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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82319	Several sermons and discourses of William Dell Minister of the Gospel; sometimes attending both the generals in the army: and now Master of Gonvil and Caius Colledge in Cambridge. Heretofore published at several times, and on several occasions; and now gathered in one volumn, for the benefit of the faithful, and conviction of the world.	Dell, William, d. 1664.; Goad, Christopher, 1601-1652.; England and Wales. Parliament. House of Commons.	1651 (1651)	Wing D929; Thomason E645_4; ESTC R208819	213,548	263

otherwise in the Church for whoever speak there the hearers are to judge of the truth of the Doctrine and accordingly are either to receive it or reject it having power to do either as they see occasion and so errour cannot prevail in that Church where the faithfull have liberty to judge of all Doctrines and do exercise that liberty But where they that publish Doctrine are also the judges of it and the people are bound up to the Doctrine of the Teachers and may not question or contradict it there errour reigns as in its proper Kingdom And thus by these means errour may certainly be kept out of the Church that the Church may live in truth and peace But here now a great question wil be moved and that is this Whether the Magistrate hath not power to suppress errour by the sword and whether the Church may not use this remedy against errour as well as all those before named I answer that many men of great eminency have attributed such a power to the Magistrate and have done him the honour besides his throne in the world to erect him a throne in Gods Kingdom at the least equal to Christ thinking that Religion would soon be lost if he should not uphold it And to make this good they have produced many Scriptures of the Old Testament which seem to arm the Magistrate against the authors and spreaders of errours But I desire the wise hearted to consider whether as clear Scriptures may not be produced out of the Old Testament to prove that temporal power in the world belongs to Ecclesiastical men as that spiritual power in the Church belongs to worldly Magistrates And to this purpose because I would not be too large in this matter now I shall desire him who hath a minde to be instructed to reade and weigh the Reply of the French Prelates to the Lord Peters which he may finde in Fox his Book of Martyrs vol. 1 p. 467. Wherefore seeing the Scriptures of the old Testament are every whit as strong to give Ministers power in temporal matters as Magistrates in spiritual it is without all question the only sure and safe way to determine this cause by the new Testament or the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles by whom in these last dayes God hath spoken fully to the Church and after whose doctrine there is no other word to be expected And because herein I finde no such power given to the Civil Magistrate to judge and determine in spiritual matters therefore I conclude he hath none Now if any shall say This is a great wrong to the Magistrate to thrust his power out of the Church and to confine it to the world I answer That to make the Church an Ecclesiastical Kingdom standing in outward Laws orders authority dignity promotion goverment all which are to be granted established and managed by state power and yet to deny the Magistrates authority and influence into these things which flow from his own power and consist in it and by it this is to streighten and to wrong him indeed But to declare the true Church to be a spiritual Kingdom as Christ hath made it and not at all of this world but the very Kingdom of heaven upon earth and thereupon to deny him power in it is no more to prejudice the Magistrate then to deny him power in heaven Seeing the Sons Kingdom which is heaven on earth is to be as free from worldly and humane power as the Fathers Kingdom which is heaven in heaven Christ being to be all in all in this as God is to be all in all in that And so to deny the Magistrate that power which Christ never granted him is no wrong to him at all but to grant him and gratifie him with such power would be a great and intolerable wrong to the truth and Church of Christ as in many other things so in this present matter we are speaking of as you may see in the following particulars For the putting the power of the sword into the Magistrates hands to suppress errour is attended with these evils 1. Hereby the Magistrate is made a Judge of Doctrines and hath power given him to pronounce which is truth and which is errour being yet no more infallible yea everywhit as liable to erre as the meanest of the people And what Magistrate is there that hath the power of the sword but will uphold his own Religion and judgement to be the truth though never so false and will sentence what ever is contrary thereunto to be errour though never so true and so the truth and word of God which only is to judge all and it self to be judged of none by this means is made subject to the judgement of vain man and shall either be truth or errour as he pleases to call it and errour when it pleaseth the Magistrate shall be adorned with the glorious title of truth and shall have his authority to countenance and uphold it And how great a prejudice this hath been and is to the truth and how great an advantage to errour it is very easie to judge Now if any shall say that the Magistrate may not judge of doctrine by himself and use his sword accordingly but he may take to him the councel and advice of godly and able Ministers as now of the Assembly and so may judge and punish according to their judgement I answer Is it fit that the Magistrate in so great matters should be blinde folded himself and see onely by other mens eyes Again if the Magistrate judge according to the judgement of ●he Ministers and depending more on their knowledge then his own shall draw his sword against whomsoever they shall perswade him What higher honour doth he attain to in all this then to become their Executioner Yea if he punish amiss he may prove a very murderer Pilate in this case may be a sea-mark to all the Magistrates in the world who following the councel and judgement of the High Priests put the Son of God himself to death as if he had been the son of perdition Which I say may serve for a sufficient warning to the end of the world to all Magistrates that they confide not on the judgement of the Clergy but that they be sure themselves in what they do 2. The putting power into the Magistrates hands to suppress error by the sword gives him full opportunity to destroy and slay the true children of God if at any time he shall mistake and judge them Heretikes For what power men ignorantly allow a godly Magistrate against true Heretikes the same power will all Magistrates arrogate to themselves as their just due against all those that differ from themselves in matters of Religion though their judgement who so differ from them be never so true And thus the Magistrate who is a most fallible Judge in these things in stead of tares may pluck up the wheat

