Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	command_v	day_n	sabbath_n	10,415	5	9.9260	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29925	Vlastēma ex hypsous, or, The best vvisdome propounded to the gentry of Suffolk in a sermon at Ipswich : prepared for the 9th of April, 1660, the day of election of Knights of the shire for the afore-said county, but preached the morning after / by Benjamin Bruning ...	Bruning, Benjamin, 1623?-1688.	1660 (1660)	Wing B5231; ESTC R2801	32,130	63

by renouncing all Magistracy let them be ashamed to urge this parable against his Authority in the vindication of the first table I speak not this as if I thought that Church-government were swallow'd up in the Civil Magistrate I am not for a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church of God by Gods appointment and ordinance hath its Government proper to it distinct from Civil Government And both of them have their work though different work about Religion And if duly discharged no great fear but peace will flourish That any should commend a full Toleration in Religion upon the account of peace and peacemaking 't is much such a riddle to me as if one should undertake to keep a house from burning by putting fire to it I know unbounded Toleration sub nomine libertatis prophetandi under the goodly name of liberty of prophesie hath been highly commended to the World as a rare expedient for peace This was done by the Remonstrants a sort of men that created sufficient trouble to the Church But they that will read Learned Vedelius de arcanis Arminianismi will find how effectually he deals with Princes and Magistrates to convince them of the destructiveness of such Toleration to the Peace of Church and State whereever it obtains Odia religionum sunt acerbissima 't was ever a truth and will be to the worlds end No hatred to compare with such as is founded in diversities of Religion What woful experience have we had of it as the miserable effect of our late Tolerations We have learn't that not libertas prophetandi according to the Remonstrants but libertas perditionis according to St. Austin is Latine for Toleration 3. Another Dictate of Wisdome from above in order to Peace is this What may be left at liberty without apparent prejudice to purity peace and order that ought to be so left for peace sake Rigorous impositions in these cases are unreasonable severities and if the forbearing of one another in love required in the 4th to the Ephes 2. v. may not take place here I cannot apprehend to what purpose that precept is in our Bible I have already intimated some circumstances necessary to be attended to as natural or civil helps to worship and 't is the duty of the Church as to take care for the observation of Christs Ordinances so to see this done with a due respect to due circumstances 'T is not my intention now to unsay what I have said but to confirm and clear it There are circumstances I say about Gods Worship which are commanded in general by God himself either in Scripture or Nature but pro hìc Nunc are left by him undetermined and committed to humane determination I shall give an instance or two And first for the circumstance of time where by the way I do not at all intend the Lords day or Christian Sabbath that I take to be of another nature but there are circumstances of time that are left to humane determination Such as are in authority by Gods command are to see that his publick worship be observ'd in due season But whether the publick Assemblies shall be at eight or nine or ten of the Clock c. the determination of this is left to the Wisdome of Authority And necessary it is that some time be determined for if all be left at liberty some to take one hour others an other what inevitable confusion would follow upon this Again the Lord hath given a general rule for dayes of Humiliation and Thanksgiving but for the determination of these services to this or that particular day is left to the Wisdome of Authority So for the circumstance of place when God requires his publick worship to be sure it must be in some place now if particular places be not determined by man what order can be expected in Gods Worship But now for such circumstances as may be left at liberty without wrong to Gods Worship and breach of order I humbly conceive 't will more then a little conduce to the peace of the Church if they be so left As for religious Ceremonies that depend meerly upon the arbitrary pleasure and institution of man these are matters of another nature Let us for this present suppose them to be meer indifferencies and thus much was acknowledged long ago by the Church of England in the 34th Article which begins thus It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one or utterly like for at all times they have been divers and changed according to the diversity of Countries Times and mens Manners c. The same Article ends thus Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain change and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by mans authority so that all things be done to edifying By this 't is evident that Ceremonies long ago were lookt upon by the Church of England as meer indifferences that might be chang'd or abolished without sin For governors then that are thus perswaded of them to impose them with rigour upon such as think in conscience they are sinful it seems to me a harshness of carriage ill becoming the meekness of Wisdome But what do you talk of conscience will some say 'T is an easie matter to cover a peevish refractory humour with a pretence of conscience Let them lookt too 't say I that incur such a guilt But for those that are real put case that they be mistaken and that Ceremonies are indifferent things yet if they refuse them whilst in conscience they think them sinful I cannot imagine but their plea will be much better at Christs tribunal then their 's who rigorously impose them whilst they think them indifferent If it be pleaded upon supposition of the indifferency of Ceremonies in themselves that the injunctions of authority take away this indifferency and make the omission of them to become a sin according to this principle there still rests a power in authority to abolish them and withall I hope I may say without presumption it concerns authority to be very cautelous how they make injunctions that may occasion sins which would not be were it not for those injunctions can any be offended with me for this that considereth how manifold the precepts and institutions of Christ are and how much the world groans under the weight of that guilt that is contracted by not observing them And as for peace I cannot imagine that ever the Church got so much by Ceremonies as will pay for the peace it hath lost by them I must confess my self hard to be perswaded that England would have had so much cause to complain of division and seperation that have rent and torn the Church into many pieces had there not been so much ceremoniousness in former times Not that I justifie seperation upon this account as will appear by that that followeth 4. In the fourth place I take this to be another Dictate of Wisdome in

