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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	bind_v	church_n	heaven_n	11,478	5	7.0638	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85414	A short ansvver to A. S. alias Adam Stewart's second part of his overgrown duply to the two brethren. Together with certaine difficult questions easily answered; all which A. Stewart is desired to consider of, without replying, unlesse it be to purpose. A. Steuart [sic] in his second part of his duply to the two brethren. page 166. The civill magistrate cannot bee orthodox, and tollerate a new sect, (hee meanes independencie, and may as well say Presbytery) unles hee tollerate us to beleeve that hee is either corrupted by moneys, or some other waye, so to doe.	Goodwin, John, 1594?-1665.	1644 (1644)	Wing G1201; Thomason E27_6; ESTC R8324	30,557	41

hinder you But must all the world bee mad or sottish to beleeve you because you are rash to say you know not what You say that what seemeth good to the Holy Ghost should likewise seeme good to all Ministers I say so too but not contrariwise which rests on you to prove or not require obedience as though the Holy Ghost were in your bosom were at your beck It is true that whatsoever the Church does rightly bind or loose on earth is infallibly confirmed in heaven but that upon this presumption every A S. a Synod or Assembly may take upon them to bind and loose such as are not of their Congregation prescribing both Disciplin and Doctrin unto their brethren according to their owne imaginations much lesse expect that others should take their Decisions to be Oracles and themselves little God Almighties Is a character of such high floane conceitednes and presumption as since the creation was never equalized by any except the son of the morning Lucifer himself Es. 14. 12. 13. Surely if God should say of these men as he did ironically of Adam behold they are becom like us they can make new Scriptures new religions they are like enough to take him at his word still soothing themselves in their fond attempts until with Adam they were excluded Paradise You think you may say it seemeth good to the Holy Ghost and you and what if I should graunt you may possibly in some sence say so unto your own heart with a good conscience Must your conscience therefore become a rule a yoake to other mens And if the Blessed spirit should at any time be are witnes unto your spirit or unto the spirit of a whole Parliament and Synod what were this to the spirits of other men Must not they waite with patience untill the Blessed Spirit bee pleased to visit their Spirits likewise before they can joyne with yours or the Assemblies Spirit But if the Synods Determination of this or that controversie should seeme good unto the Holy Ghost as the Churches Decrees of Ierusalem did Must they therefore bee imposed upon the Country the whole world Is not this to equalize your Synodal Canons with those Decrees of the Apostolical Church of Ierusalem and so make Scripture of yours as well as theirs Is not this to adde to Scripture Nay to alter it For adding to it is ipso facto altering and it is said thou shalt not adde thereto Deut. 4. 6. Revel. 22. 18. Can you or any Synod say they are or will be at any time at their pleasure infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost If not Why doe you take so much upon you But you will say you fast and pray you mean and hope well May not a companie of Tinckers and Coblers say the like But you are more wise learned noble and therefore think it fitting that others should yeeld to your determinations rather than you to such as are rustick illiterate and obscure This in curtesie may bee granted you in part that is the not submitting your consciences to Independents they seeke nothing lesse beeing still willing to expect and pray for you with all long suffering and patience What postumate dispensation then since the Apostles leaving us have you not to doe the like They are the Presbyterian Doctors whose Asses must passe for Trumpeters and whose Geese are Swans whose war a● must be thought better and payde for deerer than any of their neighbours whatever they say must be accounted Seraphical and Mechanicks all Lay-men wave their owne reason and religion whilst they worship their's 'T is true that Jesus does tacitly commend Nathaniel for beleeving in him because he heard him only say that Hee saw him under the Fig-tree yet withall he tels him that hee should see greater things than those Ioh. 1. 50. that is hee should see that which would be a full and just ground of a higher degree and measure of faith in Christ in like manner Paul when he falls upon intergatories with the Iewes his brethren after the flesh saying How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation He tells them withall that it was such a salvation as first began to be preached by the Lord himselfe and afterwards was confirmed unto us by them that heard the Lord God bearing witnes thereunto both with signes and wonders and with diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost Hebr. 2. 2. 3. 4. From whence it followes that wee may now much lesse beleeve new Gospels new doctrins which are not evident in Scripture within the reach of our own capacities and apprehensions or upon slender grounds such as may possibly deceave us or upon any other lesse grounds than what are aboundantly able to satisfie both the strongest and weakest reasons and understandings of those from whom faith is required It is said in Pauls Epistles to the Ephesians that Christ gave some to be Apostles some Prophets Evangelists Pastours and Teachers for the perfecting the Saints for the worke of the Ministerie for the edifynig of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith some whereof we find to have been more immediatly and largely gifted than the rest as Apostles Prophets and Evangelists to whom in their rare indowm●nts and power of miracles wee do not know any to have succeeded since the Apostles dayes But whether may wee not take the want of them as a grievous curse upon all Christians with the rest of the world ever since Whether can the Gospel bee truly and throughly propagated without such infallible officers How can wee be assured that the Gospel has beene inviolably conserved and preached unto ●● without such glorious witnesses to bare testimony thereto by signes and wonders How can the Jewes bee certaine that they have the law and Proph●ts conveyde unto them without beeing adulterated considering their severall captivities and persecutions Who knowes whether Ezra his memory might not faile him in restoring unto them the Scriptures as is reported of him after they were said to be almost all consumed by fire when the Chaldea●s tooke Ierusalem Sixtus Senensis Bibl Sanct. l. 1. Ezra pray must their own or other mens reason be the handmaid to lead them through these Laberinthes Wee see in Genesis 27. that when Isaack had an intension to blesse Esauh Jacob by his mother Reb●ckah's counsell having covered his hands and neck with kidskins subtilly counterfetted himselfe to bee Esauh and so beguiled him of his blessing in the carriage whereof we see that Isaack conceived it was Iacob's voice but that the hands were the hands of Esauh whereof though he doubted yet he suffered himselfe to beswaid that way in regard that Iacob affirmed himselfe to bee Esauh verse 24. even so is it with multitudes of Christians in many poynts of controversie whilst the Scriptures furnish us with testimonies which in some respect seeme to make for both sides however in regard we cannot beleeve them both I conceave a man may

