Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	work_v	world_n	zeal_n	46	3	7.7940	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33531	English-law, or, A summary survey of the houshold of God on earth and that both before and under the law, and that both of Moses and the Lord Jesus : historically opening the purity and apostacy of believers in the successions of ages, to this present : together with an essay of Christian government under the regiment of our Lord and King, the one immortal, invisible, infinite, eternal, universal prince, the Prince of Peace, Emmanuel.	Cock, Charles George.	1651 (1651)	Wing C4789; ESTC R37185	322,702	228

draw all the world by the Clew of evident Reason and demonstrative Justice much more Authorities and when my reason could not prevail I would at utmost lift up my voyce in prayer with one hand and my heart and hold my sword in the other for my defence All that I say is be English men still war us not into slavery whom you were made souldiers to redeem from bondage but especially you Officers let not promotion cause you sit still because at case I cannot but give out one word of advice to the great and eminent City of this Nation you were sensible of evils past pride made you fat and you kicked with the heel Though the greatness of Trade be broken repine not break not out there is more lost in a day then can be gotten in a year vex not Strangers from your Potency nor Citizens by your Power Petition not against Will instead of Law in others and use far more irregularity and upon less ground your selves you heretofore gained the whole trading of the Nation into your company we are all English men shew us your Charter of Priviledge amongst the immunities of common Subjects will you admit that a particular Company in your City should of the Grant of the King have a priviledge to the detriment of your general Charter why should you then to the dammages of the whole Nation Agree therefore to just things give God the glory to part with quietly from the convictions of just Reason what you might happily hold either by Law or Power from your Grants if the Grant be now evil though not originally so for Reason making things lawful and being the bounds of Supream Monarches in general it cannot be excluded their particular Grants I know this will grate hard upon some among you but if Christians they will hear it were better to be less rich and less populous so more honest and better regulated you are at present yea after so long sitting under the Sword of the Vengeance of the Lord the sinke of abominable open prevailing sins you that should be the Head to the Body and the Eye to the Head in the greatness of Blessings going before others and being a Pattern and Example to all the rest as a Mother City as you have been stiled in the Nation you are not active for that glorious Regiment of divine Reason which as Christian is held forth to us in the Old and New Testament of our Lord and Saviour the Lord Christ Jesus you labour not in what is established by Law then sure it can be little expected that you should endeavor the Settlement of more it is a work of difficulty the opposition of the world will be but the world is overcome and this gives hopes of Conquest when we fight an Enemy that hath been beaten it s the course of the world to plead Presidents and then the highest are the best you are able do the work you have done much in settling a Magistracie in Chief set to the design this is of interest publike but cease not here fit them to the general end of Government as well as to the particular one of Opinion It s the way of all Corporations this may not be evil in Politicks but there is a better in States much more in Christianity And from you I pass to all Cities and Corporations You have evils every day which need remedy you spy errors in your Charters whereby you see you are no way able to act for publike benefit endeavour the Settlement by due consideration of just laws present them as is due to the Supream Magistrate let them settle the due priviledges and so enable by a standing Law the Rule of your Christian Government in a social frame Emulation may be hereby a spur to excellency of Order while the improving the same priviledges more or less will evidence the excellency of men which particular honor is the Bellows to blow up the spark of outward Vertue to a flame in a zealous or ambitious spirit And you rich men and men of parts in all places improve your Talents hold forth the Light God imparts to you for the healing of this languishing Nation The poor increase so vastly through continued and unrepaired losses at Sea and from the deadness of trading at Land that unless some course be taken all must to wrack besides the mercilesness of Wretches who sell the poor for a pair of Shooes some by forging Judgements and making folks to compound some under colour of Warrants breaking open of houses being Bayliffs and that at midnight and then by the Justice its said Justices of the Peace let go with onely restoring the goods again and this since acted in several places they passing unpunished otherwhere a Bailiff upon a