Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	church_n	england_n	reform_a	3,931	5	9.9167	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85887	A treatise of prayer and of divine providence as relating to it. With an application of the general doctrine thereof unto the present time, and state of things in the land, so far as prayer is concerned in them. Written for the instruction, admonition, and comfort of those that give themselves unto prayer, and stand in need of it in the said respects. By Edvvard Gee, minister of the gospel at Eccleston in Lancashire.	Gee, Edward, 1613-1660.	1653 (1653)	Wing G451; Thomason E1430_1; ESTC R209520	284,427	526

list do so likewise And how general is if not the committance yet the contagion of Idolatry when as some practise it others plead for its freedom others argue for it as no Idolatry others connive at it and let it alone and others work underhand for its further impunity That which the Prophet utters by way of description and reproof of the impiety of the Heathen Nations Micah 4.5 All people will walk every one in the name of his God is now owned and voted for by many and they say Let all people or they should walk every one in the name of his god and further besides the gross or corporal sort of Idol-worship or adoring either Images the work of mens hands or Creatures the work of Gods hands there are two other kinds of Idolatry and they are both among us There is the Idolatry of the brain and the Idolatry of the heart The Idolatry of the brain to wit the entertaining of Antitheistical notions or conceits of God or the seting up of such figments in the understanding of God as are directly opposite to that divine Nature and Personality or distinction of subsistence as is revealed unto us in the Word of God to be the object of our faith and worship And the Idolatry of the heart that is Covetousness for this sin the Apostle brandeth for Idolatry * Col. 3 5. Ephes 5 5 Vide Drusius in Hos 12.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we Ephes 4.19 translate greediness Vide Bez. in loc presertim Dan. Heusii excercit lib 10 c 4 l. 13. c. 2 And Mr Leigh's Crit. Sacr. in vocab And we must understand the term is of a larger extent then our ordinary sence of the word Covetousness reacheth unto for it signifieth an over-greedy desire prosecution and use of any earthly thing and so may include in it ambition intemperance luxury or any other inordinacy as well as the love of mony or worldly wealth and particularly it signifies that satisfying or accomplishment of any corrupt lust which is brought about by violence treachery or breach of Covenant Now who will not confess that the Land is full of this Idolatry or can say that ever any Age or Country equalled or more abounded with this kind of Idolatry and Worship then this of ours Here is Covenant breaking and especially with or in the matters of God I think I may confidently say Never any Nation scarce Israel it self in Moses time or after hath so generally publ●quely solemnly sacredly and reiteratedly bound themselves to or in the th ngs of God as hath this with our neighbor Nation and never did any so quickly so universally in regard of things so professedly so constantly with such self justifying and so hypocritically or under a pretence of acting from and for God violate their bonds unto him as multitudes have done among us Did ever any people lift up their hands so high unto God in swearing performance of all religious and humane Duties and defence and advancement of all sacred and civil Rights and presently let down their hands so low when it came to execution yea and lifted them up so high against the very things which they swore for as many in England have done We have multiplyed Oaths and studied for the most solemn express and strict forms of declaring and binding our selves as if we would constrain both God and all the world to beleeve and build upon our word most surely and as if we would make it unimaginable and impossible that we should break but after all this there are men found that have gone to work in the matters of the Oaths and Covenants as if the direct contrary to what was the subject of their Oaths had been the things they had undertaken and tyed themselves unto and as if all that they did in entering into those Obligations and in their proceedings afterward had been out of a study to make themselves and the Land as deeply guilty as they could both against God and man of Oath and Covenant-violation Who so shall but look back if a remembrance thereof now may be offenceless upon the Vow and Protestation of the year 1641. and the League and Covenant of the year 1642. and therein take notice to let all other things pass of what was vowed protested covenanted and sworn by the generality of this Nation in one or other or both of those bonds in relation to God What maintenance and defence of the true reformed Protestant Religion against all Popery and Popish Innovations and what endeavor of the punishment of all the Actors to the contrary what endeavor for the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland and for the Reformation of Religion in the Kingdom of England and Ireland and that in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government in respect both to that Church and to these Kingdoms and for the Conjunction and Vniformity of the Churches of God in all the three Kingdoms in Religion c. and for the extirpation of Popery Prelacy Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness c. He I say that shall but think thereof and then cast his eye upon the universal indisposition and backwardness of the whole Nation to the making good of these things their lothness to expose or imploy any life power or estate for the same the late committance to otter oblivion and deep silence of all these Obligations their total desistance from and constant refusal of all these performances in whose hands it is publiquely to manage the same and their disenabling letting and discouraging them that would stir therein the declarings endeavors and exploits of many directly contrary to these clauses both to the downfall of what was to have been preserved restored or effected and to the reviving and flou●ishing of what was to have been extirpated and lastly the favour and help that hath been lent to the known Enemies of the Religion professed and covenanted for in all the said branches thereof and in their enmity against the same He I say again that shall revolve these things if he have any sense either of the things obliged to or the nature of the Obligation cannot chuse but sit down with some part of Ezra's astonishment and heaviness conceived upon the sin of some of his people in the point of anti-federal marriages And as to the purpose in hand in stead of wondering what is become of all the prayers that have been put up for England he may admire what shall become of England and of them that have made it and themselves so guilty in this matter For this our heart is faint for these things our eyes are dim Lam 5.17 Here is Religion abused unto carnal ends and that very commonly plainly and grosly Religion hath been for a long time universally embraced and pretended to in England There have of late been many proceed ngs taken in hand about it yea it hath been one thing which men have held forth and made

