Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A40089
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A sermon preached before the judges, &c. in the time of the assizes in the Cathedral church at Gloucester on Sunday Aug. 7, 1681 published to put a stop to false and injurious representations / by Edward Fowler.
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Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing F1716; ESTC R10669
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23,348
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42
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stranger to Christianity that he hath totally cast off all Humanity Whosoever is a thorough Papist hath no Conscience in his own keeping his Conscience is perfectly at the dispose of his Holy Father and his Confessor Nor is there any villany be it never so great but he is prepared for it whensoever a Priest or Jesuit by commission from the Pope shall oblige him to it That Protestant doth but slightly understand Popery who dares trust his throat with a thorough Papist although he be seemingly a man of never so good a nature or of never so good Morals and the more conscientious he is in his way by so much the more dangerous a person is he That 's a rare Religion in the mean time the more true to which any man is the greater Villain he must necessarily be And those are a precious sort of Christians of which one cannot adventure to give a true and impartial Character and to paint them in their own colours but he must be in danger to be Censured as a scurrilous person as a man of a foul mouth and a down-right Railer Let us all therefore take up those words of Iacob in reference to his Generation which he uttered concerning his two wicked sons Simeon and Levi O my soul come not thou into their secret unto their assembly mine honour be not thou united To make some Application of what hath been discoursed First Is the putting away a good Conscience the true cause to which making shipwrack of the Faith is to be imputed Is this the account into which it is to be resolved Then as we would be out of danger of falling into Heresie and particularly of turning Papists and of making shipwrack of the Faith as they have done let us have a great care to hold fast a good Conscience To exercise our selves in keeping Consciences void of offence both towards God and towards men To lead lives answerable to the holy Doctrine which we profess to believe If any man will do the will of God or be sincerely willing to do it he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God saith our Blessed Saviour Iohn 7.17 He shall be able to discern between truth and falshood and shall be guided into and kept in the truth The truth hath no fast hold of any but those who receive it in the love of it and make it the measure and rule of their lives and actions It is not at all strange that Learned and Knowing men should make shipwrack of the Faith for Learning and Knowledge is no security while separated from Honesty and a Good Conscience There is no error so absurd or dangerous but we ought to expect an insincere person will embrace it when once it becomes serviceable to that Interest he is most concerned for the promoting of Even those of us who do now shew the most forward zeal against Popery if we be wedded to any corrupt Affection and have only the Form but are void of the Power of Godliness will be in never the less danger notwithstanding our present zeal of Apostatizing if ever it should become our temporal interest which God forbid to turn Papists Secondly Is it so apparent that the Church of Rome hath made so woful a shipwrack of the Faith Then what an infinite obligation lyeth upon us to the greatest Thankfulness to our good God for rescuing these Nations from under her yoke and for those Miracles of mercy which he hath wrought for us in blasting so many of their deep laid designs their late great Conspiracy and late Sham-plots for the reducing of us to our old Captivity If it had not been the Lord who was on our side now may England say if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when these men rose up against us then they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us then the waters had overwhelmed us and the streams had gone over our soul. Let us therefore Bless the Lord who hath not given us as a prey unto their teeth Lastly As we would still be secured from Popish Conspiracies from the unwearied attempts of our old Adversaries against us take we great heed of provoking the Almighty to withdraw at length his Protection and abandon us to their Malice by walking unworthy of that glorious Light and Liberty we now enjoy in the Church of England And while we have the light let us walk in the light lest God in his just judgment suffer us to be again involved in Egyptian darkness Oh happy Children of the Church of England if we could be perswaded to prize our present Vast Priviledges before our having lost them doth force us to set a high value on them And Oh that we were capable of so much Wisdom as no longer to strengthen the hands of our common enemy by our as unreasonable as Unchristian Animosities against one another That we had once as great a zeal against the Anti-christs within our own breasts Pride Anger Malice and Bitterness as we seem to have against the Anti-Christ in the Roman Chair Those Anti-christs being the greatest friends this Anti-christ hath and more our enemies than he is capable of being Oh that at length we could be convinced of this great truth that the Christian Religion consisteth not in meats or drinks mere external things but in righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost In Humility Meekness Self-denial Obedience to Authority in all lawful things love to God and love to men c. Oh that we had a vigorous powerful sense of this that neither the most admired Gifts nor appearances of Grace which are not joyned with a Benign and Charitable temper can at all recommend us to the Divine favour That he hath no Participation of the God-like Life and Nature who is of a Quarrelsome Contentious Uncharitable Spirit be he in a many other respects never so Saint-like And that Christian love is a thousand times better argument of a renewed state than most of those marks and characters which are ordinarily given of a godly man If we were once brought to this happy pass to have a lively sense of these things to make great Conscience of preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and to abandon all Separating Dividing Sowre and ill-natur'd Principles and Practices we shall not then need to fear the malice of the Papists were their power greater than God be thanked it is but till then all our other endeavours to secure our selves may fail of success But alas I fear that never had a People sadder Omens of miserable days than we now have And nothing bodes worse than this that we are so far from Uniting among our selves notwithstanding we seem so sensible of extraordinary danger from our common Enemy that our breaches daily grow wider and wider We seem no less infatuated no less madly bent upon our own destruction than were the miserable Iews in the Siege
