Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n
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A63517
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The true Englishman, humbly proposing something to rid us of the plot in the state and of contentions in the church wherein is shown how our King may be the happy healer of nations / by a Philopolite ; and published by his neighbour, Philotheus.
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Philopolite.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing T2697; ESTC R34079
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69,739
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140
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on the Extreams of Devotion towards the close of which are these words I thank thee O God that thou hast given me a desire to walk even between these Extremities As I would be ever in a praying disposition to thee so I would not willing break hours with thee I would neither sleep nor wake without praying but I would never pray without feeling If my heart go not along with forms of words I do not pray but babble and if that be bent upon the matter of my Suits it is all one to thee whether the words be my own or borrowed Let thy good Spirit ever teach me to pray and help me in praying c. and then if thou canst send me away empty Accordingly in those days we attended and used both the Forms and Extempore as occasion offered or charity invited thereunto declining all particular Communions which did bar our being so Catholick He is also one who would have men leave off Contention before it be meddled with And is as you may see troubled that there are Contentions and Strivings amongst us about Ritual Observances and a New-modelled Divinity made up of foolish disputings for purer Administration to the neglect of or trespass upon the weighty matters of Christianity whereby men spend their time and zeal on Vanity or Vexation i. e. on that which neither themselves nor others are the better but the worse for I hope neither side will persist therein for being they are in the most holy office 2 Tim. 2.24 St. Paul saith to them The Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men If yet they shall go on they will appear to be in that Snare of the Devil as those are who are taken captive by him at his will And to future Generations will be signs or significant Ceremonies i. e. instructive to them as that of Lot's Wife so horrid and dismal that they shall wish you never had been or that you had been as it were Horn or Glass as the Antidote hath it i. e. any innocent or insensible thing rather than to have had and to use so evilly the Noble power of Man I have been Eye and Ear-witness of the Authors Loyalty to his King and adhaesion to the Church of England in Charitable conformity thereunto farther than which he deems factious in the Body His Loyalty hath been without any spot or blemish except this that in the heats of Zeal and Love to our present King and to his Father he hath now and then gone too far in hating as it were those who were too little for them falling short of that Pattern the Honourable and Loyal Lady set who being told The King would not like her feeding some of the Parliaments Army then ready to perish with hunger Replied to this effect I had rather answer to my King for feeding than to God for not feeding his and my Enemies Also forgetting the Exhortation which saith Dearly Beloved avenge not your selves Rom. 12.19 20 21. but rather give place unto wrath for it is written Vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord. Therefore if thine Enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good I call this a Spot in his Loyalty because it is a defect therein one of the highest degrees whereof is our conformity to God and to the King in that of a gracious nature or a readiness to do all good That this is in God we are all witness and that this is or ought to be in a King the Royal Prophet sheweth when he saith They rewarded me evil for good Psal 35.12 13 14. to the spoiling of my Soul But as for me when they were sick my clothing was Sackcloth I humbled my self with fasting and my prayer returned into my own bosom I behaved my self as though he had been my friend or brother I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his mother He always passionately desired his Majesty might escape as the Sons of Zerviah so that base rascal sort of People who are worse than Knights of the Post I mean Flatterers to be undone by whom Princes and Women are most obnoxious For the greatest infelicity that can happen to a King is to believe that all things are lawful or to hope they may issue well that he can do and that pleaseth him So soon as he consenteth to this thought of good he is made wicked Now this Opinion is settled in them by Flatterers who never cease to preach to them the greatness of their Power though never of their Duty Vpon this account is it that he hath said so much of it as is said in this Book I must not proceed lest I should appear Author and Publisher too What I have here said may be instructive to Cup ophron and wherein he needs further the Book will thereunto help him I will only subjoyn in this further to him and to all the good Company and to every Reader as a Cast of my Office or Calling as I am a lover of God and of Jesus Christ and of the whole Creation the Exhortation that lieth on you as Christians in opposition to the Heathens which saith Let it not be once named amongst you Eph. 5 3 4. neither filthiness nor soolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks i. e. as the Learned Doctor Hammond paraphraseth these words All unclean gestures and obscene talking or unsavoury Jests to cause laughter which are all unbeseeming Christians but purity chastness graciousness of language opposite to the filthiness before or else blessing and praising of God a far fitter Subject for our rejoycing Or that Col. 4.6 Let your speech be alway with grace seasoned with salt i. e. Pure or pious with sweetness and pleasantness to speak good things well not as some who are sowr and censorious and tend only to fling dirt on those who are not of our Party or Perswasion To discourse of Heavenly things with the same chearfulness we do of our most profitable Voyages or Designs here below e. g. How happy and how pleasurable is it to be and to do good How rich is the faithful and contented man What an ornament is true Religion to us See with what a manly Courage the Pious refuse Honour and Profit to escape Sin Oh! how joyful and perfect shall we be when with God in Heaven when we shall there be like him and see him as he is c. It must be also seasoned with salt i. e. wholsom discourse nothing putrid or noysom to holy ears not corruptive of others or prophane in deriding true Religion or ordinarily to laugh at what others deem Sacred not Censorious discoursings whereby men gossip a Neighbourhood or Company into disorder and confusion God forbid any should deem this Fanaticism it is a sign Religion is not understood and received or that it is very much decayed where it
