Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	court_n	king_n	plea_n	3,508	5	9.7258	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85513	The grand case of conscience concerning the Engagement stated & resolved. Or, a strict survey of the Solemn League & Covenant in reference to the present Engagement.		1650 (1650)	Wing G1486A; Thomason E589_10; ESTC R206308	16,478	22

by Covenant that the name of great Britain might contain us all yea by the Covenant our brethren challenged a Priviledg in framing our own Propositions for our own safety and to determine what we should Propose and what not with the Order and method of them and a mutual disposal of the Offices and Officers with the rest of our affairs claiming an equal share in all our Priviledges and the management of the Government it self The next and more special use of it was to further a Personal Treaty wherein the Scots Commissioners had the principal hand as being most privy to the first intention of its compiling For when the interpretation of the first Article was out of credit and the disguise of it pluckt off by that expression The word of God that the Ecclesiastical mediums would not serve the turn they fall on another Article wherein they finde but only a bare mention of the Kings Person charitably and yet limitedly inserted and propose and press the Parliament upon pain of perjury and without any reserve unto a Personal Treaty waveing the safe and best resolv'd on way of Treating by positive and Fundamental Propositions And so eager and fierce were they on it that the Commissioners in the name of the rest in that notable Remonstrance of theirs for a Personal Treaty quoted the name of the Covenant more then Twenty times in one Page and tax the Parliament with breach of Covenant but for omitting a supposed method not placing of it in that order in the Propositions which they thought most fit urging still no way of fulfilling the Covenant but by Personal Treaty forgetting all the rest of the Articles that speak of Religion a Common Enemy the Priviledges of Parliament of bringing Delinquents to Justice and so procuring Liberty but these were first in intention and must be last in execution The next party that entered the stage with the Covenant in their hands was the old Malignant and Common Enemy who waited on our trifling Transactions who seeing what use was made of it by the Scots Presbyterian Party and how nigh the Commissioners of Scotland had driven it to their interest emprove all their former Transactions with the Parliament and on that stock graff a design of a new and bloody War and the scean being changed from England to Scotland Duke Hamilton having got the major Vote in the Parliament Levies an Army of Scots who joyning with Sir Marmaduke Langdale and other desperate English Malignants enter England with a great Army seconding the Commissioners Remonstrances using their own expressions in their Declarations holding forth the Covenant as their Ensigne both of honesty and hopes of Victory professing to be moved to that expedition by nothing but the Covenant and for more effectual prosecution of the ends of it in a Personal Treaty to suppress Heresies and Schismes and settle the affairs of the Church in greater security and beauty free from Error or Faction Thus the Covenant was used and in as good words to maintain the Malignant interest and to unite the Common Enemy both in Scotland and England which was intended against both and though many of the Kirk disclaimed these proceedings and saw the disguise rather in the Persons then the things yet they profest and acted no more above board then their own Delegates had beforehand with publique approbation by them and intentions are only known unto God Thus hath this Solemn League and Covenant which our Brethren and others may well call Sacred and the most sure engagement between creatures in this world been by every hand made common and prophane ravished by the interest and ends of sinister and self-ish Spirits tost up and down and turnd as a nose of wax into the form of every design yea so abused and rent one part from the other the Means from the End and one Article from another that it seems to have no more substance left intire then what you find preserv'd in the Stationers shop by a true impression or in the Churches and Publique places by the careful hands of the Wardens kept untorn nor any more Soul and Life in it to bind a mans Conscience then only what the disaffected Spirits of some persons have of late breath'd into it But the last and worst abuse of it which may well be put down Instar omnium is That it is now sent forth as a Bull to denounce the Dreadful sentence of perjury on the Parliament and High Court of Justice for taking away the Kings person and as the great obstruction and plea against compliance with this present Government of a Common-wealth and is so ordered in this last use That when through the glorious actings of Providence we have escaped the Common snare we must by our own Consciences be made Religiously miserable And how sad must it needs be to all honest hearts That the Covenant which was at first intended as the most adaequate means of peace and happiness to these two Nations should at last be formed into an Engine of division and the greatest and only Impediment to a compleat Setlement of Peace and administred as the last Cordial to revive the lost hopes of our dying Enemies And after we have through God struck out all the Carnal weapons out of their hands yea separated the Head from that great body we should furnish them with refined and Spiritual Artillery and having cast off their chains should bind our selves by the wriths of Circumstantial and supposed Ingagements What are now the cries and Lamentations in prayers and Pulpits but the breach of The Solemn League and Covenant all the discontents Animosities disobediences to Authority take their Sanctuary in the Covenant there they are maintained and live and at length are resolv'd into this Grand case of Conscience viz Whether we may without perjury submit to the Government of a Common-wealth and take the new Ingagement enjoyned by the Parliament seeing they have taken away the Kings Person whom we Covenanted to preserve and have altered the Government all which is contrary to our former ingagements in the Covenant Though this be an old way used by most men to countenance their dislike of present duties by flying to conscience urging former ingagements as the Malignants did against the first Protestation and of late against the Covenant pressing their former Ingagements by the Oathes of Supremacy and Allegeance Yet because it is the utmost and last Plea that can be made against this Government and that honest and Consciencious men with whom I only desire to deale in this discourse may see what a weak Foundation they build their disaffections on and how little reason they have to stand off from obedience to this present happy setled Authority notwithstanding all that they have been formerly bound unto by The Solemn League and Covenant I shall offer to their view these following considerations about the nature of Obligations by Oathes and Covenants the ignorance or mistake of which is