Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	church_n	ecclesiastical_a	synod_n	2,937	5	9.6304	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56284	Scotlands holy vvar a discourse truly, and plainly remonstrating, how the Scots out of a corrupt pretended zeal to the covenant have made the same scandalous, and odious to all good men, and how by religious pretexts of saving the peace of Great Brittain they have irreligiously involved us all in a most pernitious warre / by H.P. ...	Parker, Henry, 1604-1652.	1651 (1651)	Wing P421; ESTC R40061	65,174	82

Presbyteries and Assemblies as the Scots would have us to the dishonouring of our Common wealth yet we have preserved it from abolition and utter dissolution The truth is in pursuance of our Covenant we have consulted with a Synod of Divines about the best method of Discipline and they are not able to satisfie us that the word of God the rule limited by the Covenant for our Reformation does invest any convention of Clergy-men who claim to be the only due Representants of the Church and immediate Vice-gerents of Christ with supremacy of independent power in all causes Ecclesiasticall The Pope claims no more in the pale of the Italian Church the Popish Cardinals and Bishops in Spain France c. claim lesse and the Protestant Prelates whom we lately ejected for Usurpers never claimed halfe so much Now the word of God is so farre from holding forth to us any such vast power in persons Ecclesiasticall that it's information is contrary viz. That the Apostles and Disciples of our Saviour for many years after his death assumed no more Authority on earth then he assumed that our Saviour plainly disclaimed all jurisdiction and dominion in this world that by pract●se as well as precept he quasht all rivality about power or precedence amongst his own dearest followers Besides if any such spirituall supremacy were vested by divine right in any such Representants of the Church and vicars of Christ it were necessary that exact obedience in all things should bepayd them by all Inferiours and if such obedience were due it would be consequently necessary that they should be free from errour else the alleadged supremacy would serve to no great purpose and we know God and nature produce not great matters but for purposes as great This made the Romish Hierarchists rationally assert an infallible spirit when they had once asserted an ūlimitable power in the Church for where the Scripture is clear there needs no soveraign Judg every man is a sufficient Interpreter to himselfe and where the Scripture is doubtfull the doubt is to be cleared by something else of the same indisputable authority or else that defect is not supplyed no● can the same submission be demanded Wherefore upon this account we say that unlesse our supream Church Lords when they take us off from our own judgments cannot convince us by divine authority of cleer Scripture wil not convince us of some other divine authority in themselves of the same alloy as Scripture is for the inforcing of our acquiescence they deale worse with us then the Pope does with his Vassals Moreover that power in the Church which Eclipses and perturbes civill power cannot be supposed to be of Christs institution but such is the power of the Clergy in Scotland many ways Ergo For first clashings may be about what is purely a Civill case and what is purely Ecclesiasticall and all such clashings are exceeding dangerous 2 Since there are very few cases that are not mixt and as few mixt cases that are not unequally mixt great questions may arise to whether Tribunall the case shall be first refer'd when it is equally mixt and how the Tribunalls shall agree upon executing their decrees where the case is unequally mixt especially if the decrees be contrary as they may be In the year 1648. the Representative State of Scotland Voted a war with England necessary the Representative Kirk Voted the same unlawfull which contrary Votings might have confounded both for if the war was necessary the State might suffer much by the Churches seditious malediction and if the war was unlawfull yet the people having no more warrant to obey the Ecclesiasticall then Civill power in matters of that nature must needs be in a strange distraction and that distraction at that time might have created ethquakes in the whole Nation It should seem want of force in the party adhering to the Kirk preserved them at that time from a bloodie ingagement against the contrary party which might have devoured and swallowed up all For as soon as Hamilton was defeated in England the Kirk party got help from the English Army and by force wrested the Government out of Lannericks hands and then again had not Lannericks side been too weak another flame might have been kindled and perhaps have continued unquenched to this day Now if the temporal sword be in part spirituall and the cases of warre be held so equally mixt in Scotland that both the supreme independent Councels claim an equall judgement in them and do sometimes judge contrarily and there can be yet no certain rule given for the reconciling of those contrarieties it is manifest that these two coordinate powers may be