Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	call_v	law_n	sin_n	8,672	5	5.5986	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27014	Sacrilegious desertion of the holy ministery rebuked, and tolerated preaching of the gospel vindicated, against the reasonings of a confident questionist, in a book called Toleration not abused; with counsil to the nonconformists, and petition to the pious conformists / by one that is consecrated to the sacred ministry, and is resolved not to be a deserter of it ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1672 (1672)	Wing B1380; ESTC R5946	61,174	146

Religion and to the further advantage of Church-tyranny Ignorance or Malignity in the world And if we the foolish sinful Pastors have forfeited our honour and station in thy Church let not the Tyrannical Foolish and Wicked but those that shall be wiser holyer and more faithfully and succesfully diligent succeed us CHAP. XII An humble Petition to the Conformists Sect. 1. FAthers and Brethren though I presumed to counsel the Non-Conformists as my equals I will presume no higher with you than to lay my self at your Feet and humbly a second time to become your Petitioner for the souls of men for the Gospel the Church and the interest of Christ It is your Office to be Petitioners to mankind for Christ and to beseech them in his stead to be reconciled to God And a man might hope that one that should become a Petitioner to you that your selves would not destroy that Church might find acceptance and prevail But Satan hath got so great advantage that the wisest man living is uncapable of speaking rightly to you without offence He that can draw men into great disgraceful sin hath thereby raised a Bulwark to defend his work To be silent and comply is to be cruel to the sinner and himself and who can do it that believeth Death and Judgement To call men to repentance is utterly to lose them by implying that they have sinned O little did I once think that Repentance had bin so hard a work when God offereth pardon of all other sins against the Law of innocency on so low and reasonable a condition Sect. 2. It is not in my thoughts to confound all Conformists as if there were no difference among your selves I know that there are many sorts of you I. There are some Learned zealous high Conformists who think they have done good service to God by all that they have done already and no doubt were wise enough to foresee what they were bringing to pass and are not by any sober man to be accused of doing either they knew not what or what they did not suppose was good and would countervail all that it should cost to procure it Their work hath prospered And the hinder part of it is yet in their hands But it is also in the hands of God To these Reverend persons I have formerly spoken to their great offense Sect. 3. II. And I would there were no Ministers so pittifully dark and young and raw or so much out of love and relish with things Spiritual through the prevalency of a stronger appetite as that their incapacity convinceth me that I am not to expect much regard from them as knowing with what ears they hear Sect. 4 III. There are also some called Latitudinarians who love not Fopperyes or violence but are men of Reason and sober Conversations though they are not so tender and scrupulous as the Non-conformists but can break over greater rubs Sect. 5. IV. And there are other Godly sober unwilling Conformists who by the benefit of subscribing in their own sence have stretcht themselves to do what they have done who conform on the terms of Mr. Sprint submitting to what would else be evil onely to obtein the liberty of Preaching Far be it from me to put in any selfish ends Who are unwillingly Conformists as the Westminster Assembly were that after took down Prelacy Sect. 6. To all of them that yet have ears to hear I humbly present these following Requests I. O be not too angry with those that censure you as sinners I detest rash censoriousness But you know men that differ in this world about Speculatives may differ about matters of Practice too The Jesuists Fryars and Jansenists do so in not a few or little things And in such a difference one party must needs consure the practisers of the contrary as sinners If you and I differed about Usury Stage playes Gaming c. one party must needs think that the other side do live in sin And who liveth and sinneth not Either the censure is true or false If true should you not be as thankful as to one that would save you from the Plague Will sin do you less hurt than censure If it be false Consider 1. You are fallible and the notice of a possible pernicious danger should be received with self-suspicion and thanks 2. And you should love them the better for their aversness to sin though they should mistake the matter of it A proud heart saith swellingly Am I to be accounted herein a sinner A humble person will say Alas I am too likely to mistake and sin but if I do not I will love even a mistaken enemy of sin And to deal faithfully with you Had those honest Conformists of my acquaintance but come first to the ablest dissenters