Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
enemy_n	good_a	seed_n	tare_n	1,657	5	12.7414	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80396	A pattern of mercy. Opened in a sermon at St. Pauls, before the Right Honorable, the Lord Mayor, and the Lord General Monck: February 12. 1659. / By Tobias Conyers, minister at St. Ethelberts, London.	Conyers, Tobias, 1628-1687.	1660 (1660)	Wing C5994; Thomason E774_8; ESTC R207295	28,966	47

are all the Debtors of Heaven God for Christs sake doth forgive us many talents The wicked servant is he that takes his Brother by the throat without all mercy and pity wil not forgive those few pence that his brother oweth him the servants being sorrowful shews how much it troubles good men to see their fellow-creatures so hardly dealt with the Kings anger expresseth the wrath of God kindled against those who are found guilty of this great cruelty and ingratitude cruelty against their Brethren ingratitude against their Father that when God hath forgiven unto them ten thousand Talents they will not for Christs sake forgive unto their Brethren an hundred pence God draws us with the Cords of a man i. e. with such reasons and arguments as are proper to work upon the rational nature to be drawn unto our duty by that soft yet strong cord of Love and Gratitude is most acceptable to God most delightful and pleasing to our selves and others 3. We are to be merciful propter necessitatem because of the necessity of the thing if we shew not mercy unto others neither will our heavenly Father shew mercy unto us In the close of that Parable which we quoted before Matt. 18. we read at the 35. ver So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses which refers unto the 34. verse wherein is expressed the rigour and severity of God against offendors in this kind And his Lord was wrath and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due to him Our Saviour likewise in that Prayer which bears his Name teacheth us to pray Matth. 6. 12. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debters As it was said by Jesus Christ That he could do no mighty Works because of their unbelief Mat. 13. 58. meaning that though he had never so great a mind to confirm his Doctrine by Miracles and to give proof of his being the Messiah yet such was the incredulity and distrust of the Jews his own Countrey-men that they bound his hands and hindered him from doing of it Even so God Almighty our gracious and loving Father though he had never so great a mind to speak after the manner of men to make us Vessels of his mercy yet finding us fraught with all malice and envy straitened in our bowels filled with all cruelty hatred revenge we do shut up his bounty against us and indispose him to Mercy Matthew 57. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the merciful shall be mercifully dealt with Though our mercifulness be not causa propter quam the cause for which we receive mercy by way of merit or condignity yet may we say it is causa sine qua non the cause without which we cannot obtain mercy though not by way of merit or condignity yet by way of preparation and Gods gracious disposition Many more grounds and reasons might be added but these may suffice to confirm and establish the point in hand Application I shall endeavour to improve this Doctrine two wayes 1. By way of imitation 2. By way of consolation 1. By way of Imitation Here is an excellent Copy for us to write after we have seen wherein the mercifulness of God consists let us patrizare endeavour to be like unto him 1. God beareth with the violation of his truth and suffereth with incredible patience those erring and wandering souls that go astray from it he does not here destroy men for their opinions sake We dwell in an age wherein we have a large subject to exercise our clemency moderation loving kindness and brotherly forbearance upon As we said before so now again the frogs of Aegypt were not more numerous then the errors and mis-shapen opinions that do infest the Church of God and are come up into the Palace of the great King God suffers them certainly we must if otherwise he would either do it himself or have appointed some persons under the Gospel to have done it If Moses was faithful in all things appertaining to the House of God Jesus Christ much more but our great Lord and Master the great Propognour of Truth directs to no other Weapons to to be made use of in this Warfare but such as are spiritual if his Kingdom was not of this World then must not his servants fight The Weapon which he hath put into our hands is his Word which is sharper then any two-edged sword by which we may best cut in pieces all those snares of error wherewith Satan hath entangled the souls of men When any fall mad or are distracted bereft of understanding though they do or say never so much evil though they should blaspheme God and the King we are so far from censuring punishing or destroying them that we pity them bewail and lament them we provide for their cure by all rational means if haply we may effect their recovery The case is much the same though I do not desire the parallel should run on four we cry out against Errors and declaim much against those phanatick Opinions that have so much troubled Israel and disturbed the peace of Gods holy Church and if it were in our power out of a pang of zeal in killing the Opinionists we might perswade our selves we should do God good service That we do reprove them from the Word of God that we sharply censure them that we do warn men both publikely and privately to take heed to their feet lest they be taken in the snare of death and so led away with the error of the wicked is a thing without question highly acceptable to God very useful and profitable unto men and herein the Gospel from place to place is our clear rule But that we should touch them in their Estates or practise upon their bodies for the cure of their minds or that we should seek to convince them by any other Arguments then those that are Divine and rational or where we fall short of conviction to add force and violence is a temedy for the cure of Error I am not for the present perswaded the great Physician of souls Jesus Christ ever prescribed Alas these are poore deluded souls not onely phanatick but lunatick how many amongst us are even distracted and bereft of their spiritual senses and understanding We are even to bear with them as we do with mad men and children to take little or no offence at their words but that we be as the blessed Apostle would have Timothy 2 Ep. Gap 2. v. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Meekness instructing those that oppose themselves 1. We are to do this from the Divine Precept Matt. 13. in the Parable of the tares Ver. 27. The servants of the houshold came and said unto him Sir didst thou not sow good seed in thy Field from whence then hath it tares Ver. 28. He said unto them An Enemy hath

