Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	earth_n	lord_n	new_a	8,995	5	6.5335	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60294	Sions groans for her distressed, or Sober endeavours to prevent innocent blood, and to stablish the nation in the best of settlements Grounded upon scripture, reason, and authority. Proving it the undoubted right of Christian liberty under different perswasions, in matters spiritual, to have equal protection as to their civil peace. Unto which is added the testimony of fifteen antients. Humbly offered to the Kings Majesty, Parliament and people, and left unto their serious view. By Tho. Monck, Joseph Wright, Fran. Stanley, &c.; Sions groans for her distressed.	Monck, Thomas. aut; Wright, Joseph, 1623-1703. aut; Stanley, Fr. (Francis), d. 1696. aut; Hanson, Geo. aut; Reynolds, William, 1625-1698. aut; Jeffery, William, 1616-1693. aut	1661 (1661)	Wing S3870; ESTC R220545	19,156	24

also 〈◊〉 conscience sake and if any thing otherwise shall be required we shall be passive and suffer what may be inflicted on us for our consciences for what ever hath been suggested by evil men yet that Magistracy and Government is an Ordinance of God hath been frequently asserted in our discourses and writings and is by us beleeved as fully as the Apostle Paul in the 13 of the Romans hath taught And all that we desire which is dearer to us than our lives is that our spirits and consciences may bee left free to serve the Eternal God which ought to be granted us seeing as the same Apostle saith in these cases We shall every one of us give an account of himself to God But to our Arguments the first of which shall be that which some of us made use of to the Kings Majesty from Maidstone which we have not yet seen weakned Let it therefore be considered if any Magistrate under Heaven in the dayes of the Gospel hath power by outward force to impose any thing in the worship and service of God on the conscience it is given him as he is a Magistrate only or as a Christian so considered but that no such power is given by God to any Magistrate appears 1 Because if Magistrates as such have such an Authority then all Magistrates in all Nations have the same power then if we lived in Turky must we receive the Alchoran and be worshippers of Mahomet if in Spain be Papists in England sometimes Papists as in Henry the eighths ●ayes Protestants in Edward the sixths Papists again in Queen Maries and Protestants again in Queen Elizabeths and so for ever as the Authority changes Religion wee must do the same but God forbid for nothing is more absurd 2 Seeing in the dayes of the Gospel the Lord Jesus is that great Prophet which as Moses said is to be heard in all things and as himself testifieth Hath all power in heaven and earth given unto him Then if Magistrates have power to impose any thing by outward force on the conscience it must be committed unto them from the Lord Jesus and written in the Scriptures of the New Testament or else how doth it appear but the whole stream of the New Testament Scriptures run clear in another channel and there is no colour for any such supposition as farther appears 3 Because the Apostles themselves that gave forth those Commands which are written in Scripture to be obedient to Magistrates refused to be obedient to their Rulers when they were commanded to forbear that which they judged part of the worship of God and said Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge yee 4 All the Scriptures of the New Testament that enjoyn obedience unto Magistrates were written when the Romans had the Empire of the world whose Emperours were for the most part if not all heathenish Idolators for the first three hundred years until Constantines time it therefore cannot be supposed that any of those Texts of Scripture that call for obedience to Magistrates intend an obedience in matters of faith for then the Christians that lived under those Emperours must needs have denied Christ and worshipped the Roman gods as some of the Emperours commanded 5 If Magistrates as such have power from God in the dayes of the Gospel to command in spiritual matters and to punish those that obey not then must Christians surely be actually obedient not only for wrath but also for conscience sake because else they should resist the Ordinance of God but if this were true the way to heaven would be so far from being strait and narrow that any might be a Disciple of Christ without taking up the cross and following him yea all sufferings and persecutions should wholly be at an end and they that undergo them should utterly be condemned for it is not to be supposed there could be persecutions if all the commands of the Magistrate in spiritual causes were actually to be obeyed It therefore reasonably follows that no Magistrate as such hath power from God to compel in spiritual causes but on the contrary for Saints to endure persecutions and sufferings rather than actually obey is abundantly by the Lord foretold rewarded and justified as by the Scriptures of the New Testament appears Bu● if it be objected that neither the Magistrate is to command nor the subjects actually to obey any thing but what is according to the minde of God It is answered that all Magistrates suppose what ever they impose to be so but the question is who is to determine for if the Magistrate or any other man or men have power from God to judge and determine what is lawful for men to obey then no room is left for them to dispute the lawfulness of any of his commands it being their duty to obey what ever is commanded and so as it hath been said before the Cross of Christ ceases but if every one shall give account for himself to God then it reasonably follows that every man judge for himself in matters spiritual and therefore for the Magistrate to compel cannot be warrantable by Scripture or Reason Again that the power to judge and determine in spiritual matters is not in a Magistrate as such Gallio the Roman Deputy of Achaia well understood when the Iews made insurrection with one accord against Paul and brought him to the Judgement seat saying This fellow perswadeth men to worship God contrary to the Law which almost ever since hath been the great cry by all sorts of the National Clergy whose turns it hath been to have the Magistrate on their sides against all others that have differed from them but Gallio said If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness O ye Iews reason would that I should bear with you but if it be a question of words and names and of your Law look yee to it for I will be no judge of such matters And he drave them from the Iudgement seat Which worthy example if Magistrates would be perswaded to follow by judging and punishing onely Civil injuries and wrongs and leaving Spiritual differences to bee decided and judged and punished by Jesus Christ according to the Gospel they then would finde themselves and Governments quickly free from many inconveniences that now they are involved in about deciding Religious Controversies with external force and power And now that no Magistrate although a Christian hath power to be a Lord over anothers faith or by outward force to impose any thing in the worship of God is also very clear 1 Because the Lord Jesus himself would never by any outward force compel men to receive him or his Doctrine for when his Disciples supposing they might use violence as under the Law would have commanded fire to come down from heaven as Elias did to consume them that would

