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	sow_v	tare_n	2,063	5	12.8341	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58811	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, and Court of Aldermen, at Guild-Hall Chappel, upon the 5th of November, 1673 in commemoration of Englands deliverance from the Gun-powder treason / by John Scott, Minister of St. Thomas's in Southwark.	Scott, John, 1639-1695.	1673 (1673)	Wing S2065; ESTC R15382	20,135	39

Christianity prescribes us for the Convincing Deceived and Eronious Persons 〈◊〉 for the only Remedy our Holy Religion prescribes 〈◊〉 the Cure of Errour is Charity and Forbearance Piety and Reason for the sense and Spirit of 〈◊〉 is described in these excellent words of St. Paul 2 Tim. 2. 24. The Servants of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them Repentance to the acknowledging the Truth So that unless we can torture men without striving with them and meekly instruct them by cutting their throats its evident by this Text we must either not persecute men or quit the title of being the servants of God So also the same Apostle in Gal. 6. 1. Brethren if any man be overtaken with an errour ye that are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness And sure there is some difference between destroying and restoring a man between the halter and the spirit of meekness 'T is true indeed the procedure of the Gospel was more severe and rigorous against wicked and obstinate Hereticks but then it was not for their Opinions barely but for the wickedness of their Opinions and obstinate perseverance in them to the disturbance of the Churches Peace both which I have shewed you are excepted cases but yet as the Gospel was a great deal tenderer of making Hereticks than the Church of Rome is so was it also a great deal gentler in punishing them for its utmost severity against them was excommunication which at the worst did not destroy mens souls but only consigned them to that sad portion they had deserved and should have received independantly from the Churches censure but the primary design of it was to scare them into a lober mind which if it obtained it proceeded no further 〈◊〉 that in its own nature it was medicinal and though it was a distastful and uneasie potion by reason it gave the Devil possession of their bodies to torture and afflict them yet in it self 't was holesome and restorative and did no man hurt unless he would himself but if he would be obstinate in his wickedness notwithstanding he felt the woful effects of it he might thank himself for all that followed it being his own obstinacy that actuated the Judgement and gave a sting to it but to destroy a mans life is as strange a way to cure him of his Errors as cutting off his head is to cure him of the Toothach for the only way to reduce him is to perswade his understanding which we shall hardly do by beating out his Brains 't is true indeed corporal punishments may make a man dissemble his Opinion and profess contrary to his Conscience and Judgement but they have no more Vertue in them to inform his Conscience or rectifie his Judgement than syllogisms or demonstrations have to cure him of the Stone or Strangury and therefore what ever he may pretend he cannot think his Opinion truer or falser because you threaten to wrack and torture him for it for such premisses can infer no conclusion but only that of his life so whilst you attempt by such rough arguments to force him into your Opinion you may perhaps vanquish his Courage but you will never alter his Judgement and if you make him a Hypocrite and terrifie him into a Profession of what he doth not believe instead of erecting a Trophe to God you shall but build a Monument for the Devil And as Persecution is a bad remedy for Errors so 't is a worse Antidote against it for if you consult Ecclesiastical history you will find that Fire and Faggot hath made more Hereticks than it ever destroyed witness the Priscillianists who as Sulpitius tells us were so far from being suppressed by the death of Priscillian that they were more confirmed by it and grew much more numerous and it is the complaint of one of the Italian Inquisitors that he had found after 40 years experience wherein they had destroyed above 100000 Hereticks they were so far from being suppressed or weakened that they were much more strengthened and encreased For there is a popular pitty that follows all persons in misery which breeds likeness of affection and that very often likeness in Opinion and so much the rather because he that Persecutes another for his Opinion gives the multitude reason to suspect that that is the best argument he can urge against it whereas on the contrary he that dies for his Opinion and seals it with his Blood confirms it with the most popular argument in the world for although as one says laying a wager be an argument of confidence rather then of truth yet when a man stakes his life and soul it argues at least that he is resigned and Honest and Charitable and Noble and this among weak people will more advance his Opinion then reason and demonstration So by persecuting of Error we do what in us lyes to Canonize it and by Crowning of it wth the glory of Martyrdom we take an effectual course to encrease the number of its Voterys IV. And lastly It is contrary to that care and tender regard of Truth which Christianity injoyns us for in many instances there is so near a resemblance between Truth and Error that our purblind reason can hardly distinguish between them and therefore if Error were left to the Persecutions of such fallible creatures as we Truth would be exposed to inevitable danger for if you set a blind man to weed your Garden you must expect that sometimes he will pull up flowers instead of weeds and if we that are so prone to err should be authorized to root up Error 't would be impossible but we should sometimes mistake and root up Truth instead of Error and therefore our Saviour considering this hath reserved that power in his own hands as you may see at large in Matth. 13. 24. c. Another Parable put he forth unto them saying The Kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a man that soweth good seed in his field and while men slept his enemy came and sowed tares among his wheat and went away upon which this mans servants ask him in the 28 verse if they should go and gather up the tares to which he answers him nay lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with them let both grow together until the Harvest By the field here all men agree we are to understand the Church and by the seed sown in it that of the pure and sound doctrines of Religion so that all the difficulty of the Parable lyes in understanding what is meant by the tares and what by the not gathering the tares By the the tares must be meant either persons of wicked lives or of false and evil Opinions and by the not gathering these tares must be understood either the not cutting them off by the Temporal sword or the not excommunicating and