Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	england_n	reform_a	4,212	5	9.5265	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50913	A vindication of the government in Scotland during the reign of King Charles II against mis-representations made in several scandalous pamphlets to which is added the method of proceeding against criminals, as also some of the phanatical covenants, as they were printed and published by themselves in that reign / by Sir George Mackenzie ...	Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691.	1691 (1691)	Wing M213; ESTC R11146	43,490	68

the natural consequences of their Covenant and Principles by which we leave the World to Iudge whether Sir George Mackenzie has not treated them with all modesty and tenderness and whether any Form of Government can possibly subsist where such wicked and pernicious Fooleries are propagated THE Solemn League and Covenant WEE Noblemen Barons Knights Gentlemen Citizens Burgesses Ministers of the Gospel and Commons of all sorts in the Kingdoms of Scotland England and Ireland by the Providence of GOD living under one King and being of one reformed Religion Having before our eyes the Glory of GOD and the Advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ the Honour and Happiness of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity and the true Publick Liberty Safety and Peace of the Kingdoms wherein every ones private condition is included And calling to mind the treacherous and bloody Plots Conspiracies Attempts and Practices of the Enemies of GOD against the True Religion and Professors thereof in all places especially in these three Kingdoms ever since the Reformation of Religion and how much their Rage Power and Presumption are of late and at this time increased and exercised whereof the deplorable estate of the Church and Kingdom of Ireland the distressed estate of the Church and Kingdom of England and the dangerous estate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland are present and publick Testimonies We have now at last after other means of Supplication Remonstance Protestations and Sufferings for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter ruine and destruction according to the commendable practice of these Kingdoms in former times and the Example of GOD's People in other Nations after mature deliberation resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and solemn League and Covenant Wherein we all subscribe and each one of us for himself with our hands lifted up to the most high GOD do Swear 1. THat we shall sincerely really and constantly through the Grace of GOD endeavour in our several places and Callings the Preservation of the reformed-Reformed-Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government against our Common Enemies The Reformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of GOD and the Example of the best Reformed Churches And shall Endeavour to bring the Churches of GOD in the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and Vniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church Government Directory for Worship and Catechising That We and our Posterity after us may as Brethren live in Faith and Love and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us 2. That we shall in like manner without respect of persons endeavour the Extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church Government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellours and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-Deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Prophaneness and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the Power of Godliness Lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues And that the Lord may be One and his Name One in the three Kingdoms 3. We shall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in our several Vocations endeavour with our Estates and Lives mutually to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of the Parliaments and the Liberties of the Kingdoms And to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the True Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms That the World may bear witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish His Majesties Iust Power and Greatness 4. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the Discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any Faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant That they may be brought to publick Tryal and receive condign punishment as the degree of their Offences shall require or deserve or the supream Iudicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient 5. And whereas the happiness of a Blessed Peace between these Kingdoms denyed in former times to our Progenitors is by the good Providence of GOD granted unto us and hath been lately concluded and setled by both Parliaments We shall each one of us according to our place and Interest endeavour that they may remain conjoined in a firm Peace and Union to all Posterity And that Iustice may be done upon the wilful Opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article 6. We shall also according to our places and callings in this common Cause of Religion Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof and shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly by whatsoever Combination Perswasion or Terrour to be divided and withdrawn from this Blessed Vnion and Conjunction whether to make defection to the contrary part or to give our selves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this Cause which so much concerneth the Glory of GOD the Good of the Kingdoms and Honour of the King But shall all the days of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition and promote the same according to our power against all Lets and Impediments whatsoever and what we are not able our selves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known that it may be timely prevented or removed All which we shall do as in the sight of GOD. And because these Kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocations against GOD and his Son Jesus Christ as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers the fruits thereof we profess and declare before GOD and the World our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins and for the sins of these Kingdoms especially that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel that we have not laboured for the Purity and Power thereof and that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our Hearts nor to walk worthy of him in our lives which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us and our true and unfeigned purpose desire and endeavour for our selves and all others under our Power and Charge both in publick and in private in all Duties we owe to GOD and Man to amend our lives and each one to go before another in the example of a real Reformation That the Lord may turn away his wrath and heavy indignation and Establish these Churches and Kingdoms in Truth and Peace And this Covenant we make in the

