Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A31222
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Castigio temporum, or, A Short view and reprehension of the errours and enormities of the times, both in church and state and what is the most probable means to cure the distempers in either.
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1660
(1660)
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Wing C1231A; ESTC R28548
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14,568
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28
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intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men for Kings c. And let all things be done decently and in order 1 Cor. 14.40 Now decency and order must pre-suppose rules precepts and formes to which they are referred and where there are no rules precepts and forms observed there necessarily things must be done indecently and out of order and the reason of all is That men may with one mouth and one mind glorifie God Rom. 6.15 And therefore in the Church of England and I believe in all Christian Churches set forms are not only ordered when Congregations are gathered together that many may with one mind and one mouth glorifie God both for all sorts of men in their several vocations and stations Flaminem assiduum Jovi sacerdotalem erea vit Livy lib. 1. That as amongst the Jews the fire upon the Altar might never go out so among Christians no day might the Priest omit to offer up the publick service of God for all sorts of men To believe then in God the Father in God the Son in God the Holy Ghost the holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints ' c. are Articles of Christian faith and the worshiping of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost in the Catholick Church and communion of Saints is an act of Christian Religion Now let us see who is an Atheist and what is Atheism there is no man in his wits that is compos mentis who can think there is no God David Psal 14.1 says The foolish body hath said his heart There is no God and 't is not folly meerly which makes men Atheists Nor is there any man so mad as to believe there is a God and he not to be served and worshipped Who is an Atheist who then is an Atheist why he who is of no Religion that believes there is no God to be publickly and formally worshipped And if that be Religion that restrains and binds men to the worship and service of God in such an unity form and communion then that is Atheism that destroys this unity What is Atheism form and communion and gives liberty or licentiousness to all men to run a whoring after their own inventions Now would I fain know what religion or publick form of worship and service of God is used among us in Churches Whether there be any Religion publickly professed in England where it is to be found In what two Churches is God served with one mind and one mouth what Minister uses the same thing twice Is not every mans soul by an implicite faith haled before the great Tribunal of heaven in whatsoever the Minister shall say be it sence or non-sence wherein is the decency and order which the Apostle commands what rules or precepts of God or his Church are here observed and yet if this be not the publick worship and service of God then have the poor auditory nothing but preaching the Gospel for their money unless the reading of two Chapters and Psalms which is given in to the reckoning And now good God that ever such impudence and blasphemy should enter into the hearts of men as to call the preaching of the Chymaera's fansies of the wild-headed and brainsick men the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ Sure that which converted the world to Christianity was true but what man can force a belief to all the contradictions and absurdities preached by our new lights yet every one of these hath as much to say for his Gospel one as another viz. the taking of each of their bare words for it God commands Moses to put off his shoos an expression of worship with the Hebrews because the ground whereon he stood was holy but here all are with their Hats on their heads for which no reason can be given but that all of them might be alike prophane God in the second Commandment forbids the bowing down to or worshipping any creature made with hands and because all negative precepts pre-suppose affirmative therefore this bowing down to or worshipping must be done to somwhat else for the Lord thy God is a jealous God and what is God jealous of there but that this Divine adoration which is only due to him should be given to any creature and this abstract adoration and not concrete or joyned with any Petition therefore when the Devil Mat. 5.4 9. had shewed our Saviour all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them he did not stipulate with our Saviour to ask any thing of him but told him if he would fall down and worship him he would give him them all and that this worship is due to God our Saviour saith ver 10. It is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve And all men by nature wheresoever they conceive a Deity did and do attribute this worship to it They bowed themselves and worshipped Exod. 4.31 and Numb 25.2 3. And the people viz. the Israelites did eat and bowed down to their gods and Israel joyned themselves to Baal-Peor And how did Israel joyn themselves to Baal-Peor but in joyning with the Moabites in the worshipping viz. the bowing down c. to their misplaced Deity therefore the Moabites did bow down to them And Judg. 2.12 The Children of Israel followed other Gods of the Gods of the people that were round about them and bowed themselves unto them c. And v. 17. They would not hearken unto their Judges but went a whoring after other Gods and bowed down to them Sure no man can imagine that the Children of Israel did more by these Gods then the people round about them And Dan. 3. Whosoeever falleth not down and worshippeth the golden image which the King hath set up And no question this bowing down is implyed in the worshipping Osiris and Isis by the Egyptians and of Jupiter and Saturn c. by the ancient Heathens And I dare challenge any man to shew where any men do or ever did conceive a Deity until our Reformers of Faith and Christian Religion left it out and did not bow down and worship it with this abstract adoration And in reason shall any man give his superiour although it may be he never had nor does expect any thing from him a Civil Worship and shall not I who am infinitely less then a Worm and no Man compared with God for between us there is no proportion give this divine adoration to God so good and gracious to me that he has not onely made me and that not a vile and contemptible Creature but after his own Image and indued me with a reasonable soul And yet with what spite and scorn was and is this adoration decryed by the Zealots of these time as bowing and cringing to the Altar c. God no doubt permitting their spite and malice to take place among their followers lest this divine adoration should be offered up to the
