Selected quad for the lemma: word_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
word_n day_n rest_n sabbath_n 7,923 5 10.1220 5 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A27068 Whether parish congregations be true Christian churches and the capable consenting incumbents, be truly their pastors, or bishops over their flocks ... : written by Richard Baxter as an explication of some passages in his former writings, especially his Treatise of episcopacy, misunderstood and misapplied by some, and answering the strongest objections of some of them, especially a book called, Mr. Baxters judgment and reasons against communicating with the parish assemblies, as by law required, and another called, A theological dialogue, or, Catholick communion once more defended, upon mens necessitating importunity / by Richard Baxter. Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1684 (1684) Wing B1452; ESTC R16512 73,103 142

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

against all malignity that would charge these errors on the innocent for a cloak of hatred and cruelty and oppression that I know not one meer Nonconformist that holdeth any of these errors and I verily believe that the Independents that I am acquainted with are true servants of Christ and many called Anabaptists sober godly Christians and that some called Separatists retain Christian charity and meerly for fear of sinning flye too far from others And as for all the rest it is not mens calling them all Dissenters nor their suffering together that can make the innocent responsible for the faulty who perhaps do more against their mistakes than ever such Accusers did to cure them And I must tell the Abaddons that the opposition that hath been raised against them among those that I was acquainted with before 1641 and 1642 was caused chiefly by the badness of those that made it their trade to preach against strict and serious obedience to God as Puritanism and Hypocrisie and made it the Ladder of their aspiring Ambition to make such odious and to hunt with jealous severity those that used for mutual help in the ways of Salvation to pray together especially if they fasted or consulted how to obey Gods Law Justacting over the part of the Bps that Martin separated from described by Sulpitius Severus rendering all suspected of Priscillianism that were more than others in reading the Scripture Fasting and Praying and clapping on the back with encouragement the Drunkards and prophane ignorant rabble who in every Town were the haters of the godly Conformists and Nonconformists and making these the instruments of their malice and praising them and the multitude of ignorant reading Priests as more worthy Subjects than men fearing God Ri. Hooker in his Preface describeth these and he that readeth his Europae Speculum may know that it was no better Conformists that his most beloved Pup●l Sir Edwin Sandys was against while he was one of the zealous Parliamentarians It 's true that many were very hot against Bishop Laud and the Arminians and against Dr. Heylin and Dr. Pockington for proving Sunday no Sabbath and calling the Table an Altar and the Ministers Priests and the Sacrament a Sacrifice Blame not men that had read of their principles and practice how Rome is a Leech that must live on blood and cannot stand without it if they were afraid of coming thither again or drawing too near it Upon my knowledg the debauchery and malignity of many that hunted them and would not let them stay at home in peace and the terror of two hundred thousand murdered in Ireland was it that drove most that ever I knew into the Parliaments Army And fear doth often drive men to seek for self-defence to that which seemeth next at hand Had those whom they feared been such as their functions obliged them to be men of Holiness Love and Peace they would have been less prejudiced against the rest they bore easily with Dr. Chappel Mr. May●en and some other godly charitable men that were reputed Arminians I here adjoin it to my confessions 1. That I thought worse of that called Arminianism than I should have done and have proved in my Catholick Theology not yet writ against by any that I know of that the difference is not in any great and intolerable error on either side 2. That the practice of them that prophaned the Lords day and the malignity of their abettors made me too much offended at the books that called the Lords day no Sabbath and the Ministers Priests and the Table an Altar and the Sacrament a Sacrifice For I now know that these allegorical Names were usual with the best of the ancient Churches without contradiction And that the Lords Day is indeed never called the Sabbath in the New Testament and that the word Sabbath in the Bible signifieth a day of ceremonial Rest which was a Jewish Ceremony and that all such are by Paul said to be put down and that the Lords Day is a day of holy Assemblies and rejoicing in spiritual Evangelical Worship Ignorance and prejudice in these controversies prevailed not from argument but from the experience of the quality of too many that opposed them They thought it a most improbable thing that God should illuminate vicious worldly haters of Godliness and desert those that most desired to please him And of late times what abundance have been driven from the publick Churches by those that rail at them when they come there and would get the Birds into their Net by throwing stones and bawling at them and would get the fish to take the bait by beating the Waters The Bishop of Worcesters silencing me and preaching as he did and the imprisonment of many of the people after affected my old hearers with so much distast of that sort of men that all the Writings and perswasions I could use would not reconcile them nor scarce keep them from falling out with me for my perswasions And now they have a Worthy Pious preaching Bishop a Man of Love and Peace and a good Minister they all crowd the Church and are like to fall in love with such Bishops And I must testifie that with the generality of the Nonconforming Laity I never found but it was good preaching and good living that won their Love And they will honour and follow such men whether Bishops Conformists or Nonconformists XV. Since the writing of this I understand that some timerous persons have been afraid to communicate in publick or joyn with the Liturgy by hearing that some that have done it have been so troubled in Conscience that they have fallen into despair and a doleful state of trouble To this I answer 1. You shall never prove that I have perswaded any Minister to give Christs body and blood as a Drench to the unwilling or to make the Sacrament of Love the Instrument of Malice or Cruelty or a snare to strangle Souls It must be that Offence must come but wo to them by whom it cometh The old Church made men beg for Church-Communion if any withdraw from it and excommunicate themselves they did not send them to Goal for their Conversion to force them to say that they repent and to force them to Communion 2. But I must say that these Ministers or people that have so ill taught these troubled Souls by Doctrine or Example as to tempt them to take their Duty or a lawful thing for so deadly a sin are far from being guiltless of their Trouble Distraction or Destruction If any should make them believe that it were such a dangerous thing to pray by a Book to sing Davids Psalms to Communicatie with Presbyterians not to be rebaptized not to keep the Saturday Sabbath c. And then when he hath affrighted one to make away himself in melancholy despair should use this instance as an argument to affright away others also from their duty I should think that he were too blame This were