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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	apostle_n	church_n	successor_n	2,259	5	9.0758	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28223	Prosecution no persecution, or, The difference between suffering for disobedience and faction, and suffering for righteousness and Christ's sake truly discussed and stated in a sermon upon Phil. I. 29, preached at Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk on the 22th of March, 1681, being the time of the general assizes there held / by Nath. Bisbie ...	Bisbie, Nathaniel, 1635-1695.	1682 (1682)	Wing B2983; ESTC R18612	20,745	38

shouldst thou and two or three more Scepticks like thy self be the only faithless Tomboys in the world who like Zeno shall walk and talk prate and dispute and yet not believe that there is any Sence or any Motion in Nature To you it is given to believe in Christ in opposition Secondly to the Falsifidians who will believe any thing at first ear that is obtruded upon them though loaded with never so many Absurdities never such scaring Solaecisms never such seeming Impossibilities Insomuch that they will take and adore a rotten Sign-post for the true Cross of our Saviour a piece of Bakers Bread breath'd upon by a Priest for the natural Body of the eternal Son of God believe a Deity in the work of their own hands swallow down the most uncouth Doctrines of Transubstantiation Ubiquity Infallibility c. as roundly as men do Pills Conceptions oftentimes befalling Wisemen yet as absurd as the apprehension of Fools and as incompatible as for another brood of Believers among us to say That Rebellion is good Allegiance and to be a Schismatick the only way to be a Saint That to be Factious is to be Religious and to renounce their Bishops and Deacons as necessary as to renounce the Devil and his Works A Faith so large and prodigious that I could be Gebal Ammon Amalek and abundance of hard Names more and yet set up for a True Believer or as the word now is a True Protestant This I do find that all and every one of these will be Believers and in some degree or other Saints into the bargain but in truth and indeed the Turkish Musselman nay Janizary may put in for a share and for ought as I do know not be very much worse Believers To you it is given not only to believe but to suffer in opposition Thirdly To the Solifidians who will do nothing but believe Be all Faith no suffering for that Faith all pure imagination and phansie without action or the least of passion Like unto the Bird of Paradise whose Nature is to be almost all Mouth or all Feathers Mouth to suck in the air for the maintenance and continuance of its Being and Feathers to support it in that air where it lives and feeds and breeds Not but that Faith gallantly doth and valiantly re-encountreth all difficulties It prevaileth against Satan it conquereth Sin it hath Death in derision Principalities and Powers must stoop under it it leadeth the World captive and bringeth every Enemy that riseth up against it to confusion and shame What shall I say more saith the Apostle to the Hebrews It stopped the mouths of Lions quenched the violence of the fire rebated the edge of the sword And in truth to say no more it will undoubtedly quash the Consults of the bloody Jesuites nay frustrate the ASSOCIATIONS of their elder Brother the Church-rending and Nation-confounding Puritan But then it must not be alone for if it be It is dead saith St. James Nay It is nothing saith St. Paul though in this unhappy Age of ours it goeth often for an Heresie to add Works unto Faith or Obedience unto Christ's Righteousness It being as it were against the Liberty of the Subject to prescribe them any Rules of duty and thereby make Slaves of Free born men but rather suffer them to live as if Christ had never dyed for them or rather as if his Righteousness and Obedience without any act at all of their own were to be imputed to them whereupon because Christ lived innocently and in subjection to the Higher Powers therefore the unruly disobedient Factionist which is said and thinks himself to believe must be accounted a good Subject by the imputation of his Righteousness and Obedience A Doctrine that hath so confounded our Church and Nation that I dare say the Lives of ten hundred thousand yea and perhaps twice times told have been lost nor is that issue of blood yet stancht but without a Miracle of providence it is like to run afresh and as fast as ever And it is remarkable that where-ever this sort of Believers these Solifidians take place there Peace and Obedience to Lawful Authority have been constantly cast out It is a Sect that doth infallibly bring along with it Sedition and Tumults and Bloodshed and therefore eminently deserves to have a special mark of Reprobation set upon it that you may for ever beware of it You the People without whose aid and assistance they had never been able nor never again shall to do such infinite mischiefs and you the Deacons without whose hallowed Lungs the Trumpet had never sounded to Battel nor ever either Romish or English Host been consecrated to the destruction of