Selected quad for the lemma: master_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
master_n	aaron_n	calf_n	moses_n	21	3	6.8752	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50771	Religio stoici	Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691.	1663 (1663)	Wing M195; ESTC R22472	60,332	192

consider how scaffolds were dyed with Christian blood and the fields covered with the carcasses of murthered Christians and its probable that there were more damned by unprepared deaths in the fields then were saved by peeping Sermons in incendiary Churches and in this I admire the clemency of our Royal Master who albeit His cause was more just then theirs albeit He might have convinced them by obtruding to them their own practices yet hath rather chosen to command with His Scepter then His Sword But if the glory of God were the mark at which these do levell Why bestow they not their zeal rather in converting such as scarce know or acknowledge that there is a God And why are they more enraged against these who agree with them in most things then these who dissent from them in all Take not Christians more pains to refute one another then to convince Gentiles And stand not Episcopists and Presbyterians at greater distance then either do with Turks and Pagans And to evidence that rather humour then piety occasions our differences we may easily percieve that the meaner the subject is the heat is alwayes the greater If I had ever known so much as one whose faith had been the trophy of a debate I should allow of debates in maters of Religion but seeing men cannot be convinced by miracles it were ridiculous to presse conversion by arguments All the Divines in Europe could not press the best founded of their contraverted and polemick truths with so much scripture or so many miracles as our blessed Saviour did His own divinity which is the foundation of all truths And yet the Iews and all the world besides slighted this infallible doctrine And to evidence that there is a season of grace independent from arguments did not many thousands turn prosylits at Peters sermon whom all our Saviours homilies and miracles could not perswade If one should say that the testimony of a few fisher-men should not be believed in a mater of so great consequence as is the salvation of the whole world especially when they did depone as witnesses in a matter wherein both their honour and livelyhood was concerned might not this stagger some mean Christian And yet I believe these truths so much the more because such as these were its first asserters for certainly it is one of the greatest of miracles that so few and so illiterate persons were able to convince the whole world Thus we see that one may account that a miracle which another looks upon as a folly and yet none but Gods Spirit can decide the controversie Maters of Religion and Faith resembling some curious Pictures and optick Prismes which seems to change shapes and colours according to the several stances from which the asp●cient views them The ballance of our judgments hath ●atched such a bruise by Adams fall that scarce can we by them know the weight of any argument But which is worse there is as great a defect in our partial weighing as in the scales themselves For when we take either the pro or con of any controversie into our Patronage we throw alwayes in arguments into that scale wherein our own opinion lyes without ever taking leisure to consider what may be alledged for the antipode proposition and then when we receive an answer our invention is busied not in pondering how much conviction it hath in it but by what slight it may be answered and thus either passion interest or frequent meditation are still the weights which cast the ballance This firy zeal hath likewayes made an other pimple flash out in the face of the phanatick Church and that is a conceit that the Saints have the only right to all Gods creatures the wicked being only usurpers and not masters of them But I have heard this opinion so beastly is it confuted by Balaam's asse who could tell it's Master Am not I thine own asse When Aaron and the people did covenant without Moses then every man did bring his ear-rings to make up the golden calf And we have lived in an age wherein we have seen our Countrey-men like the Chaldeans take the furniture both of the Temple and of the Kings House and carry them away to their Babylon of confusions and in an age wherein sober men were forced to lend monies to buy for their own armes the heavy shekles of slavery Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Religion doubtless aims at two great designes one is like the first Table to perswade us to adore God Almighty Another is to perswade us like to the second Table to love our neighbour and to be a mean to settle all these jealousies and compesce all these animosities which interest might occasion and this appears by the Doxology jubilyed by the Angels at our Saviours birth Glory to God and peace and good-will towards men And therefore as every private Christian should be tollerated by his fellow subjects to worship God inwardly according to his conscience So all should conspire in that exteriour uniformity of worship which the Laws of his Countrey injoins The first remark which God made of us after the Creation was that it was not fit for man to be alone there was only one Ark amongst the Iews by Gods own appointment And seing the Gospel tearms the Church Christ's Spouse it were absurd to think that He will divorce from her upon every error or escape especially seing His blessed mouth hath told us that under the Gospel it is not lawfull to divorce upon all occasions and if He will not for these deny her to be His Spouse much less should we deny her to be our mother May not one who is convinced in his judgment that Monarchy is the best of Governments live happily in Venice or Holland And that traveller were absurd who would rather squable with these amongst whom he sojourns then observe these rites and solemnities which are required by the Laws of the places where he lives What is once statuted by a Law we all consent to in choosing Commissioners to represent us in these Parliaments where the Laws are made and so if they ordain us to be decimated or to leave the Nation if we conform not we cannot say when that Law is put to execution that we are opprest no more then we could complain if one did remove us legally from these Lands which he purchas'd from our Trustee whom we had impowered to sell it As David said to Saul 1 Sam. 26. 20. why went the King out to catch a flea So may I say to our great Divines why contravert they about shadows Is it fit that Christians who find it too great a task to govern their private souls should be so much concerned how the Church is governed by others Wherefore seing many have been saved who were most inexpert in these questions and that foolish zeal passion and too much curiositie therein hath damned many I may conclude that to pry in these is neither