Selected quad for the lemma: power_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	church_n	minister_n	ordination_n	2,890	5	10.2282	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60930	A candle lighted at a coal from the altar whereby the King and rulers of this nation with the people of this present age may see the stone on which many have stumbled, and the rock which hath broken to pieces unfaithful men once in authority, who instead of protecting, did persecute the people of God, when they had the high places of the earth in possession, and that these present rulers may take warning betimes, least they stumble at the same rock, and while they have opportunity they may rather become as nursing-fathers to the flock of God within these dominions, by giving due encouragement to tender consciences, and men fearing God as in matters of religion / and this is directed unto you by a subject of the King of Righteousness, Tho. Salthouse.	Salthouse, Thomas, 1630-1691.	1660 (1660)	Wing S471; ESTC R13989	18,411	26

to be used in or about the Worship of God Likewise several Clauses and Articles of Ordinances and Acts of Parliament repealed which did impose Penalties upon people for not coming to Parish Churches for not keeping Holy Daies and for not hearing the Common Prayer with Penalties enjoyned to be imposed upon such as should use or read the Common Prayer in any Church or Chappel or private Family as may appear by several Ordinances and Acts of Parliament about that Year 44 and many Carnal invented Ordinances of the Church of Rome as sprinkling infants at the Funt finging before the dead bowing to the high Altar rails about the Communion Tables and abundance of such like things relating to the Worship and Service of God which was known to be but meer scraps and Rags of Popery were denied as beggarly Elements and rudiments of the world and no Ordinances of Jesus Christ to be practised among the Protestants Now these were good beginnings in order towards a Reformation in spiritual things and in relation to Church Worship but alas we have seen many good appearances and such fair promises come to little or nothing that we are jealous with a Godly Jealousie lest the old Serpent should deceive these Rulers and draw them back into bondage again in things of this Nature as he hath done them that formerly had the ordering and disposing of the great Affairs of this Kingdom who promised a Reformation both in Church and State and yet after these old corrupted Popish Ceremonies and Laws relating to spiritual Cognizance so called was abolished by the King Parliament Protector and his Councel they soon fell from those good beginnings and sought to set up themselves and their own Interests and then Religion was little regarded but as a Cloak for them to carry their own designs under and when they were setled in the high places then Magistrates and the Priests of the high Places consulted and took Councel together against the Lord and against his Annointed and instead of the old superstitious Laws and Ordinances they began to make new Laws to limit the Spirit to their Directions and Prescriptions and Observations by which the Servants and Handmaids of the Lord whose Consciences were tender and could not deny one Form to take up another instead thereof was haled before their Judgment Seats and somtimes whipped persecuted fined and imprisoned for reproving sin in the Gates for not swearing for meeting together in the fear of the Lord such like things until the Lord pleaded with the Rulers and visited for those things and made that Rock against which they strove and could not prevail a stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence on which they are fallen and broken to pieces Likewise King Charles the first and his Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament took away the High Commission Court when they saw the many harms and inconveniences that were in it and that it was a great snare and a bondage to tender Consciences and abolished several Acts and Ordinances that did bind people in an uniformity thereunto as may at large appear by an Act of the Parliament begun and held at Westminster the third of the ninth month called November in the year 1649. In which Act it is expressed that no Arch Bishop Bishop nor Vicar-general nor no Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Judg exercising Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power or Authority shall by any grant license or Commission of the Kings Majesty his Heirs or Successors from and after the first of August 1●41 inflict any pain penalty or fine amercement imprisonment or other Corporal punishment upon any of the Kings Subjects for any matter or thing whatsoever belonging to Spiritual Cognizance or Jurisdiction and that they shall not administer any Corporal Oath whereby any may be forced to confess or accuse themselves in any offence whereby they are liable or exposed to any censure pain penalty or punishment on a spiritual account upon pain that every person who shall offend contrary to the Act above mentioned shall forfeit and pay treble dammage to every person thereby grieved and the sum of 100 pound to him or them who shall first demand or sue for the same Now this was a Legal Authority and this Act remains in as full force and vertue as if there had been no interruption of that power or as if it had been made by the King and Parliament now in being and therefore it may be expected that the Kings Subjects shall not suffer any penalty for not swearing or upon any spiritual account whatsoever for the King hath discharged all Judges and Ministers of Justice in the name of himself his Heirs and Successors not to impose any Oath pain penalty or punishment upon any person or persons male or female as upon a spiritual account and if the Kings Successors shall put this Law in execution it will be some ease to tender Consciences and will give the good people of these Nations hopes that a Reformation may yet be wrought and compleated in this Nation after all these strange alterations and overturnings though it is contrary to the expectation of many from any thing that appears visible Consider in time what the Lord God requires at your hands who are now intrusted with the Government and bring not upon the Nation the old Antichristian yoak of bondage which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear let Christ Jesus the Everlasting high Priest who is the souls Bishop have the whole power in the Church as the head of it and let him order all things therein according to his Heavenly Wisdom and wonderful Councel both as to the Calling Ordination and sending forth Ministers to preach the Everlasting Gospel and Pastors according to his own heart and mind that the people may be fed with knowledg and understanding and let these Ministers sent forth by Christ who have the mind of Christ and do abide in his Doctrine have free Liberty without persecution to preach the Gospel in all the Provinces of these Dominions and suffer no Judg nor Minister of Justice to inflict any Penalty or Corporal punishment upon them on this spiritual account nor to cast them into prison for the Testimony which they hold and which is agreeable to the Testimony of Jesus the Word of God and Scripture of Truth for it is both against the Law of God also against the good Laws of this Nation that any man should suffer punishment persecution or imprisonment on any Religious or Spiritual account whatsoever Therefore let the world know even your adversaries themselves that you are of the Christian Religion by giving due encouragement to tender Consciences and to Christs Ministers to preach the Word in season and out of season without molestation or interruption by any colour or pretence of Authority derived from that higher Power For he who ascended up on high who led Captivity captive hath given gifts unto men for the work of that Ministry that there

