Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	allegiance_n	king_n	oath_n	2,942	5	7.6429	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81909	Conscience eased: or, the main scruple which hath hitherto stuck most with conscionable men, against the taking of the Engagement removed. Where amongst other things is shewed, first, how farre the oath of allegiance, and the nationall League and Covenant are obligations; either in their legall intents unalterable or at this time no more binding and alterable. Secondly. How farre in a free people the subordinate officers of the state, have a right to judge of the proceedings of a king in that state. Thirdly, how Zedekia'es case in breaking his oath to the king of Babylon, and our case in making use of our freedome from the oath of allegiance, and supremacie to the king of England doe differ. / The author, John Dury.	Dury, John, 1596-1680.	1651 (1651)	Wing D2841; Thomason E625_4; ESTC R206464	25,629	40

CONSCIENCE EASED OR The main Scruple which hath hitherto stuck most with conscionable Men against the taking of the Engagement removed Where amongst other things is shewed First How farre the Oath of Allegiance and the Nationall League and Covenant are Obligatins either in their legall inte●ts unalterable or at this time no more binding and alterable Secondly How farre in a free People the Subordinate Officers of the State have a right to judge of the Proceedings of a King in that State Thirdly How Zedekia'es case in breaking his Oath to the King of Babylon and our case in making use of our freedome from the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacie to the King of England doe differ The Author John Dury LONDON Printed for T. H. in Russell-street neere the Piazza of the Covent-Garden 1651. The Errata In page 1. line 10. for out soon after read but soon after p. 2. l. 22. for ease r. case p. 3. l. 1. for cause r. clause in the note for summoned r. summed p. 5. l. 1. for must r. most l. 8 for many intentions r. main intention is p. 6. line 22. for cease r. crosse in l. 27 for oppresse r. oppose p. 7. l. 6. for of r. to line 9. for that r. what P. 10. l. 21. for out your self r. not your self p. 11. l. 4. for lawes r. lawlesse p. 12. l. 24. for Salvus r. Salus p. 14. l. 14. for shew r. Sphere p. 16. l. 21. r. in our places p. 17. l. 16. for revealed r. resolved p. 20. l. 22. for have read make line the last for Representations r. Representatives p. 25 l. 16. for accepted r. I excepted l. 23. r. they are not set p. 28 l. 26. r. from under them p. 33. l. 2. for instructed r. intrusted p. 36. l. 14. for him r. us in the same line for towards the K. of Babylon r. towards our K with Zedekiahs condition and his Oath binding him thereunto towards the K. of Babylon line 16. for master r. matter l. 17. for master r. matter l. 35. for imposed r. implyed p. 4. l. 19. for oblige r. alledged CONSCIENCE EASED OR The main Scruple which hath hitherto stuck most with conscionable Men against the taking of the Engagement removed Loving Friend and Brother in Christ I Had occasion a few dayes agoe to be with your Son in Law which put me in mind of the discourses which you had with me when wee met last at his house whereat I found my selfe under a guilt of some neglect of duty towards you which now I am willing to confesse to deprecate and amend All that I have to say for my self is that soon after you were gone from hence I did indeed as I promised put my thoughts concerning your Scruple to Paper out soone after I went out of Town al this last Summer having bin variously distracted and several times in the country I could not atrend the ripening transcribing them to be imparted unto you once I did set upon it to doe it but was by a very pressing occasion taken off The occasion of this discourse againe and some time since I have thought upon my promise but I know not how I was willing to beleeve that happily you were satisfied and should not now need any suggestions which I could offer and thus I have protracted the discharge of this Duty till the other day I was struck with some remorse and found cause to be ashamed of my selfe that all this while I had not made good my promise made to you so long agoe nor done that which was befitting my love and friendship to you in Christ when as I did not certainly know how farre your spirit was now quieted which happily might lye as much under a doubt as ever but that which doth now more effectually waken me to this performance is that among all the objections against the Engagement which I have bin obliged to reflect upon since I saw you I doe not remember that the matter of your scruple hath bin so deepely pressed by any as by your selfe and two or three dayes agoe by a very honest and Godly Gentleman who is pinched just as and the scope there of which is to rrsolve the chiefe Scruple about the Engagement you were and brought your ease fully againe to my mind which I find when I lay it seriously to heart the deepest most inward weightiest Scruple of any that doth belong unto this businesse Therefore I shall now ar last rather thus late then never acquaint you with what I have to say unto it to cleere it I find by your Paper which I have that your Scruple which doth rise from two causes viz. 1. from the mis-interpretation of the