Linguistic DNA - Concept Modelling Demonstrator

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	charles_n	king_n	philip_n	1,962	5	9.5788	5	false

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67901	A review of the Covenant, wherein the originall, grounds, means, matter, and ends of it are examined: and out of the principles of the remonstrances, declarations, votes, orders, and ordinances of the prime covenanteers, or the firmer grounds of Scripture, law, and reason, disproved.	Langbaine, Gerard, 1609-1658.	1645 (1645)	Wing L371; ESTC R210023	90,934	119

the glory of God and the maintenance of true Religion and weigh withall Their strength and His weaknesse at that time he having but a few men to guard him lesse money to pay them nothing at all to arme them save a good Cause the onely thing that his adversaries wanted and see how the Scales are turned since how they are enforced to call in Forreigne assistance and verifie their owne prophetick feare of invasion we cannot but acknowledge His Majesty found that blessing which he desired but whether it were the curse of God that thus farre hindered the accomplishment of their desires we are not forward to pronounce After they had been twice foyled by His Majesty first by His Pen and since by His Sword when writing and fighting would not serve the turne they fell to vowing and swearing their City Covenants led the way and to bring on the Scots this Nationall followesâ— which their owne elect d Orator tells them As it is the last Oath they are like to take in this kind so it is their last Refuge Tabula post naufragium If this help them not they are like to remaine till their dying day an unhappy People This then being as is supposed their Achilles upon which the fate of Greece depends I have adventured to encounter it Though I must confesse the mindes of all men being long agoe preengaged and the grand controversie not likely to be decided by any other dispute then of the sword Discourses of this kinde are much out of date Nor can I conceive what other great advantage they can make of this Covenant unlesse it be to enrich themselves by the injust spoiles of some few men resolvedly honest who by refuseing of it shall give testimony to the world that they value the salvation of their soules above that of their Estates As for those many softer tempers who may be wonne by perswasions or forced by constraint to the taking of it they will no sooner have opportunity to free themselves from those inducements then they will hold themselves freed from any obligations laid upon them by this Oath which is no other then a band of iniquity as I shall endeavour to prove by thiâ— ensuing Discourse CHAP. II. The Grounds of the Covenant and false Assertions laid downe in the Preface disproved THe more sacred any Ordinance is in it selfe the more prodigiously Sacrilegious is their sinne who would abuse it to injust ends Such are all those who traiterously affected to the King of Heaven without any warrant from his Law upon false suggestions and surmises of their own dare counterfeit his Signe Manual a Vow and affix his Great Seal an Oath to any illegall Ordinance of their own invention The Preface to this Covenant if it be no part of it as a Maister Henderson saies it is yet it containes the grounds of it which ought to be so true and evident as might be fit foundations to build a Solemn Oath upon so unquestionably certaine that at least the Covenanteers themselves should not doubt of them Whereas here they present us with almost as many untruthes as lines and some of them such as themselves know and confesse to be false 1. For it is not true that all sorts of Commons in the three Kingdomes either yet have or probably ever will take this Covenant nor that it is indeed what is here insinuated and commonly given out a Nationall Covenant between the Kingdomes When the Covenanteers in the close declare their desire to be humbled for their own sinnes and the sinnes of these Kingdomes as they put a distinction betwixt their sinnes so must they admit a vast difference betwixt themselves and these Kingdomes of which they are but an inconsiderable part I mean for their worth and I hope for their number too 2. It is not true that all those who take the Covenant upon their own Principles Live under one King the States of Scotland and the two Houses in England are commonly affirmed to be above the King at least Coordinate with him His authority is b said to reside with them though the person of Charles Steward be not there This indeed makes them Kings but not one King so long as England and Scotland are not one Kingdome As for other inferiour Covenanteers they must be Subjects but whether to one or the many Kings let it be thus tried King Charles Commands they shall not swear this League the many Kings Command they shall and their Subjects they are to whom they obey 3. It is not true that all the Covenanteers are of one reformed Religion c The Scots have often Petitioned for unity in Religion and d professed there can be no hopes of it till there be first one form of Ecclesiasticall Government this being not yet effected amongst themselves they must not pretend to be of one Religion 4. It is not true that in making this Covenant they could have all those goodly things before their eyes which they here boast off Vision is properly of things present the Liberty and Peace of England Ireland could not be visible to them through the deplorable Estate of the one and the distressed Estate of the other Kingdome But if they meant the phrase in a figurative sense yet am I loath to beleeve they looked upon the Glory of God and the honour of His Maiesty with the same eye That they intended to make him a glorious God in the same sense they endeavour to make his Majesty a Glorious King 5. It is not true that they did or could possibly call to minde the plots attempts and practices against the true Religion and professors thereof which have been in all places ever since the Reformation It is now above sixscore yeers since Luther first broke the ice no doubt many plots have been against our Religion or the professors of it some perhaps bare plots stifled in the wombe and never known but to the plotters others might come to the birth attempts and practices but at such a distance of time and place that none of the Covenanteers could be privy to them then or were acquainted with them since either never committed to story or those Histories not now extant or at least not read noâ— observed or forgotten by the Covenanteers who therefore cannot now call to minde the plots in all places ever since the Reformation 6. And if they have not done so then is the succeeding position likewise false they did not enter into this Covenant after mature deliberation Surely two or e three dayes after the first proposall was too short a time to ripen such a Deliberation But if it must be held an essentiall marke of malignancy not to swallow without chewing whatsoever is offered by such hands who pronounce the sentence by that Law Qui dubitant desciverant If any one Covenanteer be truly guilty of such a politique rashnesse as to sweare upon trust that others have maturely deliberated though

