Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	allegiance_n	oath_n	subject_n	1,037	5	6.8350	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77471	A brief resolution of the present case of the subjects of Scotland in order to Episcopal government, by sacred authority re-established in this kingdome. Or, Episcopus Scoticanus redivivus. For the satisfaction of the people. Authore Phil-Alethio.	Phil-Alethio.	1661 (1661)	Wing B4645; ESTC R223956	14,376	22

be look'd upon by considering persons but as so many methods and impostures to delude whileas even the most violent pressers of the bindingnesse of these Oaths against Episcopacy do in their open professions and acknowledgements renounce and disclaim the obligations of these Oaths as to the combination and confederacy that is in them consederacies and combinations among Subjects upon what pretext soever without special allowance and consent of the Supreme Magistrate being by themselves acknowledged to be sinful and rebellious which yet is if not the very formalis ratio and essence of these ensnaring Covenant-Oaths yet doubtlesse the prime object and man foundation of them whileas also they acknowledge the unbindingnesse of these same Oaths as to conditional and reserv'd Allegiance by undue and unwarrantable limitations and restrictions and yet still presse the Oath and its bindingnesse against Episcopal Government and in a copulative Oath such as these Oaths and Covenants acknowledge themselves to be if the obligation as to any one point be dissolved and loosed it can hardly be understood how as to the whole or any other particular there can be any more bindingnesse therein What will the forsaid acknowledgments infer being weighed in the ballance of discerning men but that were it not that the fear of incurring the censure and penalties of treason did overawe these Covenant-Oaths c. would be still vigorously asserted to be as binding and obligative in point of combination without and against the Soveraign Magistrate's consent and in order to conditional and limited Allegiance as they are said to be in order to the point of Episcopacy To dispense with these Oaths and Covenant-engagements in these great Points and Interests and yet still to set out the same as indispensable tyes and Sacred inviolable Bonds against Episcopal-Government is not this handsomely to play the Pope in dispensing in some more weighty and binding consciences in lighter concerns of one and the same copulative Oath or is it not rather as some observing persons give it to act the impostures in imposing upon the Peoples easinesse and credulity for upholding of the tottering Diana of a Para-mount Power some have so sinfully usurped and so tyrannically practised and are yet so unwilling to part with left the power of this Church be recovered into those hands out of which it was wrested by violence and injustice And what a needlesse noise is it that is so much raised by the zealous clamors of some against Episcopacy may it not be remembered that it was declared by the contrivers and abettors of the Covenant in its first rise that though they supposed Episcopacy to be against Law in Scotland yet they did not require any by taking of the Covenant to abjure it but that the practise of it should be forborn and the matter referred to a free General Assembly See Ministers Answ to the 4. dem of the Doctors of Aberdene And one would think that the edge of such preposterous zeal might have been rather blunted then sharpned by these last three and twenty years exeperience And is not Episcopacy a Government which had its rise in the Apostles themselves and by continual and universal succession hath since been still owned and practised by the Christian Church as the continued succession of Bishops in the See's of Alexandria from Mark the Evangelist in Jerusalem from James the Apostle in Antioch from Peter c. shew If historical credit may be given to such Worthies as Irenaeus Eusebius Socrates Theodoret Hierom with many other grave and famous Ecclesiastick Writers in so much that ●●●tus for affirming a Bishop not to be above a single Presby●er was generally reputed by the Christian World for thirteen hundred years together as well in the Eastern as Western Church for a down-right Heretick a Government which hath been still owned in the Church of Scotland when Order and Government did overtop Faction and Interest and ever still till Seditions Tumults Insurrections and Rebellions did go current for Discipline and Order And in a word a Government which by the universal consent of the Churches of Christendome both in Asia Africk Grece Russia and other parts of Europe that never acknowledged any subjection to or dependance upon the See of Rome hath been constantly embraced and the Opugners of it generally branded for Hereticks which of all other Forms hath undovbted the best Title to Divine or Apostolical Institution against which nothing is or ever could be objected