Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	aaron_n	call_v	priesthood_n	21	3	9.6725	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65239	An humble apologie for learning and learned men by Edward Waterhous, Esq.	Waterhouse, Edward, 1619-1670.	1653 (1653)	Wing W1048; ESTC R826	172,346	272

that those men who have some gifts and think they are rich in them having need of nothing when alas they are blind and naked Rev. 3. 17. make Calves of those gifts they have and by them tempt the people to Idolize them and their gifts yea and to contemn the Ministry and Ordinances of the Church crying up themselves as the instruments that brought men from Superstition into the glorious light of Truth and liberty of the Gospel Thus they thrust their sickle into anothers Harvest and reap where they sowed not Alas every man is not a lawfull Labourer in the Vineyard that breaks through the hedge and toyles therein without and against the leave of the lawful Master of the Vine-yard No man in the Church is to do any thing but he that is a Church-man upon penalty of presumption Good intents do not warrant bad actions nor do ready Wills alwayes argue just Calls The Priests onely were to touch the Ark What had Uzza the Levite to do with it 'T was enough for him to touch the barres of it●… though the Ark was agitated to and fro yet had he not warrant to take hold on it He should have minded the Ministration he was appointed to but his care out-runing his Call his life was taken away God struck him with death who first assaulted him by a bold presumption 'T is a wonder to me that any man should think his own Arrogancie warrant for his actions especially in matters of the highest and most important consequence whereas in secular and civil affairs not a mans own word but his Superiours authority and qualification enables him Who dares take upon him to raise Forces lay Taxes levy Contributions punish offenders or negotiate with Forraign States but those who are the designed Officers thereto and yet in the matters of God in the dispensation of his holy mysteries every man will be a Priest and a Prophet as if it were pardonable onely to be disorderly in Religion and as if God had connived at lawlesse Liberty where the danger of miscarrying is most fatal The Apostle speaking of the Priesthood saies No man taketh this honour upon him but he that is called of God as was Aaron asserting thereby that Aarons Priest-hood was not by his own assumption he was not a Priest because he would be so but he was so because God called him thereto and honoured him thereby yea our Lord Christs Priest-hood and the glory of it was from his Father who said unto him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee which Priest-hood of Christ continuing in the Churches Succession by virtue of that of our Lord to his disciples As my Father hath sent me so send I you is also to exclude all men from Lawful officiating who are not Called thereto in a Church Order and by Church hands And if Uzziah a great King and a good man in the sight of God 2 Chron. 26. transgressed against God in taking the Office of the Priests on him Why shall we think they of a meaner degree may And therefore let not the people say of the Ministry of this once glorious Church which some men would rejoyce to see with Christ Jesus on the Crosse exposed to shame and torment as the Rebellious and Idolatrous Israelites did of Moses when he was in the Mount with God Exod. 32. 1. As for this man Moses we know not what is become of him crying out for gifted men as they call them in opposition to their learned Ministers as they did for their molten Calfe let them not venture Eternity upon the Prescripts of blind Guides who have no better warrant no other Credentials to entitle them to Church labour then their own impudence having a yearly and a monthly faith a faith of times not Gospel as Turtullian elegantly on such to trust is to build on stubble and straw and lean on Egyptian reeds which will falter and deceive us in our greatest need being like those Flores horae which I have seen very pleasant but dead and withdrawn in a trice for this to do were to provoke God to remove our true Teachers into corners and to make the word of Life a dead letter to us To make the Gospel hidden to us as to those that are lost For my part my repair shall be to God and his holy Ministers in all spiritual doubts and disconsolacies and from them I shall never be ashamed to receive correction and instruction I am of his mind who had rather be a Member of the Church then head of the heathen Empire I admire those Ages most which had greatest devotion to the Church and condemn that wherein the Clergy is decried I love to see Solomons throne guarded with learned worthies smile who will at the decay of Schools and scorn of Presbyters mine eye shall pity my tongue shall speak my pen shall write for them yea were I as happy as Solomon was for wealth I would make their tables be full and their cups to run over This were indeed to help the Lord against the mighty the mighty Goliahs of Rome who by this way of vilipendency hope to give our Clergies flesh to be food for the birds of the Air whose triumphs rife from the Churches viduation from her learnings contempt and prosternation Hence are thy Jubilies O Church once beloved but not now beloved hence your Ovations O children of the Papacy to see the Protestant Clergy miserable and poor and blind and naked to see them hopelesse to out live the wildernesse of hardship and probable to dye issuelesse if no after-springs should grow to disquiet you is much your interest This evil to deprecate and as far as in us lies to prevent were indeed to help the Lord against the mighty hoasts of Atheists which are come forth to revile the armies of the living God these no less mischievous then the former subject faith to reason and proclaim the Ministry and all Church administrations secular deceits and subtile frauds invented upon rules and designs of state policy What Calderinus said of the Masse that say they of Churches Sermons Sacraments Let us go to the common errors these dispute heaven hel Scripture conscience severity of life into meer nullities giving them no better footing then civil symbolizing with people amongst whom we live and with whom converse and making them obligatory and restrictive to us as we understand them or as others may to whom by contrary living we are to give no offence not allowing them that power and Energy which God hath imprinted on them and which are experienced to be in them by the attestation of the Saints Martyrs who have found these working on them to a grand provocation of holy caution and circumspection checking them when they were ready as it were to engage in actions displeasing to God and detractful from the honour of their holy profession It is a sad and inglorious note of ingratitude