destructive to the people and it is as manifest that no destructive institution can derive it self from God Much more might be said of the encroachments of the Clergie upon the Laity in cases mixt by pretending sometimes to an equality of interest in some cases where the Laities ought to be greater and pretending to all at other times where the Laities interest ought to be equall the Popish Clergie scarce ever used more jugling and trumperie in these affairs then the Presbyterian Ministery now uses In the stating of the present war in Scotland the Kirkmen go hand in hand with the Committee of Estates and in their Answers to our English Declarations they interpose in all points whatsoever whether religious politick juridicall or military and whether they be points of Law or matters of fact But if a Minister preach sedition in a Pulpit this appertains not to the secular Magistrate for though sedition be a secular busines and sedition may be preacht by a Minister in a Pulpit yet a Ministers Pulpit sedition is no matter for secular cognizance Was the Laity ever worse bridled when it was the Popes Asse But of this no more I will onely touch briefly upon the end of all this spirituall coordination and so shut up this point The Clergie of Scotland have spoken great and magnificent things of the use of their spirituall sword and the principall allegation for it was that without such a sword in the hands of the Kirk secular Princes and Grandees could not be awed and restrained in many enterprises and crimes very dangerous to the Church But who can imagine they ever beleeved themselves herein when in the processe of all our late wars that very Kirk it self which told the King He was guilty of a deluge of blood and had made himself and his throne and his posterity obnoxious to Gods high indignation thereby yet never offered to strike with the weapon of excommunication all that while if there was any correcting restraining healing recovering vertue in that weapon why did they uncharitably forbear to use it why did they not pitie those multitudes of Innocents that perished daily under his fury why did they suffer the King himself to run on and die in his persecutions And if their pretended weapon had really no such

feared we have provoked by superstitious vowing and swearing 4ly We cannot finde that ever the people was rightly fitted or at all benefited by these new sacramentall Leagues or rather politicall Sacraments for in England we had too many that would take the Kings Oaths when He was prevalent and the Parliaments also when they were prevalent and in Scotland Montrosses victory left lamentable spectacles of humane treacherie and impietie as to the Covenant No sooner had he in 1644. woon one pitcht Field but the Nation generally flow'd in to Him to submit unto his new royall bonds with curses upon them that had forcibly clogd their consciences by contrary ones before and no sooner had D Lesly routed Him but the same people again shifted Montrosses bonds with detestations as high and bitter as they had the Parliaments before This is a prodigious example exceedingly to be deplored not onely by the Scots but by all mankinde But to proceed The breaches and hostilities which at this day are sprung out of the Covenant betwixt the Covenanters of both Nations are too visible the question is therfore whether we shall charge these mischiefs upon the ill composure of the Covenant it self or upon the malice of the Covenanters and if upon the Covenanters whether are more guilty the English or the Scotch And first as to the Covenant it self it seems to me that even that was not compiled so briefly so clearly and so impartially as it might have been and that has given some occasion of stumbling to some but certainly blood had never been drawn by brethren so leagued together as we are had it not been for the ignorance arrogance and high injustice of the Covenanters Antiquity which was famous for ingenuity had not any use to charge their humane contracts much lesse divine with so various and heterogeneous branches as this Covenant is charged withall some points of it are divine some morall some civil some are of higher some of meaner concernment and all of them thus odly compacted together swell it up into too rude a lump Moreover since variety of parts made it more grosse and by consequence more obnoxious to doubts and intricacies there ought to have been more care to distinguish betwixt those parts which were coordinate and those which were subordinate and in case some provisoes proved inconsistent with others it should have been predetermined which should supersede and which should be superseded The King by one clause as He is King is to be maintained equally with Religion c. yet by another clause as He is a profest enemy to the Covenant is to be pursued by arms and brought to condigne punishment The safetie of Religion may possibly be irreconcileable with the safety of the King and the safety of the King confessedly owes a subordination to the safety of Religion yet it is left dubious by the Covenant how far the inferior here shall give way to the superior The unity and peace of the Nations is the scope of one Article