Allegeance to Devils they being his Vicegerents and not Gods V. We then being made free by God and their own doings he giving the Law and they giving the Transgression of that Law which is the cause that we are loosed now from all Obligations both Divine and Civil to them and knowing that no Society of Men that hath Corruption in them which always is ready to beget disorders and do injuries unless restrained and punished by Laws and Government can be without Laws and Government and withal desiring to be governed in the best way that is least lyable to Inconveniencies and Tyranny We do declare that we shall set up over our selves and over all that God shall give us Power Government and Governours according to the Word of God and especially according to that word Exod. 18. v. 21. Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the People able Men such as fear God Men of Truth hating Covetousness and that we shall no more commit the Government of our selves and the making of Laws for us to any one single Person and lineal Successor we not being tied as the Iews were by God to one Family Government not being an Inheritance but an Office which must be squared not to the Interest and Lust of a Man but to the good of the Commonwealth and this kind of Government by a single Person c. being most liable to Inconveniencies as sad and long experience may now teach us and aptest to Degenenate into Tyranny Moreover we declare that these Men whom we shall set over us shall be ingaged to govern us principally by that Civil or Judicial Law given by God to his People of Israel especially in matters of Life and Death and in all other things also so far as they teach excepting only that Law viz. anent Slaves which does not agree with that Christian Liberty established in all Christendom only violated by our Tyrants and some others of late and that of Divorces and Poligamy the one being not a Law but a Permission granted upon the account of the hardness of their Hearts the other being a Sinful Custom contrair to the first institution of Marriage crept in into the Church We know that Men of Malignant and perverse Spirits that has not a higher God than a wicked King which suits only with their lustful licentiousness and it may be others with them that seemed to be of better Principles will raise an ignorant Clamour upon this that it is a Fifth-Monarchy and we Fifth-Monarchy-men and will labour to amuse the People with strange Terms and put odious names on good things to make them hateful as their way is but if this be their Fifth-Monarchy we both are and ought to be such and that according to his word VI. It being the work of the Ministers of the Gospel to preach propagate and defend the Kingdom of God and to preserve the Doctrine Worship Discipline Government Liberties and Priviledges of the same from all Corruptions and Incroachments of Rulers and all others And seeing that the Ministers of the Church of Scotland at least the greatest part of them before not only were defective in Preaching and Testifying against the Acts of these Rulers for overthrowing Religion and Reformation abjuring our Covenant made with God establishing a Government in the Church which that King calls his own Government and so not God's contrair to our Covenant Against inacting of that Blasphemous so Calvin calls that Supremacy of Henry the Eighth upon which this Prerogative is founded and from which it is derived and is no less if not more jnjurious to Christ and inslaving to his Church and Sacrilegious Prerogative given to a King over the Church of God and against the other Acts and Incroachments of His Church and hindred others also who were willing and would have testified against them and censured some that did it for which together with the other Causes in their Trust and Administration we may say God hath left them to do worse things but also hath voted in that Meeting which they are pleased to call an Assembly of Ministers but how justly let Men judge an Acceptation of that Liberty founded upon and given by vertue of that blasphemously arrogated and usurped Power and hath appeared before their Courts to accept of that Liberty and to be enacted and authorized there as Ministers and so hath willingly for this is an elicit Act of the Will and not an Act of Force and Constraint translated the Power of sending out ordering censuring for as they accept of their Liberty from them so they submit to their Censures and Restraints at least all of them who were yet tried with it and others of them appeared and acknowledged before their Courts that they would not have done these things that they were charged with if they had thought it would have offended them Ministers departing from the Court of Christ and subjection to the Ministry to the Courts of Men and subjection to the Magistrate which had been impious and injurious to Christ and His Church though they had been Righteous and Lawful Rulers and by their changing of Courts according to common Law hath changed their Masters and of the Ministers of Christ are become the Ministers of Men and bound to answer to them as oft as they will and as by the acceptation of this Liberty in such manner they have Translated the Power so they have given up and utterly quit the Government and a succession of a Presbyterian Ministry for as these were not granted them of their Masters so they Exercise their Ministry without them and so by this as the Ecclesiastick-Government is swallowed up in the Civil if the rest had followed them the Ministry should have also been extinct with themselves and the whole Work of Reformation had been buried in Oblivion not so much as the remembrance of it kept up These together with the other of their Commissions in Preaching the lawfulness of paying that Tribute declared to be imposed for the bearing down of the true Worship of God which they falsly termed Seditious Conventicles and their advising these poor Prisoners to subscribe the Bond and consequently could not but so advise all others if put to it for the hazard that Men were in will not make a real change of the morality of that Action and beside the rest may be put to it upon the same hazard and so if the one should advise which consequently they must do and the other should subscribe this would altogether close that door which the Lord hath made use of in all the Churches of Europe for casting off the Yoke of the Whore and restoring the Truth and Purity of Religion and Reformation and freedom of the Churches and should have stopped all ingress for Men when once brought under Tyranny to recover their Liberty again These Ministers then not being followers of Christ who before Pontius Pilate gave a good Confession which was that he was a King