of a full and free Parliament or that the Secluded Members might be admitted to sit againe After he arrived at London the first service these worthy Patriots put him upon was to make War upon the City Gates and Portcullices a thing as ill relishing the greatness of his spirit and undertakings as hateful and ridiculous to men in general the baseness of which Action together with the Reasons alledged by the Secluded Members it may be was the cause of their re-admission and Session Upon the 16 of this Month of March this many Tailed and many Headed thing although they by a most unparallel'd fact among them had cut off their Head called Parliament which had in so many shapes acted Tragedies the greatest part of 20 years was dissolved having against all Law and Justice not only been the ruine almost of infinite Families of all sorts of men and not only caused the Fields of the three Nations to run with more streams of humane bloud then ever was before mentioned by any story of the Nations in many years but also erected new and unheard-of Courts after the War was done to ensnare and take away mens lives having not only taxed the Subject fourty times more then all the Kings of this Nation have done in 500 years before but also embezel'd and sold all the Publick Revenues both of Church and Crown and yet left a greater Debt upon the Nation then all the Parliaments except the Sacrilegious gift of Church-Lands have given to the Kings of this Nation these 400 years having made the honour of the English Nation vile and contemptible to all Nations abroad having not only lost all faith at home but kept none abroad whereby the Publick Trade and Traffick of this Nation is interrupted and lost and yet have left above 50000 armed men besides the ordinary Militia to be maintained by the Nations yet as an Epicedium to manifest their Saintships to the world and how ill the Cavaliers have deserved because guilty of none of these things they not only exclude them but their posterity from being elegible in what they call this next Parliament Since it is impossible that any differences can be composed What are the most probable means to cure the distractions in the State where men will not submit to some certain and known rule to which the men differing ought indifferently to submit themselves and since all Factions have plaid reaks at the Helm and Imperiously without all Title or President not only arrogantly dominered over one another but also the rest of their fellow-Subjects and since the forsaking our known Governours to whom by all Laws of God and man we did ow our obedience and those known Laws which should be the Rule of the Subjects actions and put a period to their differences hath been the cause of all our civil distractions and since there is no other probable means under heaven to cure our distractions and compose our differences but by returning to our known Governours and Laws then at last let men lay a side all further animosities take hold of those means which may save the Ship of this Commonwealth before it utterly sinks to the Publick ruine of the Inhabitants But how the wounds of this distracted Nation may be so healed and the breaches so cemented that though all be sufferers yet the Nation redeemed will doubtless require the wisdom of a Full and Free Parliament duly constituted by whose judgement all the differences and civil distractions of the Nation ought to be determined and decided Qui molitur insidias in Patriam id facit quod infaelix Nauta perforans navem in qua ipse vehitur Let us see whether as the case now stands with us the condition of this Nation be any better in Religion then Government Credere Deum esse non est articulus fidei To believe there is a God is an Article of no mans Faith nor is that act Religion to worship serve God with which every individual man frames and purposes to himself as useful and expedient for him to do yet indeed it is very requisite that every man should every day with his private worship and service implore Gods preventing and assisting grace all the day after because no man or men can tell another man what he wants and to what sin by nature he is evilly prone to so well as himself for then all men who worship one God were of one Religion and of one Faith Let us therefore see what is Faith what Religion Who an Atheist and what Atheism Faith is an act of Beliefe in God as he hath revealed himself to mankind extraordinarily What is Faith and so as by nature no man could possibly without Gods grace attain to the knowledge or belief of it It was therefore an act of faith in the Children of Israel to believe in God as he had revealed himself to Abraham Isaac and Israel to the evidence of which no man inspired with all the knowledge and learning of Pythagoras Socrates Plato Aristotle and all other Philosophers could possibly by those helps onely attain and to believe in God as known to them and their Fathers by the name of Jehovah was an Article of Jewish Faith and to believe in God the Father as he hath revealed himself to mankind in his Son Jesus Christ God and Man is the sum of Christian faith and by doing in this faith ought every Christian man to seek out his Salvation with fear and trembling By Religion What Religion all men generally Christians Jewes Mahometans and Infidels who though misplacing the Deity in the Creatures as the Sun or Moon an Oak Apollo c. understand the restraining or binding men to the Publick worship and service of God in such an unity form and communion And so zealous were the Druides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nicias Orat Thuc. l. 7. in their Rites and Forms that none but their Priests and Scholars might learn them nor would they commit them to Letters both because they would not have them divulged lest they should grow contemptible by being exposed to the view of the rude and ignorant multitude and because their Scholars might the better retain and keep them in their memory Selden annal Anglobr l. c. 4 Cesar li. 6. de bell Gall. Camb Br. p. 13.14 If then Religion be the binding men to worship God in such a form c. let us see what makes and alters forms Forma rerum sicut numeri according to Aristotle consistunt in indivisibili Tho forms of things as numbers do consist indivisibly or integrally for as in numbers if you add to alter or diminish ought from any number it ceases to be the number it was before so in forms if you add diminish or alter ought it ceases to be the form it was before therefore St. Paul exhorts 1 Tim. 2. That first of all because there can be no Religion without it prayers and supplications