Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	church_n	heresy_n	schism_n	2,940	5	9.8144	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34948	A serious expostulation with that party in Scotland, commonly known by the name of Whigs wherein is modestly and plainly laid open the inconsistency of their practices I. With the safety of humane society, II. With the nature of the Christian religion, III. Their two covenants are historically related, and prov'd to be no sufficient warrant for what they do, IV. Their new doctrine of a pretended forfeiture, is prov'd to be groundless.	Craufurd, James, 17th cent.	1682 (1682)	Wing C6865; ESTC R4965	39,666	64

perform'd how could such Persons examine nice Questions about Church-Government according to Scripture which have divided the learned World and yet the Vulgar were to judge of such seeing by those Rules they swore to proceed Nor do I see any shift unless we allow them to resign their Judgment by an implicite Faith in their Teachers which makes no decent Evasion for a Reformed Church The second Article was lyable to the same Exceptions with the former They swore To extirpate Popery Prelacy Superstition Heresy Schism Profaneness and whatsoever should be found contrary to sound Doctrine and the Power of Godliness This I take to have been a very hard Task for every one to perform and more certainly than ought to be required of any Man in Things which are not plain beyond controversy as all such Points were not then amongst them for we find that one Minister did often inveigh against Opinions as savouring of Popery which another as positively deny'd charging the contrary Opinions as leading to Schism and ignorant Persons who under pain of Perjury were equally engag'd against Schism and Popery must have found strange Storms raised in their Minds and their tender Consciences dreadfully rack'd while they could not understand which of the opposite Opinions they might safely embrace Tho the former Part of the third Article concern'd Things of a quite different Nature yet the Objections are much of the same kind by that all were engag'd to defend the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament But alas who could expect that common People should be put to determine such when we hear of Debates started frequently concerning Priviledges which the Wisdom of our greatest Senators is scarce able to accommodate and seldom is it so done as to answer all Objections or satisfy every Member Suppose a Parliament so divided that it comes to a Breach to what Party must the People then adhere who are not able to judge which of the two really maintains their Priviledges where both with Confidence pretend it and back their Pretences with plausible Reasons Nothing could have been more for the Peace of the World than that a greater Reverence had been kept up for Vows and Oaths by not making them too common But seeing our Fathers would not be satisfied without engaging Persons of all Ranks in Oaths 't is to be wish'd that ordinary People had only been bound to live peaceably in their Stations to obey those who by the Laws of the Land were set over them not to countenance Division and Faction nor turn States-men and Censurers of their Superiours for in these and the like Engagements there had only been a further Ty laid upon them to perform easy plain and necessary Duties suitable to their Capacities without medling in Matters beyond their reach Whereas our late Covenants did unadvisedly raise such Persons above themselves injoin'd them Things they could not discharge and contrary to all reason spurr'd those on to be troublesome who stood more in need of a Bridle to check their natural Fierceness and the ill-grounded Opinion they had of their own Sufficiency By the latter Part of the third Article the Subjects Allegiance to the King was limited to the Preservation and Defence of the true Religion as if Princes Rights whatever they are ought not to be maintain'd without any manner of Restriction this was a clear Diminution of the King 's just Power and Greatness and consequently inconsistent with what they swore before in the National Covenant But how ill they intended from the Beginning to maintain the King's Power and Greatness their Positions as well as their Practices do declare If we look critically into the History of that Time we see manifest Gradations in their Encroachments upon the Royal Authority At their first entring into the National Covenant it was alledg'd that the Body of the Nation consisting of Church and State might unite to resist the King Some Years after when the Union betwixt the two Kingdoms was so vehemently carried on it was declared lawful to assist our Neighbours in extorting from our Soveraign the same Terms for them which of his Royal Bounty he had formerly vouchsafed to grant us At last we advanced a Step higher and boldly maintain'd That a few Associate Counties might take Arms against the Authority both of King and Parliament and that having Power they wanted not Right upon all Occasions to curb the Excesses of Government Now here we may observe that the extravagant Proceedings of some Western Counties upon these seditious Principles fix'd upon them the Name of Whigs which contemptible Mark of Distinction