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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	heathen_a	let_v	publican_n	2,742	5	10.9981	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A20637	LXXX sermons preached by that learned and reverend divine, Iohn Donne, Dr in Divinity, late Deane of the cathedrall church of S. Pauls London	Donne, John, 1572-1631.; Donne, John, 1604-1662.; Merian, Matthaeus, 1593-1650, engraver.; Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683.	1640 (1640)	STC 7038; ESTC S121697	1,472,759	883

of excommunication That others should esteem them so and avoid them as such persons is sometimes debated amongst us in our books If the Apostle say it by way of Imprecation if it sound so you are to remember first That many things are spoken by the Prophets in the Scriptures which sound as imprecations as execrations which are indeed but prophesies They seeme to be spoken in the spirit of anger when they are in truth but in the spirit of prophesie So in very many places of the Psalmes David seemes to wish heavy calamities upon his and Gods enemies when it is but a declaration of those judgements of God which hee prophetically foresees to be imminent upon them They seeme Imprecations and are but Prophesies and such wee who have not this Spirit of Prophesie nor foresight of Gods wayes may not venture upon If they be truly Imprecations you are to remember also that the Prophets and Apostles had in them a power extraordinary and in execution of that power might doe that which every private man may not doe So the Prophets rebuked so they punished Kings So a 2 King 2.24 Elizeus called in the Beares to devoure the boyes And so b 2 Kings 1. Elias called downe fire to devoure the Captaines So S. Peter killed c Acts 5. Ananias and Sapphira with his word And d Acts 13.8 so S. Paul stroke Elymas the Sorcerer with blindnesse But upon Imprecations of this kinde wee as private men or as publique persons but limited by our Commission may not adventure neither But take the Prophets or the Apostles in their highest Authority yet in an over-vehement zeale they may have done some things some times not warrantable in themselves many times many things not to be imitated by us In Moses his passionate vehemency Dele me Exod. 32.32 If thou wilt not forgive them blot me out of thy booke And in the Apostles inconfiderate zeale to his brethren Optabam Anathema esse I could wish that my selfe were accursed from Christ Rom. 9.3 In Iames and Iohns impatience of their Masters being neglected by the Samaritans when they drew from Christ that rebuke You know not of what spirit you are In these Luke 9.55 and such as these there may be something wherein even these men cannot be excused but very much wherein we may not follow them nor doe as they did nor say as they said Since there is a possibility a facility a proclivity of erring herein and so many conditions and circumstances required to make an Imprecation just and lawfull the best way is to forbeare them or to be very sparing in them But we rather take this in the Text Excommunicatio to be an Excommunication denounced by the Apostle then an Imprecation So Christ himselfe If he will not heare the Chruch let him be to thee as a Heathen or a Publican That is Have no conversation with him So sayes the Apostle speaking of an Angel Anathema If any man if we our selves Gal. 1.9 if an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel let him be accursed Now the Excommunication is in the Anathema and the aggravating thereof in the other words Maranatha The word Anathema had two significations They are expressed thus Quod Deo dicatum Just Mart. Quod à Deo per vitium alienatum That which for some excellency in it was separated from the use of man to the service of God or that which for some great fault in it was separated from God and man too Ab illo abstinebant tanquam Deo dicatum Ab hoc recedebant Chrysost tanquam à Deo abalienatum From the first kinde men abstained because they were consecrated to God and from the other because they were aliened from God and in that last sense irreligious men such as love not the Lord Jesus Christ are Anathema aliened from God Amongst the Druides with the Heathen they excommunicated Malefactors and no man might relieve him in any necessity no man might answer him in any action And so amongst the Jews the Esseni who were in speciall estimation for sanctity excommunicated irreligious persons and the persons so excommunicated starved in the streets and fields By the light of nature by the light of grace we should separate our selves from irreligious and from idolatrous persons and that with that earnestnesse which the Apostle expresses in the last words Maran Atha In the practise of the Primitive Church Maran Atha by those Canons which we call The Apostles Canons and those which we call The penitentiall Canons we see there were different penances inflicted upon different faults and there were very early relaxations of penances Indulgences and there were reservations of cases in some