Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	according_a	scripture_n	word_n	4,378	5	4.4433	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75811	The Christian moderator: the second part; or, Persecution for religion condemned by the light of nature. Law of God. Evidence of our own principles. With an explanation of the Roman Catholick belief, concerning these four points: their church, worship, justification and civill government. Whereunto there are new additions since the octavo was printed.; Christian moderator. Part 2	Birchley, William, 1613-1669.	1652 (1652)	Wing A4246; ESTC R225799	36,103	34

That now the wisdom of the Parliament applying it self to establish the people of this Common-wealth in a quiet and setled condition your Petitioners take up an humble confidence that they alone shall not be excluded from so universall a benefit And therefore humbly pray that the Laws and proceedings concerning them may be taken into consideration and such clemency and compassion used towards them by Composition or otherwise as in the judgement of this honourable House may consist with the publike peace and your Petitioners comfortable lie ving in their native Country And they further humbly pray that it would please the Parliament to vouchsafe them the permission of clearing their Religion from whatsoever may be inconsistent with Government which will assuredly be done to full satisfaction if there may be a Committee appointed by this honourable House on whom they may have the priviledge to attend And your Petitioners shall ever pray c. THis to my sense bears it self with so much respect and submissiveness in the stile that it can no wayes be interpreted misbecoming the duty of good and peaceable subjects and for the matter of the Petition it seems to my eye so reasonable that I cannot believe but after a little patience till other more generall affairs afford the Parliament leisure it will certainly receive a satisfactory and relieving Answer Especially since not onely such Papists whose moderate delinquency leaves them some hope of mercy nor such who for preservation of their lives were forced to flye into the late kings Garrisons without ever acting any thing against the State but even the most innocent who all this while have sate still under so many pressures and never were charged with other accusation than their Religion yet all freely and humbly submit in this Petition to the absolute pleasure of the Parliament for Rules of Composition and this as to the single Papist for an offence which in no other society of Christians in this Nation is accounted any crime at all being meerly their different judgement in Religion a proceeding wherein certainly we shall use too much severity and partiality if we make it not onely unpardonable but unredeemable In the close of their Petition they humbly beg the favour of an opportunity to satisfy the Parliament in the point of consistency with Civil Government which being the chief Objection that without passion can be made against them surely we should not take offence at their most diligent applications and utmost endeavours to deliver themselves from so destructive a charge laid upon their Religion In order to which performance it seems divers Papists of considerable quality unanimously agreed upon this following Explanation to declare and witnes to the world the perfect consistency of their Religion both with civill society joyning also in the same paper the like expressions of their Belief concerning some few other points which they were informed to be more obnoxious to exception than the rest As the under-valuing of holy Scripture and over-valuing the authority of the Church Invocation of Saints and Angels and worship of Images and above all the proud opinion of Merits This paper they drew up as a preparatory to a more full and perfect clearing of their Faith from those prejudices and misunderstandings which ordinarily men of different perswasions entertain especially in Controversies about matters of Religion The Paper containing certain Doctrins of the Papists and by them delivered to divers persons of quality for their particular satisfaction WE believe the holy Scriptures to be of divine inspiration and infallible Authority and whatsoever is therein contained we firmly assent unto as to the word of God the Author of all Truth 1. But since in the holy Scriptures there are some things hard to be understood which the ignorant and unstable wrest to their own destruction we therefore professe for the ending of controversies in our Religion and setling of peace in our Consciences to submit our private judgments to the judgement of the Church represented in a free Generall Council 2. We humbly believe the sacred Mysterie of the Blessed Trinity one Eternal Almighty and incomprehensible God whom onely we adore and worship as alone having Soveraign dominion over all things to whom onely we acknowledge as due from men and Angels all glory service and obedience abhorring from our hearts as a most detestabbe sacriledge to give our Creators honor to any creature whatsoever And therefore we solemnly protest that by the prayers we addresse to Angels and Saints we intend no other then humbly to sollicit their assistance before the throne of God as we desire the prayers of one another here upon earth not that we hope any thing from them as originall authors thereof but from God the fountain of all goodnesse through Jesus Christ our onely Mediator and Redeemer Neither do we believe any divinity or vertue to be in images for which they ought to be worshipped as the Gentiles did their Idols but we retain them with due and decent respect in our Churches as instruments which we find by experience do often assist our memories and excite our affections 3. We firmly believe that no force of nature nor dignity of our best works can merit our Justification but we are justified freely by grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ And although we should by the grace of God persevere unto the end in a godly life and holy obedience to the Commandements yet are our hopes of eternall glory still built upon the mercy of God and the merits of Christ Jesus All other merits according to our sense of that word signifie no more then actions done by the assistance of Gods grace to which it has pleased his gooodness to promise a reward a Doctrine so far from being unsuitable to the sense of the holy Scriptures that it is their principal design to invite and provoke us to a diligent observance of the Commandements by promising heaven as the reward of our obedience 1 Tim. 4. 8. Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of this life and of that which is to come And Rom 2. 6. God will render to every man according to his deeds to them who by patient confidence in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life And again Rom. 8. 13. If you live after the flesh you shall dye but if through the Spirit you mortifie the deeds of the body you shall live And Heb. 6. 10. God is not unjust to forget your work and labour of love which you have shewed for his name c. Nothing being so frequently repeated in the word of God as his gracious promises to recompence with everlasting glory the faith and obedience of his servants Nor is the bounty of God barely according to our works but high and plentifull even beyond our capacities giving full measure heaped up pressed down and running over into the bosoms of all that love him