Judgement of one hundred and eight pound upon a debt of forty pound out of the Common Pleas whereby ten pound sixteen shillings is due to one Officer for one Fee as dammage clear out of their estate who are not worth one farthing comes and makes seisure of a whole Shop of goods worth by estimation above two hundred pounds in Grocery and other small wares of Silk Buttons Lace Ribbonds Linnen and Woollen cloath c. besides all the Housholdstuff not leaving a bed to lie on or stool to sit on and these are by whole Sale as they say without any Inventory or due apprisal carryed away and yet no Judgement satisfied that is not fully forty six pounds is all can be made out of these goods Men constantly Arrested onely to force them to compound for stand out a Suit they are undone yet who becomes careful to give or crave relief in these matters Thus the poor and miserable people are daily utterly undone from Forms of Law and the priviledge is in the Form O Englishmen deceive not your selves and others with shadows These so more then evident errings wandrings failings and unreasonable unjust procedures of so called and proud of as striving for the name of best purest holiest c. Christians are the gaps and inlets to all those strange unheard of Opinions those Blasphemous and unnatural bestial actions and audacious Printings which there is such a stir withal in the world lay ought to their charge they recriminate and bespatter fouly and soyl hangs For the letter of the Scripture if Christians plead that they are gone it is as killing under the Gospel as the Law for the letter of Scripture and the lives of Christians are as different as life and death hell and heaven This in contemplative heads convinced of duty works high and assuredly brings forth all those Enthusiastick Rapsodies which so amaze the world these urge them by degrees to greater heights of so called zeal for Gods Truth and then after a Prophetick strain they utter things hard to be understood I cannot see any ground why any should be led away after them nor give any credit to their sayings No I rather believe it to be the

persecution was not the way to eradicate Christianity and the very heathen Emperor Julian the Apostate whose heart knew horror for it as Christs politiquest and greatest enemy sheathes the sword and works by poyson but not to the body he hinders meetings under pretext of Treasons against the State and for publique safety sets up Schools of Idolatry and forces the Christian children to be there trained or els their parents dye as Traytors Now no longer Martyrs this quailes many a courage and was a great trouble and affliction to the Church but they overcome God by prayer here was the first tryal and therefore need of the greater strength They stood in the first rankes of the bataile of the Lord Christ and they were by him fitted accordingly for the combat they under went fear of death which to us is most terrible was to them unconverted frequent and therefore contemned thus was courage by example given to them should follow there is alwaies a mystery in providence secretly fitting all things to that end the Lord determines and works still for the good of his people and this preparation I take to be against the cruelty of the second beast which was to afflict the Church after the first beast the Roman Emperors was taken away the Apostles led the dance and the holy Disciples and Martyrs of all sorts followed after and that with the same faith and constancy though through variety of Torments and the persecutions were so violent that one of the learned amongst the Ancient Pastors of Gods Church Records there was but one day in all the daies of the year which had not been defiled with the death of at least five thousand Witnesses to the truth of Christs Gospel under the ten persecutions of the heathen Emperors and this is notorious that the worst Emperors were Christians greatest enemies seldome so much the zeal for the Gods as envy at godliness and coveteousness of riches the Christians goods filling anew the empty treasury exhausted by intemperancy of the Emperors or covetize of the Courtiers who were as they ever will be like graves never satisfied and is it not strange that a crucified God witnessed by the meanest of men fishermen should be thus followed and should break forth so gloriously amid flames and furies of all sorts yea every thing that was projected to over-throw it the demolishing of the outward Temples the burnings of Scriptures made but more pure though more secret meetings otherwhere and made them get the word into their hearts and memories for it is wonderful what labor the ancient and primitive Christians took in getting the Apostles writings by heart where it could never be extinguished but they should reap a greater light by it and thus God tried his Church purged and purified it by sufferings for three hundred years and not a Bishop so called of Rome or Pastor of the Church there in all that space but either suffered persecution or died Martyrs yet even amongst those Emperors persecutors God left himself not without witness and which is most notable in the worst man and