Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	church_n	minister_n	people_n	2,506	5	4.7611	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38109	The first and second part of Gangræna, or, A catalogue and discovery of many of the errors, heresies, blasphemies and pernicious practices of the sectaries of this time, vented and acted in England in these four last years also a particular narration of divers stories, remarkable passages, letters : an extract of many letters, all concerning the present sects : together with some observations upon and corollaries from all the fore-named premisses / by Thomas Edwards ...; Gangraena. Part 1-2	Edwards, Thomas, 1599-1647.	1646 (1646)	Wing E227; ESTC R9322	294,645	284

who will settle here with them Hereupon they are presently so high flowne that they will have our publike meeting place commonly called the Church to preach a weekly Lecture though we have an Order from the Committee of Parliament that there shall bee none without the consent of both the Ministers in Dover and have acquainthem with it yet some have threatned if the Key be kept away they will break open the doores and since M. Davies journey to London the Members of his Church meeting everie Lords day twice and once in the weeke Mr. Mascall a man employed by the State to bee a perfector of the Customes undertakes to feed the flock expounds the Scriptures and with much vehemencie cries out to the people expressing himselfe thus against the present Ministerie Your Priests your damned Priests your cursed Priests with their fooles Coat Your Levites who if they get an Ordinance of Parliament will thunder it out but they let alone the Ordinances of Christ and perswades the people of the evill that Synods and Learned men have done to the Church and therefore presses them to the uselessenesse of humane learning and at other times in private meetings perswades people that they will fall into most miserable slaverie if they have a Presbytery and saith That hee shall stand and laugh at them when they are under their burthens For our parts if the State will suffer themselves to bee so vilified in what they have by the best advice proposed and will have us trodden under foot for following Christ and obeying them and will have us take Covenants and suffer as many as will to violate them wee shall then thinke that wee are fallen into worse times then ever wee yet saw Wee desire you to counsell us and to improve your power in the Assembly and with the Parliament what you may to stop these violent proceedings here that we may enjoy our priviledges especially the peace of our Consciences and Countrey we rest Your loving Friends Dover April 13. 1646. This Letter is given into the hands of a Peer of this Kingdom The Copie of a Letter written from a learned and godly Divine from beyond the Seas to a speciall Friend of his here in London and translated by him out of Dutch into English VVE do earnestly long for some Ordinances from England for the suppressing of the high growing Sects Heresies and Schismes which get the upperhand We are afflicted in our verie souls that there is such a depth of Distractions and Errors such liberty for Schisme Blasphemie and ungodly Tenents both at London and in the whole Kingdome O blessed holy Holland righteous Amsterdam heretofore accounted the sink of Errours and Heresies but now justified by London With us are punished with banishment or piercing through the tong with a hot Iron those that but slanderously speak of the Virgin Mary Here we burne the books of the Socinians Errours and they may not with knowledge be sold in these parts Here indeed every one is left to enjoy the freedome of his Conscience in his own Family but to keep Conventicles and meetings of divers Families together Amsterdam it selfe will not suffer except in Anabaptists Lutherans and Remonstrants At London is taught Blasphemy against Christ God his Word Worship and Sacraments by Enthusiasts Antinomians Libertines and Seekers There the Socinian tricks are new moulded there all Sects and Hereticks may keep their separated publike and secret Conventicles Whence is it that you are so suddenly led away unto another Gospell Is there no balme in Gilead that the wounds of the daughter of Sion are not healed are the Prayers of the Saints and the Labours of the upright all in vain Gods judgements hang over that Kingdom which feeds and fosters such sins A Passage extracted out of a Letter lately sent from a godly Minister in Colchester to a Minister in London THe last Sabbath day we had one Clarkson a Seeker that preached at Butolph Church the same man I believe that M. Edwards mentions in his Book His Sermon tended to the vilifying of the Scriptures all Ordinances Duties Ministers Church State Hee vilified the Scriptures and would not have the people live upon white and black and that they of themselves were not able to reveal God of which I shall give M. E. a full account the next week An Extract of a Letter written from a Minister in New-England to a Member of the Assembly of Divines DIscipline or Church Government is now the great businesse of the Christian World God grant we forget not the doctrine of Repentance from dead works and Faith in the Lord Jesus I long much to see or heare what is done in England about this matter I shall not fall into particulars as I might do could we speake mouth to mouth I am no Independent neither are manie others who say Communi Presbyterorum consilio Ecclesiae ab initio regebantur nor am I of a democraticall spirit Much have I seene in my almost eleven yeares abode in this Wildernesse and I wish such as maintain an Independen Democracie had seene and found as much experimentally A house like to be well governed where all are Masters but no more of this For my self God hath been here with me and done me much good learning me somthing of himselfe of my selfe and of men N. E. is not Heaven and here we are men still Decem. 