Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	christian_a	great_a	religion_n	4,028	5	5.6166	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29422	A Brief and true account of the sufferings of the Church of Scotland occasioned by the Episcopalians since the year 1660 being a vindication of Their Majesties government in that kingdom, relating to the proceedings against the bishops and clergy there : with some animadversions upon a libel intituled, The present state and condition of the clergy and Church of Scotland.		1690 (1690)	Wing B4533; ESTC R8736	23,445	35

mentioned were executed to satisfy the Fury of the ungodly Prelatists the Court became a little exorable and sent down a Pardon to the rest but that Limb of Antichrist and infernal Locust the Apostate Arch-Bishop Sharp being a Revolter and consequently profound to make Slaughter with a Malice like his Father the Devil kept up the same till several more were executed a Demon stration that the most implacable enraged Tyrant hath more Bowels of Mercy than a waspish formal Prelate In like manner when an Indulgence was granted to settle the Minds of the People after the Insurrection at Bothwel-Bridg the Generation of Vipers the Episcopalian Seed of the Serpent did most bitterly revile the D. of Monmouth whom they look'd upon as the Procurer of it and flew in the Face of Majesty it self expressing themselves in the Lady Hatton's Dialect What the Devil shall the K's Bastard-Son govern us And the unconstant turn-coat Clergy some of whom while the Presbyterians kept in Arms declared their Dissatisfaction with Prelacy and after their Defeat recanted again by their Muse Ninian Paterson Curate of Liberton published an obscene scurrilous Lampoon reflecting upon the Government for that Indulgence which made some of the Episcopal Party themselves wonder that ever such a Fellow should have been suffered to pollute a Pulpit afterwards That you may taste a little of their Poets Modesty I shall give you some of his Lines which occur to my Memory In his Proaemium he addresses the King thus We are like Jobs this 19 Years perplex'd Betwixt Destruction and Distraction vex'd And that dread Sir though not so strange as true By Scabs and Devils now indulg'd by you And Abundance more a great deal worse which I have forgot But that you may know that their Pen-men and Sword-men or if you will Hectors and Buffoons are near a-kin in Morals you must understand this Clergy-Poet was famous and well known by the Name of Knaggs a Scotch Word for a Pin to hang any thing one The Occasion of his being called so was thus Coming on a time into a GEntlewoman's Chamber before she was fully dressed he took up her Neck-lace which when she enquired after he told her he had hung it upon a Knag and when she asked where he shewed it her hanging on his .... c. a very modest Episcopal Preacher Our Author says the Episcopal Clergy generally complain'd of Violation of Justice under the late Administration and though some were too accessary others suffered for their Opposition and that the whole are not culpable for the Miscarriages of a few which take it in the Complex is a hateful Prevarication and great Untruth The Nation too well felt it and smarts yet for it That they generally in their Sermons and otherwise abetted the Tyranny of the Court and thundered Anathema's against those that maintained the lawfulness of resisting Tyrants and though it 's true the honestest amongst them were turned out by the Test that says nothing in defence of those at present ejected The Anti-Testers being thrown out in the Time of Charles the Second and consequently are too honest to have any share in his Apology and it 's well known the generality of those who continued in afterwards went along with the Court in every thing till such time as Liberty was given to the Presbyterians which was always more intolerable to the Prelatists than Liberty to the Papists and then htey snuffed not that they were angry with the Tyranny of the Manner for it was according to their own Doctrine that the King was emboldened to issue his Proclamation in such a tyrannical Stile but that like Cain being conscious to themselves of their Brethrens Blood they were afraid to see them any way countenaced by those in Power and for Cain's Reason too lest every one that found them should kill them for they knew well enough that the inhumane Laws in their darling King James's Time which made it Death for any Nonconformists to preach or People to hear them were contrived by their Abettors and passed by consent of the Bishops They knew also that the brutish impotent revengeful Tortures of Boots and Thumikins had been inflicted on the Presbyterians by Advice of the Privy-Council where their Bishops were the most