was for many Years appropriated to us till of late that to the Grief of all Men it is become more universal and has now unluckily crept into the next Kingdom and notwithstanding its infamous Rise is there too liberally bestow'd upon some and too much gloried in by others Thus the Barbarous Name of Guelphs which had for a long Time been given to those in Germany that oppos'd the Emperour was at length fatally transplanted from its native Soil into Italy a warmer Climate where it took deeper Root and became for many Ages the Fomenter of terrible Disorders But I hope our Prince's Wisdom will think fit to give an early and effectual Check to this and all other Names of Faction which insensibly undermine the Government alienate Mens Affections from one another make wicked Men more desperate when they see themselves discover'd especially when by the same Means they are enabled to discover the Strength and Number of their Party besides many other unforeseen Inconveniences which may help to bring us back into our former dreadful Confusion The fourth Article did in the Judgment of many set up a new Inquisition sufficient to make all tremble that were disaffected to the Cause and 't is plain their violent Courses gave too much ground for this Complaint such as out of real Conscience towards God or Sense of Duty towards their Prince refused to sign the Covenants were after a strange manner declared Enemies to God and the King proceeded against as Traitors and forced either to undergo Banishment or languish in Prison while their Estates became a Prey to those who appeared most zealous in persecuting them This inevitable Danger obliged many to disguise themselves into a seeming Compliance to what in their Hearts they did detest And these Methods being then made use of to settle the Purity of the Gospel among us no wonder if there were more of Hypocrisy than of the Power of Godliness in our Profession or if God were thereby provok'd to disown us and our Cause and to leave the Nation for many Years to groan under an heavy Bondage The fifth Article which was for executing Justice upon all wilful Opposers falls under the same Exceptions with the former and might be illustrated with too many Instances of Cruelty which those Times afford us How were our Scaffolds dy'd with the Blood of our Nobility and Gentry who oppos'd

Sign of the Spirit 's being weak in us than our not daring to trust it without a Guard In a word Religion has not throughly inflam'd those Souls which are not able to offer Sacrifice to God without borrowing strange Fire The Precepts of Christianity do not seem plainer in any one Thing than in that unlimited Submission which as Subjects we ow to our Prince and if our Duty to God may sometimes justify our Refusal to pay an active Obedience yet in no Case are private Persons at Liberty to resist but must bear patiently the sharpest Tryals until they can ease themselves in a lawful that is in a peaceable way If the Princes Edicts therefore should appear such as did infringe our dearest Priviledges and in our Judgment strike even at Religion it self we ought still to remember who we are and what we are concern'd for We must not presently shake off our Allegiance and imagine that this gives us Authority to disturb the Publick Peace or that there is no Rebellion where Religion is the Cause we fight for God doth not call us to put to our Hand after this irreverent manner to support the tottering Ark and the Sincerity of our Intentions or our Zeal for God's Glory and the Gospel will not excuse us in any indirect Courses God is jealous of his own Honour and can easily compass his Ends without requiring such things at our hands The Means he is pleased to recommend to us as fittest for this Purpose are our humble Addresses to our Soveraign whom in Conscience we dare not oppose our making known our just Grievances in a dutiful manner and laying modestly before him those Considerations which are most likely to remove his Prejudices and dispose him to entertain a better Opinion of Us and our Principles and when we have fought with these Arms which Heaven approves of we must back our Petitions with our Prayers to God that He who has the hearts of Kings always in his Hands will incline our Prince to grant our Requests and then if our Cause be truly good if it be God's as much as we are willing to believe it is then if we do not spoil it in the Management we need not in the least doubt of a most comfortable Issue But as Things are now order'd it will be hard to persuade the World that we are acted by an Evangelical Spirit where the Practices of many are so apparently contrary to the Gospel To have our hands still upon our Swords ready to draw as soon as the least Advantage is given us is a Posture ill befitting our Profession and is that which doth insensibly destroy but will never maintain Religion What we would have pass for pure Zeal others look upon as Rage and love of Revenge and condemn our fomenting Tumults and Insurrections against Authority as flowing either from a Diffidence of God's Providence or from a Distrust of his Promises or at best from our Impatience to wait his good time Look back upon the Contrivances of all Rebellions and you must reckon Craft Ambition and Hypocrisy