cruellest to Christians Maximinus who at last glorified the God of the Christians and by new laws gave them immunities and privilidges above other men who before were thought worse then brute beasts Trajan Antoninus and others by providence in his mercy moderated and slacked of their fury to believers but never acknowledged him as this man did though he might back-slide but this is notorious that the Pagans alwaies believed God hated or the Gods hated the Christians because they saw them afflicted judgeing eternal love still by temporal favour and now to shew and evidence his power in that also and to convince the Enemies of this truth he not only gives a respite a cessation of miseries and afflictions but to shew his power all one the suddain by unexpected waies raises up contemned Christians to Thrones and Scepters and all the grand ones of the world are but the rewards of religious purity to the true God and now the poor banished soul ship-wrackt and lost as it were is brought to a haven of rest now Churches built now who so glorious as the greatest sufferers and in these daies of tranquillity the sence of present joy did more then counterpoise the sufferings past the poor Bishops are now the Emperors fathers endowed with livings and if fame lye not The Romane Bishop stole what Constantine never gave but the Decree was not unsealed till a long time after and this is Constantines pretended donation but sure it is Constantine did highly honor all the worthy ministers of all the Churches in whom the Vertue Piety and Doctrine of Jesus our Saviour was exemplar and now there is a new face of the world and surely the Christians now think themselves very happy their Emperor a Christian the power glory riches and honor of the world theirs now peace now plenty ensue and what can their hearts desire that they enjoy not The Dragon the persecutor is now gone and what doth reason suggest Now they will serve God gloriously before the service was mean and contemptible scorned by heathens in private and secret in a private house nay Barn Stable Cave or Grot any where so they might but serve him at all to live and praise him was all they looked for they were in Aegypt in bondage before the whips of the Task-masters were upon their shoulders or at best but in the wilderness but now they enjoyed Canaan the land of rest now build the Temple hew the stones lay the foundations and erect not only chambers or lodgings for the Priests and Levites but the Singers the Porters and all the train of due and orderly service and hearts were willing to the work and then purse and hand was ready and now all on a suddain the whole world is turned Christian and all the provinces of the Romane Empire crouch under the Standard of the Cross and the highest Purple adores the woaven Coat of our Saviour and now the Pagan according to his principles worships the rising Sun Thrive Christian and I am a Christian but otherwise adue Christ and God and all But they might go far who had such excellent leaders when their Emperor and Princes shewed in their exemplary life the power of Godliness so that the difference was evident betwixt the sincerity of Christianity and the vanity of Idolatry for it s reported of the Emperor Constantine that he was not so much a Conqueror of his enemies through the power of faith as of himself all passions subjugated to the rule of his Saviour he eat to live and lived to magnifie his Saviour and knowing he could never attain the height of that perfection which his Saviour had and he aspired not unto yet as he had commanded so he imitated and made him his rule and his pattern his recreations were divine Contemplations and his private discourses betwixt God and his soul were as Paradise to his soul

Error or more of course this Term then more the next and then a peremptory day and then Errors Cassed is but legal extortion So that it is plain to take errors totally away is as bad as to have all allowed but to prevent the mischief let a certain day in Court be to determine errors before issue and not after Now the punishments in these defaults are and must be pecuniary and that both in the Judges of Fact as Jurors as well as Law but where the default is evident there ought to be a dispriviledging for future as to all publike trusts at least for a time but out of the Judicial place presently yea though the oath be that he was onely mistaken in Law and did not do it at all maliciously or with a minde of injustice Now to oaths it is fit any Justice of the Peace should give it at discretion this requires able Judges and so should Judges be but of this more in due place Concerning what things the Magistrate may and ought to make Laws YOu heard before that there must rest in some persons thereto designed either by God as those who claym to rule by absolute power or by men as those who rule by Compact or Convention as who either had no power but were meerly elected and agreed with having no Right primarily or had some power but not enough and so condiscended to some rule that they might rule assuredly Now this being in one person or more yet the power ought to extend to all