Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A61911
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A plea for tolleration of opinions and perswasions in matters of religion, differing from the Church of England. Grounded upon good authority of Scripture, and the practice of the primitive times. Shewing the unreasonablenesse of prescribing to other mens faith, and the evil of persecuting differing opinions. / Humbly presented to the kings most excellent majesty, by John Sturgion, a member of the Baptized People.
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Sturgion, John.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing S6093; ESTC R208120
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10,549
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20
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are perswaded by order from their King and the world is witness how prosperous they have been since they have left fighting for Religion among themselves Reas. 6. The sixt and last Reason I have taken from the ill success that alwayes attends such proceedings for whoever used force upon the body to change the mind or to make men believe something they are not perswaded of or to disbelieve something they have received for truth or to leave off worshipping God in that way which they think is most agreeable to his will they will have no better success than that man had that clapt his shoulder to the ground to stop the earth-quake and the experiences which Christendom hath had in this last Age are sufficient instances when France fought amongst themselves the Catholicks against the Hugonets the spilling of their own blood was Argument enough of the imprudence of that way of promoting Religion and that all the blood shed in open Arms and private Massacres could not prevent their further growth nor extinguish that light that sprung up amongst that People and the name of the Hugonets is not onely still in France but they and their Religion Tollerated But the great instance is in the differing temper Government and success which Margaret of Parma and the Duke of Alva had the clemency of the first had almost extinguished the Flame but when she was removed and Duke Alva succeeded and Mannaged the matter of Religion with fire and sword 〈◊〉 made the flame so great that his Religion and his Prince too have been quite turned out of a great part of the Country And we are not without example nearer home in Queen Maries dayes what Force and Violence was there used to make the People believe as the Queen and her Bishops believed some was burnt to death some destroyed in Persons and many that scaped with life were undone in their estates and lively-hood and all this was so unsuccesful as to the suppressing their further growth that it did the quite contrary for the more they were opprest the more they grew I shall onely add a passage out of Learned Bishop Taylor in his Epistle to his Liberty of Prophesie page 25. But it is saith he observed by Socrates that when the first Persecution was made against them that is such as differed in Opinion from the Bishop at Rome by Pope Innocent the first at the same instant the Gothes invaded Italy and become Lords of all it being just in God to bring a persecution upon them for true belief who with an incompetent Authority and insufficient Grounds do persecute an errour lesse material in persons agreeing with them in the profession of the same common Faith The next thing I humbly offer to Your Princely consideration is the Divine Bond upon our Hearts to worship God according to our Light and the crying sin we must commit if we shall resist our own understanding and refuse to obey the Command of God upon our Conscience to assemble our selves together for his Worship and that we ought to esteem our duty to God much dearer than our Estates Liberty or Lives And our Souls are fully perswaded that it is our duty to meet together and speak often one to another to exhort each other daily to take heed of sin and to follow after vertue and to presse after the Mark of our High Calling of God in Christ Iesus our Lord and to provoke to love and good works and if any be overtaken in a fault to restore them in the Spirit of meekness and to relieve the poor and to support the weak that by bearing one anothers burthens we may fulfill the Law of Christ and to walk so inoffensively in our conversation as to give no Iust occasion neither to your Majesty as Supream Magistrate nor to any of your Ministers under you nor to any of the People or Neighbours about us but to observe that excellent Law of Christ Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them and if any shall persecute us for our Profession-sake to bear it with patience and not to return evil for evil nor reviling for reviling but