any Priest in some a Bishop onely might dispense It is so in our Church still Impugners of the Supremacy are excommunicated and not restored but by the Archbishop Impugners of the Common prayer Booke excommunicated too but may bee restored by the Bishop of the place Impugners of our Religion declared in the Articles reserved to the Archbishop Impugners of Ceremonies restored when they repent and no Bishop named Authors of Schisme reserved to the Archbishop maintainers of Schismatiques referred but to repentance And so maintainers of Conventicles to the Archbishop maintainers of Constitutions made in Conventicles to their repentance There was ever there is yet a reserving of certaine cases and a relaxation or aggravating of Ecclesiasticall censures for their waight and for their time and because Not to love the Lord Iesus Christ was the greatest the Apostle inflicts this heaviest Excommunication Maran Atha The word seemes to be a Proverbiall word amongst the Jews after their returne and vulgarly spoken by them and so the Apostle takes it out of common use of speech Maran is Dominus The Lord and Athan is Venit He comes Not so truly in the very exactnesse of Hebrew rules and terminations but so amongst them then when their language was much depraved Dan. 4.16 Deut. 33.2 but in ancienter times we have the word Mara for Dominus and the word Atha for Venit And so Anathema Maran Atha will be Let him that loveth not the Lord Iesus Christ be as an accursed person to you even till the Lord come S. Hierom seems to understand this Dominus venit That the Lord is come come already come in the flesh Superfluum sayes he odiis pertinacibus contendere adversus eum qui jam venit It is superabundant perversnesse to resist Christ now Now that he hath appeared already and established to himselfe a Kingdome in this world And so S. Chrysostome seemes to take it too Christ is come already sayes he Et jam nulla potest excusatio non diligentibus eum If any excuse could be pretended before yet since Christ is come none can be Si opertum sayes the Apostle If our Gospel be hid now it is hid from them who are lost that is they are lost from

committed their first sin to the time that they were cast down into hell they whom we call the more subtile part of the Schoole say That In illa mo●● la during that space between their falling into their sin and their expulsion from heaven the Angels might have repented and been restored for so long say they those Angels were but in statu viatorum in the state and condition of persons as yet upon their way as all men are as long as they are alive and not In termino in their last and determined station And that which is so often cited out of Damascen concerning the fall of Angels Quod hominibus mors est Angelis casus That as death works upon man and concludes him and makes him impenitible for ever so works the fall upon the Angels and concludes them for ever too they interpret to have been intended by Damascen not of the Angels fall in heaven but their fall from heaven for till then they were not say they Intermino in their last state and so not impenitible Apoc. 12.7 And those Ancients which expound that battle in heaven between Michael and the Dragon and their severall Angels to have been fought at that time after their fall and between Lucifers rebellion and his expulsion as the Ancients abound much in that sense of that place argue rationally That that battle what kinde of battle soever it were must necessarily have spent some time They conceive it to have been a battle of Disputation of Argumentation of Perswasion and that those good Angels which are so glad of our Conversion would have been infinitely glad to have reduced their rebellious brethren to their obedience And during that time which could not be a sudden instant they were not Inadeptivi gratiae Hiesolom incapable of repentance and of mercy S. Cyril comes towards it comes neare it nay if it be well observed goes beyond it Of Gods longanimity and patience toward man sayes he we have in part spoken Quanta ille Angelis condonaverit nescimus how great transgressions he hath forgiven in the Angels we know not only this we know sayes he Solus qui peccdre non possit Iesus est There is none impeccable none that cannot sin Man nor Angel but only Christ Jesus Nay after the expulsion of the Angels Angels lapsi in Infernum not onely after their fall in Heaven but their fall from Heaven many of the Ancients seeme loath to exclude all wayes of Gods mercy even from hell it selfe De statu moti sed non irremediabiliter moti saies Origen The Angels are fallen fallen even into hell but not so irrecoverably fallen Vt Institutionibus bonorum Angelorum non possint restitui But that by the counsaile and labour of the good Angels they may be restored againe Origen is thought to be single singular in this doctrine Eph. 3.10 but he is not Even S. Ambrose interpreting that place That S. Paul saies He was made a Minister of the Gospel Vt innotesceret to the intent that the wisdome of God might by the Church be made knowne to