A Candle lighted At a Coal from the ALTAR Whereby the KING and RULERS of this Nation with the People of this present Age may see the STONE on which many have stumbled and the ROCK which hath broken to pieces unfaithful men once in Authority who instead of protecting did persecute the People of God when they had the High Places of the Earth in possession And that these present Rulers may take warning betimes least they stumble at the same Rock and while they have opportunity they may rather become as Nursing-Fathers to the Flock of God within these Dominions by giving due encouragement to tender Consciences and men fearing God as in matters of Religion And this is directed unto you by a subject of the King of Righteousness THO. SALTHOUSE Zeph. 1.12 And it shall come to pass that I will search Jerusalem with Candles and punish the men that are setled upon their Lees that say in their hearts The Lord will not do good neither will he do evil London Printed for Thomas Simmons at the Bull and Mouth near Aldersgate 1660. THE Vision of all hath been as the words of a Book sealed which could neither be read by the learned nor unlearned for no man in Heaven nor in Earth was found worthy to open the Book and to loose the Seals and to read thereon but the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah that root and off-spring of David who hath prevailed to open it and darkness hath covered all the Kingdoms of the world and all the Kindreds of the Earth for many ages and generations and the Great Whore arayed in Purple and Scarlet colour and decked with gold and silver and pretious stones hath had her seat upon the waters which is multitudes and peoples and tongues and languages having in her hand a golden Cup filled with abominations and with the filthiness of her fornication and with her the Kings and Inhabitants of the Earth have committed spiritual fornication and have drunk of the Wine of her fornication and they have given their power unto the Beast and the false prophet who maketh War against the Lamb and his followers and they have drunk the blood of the Martyrs and Saints and have by their Lawes compelled all both free and bond high and low rich and poor to receive that mark of the Beast and to bow down and worship his Image but the faithful witnesses that had the Testimony of Jesus and the Word of God who could not for Conscience sake bow to the Image of the Beast nor receive his mark have they slain in the streets of that great City spiritually called Sodom and Egypt where our Lord Jesus Christ also was crucified by the Princes of the Gentiles who did not know him and by force and violence in these last dayes and perilous times since there hath been a departing from the Faith once delivered unto the Saints have the Princes of this world exercised Lordship over the heritage of God by compelling and forcing people ignorantly to worship the unknown God in the Idols Tempels under pains and penalties of banishment burning stigmatizing stoning to death imprisonment and the like and all the penalties inflicted upon and sustained by the Servants of God and Saints of the Most High hath been by vertue of Authority derived from the higher Power or from men in holy Order as they have been stiled so that all the persecution of tender Consciences and of the Prophets and Saints about Religion and Religious exercises have been and may justly be charged upon the higher Power and holy Church so called and all that have been cast into Prison for the Testimony of Jesus and the Word of God hath been in the name of the higher Power and all that have suffered the spoiling of their goods and the loss of liberty and estates for not putting into the hireling Priests mouths hath been by the higher Powers as in the behalf of God and holy Church and many have suffered for these things as it hath been said in his Highness his name in this last time of Apostacy in which the day hath been dark over the Prophets that they have not had any Vision or Answer of God nor Revelation from him but have denyed Revelation and immediate Inspiration and have been in darkness and blindness as in the land of the shadow and death by whose instigation cruel yokes of bondage have been imposed upon the Israel of God in this long night of darkness and confusion but in patience have we waited for him whose coming was prepared as the morning and in answer to our earnest expectation in an acceptable time when there was none to help the Arm of the Lord was made bare to bring Salvation And now the Everlasting Day-star hath appeared and the God of all the Families of the Earth is bringing a remnant of Righteous Souls out of that Egyptian darkness which hath covered the whole earth in the time of Antichrists Reign and from under that thick vail which hath been spread over this and all Nations hath the Lord delivered a People that sometimes were walking in darkness and wandring from Mountain to Mountain in the night of Apostacy as old Israel did in the cloudy and dark day like sheep without a shepherd and as Israel after the flesh was delivered from their great bondage and hard servitude in outward Egypt and Babylon even so hath the Lord called and by his own Arm gathered his People out of spiritual Egypt and Babylon where they long mourned in desolation under the power of a strange King and cruel Task-masters and this people are fully perswaded in their minds not to return back into Egypt again but to travel on through the Kingdoms of Edom the borders of Moab until they come to the promised Land which is purchased to be a possession and peaceable habitation for them and their off-sping from generation to generation And this people whom the Lord hath called out of darkness into his marvellous light are a dispised people mis-represented to men in Authority as diverse in their Lawes and Customs from all other people and they are reproached with that name of distinction which is the Object of their adversaries indignation being reproachfully called Quakers because they tremble at the Word of the Lord and walkes humbly before him and since the time that the Lord hath appeared for our Salvation and Deliverance out of darkness bondage and captivity and since we set our faces towards Zion the City of Truth we have been tryed with cruel mockings bonds and imprisonments and we have born the reproaches of Moab and the revilings of the children of Ammon yea both Gabel Ammon and Ameleck have set themselves in opposition against Gods peculiar treasure and the uncircumcised in heart and eares Ashur and the Philistians hath joyned with them to help the incestuous children of Lot in their cruelty persecution and opposition against the Lords Servants those weak things of the world