Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

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

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94081	An essay in defence of the good old cause, or A discourse concerning the rise and extent of the power of the civil magistrate in reference to spiritual affairs. With a præface concerning [brace] the name of the good old cause. An equal common-wealth. A co-ordinate synod. The holy common-wealth published lately by Mr. Richard Baxter. And a vindication of the honourable Sir Henry Vane from the false aspersions of Mr. Baxter. / By Henry Stubbe of Ch. Ch. in Oxon.	Stubbe, Henry, 1632-1676.; Stubbe, Henry, 1632-1676. Vindication of that prudent and honourable knight, Sir Henry Vane, from the lyes and calumnies of Mr. Richard Baxter, minister of Kidderminster.	1659 (1659)	Wing S6045; Thomason E1841_1; ESTC R209626	97,955	192

were all Saducees Montag exercit 3. § 1. The Pharisees and Sadducees both frequented the same Assemblies and Synagogues and offered sacrfiices in the same temple at Jerusalem The Essenes they admitted providence to govern all things and professed the immortality of the Soul They sent gifts to the temple but did not Sacrafice there but privately amongst themselves as makeing use of different Ceremonies thereat and so being excluded the publique Temple Their other customes and course of life as well as petite opinions in matters religious represent them to have been of unspotted life grave reservedly superstitious and in a word the Quakers of their Age. All these were tollerated in those dayes besides the multiplicity of Nations recounted Act. 2. v. 9. c. which were neither Jewes nor Jewish Proselytes in any kind viz. who will believe the Romans did not retain their Religion then in Judea After the settlement of the Church of Christ by his Apostles there is not a word of persecution and suppressing dissenters Heretiques beginning as Hegesippus tells us after the Apostles death till then the Church was an immaculate Virgin whilest infallible expositours of the will of God revealed in his word were alive Of this see what I say and prove in the close of my discourse of the Toleration under Constantine following After that they lived together Christianity being a profession of a compass much narrower then it is now even that Creed called the Apostles being shorter then it is now represented They which by a voluntary submission to Church-discipline democratically administred were joyned unto the people of God such upon defaults they excommunicated from their society over them that were without they exercised no power and over them that were within there highest processe was unto an Anathema which did not signifie any curse but as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a place so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a removall from such a place Salmas ad Solin or an excommunication So that If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha 1. Cor. 16.22 denotes onely for the height of impiety for the denyall of our Lord Jesus for that I suppose is meant by not loving him the Apostles determination is let him be outed the Church or assembly of God and for further punishment The Lord will come Maranatha that is God will punish him or judge him For what have I to do to judge them that are without Them that are without God shall judge Therefore put away from among your selves that wicked person Here is not a word of the civill Magistrate that he should judge them or punish them So Matth. 18. v. 17. if a brother after sundry private admonitions refuse to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen man and a publican So that the highest processe in Church censures doth not put a man into a worse condition then Heathens and publicans who yet were tolerated amongst the Jews and it was the Pharisee that blamed Christ for accompanying with them The Heathen were not to be excluded civill society since to them a Jew might put out money to use which he might not do to another Jew yea there might be a stranger within their houses as I have already said in reference to their proselyti domicilii How the Christians were persecuted under Heathen Emperours all our Martyrologyes tell us but I know not any that say they did well therein though if it be his duty to be a Nursing Father unto Truth it is meant not of what is materially and in it self so but of what is so formally and unto him such so that they may be pittyed for their mistakes in judgment but not blamed for their miscarryage in such their practise They punished them not as Christians and professing a doctrine revealed from Heaven by Christ the Author and finisher of their Salvation but as Atheists down-right Atheists such accusation is layed to their charge and even so they are called by Julian the Apostate in his works besides they were punished as factious and seditious and such as intended the overthrow of the Roman Empire by a personall reign of Christ in an earthly Kingdome and glory which was the generall opinion of the primitive Christians in so much as Justin Martyr will not allowe him to be orthodox if I may so render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who did not imbrace that opinion Yea in their Acts and Monuments we find such passages B. Marcus Evangelista primus Christi Martyr c. imperante Claudio Nerone Caesare nobis autem Christianis imperante domino nostro Jesu Christo And Martyrio coronatus est S. Christi Sabinus 3. idus Martii regnante impio Diocletiano imò verò domino nostro Jesu Christo many more of the like nature might be alledged out of Blondell de formulâ regnante Christo And Eusebius Histor l. 3. c. 15. cireth it out of Hegesippus that Domitian ceased his persecution against the Christians when he heard that the Kingdom of Christ was to be in Heaven and not on earth I come now to speak of the Christian Emperours 〈◊〉 they demeaned themselves after that the power was come into their hands Take one proof in generall of what Toleration men had untill the middle almost of Justinian's reign who ruled about the Year 530. Procopius a diligent writer and observer of transactions in those times in which he lived recordeth it in his secret History p. 51. That in the Roman empire there were many Heresies Sects of Christians As the Montanists Sabbatians and others And that the Arians lived in such splendour and pompe that their temples were so rich as nothing in all the Roman Dominions might compare therewith NO EMPEROUR HAVING EVER MOLESTED THEM 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There were also Samaritans Jews and Gentiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Heathens in great numbers as the same Procopius Jo. Mallela c. And Dr. Rives writing against Alemannus the publisher of that Procopius granting that there were in those days Manichees Samaritans Arians c. addeth that All they had publique temples every where and those too richly adorned erant quidem Alemanne fateor illud addo eas fuisse haereses quae non in Ecclesiae ritibus non in praeceptis hominum non in decretis Pontificum vel tollendis vel minuendis laborabant sed quae Jesu Christi personam hoc est fidei salutis nostrae fundamentum aliae aliis sed omnes nefandis rationibus subruere tollere cogitabant S●● tamen TEMPLA FANA UBIQVE locorum possidebant Illa vero presertim quae Arianorum furori serviebant auro argento gemmisque pretiosis lapidibus omni denique Divitiarum opum genere abundabant So Zosimus a learned but Pagan writer who in the time of Honorius the Emperour lived and attained notwithstanding his religion to the dignity of being Comes Exadvocatus fisci relateth it how that

