Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	death_n	law_n	wage_n	5,587	5	10.7161	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59963	A hind let loose, or, An historical representation of the testimonies of the Church of Scotland for the interest of Christ with the true state thereof in all its periods : together with a vindication of the present testimonie, against the Popish, prelatical, & malignant enemies of that church ... : wherein several controversies of greatest consequence are enquired into, and in some measure cleared, concerning hearing of the curats, owning of the present tyrannie, taking of ensnaring oaths & bonds, frequenting of field meetings, defensive resistence of tyrannical violence ... / by a lover of true liberty.	Shields, Alexander, 1660?-1700.	1687 (1687)	Wing S3431; ESTC R24531	567,672	774

words to express in short But in a word no Party of T●rtars invading the Land or Crue of Cutthroats destroying the Inhabitants or the most Capital Malefactors could have been more violently opposed or more vigorously sought to be suppressed than these poor Meeters were But I must make some more special hints 1. They not only raised more forces to exhaust the strength substance of the already wasted Country and laid on continued from one terme to another that wicked exaction cruel oppression of the Cess for the same declared ends of suppressing banishing what remained of the Gospel and imposed Localities for maintaining the Souldiers imployed in those designs for refusing which many families were pillaged plundered quite impoverished besides the heating abusing them But also they went on unweariedly with their Courts of Inquisition pressing the Bonds of peace and dragging them like dogs to Prisons that would not subscribe them And for taking up in their Porteous Rolls the names of all that were suspect to have been at 〈◊〉 In●urection which they gathered by the Informations of ●●●cophants and reputed them convict if being 〈◊〉 they did not appear and forced others to swear 〈◊〉 and delate upon Oath whom they did either ●ee or heard that they were in armes or went to Meetings And such as refused suffered bonds or banishment Yea having made it Criminal to reset harbour corrospond or converse with these whom they declared Rebels they thereupon imprisoned fined ruined vast numbers 〈◊〉 having seen or spoken with some of them or because they did not discover or apprehend them when they 〈◊〉 they might and even when they were not obliged and could not know whether they were ob●o●ious persons or not for which many Gentlemen others were Indy●ed imprisoned and so●e arraigned condemned to death For these Causes the Country 〈◊〉 harrassed destroyed by four extraordinary Circuit 〈◊〉 successively going about with their numerous train●● whereby many were grievously oppressed and with their oppressions tempted with many Impositions of Conscience debauching Oaths Bonds to compear when called and to keep the Church and to refrain from going to Meetings c. and by these tentations involved in Complyances and Defections 2. To enrich themselves by these means with the spoyl of the Country did not satisfie these Destroyers but they must glut themselves with the blood of the Saints upon every pretext that they could catch under any colour of Law. As upon the account of Bothwel Insurrection many were cruelly executed to the death some Gentlemen and some Common Country men without any Legal Conviction by packing bloody Juries Assises most partially for their Murdering ends besides more than can be reckoned that were kept to perish in their imprisonments And not only for being actually in armes or any overt act of transgressing their wicked Lawes but even for their extorted opinion of things or because they could not condemn these necessitated Risings in armes to be Rebellion and a sin against God which they were forced to declare by terrible menacings of death torture they have been condemned to death making their arbitrary Lawes to reach the heart thoughts inward sentiments of the mind as well as outward actions Whereupon this became a Criminal question robbing many of their Lives Was the rising at Bothwel-bridge Rebellion and a sin against God And this another Was the killing of the Bishop of St Andrewes horrid Murther which if any answered negatively or did not answer affirmatively they were cruelly condemned to death for which first five innocent Christians were execute upon the spot where that Murtherer fell Tho they declared and it was known they were as free as the Child unborn and that some of them had never seen a Bishop that they knew from another man and were never in that place of the Country where he was killed And afterwards this was the constant question that all brought before them were troubled with which some avouching to be duty were dismembered alive their hands struck off and then hanged and their heads cut off when dead 3. After Sanquhair Declaration they observed the Jesuites rules more exactly especially that mentioned above to load the Opinions as are most obnoxious with all odious Constructions and to make it both Criminal to declare them and also Criminal to conceal wave their intrapping questions