Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A04208
|
A Christian and modest offer of a most indifferent conference, or disputation, about the maine and principall controversies betwixt the prelats, and the late silenced and deprived ministers in England tendered by some of the said ministers to the archbishops, and bishops, and all their adherents.
|
Jacob, Henry, 1563-1624.
|
1606
(1606)
|
STC 14329; ESTC S120767
|
28,632
|
54
|
A CHRISTIAN AND MODEST OFFER OF A MOST INDIFFERENT CONFERENCE OR DISPVTATION ABOVT the maine and principall Controversies betwixt the Prelats and the late silenced and deprived Ministers in England TENDERED BY SOME OF THE SAID MINISTERS TO THE Archbishops and Bishops and all their adherents 1. Thess 5.21 Trie all things and keepe that which is good Ioh. 7.24 Iudge not according to the appearance but iudge righteous iudgment Ioh. 18.23 If I have evill spoken beare witnes of the evill but if I haue well spoken why smitest thou me Imprinted 1606. TO THE HIGH AND MIGHTIE PRINCE IAMES BY THE GRACE OF GOD KING of great Britaine France and Ireland Defender of the faith c. MOst High and mightie Soveraigne As it is the office of every Christian to endevour by all good lawfull meanes to procure the peace and prosperitie of Sion so is it principally required of the Ministers of the Gospell of Iesus Christ not onely that they be Gods Remēbrancers giving him no rest untill he set up Ierusalem the prayse of the world but also that they be humble suiters unto those that under him be in supreme soveraigne Authority that according to their places they will become nursing Fathers nursing Mothers to the Churches of God within their Dominions And as this is a duety that lyeth both upon Minister people at all times for the neglect whereof they shal be accountable to that great and mightie God whose servants they are so are they then especially to be carefull of it when they see the truth of God and the Ordinances of Christ Iesus the sole King and Prophet of his Church to be opposed oppugned and the syncere Professors of the Gospell maligned and traduced yea oppressed and in a sort troden under foote by men who seeke nothing but themselues and who for the maintayning of their owne Pompe and for the feeding of their idle bellies stick not to wrest the Scepter out of the handes of Christ and to thrust him out of his chaire of Estate The consideration hereof most deare and dread Soveraigne hath imboldened vs Gods most unworthy servants your Maiesties loving and loyall Subiectes at this time to cast downe our selues at your royall feete and to craue your Princely favour Your Maiestie knoweth right well what Controversies there haue been amongst us in this lād about the Prelacy Ceremonies Subscriptiō ever since the bright shinīg beames of the glorious Gospell of Christ first dispelled chased away the foggie mistes black darknes of Popery from out of our coastes You know likwise how hotely egarly the Approbatiō of these things hath been vrged by the Prelates who being wise in their generation haue left no stone vnrolled for the upholding of their ruinous tottering kingdome they having from time to time not onely reviled and disgraced both in Pulpit and in Print those whom they call their brethren and fellow servants of Iesus Christ who out of a fervent Zeale of the glorie of God and a perfect detestation of Poperie haue witnessed against these Corruptions but having also suspended deprived degraded and imprisoned them yea caused them to be turned out of house and home denyed them all benefit of law and used them with such contempt contumely as if they were not worthy to liue upon the face of the earth Shall these Controversies be kept a-foote for ever Shall they not once be finally decided determined Will it not be misery in the latter end if the Prelates be not restrained in time It is true that bookes haue been and are daily written on both sides and yet the differences are as great and greater now then they were at the first and so are like still to be unles by speciall order from your Maiestie the matter may once come to some such direct and iust Triall as is heere offered Wherein that your Maiestie may be the more willing and readie to harken unto us we beseech you to consider and that seriously that the Cause which here we present unto you is not our owne but that it is the Cause of Christ Iesus who is become a Suiter vnto you and desireth that he may haue Audience for whom whatsoever you shall doe it shal be remembred unto you and abundātly recompensed at that great last day of account when you shall come to stand before his Tribunall who is King of Kinges and Lord of Lords who is not unrighteous that he should forget any thing that is done for him or for any cause of his And howsoever the Prelates and their followers do beare your Maiestie in hand that the Church-Government desired is an enemy to your Crowne and dignitie beleeue them not we hūbly beseech you neither harken to their Syren songes It is as we are readie to proue a holy Ordinance of God which will stand when all such as oppose it and blaspheme it in the eares of your Royall Maiestie shall melt away as snow before the Sunne And if by such an indifferent Conference as is heere tendered we shall not make it as cleere unto your Maiestie as the Sunne at Noone-day that the Governement of the Churches of Christ by Pastors Teachers and Elders is much more agreeable to the State of a Monarchy then is the present Governement by Archbishops Bishops Archdeacons Commissaries and the rest of that Romish Hierarchy let us then finde no favor in your Maiesties eyes Your Maiestie professed before you came to the Crowne that you did equally loue honor the learned graue men of either of these opinions Basil. dor Epist pag 11. and it is no small heartes-griefe unto us that since your comming into this land your Affections are so alienated estranged from us who haue done you no hurt in the world but haue wished you all the good that your owne soule desireth nay who before we saw your face laboured by all good meanes not without some danger to promote your Maiesties iust Title to this Crowne and haue ever since caryed our selues duetifully towards your Maiestie and peaceably in the service of God and of his Churches We are not ignorant what the Prelates doe pretend and what they suggest continually in your Princely eares they cry out against us with open mouth that we are stubberne and refractarie persons and enemies to your Soveraigne Authoritie wherein they doe both highly abuse your Maiestie and wrong us exceedingly For it is well knowne and the Lord beareth us witnes that we doe in the singlenes and synceritie of our heartes ascribe much more unto your Maiestie and the Civill authoritie under you then any Prelate in the land either doth or is willing to doe And for the matters in question we professe heere in the presence of that great God before whom we shall one day appeare to answer it if we speake not the truth that we stand not against them out of any wilfulnes or peevishnes but out of the tendernes of
