Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	church_n	city_n	congregation_n	1,450	5	9.5387	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02484	An apologie of the povver and prouidence of God in the gouernment of the world. Or An examination and censure of the common errour touching natures perpetuall and vniuersall decay diuided into foure bookes: whereof the first treates of this pretended decay in generall, together with some preparatiues thereunto. The second of the pretended decay of the heauens and elements, together with that of the elementary bodies, man only excepted. The third of the pretended decay of mankinde in regard of age and duration, of strength and stature, of arts and wits. The fourth of this pretended decay in matter of manners, together with a large proofe of the future consummation of the world from the testimony of the gentiles, and the vses which we are to draw from the consideration thereof. By G.H. D.D.	Hakewill, George, 1578-1649.	1627 (1627)	STC 12611; ESTC S120599	534,451	516

not touched vs. In the 31 yeare of King Henry the first a terrible murraine of cattell spred through the whole kingdome in so much as whole sties of hogs and whole stalls of oxen were euery-where suddenly emptied it continued so long vt nulla omninò huius regni villa huius miscriae immunis alterius incommoda ridere posset saith Malmesburiensis so as no one village was so free from this misery that it could laugh at the mishap of others Now adayes we heare not of so frequent of such fowle fretting kindes of Leprosies any-where in the World as were anciently among the Iewes they had the Leprosie of the skin of the fl●…sh of the scab of the running sore of the haire of the head and beard their garments both linnen wollen were infected with it so as sometimes it increased and spread it selfe in the very garment though separared from the body of the diseased Nay which is more strange the wals of their houses were not free from it it tainted the very stones the morter with greenish reddish spots so as they were forced sometimes to plucke downe a part of the House sometimes the whole when no other meanes was found to cleanse it Now their great multitudes of Lepers appeares in this that they had so many and so solemne lawes for their tryall for their cleansing for the shutting of them vp without the campe And though we may well conceiue that some of them were stricken with this disease immediatly by the finger of God as Myriam Moses sister for her murmuring Gehazi for his bribery Azariah for his backwardnes in reformation of Religion Vzziah for his presumptuous forwardnes in taking vpon him the Priests office yet those foure that sate together expecting the charity of Passengers at the gate of Samaria those ten that our Saviour healed at once shew that the number of their ordinary Lepers was very great Lastly none can be ignorant that the sicknesse which wee call the French disease they the Neapolitane and the Neapolitanes the Indian because we borrowed it from the French they from the Spaniards at Naples and they againe from the Indians is neither so catching nor so virulent not so contagious nor so dangerous as in former times it hath beene SECT 4. Of earthquakes in former ages and their terrible effects liuely described by Seneca TO the pestilences and other contagious diseases of former ages may be added the Earthquakes arising likewise from the distemper of the aire though in another kind Of these we haue heard little in these latter times or at leastwise they haue beene nothing so frequent fearefull as in the dayes of our more ancient predecessors in so much as they chiefly gaue occasion to the composing of that Letany and therein to the petition against suddaine death which by publique authority is vsed through the Christian Church at this day by the force of Earthquakes contrary to the Proverbe Mountaines haue met The Citty of Antioch where the Disciples of Christ were first called Christians with a great part of Asia bordering vpon it was in Traianes time swallowed vp with an Earthquake as writeth Dion reporting very marvailous things thereof By the same meanes at one time were twelue famous Citties of Asia ouer-turned vnder the reigne of Tiberius And at an other time as many townes of Campania vnder Constantine And of the dreadfulnes of this accident aboue the pestilence or any other incident to mankind Seneca excellcntly discourses in the sixth book of his Naturall questions Hostem muro repellam saith hee praeruptae altitudinis Castella vel magnos exercitus difficultate aditus morabuntur à tempestate nos vindicant portus nimborum vim effusam sine fine cadentes aquas tecta propellunt fugientes non sequitur incendium adversus tonitrua minas Coeli subterraneae domus defossi iu altum specus remedia sunt ignis ille coelestis non transverberat terram sed exiguo ejus objectu retunditur in pestilentia mutare sedes licet nullum malum sine effugio est nunquam fulmina populos percusserunt pestilens coelum exhausit vrbes non abstulit hoc malum latissimè patet inevitabile avidum publicè noxium non enim domus solùm familias aut vrbes singulas haurit sed gentes totas regionesque subvertit modò ruinis operit modò in altam voraginem condit ac ne id quidem