thereupon For after Mr Hal● was killed at the Queensferrie and Mr Cameron with several worthies were slain at Airsmoss and after Mr Hackstoun for declining the Authority of his Murderers head and tail and for being accessory to executing Judgement upon the Arch-traitor or Arch-Bishop of St Andrewes thô he laid not his hands on him himself nor was present at the action but at a distance when it was done was tortured alive with the cuting off of his hands and then hanged and before he was dead ripped up his heart taken out carried about on the point of a knife and throun into a fire and afterwards his body quartered Then not only such as were with that litle handful at Airsmoss were cruelly murdered but others against whom they could charge no matter of fact were questioned if they ouned the Kings Authority which if any did not Answer affirmatively positively he was to look for nothing but exquisite torments by terrible kinds of tortures death besides And if any declared their judgement that they could not in Conscience oune such Authority as was then exercised or if they declined to give their thoughts of it as judging thoughts to be under no humane jurisdiction or if they answered with such innocent specifications as these that they ouned all Authority in the Lord or for the Lord or according to the Word of God or all just Lawful Authority these under-went suffered the Capital punishment of Treason And yet both for declining declaring their extorted Answers about this they were condemned as unsufferable Maintainers of Principles inconsistent with Government 4. But here as in Egypt the more they were afflicted the more they grew the more that the Enem●es rage was increased the more were the People inflamed to inquire about the Grounds of their Suffering seeing rational men and Religious Christians die so resolutely upon them And the more they insisted in this Inquisition the more did the number of Witnesses multiply with a growing increase undauntedness so that the then shed blood of the Martyrs became the seed of the Church and as by hearing seeing them so signally countenanced of the Lord many were reclaimed from their Courses of Complyance so others were daylie more more confirmed in the wayes of the Lord and so strengthened by His Grace that they choose rather to endure all Torture and embrace death in its most terrible aspect than to give the Tyrant his Complices any acknowledgment yea not so much as to say God save the King which was offered as the price of their life and

death falling into that sin again which procured the like Miserie they became subject to Iabin King of Canaan who twenty years mightily oppressed them Iudg. 4. 1-3 but by the Lords Commandment under the Conduct of Deborah Barak they Rebelled prevailed Whence If the Lords people serving a Soveraign Domineering power may shake off the yoke of their subjection then it is duty to defend themselves and Resist them for there is no other way of shaking it off But these examples prove the former Ergo Object If any Cavil that these were not their oun Kings to whom they owed Allegiance but only invading Conquerours whom they might resist 1 Ans. 1 Yet they were the Soveraign powers for the time And therefore if Royalists Loyalists grounds hold good they ought upon no pretence whatsoever to have been Resisted And thô possibly they might not be by Compact their oun Kings yet by Conquest they were as much as that would make them and by their oun Consent when they paid them Kings due viz tribute 2 No more are they our oun Kings who either intrude themselves into an Arbitrary Domination over us without any terms of a Compact upon a pretence of hereditary succession or being our Covenanted Kings overturn all the Conditions of their Compact degenerate into Tyrants To such we owe no Allegiance more than Israel did to these Dominators 3 I retort that old recocta Crambe who should be Judge whether they were their oun Lawful Kings or not For they acted as Kings and thought themselves their absolute Lords and gave themselves out to be such And yet we find an approved Rebellion against them Mr Gee in his Magistrats Original chap. 8. Sect. 4. Pag. 268. improves these Instances to the same purpose And addes Neither as far as my observation goes can any immediate or extraordinary Command or Word for what they so did be pretended to or pleaded from the Text for many of them or for any save Barak or Gideon 3. Yet Gideons example thô he had an extraordinary Call cannot be pretended as unimitable on the matter for that was ordinary thô the Call Manner was extraordinary He with the Concurrence of a very few men did break the yoke of subjection to Midian Iudg. 6. 