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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77492	An antidote against the poysonous vveeds of heretical blasphemies, which during the deplorable interval of church-government have grown up in the reforming Church of England. As it was lately presented to the Church of God at Great Yarmouth. / By Iohn Brinsley, Minister of the Gospel there. Augus. 10. 1650. Imprimatur, Edm. Calamy.	Brinsley, John, 1600-1665.	1650 (1650)	Wing B4705; Thomason E612_13; ESTC R206488	47,516	58

Rev. 3. 10. To try the Faith and Patience and Constancie of those who are sound and will cleave unto God and unto his Truth This reason the Apostle giveth why there must be Heresies in the Church 1 Cor. 11. 19. There must be Heresies saith he among you that they which are approved may be made manifest And so we may say There must be Blasphemies God seeth it expedient to permit them and that to this end amongst others that they which are {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Sincere and constant unto God and his Truth may be made manifest to themselves and others This is one of Gods winnowing seasons wherein by this wind he severs the sound and weighty corne from the chaff showing who they are that are stable with him and who are otherwise Secondly as God permits this in justice and wisdome for these and other ends known to himself so Satan acts it This hath the Enemy done saith the Husbandman in the parable concerning the Tares which were grown up in his fild among his good corne Matth. 13. 28. These Tares are Schismaticks and Hereticks with their Heretical Doctrines which like Tares intoxicate the brains of men which will take them down Now these are of Satans sowing That {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that envious man as he is there called envying to see Gods corne grow and flourish to see the prosperity of the Church and the flourishing of the Gospel he poysons the ground with this pernicious Tinetare This he doth to crosse and hinder Gods work in his Church Even as in the rebuilding of the Wals of Jerusalem he made use of those Samaritans pretended friends but reall adversaries to the Jews to hinder the work what they could Ezra 4. 1. c. Even so in this time of an intended Reformation he hath stirred up many such Heretical spirits to render all endeavours that way ineffectual Even as God once frustrated that designe for the building of Babel by dividing the languages of the builders so doth Satan now by a like practice seek to hinder the building of Jerusalem the Church of God amongst us by dividing the Hearts and Tongues and Pens of men that whilst some speak the language of Canaan of heaven holding forth the Orthodox truth of God others who pretend to be builders too should speak the language of Hell holding forth pernicious Errours Heretical Blasphemies 3. Again thus it cometh to passe through the remissenesse and negligence of those to whom the care of the Church is or should have been committed Whilst men slept saith the Parable the Enemy sowed Tares among the wheat Matth. 13. 25. whilst those who are or should be betrusted with the Church either fall asleep or are laid asleep so as they do not act so vigilantly and vigorously as they ought to do for the welfare and preservation thereof such Tares such evill Instruments creep in A truth lamentably experimented in this Nation at this day Where whilst the golden reynes of Ecclesiastical Government have been relaxed and let loose and the Civil sword otherways imployed so as Errors of an inferiour alloy have been connived at and de facto tolerated men as the nature of sin and errour is growing worse and worse through this Liberty have at the length arrived at this desperate height to speak Blasphemies write Blasphemies Print Blasphemies daring to pour out their Vials upon the Sun cast a dark foyle upon the clearest and most comfortable truths upon the whole Religion of God Fourthly again In men themselves we shall finde somewhat which disposeth them unto this great evill Men do not ordinarily become Blasphemers at the first Nemo repentè fit pessimus They climb to this height of wickednesse by certaine degrees and steps Some of which we shall meet with in the former part of this verse whereof the text is part Men shall be lovers of their own selves c. Mark how men come to be Blasphemers First they are Lovers of themselves seeking their own things their own honour credit preferment making self the end of all their actions And secondly they are Covetous accounting gaine to be godlinesse And thirdly they are vain-glorious arrogating much unto themselvs highly conceited of their own worth And fourthly they are proud supercilious despisers of others thinking meanly of others in comparison of themselves And being such no wonder now they come to be Blasphemers When Satan hath thus got them up to the top of the Pinacle now he casts them down having got them to the top of the Ladder now he turneth them off putting them upon such desperate wayes and courses unlesse mercie step in to their utter destruction Thus you see that it is so and why it is so That which now remaines is the Application Which I shall direct first Generally then Specially Generally to all Christians Specially to Timothies the Ministers of the Gospel 1. For all Christians Let not them in the first place be offended at such times such Persons So effended as to like the Church of God the Religion of God ever the worse for that A needfull Caveat this being a thing which men are very subject to It is not for nothing that our Saviour pronounceth a blessing upon them who shall not be offended at him Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended at me Matth. 11. 6. This he foresaw the world would be subject to to take offence at him at his personal condition the meannesse of it and the sufferings attending it Herewith the Disciples themselves were offended So their Master foretold it would be with them Matth. 26. 31. All ye shall be offended because of me this night And accordingly it came to passe When they saw him apprehended carried away and used in that disgraceful manner they began to entertaine other thoughts of him then before they had done and fayled in the duty and respect which they ought unto him And as at his personal condition so at the condition of his Church This men are subject to be offended at as in regard of troubles and persecutions arising from without of which our Saviour speaketh in the Parable Matth. 13. 21. whereby the stony ground setting forth the Temporary Professor he giveth this character of him that however at the first he heareth and receiveth the word with joy yet when tribulation and persecution ariseth by and by he is offended So also in regard of those Pests of Hereticks and Blasphemers which are bred in the womb and nursed up in the bosome of the Church These are in themselves a great eye-sore a great offence But let them not be so to any of us Neither is there any reason they should be so This is no other then what the Spirit of God hath forewarned us that it should be And therefore forewarned us that we should not be offended when we see it come to passe For this end it was that our Saviour

