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A31403
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The Gospel preached to the Romans, in four sermons two on the 5th of November, and two on the 30th of January, 1680 / by John Cave ...
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Cave, John, d. 1690.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing C1583; ESTC R17526
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41,434
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109
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the true Characters of the Divine Presence and came peaceably in aurd leni without Noise and Perturbation insinuating it self into the Beliefs of Men by silent Influences and convincing Arguments I may add here That although our Lord Christ was not only King of the Jews but had the whole Host of Heaven at his command yet he called not in the Assistance of Force and Violence to obtrude his Doctrines upon the World And it is a most remarkable Circumstance That Constantine the Great did not appear in the World to protect Christianity until it had gained Footing in the most considerable Parts thereof Nor do we read any where That when Christianity became the Religion of the Empire They ever used their Power to revenge their Sufferings that they ever put either Jew or Heathen to Death because they would not renounce their Religion The Kingdom of Satan and of Antichrist have still been planted and watered in Blood and Crueltv As Nebrchadnezzar once dealt with those who would not Worship his Golden Gods so did the Heathen Emperors with the Primitive Christians Eusch An. 403. in a long Series of most merciless Persecutions So did the King of Persia with Abdas the Bishop who had overturned his Idol-Temples So do the Turks at this Day with all the Opposers of their Superstition And it is sad to relate the Barbarous Cruelties of some professed Christians towards others really and truly such how bloody the Rage of the Arrians was against the Catholicks Athan. Ep. ad sol vit agentes as likewise that of the Donatists and Circumcellians in St. Angustine that of the Eutichians in the second Council of Ephesus called Ephesinum Latrocinium who murdered Flavianus Arch-Bishop of Constantinople To come nearer home I shall name no more here but that of our zealous Regicides which ought to be to us this day and will be to succeeding Ages for a Lamentation These were the bloody ways of Heathens and Hereticks But no Histories do tell us That true Catholicks did ever practise or approve of such Methods of maintaining or propagating Religion The Pseudo-Roman-Catholicks indeed are upon infamous Record for their inhumane Cruelties in the defence of their Churches Errors and Vsurpations which speaks the Pope the Successor of Romulus who made his way by Blood rather than of St. Peter who drew his Sword but once in his Master's Quarrel and was severely checked by him for so doing When the War begun by the Christians on the Turks and Saracens was turned upon the Albigenses by the Popes of Rome Dr. Heylin's Parable of the Tares and that the Cruciata was proclaimed against those poor Souls only because they differed in some Points of Doctrine from the Opinions of that Church how many hundred thousands of well meaning Men who made a Conscience of their ways and erred not if they erred at all out of Pride but Ignorance fell a Sacrifice to the Roman Furies Thuanus their own Historian reports that Pope Paul the third Anno 1559. among other Exhortations which upon his Death-Bed he delivered to his Cardinals did lastly wish them to uphold the Office of the Inquisition quo uno sacro-sactam authoritatem niti affirmabant whereby the Authority of the See of Rome is chiefly supported Charles the ninth with the French Papists never acted any thing with more Satisfaction to his Holiness than that Tragedy in Paris and other Cities where so many thousand Hugonots were most treacherously and barbarously slaughtered The Savage Irish never thought their Hands and Weapons better employed than in butchering the Protestants and this not more from the fierceness of their Natures than from the bloody Principles of their Religion And in our own Nation how many suffered Death under King Henry the 8th and in Queen Mary's his bloody Daughter's Days for their most reasonable Unbelief of Transubstantiation I have not now time to bring to your remembrance the many Conspiracies of the Jesuites against and Attempts upon the Life of our blessed Queen Elizabeth by Parry Babington Stafford Lopez Squire c. Nor to present you with the horrid Circumstances of their Powder Treason against King James her peaceful Successour all the Royal Family with the Flower