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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67901	A review of the Covenant, wherein the originall, grounds, means, matter, and ends of it are examined: and out of the principles of the remonstrances, declarations, votes, orders, and ordinances of the prime covenanteers, or the firmer grounds of Scripture, law, and reason, disproved.	Langbaine, Gerard, 1609-1658.	1645 (1645)	Wing L371; ESTC R210023	90,934	119

be found all this long time worthy to be extirpate out of that great City where so many are knowne to be Where all such as have been accounted Schismatiques from our Church of England either had their birth or have their breeding Anabaptists Brownists of all sizes Separatists● Semi-Separatists Leamarists Barowists Iohnsonians Ainsworthians Robinsonians Wilkinsonians the severall Congregations of Busher Smith Helwise Hancock Nevill Pedder each of which as I am informed had their distinct formes of Separation the Antinomians Eatonians Gringletonians and Familists the Cottonians and Anti-Cottonians and whatsoever spreading grafts have been transplanted from those fruitfull seed-plots of Schisme the Colonies of New Englaud or Amsterdam All these were knowne by head even when the Government of the Church was in the hands of the King and Bishops and sure their number is nought abated since it was seized by the Covenanteers many whereof have small reason to sweare the extirpation of Schisme unlesse it be out of their owne hearts Which is so foule a sinne that some of themselves have confessed Ieroboam the son of Nebat for this onely cause not for Idolatry to be so often mentioned with that odious Elogy Who made Israel to sinne And considering the generall defection now made from the Church of England and the shallow grounds of this Separation I take leave to mind those men who have had the greatest stroke in these divisions of what * Irenaus writ so many hundred years agoe The Lord will judge also those that make Schismes who valuing more their owne profit then the Churches unity doe rent and divide and to their power murther the great and glorious body of Christ upon small and any occasions speaking Peace and making Warre truly straining at a gnat and swallowing a Camell For they can make ●o such Reformation as will be able to countervaile the harme of Schisme VI The imposing this Oath by their owne Authority is a great violation of the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament which they sweare to preserve If we should allow the Leaders to be what they desire to passe for the two Houses of Parliament yet is it denyed that the one House hath any power to give an ordinary legall Oath or that both Houses can lay any civill much lesse Religious obligation by a new Oath upon the whole Kingdome without His Majesties Assent by x Act of Parliament Let but any Law be produced that it may be done or any precedent shewed that ever it was done by any free Parliament and we shall be ready to recant this position In the meane time I crave leave to intimate in some few particulars how the Covenanteers have violated not onely the ancient and just Rights of Parliament but those very Priviledges of the last Edition which were never heard of before this Session 1. In relation to the King who is the Head of that great Body the denying His Negative in making of Lawes the signifying His Authority contrary to his Will the doing many things without Him which how necessary soever he does not challenge any Prerogative to doe without them are sufficient instances of their injust usurpations 2. In relation to the House of Peeres whether were not their Priviledges invaded when some of the Temporall Lords were committed by Mr Pennington the then Lord Major of London and a Member of the Lower House when others of the Spiritualtie twelve Bishops at a clap were impeached and committed for a crime they were no way guilty of That never forgotten breach of Priviledge His Majesties impeachment of the five Members was thus aggravated y If such an accusation might be allowed then it would be in the power not onely of His Majesty but of any private man under pretensions of Treason to take away any man from his service in the Parliament and so as many one after another as he pleaseth and consequently to make ● Parliament what he will when he will which would be a Breach of so essentiall a Priviledge of Parliament that the very being thereof depends upon it How much His Majesty did then abhorre the thoughts of any such consequence depends in part upon the now visible and then iust grounds of that accusation But whether in that more generall and more causlesse impeachment of those twelve Members of the House of Peeres the Projectors did not over-act all the sad consequences of the former Discourse and transgresse that essentiall Priviledge upon which the very being of Parliament was said to depend I doe not determine Onely this is evident the now Covenanting Commons ever since that time were able to make their House of Lords doe or say what they would when they would Witnesse their severall Counter-mands and crosse Declarations The Lords declare the Lawes should be observed and the Common-Prayer Book used these Commons declare both shall be suspended The Lord● declare Tumults shall be suppressed and the Authors punished these Commons declare there are no Tumults and command those persons shall be released who were apprehended as the Authors The Lords thought the new Ordinance for the Militia unnecessary and refuse to Petition for it these Commons declare it is necessary and z complaine of the Lords for their refusall What would you more In some cases these men