age did learne a language which I have demonstrated elsewhere Mr. Baxter to have need of he would do well to repaire to Geneva not onely to informe himself that such consequences as he imagines are not to follow from severall positions in this Booke are not the conclusions of a rationall disputant but an Hypochondriack or one who onely manageth disputes at Kedermenster being himself Respondent Opponent and Moderatour but also to perswade them out of their Democracy and the illegality of making instead of presenting Magistrates besides he may inform them that since the Lord Ale-seller is absur'd The Romans fetched Cincinna●us from the plough to be Dictator That this is the practise of Geneva I have been to d● by an Honourable eye witnesse the Magistrates ought not in their applications to the people at their entry upon and going out of their Offices to call the Multitude of severall pettit trades-men My Lords nor stand bare before them he may desire them to remark it in their notes that God mistooke himself when he said Deut. 17.15 Thou shalt make him King over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose For it is God that makes Kings it is he that conferrs the power and if any thing the presentation or choise is in the people Holy Comm. p. 225. He would do well however to write a Monitory to them That their Government is such as Heathens have been their Examples in As if the Heathens had done nothing that were imitable or Jethro were not of Moses councill The Scripture doth not allow such reasonings which makes use of the examples of the Heathen to condemne the Jewes and Christians by It was an Omission in the Apostles to give the Church the name of a popular Assembly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and also not to tell the Republicks of Ephesus Athens c. That they sinned in the Exercise of a power that was not vested in them Pref. to the H. Com. it was not lawfull for them to be a Democracy each confiscation was robbery in them and every act of judicature and usurpation they should have told them and the people of Rome that there was no Reall Majesty in the People and made use of those arguments which are now published yet I think not as an extraordinary discovery of latter ages to undeceive them in that point Holy Comm. p. 63. Though Mas●er Baxter confesse p. 78. Thes 67. The reason why God did not universally by his law tye all the World to one forme of Government is because the difference of persons times places ●●ighbours c may make one forme best to one people and at one time and place that is worst to another Monarchy is best for some Aristocracy to others and Democracy to others Can that be best for any which is never lawfull Or can that be bad which hath God's approbation as here Master Baxter grants it to have in some cases I see we need onely dispute the circumstances we are in and that hath been excellently done by Master Harrington The Letter from an Officer in Iroland and two letters to L. Gen. Fleetwood to evince a Democracy and Master Baxtor did fallaciously dispute in generall against it by twenty impertinent objections Holy Comm. p. 89 c. proving Democracy to be ordinarily the worst in thosi which is onely so in hypothesi some circumstances But this was not the onely neglect in the Apostles they should have told those Republicks that they did but delude themselves Pref. to H. Comm. and indeed were no Republicks for That the people should ordinarily exercise the Soveraignety is a monstrous confusion and Morally impossible Oh! for Master Baxters considering cap had the Apostles said so the people would have thought stranger of their policy then God's and Paul would justly have been termed a Babler They needed but have opened their eyes and seen what Master Baxter thinks morally impossible and what he guesses to be monstrous confusion to be the greatest Order imaginable I should tell the world how farre Master Baxter enlargeth the number of Romances Thus Rome Athens yea Israel c. become meer fictions and Geneva Holland Switzer land c. Remove into Utopia and New Atlants All this is as Morally certain upon what Mr. Baxter laies down as it is certain that he contradicts himself p. 87. Thes 78. Democracy is a Common-wealth where the Soveraigne power is in all or the major vote of the people to bee exercised for the common good and to Some popular formes are there any popular formes that do not admit all the multitude to vote in Government without distinction He told us before yet the prefate too is his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Sovereigne power is not in all then is Democracy a vice or defect in Government not a species thereof or Common-wealth and Ochlocracy is like mettall upon mettall in Heraldry Vice upon vice or the degeneration of a corruption It may be that Mr. Baxter doth speak some way or other de facto as it is clear that he admits de facto Some popular formes to be made up of the whole multitude which yet was Morally impossible Surely he learned these concessions from Sancho in Don Quixote who tells his Master it may be so but it is impossible or doth not the Manchegall divine out-do the Squire for Mr. Baxter saith it is so and yet it is morally impossible I should too much presume upon my Reader to think hee would credit Master Baxter before the experience of severall ages or imagine that this Clerke could perceive twenty difficulties which not onely Bycurgus Solon and Dion but Moses and Calvim did not apprehend yet neither shall I altogether passe by the Reasons which were designed to establish the blood of the Cromwels and extirpate a Common-wealth Thes 81. Democracy or Popular Government is ordinarily the worst because it comes nearest to the utter confounding of the Governours and Governed the ranks that God hath separated by his Institution I confesse Monarchy doth confound the governed onely and yet it is never the better for that Such a difficulty as this might have been easily discovered by Moses or he advised of it by God when he erected his Democracy yet is there any thing more orderly then that Any thing more remote from confounding Governours and Governed did his political Constitution destroy the fifth Commandment in his Moral Law It is false that God hath absolutely instituted some to be Rulers a●● some to be Subjects yet them that are Rulers and them that are Subjects both their conditions are of God and the latter ought to obey the former since the powers that are are of God yet hath not God by his institution separated the ranks of men but by his providence how otherwise can a Democracy be from Gods approbation p. 78. Thes 67. and yet in this Confusion of Orders Whereas he sayes that the founding of a Common-wealth is next