Engagement doth rise from two things First from your interpretatiou of the words of the Engagement when you put the whole Emphasis in the latter clause thereof viz. As it is now established without a King und House of Lords which you conceive is the cause intended to be more directly obligatory then the fore-going viz. To be true and faithfull to the Common-wealth of England Secondly because you conceive that the sence of the 2. From the contradiction betweene it and the Oath of Allegiance Engagement as you understand it doth containe a direct contradiction to the true meaning of the Oath of Allegiance and of the Nationall Covenant for your difficultie lyes in this how to bring the intentions which you had in the former Engagements to a Righteous Consistencie with the intention which you conceive you ought to have in this Engagement all which difficultie you reduce to this practicall Syllogisme under which your conscience is concluded at present He that is under a lawfull Oath and Covenant of both are summoned up in one practicall Sylogisme the Lord may not lawfully doe any such thing as tendeth directly to take him off from acting in righteous wayes according to his Oath and Covenant But I am say you under a lawfull Oath and Covenant of the Lord to assist the jurisdictions annexed unto the Imperiall Crowne of this Realme in the preservation of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdome and to endeavour to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament as they were at the taking of the Covenant and the entring into the present Engagement as the proper sence thereof is obvious to me tendeth directly to take me off for ever from acting even in righteous wayes according to this Oath and Covenant therefore I cannot lawfully enter thereinto Prov. 4. 27. To enlarge your spirit from this streight I conceive there is none other way but to cleere your apprehension from the mistakes wherein you are concerning The way to resolve the Scruple the intent of the Nationall Covenant and of the Oath of Allegiance compared with the true intent of the present Engagement for if it shal appeare that you run upon a cleere mistake concerning the true and righteous

intention was not subordinate unto the publique at all but onely to some private aime or though it was truly in his thought subordinate thereunto but not agreeable to the Rules and Principles of Christianity and equitie I say if he findes himself mistaken either way he is bound to rectifie his mistake and bring his sense in observing the same unto the proportion of the forenamed Rules and Principles of Christianity and naturall equitie If these Propositions are to you as to me they are The application of these grounds to the scruple in hād shewing generally that to come out of it wee must consider sound and without exception I suppose they may shew you a way to come out of the strait whereinto your conscience is concluded for if you apply them to the case in hand concerning this present engagement with respect to former engagements and do make all their intents according to the circumstances wherein they were begotten commensurable one to another by the rules and principles of Christianity and naturall equitie you will find either no cause at all to take up in your mind such contradictory intentions as you have imagined to bee therein or if the circumstances of affaires shall bee found such as will inforce by these rules and principles to allow of a change of intentions in the latter which was not in the fo●mer engagements then your spirit will be set at liberty from the strait wherein it is which proceeds only from the want of this due consideration as I conceive for when I put my selfe in your case which to give you an unpartiall advice I must do I find but two wayes to bee ridd of the scruple 1 1. That the same main intent is to be in all publique engagements wherein you are insnared the one is by looking upon the main intent and fundamentall duty which is the life and soule of all these engagements a thing unalterably one and the same in them all viz common safety and welfare to the prosecution of which by the law of God in right reason all publique engagements are at all times subordinate though the meanes and wayes diversly mentioned therein do varie The other is by looking upon the evedent emergencies 2 2. That the meanes are to be alterable by emergencies and the rules and principles of proceedings still the same which bring a change upon the meanes and wayes of prosecuting that intent for it is undeniable that as the Circumstances of Humane affaires alter so the Engagements to prosecute Common safety and welfare therein are alterable If then I can see that notwithstanding the changeablenesse of Emergencies and the varietie of meanes resulting from thence the same end is prosecuted by the same Rules and Principles I am still where I was and no more out of my way then if in a Voyage at Sea whiles I am steering the same course I have sometimes faire and sometimes foule weather or a winde sometimes on this sometimes on that side of the Ship which doth oblige the Marriners to nothing else but to trimme the Sails somewhat in another way and stand more or lesse carefully to their tackling Now to make some application of this to our Particularly that