Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	good_a	sin_n	transgression_n	4,384	5	10.5404	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A69047	A dialogue betwixt Cosmophilus and Theophilus anent the urging of new ceremonies upon the kirke of Scotland	Calderwood, David, 1575-1650, attributed name.; Murray, John, 1575?-1632, attributed name.	1620 (1620)	STC 4355; ESTC S114406	21,825	48

nations to them a wide doore for the entry of the Evangel as experience declares They wil never want maintenance who have care to maintaine and entertaine a good conscience which is a continual feast Alas Cosmo. it is a lamentable thing to see how some learned men sometime well thought of have turned now both their tongue and their penne to the wrong hand for worlds gain and do direct the darts of their variable wits unsetled judgements and salerife learning against the truth and sincere patrons and professors thereof their friends where before they wont to throw them against their Romish enemies Your golden or godlesse hammer breakes all and makes much halting as also writing with the left hand Cosm. Yet wil ye think Theop. what account your ministers should make of their precious ministery and of that worthy worke Theoph. There is nothing in your mouth but a Ministery a Ministery But I must tell you a Ministery and take a good conscience from it is but a misery What is the price of it when the power of it is gone and the worth of it when the vertue is away Is not grace and a good conscience the life of it if they be gone it is but a dead ministery and so farre better to burie it then to beare the dead burthen of it Cosm. Ye care not Theoph. for making of emptie pulpits silent ministers and so a destitute and desolate people Theo. The Lord knowes the contrary albeit I confesse that pulpits are then most empty when those who occupy them are empty of holy humility heavenly wisedome and Christian courage for Christs cause Silent sufferings of faithfull ministers for the truth prove oft-times as profitable to Gods people to confirme them in it as eloquent Sermons of the truth to informe them of it That people is most desolate whose Pastors are most dissolute either in doctrine or life God can and will provide for his people the means and instruments of their comfort as pleases him best Cos. I am of that judgment that a minister should not suffer the losse of his calling for any thing but for that he should suffer the losse of his life Theoph. And ye will not say that any Christian magistrate wil or should for such omission take his life and if any would then the case is altered although the practise of such ceremonies were indifferent and turnd in the case of confession necessity for the which one might lawfully suffer Your judgement is not sound Cosm. touching this matter for there is great difference between doing suffering We may suffer the gratest evill of punishment rather then do the least evil of sinn We may commit no evill of sin how small soever that good of any sort may come of it Now to practise these superstitious ceremonies is many wayes scandalous and to give a scandal is sin or moral transgression expresly forbidden in the law C. Now I have kept my great Gun last a Moonce which will blow up all your answers in the aire Theo. Go to Cos. mount your Moonce It may be your Gun mis-give or your bullet be but a windy bladder Cosm. Have at you then Theoph. when these two divine duties to wit The preaching of the Gospell and The not practising of inconvenient ceremonies as yee call them cannot both the performed together by your Pastors but of the necessity if they stand to the one they must fall from the other then the greatest and weightiest dutie which is the preaching of the Gospel should prevaile the liberty wherof in that case they should redeem even by the practise of these ceremonies and so let fall the lesser dutie which is the not practising of them Theop. Your great Gun Cosm. hath raised a great smoke but hath done no skaith to the cause For ye divide between these two divine duties by supposed necessity which is both wrong weak Wrong because it is no divine dividing necessity by any ordinance of Gods word which by the contrary couples these two duties together but it is an humane dividing necessity by violence of mans enforcing authority Weake because experience our school-mistresse may tell you that the Lord oft-times keepes together in the persons of faithful preachers these two duties in their performance Experience proves this in the persons of sundry who are violently thrust out from their particular charges Thus divine providence stands out against your humane violence Againe for farther answer I will let you see the inequality or different quality of these these two duties To preach the word is an affirmative dutie and respects the doing of good Not to practise inconvenient Ceremonies is a negative dutie and respects the not doing of evil Now the affirmative may be without sin in some cases and somtimes and places omitted as when one can neither keepe nor redeeme the liberty of preaching unlesse he enter his conscience captive to some one sinne or other But the negative cannot in respect of any circumstance bee omitted without sinne Because to omit the dutie negative of The not practising of these ceremonies is to practise them and so to commit a sin seeing superstition and scandall are the two inseparable companions thereof So albeit the former duty seeme weightiest in the quality or kind thereof yet in the knot or band it is not so strait and absolute as the other Cosm. Well then Theoph. I see there is no remedy but your Ministers must goe for Virginia and so play the Evangelists Theoph. I count that better Cosm. then to play the Anguillists here slipping and sliding to and fro by the wimples and windings of their wits and wayes so that no gripe can be had or holden of them Better to preach the Gospell of Christ in Virginia then to practise the ceremonies of Antichrist in Scotland Oh how is the sometimes faithfull nation going on to become an harlot Go out of Babel my people and bide out of Babel to returne to Rome is but to draw on our ruine Cosm. Now Theoph. ye have given an answer to all my three poynts but not answerable to my minde These former inconveniences which I have alledged I see must light upon your Ministers Theoph. No wonder Cosm. because your mind is in the Swines trough not on the throne of grace If these ills of yours light upon our Pastors they will be but the light and easie yoke of Christ upon them But the impious imposers of them shall be one day countable to the Prince of Pastors for it Now to close with you at this time Cosmophil● seeing I am not able to convert you nor ye able to pervert me I thanke God you and I must part company I know yee will retire your selfe to your sworne and mensworne companions Dem●● and Diotrephes FINIS Januar. 1. 1621. venter est ingeniosus venter non habet aures