Thus we believe the merit or reward ablenesse of holy living both which signifie the same thing with us arises not from the self-value even of our best actions as they are ours but from the grace and bounty of God and for our selves we sincerely professe when we have done all those things which are commanded us we are unprofitable servants having done nothing but that which was our duty so that our boasting is not in our selves but all our glorying is in Christ 4. We firmly believe and highly reverence the Morall Law being so solemnly delivered to Moses upon the Mount so expresly confirmed by our Saviour in the Gospel and containing in it so perfect an Abridgement of our whole duty both to God and man Which Morall Law we believe obliges all men to proceed with faithfulnesse and sincerity in their mutuall contracts one towards another and therefore our constant Profession is that we are most strictly and absolutely bound to the exact and entire performance of our promises made to any person of what Religion soever much more to the Magistrates and Civil powers under whose protection we live whom we are taught by the word of God to obey not onely for fear but for consci●nce sake and to whom we will most faithfully observe our promises of duty and obedience notwithstanding any dispensation absolution or any other proceedings of any forraign power or authority whatsoever Wherefore we utterly deny and renounce that false and scandalous Position that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks as most uncharitably imputed to our practices and most unjustly pinned upon our religion These we sincerely and solemnly professe as in the sight of God the searcher of all hearts taking the words plainly and simply in their usuall and familiar sense without any equivocation or mental reservation whatsoever THese expressions concerning four of the most offensive points wherein the Papists differ from us have I confesse given me a great and unexpected satisfaction And though I remain in the same mind as to the erroniousnesse of many of their Tenets yet I see we may easily be too passionate in the degree of detesting any different opinion since every error is not presently to be censured as an unsufferable abomination and too severe in the degree of persecuting the dissenters from our own judgements as if they were unworthy to breath the same air with our selves Certainly many Protestants who quietly enjoy a just and unmolested freedome approach very near to the first assertion of the Papists whilst some both writers and discoursers professe to submit their private judgements unappealably to a truly-free Generall Councell that she might once have an end of all strife and contention about matters of Religion others refer themselves without further instance to a Provinciall Assembly of Divines and very few but will prefer the judgement of the Supreme authority of this Nation before their own particular sense readily conforming to that Declaration which the Parliament shall hold forth to be the true meaning of the Scripture So that almost every one agrees in the acknowledgement of an external authority to decide such Controversies as arise out of the different interpretation of their faith upon the Churches sleeve and yield a blind obedience that is without appealing any further to her determination And for the second Branch I am sure many Protestants continue still those old customes of baring their heads when they come into a Church nay of bowing at the name of Jesus Practices that ly open to the greatest part of those objections which our more godly and conscientious penns make against the Papists in the question of Pictures yet I hope there will never be the least thought entertained of imposing penalties upon the private and unscandalous use of any such Ceremonies Rather let us apply our endeavours to open their eys with a mild and gentle hand than beat them out with the club-fist of the Law But when I reflect upon the third conclusion in the Recusants Paper I am astonished to consider how Education with a little mixture of Passion or interest makes every slight distemper amongst Christians which of it self were easily curable so desperate that it often becomes irrecoverable and endangers both the health and life of Christianity Surely in many things we strangely mistake one another I professe sincerely I should be so far from seising on the Estate of a Papist for refusing that part of the Oath of Abjuration wherein he is compelled to renounce the Doctrine of merits that I am resolved to suffer a thousand deaths rather then abjure so great and manifest a truth according to the sense wherein they explain themselves or affirm so great and manifest an Errour according to the sense wherein we explain our selves For when we censure the Doctrine of Merits we understand by that word our deserts as they exclude the merits of Christ and abstracting from the Covenant God hath been pleased to make with us in his Son and in that sense we justly condemne all opinions of Merit even of the best works as presumptuous and Luciferian But I now see when the Papists affirm that good works are meritorious they include both the promise of God and the merits of Christ Jesus and in effect when all is summed up it amounts only to this That God hath graciously promised and will faithfully keep his word to reward all those with eternall life that believe in him and obey his Commandements In this sense the Papists hold mercifulnes to be meritorious or available to salvation because the Scripture sayes Blessed are the mercifull for they shall obtain mercy Matth. 5. 7. In this sense the Papists hold patience in affliction to be meritorious or available to Salvation because the Scripture sayes Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousnesse sake for theirs is the Kingdome of heaven Mat. 5. 10. And this as I am informed by very understanding men amongst them is the reall truth of their Doctrine concerning good works which in my judgement differs nothing from ours but onely in the unsavoury and proud-sounding word merit The last Cause of the Papists Note which I have transcribed is so full and satisfactory that if they will be as good as their words I shall neither fear to have such neighbours nor need any Magistrate fear to have such Subjects And to prove their trustinesse and fidelity in the observance of their oaths I cannot imagin a more evident demonstration then that they make a conscience of what oaths they take He that swears any thing without distinction may justly be suspected to be as false to men as he is fearlesse of God whereas no clearer argument can be alledged in the behalf of any that they intend to keep all the oaths they take then this that they will not take all the oaths you offer surely if the Pope or their own consciences could give them this extravagant priviledge to be bound by no oath