but the humane infirmities and personal failings of some particular men from which no Government is or can be totally exempted and priviledged which in the most of these few Churches who want it some whereof are under the want of Bishops because they cannot tell how to come by them their Princes being of a different Religion and so will allow none but of their own others there be who are willingly without them because setled in such a Government as they find most suitable to a Popular State and dare not venture upon a change all others enjoying the felicity of Episcopal Government either the thing and name both or else the thing under another name viz. Superintendents Inspector's c. by their best and ablest Ministers hath been frequently desired Our practise sure is without all parallel in that never did we read of any Church before a misleading Faction in this our Church of Scotland that ever turn'd out their Bishops if they were of the same Religion vowing to root them out by the Sword contrary to the command of the Supream Lawful Magistrate So that we must needs accuse all the World besides our selves of folly Antichristianism and ignorance or then resolve to forbear our peevish quarrellings against this Government of the Church by Bishops to which through Gods Mercy and His Majesties care this broken Church is again restored To all the former it may be added that in all the Bible it is not to be sound that the power either of Ordination of Jurisdiction ever was exercised by a singl Presbytery yea and it is none of the least of doubts whether there be mention of any judicial consistory of single Presbyters simpliciter pares in all Sacred Writ without delegation from and in a dependence upon a Superiour Power residing in a single person If then the design of some Zelots against Episcopacy may not seem to have worse at the bottome and do not tend to lead Subjects into misconstructions of His Majesties Gracious Intentions let the impartial determine So that to draw towards a conclusion we may see how contrary such Oaths and Vows are to the duty which good Subjects by vertue of their relation and as Subjects they owe to their Soveraign how contrary to due Allegiance how obstructive and repugnant to the performance of the great moral duty of obedience due by Subjects to Supreme Authority and the established Laws thereof as also how inconsistent with the welfare of the Church and State we live in and

consequently how sinful is easie to discern by comparing these Oaths c. with the irrefragable Propositions above set down And therefore if any according to our last Proposition good Subject or Subjects have been drawn by any pretence perswasion or force whatsomever to bind himself by Oath or Covenant against Episcopal Government which was and now again is established by Law he hath not sworn in justice but engag'd himself to the certain prejudice of His Soveraign's just Right by a sinful combining with private Subjects against His Authority to the doing of many things contrary to established Law and which is most impious by endeavouring to introduce the form of a Solemn Oath upon a matter so incapable of and indisposed for such a Form if any I say hath been thus engag'd he is obliged in duty and conscience to disclaim reverse and renounce his said act otherwise beside the horrid scandal which he shall draw upon the Reformed Religion he doth run himself upon the breach of the third Command by making his Oath a bond of iniquity And for the further satisfaction of the satisfiable it may ponderate that the power imposing these Oaths was originally invalid and naught and where the fountain is corrupt the streams issuing thence can by no means run clear Nam quod deest in causa deest in effectu and therefore what is done in vertue of such invalid power can scarce amount to right or lawful as grounded upon such a rotten Basis of pretended Authority And which ought exceedingly to stisfie Subjects in their dis-obligation from these ensnaring tyes Our Father I mean Pater Patriae without whose consent no vow or engagement of the childe is obligative as we may see Numb 30. 4 5 c that a Virgin or a Wise making a vow without consent of the Father or Husband is dis-obliged therefrom if the Husband or Father hearing of the vow do disallow thereof and we being in a moral sense as much at the dispose of the King the Father of the Countrey the Civil Father of us all if not more then Children at the dispose of their natural Parents whileas the vows forsaid are dispenc'd and irritate by Him they can be no more binding tyes to us suppose them otherwise lawful and we His diffent being any wayes signified to us are dis-oblig'd and no more bound but may forgo these vows and in our so doing the Lord will forgive us as it is in Numb 30. 