relinquit ex quo appareat quòd non est saltem fuisse sed supra nobilissimas vrbes sine vllo vestigio prioris habitus solum extenditur A wall will repell an enemy rampiers raised to a great height by the difficulty of their accesse will keepe out powerfull armies An Hauen shelters vs from a tempest the couering of our Houses from the violence of stormes lasting raines the fire doth not follow vs if we fly from it against thunder the threats of Heauen vaults vnder ground deep caues are remedies those blastings flashes from aboue doe not pierce the earth but are blunted by a little peece of it oppofed against them In the time of pestilence a man may change dwellings there is no mischiefe but may be shunned the lightning neuer stroke a whole Nation a pestilential ayre hath emptied Cities not ouer-turned them but this mischiefe is large in spreading vnavoydable greedy of destruction generally dangerous For it doth not onely depopulate Houses Families townes but layes waste makes desolate whole Regions and countreyes sometimes covering them with their own ruines and sometimes ouer-whelming them and burying them in deepe gulphes leauing nothing whereby it may so much as appeare to posterity that that which is not sometimes was but the Earth is levelled ouer most famous Citties without any marke of their former existence SECT 5. Of dreadfull burnings in the bowels of Aetna and Vesuvius and the rising of a new Iland out of the Sea with hideous roaring neere Putzol in Italy AS the quakings of the earth were more terrible in former ages so were the burnings in the bowels thereof no lesse dreadfull the one being as it were the cold the other the hot fits thereof The mountaine Aetna in Sicilie hath flamed in time past so abundantly that by reason of thick smoake and vapours arising therefrom the Inhabitants thereabout could not see one another if wee may giue credite to Cicero for two dayes together And in the yeare of the world 3982 it raged so violently that Africa was thereof an astonished witnesse But Virgils admirable description thereof may serue for all Horrificis tonat Aetna ruinis Interdumque atram prorumpit ad aethera nubem Turbine fumantem piceo candente favilla Attollitque globos flammarum sydera lambit Interdum scopulos avulsaque viscera montis Erigit eructans liquefactaque saxa sub aur as Cum gemitu glomerat

evictisque erroribus infandis inep●…ijs quas Prisci coluere quid quemque deceat quibus sacris quàque mente Deum colere oporteat noscitamus How much doe we owe to Christ our King Master whom we acknowledge and worship as true God by whose guidance and direction the monstrous doctrine and barbarous rites of those sauage nations being chased away and we being taught true Religion imbrace civility and the true God and the errours vnspeakeable follies which the Ancients had in honour and reverence being brought to light we know what our dutie is with what ceremonies and with what minde God is to bee worshipped which is in effect the same with that of the Apostle Thankes be to God who hath deliuered vs from the power of darkenesse and translated vs into the kingdome of his deere sonne If I were disposed to inlarge this discourse heere might easily be remembred the vnsavory tales the childish fancies and fables of the Iewish Rabbins in their Talmud and Cabal the most absard opinions and horrible practices of Ancient Heretiques in the Primitiue Church the incredible ignorance superstition among those who for the space of many ages were commonly accounted the best nay the only Christians But each of these would require a large volume and are already fully discouered by others The first by Gala●…inus de arcanis Catholicae veritatis and Buxdorsius in his Synagoga Iudaica the second by 〈◊〉 Philastrius Epiphanius Augustine ●…rateolus Alphonsus à Castro and others the third by the writers of the reformed Churches who haue set themselues to oppose the corruptions and abuses of the Church or rather the court of Rome And howbeit the Romanists in requitall heere of would proue their Adversaries doctrine to open a gappe to disobedience and licentiousnes yet I doubt not but the more sober minded among them finde that to proceede rather out of eagernesse and heat of disputation then from any solide reason or setled judgement since it is certaine that since Luther awakened the world the manners euen of the Romish Clergy themselues are not a little reformed CAP. 2. Touching the Lawes of the Ancient Grecians and Saxons whereof some were wicked and impious others most absurd and ridiculous SECT 1. The vnjust and absurd Lawes of Solon the Athenian Emperour AS Religion is the hinge vpon which the government of the Politicall state depends and mooues so next after it good and wholesome Laws serue much for the bettering of a Common-wealth in matter of manners Law being therefore defined by Plato to bee a reasonable Rule leading and directing men to their due end for a publique good ordaining penalties for them that transgresse rewards for them that obey And by Cicero to be the highest and chiefe reason grafted in nature commaunding those things which are to be done forbidding the contrary But by the Civilians most briefly and properly Lex est sanctio sancta jubens honesta prohibens contraria