Selected quad for the lemma: peace_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A26410
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A fannaticks addresse humbly presented to the King and his peers, and also to his people in their representative, the Commons House of Parliament ... discovering to them, the innocency of his actings in the midst of the late revolutions of governments in this nation ... / by Henry Adis ...
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Adis, Henry.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing A577; ESTC R20288
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14,003
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17
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contrary to the true Spirit of God whose Fruit is Love Joy Peace long Suffering Gentleness Goodness Meekhess and Temperance against which there is no Law no Law of God although there be now some Lawes of man intended to be made against them O that this were taking upon your spirits that now sit at the Stern Was not your Loyalty to King Charles the first and King Charles the second a great cause of your Hardships most of you How fared it with you you that were continually in England Was not those that boâ—e sway in England your continual Tormentors your fear and dayly dread And those that were away Did not they feel the smart of it Did you not all both abroad and at home cry out of Oppression Cruelty and Tyranny Did you cry out of them and think you that others will not cry out of you if you be found such Actors to others Was it evil in them to use you so for your Loyalty to King Charles And can you be so cruel to those that are Loyal to King Jesus and never acted any thing against King Charles the first nor King Charles the second or against the meanest of you nor ever took part with them that did Did the hand of God follow them for their cruel and unjust Actings to you and the King as most of you do say it did And can you be the same to others for their Loyalty to Him who hath righted you of them and brought you your own again and that against some of them too that never got the worth of one â—arâ—â—ing by all their Pillagings Plunderings or Sales neither of Goods nor Lands Can you be contented to enjoy your own And are you not willing that those that never harmed you should enjoy theirs Are you glad that you are brought into the Land of your Nativity again And would you now most cruelly justle others out Are you now setting up that Worship that you judge to be agreeable to the mind of God And will you now force others to forsake what they are perswaded to Oh! tâ—at you would but consider what your own Oppressions were and who you are now about to Oppress Let not your fury nor revenge fall heavy upon the Innocent Why should Iniquity and Injustice be found in your hands Oh! Consider with your selves apart and discourse it each with other seriously what such a Judgment as I in the singleness of my soul have laid before you can or ever did do you harm who never did any Acts of Violence for nor against you or the King nor ever shall resolve to do who have not gone with a defensive Weapon so much as to defend my self with above this fifteen years and am of the same Judgment with our Brethren of Holland whose innocent and harmless behaviour confident I am many of you in that time of your absence from this Land of your Nativity are well acquainted with the which I am confident the strictest of you have no just exception against either for endeavouring to undermine Government or to pull down Governours or by fraud or force to have to do with any mans Possession Goods or Estate who am willing to do by another as I would have another do by me and am as willing another should Live as my Self whose Indeavour in all my Teachings have been to perswade Persons to forsake and avoid all acts of Violence and Oppression and to cleave to God with purpose of heart and to perswade those that have Owned God in his Own way to continue stedfast in the same and to prove Faithful to him whose Lawes teach the best Loyalty to our Earthly Princes and purest Love to all yea to our very Enemies who with single-heartedness to all and without either Fawning or Flattery have and shall still resolve to tell every one with whom I have to do the worst of their Condition and shew them the danger they are in by reason of their misactings with an earnest desire that in order to their Eternal well-being they would refuse the Evil and choose the Good And so I have at this time done with you the great Council of the Nation and if for my plainness of speech either as to the matter or manner of it you shall become mine Enemy because I deal so plainly with you I shall let you know that notwithstanding I shall in the singleness of my Soul pray for you and for your Convertion not in the least Indeavouring or Plotting your Confusion And now I shall earnestly desire both the King his People and you their Representative to judge with Equity our Innocent Cause that so when you shall your selves be Summoned at that great Session before that great Tribunal and Righteous Judge who shall give to every man according as his work shall be that then you be found Innocent and without Blame as to your actings against the peaceable Ones of Christs Flock whose Sentence of either Come ye Blessed Inherit the Kingdom or Go ye Cursed into Everlasting Fire will be of an Eternal Extent and that upon the account of Mens actings to his People either for doing them good or for refusing to do them that good they might have done them who looketh upon what is either neglected or done to them to be done unto himself And hence it is that he uttered that from Heaven saying Saul Saul why Persecutest thou me I am Jesus whom thou Persecutest Acts 9. 3 4. And after the same manner will be his Sentence at that great Day of account even Go ye Cursed into Everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels for when I was Hungry ye fed me not and naked ye clothed me not Sick and in Prison and ye visited me not For inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these little Ones ye did it not unto me O then I beseech thee whoever thou be that art of a Persecuting spirit I say again I would Beg thee seriously to consider O Persecuting spirit that if the Lord Christ will thus severely punish the neglecting the doing good to his People when Hungry Naked Sick and Imprisoned What then will be the Portion of those that cause them to come into such difficulties and straits as Imprisonments Hungrings Nakedness and Sickness And cause them to be thrown as it were on heapes one upon another as some of the Baptists lately have been in one Room some 9. Foot broad and 14. Foot long in New Gate And much after the same way in several other Gaols and Prisons in the Nation Enough to breed Infections and Diseases had not the God whom we serve appeared mightily in our Behalfes And seeing the Eternal Sentence will be so severe against such Violent Actors In love to their Souls I cannot choose but give them a timely Caution and in their behalfes with that servant of the Lord Deut. 32. 29. Cry out and say O that they were wise that they would understand this that they would