Order a that the House of Peeres agree with the House of Commons 3. In relation to particular Members It is somewhere confessed by the Commons that b they cannot give away the Priviledge of their Members without their consent Sure the many affronts● indignities injuries which severall Members of that honourable House have sustained in their Persons in their Estates in their Protections in their other Priviledges and Liberties were never done by their owne consent 4. In relation to the constitution of Parliaments is not the freedome of the place and safety of the persons so absolutely necessary that c no Parliament can be without it yet have not both been disturbed and endangered by tumultuous Citizens Have not some been expelled others committed for being so honest as to Vote according to their conscience but not so fortunate as to jumpe with the supposed Sense of the House Were not their names posted up and their lodgings notefied who were unwilling to have a hand in the first Act of this Nationall Tragedy I● the publique demanding a List of such Lords names as dissented in their Votes from the carrying party in the Lower House if confining the whole Authority of both Houses to the pleasure of a few persons under the name of a Committee for the safety of the Kingdome into whose secret● the rest may not presume to enquire if the admitting of Commissioners from another Kingdome without whose concurrent advice nothing must be agitated in this be not as totally repugnant to the nature of a free Parliament as confessedly repugnant to all Precedents of former times if all these things have been done and yet no Priviledge broken then {non-Roman}

they be Ecclesiasticall or Civill not in some cases onely but in all causes doth appertain Lastly when they were to take such an Oath as this without the consent and against the command of the Magistrate so utterly destitute of all the conditions required to a Lawfull Oath they could do no lesse then reforme the 39. Article which requires those conditions So that it cannot be denyed but they have strong inducements to reforme the Doctrine as well as the discipline and Government of England and as they vow them both in one clause so perhaps they intend them both in one sense the Reformation of Doctrine as well as Government must be a totall Extirpation of Branch and Root we must not have one chip left of the old block III. Their swearing the first Article to this end that they may live in Faith and that the Lord may be one amongst them implies that before and at the time of their entrance into this Covenan● they neither lived in Faith and so were Infidels nor was the Lord one amongst them and so without God in the world which I hope is not true But if faith be here taken for obedience as sometimes it is or for an assent to the truth of that Doctrine which is a acknowledged by the world for the Confession of Faith of the Church of England so I grant their late and present demeanour i● a sufficient demonstration they have not lived in that faith And I confesse we have been told in effect by some of their fore-runners that the Lord is not one where Prelacy is not extirpate b That the true Church of Christ consisteth of Saints Covenanted with God and themselves having power to Christ and all his Ordinances which the Assemblies of England want being violently compel'd to submit to another Christ of the Bishops devising and so are no true Church For the true visible Church is but one as the Baptisme but one and the Lord but one Iohn 10. 16. This was the scandalous imputation of the Brownists upon our Church in the beginning of their separation and it is shame and misery we should live to see it confirmed by a Solemne Oath IV. When they sweare in the second Article to extirpate Prelacy and that for this end least they be partakers in other mens sins this implyes not onely that Episcopacy is a sin which is an errant untruth but that if they should not labour for the extirpation of it in such a violent manner as they doe they should be guilty of that sinne This conceit was the maine ground of Separation both to the ancient Donatists and our moderne Brownists they both imagined that if the Church be any way stained with corruption in Doctrine or Discipline her Communion is hatefull and defiled and that whosoever joynes with her is c partaker of her sins and so in danger of her plagues Which is certainly false our Saviour did not partake in the sinnes of the Iewes yet he did communicate with them So long as we neither command nor counsell a ●inne to be done nor consent to the doeing of it nor commend it when it is done but barely permit it though it be naturally yet if it be not legally in our power to hinder it we are no way guilty of it God himsel●e does permit sinne without sinne And if any man will be a Reformer without a Commission he must look to be checked with a Quis requisivit Israell sinned not by staying in AEgypt nor Lot by remaining in Sodom till the Lord sent Moses to call them and the Angell to fetch him out It was their affliction but not their fault to see those unrighteous dealings of their Neighbours which did vex but not pollute their righteous soules All sinne is to be avoyded but not by all meanes some are possible which are not lawfull Death is a certaine cure for all distempers but a man may not kill himselfe to avoyd intemperance nor make away his Children in their infancy to prevent the sinnes of their age The President of the New Assembly with his twenty assistant Brethren have published some truthes in this Argument which might have been of singular use had they come in time sufficient to stop that current of blood which has flowed from other