have been always among the most innocent Instruments that are employ'd in hatching and carrying them on and yet these are so far from being Acts of Christianity that all Men who are concern'd to be thought strict in their Morals will be asham'd to own them What then shall we say to the Falsehood the Cruelty the Oppression and Injustice which are so eminently conspicuous in the History of our late unhappy Rebellion Certainly for Men to pretend amidst so gross Enormities that what they do is to promote God's Service and to fight his Battels is a Sin much beyond all the rest and brings so great a Scandal upon our holy Religion that we see by woful Experience how it has help'd to set up that Spirit of Atheism which now abounds among us The Arms with which true Religion delights to defend it self are of a quite different Nature as Justice and Integrity in Mens Dealings Innocence in their Lives Zeal without Hypocrisy in their holy Performances Willingness rather to receive the greatest than to do the least Injury Enmity against no Person much less against the Prince Constancy in suffering all manner of Inconveniences rather than to contract Guilt in removing them and lastly a sincere Abhorrence of offering to stain the Christian Religion by Shedding any Man's Blood in its maintenance while yet they are resolv'd by God's Grace patiently to sacrifice their own Lives rather than renounce it These and the like were the innocent Methods which under God prov'd instrumental in converting the Heathen World Christianity after a new kind of Warfare became Victorious by yielding planted 't is true it was and grew up in Blood yet in such as was not spilt in the open Fields but upon Scaffolds and in Amphitheaters and always without Resistance No other Arms than Prayers Tears and invincible Patience made it triumph over the Power of Heathen Rome Holy Leagues Bonds of mutual Defence Cabals and secret Practices were not known in those Ages Private Meetings indeed we read of which far from endangering the Peace of the Empire prov'd the best Seminaries to instruct Men in the Principles of Loyalty as well as Religion Nothing of Sedition was ever heard or taught in those pure tho Nocturnal Assemblies No man thought fit to meddle with Authority or arraign the Government there the time was much better spent even in Exercises of Devotion and in pious Meditations seldom was the Emperors Name there mentioned except in the Prayers that they daily offer'd up for his Safety even when the Church groaned under his Persecution and for the Truth of what is here alledged I dare appeal to the Doctrine and Practice of Christ and of the primitive Christians If we take an exact view of the great Copy Christ has set us either in his Words or in his Actions in what he taught or in what he suffered every Part doth breath that Peace which as a Legacy he did bequeath his Disciples John 14. v. 27. Those who are gently and peaceably dispos'd have no small Share in the Blessings he pronounced in the beginning of his most Divine Sermon Matth. 5. v. 7 9 10. and if we urge his own Words to the contrary that he came not to send Peace but a Sword Matth. 10. v. 34. these shew us rather what he foresaw would be the unhappy Effect than the real Design of his Coming which was chiefly to make Peace betwixt God and Man and to make Men be at Peace with one another in Order to this he commands us not to resist Evil Math. 5. v. 39. or the evil Person as the Learned here observe and if the Precept be general the Inference is strongest with Relation to our Prince who if he prove evil unjust or froward yet of all Persons is least to be resisted I might bring the most Material Passages of the Gospel in Confirmation of this necessary Truth But

upon every slight Occasion Princes were laid aside Subjects absolv'd from their Allegiance and Crowns and Scepters freely dispos'd of when and to whom they pleased so that under Colour of maintaining Christ's Prerogative they refus'd to give unto Caesar what was Caesar's far from paying Tribute as Christ had done Kings were forced to turn their Tributaries and by setting up a new Power in every Kingdom they made Princes contrary to the Intention of Christ and the Gospel great Losers by the Christian Religion Under these heavy Pressures had the Christian World for several Ages groan'd when God raised up a Spirit of Reformation in our Fathers who among the manifold Corruptions of Rome observ'd the ill Treatment Princes had there met with and resolv'd that in restoring to Christianity its ancient Lustre Princes should again be possest of the Prerogatives entail'd upon them by the Gospel This made the first Reformers inveigh so bitterly against the Usurpations of that See and enforce upon Subjects Allegiance and Submission as Duties from which none upon Earth could absolve them and we have Reason to believe that the Justice then done to Princes prov'd under God an effectual Means to rescue many Nations from the Roman Yoke Nor was Duty to Princes only preacht up at first but it has ever since continued as a fixt Principle in the best reformed Churches where next to the Purity of their Doctrine and Worship relating immediately to God they have all along gloried most in the Loyalty of their Religion for