Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	apostle_n	bishop_n	succession_n	9,913	5	9.7671	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54125	The continued cry of the oppressed for justice being a farther account of the late unjust and cruel proceedings of unreasonable men against the persons and estates of many of the people call'd Quakers, only for their peaceable meetings to worship God : presented to the serious consideration of the King and both Houses of Parliament : with a postscript of the nature, difference and limits of civil and ecclesiastical authority, and the inconsistency of such severities with both, recommended and submitted to the perusal of Cæsar's true friends / by the author of England's present interest, &c.	Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1675 (1675)	Wing P1270; ESTC R18856	19,683	36

comes Imposition Force Cruelty Spoil of Goods Imprisonments Knocking 's Beatings Bruisings Stockins Whippings and Spilling of Blood for Religion What Church is that whose Officers are so far from cloathing the naked as to strip the clothed from feeding the hungry that they take their Bread from them and those poor Widdows and helpless Orphans too and so remote from visiting the sick and imprisoned that they drag away their Bed from under them and cast People into Prison for Conscience sake Nay they haled away an Honest Man from a Meeting to Goal at Reading but the other Day not permitting him to TAKE LEAVE of his poor Wife newly delivered and in a DYING Condition though she also desired it and liv'd but just by the Meeting-House where they took him In fine what are they that for no other Cause pass such dreadful Excommunications as render the Excommunicants little better then outlawed Persons subjecting their Civil and Natural Rights to their Pride Passion Interest or Revenge unless they will purchase their Enjoyment at the dear Rate of loosing their own Souls For what else can be the Conseq●ence of conforming to that I do not believe Is not this to destroy sincere Men and make and save Hypocrites Oh that such as are concern'd would soberly consider if any Thing is so Scandalous to True Religion as FORCE who can think that evidence Good that is extorted And what a Church is that which is made up of such Proselites or that employes such Means to make them O where is that Christian Meekness Patience and Forbearance How many have been ruined that were never exhorted and excomunicated before they were once admonished This is not to serve God but Worldly Interest it s quite contrary to Christ's Counsel and Doctrine He came to save and not to destroy Nature to magnifie his Grace You pretend to hate J. Calvin's unconditional Reprobation yet practise it If you say no Conformity is your Condition I answer that it s as unreasonable to require an impossibillity as cruel to damn Men for not doing it For as you say his Doctrine makes God to command them to repent that cannot repent and yet damn them if they repent not So you injoyn Men to relinquish their present Faith and Worship and conform to yours which is not in their Power to do yet damn them in a temporal Respect if they refuse it For you make such an unavoidable Dissent punishable with the Destruction of Mens Liberties and Estates You had better leave off valuing your selves upon the Mercy and Well-Natur'dness of that Tenet of the universal Love of God to Mankind till you love more then your selves and abominate the Church of England's being such an Elect to the Civil Government as utterly reprobates the rest as you pretend to detest the like Injustice in J. Calvin's Notion of Election and Reprobation And the Truth of it is this helps on Atheism as much as any Enormity in the Land when Witty Men not willing to take Pains to examine after the Truth and Excellency of Religion behold Men that call themselves Christ's Ministers and the Apostles Successors and Followers to affect and seek Government and yet twice deny it when they go to receive it that some others