principles then that which they now Preach to others but doe not practice themselves d They tell their more zealous Brethren who having conspired with them to extirpate this Government and sworne every man to goe before another in the example of a reall Reformation begin to gather themselves into Church societies Although it be the duty of all the Servants of Christ to keep themselves alwayes pure from corruption in Religion and to endeavour in an orderly way the Reformation of it yet it is an undoubted Maxime that it belongs to Christian Magistrates in an especiall manner to be authorizers of such a Reformation If this Maxime had been as well followed as it was knowne we had never had a Rebellion to make way for a Reformation How can they without blushing talke of an Orderly way to others who know their call and sitting to reforme where they doe is altogether disorderly But suppose the sins of Government did involve every one of our Nation in a common guilt what is this to the Scots Though Israell offend no necessity that Iudah should sin They may have sin● enough of their owne to reckon for though they should not sweare that those of another Kingdome shall be put upon their score and yet they doe it by vowing to extirpate Bishops c. least they be partakers in other mens sinnes V. That which they have undertaken to maintaine is not truly called in the sixt Article The common Cause of Religion Liberties and Peace of the Kingdomes The many Sects and different opinions among the Covenanteers and the reiterated desires of the Scots for unity in Religion abundantly prove that the same Religion is not common to them all And de facto the Religion Peace and Liberties of England and Ireland have been disturbed when the Scots enjoyed all theirs without opposition and may doe so still unlesse they will thrust their fingers into the fire when they need not The Cause of one Kingdome is not common to another though they be in subjection to the same King Philip the second might have done well to grant a toleration to the Protestants in the Low Countries though he had resolved never to allow the like in Spaine And His Majesty by reason of his necessary absence from thence may have granted some Liberties to Scotland which if he should doe in England would be in e disherison to the Crowne VI In the last Article they professe and declare to the World their unfeigned desire to be humbled for their owne sinnes Which profession the World that sees onely their Actions will ●carce admit to be true For it may well be conceived that the chiefe Heads among the

their differences and so long as we hold to one immoveable irreformable Rule of faith as Tertullian calls that short Creed Cat●ra iam disciplin● conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis And if the nearest coniunction be not possible sure it is not nece●sary i● it were so the Scripture which is not deficient in necessaries would not onely have proposed fitting directories but prescribed set formes unto us and limited the times places and manner of worship Which our Saviour has not done being willing as it seemes to leave every Church at Liberty to consult with her owne occasions or necessities and accordingly to constitute as she should finde in Christian prudence to be most convenient for the exegency of the times disposition of the place and temper of the People The use of which liberty we have both practised our selves and allowed in other Churches It must here be remembred that this very thing which is now sworne to bring all the Kingdomes to an uniformity is nothing else for substance then what was intended by King Iames and attempted by King Charles and that upon better grounds then now it is they having both more authority to enjoyne it then the present Covenanteers can justly challenge and presuming to meet with lesse opposition then these have found For whatsoever have been declared since the businesse which these two Princes went about to settle Episcopacy and a Common forme of Worship and Discipline in Scotland conformable to those in England and Ireland was not at first affirmed by any to be so destructive to the Lawes and Liberties of that Kingdome as the now intended alteration is knowne to be against the Lawes of England and Ireland IV. If the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament were once truely stated which are here sworne to be defended with lives and Estates we must be able to make a clearer judgement of the Lawfulnesse of this Oath as to that Particular Bu● this being a taske which we neither dare undertake nor can go through with it will be sufficient and perhaps not impertinent if we wave the two other Kingdomes and take a short view of some few particular Priviledges pretended to be due to the Parliament of England and see whether they be such as the Subjects ought to sweare the preservation of them before that of His Majesties Person and the publique Liberties 1. As a Councell they d challenge the Priviledge to be advised with in all the great affaires of Church and State whereas their Writ calls them onely to consult De quibusdam arduis And His Majesty is accused for breach of Priviledge because he did not aske their advice in some such things Yet sometimes e he desired it so much till his importunity was voted a breach of Priviledge Here he is in a hard strait like that in the Oracle Si fecero peribo si non-fecero vapulabo Not desire advice and break Priviledge desire it and breake Priviledge too 2. A vote is passed in Ianuary f tha●to arrest or detaine any Member of the Commons House without first acquainting tha● House and receiving Order from thence is such a Breach of Priviledge as must be vindicated