obdurate Spectators and impertinent spiteful movers of Questions to the poor tortured Prisoners They knew further that they had procured and given consent to the Antichristian-like Execution of Gentlemen within an hour after their Sentence as Jerriswood and others like the practice of that Italian who threatned to stab his Neighbour if he would not deny God and when he had done it stabbed him notwithstanding that he might kill his Soul too by allowing him no time to repent They knew further that their Prelats had sat in Council where Men were examined and threatned with Torture to declare their Thoughts on such an such Points and after having declared them were hanged for the same as James Skein and others which was an invasion on the Right of Mankind Nay Tyranny was come to such an height that their meanest scoundrel Officers would take upon them to examine as Judges Persons whom they had apprehended and torture them with burnt Matches betwixt their Fingers to tell the Ministers Names who they had heard preach and who of their Acquaintance were there besides And the base impudent Priests whose Fathers were not good enough to eat with the Dogs of their Flocks were hence incouraged to vomit out scurrilous Reflections upon their own Patrons Families and those of the greatest Quality because favourers of Presbytery they were so far from complaining of the Violation of Justice as our lying Pamphleteer would insinuate In the next place the Scribler mentions an Address of the Scotish Bishops which he says very much incensed the common inferior People against them and pleads for some charitable Allowance to that Action because of the Laws then in force and seeing as he says they are willing to submit to the Government the Power of those in Authority might be pleased to cover them from the Rage and Insolence of the Rabble Wherein he shews himself plainly an Enemy to the Government He passes over the Address very smoothly though it was that scandalous Libel against his present Majesty when attempting our Deliverance They who will may read it in Gazette Numb 2398. Novemb. 12. 1688. and I shall only animadvert upon two or three Passages in it And first they reckon the long and illustrious Race of our Kings the greatest Glory of the Kingdom Diametrically opposite to the Sentiments of all sober Men who allowing that its due place constantly affirm the greatest Glory of that Nation to be their early and long profession of the Christian Religion being among the first Fruits of the Gentiles gifted unto Christ Psalm 2. amongst the utmost Ends of the Earth and in the Opinion of good Historians blessed with the first Christian King But this Expression of the Antichristian-Prelats

agrees very well with their Religion an essential Part whereof as they say themselves was their stedfast Allegiance to the late King which verifies from their own Mouths our Observation of them that they and their Hirelings instead of preaching Sinners into Christ have made it their Work to convert the Nation into a stupid slavish subjection to Tyranny by them falsly called Loyalty and their greatest Argument instead of Thus saith the Lord was Thus saith the King And indeed this is not to be wondered at it being just with God to discover they were none of his Ministers but to fill them as Backsliders with their own Ways and make it evident they were the Ministers of the King to whom they swore as Head of their Church and had no other Ministerial Power but what they derived from him and all who know them must needs say they preached more against such as opposed the Tyranny of their King than against the most avowed Rebels to God and his Word But their Brethren who possess the Pulpits now are resolved to avoid that Extream and many of then chuse rather to wrest the Fifth Commandment to reach a Blow at their present Majesties than to insist upon the Theme of Loyalty to their King though they bellowed it from the Pulpits to procure submission to the hateful Tyranny of the two last Reigns But their profound and universal silence on that Subject now and forbearing to declare their abhorrence of the present Rebellion by the Prelatists in conjunction with their Brethren the Papists does sufficiently demonstrate what Friends they are to his present Majesty their Zeal for him bearing no proportion to their Zeal for the last two they being eagerly forward then to abhor Associations Petitions for Parliaments and Insurrections yea to degrade as unworthy to be Members of their Church Mr. Johnson c. who maintained the lawfulness of resisting Tyranny but we see no such publick Declarations against the Mutineers and Rebels now But to return to the Prelates address they conclude with a presumptuous Assurance that God would give King James