Law is an holy decree that is a decree not to be violated commaunding honest things and forbidding the contrary Now as the ancient Paynims were defectiue in points of true Religion so were they likewise in making just Lawes sometimes commaunding where they should forbid and againe forbidding where they should commaund rewarding where they should punish and punishing where they should reward I will instance onely in some particular Lawes of the Graecians and of our Predecessours the Saxons Among the Graecians foure Law-makers were most renowned Solon Lycurgus Plato and Aristotle two of which actually founded Common-weales the one the Athenian the other the Lacedemanian The other two onely framed them in Idea or speculation yet all provided Lawes for them such as they were I will begin with Solon accounted one of the seuen Sages in Greece highly commended for his great wisedome in making Lawes both by Aristotle and Plato who proposeth him and Lycurgus as patternes for all such as shall institute Common-weales and devise Lawes for them Solon then resolving for the releeuing of the poore to make a Law for the abolishing and cancelling all contracts and obligations of debts past imparting his minde therein to some of his intire friends they seeing his resolution borrowed great store of money and imployed it in the purchase of land wherevpon it followed that when Solon published his new Law they remained exceedingly inriched their Creditors defrauded and he much suspected of deceipt as to haue had secret intelligence with them part of their gaine And although it seemeth that therein he had wrong for he lost by his owne Law as some write 15 talents which were owing him yet in two things he cannot be excused the one in that he caused not his friends to restore the money which they had guilefully borrowed and the other that without examination of the particular causes and reasons of euery mans debt he ordained a generall abolition of all debts both good and bad whereby aswell those which were able to pay as the vnable were discharged and all Creditors without difference defrauded contrary to all equity justice which as Cicero saith speaking of the like case requireth aboue all things that euery man haue his owne that equall regard be had to the rich aswell as to the poore which saith he is no way observed cùm locupletes suum perdunt debitores lucrentur alienum when rich men loose their owne and debtors gaine that which belongeth to other men Another of Solons absurd Lawes was that whosoeuer in any publique sedition should be nuter 〈◊〉 take neither pa●… should remai●… euer after infamous his reason was for that hee thought it not convenient that any man should so much loue his owne ease as not to participate of the trouble of the Common-wealth whereof hee was a member which reason of his together with the Law it selfe Plutarch wisely and worthily rejecteth for that it would be an assured meanes to put as it were fire to gun-powder to set all the Common-wealth on a ●…ame without helpe of any internall remedy For saith he as in a sicke body all the hope of helpe within it selfe is to be expected from the pa●…s that are sound and therefore when the body is wholly corrupted there is no helpe of remedy but from abroad euen so in a politique body sick with sedition all the internall remedy is to come from the whole sound parts thereof that is to say such as are Neutralls who may labour with the one side and with the other to compound the quarrell for otherwise where all is in tumult no remedy can be expected except it come from abroad therefore Plutarch holdeth it for the highest and principall point of Politique Science in any governour to know how either to prevent seditions that they neuer grow or else quickly to appease them when they are growne be they neuer so little For as the least sparke that is may fall into

that and to thinke evill or not to thinke of it and thinke well Therefore when Salomon had spoken of all the vanities of men at last he opposes this memorandum as a counterpoise against them all Remember for all these things thou shalt come to judgement as if he should say men would never speake as they speake nor doe as they doe if they did but thinke that these speeches deedes of theirs should one day come to judgement Whatsoever thou takest in hand then remember the end and that finall account which thou art to make and thou shalt never doe amisse S. Augustine I remember in the entrance of one of his sermons touching the day of Iudgement makes a kind of Apologie for himselfe that he treated in their hearing so often of that subject telling them that he did it for the discharge of his owne dutie and for their good it being better sayth he hereto indure a little bitternes and hereafter to injoy eternall sweetnes then here to be fedde with false joyes and there to indure reall and eternall punishments But hee might haue justly excused himselfe had any excuse needed in such a case by the example of our blessed Saviour who in his Gospells and his Apostles who in their Epistles beate vpon this point no one more frequently The knowledge and publishing whereof to the world hath in all ages beene held so necessarie that not the Prophets alone whose writings are read