to flight and an hundred a thousand And this was performed in the very letter of it at that famous and memorable battel at Naseby Many more instances I could relate of the power of faith in this Army but that I should thereby grieve and afflict many too much 4. The spirit of Prayer and this the Lord hath poured forth upon many of them in great measure not only upon many of the chief Commanders but on very many of the inferiour Officers and common Troopers some of whom I have by accident heard praying with that faith and familiarity with God that I have stood wondering at the grace We never undertook any thing of weight but God was always sought to of us again and again and we have found God near to us in all things we have called upon him for Yea God hath been found of us whilst yet we have been seeking him and hath given us the answer of our prayers into our bosoms 5. The special presence of God with them I have seen more of the presence of God in that Army then amongst any people that ever I conversed with in my life There hath been a very sensible presence of God with us we have seen his goings and observed his very foot-stepts for he hath dwelt amoug us and marched in the head of us and counsel'd us and led us and hath gone along with us step by step from Naseby to Leicester and from thence to Langport and Bridgewater and Bath and Sherborn and Bristol and the Devises and Winchester and Bazing and Dartmouth and Exceter and into Cornwal and back again to Oxford and all along his presence hath gone along with us and he hath been our strength and glory How often hath fearfulness and trembling taken hold upon the enemy and the stout men been at a loss for their courage and the men of might for their hands because of the presence of God with us yea because of this they have melted away in their strong Holds and delivered up their fenced Cities into our hands and every place we have come against we have taken in and every battel wherein we have fought we have prevailed And because God hath been in the midst of us we have not been moved our selves and our Enemies have perished not by our valour and weapons and strength but at the rebuke of his countenance This shall be writen for the generation to come seeing so many of this present generation so little regard it and the people that are to be born shall praise the Lord. 6. The sixth remarkable thing in the Army is their faithfulness to the state How have they gone up and down in weariness and labors and dangers and deaths to do the Kingdoms work when was it that they sate idle have they not as soon as one field was fought prepared to another as soon as one City was taken advanced to another and so gone on from one strong hold of the enemies to another till all have been reduced that peace might be hastned to this Kingdom if it were the will of God and not come as a snaile but as on Eagles wings yea have they not been active even all the winter long in a most cold and frosty season that continued so for two months together beating the enemy on t of the field and taking their Strong Holds when other Armies use to lie still Have they taken the pay of idleness or lived the life of luxury upon the State-maintenance Have they sought to lengthen the Wars for their own advantages Have they not made even a short work I challenge all the former Generations of the world to stand forth and to shew so much work of this kinde done in so little time And farther by all this success have they ever been lifted up so much as to petition the Parliament in any thing or to remonstrate any thing proudly and undutifully to them as some people surfeited with peace and plenty have done Or though the Kingdom next under God and the Parliament owes its protection and deliverance and freedom from Tyranny and Popery to this worthy Army have they for all this ever appeared to contest against the Kingdom for any thing or to stand with their swords in their hands to make demands Nay I declare this to all the Kingdom that as God hath made them glorious in doing so he hath made them contented to be perfected by suffering if it be the will of God And most confident I am that though some men for private ends and interests are murmuring and others speaking out against this Army as the perverse Israelites against Moses and Aaron yet the Lord in his due time will take away the reproach of all his people therein and that we shall hear songs from all the ends of the kingdom even glory to the righteous This I have spoken in truth and sincerity to the Kingdom And to that Army I shall say Who is like unto thee O people saved by the Lord who is the shield of thy help and the sword of thine excellency and thine enemies shall be found lyars unto thee and thou shalt tread upon their high places I have been longer in this Epistle then I intended but seeing there was such a cause at this no ingenuous man will blame me Christian Reader I am Thine to serve thee in the Lord and in the Gospel of his Son W. D. AN EXPOSITION Of the 54. Chapter of Isaiah from Vers 11. to the end The words are thus Vers 11. Oh thou afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and lay thy foundations with Saphires 12. And I will make thy windows of Agates and thy gates of Carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant stones c. THis place of Scripture is very useful to the Church of God in these times wherein we live yea verily this Prophet did not so much Prophesie to his own age as to ours nor to the Jewish Church as to the Christian For unto them it was revealed that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you The Prophet Isaiah prophesied in the Spirit touching the Kingdom of Christ which stands not in the flesh but in the Spirit and delivers from the Father by the Spirit many excellent promises to be fulfilled in the Son Incarnate head and members The first promise in this Chapter is touching the great increase of the Church in the days of the New-Testament that whereas before the Church was to be found but in one kinred and tongue and people and nation now it should be gathered out of every kinred and tongue and people and nation And this is so desirable and comfortable a thing that in the beginning of the Chapter he calls upon all to rejoyce at this vers 1. Sing O barren thou that didst not bear break forth into singing and shout aloud thou that didst

