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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	bishop_n	church_n	presbyter_n	6,142	5	10.3336	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85839	Analysis. The loosing of St. Peters bands; : setting forth the true sense and solution of the covenant in point of conscience so far as it relates to the government of the church by episcopacy. / By John Gauden ...	Gauden, John, 1605-1662.	1660 (1660)	Wing G340; ESTC R202274	13,622	28

old Lastly I might truly alledge against the novelty of the Covenant in the Church of England that there is no precept or patern for any such in all the New Testament nor in all succeeding ages of the Christian Church we never read nor heard of any covenanting Christians until the Ligue sainte in France except those who in one baptism were sprinkled with the blood of Christ and so entred into that covenant which God makes with us and we with him in that holy laver of regeneration this is the new and Evangelical covenant of all true Christians this we break by wilful and presumptuous sins this we renew by true repentance and by worthy participation of the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper § How vastly different from this sacred covenant this late piece of policy more than piety is and how little the true covenant of a Christian binds him by his Baptism or Repentance or the Eucharist against all Episcopal Government I leave to all sober-minded Christians to judge since both the power of ordaining Ministers and by them to consecrate and celebrate both Sacraments was ever derived from and by Bishops of the Church as the cheif conservators cisterns and conduits of all Ecclesiastical Authority and Ministerial power from the very Apostles the first Bishops of the Church Acts 1. who had the same immediately from Christ who was and ever is the great Bishop and Pastor of our souls to feed and rule his Church not only by his Word and Spirit but by such Shepherds and Rulers as he hath in all ages set over his flock of which Bishops were ever esteemed the Angels Presidents or cheif Fathers whom utterly to destroy and violently to extirpate out of this or any Christian Church is not only to offer signal and intolerable injuries to the persons of such excellent Bishops as England lately had and still may have but further mightily to abate the honor of this whole Church and its Ministry by taking away all the rewards and encouragements of Learning and Religion yea and to scandalize all Churches by abolishing such a venerable order and universal custom in the Church as hath no origine but that of the Apostles and looks very like an immediate institution of Christ either preceptive and explicite or tacite and exemplary The just abatements of Covenanters heats and rigors § So that if this were the sense and intent of the Covenant-makers and takers to extirpate and abolish not the abuses but the very uses of all Episcopal Order and Government the great Boanergesses who thunder out so much terror against Covenant-breaking may do much more justice and execution if they turn the mouths of their canons against such Covenant-taking which is better broken than kept in any unlawful sense and best of all when not at all taken with any such intention which is as presumptuous as it was preposterous § These things being thus premised are sufficient as I conceive to abate the edge and rigor of the Covenant as to its antipathy against all Episcopacy and to ravel that cable or bond of religious obligation which some men do seem to twist and urge upon poor peoples consciences in that point when in good earnest there is neither Law of God or man requiring imposing or comprobating any such Covenant by any National or Ecclesiastical authority so that it appears at best to be but a matter of will worship of humane and private invention void of publique and plenary injunction esteemed by many but as a stratagem of State a flag of faction an engine framed on purpose to batter down Episcopacy and the whole Church of England in order to obtain the spoils of them not to punish and amend the evil that might be in Episcopal Government or in some Bishops and other Ministers but to seize all their estates and all the patrimony of the Church to the great enriching of some sacrilegious Protestants to the gratifying of some Presbyters envy and revenge but most of all to the great joy and triumph of the Romish party and Jesuitick designs which were thought by many wise men to have been if not the Sires yet the Sibs to that Covenant that they might help to spread it as a snare in Mizpeh thereby to catch and destroy the famousest Bishops the most renowned Clergie the best reformed and most flourishing Church in all the world § The best aspect of the Covenant considered in conscience But I will look upon this Covenant in the softest sense that can be made of it as a voluntary Vow or religious Bond which private men and some part only of the Nation spontaneously took upon themselves in order to declare their sense of duty to God the King the Church their Country and the Reformed Religion to make themselves more strictly sensible of the sacred and civil obligations respectively due to them that so they might be more ready to discharge them in their places and callings by taking such a Covenant freely not for fear of prison plunder sequestration and the like wracks of mens souls the terrors of which made many if not most of the takers of the Covenant to take it and yet I believe not one fourth part of the people of England now living ever did take it in any sort and very few but rigid Bigots and virulent spirits in any sense against primitive reformed and regular Episcopacy so reduced to an efficacious conjuction with Presbytery as the most Reverend Primate of Armagh proposed in his Reduction of late and so did the Lord Virulam long before in his considerations touching the Church of England offered to King James in the beginning of his reign § In this aspect of the Covenant Answers direct as a religious obligation either newly made or renewed upon the foul of any that willingly and freely took it and who thereby think themselves eternally obliged to fulfill the letter of it or that sense they had of it as to the matter of Church-government by Episcopacy or Prelacy which they fancied to have abjured and renounced no less than Popery my Answers and Solutions are these 1. What only can bind in it First They are not the bare words of the Covenant which as charms can bind any mans conscience to or against any thing but it is that force of Truth Reason Justice Religion and Duty to God or man our selves or others which morally and really obligeth men either by Gods general or particular precepts which are as iron or admantine bands on every mans soul to chuse good and do it to hate evil and eschew it long before any of these withes or cords of mans combining and tying are put upon them by themselves or others 2. Not the takers fancy or imposers Secondly Nor can any such Covenant bind any man in any consciencious bond meerly by the power of a mans own imagination or by such a prejudice and presumption as he lists