with life and fortunes And yet a g Declaration is issued in November following that in those very cases which were formerly in controversie any Member may be arrested by the ordinary Ministers of Iustice and detained in sa●e custody till he may be brought to the Parliament It will conc●rne the Serjeants to be informed in what moneths this Priviledge i● in season and when it goes out 3. Another h Declaration speakes in this manner Though the Priviledges of Parliament doe not extend to Treason Felony and breach of the Peace so as to exempt the Members of Parliament from punishment nor from all manner of processe and tryall as it doth in other cases From these last words we must inferre that in case of Incest Adultery Fornication Idolatry Sacriledge Blasphemy Schisme Heresie Popery Perjury or what you will besides the three excepted particulars the Members of Parliament may sinne Cum Privilegio they are exempted from all manner of processe and tryall 4. I do not know the mysteries of some Priviledges why they are ambitious to entertaine Treaties with forraigne States but when his Majesty desires the like it should be answered i We cannot doe it by the fundamentall Priviledge of Parliament Why the People may take notice of their proceedings but His Majesty may not without k a high breach of Priviledge minde them of him who said He was not worthy to be King Why the meanest Subjects should be admitted to give in their reasons against established Lawes and desires of alteration and the King be l accused for breach of Priviledge for desiring them to retract a privat Order as contrary to an expresse Act of Parliament Why in Sir Iohn Hothams case all m interception of letters to the Parliament should be such a high breach of Priviledge and now his Majesty cannot send a letter but shall be intercepted nor a Messenger to them but shall be imprisoned if not executed by their Commands 5. It is a new peece of Law which our predecessors were ignorant of that all Acts and agreements made by any private Companies or Corporations by any Parish or County nay by any particular person● are of no further force in Law then they are confirmed by Parliament and that to make any such till the two Houses be first accquainted and their consent obtained n is an entrenching upon that Peculiar Priviledge of Parliament To binde all or any part of the Kingdome This was the ground upon which they cancelled those agreements made by the Lord Farefax in Yorkshire and the like by their adherents in Cheshire and declared that they who made them were not bound by them 6. The number of Priviledges in this kinde may be infinite● yet we shall be able to set bounds to the measure of them by their owne Declarations Where first the Kings comming to the House of Commons is o affirmed to be the greatest violation of Priviledge that ever was attempted Secondly His wishing he had no cause to absent himselfe from White-Hall is p taken as the greatest breach of Priviledge of Parliament that can be offered And therefore the former must needs be lesse and if there can be none greater what shall we think of those many lesser which have made a greater noy●e Let the Reader say if he make any Conscience of his life or have any care of his Estate or beare any Allegiance to hi● Majesties Person or any reverence to His Authority or have any considerable portion in the publique liberty whether he can willingly according to the tenour of this Covenan● sacrifice his life and liberty his Soule and Estate to the preservation of all and every of these Priviledges and perhaps thousands more which are not yet declared so as to preferre the least

one for himselfe professeth We sweare c. Indeed why should one man sweare for all the rest But what is this to salve the Soloecisme How shall he be said to sweare onely for himselfe whose every word in his Oath includes all others as much as himselfe These things being not certainly possible ought not to be sworne It is all one as if they should sweare they will not dye till they be old nor be sick till they dye CHAP. VIII That the taking this Covenant and other avowed Actions of the Covenanteers are in fact contradictory to the formall words of their Oath VVHat the Civilians call Protestatio contraria facto as if one should kill or rob a man and vow to doe him no wrong is a foule crime which infests many parts of this Solemne Oath The very act of taking or enforcing it besides many other avowed practices of those that take it does contradict the formall words of the Covenant I. So though they sweare in all their endeavours to keep themselves within the bounds of their severall places and callings Yet if we look upon the courses they take we shall find nothing lesse Who are they who can challenge it as the proper duty of their calling to set on foot that Reformation vowed in the first or that extirpation which is the matter of the second Article If Religion and the Controversies thereanent be a thing common to every vocation then is that restriction to severall callings superfluous and in a Solemne Oath profane But if it be the more peculiar function of the Clergy then why doe other men intermedle in matters beside their calling If it be the proper work of a Parliament why do our Assembly men challenge as Ministers of the Gospell to be leaders in this worke of Reformation What have they to do in Parliament affaires Were the Bishops cast out that they might be taken in What just calling can they pretend who were neither summoned by his Majesty to whom the calling of Ecclesiasticall Assemblies doe in right belong nor elected by the Clergy to whom the nomination of Members to such Assemblyes by the constitution of this