which they continue in and would not part with and as hard on the other hand is it to bring them to see that particular thing to be their interest and duty which they have no mind to do they will be still in thoughts and hopes that what they like at present may prove much better than God hath ordained or any before them have found so dangerous and hardning is the deceitfulness of Sin Well may the Apostle be in such earnest and haste as he is in his calls to us Hebr. 3. when hardning by the Deceitfulness of Sin is so near us ver 13. But exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin Having by this Text produced the Supream KING's Warrant under his Hand and Signet for what I have herein already done or intend to do I may justly expect for his sake some regard from you as also for that I intend to propose for Common good only i.e. to make our King and People a perfect and happy Church and State And as means thereunto shall suggest nothing but what will recommend itself to every man's Conscience and evidence itself as most loyal and most affectionate to the Person of his Majesty his Government in Church and State his Subjects of all sorts so most conducing to Peace and most subservient to the Interest of the whole as my next Chapter will shew CHAP. III. I Intend nothing more than to bring us to these two most edifying and saving things 1 To do our Own business 2 To Love On these shall hang as I intend all my following Discourse Section I. 1 To do our Own business which cannot well if at all be done without knowledge especially the doing I am now upon which respects a great Kingdom and the Salvation thereof Are the blind the ignorant or erroneous fit for this business There is then as I conceive a four-fold knowledge requisite hereunto 1 Knowledge of God in the Incommunicable and Communicable perfections of the Divine Nature also a being fixt in belief of the reality and excellency of his Being And though Unity be necessary thereto yet that there are Three subsisting therein which doctrine of the Trinity is not so mysterious as I once took it to be and to the pure and humble Inquirer after God will be found that which renders Christian Religion the more reasonable and worthy of all acceptation in that it gives light and beauty to all other parts of that Institution The Socinian then by denying this shews himself a false pretender to Reason having it not in truth if he hath any it is so gross and material that it exceeds not the Animal State or Life among men when he meddleth with Divine Mysteries But to return The knowledge of God in himself as I have said is a requisite hereunto so is that what he is to us and to the Societies of men 2 Another requisite is to know Our selves i.e. to know what we are or have with respect to our own Nation i.e. as we are Men and Christians now living in England That you may see in short what this knowledge of God and Our selves is I will present the Heads thereof to your view in this order GOD Father Spirit The First Good A Being of all possible perfection Son Spirit Supream Good A Being of all possible perfection 1. Incommunicable proper to him alone which he gives to none Absolute Simplicity Essential Unity Immutability Infiniteness of Place Time Immensity Eternity 2. Communicable of which he gives to Creatures belonging either to the Divine 1. Understanding Knowledge Wisdom Particular Providence 2. Will namely his Goodness Justice Faithfulness 3. Faculties of acting his Power or Omnipotence Dominion over us in this life Distributing future Rewards and Punishments This GOD is the Universal and Supream LORD of all Beings by Creation and Prefervation Owner Ruler Benefactor of England Redemption Teacher Expiator Head of England Renovation Restorer Reassumer In-dweller of England MAN Reasonable Created In England to be known and considered 1. Naturally Spirit i.e. Highest Pure Divine Good Soul i.e. Middle Solicited by Flesh and Spirit to evil or good Body i.e. Base Sensitive Bruitish bending always to Matter and Earth to which when the Soul yields it is carnal or evil 2. Providentially in 1. Relatives Governing Supream Real King Lords Commons Parliament 1. Relatives Governing Supream Personal King 1. Relatives Governing Subordinate Magistrates 1. Relatives Governed People 2. Religion Revealed Naturally in Law of Nature Supernaturally in Holy Scriptures 3. Constitutions Humane Civil Ecclesiastical Laws 4. Riches 5. Times Ordinary or Extraordinary Prosperous Adverse Reforming Degenerating Uniting Discordant 6. Examples Good Bad at Home Abroad of Superiours Equals Inferiours 7. House or Family Governour Parent Master 7. House or Family Governed Child Servant The other Relations in Churches and Schools I leave you to supply MAN discovered in Supernatural Revelation to be 1. Created upright Spiritual To Rule Animal Sensitive To Obey and Apt for temptation A Free Agent Animal Sensitive To Obey and Apt for temptation Lord over God's Works Animal Sensitive To Obey and Apt for temptation Put into Paradise Bliss 2. In Covenant with God which contained benefits on God's part made over to Adam as Root or Head of Mankind and On Man's part Duty required by God Absolute on God's part to Man Law Natural for him as Spirltual To be without sin and to do all required Strength Absolute on God's part to Man Law Positive for him as Animal Sensitive To be without sin and to do all required Strength Internal viz. Rectitude in all his parts Virtuous qual External viz. Divine Communications Laws their Sanctions Conditional Continuance of Light to direct Strength to assist Conditional The gift of Eternal life or felicity with God for ever On Man's part required by God Walking in the Light Using the Strength Perfect Obedience 3. Tempted to Sin by an Apostate Angel 4. Disobedient to God in eating forbidden Fruit and so fell and Mankind with him from Happiness into a state of Sin and Misery Sin Guilt Darkness Corruption Impotence Obduracy The Law of Sin wrought in his Body Sin reigned therein No good thing dwelling there the Law of his Members being predominant Rom. 7.23 not possible to be without Sin Misery Privative Good withdrawn God's Spirit Privative Good withdrawn Happiness Positive Evil inflicted Captivated by our Enemies evil or foul Spirits Positive Evil inflicted Tortured by Lusts Passions Positive Evil inflicted Subjected to the Base and to our Servant or Subject Positive Evil inflicted Pains c. Death present future A state of all this i. e. very extensive and out of which Man cannot recover himself Rom. 7.24 O wretched man that I am and that thou art who can or who shall deliver thee from the body of this death ver 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord whom he hath provided to be a Saviour GOD