Selected quad for the lemma: state_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	church_n	power_n	society_n	1,162	5	9.1993	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38061	A preservative against Socinianism. The first part shewing the direct and plain opposition between it, and the religion revealed by God in the Holy Scriptures / by Jonath. Edwards.	Edwards, Jonathan, 1629-1712.	1693 (1693)	Wing E217; ESTC R24310	65,484	89

the ministry and the persons to whom Christ hath committed the care and government of his Church their distinction and authority to preach the Gospel and to exercise discipline in it concerning the Sacraments and the end of their institution and particularly concerning the nature and efficacy of Baptism and the Lords Supper lastly concerning a future state and the condition of men after this Life To which may be added some other doctrines which do not seem to have any connexion with the former but yet are of dangerous consequence to the peace and welfare of all civil Societies those I mean which he hath advanced about the power and authority of the Civil Magistrate the Lawfulness of War and Oaths in a Christian Commonwealth which have as mischievous an influence upon the order and peace of States and Kingdoms as his other opinions have upon Religion So that Socinus having observed what was wanting in the former Hereticks to make their attempts entirely successful against the Christian Religion being engaged in the same design but in order to make it more effectual he wisely resolved to correct what he thought was amiss in them wherefore laying aside what was more gross and absurd in the wilder and more extravagnt opinions of the ancient Hereticks and supplying the defects of the more subtile and refined who came afterwards he and his followers have at length given us a body of their divinity more compleat in its kind then ever the world was blessed with before their time Not but that in spight of all their art and skill such being the fate and folly of error they cannot avoid especially in the defence and maintenance of their opinions falling into many and those very plain contradictions Upon the whole matter I think it may be reasonably doubted whether Socinus any more than that grand Impostor Mahomet may be properly called a Heretick as being the Founder of a new Religion rather than the Author of a new name and sect among Christians For as the Alcoran of the former is as we are told a fardel of errors and absurdities arising from the impure mixture of Christianity Judaism and Paganism together with some idle and extravagant notions of his own so the doctrine of Socinus seems to be a composition of the errors of Arius Photinus and Pelagius c. together with some additions of his own not indeed so seemingly absurd as those of Mahomet but I am afraid no less dangerous to the Christian religion of which he hath retained only the name together with the empty sound of the words but with such false glosses such forced and malicious interpretations as have quite destroyed the true notion as the whole design of the Gospel in opposition to which he hath given us a kind of natural and new Religion not such as the spirit of God hath revealed in his word but such as his own carnal reason suggested to him in opposition to that revelation And that this may not be looked upon to be an uncharitable because a groundless charge I shall lay before the reader a scheme of the religion revealed by God in Holy Scripture and particularly that published by Christ and his Apostles in the writings of the New Testament and which hath bin embraced by all sound Christians in all ages of the Church from the first planting of one in the world to this day together with another of the new or newly revived opinions of the Socinians that by comparing of both he may be able to make a judgment of what is here suggested which upon examination I hope he will find to be agreeable to truth and not contrary to charity And first as it is fit we shall begin with the great object of our religion Almighty God in the knowledge and worship of whom together with an obedience to his commands consists the entire nature of religion And here upon enquiry I believe we shall find that what the Scriptures have revealed concerning the nature of God is widely different from the account which Socinus and his disciples give us of him As to what concerns the nature of God the Scriptures propose him to be considered two ways by us 1. Absolutely in his glorious and essential attributes or 2 ly Relatively in the great and adorable mystery of the ever blessed Trinity First if we consider God in his Attributes we shall find that the first great and if I may so call it fundamental attribute which the Scriptures reveal and indeed natural reason dictates concerning him is the unity of the Godhead Deut. 6. 4. Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord. Deut. 32. 39. See now that I even I am he and there is no God with me 1 Cor. 8. 5. 6. For tho there be that are called Gods whether in heaven or in earth c. But to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things 1 Tim. 2. 5. There is but one God and one Mediator between God and man c. Here undoubtedly it will be said that the Socinians are beyond all suspition orthodox all their studies and labors being employed in asserting and vindicating the unity of the Godhead in opposition to the doctrine of the Trinity which according to their apprehensions must infer a plurality of Gods But for all their boasts concerning this matter and assuming to themselves upon that score the name of Unitarians we must not be too hasty in acquitting them from the imputation of Polytheism for tho they deny the eternal generation and divinity of Christ and say that he had no existence before his being formed in the womb of the Virgin and appearance in the world and that the being which he then had was purely humane yet after his resurrection from the grave and his ascension into heaven they say that God the Father as the reward of his obedience and sufferings exalted him to the honour and dignity of a God not indeed to be the supreme and eternal God but however deus verus a true God distinct and separate from his Father and Socinus takes it ill of his adversaries that they should charge him with denying Christ to be God and complains against them that will not be brought to confess and worship him for their Lord and God who was once a weak and infirm man and herein he saith the power and goodness of God was discovered and his admirable wisdom displayed in extolling and deifying this man beyond what we can imagin And to the objection that might be made against this opinion as that which did unavoidably infer a plurality of Gods Wolzogenius will tell you that if by two Gods you mean one of whom are all things and we in him and one by whom are all things and we by him we are so far saith he from being ashamed of worshipping two such Gods that we rather glory in it But if it shall be farther said that to do them right they