of Church and State in a Parliament Assembly But I wish we would take special notice by reason of the seasonableness of the reflection of their treasonable Designs and Actings against that incomparable Prince Charles the First this Days Martyr How they plotted against his Life and Arch-Bishop Laud's as hath formerly and of late been sufficiently discovered how they blowed the Coales of the late unnatural and destructive War how in their Consults they voted that King's Death as much conducing to the Interest of the Catholick Cause as they call theirs and how they assisted and directed Instruments whereby that Hellish Enterprize for which we and the whole Nation mourn this day was accomplished and how they triumphed thereupon all this is notoriously known The first Rebellion began in Scotland See the Apology in behalf of the Papists answer in behalf of the Royalists p. 12. London 1667. where the Design of it was laid by Cardinal Richlieu his Majesties irreconcileable Enemy Then it brake out in Ireland where it was blessed with his Holiness's Letters and assisted by his Nuncio whom he sent purposely to attend the Fire there Lastly in England as hath been intimated it is manifest their Agents did their parts there to unsettle the People and gave them needless occasions of Jealousie which the vigilant Phanaticks made use of to involve us all in War and Confusion Both in England and Scotland the special Tools they wrought with were borrowed out of the Shops of the Romans It was our Royal Martyr's own Observation Large Declaration concerning the Tumults in Scotland p. 3. That their Maximes were the same with the Jesuites their Preachers Sermons were delievered in the very Phrase of Becanus Sciopius and Eudaemon Johannes their poor Arguments printed or written in their seditious Pamphlets were taken almost verbatim out of Bellarmin or Suarez and afterwards we have heard how they carried on and compleated the bloody Tragedy by Popish Influence and Instigation Hath the Clemency and Indulgence of his Majesty who now is and whom God long preserve any ways asswaged their Malice and turned their Hearts to better Purposes Their late deep and dreadful Conspiracy against the sacred Life of so good and Gracious a Prince and the whole body of his Protestant Subjects returns a loud Negative to the Question and gives us too sad and sensible an Assurance that their Feet are still swift to shed Blood that Destruction and Misery are in their ways and the ways of Peace have they not known And I would there was no just cause of Fear that they are working our Ruine again by the very Instruments they used so successfully heretofore and that some of those that give us the loudest Alarms of the Romans coming to take
away our Place and Nation are not themselves preparing their way But are the Papists indeed among all our modern Professors of Christianity the only Anti-Gospelers in this particular of promoting Religion by Force Truly I believe the bloody and rebellious Principles of all others were originally theirs and derived from them But we can by no means excuse the Tyranny of the Independency of which we read so much in the History that bears its Name And their frequent putting Quakers to death in New England for their Opinions Thorndike's Forbearance of Penalttes c. 29. doth shew what a meek merciful Spirit they are of and what Liberties they are like to allow others wherever they obtain Rule And I wish with all my heart I could honestly speak better and more gentle things of all their elder Brethren the Presbyterians and because many of that Perswasion are not only sound and Orthodox in the main Articles of our reformed Religion but learned and able Defenders of it zealous Protestours against the horrid Wickedness of this Day and active Instruments in bringing home our banished King I am not willing to say the worst I know of the violence of some of their Spirits and the severity of their Discipline Yet I hope none among us will justify the Rage Malice and Cruelties of the Scotchfield-Meeters ten of whom barbarously murdered the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews and it is the current Doctrine of their Pulpits and Books that killing of Bishops and those ordained by them is no Murder but a commendable yea an Heroical Act of Justice and that a revolting Covenanter of any sort is as acceptable a Sacrifice Altho I fear too many among us feel some glowings of this Hellish Zeal some kindlings and stirrings of this fiery fierce Spirit yet blessed be God they have hitherto and I hope still will be restrained from such outragious Villanies But let me not I beseech you be thought your Enemy If I tell you the Truth in telling you plainly That thus far we must