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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	call_v	law_n	moral_a	2,598	5	9.2562	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57864	A vindication of the Church of Scotland being an answer to a paper, intituled, Some questions concerning Episcopal and Presbyterial government in Scotland : wherein the latter is vindicated from the arguments and calumnies of that author, and the former is made appear to be a stranger in that nation/ by a minister of the Church of Scotland, as it is now established by law.	Rule, Gilbert, 1629?-1701.	1691 (1691)	Wing R2231; ESTC R6234	39,235	42

Scotland and to so great a number and to whom the people were under a relation as their Pastors being thrust from their Charges for their faithfulness in that time of Tryal and others being obtruded on them many of whom were very unqualified for the Ministry and they entring without the peoples call or consent they would not own them for their Pastors nor thought themselves obliged to wait on their Ministry but thought it their Duty rather to hear their own faithful Pastors or others who walked in their steps who were not unministred by any Church-Act but only restrained by the force of a Civil Law which could neither derogate from their Ministerial Authority nor loose the relation that the people had to them I deny not but some went beyond the limits of this Moderation but that is not to be imputed to all the Presbyterians being neither the conclusion of any Church-meeting among them nor the sentiment of all § 4. This being considered taketh off the edge of all that he enlargeth on about the Episcopal party agreeing with us in the Confession of Faith Directory for Worship and Administration of Sacraments For it is on none of these accounts that we withdraw from them but partly because they suffer none to be Ministers among them but such as comply with Episcopal Jurisdiction partly because they deprived us of the Ministers that we stand in relation to and ought to own partly because the Ministers obtruded on us are none of our choice as they ought to be by the priviledge that Christ hath given to his Church And indeed many of them unfit to be chosen and partly because this change is made not by any Church-Authority that we can own but by the State and by an unlawful Church-power It seemeth his Arguments are run low when he chargeth us with Nonconformity even to the Presbyterian Church in that we use not the Doxology nor the words of the Lord's Prayer nor the Belief at Baptism For when or where were these injoyned by the Presbyterian Church And if they had been we cannot by such Injunctions be bound to what is after found to be inconvenient That we are tyed to the use of the Doxology by the Covenant he doth most ridiculously affirm For whoever esteemed that a part of the Reformation then engaged to Using the Lord's Prayer we never condemned but that Christ hath enjoyned the using of these express words or that that Prayer was given as a form of words rather than as a Directory for the matter of Prayer we deny Neither do we condemn the use of the Creed but we think that they who have their Children baptized should profess their Faith so as may more clearly distinguish them from Popish and other Hereticks than that Confession of Faith can do QUEST V. In this Question he advanceth a Paradox The Question is Whether the Penal Laws against Scotch Presbyterians had any thing of Persecution in them THis Question he concludeth Negatively with the same brow that Maimburg and other French Popish Writers do affirm That all the Protestants who lately in France turned Papists did turn voluntarily without any compulsion and that no Rigour nor Persecution hath been used to move them to this change This is a degree of effrontedness of bidding Defiance to Truth and the God of it of bold imposing on the Reason yea and the common Sense of Mankind that the World doth purely owe to this Age and to Jesuitical obfirmation of mind But let us hear how he will prove this his strange assertion As these Laws have beat out the Brains of many good Christians that could not comply with them so this Man thinketh by his Arguings to beat out of the brains of such as remain all Sense and Reason whereby they may judge of what they hear see and feel In clearing the state of his Question he confesseth There may be too severe Laws under which men may suffer for Conscience-sake this will increase the wonder of intelligent unbyassed men who know our Affairs that such Laws are possible and yet ours are innocent but maketh the Question to be Whether our Laws were not necessary for preserving true Religion and publick Peace or whether they were the uncharitable effects of a peevish Resentment inconsistent with good Nature and Christianity Tho' even that cloak of smooth words will not hide the nakedness of the Bloody Laws that he pleadeth for nor could warrant a man that believeth Heaven or Hell to plead for such cruel Execution of them as was among us Yet this state of the Question is not the same with what in the Title is proposed For there have been few Persecutions in the World for which Necessity hath not been pretended and that were given forth to be for preserving a false Religion or for hindring publick Peace or that the Actors in them would call peevish and inconsistent with good Nature and Christianity or Moral Goodness And it is certain that where publick Peace may be preserved without such severe Laws the enacting of them is Persecution which was our case for nothing caused the sad breaches of the Peace that were in this Nation in 1666. and 1679. but the unsupportable Hardships tending to make wise men mad that they who feared God lay under by the severity of these Laws and the Barbarity used in executing them § 2. To vindicate the Laws from all blame of Persecution he giveth a lame unjust and disingenuous account of them Wo to Posterity if they be abused with such false History it is little Honesty to transmit such things to after-ages but it is the height of Impudence to publish them among such as were Eye-witnesses of them and among whom the sad effects of them remain with grief and smarting to this day I shall first examine the account that he giveth of these Laws and then shew how defective it is by supplying what he hath omitted He telleth a story of the endeavours of the Synod of Edenburgh to have Presbytery established and who can blame them especially seeing their Attempt was only an Application to a Person of Interest with His Majesty He telleth us likewise of their sending a Clergy-man whom he will not name to the same Great Man who is also nameless with a threatning Message That if they would not settle Presbytery they should have the people let loose upon them This story I never heard before nor know I how to examine the truth of it neither can I meet with any Person that hath heard of it and so have more than probable grounds to let it pass as a Forgery And if it had been true was this private surmise a sufficient ground for a Parliament to make such Bloody Laws against so great a Body of People as the Dissenters Men will think it a weak Cause that must be supported by such silly shifts I take no notice of the Act annulling so many preceding Parliaments and their Acts tho' this were