Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	jew_n	old_a	testament_n	3,348	5	8.0238	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38575	A treatise of excommunication wherein 'tis fully, learnedly, and modestly demonstrated that there is no warrant ... for excommunicating any persons ... whilst they make an outward profession of the true Christian faith / written originally in Latine by ... Thomas Erastus ... about the year 1568.; Explicatio gravissimae quaestionis utrum excommunicatio. English	Erastus, Thomas, 1524-1583.	1682 (1682)	Wing E3218; ESTC R20859	61,430	96

self-same thing God plainly and expresly and with reiterated Precepts commands that every Male except the unclean and such as were in a Journey should keep the Passover He never therefore intended to frighten away some under the figure of the Leaven There were then plenty enough of bad men present that it must be needless to typifie and shadow them out by Leaven And the wickedness of men was a thing as obvious to mens senses and as much to be taken notice of as the Leaven that should represent it Therefore since no figures are commonly instituted of such things as are at hand and in view and which with equal clearness strike the Senses 't is in vain to seek for any Figure there How much more where the things figured are more notorious and common than the Figures themselves But besides Moses does not command that the Eater of Leaven should be debarr'd eating the Passover but commands him to be slain Therefore sinners should not so much be kept from the Lords Supper as they should be capitally punished Which is a Consequence I should be so far from admitting with difficulty that I rather wish it might so be for I desire nothing more than that the strictest Moral Discipline might be observ'd in the Church but such still as is of Gods appointment not of mans invention Secondly The Jews might eat Leaven all the year round excepting onely those seven days of Unleavened Bread which they did commence from the eating of the Passover Now if you would parallel this with the Lords Supper you must of necessity grant a liberty for licentious living all the year provided you abstained from vice all the time you were celebrating the Lords Supper Thirdly Moses speaks here of the Passover onely not of any other Sacraments by Analogie therefore wicked men should onely be kept from the Lords Supper not from Baptism Fourthly The Apostle makes not the comparison to run betwixt the Feast of the Jews and the Lords Supper but betwixt that and our whole course of life he says we are unleavened as men that are washed in the Bloud of Christ and purged from all Leaven and therefore says he let us keep the Feast that is let us live not with the Leaven of Malice but with the Unleavened Bread of Sincerity and Truth There is a vast difference betwixt Leaven simply so called and the Leaven of Malice or Wrath There is none but knows that in the second sence 't is taken figuratively and School-men say that an analogical or figurative sence proves nothing This is certain whatever is meant by Leaven Excommunication can never be maintain'd or justifi'd from it against Gods precept XVIII But some may object that Paul speaks here of the Passover but what I pray makes this to our business as if this word Passover were put for the Lords Supper in the New Testament Christ saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 5. 7. is our Passover sacrificed or slain for us not his Supper The meaning of the words is this As the Jews who onely began their Feast of Unleavened Bread with eating the Lamb did eat Unleavened Bread all that week after so should you who have begun to believe in Christ and are purified and become unleavened through his Bloud you should lead a pure and unspotted life all the rest of the week that is all the days of your life XIX Now that nothing of different nature is to be met with in the other Books of the Old Testament may be known and proved if it were but from this alone that the Jews Posterity were to live according to the Laws and Institutions of Moses contrary to which they might not by any means institute or enjoyn any thing which related to the Worship of God Most certainly the good and pious Judges Priests Prophets and Kings forced away none from their Sacraments and Sacrifices but rather invited all to them with the greater earnestness and zeal The story of good King it should be Hezekiah I suppose See 2 Chron. 35. Josiah 2 Chron. 35. v. 18. is well known who called together all the Children of Israel as well those whom he knew to have sacrificed and burnt Incense to strange Gods or Devils as those who for the shortness of the warning could not be cleansed 2 Chron. 30. v. 19. according to the purification of the Sanctuary From whence 't is observable that Sacraments are Provocations and Allurements to Religion and Piety and that men grow better rather by frequenting than by being robb'd of them provided they are rightly and faithfully instructed XX. Excommunication therefore can never be maintain'd from the first Chapter of Isaiah v. 13. Psal 50. v. 8. and many places of like import where 't is said that God will have nothing to do with the Sacrifices and Oblations of the Wicked for God doth in all those places condemn the abuse of them in that they thought that they fully perform'd the Will of God by the meer external performance at what rate soever their Soul stood affected Besides God neither commands the Prophet nor any one else by him to exclude the Wicked from the Sacrifices and Rites but shews that God will not hear them unless that withal they amend their lives Now the external Policy and Government of the Church stands upon a different foot with the Will of God to us-ward as himself is the Approver or Condemner of our thoughts and actions In fine from the self-same places it may directly and in the same manner be demonstrated that none that is a sinner may call upon the Name of the Almighty nay that 't is unlawful for such an one so much as to praise or give thanks unto God and then 't will be incumbent on the Priests and Elders to forbid the Wicked all these for God hath a like aversion to those when they come from wicked men as is plain as well from the Texts instanc'd in as from places of the like import And if this latter carries absurdity in it no less doth the former XXI Neither doth that of 1 Esdras chap. 9. v. 3. 4. make any whit against us for that was a matter of Policy and no ways relating to the Sacraments for the Magistracy not Esdras the Priest alone though he too was a part of the Magistracy for as Josephus bears witness though they had a Leader yet were they govern'd by the Optimacy or Nobility set forth a Proclamation That whosoever met not at Jerusalem within two or three days their Cattel should be seized to the use of the Temple and they be cast out from them that were of the Captivity not from their Sacraments and Sacrifices But we make it not the enquiry of this place whether the Magistrate hath a right of punishing so or so but whether the Priests had any authority of removing dissolute and bad Livers from the Sacrifices Esdras could not do this contrary to the Command of God Adde to this that Moses never commanded

