Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	catholic_n	church_n	communion_n	6,888	5	9.4764	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92025	A reply to the answer of Anonymus to Doctor Gauden's Analysis of the sense of the covenant: and under that, to a later tract of one Mr Zach. Crofton of the same fraternity with him. By John Rowland Oxoniensis, CCC. Rector of Footscray in Kent.	Rowland, John, 1606-1660.	1660 (1660)	Wing R2070; Thomason E1038_4; ESTC R207862	40,193	52

A REPLY TO THE ANSWER of ANONYMVS TO Doctor Gauden's ANALYSIS of the Sense of the Covenant And under that to a later TRACT OF ONE Mr Zach. Crofton Of the same Fraternity with him By John Rowland Oxoniensis CCC Rector of Footscray in Kent Ficta in natura suam redeunt LONDON Printed for T. J. and are to be sold at Westminster-Hall and the Royal Exchange 1660. A REPLY to Anonymus his ANSWER to Dr. Gaudens Analysis Of the Sense of the Covenant I Met by accident with a Pamphlet against Doctor Gauden's Analysis of the true sense of the Covenant and I know there are enough abler than my self to reply to it if the Learned Doctor wanted any help here as he doth not and I am unwilling the Truth should suffer any prejudice by my defects yet I think my self something concerned in it as a Clergy-man and Lover of the Truth wherefore craving leave of the Reverend Doctor and the candid interpretation of the Reader I begin with the Title which runs thus The Anatomy of Doctor Gauden's idolized Non-sense and Blasphemy in his pretended Analysis c. of that sacred Covenant c. I have examined the Doctors words as I finde them upon this mans credit as he lays them down for I have no other Bookes before me than his I undertook to Answer and I can finde nothing of the Doctors but solid Reason good Authority and sound Divinity neither Non-sense nor Blasphemy unless he will falsly charge that upon the Doctor which may more truly be imputed to himself idolizing a Covenant which many wise and godly men call a cursed Covenant and the word will beat it with a sacred Epithite The Libeller must pass for Anonymus because he hath not vouchsafed to subscribe his Name I wish he were ashamed of his Cause but I think rather it is the old Presbyterian trick to make men believe he is afraid of persecution But mark his words The Reader must know that the late Long-Parliament I mean both the Honorable Houses drew up took and Ordered others to take two several Covenants in one year A fruitful Year of Covenants when you name the Long-Parliament you do well to say you mean the two Honorable Houses for all the world knows the two Honorable Houses will not own all things done by a prevailing Faction in the late long Parliament How many of the two Houses took both those Covenants I cannot tell I am perswaded a great part of them never took them both but to free themselves left their places in Parliament and of those that did take them hundreds its likely have repented for it since and were it to be done again they would never take them because something contained in them was unlawful and besides that they wanted the Kings confirmation Two several Covenants I have not opportunity to compare them together how several or differing they were it may be they were contrary or rather contradictory one to the other for such Contrivers seldom continue long in the same mind knowing not well what they would have Two in one year the first June 1643. the second September 11 the same year Count the moneths and it is not much above a quarter of a year they grew apace and things that are good seldom grow so fast which made men shrewdly to suspect the goodness of them Now you must take notice that it is only the last the far better of the two which this Master of words hath opposed c. His idle Jests against the learned Doctor are not worth taking notice of and therefore I let them pass But for his Covenants I believe the first was not very good being like the point of the weapon that makes the entrance or the sting of a serpent by which the poison is first conveyed yet if there were any barrel better herring I think that was the best because it was the first for mischief still increaseth from bad to worse nemo repente fit turpissimus The first Covenant was pressed upon the people with as much violence as might be that who ever would not take it should bear no Office in Church or Commonweal by reason of the second tayl that was to follow it Or rather the two Covenants may be compared to the Serpent Amphisbaenae with two heads What was the meaning of that they can best interpret that gave it forth by menacing those that refused it For when King Charls the I desired the Earl of Straffords life to be spared and he should bear no Office in Church nor State they replyed He that was not fit for some Office was not fit to live and for this and some other reasons I thank God I had the grace to refuse them all Next he quibbles about the Doctors calling his Analysis The loosing of St. Peters bonds Because he doth not finde St. Peters name in the Text quoted Acts 16.25 but Acts the 12. A most ridiculous Cavil as if a man might not lawfully quote two places of Scripture to the same purpose the one to fortifie and expound the other but it must be presently Non-sense and Blasphemy as this Libeller will have it to be he keeps a fearful clutter about it because he cannot finde out the reason of this Inscription The loosing of St. Peters bonds but to put him out of his passion and to serve him with my best conjecture The learned Doctor hath qualified the harshness of the Covenant by giving to it the softest and most sober sense that it is capable of and it is possible that the Doctor himself through humane frailty in that sober sense he expoundeth it took it so but finding it for all this smoothing of it over to be too hard of digestion he doth in my judgement very well to follow the Command of our blessed Saviour to Saint Peter Luke 22.23 And thou being converted strengthen thy brethren and therefore he calls his Analysis The loosing of St. Peters bonds He is very angry because the Doctor will not be one of the rigid Presbyters that will hold communion with none but such as are of their own opinion and therefore accuseth him falsly for upholding communion with Popery by reason of these words he alledgeth that the Doctor saith He desireth to hold not onely all inward but all actual communion in all Doctrines and Duties of Faith and Worship to the Word of God with the Church of Rome If this be not well spoken I wonder what one can say to please him He had little cause to fear the Doctor would turn Roman Catholick who was so much offended with some enormities he had formerly taken notice of in Episcopal Government and being as it appears by his Analysis a charitable man and of a tender conscience was willing to comply with all Christians in Worship agreeable to the Word of God And this Anonymus deserves for his uncharitable censure and so frequently scoffing at the Doctors sighs and tears to be severely censured himself