and impartially heard and weighed all that they had to say and not secretly slipt into Conformity as if they had bin afraid of hearing all I should have bin the more offended with their Censurers But God hateth sin and so must all that truely love him And they are our best friends that do most to preserve us from it And they are our greatest enemies that would flatter us into it To Preach against sin is your Ministerial Office And if any man thinks that you make a solemn Covenant to sin that you may have leave to preach against sin Yea that you deliberately commit a great one that you may have leave to preach against a less in other men this man deserveth to be heard though he mistake At Death and Judgment nothing in the world but sin will be your danger Unjust censures will be none If we say nothing to you yet its easie to gather by the costly terms on which we avoid it that we take conformity for a sin And if any of the people carry it censoriously or contemptuously towards you which we abhor remember that you take them for weak and pievish persons And honour or contempt is valuable according to the quality of the honourer or contemner You take your followers to be the wiser as they are the more And we bear their censures of us and much more And cannot you bear the censures of a few that you judge weaker You will proclaim the Non-Conformists to be the stronger Christians if they can bear poverty and restraints with the censure of the most when you cannot bear the censure of the fewest with liberty and Ministerial maintenance and honour II. For your souls sake and for the Churches sake Take heed of selfishness and Pride lest it fill you with envy against your Brethren that serve the same Lord when you think they any way diminish your reputation and honour I would have others keep up your Reputation to the utmost which in the name of God I charge upon them Yea and in honour to prefer you But if you think they do not remember that you are the Servants of a Crucified Christ who made himself of no reputation but took

of it if it ever be done Come and impartially debate the case with us Who have bin the great causes of Protestants divisions Conformists or Non-Conformists But I am ashamed to say that it needeth a debate But O that you would yet repent of what is past instead of reproaching those that you have afflicted And for the time to come if we hav● not unity and peace for my own part I can say it shall be your doing and wilful doing to refuse it CHAP. XI Counsel to the Non-Conformists Ministers and People BRethren you hear by this Author that the Conformists are greatly afraid of Popery and that the danger by some will he said to be from you but who ever taketh you for the Papists friends the Papists themselves will never so esteem you You see that some Comformists are desirous of peace and concord with you for the common end the Churches strength against all adversaries God forbid that you should not be as forward to love and peace as they I have these following counsels to give you before I go out of the World expecting to have you ere long in a condition which will require more wisdom holiness and fortitude than I fear the most are yet possessed of 1. Resolve by the grace of God against all temptations and through all difficulties faithfully to ply your Ministerial work You see how much Satan is against it and how he tryeth every way to hinder it sometimes by force and fears sometimes by flatteries sometimes as that old Prophet seduced the other by coming as in Christs name as an Angel of Light and by Ministers of Righteousness He maketh not light of your Ministry else he would not do so much against it O do not you make light of it Our Ordination Vow and Covenant is Holy If Ananias and Sapphira dyed for alienating consecrated money by a lye what shall we expect if we alienate consecrated persons by a lye Souls are precious sin is strong Satan is subtile the World is deceitful the flesh is unreasonable deceivers have great advantage time is short O therefore work while it is day for the night cometh when none can work Our own floath and sin is the most dangerous silence How many souls feed or famish live or die as we do our duty or neglect it Can you spare your flesh or labour when you think what impenitent souls must feel for ever and what the Sanctified shall enjoy Would you not shine your selves as Stars in the Firmament Would you not be found by Christ so doing Would you not convert Sinners from the errour of their way when it is the saving of a soul from death and covering a multitude of sins What ever Word of God deceivers may abuse to stop your mouths be sure that holy Covenants must be kept that Sacrilege is a sin that nature it self tells you no man hath power to nullifie your Obligation to Charity it self in the work of mens Salvation that the love of God dwelleth not in you if you see your Brother have need and shut up the bowels of your compassion from him Men may regulate your charity for good but not destroy it If the poor were famishing about you no Law can disoblige you from relieving them Be sure that