make a Volume to recount what advantages the Church did hereby reap most certainly they can't be set out in a small compass for first this Excommunication made men to look for salvation from the Sacrament for thus they fram'd the Argument The Exclusion from the Sacrament draws down Death and Damnation say they therefore the Receiving of it gives Life They scarce could entertain a doubt of the truth of the Antecedent whilst they were taught that this was so dreadful so Soul-destructive a punishment and when they thought themselves by being shut out from the Sacrament to fall straight into the very clutches of the Devil and be wholly at Satan's mercy which has made it thought by some that they could not die without being housled as I said before This Errour grew and got strength from the many great and long Penances the Solemnities of Absolution and the like amongst which none was more prevalent than that they would not administer the holy Eucharist to them till the very point of Death and that then they gave it them 't was of pure compassion that they might not go hence destitute of the Souls necessary food for if any through whatever Accident was so unfortunate he was held for a man damn'd and lost to all Eternity as if God would not forgive them their sins who heartily and sincerely repent and vouchsafe unto them everlasting life unless these Elders should adjudge them qualified for the Lords Supper What errour is there of a more detestable and fatal consequence But another Fruit of this was that all the World now began to believe that 't was in the power of men to shut and open Heaven when and to whom they pleased and therefore the younger Theodosius would not eat his Dinner because having denied an importunate Monk's Request he stood excommunicate by him for his pains and though the Bishop of Constantinople told the Emperour that the Excommunication was invalid yet rest good man he could not nor would not till the same hand absolv'd that had bound him So Ambrose for eight months together kept an Elder from Church from Sermons and all the acts of publick Worship 'T is true offended he had but more pardonably than Ambrose himself as any man that has his eyes in his head may see upon the perusal of Nicephorus his History and the Chronicle of Philip Melancthon By these steps has the Roman See encroached upon the Western World and made Princes Kings and Emperours to lacky to her Lust and arbitrary sway in pretended Spirituals Dyed has been the German Empire in the Gore of hundred thousands that fell a Sacrifice to this Roman Diana to excommunicating Popes and excommunicated Emperours Kings and Princes Religion she has chopt and chang'd mangled and disfigured debased and vitiated at her pleasure none daring to question her Canons dispute her Decretals or look her Bulls in the face the whole World were Caligula's and durst not shew their heads when she sent her Thunder of Excommunication abroad The God of Foxes spoken of by Daniel Dan. 11. 38. if we weigh that passage aright signifies nothing but this Excommunication or the Prohibiting men the use of Sacred things especially the Lords Supper For this Excommunication acts a very God in earnest 't is to this day a God of Forces a God who has put all things all the power of Heaven and Hell under the Popes feet And there are not wanting now-a-days too another sort of men acting upon the same Principles who would make all Humane Authority and the Civil Christian Magistrate truckle to them and dread their Censures as far as the Popes ignorant Votaries do his Bulls But I hope the time will come when this God shall stand expos'd and condemn'd for a false and feigned God and be stript of all its God-like terror and dread and whatsoever may or has so long plagu'd and enslav'd the Church In fine this Idol Excommunication had every where such an Ascendant that 't was the constant Belief of the World that they who by Church-Censures and Interdictions from the Sacrament and publick acts of Worship were denounced unworthy of eternal Life were thereby wholly fallen from divine Grace as on the other hand saved must they needs be whom the Church received and would have so Can we hope better terms or greater moderation from our Modern Church-men than the World has experienced in their Predecessors I fear he that should expect it would find himself deceiv'd and that he has but little weigh'd what either the Scriptures or Experience might inform him of LXXIII I see no cause why Christian Rulers should not now-a-days do what God in the Jewish Common-wealth requir'd of the Civil Magistrate Do we conceit that we can frame a better Model and Form of Discipline in Church or State than God gave to them since we read in Deut. 4. that the Nations for this should praise and admire the People of Israel for their Wisdom and Understanding evinc'd by those Statutes and Judgments which God had given them yet God never taught them Excommunication But the Power of punishing the Debaucheries and restraining the looseness and licentiousness of manners was wholly in the Magistrate whose duty 't was not onely to animadvert on such Crimes by the Rules that God had in their Law prescribed them but the management of all the Externals of Religion the Disciplinary part and Constitution was in them For 't was not Aaron but Moses that did this God still commanding it and we know this Jurisdiction was transferred over to Joshua not to Eleazar 't was Joshua on whom God laid that Injunction of seeing the Israelites circumcis'd the second time and not Eleazar Josh 5. 2. and this was to be universal without exception of one man the Bad were to be circumcis'd as well as the Good and Bad there were without question And the keeping the Passover then was by him too directed nor was any person that we there read of excluded from it for dishonesty of his life The Ark of God was carried from place to place as he gave the word and in all things relating to Religion he interpos'd his Commands as may be observ'd throughout the whole book of Joshua Eli and Samuel who had the charge of Religious as well as Civil affairs they offer'd and administred at the Altar as Priests but as Judges they manag'd both Church and State for 't was lawful for the High Priests under the Old Testament to meddle with the arts of Government and Secular affairs as they were the Types of Christ our King and High Priest but under the Gospel 't is another case IT SHALL NOT BE SO WITH YOV says Christ See 1 Pet. 5. 3. which is pertinent to our purpose LXXIV If we go farther to the Kings the case is no less plain As to David there 's none can doubt it since it appears that he order'd all the Offices and Charges relating to God's Worship he that pleases may read