they be Ecclesiasticall or Civill not in some cases onely but in all causes doth appertain Lastly when they were to take such an Oath as this without the consent and against the command of the Magistrate so utterly destitute of all the conditions required to a Lawfull Oath they could do no lesse then reforme the 39. Article which requires those conditions So that it cannot be denyed but they have strong inducements to reforme the Doctrine as well as the discipline and Government of England and as they vow them both in one clause so perhaps they intend them both in one sense the Reformation of Doctrine as well as Government must be a totall Extirpation of Branch and Root we must not have one chip left of the old block III. Their swearing the first Article to this end that they may live in Faith and that the Lord may be one amongst them implies that before and at the time of their entrance into this Covenanâ— they neither lived in Faith and so were Infidels nor was the Lord one amongst them and so without God in the world which I hope is not true But if faith be here taken for obedience as sometimes it is or for an assent to the truth of that Doctrine which is a acknowledged by the world for the Confession of Faith of the Church of England so I grant their late and present demeanour iâ— a sufficient demonstration they have not lived in that faith And I confesse we have been told in effect by some of their fore-runners that the Lord is not one where Prelacy is not extirpate b That the true Church of Christ consisteth of Saints Covenanted with God and themselves having power to Christ and all his Ordinances which the Assemblies of England want being violently compel'd to submit to another Christ of the Bishops devising and so are no true Church For the true visible Church is but one as the Baptisme but one and the Lord but one Iohn 10. 16. This was the scandalous imputation of the Brownists upon our Church in the beginning of their separation and it is shame and misery we should live to see it confirmed by a Solemne Oath IV. When they sweare in the second Article to extirpate Prelacy and that for this end least they be partakers in other mens sins this implyes not onely that Episcopacy is a sin which is an errant untruth but that if they should not labour for the extirpation of it in such a violent manner as they doe they should be guilty of that sinne This conceit was the maine ground of Separation both to the ancient Donatists and our moderne Brownists they both imagined that if the Church be any way stained with corruption in Doctrine or Discipline her Communion is hatefull and defiled and that whosoever joynes with her is c partaker of her sins and so in danger of her plagues Which is certainly false our Saviour did not partake in the sinnes of the Iewes yet he did communicate with them So long as we neither command nor counsell a â—inne to be done nor consent to the doeing of it nor commend it when it is done but barely permit it though it be naturally yet if it be not legally in our power to hinder it we are no way guilty of it God himselâ—e does permit sinne without sinne And if any man will be a Reformer without a Commission he must look to be checked with a Quis requisivit Israell sinned not by staying in AEgypt nor Lot by remaining in Sodom till the Lord sent Moses to call them and the Angell to fetch him out It was their affliction but not their fault to see those unrighteous dealings of their Neighbours which did vex but not pollute their righteous soules All sinne is to be avoyded but not by all meanes some are possible which are not lawfull Death is a certaine cure for all distempers but a man may not kill himselfe to avoyd intemperance nor make away his Children in their infancy to prevent the sinnes of their age The President of the New Assembly with his twenty assistant Brethren have published some truthes in this Argument which might have been of singular use had they come in time sufficient to stop that current of blood which has flowed from other principles then that which they now Preach to others but doe not practice themselves d They tell their more zealous Brethren who having conspired with them to extirpate this Government and sworne every man to goe before another in the example of a reall Reformation begin to gather themselves into Church societies Although it be the duty of all the Servants of Christ to keep themselves alwayes pure from corruption in Religion and to endeavour in an orderly way the Reformation of it yet it is an undoubted Maxime that it belongs to Christian Magistrates in an especiall manner to be authorizers of such a Reformation If this Maxime had been as well followed as it was knowne we had never had a Rebellion to make way for a Reformation How can they without blushing talke of an Orderly way to others who know their call and sitting to reforme where they doe is altogether disorderly But suppose the sins of Government did involve every one of our Nation in a common guilt what is this to the Scots Though Israell offend no necessity that Iudah should sin They may have sinâ— enough of their owne to reckon for though they should not sweare that those of another Kingdome shall be put upon their score and yet they doe it by vowing to extirpate Bishops c. least they be partakers in other mens sinnes V. That which they have undertaken to maintaine is not truly called in the sixt Article The common Cause of Religion Liberties and Peace of the Kingdomes The many Sects and different opinions among the Covenanteers and the reiterated desires of the Scots for unity in Religion abundantly prove that the same Religion is not common to them all And de facto the Religion Peace and Liberties of England and Ireland have been disturbed when the Scots enjoyed all theirs without opposition and may doe so still unlesse they will thrust their fingers into the fire when they need not The Cause of one Kingdome is not common to another though they be in subjection to the same King Philip the second might have done well to grant a toleration to the Protestants in the Low Countries though he had resolved never to allow the like in Spaine And His Majesty by reason of his necessary absence from thence may have granted some Liberties to Scotland which if he should doe in England would be in e disherison to the Crowne VI In the last Article they professe and declare to the World their unfeigned desire to be humbled for their owne sinnes Which profession the World that sees onely their Actions will â—carce admit to be true For it may well be conceived that the chiefe Heads among the

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