the shallow inventions of the Romish or any of the National Churches are able to produce yet wholly taken away which the Author to the Hebrews notably proves saying Then verily the first Covenant had also Ordinances of Divine service and a worldly Sanctuary for there was a Tabernacle made the first wherein was the Candlestick and the Table and the Shew-bread which 〈◊〉 called the Sanctuary and after the second vail the Tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all They had also their High-priest and offerings and linnen Ornaments belonging to this Covenant but saith our Author If that first Covenant had been faultless then no place had been sought for the second and he taketh away the first that he might establish the second And now under the second Covenant which is the Gospel the Romish Bishop or any man on earth cannot be our High-priest For we have such an High-priest who is set on the right hand of the Throne of the Majesty in the heavens a Minister of the Sanctuary and of the Tabernacle which the Lord pitcheth and not man And under this second Covenant God hath not promised his presence to any Temple built of wood and stone as of old For now the most High dwelleth not in Temples made with hands as the superstitious Clergy would perswade us but where two or three are gathered together in the name of Christ there is he in the midst of them although it be in a House by a Rivers side on a Mountain or in a Wilderness such little respect hath he to place As little respect hath God to persons because of any honour or esteem they may have in the world either for birth or natural endowments but such as usually are foolish weak and base in the eyes of the world doth he make use of in the work of the Gospel that so the learned Doctors and Masters of Arts may not have wherewithall to boast Which despised way of the Gospel we well know becomes a great stumbling block to the Gentile Nations as in the first delivery of it it did unto the Iews who would not receive the Lord of life nor his Doctrine because not accompanied with that earthly glory which their corrupt hearts affected and rather would retain that exploded dispensation of the Law which God had departed from than they would receive the glorious Gospel by those hands the wisdome of God thought fit to tender it for which obstinacy as the Apostle Paul saith The wrath of God is come upon them to the uttermost even to the laying waste their Temple and Cities the great slaughter of their persons and captivating their posterity as at this day Let therefore the Gentile Nations fear but more especially this Nation for some such spirit seems to appear amongst those that would retain their empty and dead forms of worship which God hath shewed his displeasure against and have no footing in the whole Book of God rather than they will receive the pure way of God without the mixture of humane Inventions and Traditions But the bare rejection of Truth and imbracing of error is not all the evil that the Nations generally are ingaged in by the Church of Rome and her followers but for to compleat and fill up the measure of their iniquities like Nebuchadnezzar nothing less must be inflicted on the servants of the most High God that cannot bow down to the golden Image of their Inventions than the fiery furnace of Persecution many times unto death it self And this the people of the Lord must endure it being as certain their portion to be persecuted as it is the practice of the false Church to persecute who build their superstructures of Will-worship on no other foundations but Violence and Cruelty else what mean these imprisonments banishments wars and massacres which have been made in Europe for Religion what troubles and desolations in Germany civil commotions in France cruelties exercised in the Netherlands by that Darling of the Romish Church the Duke of Alva others what M●ssacres in France Piedmont and Ireland to carry on the business of Religion for the satisfaction of a blood-thirsty and insatiable Clergy when the Disciples of the Lord Jesus were to use no other violence against those that rejected them than to shake the dust from their feet which should be a witness against them at the Tribunal of Jesus not Cesars yea this Popish principle of propagating Religion by the Sword hath reached the poor Americans many hundred thousands of them having been destroyed because they would not be Proselites no other cause being to be given for it cannot be supposed those remote and simple people had so much as known the Spaniard much less done any injury unto him our own Nation hath also felt the rage of this fury both before and in the Reign of Queen Mary and the wise may judge whether the Bishops endeavours to impose their Liturgy in Scotland with their cruelties in England did not contribute much to our late unhappy troubles But certainly if the Romish and National Clergy were guided by the Spirit of God the Authority of Scripture or force of Argument to support their forms of worship they would not then impose them by external force when by such proceedings they render themselves altogether unlike the Lord Jesus the Prince of peace who came not to destroy mens lives but to save them But on the contrary it will evince to all that have their eyes open how like they are to that woman which is drunken with the blood of the Saints and with the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus in whom will be found the blood of Prophets and of Saints and of all that were slain on the earth Although as our Lord and Master hath foretold in killing others she may think she doth God service Lest therefore those unchristian principles of persecution for conscience which troubleth the world should take root in this Nation to the stirring up mens mindes to shed the blood of the innocent the guilt whereof is able to sinke the most flourishing Kingdomes into an ocean of misery and calamity we have here following written some arguments which we humbly offer to all men to prove how contrary to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus and good reason it is for any Magistrate by outward force to impose any thing in the worship of God on the consciences of those whom they govern but that liberty ought to be given to all such as disturb not the civil peace though of different perswasions in Religous matters In which Discourse we neither desire nor design to diminish any of that power which God hath given to the Kings Majesty that now Reigneth whom we own to be chief Magistrate and Governour of these Nations over all persons as well Ecclesiastical as Temporal and to all his Commands that do not oppose the Scriptures of 〈…〉 we yeeld active obedience not only for wrath but