put to death which being understood of manifest and notorious Blasphemies where God himself is peirced or struck through as the word there used Nakab properly signifieth and that by a person that is Compos mentis in his right wits is an universal law for all Nations being indeed of the law of nature So much is collected by some from those words of Jobs wife to her husband Job 2. 9. being read as our Translation renders them Curse God and dye Intimating that by that means he should soone be dispatched cut off by the sword of the Magistrate A construction taken from a not improbable supposition viz. that the very light of nature did carry those heathenish Nations to as high and severe a revenge against the highest sin as the law of Moses did the Israelites It was natural divinity that taught the Athenians to adjudge their Socrates to death for some dishonourable and contumelious language against their gods And so much our judicious Perkins observes from that Decree of Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 3 29. who though a Heathen yet gave in commandment to his people concerning the God of Shadrach Mesheck and Abednego being convinced that he was the only true God that if any one Blasphemed him spake any thing amisse concerning him that he should be cut in peices and his house made a dung-hil From whence the aforesaid Author collects that manifest and convicted Atheists if they be put to death they have but their deserts This did that conscientious Heathen by the light of nature A precedent which will rise up in judgment against many Christian Magistrates at the last and great day who notwithstanding that they have not only the same law of nature but the written law the law of the Word to go before them to direct and beare them out yet they can suffer the name of God to be peirced and struck through and that in a presumptuous way by manifest and notorious Blasphemies and yet connive at it not drawing forth the sword to avenge the quarrel of their Creator Egregiè profectò vicarii vasalli Dei saith Alsted speaking of such full well do they deserve to be called Gods Deputies and Vicegerents who whilst they are most tender of their own names their own honors their own priviledges they care not how the name of God suffer by impious and blasphemous tongues Immediate Blasphemy is Capital deserving death by the law of God and by the law and light of Nature Object But if so how came Moses to be at a stand concerning that Blasphemer that he should so solicitously enquire of God what he should do with him Answ. To this it is answered This Moses did not out of any scruple that he had whether he deserved death or no Well did he know what sentēce of the law had passed upon those which should curse their father or mother Exod. 21. 17. He that curseth his father or mother shall surely be put to death And consequently he could not make a question whether Blasphemy against God deserveth the like or no But his scruple was about the kind of death which in as much as God had not determined in particular he made a question whether that which was inflicted for a far lesse offence were not too light for this Blasphemy being the highest sin deserveth to be punished extremis suppliciis as the phrase of the Civil law is with the highest kind of punishment So doth Immediate Blasphemy As for Mediate and Immediate Blasphemy it is to be weighed and considered according to the aforesaid Modification respects whether it be sudden or deliberate whether of infirmity or pertinacy and accordingly the punishment is to be qualified So much we may learn from St. Jude who speaking of such kind of persons willeth Christians of some to have compassion making a difference Jude v. 22. yet so as the sin ought not to be connived at not passed by Specially in confirmed habituated and presumptuous blasphemers such as do advisedly or customarily utter or obstinately maintaine what tends to the high dishonour of God In this case the name of God calleth for a vindication from them who do not beare the sword for nought who if they shall now connive at offences and offendors of this nature suffering them to go unpunished in so doing they make themselves partakers of the sin Accessories to it This do publike persons by Tolerating not Punishing 4. And this in the fourth place to hasten in that which remains may private persons do by not reproving not shewing their dislike and detestation of this sin Not Reproving of it Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darknesse but reprove them rather So the Apostle layeth down the general Injunction Eph 5. 11. agreeably to that Prescription in the Law Levit. 19. 17. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour and not suffer sin upon him This are Christians to do with a wise and holy zeale as in other cases so in this making use of seasonable Admonitions and Reprehensions where there is any hope they may take place Otherwise the Rule is Cast not pearls before swine Matth. 7. 6. Rebuke not a scorner lest he hate thee Prov. 9. 8. Persons desperatly wicked and profane are not to be dealt withal in this way Admonitions and Reprehensions so spent will be mis-spent Nay it may be prove like oyle to the fire inflaming instead of quenching Upon this ground it was that Hezekiahs Commissioners when they heard Rab shakeh blaspheming in that desperate way they answered him not a word Isa. 36. 21. deeming it in vain to make any reply when it would but incite him to farther outrage But where there is any hope that reproofs may be hearkned to Christians may not be tongue-tyed they ought to speak for God However some way or other they are to manifest their dislike and detestation of this sin It was a Canon amongst the Jewes as I hinted it before that whosoever heard Blasphemy of the name of God whether he heard it himself or heard it by the report of another he was bound to rend his cloaths And so did those Ambassadors as I told you though they held their peace yet they rent their garments This Ceremony was Jewish but the Moral and meaning of it is Christian Christians ought not to have the name of God blasphemed but they ought some way or other to manifest their detestation of it and indignation against it Which not doing they may seem to approve of what they do neither by word nor signe reprove and so may become Accessories to this highest of sins 5. Again in the fifth place this may be done by a voluntary associating with such kind of persons entertaining unnecessary familiarity or society with them This Christians may not do It is Pauls charge to his Corinthians concerning scandalous persons in general that they should not company with such not eate with them 1 Cor. 5. 9. 11. that is not