I never know or read any man blame his endeavours or wish the time he hath spent in study recallable But rather give God thanks that put it into the thought of his heart by raising a structure of art to adorn the Bridechamber of his Intellect the gallery of his Fancy the parlour of his Judgement the entertayning room of his Conversation nay such a man rather hath thought himself only so long to live as he hath lived in the discovery gain of Learning Blush then ye stupid souls of this age whose folly it is to bluster against this divine quality and rank of men who would as willingly ruine them as Baalam have cursed Israel if God had suffered him who have their high places of Peor and tops of Pisgah from whence to veiw and execrate the utmost quarters of the learned who cry as the wicked of the Church Down Down with it even to the ground let the name of Learned perish and let their seed beg their bread who thinke they doe God no service unlesse as Orosius wittily Delubra omnia flagitio dedecore turpitudine ac immanitate contaminarent who make the times such as Saint Bernard cries out against O seculum nequam quod solos tuos sic soles beare amicos ut Dei facias inimicos These are they who are so far in love with themselves that they think the world only made for them the learned Lord Bacon that great Oracle of this age describes them well Omnia saith he ad se referunt gerentes se pro Centro mundi a●… si omnes lineae in se suisque fortunis debeant concurrere de Reipublicae navi licet tempestatibus jactata neutiquam solliciti modo in scapha rerum suarum receptus detur refugium These are the Iannes and Iambres that withstand Moses and perswade others by their ill example to vilifie and debase the Church and its Ministry and because they have the lamps of Virgines will by all means be counted spiritually wise though they have no oyle on which to feed their holy fire and lights no true and saving knowledge for that makes the soule humble and patient but a running extaticknes which no man understands but themselves and a dislike of Scripture words and wayes being above Ordinances Governments Relations and aiming at an universall liberty to say and do what they please without controu le of God or his Deputies on earth Governours I am of Aeneas Sylvius his mind 'T is a vaine religion which gives Patrociny to wickednesse the Sacraments of the Church are no bands of iniquity but conveyances of comfort Let these beware God will bee visible in his judgement on these Ranters who because they are subtile conclude themselves not wicked and because they seem to be good think the world believers them so S. Ambrose against these lessons us well When sin hath a secret to hide it self in then is it saith he most dangerous To speak for Virtue and live to Vice is vanity in S. Cyprians judgement Will not God to these appear terrible when he sets their sins in order before their faces and arraigns them for having a form of godlinesse pretending motions of his Spirit to do things against his word his worship his Servants Will he not be to these if they repent not as he threatneth Hosea 5. 12. I will be to Ephraim as a moth and to the house of Iudah as rottennesse and v. 14. I will tear and go away and none shall rescue Against these so loose so litigious so scandalous to God and good Government I beseech you O Powers strengthen the Church and her servitours by your Countenance and unfained Zeal fear not Goliah though he come with despight and all imaginable fiercenesse Principes multam nutriunt pestilentiam dum necessariam non adhibent medicinam The little David of Christian courage will kindle against this Philistine and encounter him holy engagements for God like Aarons Rod bud afresh and return as Israel from the Philistines rich in successe there is nothing more a Governours duty as that wiseman said to Numa then to see that God be honoured and people Governed rightly and made obedient to good Laws and good Law-makers and that the gentle carriage of those that Rule may invite them that are ruled to be gentle after their example Let who will cry up multidudes I shall not for I find them disorderly vain injudicious cruel like Rivers sinking every thing that is solid and bearing up what ever is light their traffick is in the nothings of bubbles swellings of waves and bladders of words and those Governours neglect themselves and their people who do not answer their mutinies with punishments and encourage their obedience with justice protection and honest ease and liberty but if they desire more then is their due or they know how to be happy with let them have that reproof which S. Basil gave Valens the Emperors pratling Cook Look you to your Pot and Dresse that they be savoury or which Alexander gave his mutinous rabble otherwise there wil be no hoe with them as the phrase is Not that I think it safe or honourable to rule with Rigour but for that it is more to good mens peace to have Government tite and stiffe girt and more to their content to live where nothing then where every thing is lawful That noble grave Roman Appius Claudius gave gallant counsel to the Senate against submission to the vulgarity telling them of many Graecian Cities who by yeilding had ruin'd themselves and been a president of ill to the world while they suffered evils to grow through impunity and assure them that if they resign the Government to the rude people 't will be all one as if the body should rule the soul and therefore he wishes them not to perplex well ordered Government not to change laudable customs not to take away fidelity the firmest bond of humane societies and that which makes us differ from beasts who prey one upon another but to stand for order and maintain that peace which just and wise Governours ought to labour for and to overthrow which rude multitudes do ever aim Thus he and wisely to for to give people way contrary to law and judgement is to make Power become their Minister to spoils furies and inhumanities and therefore every good Magistrate should resolve if he perish he 'l perish in doing his duty for in so doing he may expect Gods Custody While the Mid-wives of Egypt feared God they had houses built for them Power and Honour is never better founded then when on true Religion and Zeal for God on justice and moderate liberty to men-wards the Covenant of peace followed Phineas his zeal and continued the everlasting Priest-hood to his seed after him Numb 13. 25. I care not who knows my thoughts I hate secret contrivements Fauxes tricks and underhand dealings are