6. forgive us not for that we renounce these Vows that being duty but for our rash or cowardish engagement in them without due consent that being our sin If it be said that our Civil Father His Majesty His consent was indulg'd to these Engagements which may therefore be still suppos'd to be binding To this it is replied First This doth not take away the unlawfulnesse of any of these Oaths and Vows which were undertaken antecedently to any Royal and Authoritative consent thereto procured so that such who before that before-alleg'd consent did engage in these combinatory Oaths did therein heinously sin so that these are thereby oblig'd to nothing but Repentance The first Swearing and Covenanting at least being rebellious and sinful But Secondly Any Royal consent that ever was procured or granted was a violented coacted consent and therefore in Law to be look't upon by all honest Subjects as a non-consent coactus enim consensus nullus so that the Princes involuntary and constrained yeelding and ceding to a prevailing Faction affords and layes no just title or ground of obligation no not upon Himself in the exteriour Court much lesse upon His Subjects N●m ex actione involuntaria non nascitur obligatio reg juris vid. cod hb. 2. tit 20. And then Thirdly That supposed consent of our present Soveraign is obvious to the eye of all the World to have been forc'd and coacted He being by a Faction in this Kingdome at that time most undutifully and disloyally kept as a Noble Prisoner rather then a free King and by them violented to give colour of life to these things which in their very nature did bereave Soveraignty of its breath and therefore that consent is now repeal'd as appeareth from His Majesties present Resolutions and His High and Honourable Council their Proclamation of the date September 1661. relating to Church-Government So that hence no shew of any title of obligation as to these Vows and Oaths doth affect the Subjects but rather to the contrary His diffent being of equal force to disoblige as His consent is to ty or oblige And now by this time I trust it doth appear that for any stiffly to oppose the setlement of this Church by Episcopacy is so unwarrantable that none who hath any sense of Religion to God of charity to their Mother-Church or of grateful duty to their Gracious King will presume to justifie and if any will prove so peevish Subjects I trust know better how to value Peace being so harrassed and spoil'd by the late intestine Divisions then to be so easily engag'd again to devote that little blood and treasure which remains to the sinful and ambitious lusts of a few men whom though our King and this Kingdom were not able to call to an account which yet they may find yet there is a God in heaven who seeth all their hearts and will one day judge and be aveng'd of all such their sinful actions By what is said men may see at any time how weak the cords of an unlawful Oath Vow or Engagement are and how little they bind save only to Repentance and that for their unadvised rashnesse if spontaneously undertaken and for their cowardise if through fear submitted to By this also it may appear to how little purpose men make use of these tyes and fetters that bind not in truth but only ensnare like to those cords wherewith Sampson was bound and as easily upon occasion broken asunder being that there wants a twisting-in of these conditions required in the Propositions premised to strengthen and confirm them nay so far are they from holding fast the person Engaged that upon a due back-search and examination they help to set him looser when as he shall seriously bethink himself of the guilt and burden of sin he yet lyes under Nam tolerabilius est promissum non facere quod turpe est Ambros de offic lib. 3. cap. 12. no other way of escape then but by a speedy cancelling of the obligation Briefly and to conclude this short word for satisfaction in which we have appeared upon no other incentives but of conscience of Loyalty and of zeal for order and beauty in this our Mother-Church of the Scrupulous Where the Promise or Oath both for matter and manner is rightly undertaken we cannot be too anxious and solicitons in keeping of it so Matth. 5. 33. Religiose observa juramentum was one of Pythagoras his first lessons to his Disciples yea God himself hath vouchsased it a room within the catalogue of his most glorious titles of being faithful and keeping Covenant otherwise where fraud or force with the like shall happen to interpose and withall the matter in many respects above-specified be injustifiable concerning such an obligation when or wheresoever undertaken the best resolution in my humble opinion is that it is ill taken and worse kept nay and is of it self void from the beginning and binds to nothing but what I heartily wish all may find in the end REPENTANCE FINIS Si quis necessitate coactus juraverit pignusve posuerit quo is ad insidias Domino suo parandas vel ●pem injuste cuivis ferendam adstringitur resiliat potius quam quo coepit insistat suademus L L. Alured c. 1. Consilium prudensque animi sententia jurat Et nisi judicii vincula nulla tenent