8. 1645. To his loving brother M. Thomas Edwards SIr that Book which discovereth our generall Gangraena containeth truth which will procure you many enemies it s the fate of Truth But to this end saith our Lord Iohn 18.37 was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I should beare witnesse to the truth and so for this Cause are Christians begotten againe by the Word of Truth Everie one that is of the truth should do so espcially such as are his Ministers Revelasse will be superasse I le joyn with one of your adversaries in that alleadged Text. But they shall proced no farther for their folly shall be made manifest to all men as theirs also was 2 Tim. 3 9. I wait for its accomplishment You yea we all must look to suffer for plaine dealing especially now when as truth lieth in the streets and is trampled on by dirty feet when as there are so many adversaries unto it and such an Independent Combination against it The great objection against you is You are too too vehement in your opposition which when I heard I remembred I had read in Luther de servo Arbitrio the same objected to him by old Erasmus The Answer of Luther unto it mee thinkes may well bee ours yours and yeeld us much comfort and encouragement Quod antem vehementius egerim agnosco culpam si culpa est imo testimonium hoc mihi in mundo reddi in causa Des mirificè gaudeo Atque utinam ipse Deus id testimonii in novissimo die confirmaret

when there 's no Lecture else besides the Exposition Lectures on week dayes in the severall parts and quarters of this City and new Lectures in other eminent places of the City which they have endeavoured to set up if they could have obtained the Ministers consents and in their places they have an eye to good pay a hundred pound a yeare for preaching once a week in one place and seventy pound per annum for preaching once a fortnight at another and a peece for a Sermon as soone as they have done and a good supper for another and yet they will have a care to take no more paines then needs must as M. B. having a hundred pound per annum for preaching at Cripplegate on the Lords day in the afternoone could never be got to give the Parish a Sermon now and then on a Fast day or a day of Thanksgiving as a great friend of his in that Parish who knows told me besides I could name others who will do nothing on the Fast dayes They take upon them the names of such Lectures and Churches as being chosen and nominated to them but others of their own partie supply them somtimes one and somtimes another they have one Sprig or another one Emissary or other from the Army one House-bird or other to serve the places It would make a book by it self to relate all particulars in this kind One man of their way besides being a member of the Assembly and his a private Church hath places in Norwich Yarmouth Fishstreet-hill in London A second besides the Assembly hath places at Acton four Lectures at Westminster besides his interest and share in some Lectures in London A third hath a place at Stepney Cripplegate Cornhill besides part of another Lecture and all reserves for this Parliament man and the other to ingratiate himself with them A fourth besides the Assembly which he seldom comes to and his particular private Church hath Lectures in London which all the last summer he seldome preached at not preaching at one of them in the space of three quarters of a year together And they do not only neglect their Lectures in our Churches but they take to themselves more members in their owne Churches then they can preach or look too for they admit members who live constantly many miles from them here one ten miles off there another five miles another sixteen miles off some at Norwich some at Yarmouth another forty miles off every one of their particular Churches is not a Parish Church but a Bishops Diocesse nay some of them are Archbishopricks and Provinces far larger then the Presbyterian Provinces reaching from London to Dover as D. Holms who hath severall members there going twice or thrice a yeare thither to visit and in one of his visitation Sermons preaching to his members prayed God to blesse and remember them who had but a bit once in a quarter or halfe a year And as this is the practice of the Clergie so the Laity among the Sectaries have plurality of offices and places some have both militarie and civill others two or three civill offices and I could name one who hath some five or six besid●● his being a Committee-man In a word our Sectaries are become Pluralists