ΑΝΑΛΥΣΙΣ THE Loosing of St. Peters Bands Setting forth The true Sense and Solution OF THE COVENANT In point of CONSCIENCE SO FAR As it relates to the Government of the Church by EPISCOPACY By JOHN GAVDEN D. D. Acts 16.26 The foundations of the Prison were shaken the doors opened and every ones bands were loosed 1 Tim. 1.5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned Non est conscientia sine scientia nec pura esse potest si sit caeca Bern. LONDON Printed by J. Best for Andrew Crook at the Green-Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1660. TO His honoured Friend Sir Lawrence Brumfeild Kt. And Colonel in London SIR WEll knowing as St. Bernard speaks The tenderness of conscience how tender and delicate a thing Conscience is how it is not to be baffled or deluded with any Sophistry nor ravished or captivated by any violence and tyranny not cajoled or trepanned by any Policy and hypocrisie but apart from all fraud or force it is then most at its ease freedom and tranquillity when it hath most light and serenity to see its duty also most liberty to act according to those rules of right Reason and Religion which are not partial flexible and mutable but universal fixed and eternal § The rules of Conscience I have here endeavored to give you and others upon your motion that sober sence of the Covenant whereof I believe it is only capable before God before all good Christians and in a mans own wel-informed conscience § Which must and at last will judge of things in point of scruple or obligation not by the occasion beginning them or the power imposing them or the passion clamoring or the multitude applauding or the success abetting or the pertinacy maintaining them Nor yet by the superstition of some men devoutly doting for a while upon that as a goddess or an Image faln from heaven when it may be indeed but the late invention of some cunning work-men whose golden rings and ear-rings being melted in the furnace of Civil wars may sometimes bring forth such a thing as the Authors and Abettors will needs vote to be their God § But the true light and medium of Conscience as to its judgement practice peace and perseverance must be by those clear pregnant and constant beams of right Reason add true Religion which shine in the brightness and stability of Divine and Humane laws which are the solid pillars of Truth the firm supports of duty the sure bounds of obedience and the safe repose of conscience § All other superstructures of fancy policy and Interest as hay straw and stubble will perish but those others will out last the last conflagrations which shall make a fiery trial of all mens thoughts designs and actions both publick and private whether they be made up of popular and peevish dross or of such piety more precious than gold which is both pure and permanent § In this great concern therefore of conscience I must study to be void of all fear and flattery of men Freedom from passion and prejudice in cases of conscience separate from all crowds of passions and prejudices free from popular petitions and the two Houses resolutions from Scottish importunities and English compliances not obnoxious to the Court or the Country to the Assembly or the High-Commission to Episcopal infirmities or Presbyterian insolencies but as in the presence of God and before his Tribunal so serious intent upright and unbyassed shall I declare my judgement to you to your City to my Country and to our most welcome King to my reverend Fathers and brethren of the Clergie and to my dear Mother the Church of England for whose sake nothing must seem hard or too much to be done or suffered by me or any of her Sons since we have the great paterns both of our late Soveraign who suffered as a Martyr in her defence and of our blessed Saviour who was crucified for her redemption § As for my Brethren of the Church of Scotland I confess I understand not their motions or mutations because I think they once enjoyed the best constitutions of Episcopacy in the world I have a Christian pity and charity for them I leave them to that liberty which is the fruit not of the swords and passions of man but of the Word and Spirit of God which clearly unites Loyalty and Religion Duty and Devotion Reformation and Moderation Order and counsel eminency and harmony in one paternal fraternal and filial unity of Bishops Presbyters and People § As to the scruple or case of conscience then with which you tell me The shiness of some mens consciences as to Episcopacy many sober and honest men are by their once taking the Covenant so scared from all complyings with any Church Government under any name of Bishops or notion of Episcopacy never so reformed and regulated that they fear by looking back to the primitive Catholick and universal Government of this and all other antient Churches to be turned into pillars of Apostacy as Lots wife Answers oblique was into a pillar of salt And to prevent which sad Metamorphosis in City and Country my Answer or Resolution in point of Conscience as to the Covenant so far as it relates to Episcopacy is this 1. The Covenants defectiveness as to authority and law First I might shrewdly batter the Covenant by urging the defectiveness of and so the invalidity of any lawful constant or compleat authority in it capable to bind the Subjects or People of England either in the Court of conscience or any other Ecclesiastical or civil Judicature in which nothing can have any permanent bond or tye of Law except Gods Word without the Kings consent no more than the vow of a servant or son a daughter or wife in Moses Law could bind them without Numb 30.2 yea against the declared consent of their Master father or Husband under whose protection they were 2 The violence of the times Secondly I might eccho and retort upon the Covenant the violence and noise of those times in which it was first hatched in England and brought forth by the Midwifery of tumults and Armies of engaged yea enraged parties and factions whose wrath and policies were not probbale to work the righteousness of God nor did they seem good Angels which troubled our waters to an healing but evil ones sent in Gods just anger amongst us to turn our waters into blood 3. The novelty of it as to our laws Thirdly I might further urge the novelty and partiality of the Covenant as the English Laws and genius that it was from a foraign influence and design first invented then obtruded on this Church and State contrary to our antient Laws and constitutions both ecclesiastical and civil to which King and People were bound till by mutual consent they were altered which was never yet done in the point of