necessity is laid on all the Ministers of Christ though not by the same way as it was laid on the Apostles and woe be unto them if they preach not the Gospel Fear none of those things that you shall suffer they are the prognosticks of your Crown You shall judge the world that judgeth you It will be joyful to hear These are they that came out of great Tribulation c. Even Dr. Th. Jackson notably concludeth that the reason why Martyrdom among Christians now is rarer than among Unbelievers heretofore and that more suffer not as John Baptist did of Herod is not because Great ones among Christians are not ready to do as Herod did but because Ministers more omit their duty The dearest duty is the most gainful 2. I beseech you Study harder that you may now so preach as that you may convince men practically that you are really useful needful to the World and that your silence is a real loss They that now take your labours to be needless are tempted to it by the weakness of too many They can scarce find in their hearts to say so of any Eminent judicious Men If when you have so long made the World believe that silencing you is a most heynous sin you shal now preach so rawly so incongruously so injudiciously unskilfully or coldly as to confute your selves harden those that were for your silence how great will your shame be If you will be thought more useful than others think you preach better now than others do I really fear lest meer Non-conformity have brought some into reputation as consciencious who by weak preaching will lose the reputation of being judicious more than their silence lost it What now will you do better and more than others to prove that the Nation cannot spare you I expect not great Judgement Learning in all the younger sort nor those that in these times have bin kept from study by labouring to get their children Bread but verily the injudiciousness of too many among you is for a lamentation But the grand calamity is that the most injudicious are usually the most confident and self-conceited and none so commonly give way to their ignorant zeal to censure back bite and reproach others as those that know not what they talk of I impute not this to you as Non-Conformists but as sons of Adam for experience hath convinced me that PRIDE OF UNDERSTANDING when men have little to be proud of or confidence of all mens own apprehensions is the vice of Men Women and Children when they are past eighteen years of age which seemeth to be most desperately uncurable Few sorts so silly but are always in the right and others erroneous in comparison of them as Bedlams pitty the ignorance of their Keepers So that I fear not the prevalency of scepticism in the world though I fear infidelity Self-conceitedness I warrant you will keep it under Such ancient as Ephrem Syrus Macarius Martin c. who were of little Learning but holy and humble and presumed not above their knowledge were honoured in the Churches but when the Egyptian Holy Monks would shew their humble pride and ignorance by tumults and zealous madness to seek the blood of the Bishops that believed not that God had Hands and Feet like Men and to destroy those as ungodly that were not as foolish as themselves what could have bin more scandalous against the honour of Godliness and Christianity 3. Over value not your own Preaching and under value not other mans because they are Conformists The number and necessities of the ignorant and ungodly indeed do make your labours necessary were you less fit than many of the Conformists

improve your Converse I. Often meet for fasting and prayer to lament our former and later sin and to pray for the Church of Christ and for all men for the King and all in Authority that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and honesty II. Set up constant regular Disputations not about trifles nor with litigious licenciousness But about the grounds of our Religion especially the differences between us and the Socinians and Papists And this with School order under Moderation Because 1. Too many of us are young and unstudyed in these matters and little fit to deal with the Philistins Goliahs and have great need to increase in holy defensive skill 2. It will by the bounds of order prevent all contentions and wranglings and medling with Rulers or other mens matters and all loss of time by impertinent discourse III. Counsel and Concord about Church practice must take up the rest of your time And these three seasonably used Prayer Disputation and Counsel will conduce much to your growth and strength But see that Ministerial Meetings turn not from Counsel and Agreement to Formality and Vsurpation of a Ruling power over one another and so degenerate not into Synodical Church-tyranny much less usurpe the Magistrates right For Synods ill managed have bin the Fevers and Pleurisies of the Churches 19. Therefore be sure to keep out both the Tyranny of Major Votes and of the proud Magisterial self-arrogations of any individuals that think all others must stoop to them 1. When it is once thought that the Major Vote must carry it an Ithacian Synod will tyrannize and every