what perswasion or Judgement soever they be of because Jesus Christ out of that exceeding Love of the Father was sent to lay down his Life for the Sins of the World John 1. 29. and to be a Redemption for that first Transgression Heb. 9. 15. under the guilt of which all the whole Bulk of Mankinde that ever were are or ever shall be by Imputation do lie under and from the punishment of which by Jesus Christ they shall all be released and restored Rom. 5. 18. And not onely so but they are also by Jesus Christ that second Adam brought into a Capacity to have that Salvation that is in Christ Jesus with Eternal Glory 2 Tim. 2. 10. whose work was to come to seek and to save that which was Lost as he himself saith Luke 19 10. And therefore he gave out his Universal Commission the Benefit whereof extendeth to all and therefore to be Preached to all Mat. 28. 19. Mark 16. 15. And we having this Universal Gospel to Preach to wit That God was in Christ Reconciling the World unto himself by Jesus Christ not Imputing their Trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the Ministry of Reconciliation now then we are Ambassadours for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you yea you great Tall Cedars of England we pray you in Christ stead be ye reconciled unto God 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. And have a care I beseech you in the Fear of the great Jehovah that ye neither slight our Message as you tender the good of your own Souls to Eternity neither be ye I pray you as those Pharisees and Hypocrites against whom a Wo was pronounced by our Master King Jesus Mat. 23. 13. who shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men who neither desired to go in themselves nor suffered those that were entring to go in O I beseech you have a care of this for Men are backward enough of themselves and should you but seem to hinder them haply their disobedience may be put upon your score And he that is found forwards now to hinder will be found most guilty at that Day when Christ shall dispence to every Man according as his work shall be 2 Cor. 5. 10. O I beseech you once again yea and again I intreat you have a care every one of you as you tender your own good to Eternity that you hinder none though never so Rich nor never so poor for God is no respecter of Persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him Acts 10. 34. Hinder none be they never so young nor never so old for our Housholder the Master of our Family Jesus Christ who is a Son over his own House comes to some Early in the Morning Mat. 20. 1 c. even whilst they are tender young even so soon as they come to Reason and understanding God by the Incomings of his Holy Spirits comes to hire them into his Vineyard to some he comes at the third hour in their Youth to others at the sixth Hour in their Manhood to others at the ninth Hour in their declining Age and to some again at the 11th Hour even in their old Age O then I say again I beseech you have a care that none be hindred of their entrance into the Vineyard of Christ of no Age or Sex whatsoever for he may be loytring in the market place of the World this day that may be hired into the Vineyard of Jesus Christ to Morrow for Christ of a Persecuting Saul may Suddenly make a Preaching Paul one voice from Heaven can do it through mercy I know it by good Experience and therefore I am the boulder to assert it And that provoketh me the more earnestly to Beg again and again that no Violence be used because the Housholder Mat. 20. 1. is said to Hire not to Frighten nor Beat Force or Constrain but to Hire Labourers to go into his Vineyard telling them what they shall have for their pains if they will Labour when they are there And as I told the King in my Fannaticks Mite in Page the ninth of the last Impression That a Gospel Minister was not as a General in an Army to Frighten Beat or Fight men into Faith but as an Embassadour to perswade and Invite and gently Treat with and to Intreat into the Way of God the one being Gospel or Evangelical but the way of Force being Diabolical and of the Devil and proceedeth from the Fruits of the Flesh a part whereof I told the Mayor of London in Christian Love to his Soul the danger thereof in my Alarm given to him in his Quarters in Page 34. in which some of them are clearly laid down and how they will exclude a Soul from Heavens Glory Again it is required that all things be tryed and that which is good be held fast But how shall there be a trying of all things if there be a constraint onely to one for how can there be a choice where the tryiâ—g any but one is restrained the which restraint confounds the choice Again if those of the Episcopal Government do look upon Toleration or Libertie of Conscience simply so considered to be a Sin Then I query if it be not an Evil to Tolerate any and whether that Evil is not then more Aggravated if they shall Tolerate that Opinion or Religion that they would have us Swear against because they say it is Idolatrous and sinful And whether there is not a farther Aggravation if the worser be allowed and the better be suppressed And whether they will not Evidence themselves to be such as judge not as God judgeth if they shall Tolerate the Great the Rich and Mighty and suppresse the Mean the Poor and the Low when God Respecteth not Persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him And therefore I would earnestly Beg every one the bent of whose spirit carryeth him that way according to the Requirement of the Apostle to try their spirits whether they are of God or not 1 Joh. 4. 1. and to Examine their Wisdom in this case of Persecution whether it be that Wisdom that is from above which is first Pure then Peaceable Gentle and Easie to be Intreated full of Mercy and good Fruits without Partiality without Hypocrisie Jam 3. 17. Whether it be without Partiality whether they would be willing to be served so themselves whether if they have at any time undergone Persecution for Conscience sake and have not cryed out against it as abominable as the Roman Catholicks and Episcopals have done in that Grand Usurper Oliver Cromwels dayes and the General Baptists confident I am should have done had he longer continued Even as they with others now do and as that People of the Presbyterian perswasion suddenly unless my judgement greatly fail me will do if this Horrid Rome-bred Persecuâ—ing Spirit still be Predominant in England which is