Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	according_a	scripture_n	time_n	2,768	5	3.3859	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94755	A case of conscience, concerning flying in times of trouble. Resolved according to the Scriptures, and the examples of holy men. Applyed to the present times and occasions. Imprimatur. Edm. Calamy.	Torshell, Samuel, 1604-1650.	1643 (1643)	Wing T1934; Thomason E65_12; ESTC R23308	13,421	19

A CASE OF CONSCIENCE CONCERNING Flying in Times of Trouble Resolved According to the Scriptures and the Examples of Holy men Applyed to the present times and occasions Jmprimatur Edm. Calamy LONDON Printed for John Bellamie and Ralph Smith and are to be sold at their shop at the three golden Lions in Cornhill neare the royall Exchange 1643. To the Reader ABout foure moneths since upon an occasion that offered it selfe I then drew up this Case so as it is It was communicated to divers private hands and had the Testimony of some Divines both Learned and Conscientious yet I laid it by mee being not desirous to expose it among the many Impertinencies and unnecessary and raw Scriblings now adayes to the publicke view But now the opinion and request of some who judge it usefull hath obtained it to the presse for they say the condition of the times doth challenge it wherein many seeme to be ashamed of their former acquaintance with the great cause in hand The truth is many that came up to the Parliaments sense in the head of the Tyde are willing to shrinke away in the Ebbe of things There is a poore and low and narrow Spirit in very many who thought well of the Parliament onely so long as no body spake ill of it or durst speake out if they thought otherwise and loved it while they might be safe and enjoy the worlds friendship God will not honour himselfe by such self-seekers wee must bid a better price before God will part with the rich commodity of Reformation If we love the publicke cause wee must not onely keepe it company in its health but stand by it and comfort it in its faintings Amd this is the purpose of the following discourse which I commend unto the blessing of the Almighty S. T. A Case of Conscience concerning Flying in times of Trouble THE Scriptures are so cleare and the consent of Divines so full that it had not needed to have beene put to the Question Whether flight be lawfull in times of trouble and persecution but that some have beene too rigid and others contrarily have challenged this liberty without all caution or respect to any circumstances I shall therefore so examine the case that conscience may be setled when to take the liberty which God hath allowed and how to know when God hath shut up the way against us There is a flight which ariseth First from the shame of sinne and from feare of publicke justice Secondly from an inward terror and trembling caused also by guilt and laid upon men as a punishment as it was in the case of Cain Thirdly from weakenesse irresolution and unbeliefe which prevailed upon the Disciples who for sooke Pesus and fied Fourthly from meere humane prudence and forecast in which the Prophet Jonah offended But none of these are spoken unto in the present question bu that which Aretius defines Mutatio loci mali praesentis vitand alibique melius deeendi gratia suscepta cumtimore Domint Bened. Aret problem to be A changing of place to shun some present evill and more comfortably to live elsewhere undertaken in the feare of the Lord Which distinguisheth it from all those former kindes of either rash or sinfull flight 'T is a question that exercised the primitive Divines for those times being very terrible till Constantine setled peace in the Church made the search very necessary as the sad and violent and unsetled time that weare fallen upon make it now I finde the Antients divided according to the different sense they entertained of the Scriptures whether lawfull to flye and leave or change ones station and if lawfull whether permitted onely and so lawfull onely and no more or a duty commanded and so nenessary also as a binding law First Tertullian in a tract that he wrote professedly of this argument altogether denies it to be lawfull to flye or seemes to deny it He contends Matth. 10.23 that when our Lord bid his Disciples when they were persecuted in one City to fiye into another He onely gave them a speciall allowance or dispensation rather then for a particular reason that the progresse of the Gospell might not be hindered but preached and spread abroad in all Cities But that now the Gospell is already propagated wee are to stand unto the profession of the faith received and to keepe our station And that because nothing comes to passe without Gods order and we are all in Gods hand it were unbeleefe treachery cowardise rebellion against God to goe out of our place and that we must dye in our standing and if God will have it so perish in the ruines of our Country To this purpose he wrote yet I expresse my selfe thus favourably of him that he altogether denies flight to be lawfull o● seemes to deny it because though most conceive that to be his very opinion and the Antients condemned him for it and Jerome in particular censures him Hieron lib. de Script Illustr that when he wrote that booke hee had forsaken the sound faith and was gone over to the part of Montanus the Heretique and therefore wrote that booke in hatred and disgrace of the Christians whose usuall practise many of them was to decline the fury of the times where they might conveniently though otherwise ambitious enough of martyrdome yet I am not wholly convinced to the contrary but that perhaps writing to Fabius who was a presbyter and a pastor of a Church he might use that severe and rigid language to keepe and hold him upon his charge in that dangerous and uncomfortable condition of things But if it were truely his opinion I consent to the judgement of Jerome and Augustine against him and to the answers they directed to his arguments That 't is true all things are ordered by God and all are in his hand yet David knew all this but he fled notwithstanding from the violence of Saul And that God cals some to give testimony to the truth by death others hee reserves and whom he saves from the rage of cruell ones he saves by meanes If he shut up any man it is his will and order hee should stand the triall couragiously but if hee offer an opportunitie and open the dore of escape it is his will and ordering to escape And to this very effect Origen had formerly resolved Origen in John That a man must maintaine Christs cause by death when he is taken but before hee be taken he may escape if honourably he can do it Naz. in Orat. 10 And this was it for which Nazienzen commended Caesarius that excellent Christian That hee honorably yeelded to the times and neither betrayed the truth nor provoked danger I shall not need to insist upon this the lawfulnesse of declining danger It is a dictate of nature which grace also cherisheth and God hath planted a naturall love of life in every man which teacheth him to shun what may bee harmefull Tertullian for ought