Non-residents and some of them Vbiquitaries and are well paid for it as M. Peters 22. They generally walk loosely and at large over what they did before they turned S●ctaries and in comparison of the godly Presbyterians they do many things under pretence of Christian liberty which professours heretofore were not wont to do nor do not neither durst they have done of which I could give many instances both in persons things I do not know nor hear of a Sectary in England that is so strict and exact in his life as he was before and as thousands of Presbyterians are and this is not my observation alone but a general observation many of them play at Cards and Tables are verie loose on the Sabbath days go to Bowls and other sports on dayes of publike Thanksgiving as M. Iohn Goodwine and severall of his Church they wear strange long haire go in such fine fashionable apparell beyond their places as 't is a shame they will feast ride journeyes do servile businesses on the Fast daies and give their Parish Churches no Sermons no Prayers at all on those daies they make little conscience of family duties they will sit and tipple be joviall and merrie together I could tell true and certaine stories of manie Sectaries who were exceeding precise and strict before they fell into those waies but are abominable loose now and let but a man turne Sectarie now adaies and within one half year he is so metamorphosed in apparell hair c. as a man hardly knowes him 23. In all matters and businesses which succeed not according to their mind but crosse their waies and designes as if a choice of persons they like not be made to places or if such a thing passe and be done that pleases them not they will try all waies possible and cast about to finde some fl●ws or other pretend this thing and the other to question the election and make it null or to obstruct it they will put in Articles against men chosen though they cannot prove them they will pretend somthing or other was omitted and such a passage was illegall and all to bring to a new election and then they will worke all kind of waies to ef●ect their designes 24. They have spoken strange and high speeches against the setling of Presbyteriall Government and the Presbyterians as one Anabaptist of late That he hoped to see Heaven and Earth on fire before Presbyterie should be setled another Sectarie That it was one of the Articles of his beleefe that within seven yeares there would not so much as the name of Presbyterie be heard in England a third That hee hoped to see the Presbyterie as much ●rod under foot as the Bishops were a fourth That if the Saints were thus persecuted and could not have the libertie of their conscience it would come to A Gentleman told me he had heard many Souldiers of a Regiment of Horse which I forbeare naming say That when the Army of Cavaliers was overcome there would be another Army to overcome intimating the Presbyterians and I could relate strange speeches told me by faithfull ear-witnesses no sleight persons spoken against our brethren of Scotland by some Sectaries 25. After they have set their hands to papers as upon agreements in such and such points of difference as upon the receipts of money as upon giving in what they desire when they think such things may make against some of them have used means to get those papers back again into their hands and have come to those that kept them some dayes after pretending they desired to see them and look upon them for some reasons and then have desired to borrow them for a few dayes to compare

a shame for them to sit downe there where they see Christ is not ashamed Are they holyer and purer than hee But wherefore do they not convince themselves by their owne experience They cannot deny but they first beleeved in Christ before they made this separation from us was not this from preaching in our Church But can any man preach unlesse he be sent Rom. 10.13 Why do they therefore so perversly refuse the Word for some blemish of the externall calling whose divine vertue they feele in their hearts Although that fruit doth no more free our depravations from all fault than a true issue of ones body doth adulterie neither therefore must we rest contended in these corruptions or they separate from us for some blemishes Wherefore return yee to the unitie of the Church which hath begotten and nourished you If you flye this Christ who sups with his Elect in our Assemblies and likewise entertains them as they him truly you shall find him no where else And then speaking of those who forsake our Church he wishes soundnesse of mind to them that they may return to the truth whereby they may avoyd that punishment which abides deserters and revolters Now if when the luke-warme Angell was in our Church and so many corruptions of ceremonies c. that attended him it was so unlawfull and dangerous to forsake this Church and it was the dutie of those that deserted us to return lest the punishment of revolters should abide them what then is the sin of those who now forsake our Assemblies set up separated Churches when the luke-warme Angell is cast out and all his Attendants and a godly zealous Ministerie is brought in and the Ordinances administred free from ceremonies and the