Selected quad for the lemma: nation_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nation_n	call_v	church_n	national_a	2,044	5	11.4074	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42357	Protesters no subverters, and presbyterie no papacie; or, A vindication of the protesting brethren, and of the government of the kirk of Scotland from the aspersions unjustly cast upon them, in a late pamphlet of some of the resolution-party, entituled, A declaration, &c. With a discovery of the insufficiency, inequality and iniquity of the things propounded in that pamphlet, as overtures of union and peace. Especially, of the iniquity of that absolute and unlimited submission to the sentences of church-judicatories that is holden forth therein, and most unjustly pleaded to belong to the being and essence of presbyterial government. By some witnesses to the way of the protestation.	Guthrie, James, 1612?-1661, attributed name.	1658 (1658)	Wing G2264; ESTC R221886	66,607	126

so in the end to make them run quite away from their old friends as men to be scarred at like children really afrighting themselves with the things which they devised to afright others But let us come to that upon which they lay the stresse and weight of all these harsh constructions to wit their actings and irregular practices as they are pleased to call them being such as in their opinion are contrary to all order and do clearly tend to the subversion of the Government Of these they do reckon a great many in their Representation published at London which as to that head which yet taketh up a great part of that Book is so fraughted with groundlesse alleagances and grosse mis-representations we shall abstain from our Brethrens word of foul slanders of matters of fact some of them feigned and others reported with all the distortion that a prejudiced mind can reach that we do profess though proportionable and correspondent assertions and carriages in their Agent and his industrious spreading of it did make us conceive that it might be his yet untill now that they have owned it in a publick Declaration we could hardly be perswaded that it was theirs But we shall leave th●… full answering of these things to its proper place and shall now only speak to those particulars tha●… are shortly repeated in their Declaration And i●… the entry do desire our Brethren seriously to consider whether they have done well by their departing from their former principles in order to the Malignant party and hugging them in their arms and bringing them into the Judicatories of State and Kirk against a publick solemn Vow and Engagement sworn by the whole Land to the Lord to the contrary and by abusing the Government and turning the edge both of Doctrine and of Discipline from off them and against their Brethren and many of the Godly in the Nation to tempt them to cast at the Government and to fall upon means of defence that haply might have been prejudicial thereunto We do professe we do judge it a special mercy to this whole Church that these things have not prevailed upon the protesting Brethren to the designing and doing of that really wherewith they are unjustly charged and if God had not instructed them with a strong hand to the contrary who knows but corruption meeting with great provocations and strong temptations might have turned them aside to such unhappy purposes It shall be our Brethrens wisdom if they desire to preserve the Government to improve it to edification and for the comfort and encouraging of the Godly and purging of the House of God otherwise all their professing and pleading and appearing for it will do but little to commend it to men's consciences and if it have not a root there it is not like long to subsist in outward professions The first particular is as they call it The declining the Authority of the supream Church-Iudicatories of this Nation once and again They mean the Protestations against the two late pretended Assemblies at S. Andrews and Dundee and Edinburgh in both which the Government of the Church by Presbyteries and Synods National and Provincial is clearly asserted and an honourable testimony given thereunto by the protesting Brethren with distinct and full profession of their purpose and resolution to adhere thereunto Nor is there in ●…ny of these Protestations nor in any thing of theirs that hath been w●…itten or published in defence thereof one tittle that strikes against any thing that relateth to the intrinsecal constitution and being of the Government of the Kirk of Scotland but all the reasons of the Protestations against those meetings are upon the undue qualifications of and prelimitations made by persons assuming the exercise of Government with such other things as are altogether extrinseck to the Government it self they have learned to distinguish betwixt the Government of the Church and the male-administrations and Corruptions of the Church-Governors and not to condemn the one when they are necessarily called to give a testimony against the other Yea the duty and care they owe to the preservation of the Government constraineth them to testifie against the abusing and cortupting of it So did our fathers of old whose Protestations against corrupt National Church Assemblies are upon record to this day and so far have they been by men of sound judgments from being judged because thereof to be against the Government that they are honoured amongst the greatest patrons and preservers thereof The protesting Brethren do not acknowledge these two Meetings to be any of the supream Church-Judicatories in this Nation nor to have any Authority belonging unto them but look upon them as unfree and corrupt Assemblies for the reasons long ago published to the world that have not upon them the stamp of any of the Courts of Jesus Christ neither do they think that testifying against the corruptions of many of these that are now in the exercise of the Government of the Church is to dissent from or to do injury to the Government it self And we cannot but say whatever be our Brethren's intentions in studying some way to wrap up the Authority of these two Meetings and of that part of the Ministerial Church which is of their judgment as it were in the very being of the Government for this they seem to hint though it be not directly spoke in that word of the established Government and Iudicatories of this Kirk which they set in the frontispiece and carry along in their Paper as if the Government could not be owned nor subsist the Authority of these two Meetings being denied and the corruptions of men discovered and acknowledged We say whatsoever they do herein to please themselves and to amuse the ignorant yet the protesting Brethren do not so judge and the other by doing so make moe adversaries to the ●…overnment than there is just cause ●…he second particular which they alleage is Their planting of Congregations in a tumultuous and disorderly way without respect to the Iudicatories of the Kirk or to the just interest of the People of the Congregation and counteracting to the resolutions and determinations of the Iudicatories when any of them are pleased to be dissatisfied therewith To carry on the great things of God that do concern the Kingdom of His Son Jesus Christ and the eternal state of souls in a tumultuous and disorderly way though there were no more were a fault great enough but to do it upon no better foundations than meer pleasure and for no better ends but for serving of our own lusts were a very grievous and hatefull sin But let us see what cause there is ●…or this great charge The resolution Brethren did by those Resolutions of theirs taken in an occasional meeting of the Commissioners of the General Assembly many of that number receiving either no advertisement or else such as was out of time to keep the meeting in the year 1651. give their judgment