of other sins 3. Which God more apparantly manifests himself against and strikes at in his cross providences 4. Which our Consciences must take to or reflect on by way of charge if not upon our selves yet at least upon one another 5. Which the evil under present consideration reflecteth on by way of proportion These are the tokens by which as I suppose the sins which are predominant in this effect may be discerned 2. Now which are they unto what sins do these tokens more eminently agree According to these characters or any other rule I have to go by and upon the most considerate and impartial survey that I can take of the visible state and ways of this Nation the sins that among the whole herd appear to me as Saul did among the people higher by head and shoulders then any of the rest that is to be the leading and master-sins as to the pulling down of other judgments so in special to the procurement of this are these two 1. The gross disesteem contempt and rejection of the holy Word and glorious Gospel of the blessed God 2. The high and dear esteem advancement and love of a worldly-private-interest These two are Englands sins and if I much mistake not they are the predominant sins in the obstruction of the prayers of or for England For the making good of this charge much needs not be said who can doubt of it in relation to either of them Let me speak a little of them severally and under that double charge 1. That they are Englands sins 2. That they are the reigning sins of England and therefore of chiefest influence in the hindrance of prayers First For the contempt and rejection of the Word of God and Gospel of Christ And of it 1. That it is Englands sin 2. That it is Englands master sin 1. The contempt and rejection of the Word and Gospel of God is Englands sin this is too apparent We of this Nation are of this guilty all manner of ways and in the greatest height Scarce ever any people have enjoyed the Gospel so freely so generally so plentifully and so long as we neither hath ever any more vilely despised and rejected it Israels or Judahs contempt of the Word of the Lord in the worst and corruptest times even when the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers 2 Chro. 36 15 16 rising betimes and sending but they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his Prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people till there was no remedy was not above ours at this day but is rather exceeded and outstripped by us both in regard of the more excellent manner of the Lords sending and speaking to us now then he used then to wit Heb. 1.1 2 by his own Son and his Prophetical Office and in respect of the higher measure of scorn disdain and abuse we cast upon Christs Word and Ministry The Jewish rejection of Christ and his Gospel when he lived and preached personally among them was not beyond ours of this age and Nation Mat. 11.20 c. Was Chorazin's Bethsaida's and Capernaums impenitency ever a whit more inveterate or upbraidable then is ours As it was said in the Parable of Dives his Brethren They have Moses and the Prophets Luk. 16.29 so it may be said of us We have Christ and his Apostles He who is greater then Jonah greater then Solomon is here in his Administrations and that in those Ordinances which they had not with us And as they of that generation repented not at the presence and preaching of Christ and his Apostles so neither do we Mat. 21 33 22.2.23.37 Have not we had the Kingdom of God as a planted and manured vineyard let out to us and have not we as reproachfully denyed to render the fruits thereof in their seasons as violently handled the servants of Christ sent to us to demand them as did the Jews We are those whom the King of Heaven hath bidden and called to the marriage of his Son Luk. 19.42 and we have made light of and refused the invitation and have spitefully entreated his servants sent to bring us to it We have had as tender and frequent calls and offers to be gathered shrouded and cherished under the wings of Christ as Jerusalem had and have as obstinately as they denyed it We have as wittingly and wilfully shut our eyes upon the things which belong unto our peace and against the day of our visitation as ever did they Were the Apostles and Ministers of Christ after Christs departing from them to Heaven and sending them forth to all Nations disobeyed derided envyed slandered contradicted and persecuted with threats accusations bonds banishments and death and have not the Ministers of Christ been so done unto with us Was the Apostle Pauls calling more questioned his Ministry more basely accounted of his Office more presumptuously and unwarrantably usurped by the Corinthians or their novel Teachers then now is the same Ministry The Galatians did not more vilely desert the Gospel nor more strangely change their respects towards and fall to quarrel at the Apostle Paul that brought it to them then men do now adays grow weary of and cast off that Gospel and turn to grudg at and emulate the true preachers thereof The Apostle foresaw that the time would come that men would not endure sound Doctrine but would after their own lusts heap to themselves Teachers having itching ears and would turn away their ears from the Truth and would be turned unto Fables And do not we see these things now fulfilled and acted before our eyes The Apostles Peter and Jude discovered in their time some in the Christian Church that turned from the holy Commandment delivered unto them and in stead thereof betook themselves to the wanton and impure lusts and ways of the flesh and became scoffers and mockers of the doctrine and hope of the Gospel And have not we many of this stamp multitudes of worldly and sensual Libertines multitudes of profane Atheistical Deriders of holiness and strictness and of the reward thereof These things in the Apostles days were but in the bud they are now with us grown ripe and rotten Once more Those sharp rebukes which our Lord Jesus sent unto the several Angels and Churches of Asia and in particular those unto the Churches of Ephesus Sardis and Laodicea for their falling away from their first love and life and for their loathsom cooling in their respect to the Word and Name of Christ do fall fully and heavily upon us Yea all those aforecited instances do cast back their faces upon us as their exact followers yea as their over-passers and justifiers and all the menaces and woes which are by the Holy Ghost denounced against them respectively do sadly declare against us * See Mat. 11.22 24 12.45 21.43 44 22.7 23.38 39 Luke 19.43.44.23 29 30 31 2 Thes