we should consider case I conceive whiles the King and Parliament did agree and the trust of Common safety was reposed in him by his observance of the Lawes The Oath of Allegiance like a faire gale in faire weather did carry us on peaceably towards the Haven of common safety but when he was judged to mannage his Trust unfaithfully as intending not to steare his course by Law but by will the Covenant first like a side-wind on the one hand came in with foule weather and then the Ingagement came in after it as a change of winde on the other side of the Ship both windes as it is naturall to all side-windes may serve to carry the Ship safely to her harbor if the Marriners trimme the Sailes well and the Passengers do not disturb them in their functions for if the same aim of common welfare is really intended by all three Ingagements though they put it under different expressions then you are not out of your way by taking any of them if contrary to the rules of Christianity you must put out your self out of it For that which in the Oath of Allegiance is required to be performed towards the jurisdictions annexed 1 1. That wherein all former engagements have one aime unto the Imperiall Crown of this Realme is termed in the Nationall Covenant the defence of the Kings Person and just Authority in the preservation of the true Religion and liberties of the Kingdomes all which in this present Ingagement is summed up and expressed by truth and faithfulness to the Common-wealth of England The King whiles he was in place of Trust was lookt upon as the Center of all common interests and the Guardian of publique safety next unto the Lawes Legislative power for indeed he is no King de jure further then he agrees with these and is a living Law in all his deportments but when he made himself Lawes and would by power have set himself up instead of the 2 2. What the emergencie was which did alter our relation to the King Law the Trustees of the Nation to whom the Legislative and the Executive power doth primarily belong thought it necessary to expresse the forenamed Interests instrusted to his management and therefore by the Oath of Allegiance fixed upon his name more directly properly and immediately by the name of a Common-wealth the safety of which was mainly intended by the Oath of Allegiance although the words thereof mention our relation onely to the King If then when you took the Oath of Allegiance your intention was not so much to oblige your self to the welfare of the Nation in that way of settlement Or to that way of settlement in order to Common welfare as to the maintaining of a meere Royall greatnesse for it self or to the maintaining of the Kings person in his Royall 3 3. What the mistake was might bee at first in taking the oath of allegiance which now is to be rectified greatnesse without respect to Common welfare you did wholly mistake the true and Legall intent of your Oath and because that such an imagination had crept insensibly upon the spirits of many by whom the King thought he could have exalted himself to be absolute above the Nations liberties therefore the Parliaments of both Nations finding that the name of a King was made an Idoll to the prejudice of that for which it was entertained joyned in the Covenant to rectifie that mistake by determining that the true notion of Common welfare and safety did mainly and more neerely stand in the maietenance of Religion and Libertie with the Rights and priviledges of Parliament then in the having of a King And since the Covenant hath been made void as to the

therefore to resolve this doubt also I shall compare our condition of subjection and our Oath binding him thereunto towards the King of Babylon and then if the case bee found alike I shall confesse that we are now as much bound to the master of our Oath as he then was bound to the master of his but if his relation to the King of Babylon was wholly different from ours to our King if his Oath of submission to that King was of another kind then ours was to our King and if his way of freeing himself from his relation and from the bond of his Oath towards the King of Babylon was quite another thing then what hath been intended by us then I hope you will not make our case parallel to his but in all these matters a vast difference will be found between him and us ergoe his guilt cannot be made ours First his Relation to the King of Babylon was to be the vassall In respect of the relation wherein he stood to Nebuchadnezer and wee to the King of England of a Conquerour for the K. of B. having ruined the state of Iudah and subdued the Nation made Zedekiah his vassall to rule it in his name who bound himselfe by Oath so to do but wee stood not under our K. as a Conquered natio● by him but as free borne subiects under a King bound to rule by law Secondly the Oath by which Zedekiah did submit himself to the K. of Babylon was prescribed according to Nebuchadnezzars will and no doubt it was absolutely to keep the Nation in his subjection In respect of the oath which he tooke and wee tooke without any condition of Laws of Priviledges of Liberties or of any such thing supposed or imposed on Nebuchadnezzars part but the Oath by which the people of this Nation were bound to be subjects to their K. was by those that framed and