Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	world_n	year_n	zealous_a	84	3	10.9140	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75036	A brief apologie for the sequestred clergie. VVherein (among other things) this case of conscience is judiciously handled: whether any minister of the Church of England may (to avoid sequestration) omit the publike use of the liturgie, and submit to the directory. In a letter from a sequestred divine, to Mr. Stephen Marshall.	Allington, John, d. 1682.; Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1649 (1649)	Wing A1206; Thomason E537_11; ESTC R204340	21,192	25

it made my heart even ake to think how applicable this methodicall destruction is to our ungratefull vineyard I will take away the hedge I will break downe the wall Take the hedge and the wall away cut up the fence and the Vinyard will soon be wast The Government the Discipline the Liturgy which as a hedge or a wall ever since our reformation preserved the Vineyard since I see it hath pleased God to suffer this hedge and the wall to be trodden downe I can but feare confusion and desolation to be the sequest For since the worldly wiseman verily believes where the fence is wanting spoile and wast inevitably followeth and therefore his maine care is to tend it Even so where the muniments of any prosession or Religion are slighted and taken away where Liturgy this 13. hundred years without controversie held the hedge and mound of faith and Gods worship in Natiohall Church where I say this is pull'd downe and taken away there is iminent and evident feare a gap is opened to let in what ever will come Be it the beast of the field be it the little foxes be it the wild bore of the forrest come what will there is no muniment no provision no fence against it so that in my poor conceptions the hedge the fence the muniment of the Church they are matters of such necessary consequence that Ministers I conceive had better lay themselves and all their fortunes in the gap then for want of fence to suffer the destroyer to come in Indeed I have been told by some who wish very well unto me that humane inventions and things meerly circumstantiall ought not to be thus stood upon I thank them heartily for their affection and blesse them for their good will but our judgments yet must differ For if no suffering for humane invention if life it selfe may not be exposed to hazzard in defence of humane constitutions certainly then no fighting for the Lawes of Land nor no taking up arms for Priviledge of Parliament for these sure are humane and politicall institutions and as these are necessary for the preservation of a State even some such are also necessary for the preservation of a Church and of such Church-men cannot be too chary Againe whereas Liturgie in genere or ours in specie is counted but a circumstantiall businesse I believe I may find out such circumstantialls in a Christian Church as will hazard the whole if they perish In the tenth persecution under the Tyranny of Dioclesian a Decree past ut Templa libri delerentur that Christians should deliver up their books and destroy or at least permit the destruction of their Churches Books and Churches I conceive are but circumstantialls to Religion for the world was more then 2400. yeers old before there was any Scripture in it yea the Christian Church it was from the birth of Christ more then 90. years before the Canon of the New Testament was compleated yea after the death and Resurrection of our Saviour there is supposing his passion at 31. ten years numbred before any Gospell at all was committed unto writing twice ten before the second thrice ten before the third and more then three twenti●s before the last a plaine argument that bookes and writings are but circumstantiall to Religion for one may live and die a very good Christian and know never a letter on the booke Suppose now the Pope and Popery should so far prevaile as to have under the notion of books hereticall for so they will sticke to call our Bibles to call in and under paine of death to deliver up our Bibles even to the fire could any conscientious Protestant satisfie his soule with this poore evasion alas the Bible is but circumstantiall the Doctrine and Religion of it I can preserve though the Bible be gone without all peradventure it is most true a learned and well grounded Christian he may preserve the faith he may deliver and hold fast the forme of sound words though among Turks where a Bible is not to be looked upon and yet for my particular I should scarce looke upon that man as Christian who to save his purse yea his body should deliver up his Bible to the fire In the Roman Martyrologie there is a commemoration made of many holy Martyrs who despising the sacrilegious Edict of Dioclesian 7. quo tradi Sacros codices jubebantur potiùs corpora carnificibus quàm sanctadare canibus maluerunt chose rather to deliver their bodies to the executioner then holy things to dogs or holy books unto the fire And truly I should rather honour these as Martyrs then those for good Christians who under pretence of things circumstantiall should deliver those to save themselves so highly I conceive God would be dishonoured in the betraying of so great a preserver and muniment of his Honour Again as Books even so to some much more clearly Churches Oratories Temples they are meer circumstantialls Now suppose the Independent and Congregationall Brother-hood should so far over-power as to command the demolition as they call them of our Steeple-houses the destruction and levelling of our Churches I would very fain know whether in point of conscience I were not rather bound to suffer then in any measure to appeare willing to so high a sacriledge I who am flesh and blood as well as other men could find pretty evasions and glosses to foole my soule withall I could say as I hear is not a Sermon as well in a Parlour as in a Church Did not Christ preach in a Ship Paul pray upon the sands and shall I suffer in defence of so unnecessary a trifle as an heap of stones a Popish Relique a sorry meeting house For my particular I am afraid many things are daily called circumstantiall not with consideration whether so or no but because these are the things in question these the points which I must either dissemble desert or suffer for I pray let me as a close to this present you with the example of one who though a Bishop was ever reverenced as a Saint a good man I mean that great Doctor S. Ambrose who being once tempted and provoked even in this very point and that by no lesse then the Emperour to deliver up his Church though it pleased the Emperour in a faire way to send Earles and Tribunes to him ut Basilicae fieret matura traditio that there might be a seasonable del●verance of that Royall Pallace for so his piety termes the Church yet you shall find this reverend Bastor so far from deeming this a circumstantiall trifle that he offers his goods his body his life in lieu of it Ea quae Divina Imperatoriae potestatinon subjecta The things of God are not subject to imperiall power was the peremptory position of this Bishop and then proceeds Si patrimonium petitur invadite si corpus occurram vultis in vincula rapere vultis in mortem voluptatiest mihi

