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
A93345	England and Scotland united, disjoyned. Or, A gentle corosive, and healing plaister, applied to two dying kingdoms: with some balsamum for wounded Ireland; humbly presented to both kingdoms, and communicated to all good subjects, that wish peace and good to the kingdoms, or to either of them. Wherein is represented, the grievances of the people, and their several murmurings. By Ethog Grimes Gent.	Smith, George, 1602 or 3-1658.	1648 (1648)	Wing S4034; Thomason E447_30	26,358	32

Murtherer c. he is subtile in tempting therefore called the Old serpent the Red dragon he is a fawning Fox and a devouring Lyon his Government is onely in this world therefore called The god of this world and he ruleth onely over such men 2 Cor. 4. 4. Eph. 2. 2. 1 Iohn 3. 8. Ioh. 1. 44 Ps 52. 3. as are in darkness therefore called The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience and they that willingly commit sin are said to be of the Devil therefore wicked men that are his children like him love evil more then good and delight in lyes more then to speack truth he hath also many baits to ensnare men sometime he propoundeth Honor sometime Riches sometime Praise and Pleasure c. his mouth was full of this when he came to tempt Christ All this will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me or if we will but worship God in his way yea he brings this Scripture too It is written saith he thus and thus When men give way to any temptation of the Devil they forsake the truth and not receiving the truth in the love of it is the 2 Thess 2. 10 11. cause why God sendeth strong delusions to believe lyes and are given over to their own lusts then God saith of a man or a nation as of Israel Lo-ammi Ye are not my people and I will not be your God Hos 1. 9 The second cause of our distempers is our corrupt nature which is prone to rceeive all evil from Satan as the earth the seed cast into it or the tinder at fire every spark the Devil casts in the seed corrupt Nature brings forth increase he strikes the flint and corrupt Nature makes it a flame corrupt Nature is prone to delight in new things Satan always puts fair and specious shews upon every error he casts them by the mould of truth but ever addes or adminisheth and that he brings under the notion of new truths for Satan can be and doubtless is at this day transformed 2 Cor. 11. 14. Mat. 24. 24. into an Angel of light and so works upon mens fancies That if it were possible he should deceive the very Elect. The third cause is evil men Papists Jesuits Jews Libertines prophane Worldlings and all other seduced Schismatical Seducers that hate all Reformation because they love not the truth these are Satans instruments children of darkness hate the children of light they hold counsels against them make conspiracies use diabolical divinations pretend prophesies revelations and miracle some to broach false tenents seeming to be zealous for Christ but are his enemies others to raise discontents disobedience in the people against the powers ordained by God they invent lyes scandal and foment jealousie to make factions divisions both in Church and State have influence into great Councels Societies Families yea into our Victorious Army where by division they have staggered more then any power of the sword could ever have done these are interwoven with us in disguised shapes they are Presbyterians in the extreams and Independents to all loosness of liberty and slighting of duty tell you that you are in Christ if you be as they and cannot sin nor ought to pray for pardon that Christ dyed for all equally for Judas as for Peter that Revelations and the motions of the Spirit not Scripture are your Rule to walk by denying the Morallity of the Law question whether the soul be mortal or immortal that men have free-wil to repent and to be saved that the Christian Sacraments are no way necessary and that rebaptizing is lawful and necessary that the Lords day is no more to be observed then any other day that our godly Ministers are not Ministers of Christ but their calling Antichristian with a hundred more gross errors destructive to the foundation of true Religion all which they have spirits abroad to infuse into men as they finde their natural lusts inclined by which they have brought confusion not onely in Counsels Societies Cities and our Victorious Army but in all families so as we erre and erre exceedingly both in judgement and practice Take it for certain there are many hundred Jesuits at this day among us and have overspread the whole Kingdom of England I will not believe Scotland is free they are in all places like the frogs of Egypt even in the Saints conventicles as some call them and it may be in our common pulpits sometimes these are they that speak evil of Authority and cast reproaches upon the Ministery to bring Law and Gospel into contempt and to set up new lights and new Government in the world they spread the failings of Parliament abroad to the ears of all countreys and belye them grosly make every mole●il a mountain seem to divine their intentions and belye the very truth set the kingdom in hurliburly put whole counties to petition in unseemly maner to command Requests and to request things not to be granted without ruine and thereby think to work ruine by the denial all to hinder setlement reformation and peace and to bring in Popery in the crowd among the rest of their old heresies newly revived these like Jannes and Jambres who withstood Moses withstand and resist 2 Tim. 3. 8. the truth being armed with all the power and policy of hell and Rome but their great Master-piece hath been to break the union between England and Scotland as it was Romes endeavors for many years to hold them from conjunction and was no small disheartning to them when they became conjoyned What our brethren will do I know not I will not prejudge a Kingdom they have been true and I hope will be ever but Barwick and Carlisle ought not to be held in Garison our Covenant is with God as well as one with another and the Kirk to their everlasting praise uphold it If it were but a mans covenant yet if it be confirmed no Gal. 3. 15 Lev 26. 25. man disanulleth but God is a just God and will avenge the quarrel of his Covenant on him that transgresseth I would say to England and Scotland as Abraham said to Lot Let there be no Gen. 13. 8. strife between you for you are Brethren so are your Armies too● if you jar to blood you will commit two great evils you will both fight for your enemies that will destroy you both and you or one of you will incur Gods judgements upon your posterities I pray remember what the Lord himself saith I will give the men Ier. 34. 18 19. that have transgressed my Covenant and have not performed the words of the Covenant which they made before me when they cut the calf in twain c. I will even give them into the hands of their enemies and into the hands of them that seek their life and they shall be meat for the fowls and for beasts c. Will you