Kingdome does appertaine So in the third and sixt Articles where they sweare mutually to assist and preserve one another with their Lives and Estates but with like restriction to their severall vocations places and callings either most of those who have actually taken up Armes in this quarrell , Noble-men Knights Burgesses But●hers Tapsters c. are forsworne by undertaking that service which is inconsistent with their professions or if they be not then all the rest of the Covenanters are who being of the same callings have not put themselves in Armes and assisted their brethren with their Lives as they are bound to doe if it be not contrary to their Calling Nor can the Authors or Executioners of those Ordinances be excused from perjury whereby many men have been pressed for Souldiers without any regard to their callings What calling have the Water-men to be imployed in Land-service What calling have the City Tradsemen to come and conquer the Countrey What calling have the framers of this Covenant to exact a new Oath of all this Kingdome or to enter in League with another And if they have no calling that enables them to Command then have the rest no calling to obey and so both the imposing of this Oath on one part and the taking of it on all parts is contrary to that clause so often repeated in it●According to our severall callings II. Though they sweare the extirpation of Popery yet if the time would permit I could make it evident from their owne principles that not onely many avowed actions of the Covenanteers are originally popish as their di●pensing with Oaths lawfully taken their excluding all Clergy-men from secular judicature their Doctrine of propagating Religion by the Sword a their entering into Leagues and Covenants for that purpose their usurping a more then papall infallibility and omnipotency● their exalting themselves above all that is called God b their rudiments of Rebellion and opposition against the Supreame Magistrate but that very power by which this Covenant is enjoyned which they sweare to preserve in the third Article is in the highest degree properly Popery I am sure there is nothing in that large discourse of the c Lord Brook against Episcopacy which may not be applyed here with more congruity That power which the Covenant-makers doe pretend to and Popery are all one in re They have the same Rise the same media of their progresse and the same end 1. First d the Rise of Popery was by overthrowing Christs Ordinances in Doctrine as a Heretique but not as Pope in Discipline as Pope This most properly belonging to Christ Royall Office as Doctrine to his Propheticall Doth not the pretended power of the Covenant-makers doe the same I confesse with them Scripture is the rule but who must expound this Scripture Synods Assemblies Committees And though by their owne confession those bind not mens consciences yet they bind them to obedience which obedience they precisely challenge and when any faile thereof they doe without the least scruple of Conscience proceed to Sequestrations Fines Imprisonments Deprivations and what not And so these men making Scripture a rule in appearance doe in truth monopolize all to themselves This is just and flat Popery 2. The same Author proceeding to parallell Episcopacy with Papacy in the meanes of their rising e tells us how Popes dealt with Princes laid pillowes under them with one hand thrust them downe with the other and then trampled upon them This can no way be affirmed of our Protestant Bishops but whether our Arch-Covenanteers when they promised to make their Prince a great and glorious King and protested to defend His Person Honour and Authority did not in the meane time by their underhand practices labour to thrust him downe and by their open violence to trample upon him the World sees in part and themselves know more 3. Touching the meanes of the progresse of Popery he informes thus f That which they have most sounded in the peoples eares is The Church The Church The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord By this as by a stalking horse they come much nearer then else they could And hath not the empty noise of Religion Religion Reformation Reformation heightened the credit of the Covenanteers in the opinion of the people and so been made a stale to their equally Popish ambitious ends 4 Lastly to prove the ends of Prel●cy the same with those of Popery he saies g It cannot be doubted but by all these meanes they ayme at the same End which is also the Popes to pull downe all other power and set up their owne Nor is there any great cause to doubt whether the principall Projectors of the Covenant ayme at the like End which they have already effected in too great a

must renounce his corrupt calling by the Bishop and enter by the true calling taught by Christ And let this be shewed by any Minister of any parish of Engl●nd if you can If not then are they still not truly called so no true Ministers of Christ in regard of their calling I have laid down this testimony more at large that I might spare the producing of any more to the same purpose out of the Writings of Barrow Cookie Can and other Separatists with whom nothing is more frequent than to condemne our Ministery for Antichristian and to make it no lesse than Idolatry to serve Go● in and by such a devised Ministery How many Disciples these men have in London and how Orthodox this Doctrine is amongst the Covenanteers we may guesse in part if we call to minde Master Burton or who else was the Authour of the n Protestation protested He put the question to our English Clergy●What if the calling of the Ministery it selfe should prove a piece of popery And referred it to their