in the Covenant and that Article had a high place in the intent of those which indighted the Covenant yet neither does this Article condemne all war as unlawfull betwixt the Nations nor yet prescribe when it may be judged Lawfull nor by whom The Scots by one interpretation of the Covenant are more strictly imbodied with us then formerly and so to be assisting in our Reformation yet by another interpretation they are to maintain to us our Nationall rights and not at all to interpose in judging of our English affairs and how can they reform where they may not judge or how can they judge where they have no propriety or how can they challenge more by vertue of this Covenant-union in England then we do in Scotland or how can confusion of interests be introduced where there remains a coordination so equally and justly preserved In the next place there is a palpable partiality in the Covenant whereby is easie to be perceived in which Nation it received its being for the Church of England and Ireland are to be reformed but the Church of Scotland is to be preserved in its perfection of Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government In summe all three Nations are to purge away whatsoever is contrary to sound doctrine and the power of Godlines and the only true standart for such purgation is the book of God and forasmuch as that is as truly a standart to the Scots as to the English they though the Covenant prejudges and presumes them perfect are to be tryed by this Book as well as we are and as that which is defective in them must be rectified by this standart so that which is not defective in us must be justified by the same We conclude therefore justly that either the Article it self pre-judges us or is by them ill prejudged when they assume that we are to conform to them more then they are to conform to us for so much as there is but one only book to which we are bound equally both of us to conform and of that Book they are no more authenticall interpreters then we are These exceptions and perhaps more might be taken against the Covenant it self and the manner of obtruding it but we fix not hereupon nor will we mention it as to the genuine intent of it without reverence the main offence that has been given to the world has been given by the Takers of it in a false sense not by it self The inquirie therefore at this time is whether the English or Scots whether the Presbyterians or Independents are most blameable before God and Men for the scandall which has been given by occasion of this Solemn League and Covenant For the better discussion hereof we shall do well to observe first which of the parties has been most clamorous against the other ●ly What the principall matter of those clamors has been 3ly What may be most probably aymed at by the raisers of those clamors 4ly What the issue has been As to the first it is apparent that the Scoch Presbyterians were the first compilers of the Covenant and that they still continue to set a sacred value upon it even unto a great degree of superstition and t is as apparent that they had not been so strangely transported with rage against us but for our attributing lesse then they do to it The Covenant is their Word in the day of battell the Covenant in specie is carried along by their Priests when they march into the Field as if it were held oraculous and had the same presence of God ingaged to it as the Ark had amongst the Jews The Covenant in Law is made transcendent to an Act of Parliament nay if both Nations should agree in one Act of Parliament that Act could neither make more intense nor more remisse the obliging force of this Covenant This Covenant is sometimes call'd Gods Covenant and inscribed by the Scots in the same table with Gods Covenant of mercy

to his Church and therefore when they will animate the people against us in war they tell them that God cannot deliver up his Turtle dove and his Covenant into the hands of such Enemies Now because we come not up to this hight of adoration we seem despisers of the Covenant in the Scots eyes and because we seem despisers of so holy a thing accounted by them the very soul of Religion and policy their gall flows out most violently against us They tell us we have brought great scandall and reproach upon the Name of God the Name of his people and the study of piety that we have not onely broken the Solemn League and Covenant betwixt God and these Nations but have in effect rejected it and trampled upon it are become enemies to all the ends of it yea persecuters of the servants and people of God for their adherence to it This in effect has been their burthen against us for divers yeers though it be as void of truth as it is of charity and though we who may more justly instance in this and divers other things as breaches of the Covenant on their parts have never made the Covenant any ground of quarrell or reproach against them T is far from us to under-value the Covenant we hold it a religious tie of mutuall assistance betwixt the Nations against the common Enemies of Religion Liberty and Union and so we think honorably of it only we make it no spell nor idol nor can we beleeve that it ties us to any duty