Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	according_a	open_v	work_n	3,235	5	5.8581	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93645	Christs innocency pleaded: against the cry of the chief priests. Or, a brief and plain reply unto certain papers received from William Thomas (called) Minister of the Gospel at Ubley. By Thomas Speed, a servant of the Jesus Christ, who was at the request of the bloody crew of chief priests, and teachers, crucified at Jerusalem.	Speed, Thomas, b. 1622 or 3.	1656 (1656)	Wing S4904; Thomason E865_1; ESTC R207594	52,531	75

world or the Saints for the tenth of all their labours Are you the Messengers of Christ and is the Scripture your Rule How is it then that you dare not engage to preach having not first made firme Indentures for your lively-hood Or why is it that you fill the Courts of Justice with your actions against those that refuse to pay you the tenth of all their increase nay by what Rule doe you exact it of those that never hear you nor own you for their Pastors Moreover the Scripture manifestly declareth against all the works of the flesh such as are drunkennesse swearing hypocrisie covetousnesse c. and are your hands all clean from this filth are not a great part of you found wallowing in this common mire And among those of you that have escaped that open pollution of drunkennesse with wine are you not yet intoxicated with wrath and rage against the innocent Let me ask you farther and let your anger be turned into a serious consideration of what I shall say Is there scarce a Prison this day in the Nation in which some servant of the living God or other is not prisoner to your unsatiable fury Doth not Jesus Christ as truly lye bound in many nasty holes and Dungeons in England by your instigation and procurement as he did by the procurement of ●aul and Damascus If any poor Jeremiah come from the Lord to bear testimony against all your abominations is there wanting a Lordly Pashur among you who in case the Magistrate be so honest as to refuse will not with his own hands put his feet in the stocks Now then to your Rule Is it any where upon record in Scripture that the true Prophets and Ministers of the Lord did persecute or imprison any that were differing from them in things of Religion Are they in the esteem of Jesus Christ Shepheards or wolves who worrie the Sheep in steed of feeding them and beat his poor Lambs in stead of cherishing them and carrying them after his example in their bosomes Now then let me desire you singly and honestly to compare your lives and your actions with those of the Ministers of Christ in the Scripture and let that of Christ in each of your consciences judge whether that Spirit that acted in them do also bring forth the same fruits in you I know you have many distinctions to offer by which to save your selves from the condemnation of false Prophets and Ministers of Antichrist but let me tell you however you may thereby quit your selves among men yet it 's ill distinguishing with that God that is terrible in judgement In that day in which the book of all consciences shall be opened and every man judged according to his works will a distinction save you Think sadly of that houre in which the Son of man shall come with his holy Angels sitting upon the throne of his glory and shall expostulate with you and say O ye Shepheards of England I was an hungred (h) Mat. 2● 42 43. and ye gave me no meat I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink I was a stranger and ye took me not in naked and ye cloathed me not sick and in prison and ye visited me not nay which is worse When I had meat and drink and cloathing ye sought to bereave me of it when I was a stranger ye did not onely not take me in but ye hindred those that would and evill intreated them for my sake when I was well and at liberty ye did case me into bonds and into prisons and glory in so doing O what will you reply when the Lamb shall thus reason with you and command you to plead positively either guilty or not guilty will you be able to shelter your selves from his wrath by a distinction will it be a sufficient plea for you then because it seemeth to have some weight among the simple ones now to say That you have persecuted and imprisoned none but Blasphemers Hereticks and Deceivers Did not your Predecessors the Scribes and Pharisees and the Priests in those dayes under the same notions persecute and crucifie the Lord of life and thousands of his precious Saints after him Will not that plea justifie your fathers the Bishops who did in their dayes imprison and evill intreat many of you and hundreds besides in the Nation called Puritans as Blasphemers Heriticks and Deceivers But as it was old so it is now there being no new thing under the Sun the seed of the Bond-woman persecuteth the seed of the Free-woman the form fighteth against the power and the letter against the life The professing religious Jewes they cryed out against the Apostles and Saints in those dayes help O Caesar help men of Israel for here are a Sect of men called Christians risen up who turne the world upside down The late Bishops they cryed out help O King against this factious generation of Puritans who will not have us to reigne over them own us and guard us with thy sword for if thou suffer us to fall this will be the consequence no Bishop no King Those called Presbiters they also invocated the powers late in being crying out help O Parliament help against these schismaticall Independents and Anabaptists who begin to refuse subjection to those yoaks we would lay upon them as we did to those layed by the Bishops upon our own necks But now so it is at this day that all the Teachers of all Sects and factions like as the Pharisees and Saduces against Christ doe with one lip cry out and say help O Protector help O Magistrates help for here is now a strange generation of men risen up that the Earth is not able to bear such as strike at our very root and if we fall this will be the consequence if you dare to believe us no Minister no Magistrate Horrible Blasphemers they are grand Hereticks and notorious Deceivers And that ye may know that we doe charge them to be such on as just grounds as our brethren the Scribes and Pharisees charged Christ we desire you to scan over this ensuing list of their monstrous blasphemies 1. They blaspheme and say that Christ is the (i) Joh. 1.9 and 18.12 light of the world and hath enlightned every man that cometh into the world and that he that followeth that light shall not walk in darknesse but shall have the light of life which light is sufficient to teach them and guide them unto the Father and then what need of all our teachings 2. They say that that which may be (k) Rom. 19.20 and 2.15 known of God is manifest in the consciences of the very Heathen God having revealed it unto them even his eternal power and God-head that though they have no Law without them yet they shew the work of the Law written in their hearts and are a Law unto themselves 3. They say that Christ did not mock nor impose an impossibility upon his poor Lambs when