done this The servants said Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up Ver. 29. But he said Nay least whilst ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with them The Parable is explained by Christ himself 38 vers The seed is the world wherein we all live observe it is not the Church but the World they may be censured in Ecclesia in that spiritual Court but not in the World The good seed are the Children of Truth or as Christ saith The children of the Kingdom The tares are the sons of Error the children of the wicked one The enemy that sowed them is the Divel and those his Emissaries whom he imploies God refers the burning of the Tares till the Harvest which our Saviour interprets the end of the world and the reason why the Tares must not be plucked out but let alone until the Harvest is this rendered by himself ver 29. Least while ye gather up the Tares ye root up the wheat also By the Tares here can be meant nothing more properly then erroneous persons no other sinners or offenders but sinners injudgment offenders in opinion For if by Tares we should understand Murtherers Adulterers Thievs or any such kind of transgressors then would our Saviour be understood to plead for a toleration of such sinners as his Father had expresly injoined to be punished He that sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed He that stole to make restitution and satisfaction To this we may refer the counsel of Gamaliel a great Civilian and though not endowed with an infallible spirit yet one as we may presume in a special manner moved by the Spirit to interpose in the behalf of Christ and his dear servants to rescue them from the bloody rage and malice of the Council The Apostles standing before the Council the Jewish Presbytery indeavoring to suppress their erroneous opinions for so the doctrine of Christianity was accounted Gamaliel stands up Act. 5. 38. And now I say unto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stand off from those men meddle not with them let them alone for if this counsel or this work be of men i. e. if it be a fancy or an opinion of their own if it be of humane invention and contrivance it will come to nought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it will be dis-jointed broken it will suffer a dissolution But if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it i. e. it will stand all opposition to the contrary notwithstanding and yee your selves bee found fighters against God 2ly We are urged unto this duty by example and that by the greatest example even that of Christ himself Luk. 4. 55. in the story we have three things considerable 1. The churlish in hospitality of the Samaritanes refusing to give entertainment not so much as a nights lodging unto Christ and his Disciples and the ground of this was their difference in opinion as we collect from the 53. And they did not receive him because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem because he worshipped not in the same place with them upon Mount Girizim but seemed to hold communion with the Jewes in their Worship at the Temple at Jerusalem they would not so much as receive him into their Village 2. You have the fiery indignation of his Disciples that was kindled against the Samaritans ver 54. Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them as Elias did Here we have a notorious president how far the intemperate and untutor'd zeal even of good men may transport them it 's strange that nothing but fire from heaven can expiate the fault of the Samaritans incivility 2. We have our Saviours rebuke and discommendation of that rash zeal wherewith his Disciples were heated V. 55. But he turned and rebuked them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he angerly or sharply rebuked them Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of i. e. The Spirit of Christ and the Gospel is another manner of spirit then that of the Law another manner of spirit then that of the World Besides its contrary to the end of my coming that any man should be thus dealt with for any injury or affront done unto me The Son of man is not come into the world to destroy mens lives but to save them To come home We must not burn a Samaritan because he will not turn Jew neither must we destroy men because they will not be proselited to our Opinions the Jews must not call for fire from Heaven upon the Samaritans because they Worship not with them at the Temple at Jerusalem nor the Samaritans refuse to give entertainment to the Jews because they do not worship with them upon Mount Girizim Herein our Saviour was a great pattern of moderation forbearance and brotherly kindness and his Gospel is not Evangelium Armatum an Armed Gospel it is Mahomet's and not Christs way to propagate Religion by the sword Prayers and Tears and Sufferings and Fastings and Alms deeds and Love and Charity are those Forces by which Christian Religion became so victorious and triumphant in the World 3. Ab utilitate It is profitable to bear with our dissenting Brethren 1. It 's best for the Church 2. It 's best for the State 1. For the Church There is a twofold Unity an Unity in Judgement and that 's Truth an Unity in Affection and that 's Love If we cannot obtain the first we may the latter if we cannot have an Unity in Truth we may by this means have an Unity in Love It is yeelded and need not be made the subject of any mans Dispute That Heresies are damnable and pernicious but since as the Scriptures speak 1 Cor. 11. 19. There must be Heresies also amongst you not because that God ordained them to be for he cannot decree sin but because he permitted them and saw they would be held and maintained in the Church as the Astronomer prognosticates an Eclipse either of the Sun or Moon not that he hath any influence upon those Heavenly Bodies to cause the least change or alteration but because by the Rules of his Art he sees such and such things will happen We ought to follow St. Paul's advice unto Titus 3. 10. An Heretick after the first and second admonition reject Heresie it is the mutilation and maiming of some of the principal branches of Christian Faith and this pertinaciously defended and maintained contrary to the reproof and censure of a lawful Authority But as for those less differences in Religion and since there will always be such amongst us for faces do not more vary then understandings and conceptions it is best for the preservation of the Churches peace love and unity that we bear with and exercise a wonderful lenity towards those that dissent from us that we do not presently excommunicate unchurch and deliver one another up unto Satan for every difference in opinion and judgement