which our Pretestation and Vow tied us not to before nor did our Protestation and Vow create any new duties to us when we first entred into them In the next place though there be many heavy breaches of Covenant ubrayded to us yet all of them resolve into these two That we make not good what we have covenanted for either to God or to the King They could never say till this last Summer nor can they truly say so of us last Summer that we ever entred their Countrey to disturbe their peace to claim or usurp any share in their Government to lay taxes seize Towns waste Villages and destroy Natives amongst them as they have done amongst us all that they can object to us is concerning injuries done to other parties within our own territories where by the Covenant they have no jurisdiction at all In the behalf of God they complain that our professed Faith is nothing else but a mixture of Arrianisme Socinianisme Antinomianisme Familisme Antiscripturisme Anabaptisme Erastianisme and Independency but they know well that for matter of Doctrine we still retain the old Articles of our Church without any staggering at all in the least and for matter of Discipline we are willing to comply with them so far as they comply with Gods Word but in this we have our eyes in our heads as well as they and t is no Law for us to damne the opinion of Erastus or the person of any Independent because they by them are dishonorably spoken of The truth is the Independent departs not so far from Erastus as the Presbyterian and Erastus is no Freind to the supreme power of Synods nor the uncontroulable dominion of Priests and this makes the Independent so injurious to God otherwise call'd the Kirk otherwise call'd Kirkmen were it not alone for this sin in the Independent Arrainisme Socinianisme c. though we were therewith more infected then the Scots as we are not would make no breach of Covenant at all amongst us In behalf of the King they complain that we have treated him not onely as an Enemy to the Covenant but also irreconcileable to the very being of our State and hereupon they take upon them to bewail the hard condition of the English that they are loaded with so many and so great taxes and subjected so rigorous and obdurate Laws which shall receive Answers in due place But in the mean time t is neither the Kings nor the peoples sufferings that stirs such a deal of compassion and zeal in the bowels of our fellow-Covenanters t is the change of our Government by which they perceive at last they themselves are verie great loosers The truth is the difference betwixt the King and us heretofore was of great advantage to them and this advantage though it was no property or right of theirs but a wrong and damage of ours is now faln away from them The King shall now have no more occasion to give them pensions in Scotland nor gratifications here to do us dis-service in behalf of his Prerogative nor shall we be any more bound to hire their service against the Crown and we must know that these double offices or ambidextrous versatile arts of doing services and dis-services was as great a revenue to them especially since these last troubles as the intra does of all Scotland Now this therefore in the third place may save us our labour of further inquiry about the ends and aims of the Scots in their exclamations and expostulations against us when they contest in behalf of the Covenant We see what the Clergie in Scotland and here are so thirstie of they would fain have Consistories in every Parish where they might have a free power to dispence the Ordinances of Christ to such as prove observant of them and to cast out all that are not submissive enough and for fear Lay Judges should ballance too much there they would have Classes above better defecated of such secular persons and for fear lest those Classes should be controuled by Parliaments they would have Assemblies above all to act for Christ in all matters whatsoever military or judiciall wherein Christs Throne that is the Kirk may be concerned No Protestant Bishops ever aspired to so sollid a power on earth nay except in the Popes own Patrimony where He is a Prince no Bishops in Europe und●r any other Lay Princes are allowed to sit and act so independently upon a Commission so large as the Scotch Assemblies do and therfore we cannot wonder if such a new Hierachy as this of the Presbyterians be so desirable amongst our Kirk-men Furthermore when such impetuous appetites of all the Clergie in Scotland backs with some thousands of ours in England shall also fall in at the same time with the interests of so many of the Nobility Gentry and Souldiery in Scotland as drove a very thriving trade heretofore by siding sometimes with the King against us at other times with us against the King and these things can be no other way compast or pretended to but by the ambiguous sense of the Covenant we cannot wonder if the Covenant be held so venerable a thing as it is in Scotland and made the price of blood and war as to every puntilio in it More then this needs not be said of the Scotch Presbyterians if as much could be said of the English Independents and that they may have as fair hopes and probable ends