contrary-wise to do them good for evil and to pray for them that their eyes may be opened and that God may not lay their sin in this case to their charge Now if Your Majesty will but consider what it is which the Baptized People and divers others have made such earnest suite to your Majesty for it is not for Titles of Honours nor for places of great profit either in a Civil or Ecclesiastical Capacity but onely this is their request and humble desire that we may serve the Lord without molestation in that Faith and order which we have Learned in the Holy Scripture giving Honour to our King to whom Honour belongs fear to whom fear Tribute to whom Tribute belong in every thing as far as we have abilities to render to God the things that are Gods and to the Magistrate the things that are His. Rom. 13.7 We likewise judge it our duty to be alwayes willing and ready to give an Answer to every man that shall ask us a Reason of our Hope that is in us with meekness and fear Now if any who judge themselves to be spiritual Guides will but take the pains to endeavour our conviction if they think we erre or at least to hear what we have to say why we dissent from the Publick worship we doubt not but through the Grace of God we shall be able to give such an account of our Faith and Practice that we do not deserve those Epithets some are please do give us I shall onely transcribe one passage out of that Ingenious Doctor Dr. Ieremiah Taylor which I find in Sect. 18. number 34. of his Liberty of Prophesie he speaking of the Anabaptists saith That since there is no direct impietie in the Opinion nor any that is apparently consequent to it and they with so much probability do or may pretend to true perswasion they are with all means Christian fair and humane to be Redargued or instructed but if they cannot be perswaded they must be left to God who knoweth every degree of every mans understanding all his weaknesses and strengths what impresse each Argument maketh upon his spirit and how unresistable every Reason is and he alone judges his Innocency and sinceritie And for the question I think there is so much to be pretented against that which I believe to be the truth that there is much more truth than evidence on our side and therefore we may be confident as for our own particulars but not too forward peremptorily to prescribe to others much lesse to damn or to kill or to persecute them that onely in this Particular disagree So far he I shall conclude with this Humble Petition that seeing Your Majesty hath been most earnestly supplicated by many Petitions Addresses and Papers to continue Your former Indulgence Oh that Your Majesty would be Gratiously Pleased to do something in it that may recommend Your Name to be embalmed by them for perpetuity through the remembrance of Your Just Righteous and Merciful Actions in breaking every Yoak of Oppression and to the easing of the Conscience of every man professing Jesus Christ from all Unrighteous Impositions And as this will administer Peace Joy and Comfort to many of Your Suffering Subjects so it will bring most excellent Consolation unto Your Majesties Soul when the Heavens shall be no more And as Your Majesty desires to be found on the right hand of the great Judge in that his day so in this Your day to remember and consider that Magistracy and Power of Government are no Institutions of God either to fill the Purses or to furnish the Tables or to lift up the Minds or in any kind to gratifie the flesh of those in whom they are invested but rather to serve to accomodate and bless the Societies and Communities of men on earth unto which they relate respectively according to that worthy Item which the Queen of Sheba gave unto Solomon Because the Lord loved Israel for ever therefore made he thee King to do Iudgement Iustice. 1 Kin. 10.9 The same Lord and Mighty God so over-shadow Your Majesty with his Power and Good Spirit that the conceptions of Your Heart may be Holinesse to him Wealth and Peace and gladness of Heart to the People of these Great and Famous Kingdoms the Government whereof God hath been pleased to intrust with You to Your Royal Self Honour and Safety and length of Dayes with the Peace and Joy of a good Conscience on earth and a far more exceeding Eternal weight of Glory in the Heavens So Prayeth Your Humble and Dutiful Subject JOHN STURGION THE END 1 Pet. 1. 12. 2 Cor. 3. 18. Eze. 18. 20. The Apologie of the Baptized People of London The Linconshire two addresses The Kentish Petition and many more to that Purpose 2 Cor. 10. v. 5. Gal. 6. ◠Mat. 7.12 There were very sharp contentions about Religion amongst the Holland Ministers at that time King Iames adviseth the Magistrate to moderate them not to kill or punish them for they may both be saved Heb. 10. 25. Mat. 7. 12. Mat. 5. 44. 1 Pet. 2◠17.