laying indispensible Ties of Obedience upon Men towards his Vicegerent So that as it passes with many for a Maxime that Papists acting according to the Principles of their Church can hardly be good Subjects 't is most certain that Protestants who are not conscientiously dutiful and loyal swerve from the Principles of the Reformed Religion and tho there are alas too many Instances of such both at home and abroad yet their corrupt Practices must not stain the Purity of the Doctrine by which they stand condemned But while I ascribe to the Reformed Religion the Honour of reestablishing Princes in their Rights I am sorry any of my Countreymen should renounce their share in it by pretending that our Soveraign has forfeited his Crown and that we are freed from our Allegiance These alas are Words not hitherto known amongst Orthodox Protestants but as they meet with them in impious and condemned Writers Let us consult the Confessions of all the Reformed Churches in the World and see if any of them teach this Doctrine Let us send an impartial Account of our Case with the Nature of our Monarchy to all the Protestant Universities abroad whether in England France Germany Holland Switzerland or Geneva and try if we can have the Testimony of any one Society to confirm us in this Tenet Let us see if we can meet with one eminent Protestant Divine one single Person of Credit and Learning that will own himself of this Persuasion If we look back to the Doctrine or Practice of the Church in the Primitive Times we can find nothing there that makes for our Purpose Neither Heresy nor Idolatry in those Days did make void Princes Right to govern Constantius an Arrian and Julian a Renegade were own'd for Emperours by those who detested their Impieties as much as Jovianus or Theodosius who were Orthodox The more degenerate Ages and the most corrupt part of the Church first taught us the Principles upon which some of us now go We must look no higher than Hildebrand and apply our selves only to prostitute Canonists and Jesuits for Testimonies and Arguments to prove that Princes can so easily forfeit their Crowns for I know there are many well-meaning Papists if not whole National Churches that will utterly reject this monstrous Doctrine And truly then 't is hard that we who look upon our selves as the most thorowly Reform'd should contemn the Pattern set us by the Ancients diffent from all our Brethren and side with the greatest Enemies of our Religion in a Point for which they have been so much expos'd Now no wonder if we run into strange Absurdities when the whole Matter is granted upon false Suppositions First we will have the King 's Right to commence only from the Time of his Coronation then we will have the Coronation a Compact or Agreement with the People by which the Prince forfeits his Right if he do not duly perform his Part and lastly we seem to make the late Covenant pass for the Coronation Oath all which are inexcusable Mistakes First our Laws admit of no Interregnum but date the Beginning of one King's Reign from the very Instant that another expir'd it being an Axiom with us and in all other Hereditary Monarchies that the King never dies The fatal Blow that depriv'd us of our late Soveraign put the Crown immediately upon his Son's Head From that Minute we were obliged to pay the same Duty to our present Soveraign which till then we ow'd to his Father and they who resisted him before his Coronation were Rebels as well as these who have done it since Whatever therefore a Coronation might have been anciently 't is now only look'd upon in the Nature of an Instalment upon which our Prince's Title to reign doth no ways depend else it would be the first Thing they would go about whereas it is ordinarily put off till such Time as it can be performed with the most Solemnity In the second place it appears by this that the Coronation is no such Compact as destroys the Prince's Title if he fail in his part for where he has his Crown by Inheritance his Coronation is the Effect of his Title but not his Title of his Coronation which can never make him lose what it did not give him nor yet weaken the Right which he had upon his Predecessor's Death As our King ows his Crown to his Birth and not to any Suffrage or mutual Agreement with his People so 't is ridiculous to imagine that his Coronation alters his Right and makes that conditional and capable of being lost which was before absolute and hereditary In a word if the Reign of our Princes commenced only from the Time of their being crown'd they would be in uneasy and dangerous Circumstances till that were over but on the other hand if their Coronation limited their Birth-right or made their Title more precarious they would contrive to have this Solemnity among the last Performances of their Lives Lastly in the Business of the Covenant there is a double Fallacy first in making it pass for the Coronation Oath and secondly in inferring a Forfeiture of the Crown where the Coronation Oath is broken When we complain of the King 's not making good the Covenant we affirm that he has thereby cancell'd his Right to govern which yet according to our own Supposition is not true unless we allow the Covenant to be the Coronation Oath But this is absurd seeing the