7. Ch And having called his Brethren out of all mount Ephraim into a conjunction with him in the pursuit of his victory When he demanded supply of the Princes of Succoth and of the men of Penuel and they denied it he served them as Enemies Whence If a small party may with Gods Approbation deliver themselves and the whole of their Community from the bondage of their oppressing Dominators whom they had served several years and may punish their Princes that do not come out to their help in a Concurrence with them and encouragement of them in that attempt Then must it be duty to defend themselves against their Oppressours that rule over them and all ought to concur in it or else there would not be justice in punishing them that were defective in this work But we see the former from this Example Ergo Object If it be said Gideon and the rest of the extraordinary raised Judges were Magistrats therefore they might defend deliver their Country which a private people that are only subjects may not do I ans 1 They were subject to these Tyrants that oppressed them who were then the Soveraign powers of that time and yet they shook off their yoke by defensive armes 2 They were not the● Magistrats when they first appeared for their Countries defence deliverance neither in that did they act as such but only as Captains of Rebells in the esteem of them that had power over them It is clear Gideon was not Ruler till that Authority was conferred upon him after the deliverance See Iudg. S. 22. c. Yet he did all this before 4. When his bastard Abimelech Usurped the Government and was made King by the men of Schechem At length God sending an Evil Spirit between him and his Complices that set him up not only was he Resisted by the treacherous Shechemites which was their brand bane in the righteous Judgement of God for their aiding him at first in killing his Brethren Iudg. 9. 23 24. c. but also he was opposed by others of the men of Israel as at Thebez where he was slain by a woman vers 50. ad fin Whence If an Usurping Tyrant acknowledged as King by the Generality may be disouned by the Godly and threatened with Gods vengeance to consume both him h●s Complices that comply with him and if he may be opposed Resisted not only by those that set him up but also by others that were in subjection to him and at length be killed by them without resentment of the rest of the Nation Then must it be duty for a people who had no hand in the erection of such a Dominator to defend themselves against his force But the former is true by this Example Ergo 5. When Israel fell under the Tyranny of Ammon oppressing them eighteen years they did by Resisting these Supreme powers shake off their yoke under the Conduct of Iephthah And being challenged sharply by the men of Ephraim who it seems claimed the Prerogative of making war and therefore came to revenge reduce Iephthah his Company to order Casting herein belike a Copy to our regular Loyalists who are very tenacious of this Plea of the Ephraimites that at least without the Primores Regni no war is to be made yet we find Iephthah did not much regard it but stoutly defended himself slew of them 42000 men known by their Shibboleth Iudg. 12. If people then when questioned for defending themselves by them that claim a Superiority over them should deliver them may defend themselves both without them against them then it is a peoples duty priviledge But the former is true by this Example 6. They were then made subject to the Philistims 40 years whom the men of Iudah acknowledged for their Rulers yet Samson that rackle-handed Saint never ceased from pelting them upon all Occasions and when challenged for it by the men of Iudah saying knowest thow not that the Philistims are Rulers over us what is that that thow hast done Samson objects nothing against their being Rulers but notwithstanding prosecutes his purpose of vindicating himself in defence of his Country As they did unto me sayes he so have I done unto them Iudg. 15. 11. Hence If Saints may avenge themselves upon them whom the Country calls Rulers and when enabled by God may do to them as they did to them then must it be duty for them to defend themselves against them But the Antecedent is true by this Example 7. When Saul in the pursuit of the Philistims had charged the people with a foolish Oath like unto many of the ensnaring Oaths that Monarchs use to impose upon people not to

removed that might stand in the way of the Reception they have prepared for their Mistris the Babylonish lady the Mother of Harlots they now demand these payments as their wages and Hire for their labour Which to pay now is more than a justifying seeing it is a rewarding them for their work And to pay these Pimps and to purchase their peace thereby is worse than to bring the hire of a whore into the House of the Lord Deut. 23. 18. since it is a hyring them to bring the whore into the House of the Lord. O how hath Scotland plaid the Harlot with many Lovers Is this the zeal we should have had to our Covenanted husband and the honour of His House that we have not only suffered His Enemies to come in and take Possession of it but Consented to their invasion and not only Consented but Invited them to come in and not only Invited them but Prostitute our Estates Consciences also to their Arbitrary Lusts and not only plaid the harlot with them but hyred them also when they had done And for this the Lord may say to Scotland as He said to His People of old They give gifts to all whores but thow givest thy gifts to all thy Lovers and hirest them that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredome And the Contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms in that thow givest a reward and no reward is given unto thee therefore thow art contrary Ezek. 16. 