complain of the severity their want of a Gospel-Spirit as Optatus did of some separating slandering Malecontents of his time Dei Episcopos linguae Gladio jugulastis fundentes Sanguinem non Corporis sed Honoris Though your hands have spared the Lives yet your Tongues have murdered the Reputation of Gods Bishops and Ministers though you have not shed their Blood yet you have stained their Honour and which is worse vilified their Function yea notwithstanding the undeniable and convincing Proofs they have given both heretofore and of late by their Preachings Writings and Practices of their Sincerity in and Zeal for the Protestant Religion yet as Tacitus speaks Tacitus In Vitá Agricol conflatâ magnâ invidiâ seu bene seu male gesta premunt Where Envy and Spite predominate Mens good or bad Actions are alike distastful and what was said out of the same Author in Proclus's Case Vi◠Procl p. 28. that famous Arch-Bishop of Constantinople may well be applied to theirs Non minus est periculum in magnâ quam in mala fama cum fumma semper petat livor It is not the Evil of their Lives nor the Errour of their Doctrines but the eminency of their Place if not of their Vertues which hath drawn upon them so much vulgar hatred and Obloquy Faults they have had Dr. Barrow's Ser. on Psal 132.16 and will always have for they are Men and subject to the common Imperfections of mortal Nature but that perhaps less and fewer than any other distinct sort of Men But if their Faults were greater than ever they have really been or than ever Malice could misrepresent them is it therefore equal that the Miscarriages of some should derogate from the Reputation or Prejudice the Welfare of the whole Order yet so blind as well as bitter is some Men's Zeal that they think they do God and their Country good Service in pursuing them all with the same cry and running them down together with an indiscriminating Rage as if they were the greatest Enemies of our Peace and Prosperity and that there were a touch of the Bishop in all our Evils and Inconveniencies But without offering at any Vindication which indeed would be besides my present Purpose it may not be amiss perhaps for the furthering the Humiliation of this Day to consider that they who began with the Church before ended with the Crown and tho at first they pretended a Quarrel only with our Episcopacy they soon proceeded to pour Contempt upon Princes and Nobles and to make havock of Royalty it self and that when it was most happily seated in so Wise so Holy and so Gracious a King and all under a great shew of Zeal for the Gospel and the Purity of Religion But how far this was from the true and genuine Spirit of the Gospel from the Doctrine of our Saviour and the Acts of his Apostles may be easily inferred from what you have heard and particularly from the Practice of our St. Paul who tho when a Pharisee he thought he did God and Religion good Service in persecuting the Church yet when once a Christian he thinks only of preaching the Gospel He who before breathed out nothing but Threatnings and Slaughter after his Conversion only exhorts entreats with all Long-suffering and beseecheth by the Mercies of God Not that our Apostle was less concerned for the Interests of Christianity than for those of his former Religion but better instructed in the way of promoting them viz. by the Ministry of Reconciliation preaching among the Gentiles the unsearchable Riches of Christ and by propounding the great Benefits and Blessings of the Gospel as the most powerful Advocates for its Entertainment and if at any time he makes use of the Terrors of the Lord 2 Cor. 5.11 it is not to persecute but to perswade Men. How far Civil Magistrates may by Threatnings and Punishments compel Men to serve God and keep his Commandments is not the matter of our present Enquiry we see what is the proper Duty of those of St. Paul's Order and what work is like to prosper best in their hands when they have to do either with those at Rome or any other Sects of Erroneous Christians viz. Diligence and Faithfulness in preaching of the Gospel and so I come to the third and last Particular III. That those who are commissionated to the Office of the Ministry ought to be ready and resolute in the discharge of it The excellent Dr. Hammond Answer to the 6 Queries p. 365. hath well observed that the whole well-being of the Christian Church which consists in Vnity as the well-being of a Body in the Health of it nay the very Being it self which consists in the Truth of the Doctrines and Obedience to the Institutions of the Gospel depends in an eminent manner upon the due Qualification of those who are intrusted with the Office of Teaching in the Church and although the best of us are