and as AS aleadges doe persecute all opinions but their own How come the New-English and Scots not to be both Sects alike since AS calls the Apologists a Sect But hee saies the Presbyterian Government is already established in England in the Dutch French Italian and Spanish Churches page 160. And I answer that hee may as well say the Popish government was setled in England because permitted to be made use of in in the Queens Chappells and so many Ambassadours houses little otherwise than was the Presbyterian But if the Presbyterian government bee already established what needs all this imprecating this conjuring of AS yet for a farther setling of it But if the Parliament may not as AS saies intrude and force upon the Kingdome new religions and since the Civil Magistrate as you likewise say page 166. if he follow Gods word cannot graunt a toleration without consent of the Church if he judge it bee not corrupted Why doe you not then betake your selfe to the Synod forbearing to be farther troublesome unto the Civil Magistrate untill it bee at leisure to talke with you for stigmatizing of it worse than mad corrupted by bribery or some other way page 166. unlesse it descend unto such notions only as AS arrives to And why I pray must the Parliament needs tolerate all AS ' ses to think they are worse than madde corrupted with money or some other way if they should tolerate a new Sect you mean Independents i. e. any that but differ from one another in opinion and such are all as will not upon any occasion say black is white and white is black or seeme to beleeve any thing else implicitely I know your meaning your grand and common more than understood objection that there is but one true religion but one faith one way to Heaven and why should wee then suffer men and women to bee of so many different waies faith's and religions For answer hereunto I can bee contented to graunt that there is but one true religion one true faith and way to Heaven But who can tell mee the precise and just precincts thereof What mean they by one true religion one way one faith The Papists Luthrans Calvinists all Episcopal and Presbyterian disciplind men generally are of this opinion each of them whole Nations and People damn for the most part hand over head all other professions but his own and even amongst these who by compulsion they will bee sure to make as good Christians as themselves to any mans thinking but their own how few of them notwithstanding will they allow to get into Heaven with them Would it not be wonder if this Circumference this little continent of earth should satisfie the vast desires of such who seeme to think that the Heavens so infinitely more capacious were only made for them and some few of their familiars O the malecontednesse of such Spirits To say nothing of Mahumetans nor any sort of Pagans no nor Jewes who yet were the beloved Nation of the Lord who promised to make all their enemies his owne To say nothing neither of Papists nor millions of Christians especially in the East which never heard more of Poprie than England had of Presbyterie five yeares agoe which you may say was but a little though since too much would it not be a harsh sentence for men of the Classicall Presbyterian-way to passe which must send hedlong to Hell all Lutherans Calvanists Independents with sundry other differing Protestants Perhaps you will say though they live Lutherans or Independents they may die Converts or well-willers to the Presbyterian Disciplin and Doctrin I answer that this is such a May-bee that if it come not whilst they live I 'le passe my word 't will never happen afterward You may as well say or think they may die Jewes or Papists were you not apt to flatter your selfe or glad to say any thing rather than by plaine argument be made appeare as if you thought God had first made the joyes of Heaven and in the fulnesse of time sent his Son to repurchase them for your fond opinions onely to vapour in But in case you doe not thus reprobate all Lutherans Independents and such as differ from you in opinion allowing them a possibilitie even whilst they live and die Lutherans or Independents to find the way to Heaven why will you then not let them goe their own way What if it should seeme to you the farthest way about May it not prove the neerest home according to the proverb I am certain it must be the surest way to them that know and apprehend no other If then you cannot possibly decipher or chaulke out unto me exactly this only true religion and way to Heaven without imminent danger of streightning or enlarging it do not take upon you to make enclosure of it or compell others to leaue their owne way unlesse you could bee infallibly assured that were a better which you put them in or were able to make them reraration if it prove a worse There are two great controversies which have set both State and Church on fire about which so many Pamphlets have beene scribled and not a few continued musing untill their heads grew addle which yet in my slender judgement may be fully Stated in a verie few lines only That in the Civil State is betwixt Magistrate and Subject On the one side it is alledged that if everie soule the whole bodie of a people or Nation must be subject unto the Higher Powers in all cases whether they govern justly or tyrannically then would it rest in the Magistrates breast and power to ruin and destroy the whole Nation at his pleasure On the otherside if the people may in some case deny subjection it must bee in such as they apprehend themselves in imminent danger of destruction and then it will follow that so often as they apprehend this imminent destruction this necessitie soe often they may deny subjection which would render the Higher Powers obnoxious unto the bare pretentions of the people if they did but withall alledge their feares were reall Both these I confesse are great stumbling blocks yet the latter as I conceive is to be adhered unto because it is a greater evil to expose a whole Nation to destruction than a Magistrate only And lest it should be thought this tenet does expose the Magistrate unto the inconstancie and violence of the People Let such remember that Magistrates are Gods Vice-gerents and as many times it happens that some scape better for the present For offending God than man but pay for it with a witnes afterwards soe if a People shall injuriously imploy that naturall power and might which God has given them only for their defence against the Magistrates just commands and priviledges God becomes so much more engag'd to vindicate them by how much being few in nomber in comparison of the People they want an arme of flesh to helpe themselves As for the Church