say any thing but what likes us or what is indeed agreeable to the word as if error should have now gotten more power to make void the word then the word power to make void error Wherefore if the word be suffered to have free passage I dare rest on that alone and so dare all that have felt the power of it in their own hearts for the conquering and destroying all errors and Heresies whatsoever in the true Church of God And now it would be profitable to hear what some other men who have walked in the same light and Spirit have said in this matter Zuinglius in his book quoted in the margent speaks thus Haec unica eaque sola via est qua ad concordiam proxime perveniri potest c. that is This is the one and only way whereby we may most suddenly attain to concord if whatsoever things may be or are commonly said for any opinion or against it be freely propounded in the Churches so that the people be allowed free judgement in all these things For God who is not the God of discord but of peace nevers suffers those who are gathered together in his spirit to erre or be deceived And if this way were observed we should shortly see the Churches of Christ enjoying sweet peace and concord But now as often as there are some Princes and Cities that would have the doctrine of the Gospel free to all presently there are others that would stop and hinder the course of it and so long there must needs arise great discords and dissentions And hence I would have you judge whether you or we are departed from the Church of God and the doctrine of it For we suffer those writings that proceed as well from you as from the Papists to be openly and freely read and read again and the evils which are taught in them we slay by the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God but you think all this business may be dispatched with PUBLICK EDICTS AND COMMANDS And therefore do you be judge whose cause is most to be suspected ours who suffer the doctrine of our adversaries to be published in our Churches and overthrow them by the word or yours who reproach our doctrine before the simple people as heretical in the mean time by your good will neither suffering them to read it nor understand it Thus far he Luther also in his Epistle to Frederick and John Dukes of Saxony speaking against that Spirit which he cals Spiritus Alstetinus a proud haughty enthusiastical spirit that despised faith and love and the cross and the whole Scriptures as low things not worth their minding and gloried in strange Revelations and superlative holiness which they had above other believers And these enemies of the Gospel especially were gathered together in Alsteta and Luther writes to the Dukes in whose Province this Town was to this purpose touching them Quod vero praesentis interest negotii nolim ab illustrissimis D. V. praedicandi officium praecludi cuiquam c. That is But for what pertains to our present business I would not that the office of preaching should be denyed to any by your most illustrious Lordships but let there be granted to them free Liberty to preach and let them exhibite the best proof of their learning For I said by the Testimony of Paul It must needs be that there must be sects and the word of God must strive and wage war in camps And therefore it is evident in Psa 67. that the Evangelists are called Armies and that Christ in the Psalms is called more then once the King of Armies Now if their spirit be a right and approved spirit it will easily subsist before us without all fear and so if our spirit be right as we hope it is it will fear neither them nor any body else But if they transgress the bounds of the Gospel and will not contain their hands but will do their work with violence it is the duty of your most Illustrious Lordships when they 〈◊〉 fierce and seditious to repress them or to banish them out of your Dominions saying we will easily grant to you to fight with the word for the proving and examining which is true Doctrine but we will restrain the fierceness of your spirits and contain your hands for these things belong to our Magistracie And therefore they that will not herein obey let them depart the Country For saith he we who are Ministers of the word may preach but we must do no violence and Daniel hath witnessed that Antichrist shall be destroyed without hands And Isaiah saith that Christ shall fight in his Kingdom with the spirit of his mouth and the rod of his lips c. Also Albertus Duke of Borussia when the great controversie●ell ●ell out between Andreas Osiander and Morlinus and other Ministers touching the Righteousness whereby a Christian is made righteous before God he would not forbid either side either the Pulpit or Press but left them free to both alike and desired them to forbear reproaches one against another and to debate the business quietly by the word of God Likewise the Bohemians in a certain exhortation of theirs to Kings and Princes to stir them up to the zeal of the Gospel subscribed by Procopius and Conradus and other Captains of the Bohemians have these words They say that is the Papists it ought not to be suffered that we should be heard in confessing our faith Now how may that be proved by the holy Scripture since Christ heard the devil as is written Mat 4 And they are not better then Christ nor we worse then the devil If they be righteous and have the truth with them as they say they have and we be unrighteous why do they fear since the truth ought not to be afraid of falshood and Zorobabel declared That truth is of all things the most mighty and overcometh all things For Christ is the truth John 14. I am the way the truth and the devil is the father of lyes John 8. Therefore if the Pope and his Priests have the truth let them overcome us with the word of God but if they have lyes then they cannot long abide in all their presumption Wherefore we exhort and beseech all the Imperial Cities all Kings Princes Noble-men rich poor for Gods sake and for his Righteousness that one of them write hereof to another and that there may be some means made how we may commune with you safely and friendly at some such place as shall be fit both for you and us and bring with you your Bishops and Teachers and let them and our Teachers fight together with the word of God and let us hear them and let not one overcome the other by violence or false subtilty but only by the word of God c. By all which it appears That let mens Doctrine be what it will they ought to be