the Church and State among us My advice therefore to you my Brethren and Fellow Christians is First To keep unto your Faith Secondly To add Obedience to your Faith that especially which is due to your King who is the true and careful Defender of your Faith First To keep unto your Faith a Faith every ways perfect and sound consonant to the Institutions Precepts and Practices of the holy Jesus and to the Preachings and Writings of the blessed Apostles A Faith answerable to that which is yet to be found in the holy Scriptures and to that which at first was planted in all Churches of the World that had an Apostle or Apostolical man for its Founder of kin naturally neither to the Trentine Fathers nor to the Geneva Brethren but of the blood Royal and descended from Christ himself the eternal Son of God foster'd and nurs'd up by the hands of his immediate Apostles and Ministers and in being throughout all Ages of the Church to this very day A Faith that hath stood tryal through the Ten Persecutions endured and quenched the Marian Flames weathered out the bloodshed and confusions of Babel and is so good and so sound still that it will never want Kings to be its Defenders nor multitude of Believers to bleed and to dye for it Keep I say to this Faith neither scared with the damning Anathemas of the Pope and his Catholickship as if there were no Christianity out of his Communion nor with the pious Pretences of the whirlegig Protestants as if there were no Reformation nor Saintship without them Your Cause is good and the very same with the Primitive Christians the very same with your Forefathers in Queen Mary's days the very same as it was when Cromwel and the stinking Rump play'd the Devil in Christ's Name Give not over this Faith whatever the Posterity of the one or the present Brood of the other threaten you withal Justum tenacem propositi virum non civium ardor prava jubentium So good so accountable a Faith is not to be reprobated no nor deserted for any heat of Citizens for any faction of Senators for any madness of the People Wherefore though the whole World almost as they did in Athanasius his days should Arrianizare turn mad and Conventicle

nay Si fractus illabatur orbis Though they should murther their King again and pull the Foundations of the earth about your ears yet hold your own and let it be said of you in the Transcript as of the Philippians in the Original That to you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake My second advice is Secondly To add Obedience to your Faith that especially which is due to your King the Defender of your Faith It is observed of the defection made by the ten Tribes from the two whereby Judah and Israel came to be two Kingdoms that all the Levites all the Land over as also all the well-affected and good men who were not for the High places and for the Devils and for the Calves which Jeroboam the Rebellious and Factious Usurper had set up clove to the House of David and to Rehoboam their Natural and Lawfull Prince 2 Chron. 11. 13. And it may be observed further to the eternal Honour of their Loyalty that small or no interruptions were made by them or by their Posterity as to the Lineal descent of their Kings so long as they remained a Nation though in Israel seldom above three of the same Stock continued in a direct Succession Nay further Judah had but two Tribes to ten for the support of their King and Government and yet Israel that were ten to two were long destroyed and captivated before them Loyalty being certainly a most sure and lasting Bulwark against all Desolations And in good sooth if any thing keeps up our Religion so that Jeroboam his High places his Devils and his Calves do not utterly devour us it must be our Integrity and Loyalty to our King Loyalty the unquestionable duty of all good Subjects and of all the sincere Worshippers of the true God Loyalty the fondling and darling of Princes which will make us be beloved and defended by our Kings and at last will prove the surest Preservative to our Church against Confusion and the likeliest Remedy to restore it and give it a Resurrection if it should ever happen to be overlaid It is always prosperous and victorious it hath the favour of Kings here and the reward of the King of Kings hereafter It gives us Crowns because we love the Crown and it will make us Kings in another World for being good Subjects in this Think not then that Loyalty will hurt you or that your being and continuing faithful to your King and his rightful Successors shall ever endammage your Religion A Religion so eminent for its Allegiance and so hitherto unattainted that God's Vicegerents as long as they love their Regality cannot will not suffer it to be oppress'd If you aim at a Scotish Presbytery saith King James it agreeth as well with Monarchy as God and the Devil then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet and censure Me and my Council I may thank you my Bishops that these men plead for my Supremacy But if once you were out and they in I know not what would become of my Supremacy for NO BISHOP NO KING One of the greatest faults some men found with the COMMON-PRAYER