grow Lordly live Voluptuously and watch after the biggest Preferments not being excited by most Service for God but Earthly Power and Wealth for themselves and at the same Time persecuting Men of more Self-Denyal for Matters of Opinion about Faith and Worship towards God so that No Conformity to this Church No Protection from the State Which among Protestants is so much the more unreasonable because they by these Courses implicitely own and assume the highest Infallibility and Perfection and yet deny any such Thing for it supposes that nothing is Truer nothing Perfecter or else they both persecute Men to embrace a Fallible and Imperfect Religion and with cruel Penalties provide against any Thing more True or Infallible the greatest Injury to the World that can be for it is a plain Endeavour to frustrate all those excellent Prophesies and gracious Promises God has given and the holy Scriptures declare of the latter Dayes To conclude I shall desire Men of this Unnatural Unreasonable and Unchristian Spirit to consider 1. What Church was that which John saw riding upon the Powers of the Earth employing their Authority to force CONFESSION TRIBUTE and SUBJECTION to her 2. What that Church was which dyed her self in the BLOOD of them that believed not in her against whom the poor Souls under the Altar whose Bodies had been beheaded by her cryed to God 3. What Church it was that would suffer none to Buy Sell or Traffick without having her Mark CONFORMITY to her in their Forehead or right Hand that is either those that heartily and openly confest her or those that basely complyed for Fear 4. What Church is that which Trades in the Souls of Men Read Revelations Chap. 13. 18. 20. 5. Whether this Church reigns not wherever Mens LIBERTIES and PROPERTIES with all the Comforts of this Life are exposed and sacrificed for Matters of FAITH and WORSHIP to Almighty God Weigh these Things you great Church-Men of the Age in the Fear of that God who made Heaven and Earth and think not to make thus cheap of the Lives Liberties and Estates of Free-born English People and Harmless Christians for their peaceable Conscience without being accountable to that Great Lord in the Terrible Day of his Judgment that draws on upon the World No Plea you have shall be able to justifie these things or fence off the heavy Stroak of that Just Judge unless you repent 'T is not Succession in Name but Nature that makes the true Christian Minister and Bishop And where the Divine Life and Holy Qualifications of Christ and his Apostles are wanting there can be no Succession but what is as proper to the false Church as the true the Counterfeit as the Christian Be not deceived God will not be mocked such as you Sow such shall you Reap Remember Christ's Words Blessed are the Poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted Blessed are the Pure in Heart for they shall see God Blessed are the Meek for they shall inherit the Earth Blessed are the MERCIFVL for they shall obtain Mercy Therefore Reform and let your Moderation be known unto all Men for the Lord is at hand Even so come Lord Jesus ERRATA Pag. 18. Line 33. for Injustice read Injury p. 20. l. 11. dele and. p. 20. 31. read Heaven is hereby barr'd as much as in Men lyes from p. 22. l. 22. for the read though p. 25. l. 15. read revenged p. 28. l. 25. read Chains ☜ ☜ ☞ ☞ ☞ ☜ ☜ ☜ ☜ ☞ ☞ ☞ ☞ ☜ ☜ ☜ ☞ ☜ a Mat. 11. 29 b 1 Pet. 3. 2. 2 Cor. 11. 2. c Phil. 4. 8. 1 Pet. 1. 15. d Mat. 16. 24 e 2 Cor. 4. 6. f Luke 6. 37. g Mat. 5 44. h Rev. 14. 4. i Phil. 2. 6. k Eph. 1. 22. Col. 1. 118. l Job 19. 14 15. m Rom 8. 17. n Heb 2. 11. o Tit. 2. 14. p Acts 20 28. q Rev. 14. 3. r 1 Pet. 2. 9. s Heb. 12 23. t Col. 1. 24. u Rev. 21. 9. w Joh. 18. 36. Mat. 22. 2. Luke 13. 2. Joh. 18. 36. Luke 17. 21. Tit. 2. 12. Mat. 26. 52. Mat. 27. 20. Ver. 27. c. Ver. 29. ver 48. Luke 23. 34. Mat. 26. 53. Mat. 5. 44. 45 46 47. Luke 9. 53 54 55 56. Luke 9. 49 50. Mat. 13. 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Ver. 36 37 38 39. Joh. 15. 12. Phil. 3. 15.