the chiefe of the Prelats Consid pâ—… G. Powell hath published That his excellent Majestie as he loved these Ministers dearliest of all others so he sought the more earnestly to reclayme them by some correction So that either the Prelats heerein haue offered his Majestie open wrong in proclaiming his speciall favor to the said Ministers or else they are not to doubt but in the abundance thereof he will vouchsafe to those poore distressed and chastised favourits of his so much grace as to command that this Offer may be accepted and by his Royall assent to confirme the same 12. The Apologeticall books which the Ministers haue been constrayned from time to time to publish in defeÌ„ce of their Persons and Cause can not come to the hands scanning of those powers that next under God are most able to relieue them And therefore for the cleering of their innocencie and the justifiyng of their cause which is indeed the cause of God they are coÌ„strayned to make this publike and solemne Offer by meanes whereof it may come to passe that all men may take notice of the goodnes of the cause and of the grosse wrongs they haue sustained and indured for maintayning the same 13. His Majestie signified to the Committies of the Lower house Supplicating on the behalfe of the Ministers that before mercy there must goe a submission and that if they looke for mercy at his hands they must acknowledge a fault This is that which they desire If it can be proved that they haue offended his Majestie in the least thing they desire no mercy till they acknowledge a fault and submit them selues for the same But it is no doubt far from the heart of so Royall a Prince to require either Confession or Submission wherther is no transgressioÌ„ For their owne parts they are perswaded and resolved that that truth for the professing wherof the Prelats proceed so severely against them is most behoofull for his Majestie his Crowne and dignitie and the whole State And that in yeelding heerin in unto the Prelats they should make a breach in that dutie which by Gods law every true hearted and loyall subject in this kingdome oweth both to the King and State And yet if they be in an errour there can be no more direct and likely course used to bring them unto a submission for the same then to haue these poynts freely debated by the acceptance of this Offer 14. When the Ministers consider the dayly increase of Papists their treacheries and conspiracies their insolent bouldnes the continuall broaching of grosse and Popish errours what litle molestation the Papists haue by the government of the Prelats yea what favour they find secretly and under hand what resistance was made to the Lawes intended to haue been made against them especially by some and those not the meanest of the Prelats what light matters are made of their horrible Treasons and damnable opinions what litle execution there is of the lawes against them they haue reason to feare that before they are aware as it were in a dreame if the raynes be in this maner left in the Prelats handes for matters of religion the neck both of his Royall Maiestie and of the whole State shal be brought under the yoke of the Pope that Antichrist of Rome and his divelish jdolatrie And therefore in a serious mediatation of the best meanes to prevent this great imminent evill which lyeth working in a mysterie they cannot thinke of a more direct course then this open and professed Opposition unto the Prelats in the foresaid Propositions wherein if they shall prevaile they shall not onely giue a deadly wound to the Prelacie it selfe but to the accursed Religion of Rome from which at least if it be held to be Iure divino it receaveth both breath and life For who was so simple that saw not that at his Majesties first coÌ„ming to the Crowne when the Prelats hangd downe their heads in suspense feare the Papists hearts were as dead as stones and that the very first Proclamation against the Ministers in behalfe of the Prelats revived the Papists againe And that ever since with the increase of the grace favour and authoritie of the Prelats the hopes bouldnes and nombers of Papists haue increased And therefore howsoever the Prelats may mocke children and fooles in imputing the Ministers yet any that wisheth the confusion of that Antichrist may with halfe an eye see where the true cause is And therefore they seeing this except they should be wilfull traytors to God their King and Country cannot but make opposition unto the Prelats in approving the Propositions aboue specified wherein if they be in an error and the Prelats on the contrary haue the truth they protest to all the world that the Pope and the Church of Rome and in them God and Christ Iesus himselfe haue had great wrong indignitie offered unto them in that they are rejected and that all the Protestant Churches are Schismaticall in forsaking Unitie and Communion with them 15. The former Propositions are such that there will not be found as we are verily perswaded in our consciences any one Conformable Minister in this kingdome except he be a masked Papist that will refuse to Subscribe to any one of theÌ„ if so be it would please the King and State by Law to urge them thereunto under such penalties as the Ministers are urged to subscribe unto the Articles devised by the Prelats Yea we are out of all doubt that the Prelats themselues if it were pressed upon them by the King and state vnder paine of deprivatioÌ„ from their Bishopricks would not stick to avouch vpon their othes that the Ceremonies and Subscription for which the Ministers stand suspended and deprived are wicked and vngodly such as no good Christian ought to yeeld vnto Nay if the case stood but vpon the sauing of their Temporaltyes thereby which else they should loose we doubt not but they would with heart hand subscribe to any one of the aforesaid Propositions Sith therefore it is more then cleere that they haue Offered plaine violence vnto the Consciences of all most all the conforming and subscribing Ministers that even contrarie to their owne consciences they haue proceeded against their poore bretheren because they will not by conformitie subscrâ—ption renounce the truth contayned in these propositieÌ„s can any blame the said Ministers if hauing not only the said truth on their side but in likelyhood the Consciences of the Prelats also they make such an Offer as this is 15. It is agreeable to common sense and reason and the Bishop of Chichester hath some such thing in his Lectures vpon the Commandements that doubtfull actions should all-wayes giue place vnto those that are out of all doubt question Seeing therefore no good Protestant ever doubted but that it is lawfull enough in it selfe to administer the word and sacraments in common and ordinary civill