are so impious that they deny the Command to keep it holy as if God had neither appointed a time for publique worship nor required any worship of us but after our own wills 9. Contempt of the Ministery What opposition corrupt nature hath made against the Ministery we know in all times but when or in what Kingdom was it ever more opposed then now except in Jerusalem till Gods wrath arose against them without 2 Chro. 36. 16. remedy and in Germany a little before the desolation of that Monarchy by the Anabaptists who have been cherished in England for such a purpose Those Ministers by whose Ministery they were converted if converted at all are by them contemned and despised their Ministery abhorred as old truths common things nothing but new errors and heresies will serve them these men do but their kinde and I complain not so much of them as that they are suffered to disturb a Commonweal and be a stumbling block to weak Christians I mean not such as onely dissent in matter of Ceremony or Circumstance but such as erre in Doctrine some are to be cast out according to the Apostles rule by excommunication that is such as are Church members There are others such as are not properly Church members yet live within the pale of the Church turbulent to the State and the peace of the Kingdom that seduce souls to error and to rebellion under the notion of Religion these are to be dealt with by the Civil Magistrate and that sharply I would Gal. 5. 12. saith the Apostle they were even cut off that trouble you he means not by Excommunication for that he and the Church had power to have done but not to punish as a Magistrate ought in such a case The Prophet that did seduce any to false Worship was by the Law put to death not by Aaron but by Moses If Deut. 13. 5. Vers 9. any Brother Son Sister Wife Friend c. should intice any man to false Worship he or they was to be put to death without pity I say not that error nor all heresie is to be punished with death though all to be suppressed by penal Laws and punished according to the offence and nature The Apostle Peter urging the duty of Christians to the Magistrate saith It is the will of God to submit he means not Thieves Murtherers Blasphemers c. but Christians within the Church such as Christ had made free therefore he saith As free and not using your liberty as a cloak of maliciousness 1 Pet. 2. 13 14 15 There is a liberty left in matter of Discipline but no liberty given to particular men to repugn that Discipline that is established by the Magistrate not disagreeing from Gods word much more in matter of Doctrine nor do I say any particular man doubting shall be compelled or punished but exhorted from day to day except he labor to draw others and thereby the peace of the Church and State be disquieted if so such ought to be curb'd by the sword of the Magistrate and this cannot be said is to punish for conscience nor for opinion but for turbulency The Church of Thyatira is reproved for suffering that woman Jezabel that called her self a Prophetess to seduce the people to error Pergamos for suffering erroneous Doctrine is threatned sharply The error of the seven Churches of Asia caused God to depart and to remove the Candlestick from them Rome once Christian by permitting one error then error begetting error she became Antchristian There is a propinquity between error and error and between error and heresie one ushereth in the other and a multitude followeth at their heels experience shews it and we know except any be wilfull igno ant that our present errors and diversity of opinions have been spread by the subtilty of the common enemy whilest they have united themselves against us and is their sole refuge and ground of their confidence that by which they have divided the Parliament among themselves lost the peoples affections to them alienated one friend from another and made one man jealous of another that we are grown to discord and scattered as a people without a head like sheep without a shepherd Lastly The sin of Self-love a known iniquity of all times and mother of Mischief now a destroying sin in this Kingdom I may say of three Kigdoms all lying upon the bed of languishing it is a sweet sin whilest the sinner pleaseth himself in it but afterward fills the mouth with gravel it produceth most bitter fruits Prov. 20. 17. like that which Eve eat in the garden of Eden kills all Self-love is said to be blinde it sees not to Judge it self and in Judging others is always partial How then can it be well when self-lovers judge all things If any man saith Christ will follow me let him deny himself he that denies not himself cannot be Christs Mat. 16. 24. Mark 8. 34. Disciple and he that is not Christs Disciple is not one of his members therefore cannot be a good Member of the Common-weal other Members may dye the body be sick but he knows it not he owns it not As was said of Ephraim so may be said of England Gray hairs are here and there upon him yet he knows it Hos 7 9. not Self-love and self-interest hath devoured his strength and he is brought to the last gasp The remedy is clear if the forenamed sins be the cause take Ps 25. 10. Isa 57. 15 away the cause and the effect will cease Keep thy Covenant with God and man conscionably Extirpate Pride and plant Humility Isa 58. 6. in the room Hate covetousness Do good to all Oppress none Loose the bands of wickedness Undo the heavy burthens and let the oppressed go free Take nothing from any man if Luke 19. 8. 3. 14. Ps 51. 14 you have taken any thing falsly restore it as Zacheus did Let the Soldier offer violence to none neither to Law nor to Religion but be content with wages Seek pardon from heaven for Blood guiltiness redeem the time past by vigilance and double endeavors for time to come to preserve the lives of them yet living especially those in Josephs afflictions now in jeopardy in Ireland Be temperate in the use of all Gods creatures use every 1 Thess 5. 6. Eph. 5. 18 Pro 2. 16 1 Thess 5. 22. thing with sobriety moderation and thanksgiving Let not that which God gave to chear the heart destroy the soul Keep thy self from the evil woman from the flattering of the tongue of the strange woman Abstain from all fleshly lusts and from all appearances of evil Worship God in Spirit and in Truth Sanctifie his Sabbath and sanctifie your days of Humiliation Humble your selves afflict your souls they are days of atonement and Lev. 23. 27. Reconciliation then make them not formal onely as mock-Fasts but holy convocations reverence Gods Ministers sent of God