If you who are sent demand my patrimony invade it take it if my body here it is if to bonds or death you desire to carry me it shall be a pleasure to me pro altaribus gratiùs immolabor I will gladly be a sacrifice to preserve my Altar He would rather dye the death then suffer an Arrian Minister to officiate in his Church yea as it is in the same Epistle cum propositum esset ut ecclesiae vasa jam traderemus when the Emperors Officers demanded a present delivery of the Church Vessells the conscientious Bishop was so far from holding these such circumstantialls as not to be stood upon that he plainly tells the Emperor it was neither lawfull for him to deliver or the Emperor to demand them Trade basilicam deliver the Church is as much as to say as the same Father to his Flock speak a word against God and dye nay not only so Nec solum dic ad versus Deum etians fac ad versus Deum It is not only to speak but to do against God which in his judgement deserved no lesse then death Thus zealous of a circumstantiall and of exterior muniments was that holy Bishop to betray a Church yea a Vessell of a Church it was in his divinity a sin against the Deity an act against him for whose glory and service they were preserved In these sad times of triall I conceive one main end of Gods judgements especially upon his Clergy is to discern who those are who have hitherto meerly related to him for their bellies and who for his glory mainly who have been spirituall and who carnall professors of the Ministry For those who served him chiefly for their bellies and carnall ends to them the invasion of nothing is considerable in which their interest and their ends are not involved but such who with purity of intention have mainly studied and sought the advance of Gods service to them as to S. Ambrose the muniments of Religion the abridgement or abatement of any thing that was adjuvant to this end is more considerable then all their secular interest or personall advantages of this world insomuch as I can knowingly say it for some Threescore pound a yeare and our old way will be prefer'd before 300. in a worse Moddell It is to me a consideration not unworthy my pen to see how the judgement of God hath followed such who have measured and stuck to his interests meerly as they moved with their owne In the 21 year of Henry the 8th in a Parliament which began the 3. of Novemb. the Commons sent up to the House of Lords a Bill against the exaction of unconscionable Mortuaries To which Bill it is observed the spirituall Lords made a faire face and were well content a reasonable Order should passe against them But this was saith my author Because it touched them little for when within two daies after a Bill concerning probates of Testaments in which there had been incrediale extortion was sent up to the Lords then the Bishops in generall saith the Historian frown'd and grunted for that touched their profit then said the Bishop of Rochester now with the Commons is nothing but downe with the Church When the Bishops personall profits were toucht upon then as if the very Church were falling Fisher crieth out the Commons lack faith the Commons think of nothing but down with the Church Yea in the progresse of this reformation are not Bishops found conniving and abetting the demolishing of religious houses and was not this probably with an eye to the preservation of their own as if they said let Monasteries go so long as Bishopricks bee preserv'd well they are dead and gone But hath not vengeance followed upon Episcopacy Are there not now amongst us who cry downe with Bishops sell their Lands and think this no sacriledge provided that Parsonages may be augmented and Tythes supported well Bishops are preach't down and their honors laid in the dust But doth not vengeance hasten after the promoters of it Do not the Presbyters find that there are who conceive they have lesse right to Tythes then Bishops to their Lands Are there not who are as industrious to deprive them as they have been for their own ends to deprive their God An evident argument that just and righteous art thou O God in all shy waies An argument that makes me verily believe those who for private interest and meerly either for praise or profit throw off the Liturgy forbeare their duties and betray the muniments of Religion and the Church of Christ God will in his due time reward such into their owne bosomes blasting that private interest for which they have betrayed his Whereas then I must professe before God and the world I can apprehend no motive or inducement so prevalent as to perswade me that the Liturgie of the Church of England is any way a hinderer of Gods holy Worship or an obstacle to the solid and sufficient Ministration of the Word agreeable to Orthodox Antiquity and an approved promoter of Gods glory in the Church I live in being I say to consent to the abolition of Liturgie I find in my soule no moving motive but either the hope of more or the holding of what I have I dare not finding within me nothing but carnall interest put a specious shew of Religion upon it and tell the world that I lay aside the truly Divine Service of the Church because Prelates overvalued it the ignorant doted of it the Papists nos'd with it and an idle and unedifying Ministery maintained by it These I professe to me are neither true nor weighty considerations for if I should now as I am forbear or lay it aside it is not any or all these but only in mine own defence only for mine own ends I should do it Now whether any man may salvâ conscientiâ prefer what he conceives in Gods service a worse way meerly for the boot of private interest I leave it to your prudent consideration concluding with that of Chrystost Qui hominem timet ab co ipso quem timet deridebitur sin vero Deum hominibus quoque venerabilis crit He who in Gods cause prefers man he shall be scorn'd of him he fears but he who fearing God despiseth man shall be had in reverence even of those men The patient abiding of the meek shall not alway be forgotten And here I had thought to have put a period both to your trouble and my owne but I must needs crave-leave that you would thus far be an advocate both for me and all in my condition as to procure a beliefe that such who are constant to their faith and principles according to the established and old way of England may be held if weak yet conscientious Christians for it 's none of the lest pressures of the Crosse upon us that we of all men are thought to have no foundation whereas we in our judgements believe verily