who loves to maintain divisions in the Church of God and will not as it seems by him hold communion with any but such as are of their Covenant Whose bonds were then loosed The bonds of Goal-birds thieves and perhaps murtherers and other rogues and malefactors for they are the usual guests in such places if any such have taken the Solemn League and Covenant c. I know none that were more fit to take it than such and doubtless not a few of them did take it to bolster them up in their villany they found favor when others that had not taken it suffered for smaller matters But who doth he call Goal-birds c. He cannot be ignorant that in the times that St. Peter and St. Paul and Silas were cast in prison nay our blessed Savior himself that thieves and murtherers were often let go free the best Christians were the ordinary Goal-birds And was it not so when your Covenant was in force were not the best of the Nobility and Gentry the gravest and most pious Fathers of the Church and the most learned and Orthodox Divines plundred sequestred and cast into prison by your Covenanters deny it if you can 'T is true when Godly Kings ruled over us the case was far otherwise and we doubt not when the Land is once well rid of your Covenant but that those who do well shall live peaceably under His Sacred Majesty that now is whom God prosper and preserve and that none but such as ought to be put into prisons and such as are oriminal shall be the common guests in such places as they were formerly He promiseth to use all brevity in his Reply and for my part I shall do so too being not willing to bestow much time or to spend ink and paper upon such a Scribler as he is I. Proposition The Doctor himself doth admit the Covenant to be in some sense lawful and good 2. Here is evidence enough against the Doctor that the Covenant is lawful and good or how else could he give a sober sense of it Men that are ready to sink will lay hold of any thing to save themselves You may see an example of it 1 Reg. 20.33 Now the man did diligently observe whether any thing would come from him and did hastily catch at it And they said Thy Brother Benhadad This is meer sophistry to conclude à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter The Doctor doth admit the Covenant in some sense to be lawful and good it seems it hath many senses and I think so too that it was an equivocal Compact but in what it may be admitted to be lawful and good I consess I could never yet understand for the best you can make of it 't is no better but an invention of factious Novelists contrary to the rule of all Antiquity to subvert and cast down an ancient primitive Apostolical Government by Bishops and to set up a new fangled upstart Presbytery in the room thereof which hath strangely bewitched ignorant and illiterate men taken with novelties and I have heard how that Philip Earl of Pembroke fell in love with it yet being asked what Classical was He said Presbyterial and what was Presbyterial but Synodical a man doubtless of a strong faith to believe as the Church believes 3. He quotes the Doctors words That he believes few took it in any sense against primitive reformed regular Episcopacy c. as the reverend Primate of Armagh proposed in his Reduction of Episcopacy and hence he infers If this Reduction be necessary the Government cannot be unlawful but good England God be praised hath yet store of able Divines to defend Episcopacy as it was first regulated by the Apostles by Scripture Fathers Councels and Reason against all the Adversaries of it who pretending some Errors in it and inveighing against personal faults of some Bishops would fain extirpate the frame of primitive Ecclesiastical Government as it was here established by Edw. 6. Qu. Elizabeth King James and King Charls of blessed memories and they that do it we have reason to believe would do it to accomplish some sinister end of their own to revenge private injuries they suppose they underwent or for some expectations which it may be they deserved not which they think they lost by the Bisliops for it can be nothing else but malice in the more learned Presbyters and delusion in those that are of weaker judgements to oppose a received Truth for sixteen hundred years and upward in continuance whereof the Church of England hath been so happy to the amazement and envy of all other National Churches under the most pious Kings and Queens this Land ever bred and they that labour to dissolve this form must condemn all our best Princes of ignorance and superstition and our greatest and learnedst Bishops and Ministers whom the world admired for learning and piety of all the faults they would fain charge this Government with and must extol their own Wisdom and Zeal before theirs under a notion of new Lights and further Revelation I have not seen the Reverend Primate of Armaghs Reduction yet I have reason to believe that the learned Primate did not attempt to divest himself of his honors and preferments in the Church you did that for him and for the rest of the Bishops and eminent Divines but held it fit that Bishops should keep a nearer conjunction with Presbytery than they have done of late years and in that respect I know none of the Clergy that are against it but hold it very fit and necessary that it should be so observed The Doctor had reckoned up some evils defects and dangers incident to Episcopacy as Pride Ambition c. Is not saith he all this enough to prove from his own pen that such a Covenant pre-extirpating such Episcopacy is lawful and good The learned Doctor Gauden unwilling to break the bonds of peace and unity if it were possible to keep them explained their Covenant in the calmest sense to the supporting of moderate Episcopacy But this Anonymus will not away with any qualisication it must sound of nothing but extirpation of Episcopal Government and to speak plainly I dare say that was the true inrent of it and the Doctor is mistaken to think it will admit of any sober construction for it was doubtless another Trojan horse devised by the Politick Sinons of the latter Age full of armed men and when the walls of Episcopacy were broken down to let it in it had doubtless proved if God had not been more merciful to us the utter ruine of Monarchy and Episcopacy and overthrown at once both King Church and State for though there were many necessary and pious things couched in it yet I know not any one of them that they have kept sincerely but the rooting out of Episcopacy nay they rather chuse to break all the rest that they might fully reak their spleen to abollish that II. Proposition Herein all sober