in our assemblies at this day plainely foretold it but Enoch the seaventh from Adam prophesied thereof nay Adam himselfe if we may beleeue Iosephus And that no man might plead ignorance herein the light of this trueth as hath already beene touched shined among the very Gentiles before the incarnation of Christ. A great shame were it then for vs Christians not to beleeue it but a greater shame to our selues and to our profession a disgrace a scandall to infidels to professe that we beleeue it and yet to liue worse then Infidels Mahometans Iewes Pagans shall rise in judgemens against a number of Christians and shall condemne them for that standing vp in the Congregation and with their mouths openly professing this article that they beleeue that Christ shall come againe to judge both the quicke dead yet their thoughts their desires their passions their actions their words are such so foule as it evidētly shewes they beleeue not or they vnderstand not or they remember not what they professe Shall I thinke that the common drunkard glutton doth beleeue and remember that at this day he must giue an account of the abuse of Gods Creatures of making his belly his God his kitchin his Chappell and his Cooke his Priest Shall I thinke that the prophane swearer and blasphemer doth beleeue remember that at this day he must giue an account of every idle word much more then of his hellish oathes and damnable blasphemies wherewith he teares in peeces the name of God infects the very aire he breaths in shall I thinke that the Hypocrite who seekes to bleare the eyes of the world doth beleeue remember that at this day he must giue an account of his glozing shifting and that then his hypocrisie shall be vncased laid open to the view of the world shall I thinke that the Parasite doth beleeue and remember that at this day he must giue an account of preferring the favour of men before the loue and service of God Shall I thinke the Slanderer doth beleeue and remember that at this day he must giue an account of wounding and killing his brother in his good name by his tongue or pen or both Shall I thinke the Adulterer doth beleeue and remember that at this day he must giue an account of giuing the reines to his vnbridled appetite without any checke or controll Lastly doth the malicious man beleeue and remember that at this day hee must giue an account of his bloody practises or plots the ambitious man of making his honour his Idoll the covetous of his oppression and extortion Let themselues a little consider of the matter and they will easily grant it to be vnreasonable that any man should beleeue it to be a part of their beleife SECT 8. As likewise for instruction LEt vs then either strike it out of the articles of our Creede or let vs so endeavour to liue as it may appeare that we doe not only professe it with our mouthes but assuredly beleeue it with our hearts Let the civill Magistrate shew that he beleeues it by forbearing to make his will a law by a conscionable care in the governing of those who are committed to his charge and providing that they may liue vnder him a quiet and peaceable life in all godlines and honesty Let the Divine the Messenger of the Lord who preacheth it to others shew that he beleeues it himselfe by forbearing base and indirect meanes to rise to honour which he is most vncertaine how long or with what content he shall hold and by feeding the flocke of God which depends vpon him caring for it not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready minde not as Lording it over Gods heritage but as being a patterne to the flocke and when that chiefe sheepheard shall appeare he shall receiue an incorruptible Crowne of glory Let that severe call euer ring in his eares Come giue an account of thy stewardship There shall Andrew come in with Achaia by him converted to the saving knowledge of the truth Iohn with Asia Thomas with India Peter with the Iewes and Paul with the Gentiles and what shall we then say for our selues if wee cannot bring forth somuch as one soule converted by vs in the whole course of our ministerie Let the Counsellours shew that he beleeues it by giuing counsell rather wholesome then pleasing not for faction but for conscience and by forbearing to make the good of the state the stalking horse of his private ends For though he digge never so deepe yet he who now searches and shall then judge his heart digs deeper Let the Courtier shew hee beleeues it by vsing his favour to the countenancing and advancing of vertue and suppressing of vice and by forbearing to varnish guild over foule projects or smother honest motions with faire semblances looking rather to the worths and necessities of petitioners then to their purse and power Let the militarie man shew that hee beleeues it by forbearing to thinke that a prophane oath is an ornament of speech or that violence rapine and outrage are the best Characters of a souldier or that vnjust effusion of blood Duells shall then passe for manhood or that his stoute lookes and braue resolution shall then any thing availe him Let the Nobility and Gentry shew that they beleeue it by forbearing to make marchandise of Church livings committed to their care only in trust to strippe the backes of the poore that