the Necks of his Enemies for which his present Majesty is very much obliged to them who as they did then they look upon him still as his principal Enemy but their Prayers Faith and Undertakings were all of a Piece and failed them most abominably and they were thereby sufficiently discovered to have no Interest with God who rejected their presumptuous Faith nor with the People for whose Assegiance they undertook who did by their representatives unanimously chuse the Prince of Orange their King and at the same time rejected the Prelates as an insupportable Grievance and gave a Demonstration to the World that the Prelatical Maxim No Bishop no King is as false as the Devil the Author of it And whereas the Scribler pleads for a charitable Allowance to them because of the Laws then in Force he forgot sure that these very Laws were made by the Instigation of the Prelates and their Party and consequently can be no Excuse And that the late K. was so well assured of their Adherence to him that he expresly commands the Viscount Dundee to summon the Prelates and such others as he confided in to frame a Convention of States in Opposition to the other Neither has his Confidence failed him for as they all owned him while they sat in the Convention their Party hath actually joined the Popish High-landers Irish and French who fight for him since and such of them as were entertained in our present King's Pay betrayed his Forces twice to the Rebels and this is all the Service he can ever expect from the Scots Prelatists Next he tells you the said Address very much incensed the Common People against them as if his present Majesty had no other Friends there but such and that none of the Nobility and Gentry were incensed at that rascally Affront put on him by the Prelates Sure he forgot that the Convention had not sat long till it sent the Prelats a going and I hope they are not the common inferiour sort and if his Majesties great but by them ill deserved Clemency had not prevented it 's not improbable that those Rabshakeh and Shimei-like-Prelates had felt the Resentments of others heavier than those of the inferiour sort for that scandalous Libel And now I cannot but observe the Harmony betwixt the Papists and Scots Prelatists the saying of this Pamphleteer agreeing so exactly with what the D. of Gordon's Gentleman lately come up a violent known Papist said in a certain Company That King William had none to own his Cause in Scotland but the inferiour Sort the Presbyterians and tells a great many of the same impudent Lies concerning the severe Usage of the Episcopal Clergy there which are in this Pamphlet whereby they design to render his Majesties Government to the Church of England odious that he should suffer the Scots Episcopal-men to be so illegally abused which our Pamphleteer does also in a sly manner insinuate by saying The government might be pleased to protect them from the Insolence of the Rabble which is as much as to say but a hollish Lie they do not But granting them charitable Allowances for that Address because of the Laws then in Force What can he say to justify their opposing his Majesties Accossion to the Crown when they were not under the dread of those Laws as it is known every Man of them did in the Convention and that Arch Pimp of Glasgow Paterson had the Impudence in their Face to maintain the unlawfulness of deposing the late King Sure this says their Opposition was of Choice and not Fear and tho they may be forced to submit yet how they can be dsteemed Loyal Subjects to a Government whose Being they opposed I cannot understand Our Author discovers no little Malice and Ignorance in his enumerating the sorts of Presbyterians in Mountaineers Cameronians and Indulged All Scots-men know the first two to be but one and for his reckoning all the rest Indulged because Accepters of the Liberty under King James thinking thereby to bring an Odium upon them as Countenancers of the dispensing Power nothing can be more malicious as may be seen by their Address wherein they plainly tell him their Principles are contained in the Assemblies Confession of Faith which is far from owning any other Power in the Magistrate than to encourage the Good and punish the Wicked and consequently the Bounds of our Obedience This was not a cheating him with a pretended principle of Passive Obedience and yet to dethrone him notwithstanding when he touched their Mitres which gives us a new explanation of the Prelatical Maxim No Bishop no King Another of his Reflections is that they do not check nor restrain those Cameronians whom he charges with Anabaptistical Principles c. Which is a gross Untruth it being known that several of those Cameronians have been reclaimed by their Admonitions and if the Malice of Hell