consideration Whether they were able to prove themselves the Ministers of Christ lawfully called when all of them do immediately derive their Ministery from the Antichristian Hierarchy or Papall Prelacy as the sole foundation thereof This Doctrine found so much countenance even in those dayes that neith●r the book was thoutght fit to be censured nor the Author to be questioned though his Majesty complained of it more then once And whether the Independents to whom the Spirit of expounding is most familiar will not hereafter when time serves expound those words of their new Covenant All Ecclesiasticall Officers depending upon the Hierarchy according to their old wont of all the Ministers ordained by the Lords Bishops and what will be the consequents of such an exposition which I forbeare to presse let the whole Clergy of England and the rest of the Kingdome consider and beware V. To sweare or endeavour such an Extirpation of Bishops Deanes and Chapters as is aymed at by the Covenanteers is not onely unlawfull by the positive Law of this Kingdome but as in the highest degree Sacrilegious utterly against the Law of God To prove which I shall premise these undoubted grounds of truth First that it is y lawfull for any man to doe with his owne what he please so he doe not misemploy it to a bad end Secondly that by the Law of God any man may dispose of his meanes as well if not better for a pious use as the encouragement of Learning for maintenance of Religion to a Body Spirituall in succession as to his Heires or Executors or any secular Corporation Thirdly that by our Lawes the present Beneficiaries Bishops Deanes and Chapters c. have as true a propriety in their Church-means as any other person hath in his lay-Fee Fourthly that what is on●e devoted to a Sacred use cannot without S●criledge be converted to a prophane To which purpose I sh●ll not insist upon any testimony of Scripture as haveing been sufficiently done by p others but onely quote what will be in some mens esteem of more Force the de●ermination of an English Parliament 25. Edw. 1. Which declar●s that lay men they speak of them●elves as a Parliament have no authority to dispose of the goods of the Church But as the holy Scripture doth testifie they are committed onely to the Priests to be disposed off From hence I shall inferre First that ex plenitudine potestatis for a Parliament to deprive any one Bishop Deane or Prebend of his present maintenance whereof he is Legally possest unlesse it be by way of punishment for some personall delinquency is as high injustice as to diss●ile any other man of his free-hold without cause Secondly that though Bishops Deanes and Chapters c. saving the Right of propriety to the present Beneficiaries quo jure quâve injuriâ● should be abolished for the future yet to convert their meanes from a Religious to a secular use contrary to the known intentions and will of the Founders cannot be excused from downe-right Sacriledge and would be the ready way to bring upon us and our posterity all those fearful execrations with which those lands were at first devoted to God and the Church and we should drink up the dregs of that bitter cup of Gods wrath and displeasure of which it is to be feared our forefathers supped too deep The Lords and Commons at Westminster in their q Ordinance for humiliation confesse the Idolatry and bloud-shed in Queene Maries daies to have a more immediate influence upon the destruction of this Kingdome For which to this very day was never ordained such a solemne publique and Nationall acknowledgement of those sinnes as might appease the wrath of that jealous God against whom and against whose people with so high a hand they were committed I doe from my heart subscribe to this Confession But may I not adde from St Paul r Thou that abhorrest Idols Committest thou Sacriledge May we not feare that the Sacriledge of King Henries dayes cryes as loud for vengeance in the eares of the Almighty as the Idolatry of Queen Mary this may seem a transient sinne which dyed with her person but that is still intailed upon our Posterity And we have never had any Solemne Nationall acknowledgement of it or publique humiliation for it The poore Kirk of Scotland may in this be a patterne worthy our imitation s which enjoyned a generall fast throughout the Realm for appeasing of Gods wrath upon the land for the crying sin of Sacriledge It is not very many yeares agoe since a Learned t States-man of our owne observed the Lands of the Church did passe in valuation between man and man at a lower rate then other temporalties and he thought all the Parliaments since the 27 and 31. of Henry 8. to stand obnoxious and obliged to God in conscience to doe somewhat for the Church to reduce the Patrimony thereof since they debarred Christs wife of a great part of her Dowry it were reason they made her a competent Ioynture But we have lived to see them of another minde I pray God they doe not bring upon this Land the sad effect of that u ancient Prophecy an utter desolation by a forraigne ignoble Nation for our treason and contempt of Gods House That which * some of latter times did expect to see fullfilled upon us when they observed our sinnes like the iniquities of the Amorites almost full and ripe for judgement and told us the time was not far off I doe seriously perswade my selfe that not a few of our Covenanteers if the truth were knowne doe stomach more at the meanes then at the Government of our Church It is neither the calling nor the persons of Bishops or Deanes but the Bishoprickes and Deanaries that are A●●ichristian and Malignant and so they were fairely possessed of these they care not whether those sink or swim If the