BOOK saith King Charles the Martyr was this that it taught them to pray so oft for Me to which Petitions they had not Loyalty enough to say Amen No Church in the World saith our present Sovereign hath Taught and Practised LOYALTY so Conscientiously as the Church of England hath done Experience hath shewn saith the present Heir the only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Bugbear to a sort of Mungrel Protestants That the Members of the Church of England are the best Supporters of the Crown insomuch that if it fall to Him to be concerned he will ever countenance and preserve Them and It. Wherefore let remoter Fears keep remoter off and as we are bound by the 37th Article of our Religion to give that Prerogative to our King which was given to the Godly Princes in Scripture Let us likewise give the same Loyalty as they did such I mean as Judah and her Brethren gave to their Kings and Princes and I doubt not but by so doing if ever we go into Captivity our King must with us And so I have finished the first branch of their commendation viz. their Faith Pass we Secondly To the other part thereof and that is their Fortitude their disposition and resolution to suffer the worst of Evils for this so well-grounded and established Faith To you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but also to suffer for his sake We live in an Age that talks much of Suffering and with this noise and clamor the Jesuite and Enthusiast the one on the behalf of his devout Catholicks the other on the behalf of his Schismatical Anticatholicks endeavour to run down the Church of England making the truly Orthodox and Loyal Members thereof the only Opposers of Christ and themselves the only Confessors Us the Martyrers and them the Martyrs But all Sufferings neither give Commendation nor Consolation to them that Suffer neither do all that Complain really and truly Suffer for Christ's sake There is a difference between Punishment and Persecution That an act of Justice This of Malice That for our Ill deeds This for our Good It is not what we Suffer but why that will justifie our Sufferings not the Blood but the Cause that will make a Martyr For were it otherwise Then would Cromwel and his bloody Myrmidons Bradshaw and his band of Halberdiers notwithstanding their Bodies have been mangled and quartered for their Bloodshed and Villany be found still Riding in the Host of Heaven and admitted once again to be Judges and Sentencers of Kings Then would Clement the Monk who stab'd Henry the Third and Ravilliac who did the like to Henry the Fourth instead of being justly punished for their Murdering Tucks be rewarded with Triumphant Palms Then would Heaven above as well as Earth below be fill'd with Regicides Traytors Covenanters Associators and little or no room left in that Glorious Palace for the Honest Peaceable and Loyal good man Wherefore upon this account it will be fully requisite to describe the true Nature of those Sufferings that are the good Will and Gift of God unto his Church and thereby distinguish them from those other Sufferings that are the due Retributions and just Punishments of Faction and Sin And the only Sufferings that are justifiable must be either First For Righteousness or Secondly For Christ's sake First For Righteousness sake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for being Righteous and Just that is for not Violating either the Laws of God or of Man the Eternal and Natural Laws of the one the Prudential and Alterable yet Just Laws of the other And such Sufferers as these our blessed Saviour afore ever he discovered the Necessity of Suffering for his sake pronounceth Blessed Blessed are they which are persecuted for

righteousness sake If ye do well saith St. Peter and suffer for it this is acceptable to God But what glory is it if ye be buffeted for your faults If your endurance arise for your Faction Sedition Treasonable Practices If for violating Oaths and Promises Duty and Allegiance If for trampling the Laws of the Land under foot and for making a ridicule of the Laws of the Church this is no ways thank-worthy Let none of you saith the same Apostle suffer as a murderer as a thief or as an evil-doer Wherefore let neither the Jesuite nor the Phanatick cry out henceforth of Persecution but rather let them know that their yoke is made heavy for the untameableness of the Beast and the hand of Authority weighty not for their Religion but Faction not for their Righteousness but Unrighteousness not for their Conscience but Conspiracy I have joyned them together but not one Cockatrices Egge more like to another than these two Serpents are I use that Appellation because they are both given to gnaw the Entrails and to eat through the Bowels of their Parent For what if the one be for murthering his Lawful King for breaking all Oaths and Promises and for entring into Covenants against him for Lying Equivocating Forswearing Doth not the other Teach Write and daily Practise the same things And what if that other out of Zeal to his Protestantism be for disinheriting and proscribing Lawful Heirs for that he foresees they will not by reason of a