and killing and think it may be they do God good Service b●t their Lot shall be with Unbelievers forever Nay I have so effe●●ua●●y provided against all Mastery that I expresly charged them not to be many Masters for one was their Master I told them that the greatest amongst them was to be Servant to the rest not to impose upon the rest nay that to be great in my Kingdom they must become as gentle and harmless as little Children and such cannot force and punish in Matters of Religion In fine I strictly commanded them to love one another as I have loved them who am ready to lay down my Life for the Ungodly instead of taking away Godly Mens Lives for Opinions and this is the great Maxim of my holy Religion He that would be my Disciple must not crucifie other Men but take up his Cross and follow me who am meek and lowly and such so enduring shall find Eternal Rest to their Souls this is the Power I use and this is the Power I give How much this agrees with the Language Doctrine and Example of Jesus Christ I shall leave them to consider that read and believe Scripture but some affected to present Church Power and desiring their Ruine that conform not to her Worship and Discipline will object That Christ did give his Church Power to bind and loose and bid any Person agrieved tell the Church I grant it but what Binding was that with outward Chains and Fetters in nasty Holes and Dungeous nothing less Or was it that his Church had that true Discerning in her and Power with him that what she bound that is condemned or loosed that is remitted should stand so in God's Sight and Christ's Account But tell the Church and what then observe Christ's Extent in the Punishment of the Offender If the Offender will neither receive private Admonition nor hear the Church then sayes Christ let him be to thee as an Heathen c. Here 's no Fines Whips Stocks Pillories Goals and the like Instruments of Cruelty to punish the Heretick for the Purport of his Words seems to be no more then this If any Member of the Church refuse thy private Exhortation and the Church's Admonition look upon such a Person to be no more of you let him take his Course thou hast done well and the Church is clear of him Well but say the Church-Fighters of our Age Did not St. Paul wish them cut off that troubled the Church in his Time Yes But with what Sword think you Such as Christ bid Peter put up or the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God Give him leave to explain his own Words For the WE APONS of our Warfare are NOT CARNAL but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong Holds casting down Imaginations and every high Thing that ex●lteth it self against the Knowledge of God and bringing every Thought into Obedience to Christ What think you of this Here are Warfares Weapons Oppositions and Conformity and not only no external Force about Matters of Religion us'd or countenanced but the most express and pathetical Exclusion and Rejection of any such Thing that could be given Now observe what Sort of Church-Government he recommends to his beloved Timothy Avoid foolish Questions and Genealogies and Contentions and striving about the Law for they are unprofitable and vain A Man that is an Heretick after the first and second Admonition reject knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being CONDEMNED OF HIMSELF or self-condemned It 's very remarkable first That t●is is great Apostle instead of exhorting Timothy to stand upon Niceties and sacrifice Mens Natural Comforts and Enjoyments for Opinions of Religion injoyns him to shun Disputes about them leaving People to their own Thoughts and Aprehensions in those Matters which excellently well coheres with another Passage of his Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded and if in any Thing ye be otherwise minded God shall REVEAL even this unto you he did not say you shall be FINED PILLAGED EXCOMMUNICATED and FLUNG into Prison if ye be not of our Mind 2dly That in the Apostles Definition an Heretick is a self-condemned Person one conscious to himself of Error and Obstinacy in it but that are not conscientious Dissenters for many Ten Thousands in this Nation act as they believe and dissent from the National Religion purely upon a Principle of Conscience to Almighty God and with Men of any Tenderness or common Sense their continual great Sufferings in Person and Estate and their Patience under them are a Demonstration or there can be none in the World Nor can their Persecutors disprove them unless they could search Hearts and that is a little too far for a Fallible Spirit to reach and an infallible One they deny So that the Apostle makes not the Heretick to lye upon the Side of misbelieving or not coming up to his Degree of Faith Knowledge but upon the Side of Wilfully Turbulently Obstinately and Self condemnedly maintaining inconsisting Things with the Faith Peace and Prosperity of the Church Granting us then not to be obstinate and self condemned Dissenters and you cannot reasonably refuse it us how do you prove us Erroneous in the other Part All Parties plead Scripture and that for the most opposite Principles Homousians and Arrians Calvinists and Arminians Papists Jansenists and Protestants The Scripture you see cannot determine the Sense of it self it must have an Interpreter he must either be Fallible or Infallible If the first we are worse then before for Men are apt to be more confident and yet are still upon as uncertain Grounds If the last this must either be an external or an Internal Judge If an External you know where you are without pointing for there stands nothing between you and Popery in that Principle If an Internal Judge either it is our selves or the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us Not our selves for then the Rule is the Thing ruled which cannot be and if it be the Spirit of Christ Jesus and the Apostle tells us That unless we have the Spirit we are none of Christ's then is the Neck of Imposition broken and what hast thou to do to judge me let me stand or fall to my own Master And upon this Foot went Luther Calvin Melancthon Beza abroad And Cranmer Ridly Hooper Jewel Bradford Philpot c. at home and as good Men and constant Martyrs in Ages before them But suppose Conscientious Dissenters as ill Men as the Apostle describes an Heretick to be what is the Punishment 3dly A Man that is an Heretick after the first and second Admonision reject that is deny his Communion declare he is none of you condemn his Proceedings by a publick Censure among your selves what more can be strain'd by the fiercest Prosecutors of Men for Religion out of these Words But was this the Evangelical Rule and Practice Yes that it was Oh then whence