weak self-conceited man that hath nothing of sence to say against you will charge nine Learned judicious grave Divines with Insolency if they will not be governed by ten that are unlearned or injudicious self-esteemers Voteing is not for government but for Concord And not to be used lest it seem an appearance or introduction of usurpation except in cases where meer Concord is your work 2. But nothing hath more plagued the Church than the Pride and Arrogancy of some of the Pastors that think they are wronged if they may not Rule Think not that this Spirit is only in Papists or Diocesans Pride is the heart of the old man and born in all And doleful experience telleth how it surviveth in too many Antiprelatical Ministers of humbling principles and unhumbled souls Do we not know that the Pride of some among our selves that must be All and do all till they have undone all is the very thing that hath silenced so many Ministers and brought us to the state that we are now in There are some men that must only be heard in all debates and seldom hear who are angry if they be gainsaid who think that nimble Tongues or popular Interest or grey hairs must pass for uncontrolled reason And they study to make parties and set up their own Dictates by passion or indirect contrivances They can seldom debate a cause but their spleen swelleth against those that say not as they say but contradict them and they secretly back-bite them to blast their names They note those that follow them and those that oppose them and make two parties of them And all cometh from the common sin of man-kind An unhumbled overconfident understanding These men must first be meekly desired to be quiet and to let you be quiet and to remember that Non-conformists are not for self-obtruding Prelacy And that they are Brethren and not Lords If that will not do try by Prayer to prevail with God for more of humility and peace in his Ministers If that will not do silently bear their importunity with neglect If that do not Meet without them 3. And yet there is as great a mischief as any of these to be avoided also Which is the self-conceitedness and Pride of the younger and the more injudicious Sort of Ministers hindering them from following the Counsels of wiser experienced men For though we must have no arrogant Lordly Usurpers among us yet all that know any thing must confess that in all professions wise and eximious men are few It is but to few Divines that God giveth clear and accurate judgments And undoubtedly there is a three-fold Superiority and submission of divine obligation 1. Of Subjects to men in Office over them 2. Of the younger to the Elder 3. Of them that have less knowledge to them that have more For Office and Seniority are but formalities did they not suppose an eximious fitness by Superior knowledge If therefore God endow here and there one man with extraordinary judgement it is the wisdom and happiness of the times to know him and to kindle their Torches at his fire So did one Luther one Melanchthon one Calvin one Erasmus one Jewel Whitakers Reignolds Davenant c. profit many You may go a hundred miles amongst the less judicious sort and miss of that light which one Amesius●ne ●ne Camero one Strangius one le Blanch c. could shew the world And it is the Plague of corrupted nature that Ignorance keepeth men from knowing it self and not one of a multitude even of Religious men who are injudicious will believe that they are injudicious but every man is so much the more confident that he is in the right and others erre by how much the more he erreth himself so that few ignorant Ministers are teachable but think that they are too wise to learn because by office they undertake to teach But through Gods mercy my own converse hath bin with an humble sort of Ministers which was the occasion of our unity and peace And London and the Countrey have many such who I hope will be able to resist the dividing attempts of the self ignorant and self-conceited 20. Lastly Spend this little time as in the way to speedy sufferings and death Your present Winters day is short Work hard Live wisely Suppose your tryal were the next year Behave your selves as men that stand in prospect of the Grave It is not likely that God will pass over twenty years wilfull divisions wantonness proud contention self-distraction scandals and great sins so little repented of that men cannot endure to hear them named with so short or small a suffering as we have undergone And the same Spirit yet blinding the guilty and keeping some of the separating party in Impenitence and working still by unlawful means to their unlawful ends is the fearful Prognostick that more of the old effects are to be produced by the old uncured cause O be not partakers in the guilt and blindness lest you partake of the destruction and dementation be the sure prognostick of perdition But O Lord spare thy people and bless thine Inheritance and let not the weakness or willfulness of the Pastors or people deliver it up as a prey to the Destroyer And though our folly and scandal have made us a scorn let it not turn to the extirpation of true