Powers and Principalities interprets it of fallen Angels That they the fallen Angels might receive benefit by the preaching of the Gospell in the Church Prudentius saies not so but this he does say That upon this day when our blessed Saviour arose from hell Poenarum celebres sub Styge feriae And Suppliciis mitibus Nee forvent solito flumina sulphure Some relaxation some ease in their torments at some time some very good men have imagined even in hell And more then that they have not absolutely cryed downe for so much it deserves that fable of Traian That after that Emperour had beene some time in hell yet upon the prayers of Pope Gregory he was removed to Heaven 〈…〉 Nay more then that for that was but of one man But an Author of our age and much esteemed in the Roman Church delivers as his owne opinion and thinks he hath the subtiler part of the Schoole on his side That that which is so often said from hell there is no redemption is only to be understood of them whom God sends to hell as to their last place to them certainely there is no redemption But saies he God may send soules of the heathen who had not the benefit of any Christian Church and yet were good morall men to burne out certaine errors or ignorances or sins in hell and then remove them to Heaven for for so long time they are but Viatores they are but in their way and not concluded Beloved that we might have something in the balance to weigh downe the curelty and the petulancy and the pertinacy of those men who in these later times have so attenuated the mercy of God as that they have almost brought it to nothing for there is no mercy where there is no misery and they place all mercy to have beene given at once and that before man was fallen into misery by sin or before man was made and have pronounced that God never meant to shew mercy to all them nor but to a very few of them to whom he pretended to offer it that we might have something in the balance to weigh against these unmercifull men I have staid thus long upon these over-mercifull men that have carried mercy upon the Saints of God in temporall abundances after the Resurrection and upon the Heathen who never heard Gospell preached and upon the Angels fallen in Heaven and upon those Angels fallen from Heaven into hell and upon the soules of men there not onely in the ease of their torments but in their translation from thence to Heaven That so our later men might see that the Ancients thought God so far from beginning at Hate That God should first for his glory hate some and then make them that he might execute his hate upon them as that they thought god implacable inexorable irreconciliable to none therfore to these unmercifull have we opposed these overmercifull men But yet to them wee must say Numquid Deus indiget mendacio vestro Iob 13.7 ut pro eo Ioquamini dolos Shall wee lye for God or speake deceitfully for him deceive your soules with over-extending his mercy wee may derive mercy from hell though wee carry not mercy to hell Gehenna non solum eorum qui puniendi causa facta Origen sed eorum qui salvandi Hell was not onely made for their sakes who were to suffer in it but for theirs who were to be warned by it and so there is mercy in hell Cooperatur regno saies S. Chrysostome elegantly Hell hath a co-operation with Heaven Chrysost It works upon us in the advancement of our Salvation as well as Heaven Nec saevitiaeres est sed misericordiae Hell is not a monument of Gods cruelty but of his mercy Et nisi fuisset intentata gehenna in gehennam omnes cecidissemus If we were not told of hell we

the present This verse is especially an exultation for mercies past and yet the two last clauses are delivered in the future Thou shalt preserve me Thou shalt compasse me And the first is delivered without any limitation at all The present word Thou art is but inserted by our Translators In the Originall it is onely Tu refugium Thou my hiding place There is no fuisti nor es nor eris That he was or is or will be so but it is an expressing of a perpetuall and everlasting mercy for his mercy endureth for ever First then Ecclesia this is an acknowledgement of the Church contemplating her selfe in her low estate for the word Sether implies Tu absconsio Though I were in the darke it was thou that didst overshadow me Though I were in danger it was thou that didst hide mo from them This the Church hath had occasion to say more then once Once in the Primitive plantation thereof and againe in her Reformation At both times God shewed mercy to her that way in hiding her First then God hid the Primitive Church from the eye of envy Primitiva by keeping her poore and from the eye of jealousie and suspition by keeping her in an humble devotion towards him But yet even her poverty and her humility hid her not so but that persecution found her out and raged so against her as that those Emperours which raised the ten Persecutions against the Church seeme to have laboured to have gone beyond God in the ten Plagues of Egypt and to have done more at Rome then he did there All the