Selected quad for the lemma: law_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A81372
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Vindiciæ magistratuum. or, a sober plea for subjection to present government. According to the command and special direction of God himself, in his holy scriptures. / By the meanest of the Lord's tenderers of his great honour, and weal of his saints.
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C. D.
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1658
(1658)
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Wing D12; Thomason E2120_1; ESTC R210149
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85,481
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128
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the Lord answer you both not according to the righteousness of the best of you but according to his infinite love and mercy Have you love to your own fellow-members why behold him more Christian-like flowing in bowels of love and care of all Saints as Saints yea in in pity and admirable patience towards you forbearing to revenge injuries upon you and retort your own unkinde dealings bearing with your imprudencies and stopping his ears at the report of your disorders Which puts me in mind of what I have read of Augustus the Emperour That when the Senate informed him of what some had said of him Tush said he Non tantum habemus otii We are not at leisure to listen to every slander that is raised against us So bad reports like the mis-haps of Job seldome freeing his Threshold in these latter times of the sad and unchristian invectives because they come from such as call themselves good men are slighted away by him ever being as 't is said of Severus another Emperour more carefull of what is to be done by him then of what is said of him Let me ask you Would you demean your selves so towards such as should so bitterly oppose you were you in his place and power Truly I fear you would not Let me offer you Chrysostomes Lesson for your edification herein who in an Homily upon those words Chrysost 13 Hom. ad pop Antioch Mat. 7.12 thus descants Those things ye would have others do to you do ye to them q. d. There needs not many words let thine own Will be thy Law would you receive benefits bestow benefits would you have mercy be mercifull would you be commended commend others would you be beloved then love Be you the Judge your self be you the Lawgiver of your own life That which you hate do not to another Cannot you endure reproach do not you reproach others Cannot you endure to have others envy you do not you envy others c. But to return These wonders of the Lords mercies were neither done in a corner nor out of memory For as Moses said to the Children of Israel Deut. 11.2 so may I say to you I speak not with your Children which have not known and which have not seen the chastisement of the Lord your God his greatness his mighty hand and his stretched out arm 3 and his miracles and his acts which he hath wrought for you c. 7. But your eyes have seen them c. Deut. 5.3 Therefore are you bound in a more especial manner to return love obedience and thankfulness to him for the same as it follows in the Chapter because you are not onely Eye-witnesses but living Monuments of his mercy Engl. Annot in locum Psal 148.13 14. your fathers being cut off for their murmuring Oh! let not your teeth be set on edge with your fathers sowre grapes but offer him a willing sacrifice of praise and due acknowledgement as I doubt not many a serious heart doth at this day who have all these mercies fairly written on their hearts in an indelible character and send up many a secret return to God for them and do not cease to pray that the Lord will mercifully incline the heart of our conquering Governour as an instrument in his place to be conquered by the perfect way of his blessed Rule and therein by the Law of Love still and make him still as singular for moderation and tenderness as his success hath proclaimed him famous for Valour And as it is our duty to wish and desire this for him so we are bound to give thanks to the Almighty Lord for his great mercy in so ordering his heart for the time past and giving hopes for the future that our Liberty if we use it not as an occasion to the flesh may be still preserved by him and that we and all that desire to live a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty under him may be encouraged protected and countenanced and so by the special direction of God in his pious choice under others until he please to come whose right it is to Govern and take the Diadem as in order thereunto he hath promised Ezek. 21.27 who when he comes will chain up Satan burn up our dross and make us free indeed And therefore O my discontented Friends you that have nor one good thought for the Power that God hath placed over you in the midst of this great Liberty and Peace which you now enjoy under it and could not a few years since so much as hope it Deut. 8. Beware lest while you thus quarrel with your mercies you forget not also the Lord your God that hath done these great things for you Truly Isa 1.3 4. Many favors which God bestows upon us ravel out for want of hemming by thankfulness for though Prayer purchaseth Blessings giving Praise doth keep the quiet possession of them Fuller I am afraid to think how soon we can forget the Lords goodness deliverances gracious dealings towards us ah how quickly are they put behinde our backs slighting them lessening them or at least in such hands even while they are yet as it were between our teeth expecting new even while we are exceedingly on the score to God for the old How Jesurun like do the rich mercies of our dear Lord wantonize rather then humble Deut. 32.15 while rage in the unlimited reyns of our wills disturbs the heads and hearts of our Neighbours O! how froward and peevish are we with Gods blessed all-wise dispensations if God will not go our way or our pace act as we dare even in our pitifull dark narrow conjectures chalk out the truth how angry are we presently with second Causes as the main obstruction O! will ye live and die in base ingratitude to God and Man Once give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods due acknowledgements to both The Jews have a saying That the World stands upon three things the Law Holy Worship and Retribution and if these things fall the World will fall If the murmuring ungratefull Jews shall exceed Christians nay if herein they shall turn Christians who should be ever humble and thankfull and the Christians turn Jews stiff-necked and murmurers we may say either the World is falling or turning up-side-down It is said Judg. 2.7 That the people served the Lord in all due acknowledgements and fear not onely all the days of Joshua but also all the days of the Elders that out-lived Joshua who had seen all the great works of the Lord that he did for Israel But alas we forsake our own mercies Jonah 2.8 even while we enjoy them are we not then worse then Jews So much dishonouring the God of our mercies and weakning what in us lies his faithfull Instrument that formerly did so freely venter life and limb and what was dearest to him to purchase this your liberty and