inventions of men and Discipline of Censures and Excommunication a setting up O let all such be exhorted to returne to the unity of the Church that they may escape judgements both temporall spirituall and eternall and not be judged of the Lord as revolters CORAL VI. HEnce then from all I have laid downe in the first and second Part of Gangraena of the Practices Proceedings and ways of the Sectaries we may see and observe the great difference between the carriage of the Independents and our Brethren of Scotland our Brethren of Scotland have been constant and true all along to their first Principles to the ends they alwayes held out to the grounds which they declared they went upon to the Covenant they have taken and that in every branch and part as well as some in standing for the Kings honour and just greatnesse c. as well as standing for their own Liberties in standing for uniformity in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government in the three Kingdomes as for preservation of their own c. and neither all their sufferings hardships difficulties on the one hand nor all the offers temptations flatteries on the other hand have made them decline from their way either in their owne Countrey or since they have been in Covenant with us I challenge any man in all this nine or ten yeares of their troubles to charge them justly with falsnesse or breach of Covenant in pretending one thing and intending another in forsaking former Principles and falling upon new according to any advantages offered them but now the Independents and Sectaries have been inconstant uncertain and unstable in all their wayes crying up and extolling our Brethren of Scotland to the heavens and afterwards as much casting them downe pretending a regard to some branches of the Covenant as extirpating Popery and Prelacy but not minding others as maintaining the Kings Honour his just power and greatnesse the extirpating of heresie schism the endeavouring the nearest conjunction and uniformity between the three Kingdoms in Government Discipline c. not certain to any principles or ends they have propounded except those of Anarchie and pretended new light not well knowing what they would have but changing their minds and framing their wayes according as they have seen their opportunities and advantages And because I observe it hath been one great part of the designe of the Sectaries yea and as the maine medium to effect their ends by the aspersing and reproaching of the Scots the Sectaries looking upon them as that which letteth and will let untill it be taken out of the way which hath been therefore with all industry artifice and vigour prosecuted ever since the battell at Marston Moore and more especially since the moulding or new modell of the Army I shall therefore to undeceive the people as in the sight of God out of pure conscience speak a few things of our Brethren of Scotland and show particularly some differences between them and the Sectaries 1. The Scots still upon all occasions have improved and made use of all victories successes and advantages put into their hands as the coming in of the King now to them for the good of both Kingdomes and for effecting the ends declared in the Covenant not for anie particular ends as to get possession of Newarke or to be revenged for affronts offered them or injuries done them by the Independent party or to increase divisions jealousies discontents between the Nations But now the Sectaries have made use of all advantages and of all successes they have had and of all events that are fallen out for the increase of their own partie and effecting their particular ends divided from the interests of both Kingdomes and the ends expressed in the Covenant yea to increase and further jealousies discontents differences between the two Kingdomes by blowing up and aggravating upon all occasions all things against the Scots by railing against and speaking evill of the Scots in all companies and places by aspersing them in manie printed bookes carefully spread and dispersed abroad by the Sectaries and by many false reports and other dangerous insinuations against the Scots vented in weekely newes bookes the Pensioners of the Independent party and particularly since the Kings coming to the Scottish army many things have beene related and spoken of by the weekly Pamphleters which reflect upon our Brethren of Scotland and some upon the Kings Majestie which must needs seeme strange and be verie offensive to all good and wise men and so much the more the King being come in and in the Parliaments Quarters I cannot stand to name the particulars nor to animadvert upon them now but referre the Reader among others to peruse Mercurius Britanicus numb 130. The Scotch Dove num 134. Moderate Intelligencer num 62 63. neither shall I much need to doe it for I doubt not but they will recant shortly and being mercenarie fellowes wee shall see them within a few weekes ring the changes 2. Our Brethren of Scotland have borne with much patience and long-suffering quietnesse of spirit and humili●ie infinite reproaches evill speakings against in City Countrey by all sorts of Sectaries passed by also manie affronts neglects abuses offered them and when manie things in