devisings during this state of the Church they that list may easily observe how severely the Lord held his people to his own prescriptions Were there then any meer positive inst●tutions mingled in God's worship with Gods approbation unless such as had divine authority for them either by an express word or clear consequence from it or extraordinary inspiration of extraordinary persons If once I be convinced that there were I shall be ready to acknowledg my present mistake but sure enough had a Priest under the law devised so much as one religious vestment more than God prescribed he would have had little thank for it 'T is very observable in some Chapters of the Mosaical law that where you have a punctual narration of God's prescriptions in one part of the Chapter you shall have a rehearsal in the other part of the Chapter of all over again as practised by Moses and Aaron Hereby the Lord shews how strictly he stands upon his Sacred Authority in prescribing the manner of his own worship and this I humbly conceive is the instruction that the Lord would have us learn from it Moses his rule was the pattern he saw in the Mount and not the mould of his own brain And if the distinction of the substantials of worship and ceremonious additions to it would salve the matter Nadab and Abihu might have come off better with their strange fire and the Scribes and Pharisees would not have deserved so much rebuke for their religious washing before meat The sin of Nadab and Abihu was not that they offered incense to a strange God nor did they presume so far as to offer strange incense to the true God or the right incense upon a strange Altar they only offered strange fire before the Lord such fire saith the Text As the Lord commanded them not Levit. 10. verse 1. when the Lord gave them fire from Heaven he did not in so many words forbid the use of any other fire that was to be understood by his not commanding it nor do we find that they made use of other fire more than once or that they intended a common trade of it and wholly to disuse that which came from Heaven but strange fire at a time they used and behold the event of it verse 2. There went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and what account doth Moses give of this verse 3. This is that the Lord spake I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me as much as to say he will have his authority acknowledged in what he prescribes in his worship And as for religious washing before meat some would have thought that the practise of such a Ceremony upon the account of humane tradition might have been overlooked in an age when so many legal washings and cleansings were in use by God's appointment but this would not excuse it when the Scribes and Pharisees came to our Saviour Mat. 15. at the beginning with this cauil Why do thy Disciples transgress the tradition of the Elders in not washing their hands when they eat bread Our Saviours reply was verse 3. Why do you trnsgress the Commandment of God by your tradition If any think that these words of Christ have respect only to what follows concerning the consecrated gift by which they violated the fifth Commandment I must crave leave to dissent from them If the third verse be not a reply to the second then is there no answer at all made to it and besides what appears plainly in the surface of the words the second and third verses compared together let me ask did Christ approve that religious washing of hands or not if he approved it why did not his Disciples practise it or why did he not excuse their omission of it or if they practised it why did he not doe them right when they were accused for not doing it It is evident enough that whilst they objected against Christs Disciples their tradition Christ taxeth them for transgressing the Commandments of God by following that tradition But what Commandment will some say was it that was hereby transgressed It is most certain what ever sin is committed there is a breach made upon some Commandment of the moral law now the religious washing before meat used by the Scribes and Pharisees and the strange fire of Nadab and Abihu I can apprehend them no otherwise than as transgressions of the second Commandment where the Lord hath said Thou shalt not make to thy self If any think I stretch the sense of the Commandment further then God intended it let them but consider that our Lord Jesus in his Sermon upon the Mount makes the least degree of anger without just cause a breach of the sixth Commandment Thou shalt not do no murther and a wanton glance of the eye a breach of the seventh Thou shalt not commit adultery now why a meere institution in the worship of God may not be looked upon as a breach of the second as well an angry thought a breach of the sixth or a wanton look of the seventh Commandment I see no reason Therefore if any shall say that God have left the Christian Church to a greater liberty in prescribing to its self as to the manner of God's worship then he did the Jewish Church I shall not be induced to their opinion unless they can produce a Divine Authority for such a grant of liberty or make it appear that the second Commandment is of less force now than formerly and antiquated as to some of its morality Bellarmine in his dispute about Ceremonies hath such words as these Omnes nostrae Ceremoniae indicantur à Deo in genere God hath given a general grant for all our Ceremonies and how doth he prove it first saith he the Church is to see that all things be done decently and in order Secondly 2. We are commanded to obey them that are set over us How zealously have I heard some urge these Scriptures for Ceremonies of humane device in the Worship of God I would they would consider that in this matter they serve Bellarmine's turn as well as theirs and if we will take up these Scriptures at such a randome of sense whither is it almost that they may not lead us If any think I speak this as a despiser of Church-governmet they do me wrong I could wish for an hours time to lament the want of it with all reverence I acknowledg the Authority of the Church as far as may be without prejudice to Christ's Authority There are circumstances necessary conversant about worship as natural or civil means and helps to it many such circumstances concerning time place behaviour and the like must be attended to and are of a nature farr different from meer instituted ceremonies Now the institutions of Christ that concern his Worship and Ordinances are many and weighty and when the Church provides that Christ's institutions be observed decently and orderly with due respects to due