things justly necessary to the well being of a Commonwealth and therefore they have respectively the general powers of war and peace life and death But because we have before hinted that there was a necessity of the Magistrates regulating of those things which many men call dispriviledge to Christians as well as men we will according to the rule before laid that is of the head Law according to Gods own Law the God of Christians as of the Jew see the Government of reason laid there down both for Divine and Civil worship Wherein first it seems directly given to the Magistrate to have the ordering of divine worship to God under the Law Now let us see how this works for Vzziah is a Leper for acting in the Priests Office Yet the aberrations both of Priest and People are laid to the Kings charge and the good Kings commanding just things and not onely so but seeing of them performed are blessed and on the contrary the evil Kings punished and their Adherents And those disobedient to the King as to Ahab the seven thousand that never bowed knee to Baal were those who were to take root downward and bring forth fruit upward Now the great difficulty is to settle the Magistrates power so that he may not bring sin upon himself and the Nation by commanding or tolerating things evil and unjust or unjustly enforcing things just and good Now as to this it is to be considered that we all profess Grace is from Heaven the meer gift of God and that the Spirit breatheth where it pleaseth as the wind bloweth where it listeth if so the Magistrate Yea grant there were a clear Church Magistrate that were by divine Word impowred with the Sword of Paul as the Keys of Peter could he go further then the outward man it is plain he could not Next then grant no such Magistrate sure the Civil or in case of doubt of Spiritual Power the Civil Magistrate onely can act clearly Now for the Spiritual Power to be helped out with the Civil Sword surely it is one of the grossest vanities that Popery ever broached God stands not in need of mans wisdome or power But God having not cleared that the implicit construction by Analogical or singular reason from the legall severity is proportionate to the gentle and quiet brotherlike Rule of the Gospel nor agreeable to the Commission which our Saviour gives to his Apostles which was either to the Jew Matthew the 10. Mark the 3. and Luke the 9. or to the universality of men Matthew the 28. Mark the 16. Luke the 24. and clear enough in that of the 21. of John and 15. where nothing is spoken of but preaching and teaching and feeding If then the Pastor have not the Sword but of the Spirit let us see the material and Magisterial Sword which is not born in vain what may this do If we look to the Jewish Model which many men seem so much to contend for There we see that the Magistrate had power over blasphemers Idolaters and tempters to Idolatry witches c. and this extended to death and that it should do so with us is by them desired Now many suppose this difficulty though very great may be at least in great part assoyled if we consider that the persons to whom this Law was given was a people chosen by wonderful miracles and wonders from all Nations to be the people of God and bear out to the world the Ensigns of his special love to man in all Ages and Generations which tokens of love in obedience to his Law were suited with answerable judgements in the neglect of the same And surely those things which relate immediately to God in the point of gracious service hold forth nothing to us but assurance of eternal punishments to the unrepentant sinner Saint Paul confesseth himself a blasphemer 1 Timothy the 1. 13. and declaring in the last times what fearful and horrible sins should appear among men 2 Timothy 3. 2. he takes notice of blasphemy and bids onely from such turn away Now if you would have a Magistrate to work without a divine precept we must look at the height of improved reason There we find that zeal for the Gods among all Heathens made blasphemy death and surely reverence is due by the light of Nature to what ever is called God Of blasphemy under the Law the Councell was Judge Now the Sanhedrin was not of Priests they might ask Councel of the Priest but determined themselves and these by Gods Law put the blasphemer to death many conjecture upon this the Devil Aped Gods Law others his delight in blood hinted the Law as in Heathen Sacrifices but sure such reason makes against these objects intended to take away the pure light of reason for who that will acknowledge a Deity will allow the Deity to be blasphemed But now the doubt is whether these are not under the Gospel to be reserved to the last Judgement Some beleeving that if Paul of a blasphemer and who ever was a greater became a Saint a Preacher of the Messiah who did and thought to do many things against the Name of Jesus that is against them called on his name why may not any other be converted where is Gods dispencing with the Law where the special reservation of Paul he did it not against the humanity of Christ but his Divinity it was for calling on his Name Some excuse Paul because zealous but others