contrary Religion be propitious to to him or his Is not the Jesuite as Zealous in that very particular for his Popery Whosoever shall give his help consent or assistance towards the making of a King whom he judgeth or believeth to be faulty in Religion is a most grievous and damnable Sinner saith Parsons and again It is not enough for a man to be next only in Blood thereby to pretend to a Crown but other Circumstances also may concur which if wanting the bare propinquity or ancientry of Blood may be rejected and he that is first second third fourth fifth or last may lawfully be preferr'd before the first The choice of the People so far prevaileth saith Becan that though there be a Lawful known Heir to whom the Kingdom rightfully belongs Tamen si populus praetermisso legitimo haeredo yet if the People think good to set by that Lawful Heir and appoint another that other is and must be their Lawful King And thus Reynolds warneth the French Will ye proclaim Navarre the Calvinist King of France what is this but to advance a Dog to Lord it over Men to prostitute the Temple of the Living God to the Devil to let a most salvage Bore to depopulate the Vineyard of the Lord This I speak only to shew That they are a kin have the like Principles of Government and both alike made up for mischief at leastwise to shew who make the Firebals and by whose hands they are thrown For my part I do wish as well to my Religion as any or either of them do to theirs and Pray as heartily for the continuance of it and will by the grace of Almighty God as to my ability and the Post where I am placed defend it as much as they shall do theirs But to put by my Lawful Prince because I suspect he will call me to an account for my Religion and thereby make me worthy of Suffering for Christ nay Blessed This my Duty my Conscience my Oaths my Religion will not Suffer me to do However if at any time it shall so happen that I have either a Romish or a Phanatick Prince my resolution firmly is to be as quiet as they will let me or as possibly I can be and to take up with the Primitive Christians practise mentioned by Tertullian Nos precamur pro omnibus imperatoribus vitam prolixam imperium securum domum tutam exercitus fortes populum probum orbem quietum Secondly These Sufferings that are truly the gift of God and rewardable by him must be for Christ for that Religion superadded by Christ to this former Righteousness and brought more openly into Belief and Practise by his coming into the World And the Sufferings here also are then only justifiable when they are First Purely for Christ's sake or Secondly On the behalf of Christ in and relating to those things that more immediately and intimately concern him his Precepts his Doctrines his Institutions First They must be Sufferings purely for Christ's sake I mean for him and for the Religion brought by him into the World whereby we confess him on the one hand against all Opposers to be the Eternal Son of God and the only Saviour of Mankind and profess our selves on the other hand to be Candidates and Expectants through his Mercy of a Remission of our Sins of a Resurrection of our Bodies and of a Life Everlasting And I dare boldly say that if you turn all the Scripture over you shall find the Apostles and the Disciples suffering upon no other account And I am no less confident if time would permit me to make it out that all the Ten Persecutions which made so many Martyrs in the World that as St. Jerome saith there was no less than five thousand for every day in the year New-year excepted were upon this account and this alone namely for confessing with their mouths that Jesus was the Christ and that there was no other Name nor no other Religion under Heaven but that of Jesus by which they could be Saved I look unto the Scripture only and shall begin with the prediction of our blessed Saviour foreshewing what should befall his Apostles and Followers for owning and publishing him in the World to wit That they should be delivered up to the Councels and Scourged and purely for his sake and for giving testimony of him to the Jews and Gentiles Matth. 10. 18. 22. Pass we thence to their real Sufferings Acts 5. 26. Then went the Captain with the Officers and brought them and set them before the Councel and the high Priest asked them saying did not we straitly command you that you should not teach in his name whereupon Peter and the rest of the Apostles answered and said We ought to obey God rather than Men shewing what it was they had in command from God to Preach and to Suffer for and that was purely this Ver. 31. That Jesus whom they had Crucified was risen and that God had raised him up to be a Prince and a Saviour to give Repentance to Israel and Forgiveness of Sins A quotation much in repute amongst our disorderly Conventiclers to patronize and justifie their Disobedience and Sedition but they should first prove that the Name of Jesus is forbad to be preach'd or call'd upon and they purely punished for Preaching of him and the Doctrines belonging to him and consequent to his coming into the World for that and that only was the case of the Apostles there as Ver.