power of the Roman world was bent against Christians more home-Christians slaine then forraine enemies All the criminall justice of the world bent upon them All other mens crimes even Neroes burning of Rome imputed to the Christians All the wit of the world bent against them All their Epigrammatists Satyrists having their wits exalted with rage with wine with rewards to multiply libels and calumnies and defamations upon the Christians All the Mechaniques of that world bent against them All the Enginiers employed to invent racks and tortures for the Christians Truly if I were to work upon Heathen men Westerne Americans or Easterne Chineses for their conversion to Christ I should scarce adventure to propose to them the histories of the Martyrs of the Primitive Church because to men that had no taste of Religion before they would rather seeme fables then truths and I should as soone be beleeved That a Virgin had a Son or in any maine Article of our Religion as that man could inflict or that man could beare such things as we are sure the Martyrs in the Primitive Church did Then God hid the Church He hid her in a great part in the Wildernesse in Ermitages and such retirings singlely one by one and after in penurious and obscure Monasteries many of these single Ermits gathering themselves together into one house when those Monasteries were both Schooles of learning and shops of Manufactures they taught and wrought in them August Nemo cuiquam onerosus No man was a burden to any others no man fed upon anothers labours nor drunke the sweat of anothers brow But Operabantur manibus ea quibus corpus pasci possit à Deo mens impediri non possit They laboured in such manufactures as might sustaine their bodies and not withdraw their minds from the service of God So God hid the Church not that the persecution did not finde and lop off many a great and top bough but he hid the roote and prevented the extirpation of that Tree which his owne right hand had planted Tu absconsio Reformata Thou art my hiding place sayes the Primitive Church and so may the Reformed Church say too For when the Roman Church had made this Latibulum this hiding place this refuge from Persecution Ermitages and Monasteries to be the most conspicuous the most glorious the most eminent the richest and most abundant places of the World when they had drawne these at first remote corners in the Wildernesse first into the skirts and suburbs then into the body and heart of every great City when for revenew and possession they will confesse that some one Monastery of the Benedictan had ten thousand of our pounds of yearely rent when they were come for their huge opulency to that height that they were formidable to those States that harboured them and for their numbers other Orders holding proportion with that one to reckon out of one Order fifty two Popes two hundred Cardinals seven thousand Archbishops and Bishops and almost three hundred Emperours and Kings and their children and fifty thousand declared and approved Saints when they were come to that over-valuation of their Religious Orders as to say That a Monke a Fryer merited more in his very sleep or meales then any secular man though a Church-man too did in his best works That to enter into any Order of Religion was a second Baptisme and wrought as much as the first Their revenew their number their dignity being come to this And then their viciousnesse their sensuality their bestiality to as great a height and exaltation as that yet in the midst of all these Tu absconsio mea may the Reformed Church say The Lord was their hiding place that mourned for this when they could not helpe and at all times and by all meanes that God afforded them endeavoured to advancea Reformation And though God exposed them as a wood to be felled to a slaughter of twenty of forty of sixty thousand in a day yet Ille absconsio He hath beene our hiding place He hath kept the roote alive all the way And though it hath beene with a cloud yet he hath covered us God came unto Moses though he came In caligine Nubis In a thick Cloud Exod. 19.9 when the glory of the Lord is said to have filled the Tabernacle even that glory was a Cloud Exod. 40.34 And so it was in the second place of his worship too in Solomons Temple 2 Chro. 5.13 that was filled with a Cloud S. Chrysostome when he considered that Christ ascended in a Cloud a Acts 1. Chrysost And that he shall returne againe in a Cloud b Mat. 24. Paternum Currum deligere voluit The Son would make use of his Fathers Chariot and shew mercy nay shew glory in a Cloud as his Father had done often The Primitive Church the Reformed Church must not complaine of having beene kept under Clouds for Ille absconsio God hath made those Clouds their hiding place and wrapped up the seed and the roote safe in that Cloud Though the Church were trodden upon like a worme of the earth yet still she might heare God in that Cloud Noli timere vermis Iacob Be not afraid thou worme of Iacob for I will keepe thee Esay 41.14 saith the Lord thy Redeemer the holy One of Israel God