Opinions different from those of the Church of England for such endeavours are not wanting by them that know not what spirit they are of and this is matter of Astonishment and Wonder if Your Majesty consider it how far such men are from improving Your Excellent Proclamation against Swearing Debauchery and Drunkennesse or being in Taverns after nine of the clock at night Oh! how little notice is taken of these Proclamations or of the Laws to which they direct either by the Swearing Debauched Persons themselves or by Your Majesties Subordinate Ministers and how few if any have been prosecuted upon those two Proclamations and what Multitudes upon the other And this is much to be lamented that men may with lesse danger meet at Taverns Ale-Houses and other places of Debauchery to Drink above measure or Swear Game Rant and Tear as if there were neither Heaven nor Hell God nor Magistrates but if a few poor Men and Women meet together in the Fear of the Lord having mutual Faith and Oneness of Heart to pray unto Almighty God a part of whose Petition is that God would Blesse Guide Your Majesty and all that are in Authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable Life in all Godliness and Honesty 1 Tim. 2. 2. at such Meetings many are offended And may it further please Your Majesty to consider Your afflicted and innocent Subjects how they have been haled from their Peaceable Habitations and thrust into Prisons almost in all Counties in England and many are still detained to the utter undoing of themselves and Families and most of them are poor men whose Lively-hood under God depends upon the labour of their own hands so that they lie under more then an ordinary Calamity there being so many thrust into little rooms together that they are an anoyance each to other especially in the City of London where the Lord-Mayor crouds them very close together that it hath been observed the Keepers have complained they have had too many guests and whilest they suffer there some of their Wives and tender Babes want bread at home And how long this will be the portion of some I know not unless Your Majesty extend the like Grace to other Prisoners as Your Majesty did most Princely to them at Westminster in giving Order to Discharge them they acknowledging by Subscription Your Majesty to be the Supream Magistrate of this Kingdom and of all others of Your Majesties Kingdoms and Dominions without pressing the Oath of Allegiance which some are not free to take by Reason Christ saith Mat. 5. 34. Swear not at all and in St. Iames 5.12 Above all things my Brethren Swear not they mistaking these two places understand that Christians should not Swear in any Case and therefore out of meer fear lest they should offend against a Divine Law have fallen under the Penalty of that Humane Law which requireth us to Swear our Allegeance to Your Majesty O that Your Majesties Clemency might enterpose that their weaknesse on the one hand and the Severity of the Law on the other might not ruine many hundred Families But to return to that for which I am in Travel viz. that we may worship God according to our light and measure of understanding unto which we have attained without being restrained from the exercise thereof by the Magistrate or by having any thing imposed upon us as Articles of Faith or Rules of Worship in the behalf of which I humbly tender these six Reasons following Reason 1. First Be pleased Royal Sir to consider that such imposing of the Magistrates is contrary to the Nature of the Gospel because it is one of the Glories of Christian Religion that it was so Pious Excellent Powerful and Perswasive that it came in upon its own Piety and Wisdom with no other force but a Torrent of Arguments and Demonstration of the Spirit beating down all strong holds and every high Thought and Imagination that exalted it self against the same but towards the persons of men it was alwayes full of Meeknesse and Charity Compliance and Toleration and bearing one with another restoring persons overtaken with an Errour with the Spirit of Meeknesse the Consideration is as Prudent and the Proposition as Just as the Precept is Charitable and the President most Pious and Holy that Precept which it chiefly Preaches in order to all Blessedness is Meekness Mercy and Charity whereby it should preserve it self and promote its own Interest for indeed nothing will do it so well nothing doth so excellently insinuate it self into the understanding and affections of men as when the Principles Actions and Perswasions of a people are in every part suitable and it would be a mighty disparagement to so Glorious an Institution that in its Principle it should be so Merciful and Humane and in the Promotion and Propagation of it so inhumane and dishonourable to Christ it may serve the Turk to support his Alkoron but it will much dishonor Christianity to offer to support it by that which good men believe to be a distinctive cognizance of the Mahometon Religion from the Excellency and Piety of Christianity whose sence and Spirit is excellently described by S. Paul 2 Tim. 2.24 The Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men in meeknesse Instructing those that oppose themselves If then any man will smite those that are his Opposites in Opinion he must quit the Title of being Gods Servant for his pains nor can a Distinction of Persons Ecclesiastical and Secular give advantage for an escape for even the Secular Power if it be Christian must not be strikers of others for the Matters of their Faith for God alone is judge of erring Persons as that Learned Doctor Ieremiah Taylor now Bishop of Down saith in his thirteenth page of his Epistle Dedicatory to that famous Book entituled The Liberty of Prophesie Reason 2. The second Reason against restraining or using force in Matters of Religion is Because Christ who is the Only Law-giver to his Church gives this Precept for the Regulation of the Conversation of his Disciples Whatsoever you would have men do unto you do ye even so unto them than which there is no Law more reasonable nor more just It cannot be supposed that Kings sitting in the Throne of Government or place of Trust and Rule are exempted from the observation of this Commandment which if so then if the Magistrates be of this Perswasion that Christ dyed for all men and the people believe as Calvin did that he dyed for the Elect onely What can the Magistrates do in this case for if they make a Law in favour of the Peoples Judgement then they wrong themselves which I suppose they will not do if a Law be made in favour of their own Opinion against the Peoples then besides the injury which is done to the people they break that Royal Law before mentioned and thereby become guilty before God Reason 3. The