loyalty which the Covenanters have so often boasted of from the Obligation of the Covenant yet it is well known that the Covenant was placed by themselves as a bar between him and his Throne that without submitting to this they could not endure to think of His Restauration to that and this to so high a degree that even in Ianuary 1648. Notwithstanding the apparent danger which the King's Life was known to be in yet even then the General Assembly of Scotland did violently oppose all courses thought upon for His Relief and pressed earnestly That His Majestie 's Concessions and Offers concerning Religion may directly and positively be declared unsatisfactory to the Parliament and that there shall be no engagement for restoreing His Majesty to one of His Houses with Honour Freedom and Safety before Security and Assurance be had from His Majesty by His Solemn Oath under Hand and Seal that He shall for Himself and His Successors consent and agree to Acts of Parliament enjoyning the League and Covenant and fully establishing Presbyterian Government Directory of Worship and Confession of Faith in all his Majesties Dominions and that his Majesty shall never make opposition to any of these or endeavour any change thereof Vid. Declar. of Jan. 10. 1648. Now therefore seeing it is so plain a Case that in the Opinion of the Compilers and Enjoyners of the Covenant all the fore-mentioned Violences both might and ought to have been used against the King by vertue and in pursuance of the Covenant It thence follows unavoidably that His Majesty is not a little concerned to be very watchful over all those Persons who are so tender of the honour of the Covenant that they demand it as the Condition of their Admission into the Church that they may by no means be questioned concerning their Opinion about its Obligation ARTICLE 4. We shall with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from His People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any Faction or Parties among the People contrary to this League and Covenant that they may be brought to publick trial and receive condign punishment as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve or the Supreme Iudicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient It is very well known what the meaning of Incendiaries and Malignants is in this Article And it is shrewdly to be suspected That those who are perswaded of the Obligation of this Oath are likewise perswaded that those Incendiaries and Malignants have not as yet been brought to condign punishment and whatever benefit the Covenanters themselves may receive by an Act of Oblivion it is much to be suspected that those who are covenanted against are looked upon as not capable of receiving any advantage by it And there is reason to believe that those who scruple the Validity of that Act of Parliament which declares against the Obligation of the Covenant are by no means to be trusted lest if opportunity should serve they would not likewise scruple the Validity of that Act of Parliament which gave them Indempnity For thus according to their own Grounds they may argue The Act of Oblivion is against the Covenant and then it followeth in the next place that it is against their Consciences It is against the Oath of God lying upon themselves and upon the whole Nation and upon all Posterity and no humane Act or Power can absolve them or any one else from it and every thing done against the Covenant is null and void the whole Nation being bound up by it to all Ages For therefore it was That the Covenant was hung up in the Parliament as a Compass whereby to steer their Debates and to dictate to all who shall succeed in that place and capacity what obligation doth before God lie upon the Body of this Nation as I have before observed Now upon these mens suppositions there is no Security to be had but that they who passed an Act of Oblivion to pardon any thing done against the Covenant are involved in guilt and liable to punishment for so doing and are upon those very accounts to expect when Providence shall put an opportunity into