33 34. There Israel is taxed for hyring the Assyrians But let it be considered and enquired into in the History how this was What evidence can be given of this in their Transactions with them Was only that they were entysed or did entyse them into a Communion with their Idolatry It is true Ahaz may be an instance of that in his sending the pattern of the Altar he saw at Damascus 2 King. 16. 10. And it cannot be denyed but in several respects they did partake with the Assyrians in their Idolatrie which was their Adulterie But what could be their hire they gave them for it if it was not their Taxations they payed and money they sent unto them as Ahaz did vers 8. and Hezekiah also thô a good man 2 King. 18. 14 15. Which can no more be justified than Asa's paying to Benhadad It was then their Confederacies and the hire of them the Lord calls the hire they gave unto their lovers With this also Ephraim is charged that he hyred lovers Hos. 8. 9 10. of this we have instances in Menahems giving to Pul a thousand Talents of silver and exacting it of the People 2 King. 15. 19. 20. And in Hoshea his becoming servant to Shalmanesar King of Assyria and giving him presents 2 King. 17. 3. If then hyring wicked men in Confederacies to help the Lords People be a hyring of lovers so much condemned in Scripture what must a hiring of them to hurt them and rewarding them after they have done and when they formally seek it for such work be but a giving the reward they seek to slay the Innocent Deut. 27. 25. and a voluntary yeelding that which they take Ezek. 22. 12. Which if it be sin in the Takers cannot be justified in the Givers but will render both obnoxious to the Indignation of a provoked God in the day when He shall begin to Contend for the wrongs He hath got both by the Work and the wages Now let all the Acts for the Cess and Continuation thereof and other Acts Edicts for fines forfeitures be considered in their just import according to the trwe meaning of the Enacters and the Causes for which they exact them and will have them Complyed with It will be found they were both declared intended improved and accordingly approved by the Complyers Not only as Helps but as Hyres for our Oppressours and Destroyers and for such as have been and are more destructive and explicitely declared Enemies to Christs Interests People in Scotland than ever the Assyrians were to the Church in the old Testament The Cess was not only a help but a hire to the Tyrant His Complices for suppressing Meetings for Gospel Ordinances Especially the Continuation of it from time to time was humbly unanimously chearfully heartily offered for themselves and in name of and as representing this Kingd●m as a hire for the doing of it and an encouragment to suppress what remained of these Conventicles The Localitie was intended as a help to the Souldiers in their quarterings upon this account But afterwards being expressly discharged to be furnished without payment according to the current rates of the Countrie Act. 3. Parl. 3. K. Char. 2. Aug. 20. 1681. The Contribution of it gratis must be interpreted for a reward of their service Fines are appointed not only for a punishment of Contraveeners of their wicked Laws but for a hire to their most violent Executers Stipends for a hire to their Hireling Curats And fees as a hire to Iaylors to keep the Lords People in bondage By which hyres these destroyers have been rewarded by them whom they have destroyed and for which the righteous Lord will reward both 8. Let it be considered how far these submissions are short of and how clearly these Complyances are inconsistent with that duty which lies upon us with reference to them Our obligation to God and our Brethren doth indispensibly bird us to a Contrary carriage If it bind us in our Station Capacity to an Active renitency It doth much more bind us up from such Complyances Neither is it imaginable how Moral force can ever justify our doing that deed we are obliged by all imaginable bonds yea if in any probable Capacity by the utmost of real force to counteract Can we give them that which they require and by which they are enabled to murder our Brethren which we are so indispensibly obliged to rescue our Brethren Prov. 24. 11 12. to relieve the oppressed Isai. 1. 27. to loose the bonds of wickedness to undo the heavy burdens to let the oppressed go free and to break ever● yoke Isai. 58. 6. What do we owe to these Enemies but seeing they have constitute themselves by these Acts implacable Enemies to Christ His People Interests in habitu not only plainly importunately to pray that He would overturn them but to oppose their Course to the uttermost of our power and to concur to wrest that power out of their hands And since they will needs make the whole Nation a Curse they are so far from being to be complyed with that for these Exactings Exactions they are to be looked upon and carried unto not only as these who have sold themselves to work wickedness but endeavour also to engage with themselves all in the same guilt and expose them to the same Curse And therefore that the Anger of the Lord may be turned away from His people every one in his