Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A57312
|
To the magistrates, governours & rulers concerned in England
|
Rigge, Ambrose, 1635?-1705.
|
1682
(1682)
|
Wing R1496; ESTC R11926
|
5,420
|
8
|
TO THE MAGISTRATES Governours Rulers Concerned in ENGLAND FRIENDS WE who are in scorn called Quakers have been a Suffering People this many Years under all Governments since we were a People and we may truly say as once did David concerning Israel old If the Lord had not been on our side when men rose up against us they had then swallowed us up quick when their Wrath was kindled against us then the Waters had drowned us and the Streams had gone over our Souls Psal 124. 1 2 3 4. yet were we never known to avenge our own Cause nor to render Evil for Evil to the worst of our Enemies It is not our Nature our Principle nor Practice to take Vengeance on the meanest of our Enemies because Mercy and Forgiveness is seated in our hearts and when our Enemies have hungered we have fed them naked we have clothed them sick and in Prison we have visited them and ministred unto them This we speak without Boasting in an humble Mind knowing to whom we must render an Account of our Words and Deeds as a People we have all our lives long studied to be quiet and to follow Peace with all men neither have we eaten any mans Bread for nought but have laboured with our hands in the thing that is good that we might have to give to him that needeth desiring nothing more in this World than to keep our Consciences void of Dffence both towards God and all men This not our words but the whole course of our Lives hath manifested in every place and Parish where we have dwelt amongst you And as to the Government under which God hath placed us We have and hope ever shall readily yield all lawful and reasonable Subjection in Civil things between Man and Man onlydesiring that we may not be forced to violate our Consciences in things relating to another World which hath no bad aspect on the Affairs of this For CONSCIENCE is Christ's Prerogative in which he ought to sit absolute King Governour and Law-giver as we have cause to believe and no mortal Man though never so great ought to say Why dost thou thus What mortal Man on Earth can with safety sit Judge over another mans Conscience in things for which he alone who acts them must be accountable to the great God Ought not every man to be fully perswaded in his own Mind in things of the highest concern Can any man pay a Ransom for his Brother or be a Pledge for his Neighbour to the great Judge of Heaven and Earth Or who will or can acquit a man before his great Tribunal who in temporal or spiritual things acts contrary to the Witness of God in his own Conscience which is and ever was greater than the Witness of Man Yet such is the blindness of your chief Priests and the madness of their Rage against all who will not put into their Mouthes that they immediately prepare War against them without ever examining whether their cause is good or bad or seeking to convince them by sound Argument but presently upon any turning from them though upon never so weighty Reasons they fly to you to fight their Quarrel with your Prisons Fines Eccommunications c. and few of them dare engage themselves in a fair Debate with those they count ignorant and deluded c. with their spiritual Weapons though they have been often invited thereto which plainly demonstrates a bad Cause or a faint Heart and that the Weapons of their Warfare are Carnal not Spiritual quite contrary to the Weapons of the holy Men of God recorded in the Scripture of Truth who said Though we walk in the flesh yet we war not after the flesh for the Wapons of our Warfare are not Carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong Holds casting down the Imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. Surely they have more Confidence in a Goal or Gibbet to overcome us than in that they call the Word of God or they judge you to be either stronger or more valiant than themselves and have more Confidence in your Sword to destroy us than in their own convincing Arguments to recover us but the Prophet said Cursed is Man who trusteth in Man and maketh Flesh his Arm and withdraweth his Heart from the Lord Jer. 17. 5. And let them remember that the first Persecutor about Religion was Cain Gen. 4. 3 4 5 6 7 8. in whose steps they tread who seek the Destruction of their fellow-Creatures about Religion and Worship and it is an Infallible token that their Offerings are rejected of God as Cain's was But to salve all they tell you That the Church is in danger and therefore you must stand up for its desence and pluck up the Weeds of Schism and Herefie which the Devil hath sown amongst you A fair pretence indeed yet herein they are manifest more to all who have an Eye to see for if theirs were the true Church the Gates of Hell could not prevail against it Mat. 16. 18. And they who are the Sheep of Christ and given to him no man can pluck them out of his hand John 10. 28 29. But I suppose they mean their Tythes and great Benesices are in danger to be lost the very Mistriss of their Religion and the moving cause of all their undertakings in it as is notoriously evident to all whose Eyes God hath opened And if they were the true Wheat and others the Tares which they represent to you to be such they needed not be afraid of our growing together to the Harvest i. e. the end of the World for thus the great Master of the Field i. e. the World said to his Servant who brought him word that the Enemy had sown Tares in the Field among his good Seed and would in his forward zeal have pluckt them up but his wise Master would not suffer him lest he should root up the Wheat also Mat. 13. 24 25 26 27 28 29 30. but ordered them both to grow together to the end of World and fully explained the Parable and said He that sowed the Seed was the Son of Man the Field was the World and the good Seed are the Children of the Kingdom of God and the Tares the Children of the Devil the Enemy that sowed them is the Devil the Harvest is the end of the World and the Reapers are the Angels So shall it he in the end of the World the Son of Man shall send forth his Angels and shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend and them which do Iniquity and cast them into the Furnace of Fire there shall be Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth Mat. 13. 37 38 39 40 41 42. Can you believe them to be your Friends who would have you so forward in plucking up all but themselves If you were as forward to execute as they are to spur you on you and they might