you in the first place to her Doctrine of Infallibility Which speaks her uncapable of erring in any of her Decrees and Determinations Which Infallibility the Iesuits will have seated in the Popes Chair others in the Pope in conjunction with a General Council that is a Number of Bishops and Priests packt together of his own Faction For there is nothing he hates more than a Council truly General I call this not only a false but a wicked Doctrine because of the infinite mischief that it doth in the world For the Romish Church's pretence to Infallibility is that which enables her to Lord it at that intolerable rate over the minds and Consciences of her Subjects and to make them the greatest of Slaves and Vassals And 't is this also that makes her utterly incurable of her gross corruptions her other notorious Heresies and the ungodly and horrid practices founded upon them So that so long as she continues to assume to herself the Title of Infallible there is no hope to be conceived of her being ever in the least Reformed either in her Principles or Practices But never was a Doctrine more shamefully baffled than this hath been as easily it may there being nothing but Interest to uphold it nor one syllable in all the Bible to befriend it As for that promise of our Saviour that the gates of hell shall never prevail against his Church the most that can be concluded from thence is that he will ever have a Church upon earth in spight of all the endeavours of Hell to destroy it But thanks be to God this Promise would be no whit the further from being performed although the Devil should be permitted totally to extinguish the Church of Rome though to be sure he understands his own interest better than once to attempt it But if the meaning of this Promise be as the Romanists would have it that the gates of Hell shall never so prevail against the Church as to occasion her falling into errors of Iudgment why may we not as well extend it so far as to secure her also from errors of Practice these being no less dangerous or destructive than those of Iudgment But I retain so much Charity for the Romish Church still as not to think her so forsaken of all Modesty as to deny that in this sense the Gates of Hell have prevailed against her with a vengeance And as for the other Promises which they lay any stress on they are either such as 't is manifest the Apostles only and first planters of the Gospel were concerned in or else such as belong to all Christians without exception thus far as that while it is their sincere endeavour to know the truth and to live up to their knowledge they shall be secured from pernicious and damnable errors Again What say you to the Doctrine of the Popes Supremacy over all other Churches and Kingdoms too and his having a Grant of as vast Dominions upon Earth next and immediately under Christ as Christ himself hath under God the Father his being King of all Kings and Lord of all Lords and that both in Spirituals and Temporals I might easily tire you upon this head of Discourse but all I will say to it shall be this that the Charter pretended for so mighty an Empire is much too obscurely exprest to be ever understood by any other people than the Pope and his Vassals There is not a tittle in the Holy Scriptures for it though we know what a noise and fluster they make with two Texts Pasce Oves meas and Dabo tibi Claves c. as if this Supremacy were as plainly legible in each of them as the Doctrine of the Creation in the first verse of Genesis But which is worst of all how many thousands of honest people have been barbarously butcher'd merely because their eyes would not serve them to read this Doctrine of theirs in those two Texts And this is that Doctrine which gives them a pretence for their restless and unwearied endeavours to get these Kingdoms again within their Clutches and for all their desperate and hellish designs against us What say you to their Doctrine of Image-Worship with which I will joyn that other of Praying to Saints and Angels In their Adored Council of Trent it is decreed that The Images of Christ the Virgin mother of God and other Saints be especially kept in Churches and that due Honor and Veneration be given unto them And afterward this Council expresseth its allowance of Picturing the Divinity it self and accordingly Pictures of the Blessed Trinity Oh hateful sight are ordinarily to be beheld in the Popish Churches Now would we know what the Council means by Debitus honor veneratio the due honour and veneration that is to be given to Images this appears by these following words We decree doing honour to them because the honour which is done to them is referred to the Prototypes which they represent So that in the Images which we kiss and before which we uncover our heads and fall down we adore Christ and Worship the Saints which they represent c. So that the Honour and Veneration which they determine should be given to Images do imply all external Acts of Adoration and that the Image of our Saviour is to have the self same Adoration paid to it that would be due unto himself were he personally present And the Universal Practice of the Romish Church wholly to pass over the Vile stuff of their Doctors Schoolmen and Casuists will tell you the meaning of their debitus honor veneratio The consent of Nations saith the Learned Grotius have made Sacrifices Oblations and Incense proper signs of Divine Worship but though I had time I need not stand to shew that the Images of Christ Angels and Saints especially that of the Blessed Virgin are every where Worshipped with these signs and with all the Rites of the most solemn Invocation in Sacred Offices and in places set apart for Divine Worship And they do all the external honour to the Saints and Angels in the Addresses they make unto them whether immediately or as represented by Images that 't is imaginable they should do to our Saviour himself or the Blessed Trinity Nay They pray unto them not only for Temporal or Ordinary Blessings but for Spiritual and Supernatural such as the Pardon of their sins and the Holy Spirit and eternal life as might be shewn at large Now what is Idolatry if such doings are not why they tell us and we cannot blame them that the true Notion of Idolatry is only the Worshipping some Creature for the most High God supposing it to be the most High God But if so the Worshippers of the Golden Calf to be sure were no Idolaters for they can be little better than mad themselves who are able to imagine that the Israelites were so mad as to believe that the Calf which they saw made and that of their own