United States or Bangladesh ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Where observe, that this general clause is restricted to acts and laws, in so far only, as they were contrary to the religion settled in this act; and therefore, as this act includes no part of the covenanted reformation between 1638 and 1649, so this rescissory clause abolishes laws, not as against foresaid reformation, but only in so far as they strike against the revolution settlement, which the act rescissory could not do.
Neither by Church nor State was any proposal ever seriously entertained of renewing the national Covenants with God, as at the commencement of the Second Reformation. Instead, the Acts Rescissory were permitted to remain on the Statute-book, and the Covenants to lie under the infamy to which the King and the Royalists had consigned them.
These reasons are such as the following The Scottish reformation in its purest form was deliberately abandoned in the Revolution Settlement Both the Church and State concurred in leaving unrepealed on the Statute-book, the infamous Act Rescissory, by which the National Covenants were declared to be unlawful oaths, and all laws and constitutions, ecclesiastical or civil, were annulled, which approved and gave effect to them.
For which intent, after besmearing the consciences of most of the members with the guilt of that abominable and wicked oath of allegiance and supremacy, that they might be secured to the court and king's interest, and ready to swallow down whatever might be afterward proposed, they passed an act rescissory, declaring all the parliaments, and acts of parliament made in favor of reformation, from the year 1640 to 1651, null and void.
As to the settlement of religion in Scotland, the presbytery testify against it: because it was a settlement, which, instead of homologating and reviving the covenanted reformation between 1638 and 1650, in profession and principle, left the same buried under the infamous act rescissory, which did, at one blow, rescind and annul the whole of the reformation, and authority establishing the same, by making a retrograde motion, as far back as 1592, without ever coming one step forward since that time, and herein acted most contrary to the practice of our honored reformers, who always used to begin where former reformations stopped, and after having removed what obstructed the work of reformation, went forward in building and beautifying the house of the Lord.
Parliament met by royal authority and passed a General Act Rescissory, which rendered void all acts passed since 1638. The episcopal form of church government was immediately established. The Privy Council received enlarged powers, and was again completely subservient to the king.
The first proceeding of this Parliament, known in the gossip of the time as the Drunken Parliament from the too frequent condition of its chiefs, was to pass a Rescissory Act, repealing all measures that had become law since the year 1633, including even those passed by the Parliament professing the authority of Charles himself.
Again, that the Revolution settlement of religion did not abolish the act rescissory, nor ratify and revive any act, between 1638 and 1650, authorizing and establishing the work of reformation, is clear from the same act: wherein, after abolishing some acts anent the late prelacy in Scotland, they declare: "that these acts are abolished, so far allenarly, as the said acts, and others, generally and particularly above mentioned, are contrary or prejudicial to, inconsistent with, or derogatory from, the Protestant religion, or Presbyterian church government, now established."
They likewise committed their acts rescissory, supremacy, act restoring abjured Prelacy, act of Glasgow, 1662, the presumptuous act for appointing May 29th for an unholy anniversary, indulgences, &c., all to the flames, their just desert, in retaliation of the impious treatment given unto our solemn and sacred covenants, and other good and laudable acts and laws for reformation, by their sacrilegious enemies in sundry cities of these covenanted kingdoms.
But, as the very reverse of this was authorized and practised at the revolution, it convincingly discovers, that the settlement of religion, made in 1690, left the whole of the reformation attained to, ratified and established by solemn oaths and civil laws between 1640 and 1649, buried under that scandalous and wicked act rescissory, framed by that tyrant, Charles II, after his restoration.
Word Of The Day