Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	bishop_n	rome_n	succession_n	9,910	5	9.8153	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94750	A vvord of reproof to the priests or ministers, who boast of their ministery and ordinances, and yet live in pride, disdain, persecution, &c. Shevving what such are; and how little cause they have to exclaim against those who separate from them. As also a word to the papists discovering their foundation to be carnal and sandie. In a letter sent to some supposed priests or Jesuites in the north, by William Tomlinson.	Tomlinson, William.	1653 (1653)	Wing T1855; Thomason E691_9; ESTC R206966	29,084	49

if that spirit of innocency finde nothing but an Olive leaf it must return again untill the waters be further abated these I write for those who understand And now I shall leave one Querie with you who are the Nationall Ministers I pray tell me who are those Sorcerers which have been so numerous that they have bewitched and deceived all Nations those Enchanters who have made the inhabiters of the earth drunke with the wine of their fornication and with whom the Kings of the earth have been so good friends that they have committed fornication with them Post-script THese things which I have written are not from an intention to draw people off from these men to follow or hing upon my self no but to witness with the rest of my fellow sufferers against Delusion and to help to bring down that proud Lording spirit which is in the new Prelates which would sit as God in the Temple of God Lording it over mens consciences through fained words and causing poor slaves and souls of men to dread them even as God himself I say my desire is to be helpfull to bring down to the dust that deluding Lording spirit That the Consciences of people may stand open and free to the voice of the Lord in them and may not be captivated with such who live in words And if after these others shall arise into the same spirit as these have risen into the spirit of the Prelates after their decease He that hath discovered them and these will also discover such as shall succeed and so in this sense as well as in outward Governments Overturn Overturn Overturn untill he come into his Temple whose right it is You may call these things which I have written flashes of new light if you please for so you brand every thing that breaks forth now in this dawning of the morning after the sad night of Antichristian darkness But be it known to you it is not so to me being that same which hath been sprinking up in me and others these many years For you have been a long time represented to me as men under thick darkness which hath kept me off thorow the tender mercy of my God from entering into your wayes in which I could see no light I have been onely brought to the brink of your Babylonish Rivers which bring up your gain I mean your Ordinances that I might taste of the bitterness of them but there have I been made to sit down weeping in remembrance of Zion which Zion hastens to appear Allelujah Thou that readest these things and art convinced of the truth of them Boast not against these men But look towards the Lord who is making his righteous Judgements manifest and fear For he will in due time discover much more then this both concerning them and others He is about to fan the Nations and to gather his wheat into his Garner and to burn up the light chaff with unquenchable fire therefore Glory not But let him that thinketh hestandeth take heed lest he fall Be not high minded but fear For my part I write not these things out of bitterness against any of their persons or to boast over any of them for the Lord can soon make a blaspheming Saul to become a Paul But rather to let proud boasting reviling Preachers to see what little cause they have to carry so clamorously against those who withdraw from them In respect of my self I had rather be silent and let them plow all the day long upon my back with their revilings But if these things shall be instrumentall to bring some of them to consider their wayes and to look better to the foundation of their practises and to cease from beating their fellow-servants and be stirred up to seek the way to Zion that 's as much as I look for Farewell A Letter to the Papists SIRS HAving touched in discourse with you upon that which is the very foundation of your Religion and seeing it in my understanding to have nothing but the sands to stand upon I cannot but in love to you represent again before you the same thing that I then said to you that you may seriously ponder it for it overturns your Religion at the very root Your foundation is this that Peter must have a succession and secondly that the Bishops of Rome are the onely successors of Peter and so they being the successors of Peter are the Church built upon him the Rock and from them all Teaching must flow Here is your Basis or foundation on which you stand Now friends consider whether an outward succession of Bodies inhabiting the place where Peter lived if he lived at Rome be a good foundation for the Church of Christ to stand upon When Christ the promised seed came you know that the Church slipt away from the carnall seed to a spirituall leaving the carnall Jew boasting of its carnall succession when as yet God had departed from it Now shall we think that God would ever after tie himself to a carnall succession again having once cut off Abrahams who was the friend of God Certainly if any may stand upon an outward succession then Abrahams seed after the flesh may having so many Promises running to them in outward appearance But he is not a Jew now who is one outwardly neither is Circumcision that which is outward in the flesh but he is a Jew who is one inwardly and Circumcision is that of the heart and they who are of the faith of Abraham are counted for the seed So I say he is not of the succession of Peter who is one outwardly but he who is of the same spirit with Peter No Nation or place or outward order of men can confine the succession of Peter to themselves since God laid aside all such outward entailment from Abraham and hath betaken himself onely to a spirituall line a spirituall seed For it were contrary to all reason that God should lay aside or cut off Abrahams carnall seed of the Jewes to take in a spirituall seed out of any Nation and yet after that take up again a carnall or outward succession to Peter and that in one part of one Nation only namely at Rome For this were to build up again that which he had formerly destroyed and to destroy that which formerly he had built up To build up again a carnal succession to Peter which he had destroyed in Abrahams line and to destroy and keep out a spirituall seed fearing God in all Nations which once he had taken in The Progresse of the Lord with his Church is not a going back from spirituall to Carnall but a going forward from carnall to spirituall and after that to more spirituall Now that the Bishops of Rome are not the spirituall seed nor the spirituall successors of Peter nor the Rock upon which the Church of Christ is builded no nor the Church of Christ it self nor the sole feeders of the flock of Christ no nor