imposed it made to be taken and kept under certain conditions viz. that we should be Subjects by Law and not otherwise and that our subjection to him should be consistent with the priviledges of Par. the native liberties of the nation no otherwise and to make this Oath binding those who imposed it upon the people had power to impose another Oath which was reciprocall thereunto upon the King that he might be bound to them to rule by law as well as they to him to be obedient according to law by which meanes the tye of the Oath was severall wayes limited and the K. himself as well bound up in his commands as they in their obedience by a Law but no such thing can be imagined between Zedekiah and Nebuchadnezzar Thirdly his way of freeing himself from his relation and oath was In respect of his way of breaking of his oath and of our way of being freed from it by a direct rebellion contrary to the intent of his Oath and Covenant but our way of freeing ourselves hath been Legall agreeable to the Tenor of the Law and to the sense of the Authority by which the Oath was given and made Legall for the Oath in the sense of the Legislative power was never absolute but conditionall it did not binde us to the Kings personall and arbitrary will and command but to his government and authority as he had a leg●ll standing and the sense of the Parl. touching the Oath of Allegiance how farre we are thereby intended to be made subordinate to the K. is expressed in the Nationall Covenant which makes it clearly conditionall and the Parl. it self hath freed us long agoe from the obligation of that condition by declaring that he had forfeited his right to govern any longer So that the difference between Zedekiah and us is so vast in this point of being free from the Oath that I can find no resemblance at all in the one to the other for as in our case if the K. kept not his Oath to his Subjects they were absolved De lure from their Oath to him in Zedekiah his Case there was no such contract between the K. of Babylon and him but the will of the Conquerour was his law in our case there was a Law to Regulate both the K. and us in keeping of our Oathes and Trustees in Parl. to see that law kept who herein were above the King and in cases of aberration empowered to see faults amended both in King and Subjects but in the case of Zedekiah there is no such thing the Authority of Nebuchadnezzar was above all Humane positive Lawes and Zedekiah was sworn to be absolutely his Subject in such things and to keep his people in subjection thereunto In our Case the King to whom we were sworne deserted his Station of Government and left his trust by leaving his Parliament and levying warre against it but in Zedekiah his Case no such thing is imaginable In our case the Parliament having the Supreme Authority of the Nation and having conquered the King doth oblige us to be true and faithfull to the free States without him but in Zedekiah his Case no such thing is conceiveable and many other things of a different nature might be insisted upon in our Case which cannot be brought home to Zedekiah his Case to free him from his Oath as we are freed from ours for his whole action was directly opposite to the cleare intent of his Oath and to all the circumstances of the publique good of the Nation oft he Iews as the Lord himself doth intimate in Ezech. Ch. 17. 4 5 6 7 8. but our actions in following the Parliament have been all along consonant to the Legall intentof our Oath by which we are absolved from our relation to the King as also by all the circumstances of his miscarriages of his illegall proceedings and of his breach of trust towards the publike by all the circumstances of the publike good to be procured without him not according to the iudgement of particular men for in this Case my Rule is not to make every private man a Iudge of the publique good but of the Supreme Authority of the Nation and by all the circumstances of his removall from the Throne and of our present standing under the Supreme power of the Nation which now is over us So that to Oblige the conscience of private men to intend the restauration of a royall governmēt upon the account of such an Oath from which we are made so many wayes Legally free is to me a great mistake of Duty and a dangerous snare to intangle weake spirits into the occasions of publique disturbances whereunto I know you are not inclined to give any the least Overtures but the danger is that other men who are of a turbulent disposition and by such a mistake of their dissol●ed relation and seeming Obligation to that which is contrary to their present Duty being otherwise personally discontented may st●enthen and heighten their distempers to a full resolution of publique disturbance and endeavours of distructive unsettlements from which I am sure your genius and pious thoughts do abhorre Thus you have that which I can at present suggest which I beseech the Lord so to addresse as it may tend most to your comfort if you be still unsatisfied and if you be already satisfied that it may be a meanes to confirme you in that which is agreeable to his holy Will and profitable to the good of the Common-wealth of Israel in the love of which I subscribe my self West minster this 8. Decem. 1650. Your faithfull and affectionate Servant I. D.