40. for having called the Apostles and beaten them they commanded that they should not speak in the Name of Jesus Pass we next to St. Stephen the Proto-martyr of the Christian World and we shall find the Multitude gnashing on him with their teeth and stoning him and for no other Crime Acts 7. 54. than that he preached to them concerning one Jesus whom they had betrayed and murthered Next to Paul the Proto-persecutor of the Saints Acts 9. 2. who when he found any of that way whether Men or Women he brought them bound to Jerusalem in order to their further Suffering and the only reason was Ver. 21. because they called on the Name of Jesus Nay see what it was that this Paul when he was Converted first Preached and verily no more Acts 13. than that God had raised one Jesus for the Forgiveness of Sins whom the Jews had slain And for Preaching this Doctrine and this Doctrine alone it was that he was Persecuted and Stoned Acts 14. 5. for this Accused and Imprisoned Acts 24. 21. for this sought for to be Condemned Acts 25. 19. for saith Festus They brought no Accusation against him but concerning one Jesus which was dead but affirmed by Paul to be alive So that when these or any other places and texts of Scripture are brought by our modern Sectaries to adjust and justifie the troubles and miseries that their Disobedience and Sedition brings upon them they are utterly perverted their Auditors cheated and their Proselytes gull'd into Schism and unnecessary Suffering And indeed if some speedy stop be not put to their exorbitant Proceedings I cannot see but that ere long we may have no Christ to preach no Church to go unto no King to govern us They may talk of Christ and of preaching of Christ but were they all Silenced or would they rather be Silent as in Duty and Conscience they are bound to be Christ would no less be preached his Death and Resurrection no less published but Schism not so Sainted nor the Nation so disturbed the King would live more at ease the Church be more at quiet and Christianity flourish more among us Secondly Our Sufferings are then warrantable and justifiable when they are on Christ's behalf or for those things which more immediately concern him his Precepts his Doctrines and Institutions so near unto the Faith as that our Religion would be in danger of being notoriously corrupted perhaps utterly lost most certainly altered if there be not a full adherence to and a stout profession made of the same Our Saviour chides the Pharisees for teaching for Doctrines the traditions of men and by that very means making the Commandments of God of no effect intimating that there may be such Doctrines obtruded upon the Church and superadded to the Faith that may cassate and evacuate the very Doctrines of Religion deface Christianity and make the Faith another thing and of another colour to that which Christ brought along with him into the World And therefore our Ancestors would rather themselves suffer than suffer a piece of Bread to be Worshipped by them for Christ or in Christ's stead rather suffer their own Blood to be spilt than Christ's Blood to be taken from them in the Sacrament rather be broke themselves than to bow down to Saints and Images when God with his own tongue hath said Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them rather undergo the utmost fury of Adversaries than derogate from Christ's plenary Satisfaction by advancing their own Merits into equal claim with his and for this they have worthily obtained the Name and the Honour of being Martyrs But then there are other Doctrines more remote and rather points of Speculation than of Faith or Practise nay the World is grown to that pass that there are no less variety of Opinions than of Faces and what is worst of all and tends most to the disturbance of the Church on the one hand and to the dishonour of our Religion on the other we call all these by the name of Religion and by the appellative of Faith laying many times as great a stress upon the least of them as upon the fundamental Articles of Christ's Resurrection nay of Christ's being Prince and Saviour and from these it is that there are such feuds and bussels in the World or that there is such an out-cry of Persecution Whereas God knows it would be more for our comfort and the Churches peace more for the good of our own Souls and the salvation of others not to spread divulge much less to confront an establishment with them Most certain it is That the Apostles in all their Preachings established no one Doctrine more next to the coming of Christ than that of Peace Hence we are exhorted To speak the same things to have no Divisions among us to be perfectly joyn'd in the same mind and in the same judgment to follow the things that make for Peace and if it be possible to live peaceably with all men Telling us That if we are Factious we are Carnal that if we are refractory to Government and Governors we are Devilish nay that if for such things as these we do suffer we are no less than Malefactors Let none of you suffer as a murtherer or as a thief or as an evil-doer and I may justly add not as a Schismatick nor as a Rebel yet if any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorifie God on this behalf I have only hinted this to shew that while I Preach for honour to be done to those who really and truly suffer for Righteousness or for Christ's sake I might not seem to advocate for such mens enormities who may be said to Preach the Gospel no o●herwise than as they set the Father against the Son and the Son against the Father turning all to Confusion under pretence of having the Gospel of Peace in their mouths And thus you have seen what those Sufferings are that are the gift of God unto his Church and of what nature those other Sufferings are that are for Faction Sedition Treason and not for Righteousness or for Christ's sake Wherefore my Brethren and Fellow-sufferers in the Faith be once more advised First Not to let the fear of Suffering scare or deter you from your Faith or Duty Secondly That though you Suffer for Christ and in his Name yet not to Suffer all that come in his Name First Not to let the fear of Suffering scare or deter you from your Faith or Duty Be not faint nor weary in well-doing What if the World do hate you abuse you design and work evil against you Is it not for the support of your Loyalty for the safety of your King for the benefit of your Country and for the continuance of a well-reformed Establishment among you Bonds and Fetters in such Cases as these are as Chains of Gold unto the Neck and as Jewels and rich Ornaments to the Breasts