Selected quad for the lemma: evil_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
evil_n	good_a	know_v	knowledge_n	3,077	5	7.3450	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26356	The care of the peace of the church, the duty of every Christian in a discourse upon Psalm 122, 6, wherein the main pleas, for separation are examined and the true causes thereof shewed ... / by Tho. Adderley ... ; to which is annexed a letter, briefly shewing the great danger and sinfulness of popery, written to a young gentleman (a Roman Catholick) in Warwick-shire.	Adderley, Thomas, b. 1648 or 9.	1679 (1679)	Wing A509; ESTC R20224	39,054	53

much incumbent upon all Christians to endeavor the safety and to pray for the peace of the Church And therefore let us all in the conclusion be perswaded in our several places and stations to use the utmost of our endeavors thereunto If I forget thee O Jerusalem let my right hand forget her cunning says holy David and if I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth Psalm 137.5.6 verses Let us not forget her many enemies especially those Edomites be they Papists or others that cry out down with her down with her even to the ground And as for such as these let us pray unto God that he would abate their pride asswage their malice and confound all their devices And as for others who may possibly mean well but are most miserably misled and deluded let us pray unto God that it would please him to bring into the way of truth all such as have erred and are deceived And let us not forget to pray for our Governors too let us pray unto God that it would please him to bless and keep the Magistrates giving them grace to execute justice and to maintain truth And by so doing we may the better expect and hope for the preservation of our religion and for the prosperity and safety and peace of our Jerusalem even so long till we shall all come to the enjoyment of the heavenly Jerusalem and to associate with an innumerable company of Angels till we shall come to the general assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the judg of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect Which that we all of us may God of his infinite mercy grant for the merits sake of his Son Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the holy spirit be all honor and glory and praise now and for ever Amen FINIS A Letter Written to a Young Gentleman a Roman Catholick in Warwick-shire SIR THE extraordinary kindness I have for you as a Friend and the care I have for your Soul as a Christian together with your late importunity for a few Lines from me in reference to your Religion hath forced me to put Pen to Paper in the performance of a Task which otherwise I should hardly have been perswaded to I am conscious enough of my own inabilities and I was Three or Four days in suspence whether I should comply with your desire or no. And the greatest Remora was the little good that I could promise to my self from such an undertaking and that upon a double account First in regard I knew you to be Educated in the Romish Religion from your very Cradle and so must needs have suck't in such prejudices against the Protestants as were not to be rooted out but by a person of greater skill and strength then my self And Secondly in regard of what I have already intimated viz. my great inability for it But when I began to consider and recollect what great things God Almighty who turns the Hearts of the Children of Men as he pleases hath sometimes wrought by weak Instruments I presently resolved upon the work and then to leave the issue and success to him who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure Your former carelesness and your earnest importunity of late for some satisfaction as to the Principles of your Religion brings to my mind what I have oftentimes been told of some Sea-men and Marriners such as according to the Royal Prophets expression go down to the Sea in Ships and do their business in great Waters who though at other times they have been careless and prophane enough even so far as to bid defiance to the Heavens and to the Powers above yet when the Stormy Winds and Tempests have rose upon them and have threatned them with an inevitable Ship-wrack and Destruction have then been all on a sudden roused and awak'd and have fall'n upon their knees in Prayer to that God in whom before they hardly seemed to believe You know I presume the old Maxim Similitudo non curr●t quatuor pedibus And therefore though it will not be accommodated to you in all respects yet thus I think it may I have often heard you highly applauding the Church of Rome and so highly extolling the goodness of the Romish Religion as to seem utterly to dislike that of the Protestants and to give but little regard to any thing that could or might be said in vindication of the truth and purity of it This indeed was mostly while the season was serene and calm enough towards those of that Religion and the Penal statutes that have heretofore been made against them but rarely put in execution But since the discovery of a late damnable and bloody Plot of some at least if not of most of the Papists in England against a person of a mild and Gracious Prince even to the taking away his life and by that means to extirpate the Protestant Religion hath alarm'd the higher Powers and given them sufficient reason to inflict the utmost rigor and severity of the Laws upon the whole crew This may perchance have contributed something towards the rouzing and awakening you too to make some scrutiny and search into the goodness of that Religion of the Protestants that hath prompted them to so much mildness and gentleness towards you and into the Principles of that Religion of the Papists which puts her votaries both Priests and Laicks upon such ungrateful bloody and unjustifiable practises By what hath already passed upon this account against those of your Religion we may nearly guess what will be further done And surely you have but little reason to think but that those who shall refuse the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy when tender'd to them shall have the utmost severity of the Laws inflicted upon them And what those Laws are I think you have no need of any information Really Sir I hate an Hypocrite in Religion with all my heart such 〈…〉 as I remember Mr. Gale calls them that are for that Religion that makes most for their interest be it what it will And I would never go about to perswade any one to renounce and forsake a good Religion and thereby to hazard his soul which is more worth than a thousand worlds to save an estate And the great Author of our Christian Religion hath told us that whosoever doth not bear his Cross and come after him he cannot be his Disciple But all that I would perswade you to is seriously to enquire whether that Religion you now profess be a good Religion or no. And let me tell you this that such a zeal as puts a man upon the loss of an estate for the sake of that Religion into which he was drawn when he scarce knew the difference betwixt good and evil and hath been ever since kept in the dark and not permitted to search into the

soundness and goodness of it as it is an unjustifiable zeal because not according to knowledge so it is never to be expected that it should be rewarded with Houses and Lands in this world or with Glory in the world to come Be perswaded therefore to enquire into the grounds of your Religion before you expose your self to such inconveniences and losses for it's sake Consult some able conscientious Divines of the Church of England about it and I am sure you are not altogether a stranger to some who are able and will be willing to give you all reasonable satisfaction It is a piece of natural justice to hear both Parties speak before we condemn either ●●th our Law judge any one before it hear him and know what 〈◊〉 doth said Nicodemus a Ruler of the Jews But truely I th●●●hat the neglect of consulting the Writings of the Divines of the Church of England and the over-easie belief of whatever your Priests do buzz into your ears may justly expose most of your Religion to the censure of having too much partiality and too little justice But Pray Sir do but consider the wonderful charms of Empire and riches and to what horrid impieties they have sometimes hurried the greatest part of men And why may not most of those Doctrines which the Church of Rome is so zealous to maintain be no other for any thing you know yet then what do altogether flow from the mighty thirst after riches and Empire which many of the Popes of Rome have been eminently remarkable for I think I could name some that have had their sole rise and spring from thence but that I study all possible brevity But however let me mind you of consulting their Doctrines about Purgatory about Pardons and Indulgences and those of deposing as they call them Heretical Kings and Princes And I am perswaded you will find that the only root from whence they did at first spring was no other whatever is pretended then that forenamed The fire of Purgatory keeps the old Gentleman warm his Pardons and Indulgences fill his holinesse's Coffers The saying Masses for the dead brings in so many good rents that the Priests stand in no great need of help from the living This is the craft by which they get their wealth and therefore these Doctrines are the great Diana's amongst them The Church of Rome hath at all times ever since the Reformation been charged by the Divines of the Church of England with that damnable sin of Idolatry And if you could be perswaded impartially to peruse the late writings of the Learned and well-read Doctor Stillingfleet you would begin to suspect that they of that Church are not altogether free from it Their praying to Saints their Doctrines of merits their depriving the Laity of the Cup in the Holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper and many other such like things as I could name are clearly and directly contrary to the Holy Scriptures And this too you would be fully convinc'd of if you could once be perswaded to read them And to what purpose were they written and delivered to the World but that they might be read Do not therefore any longer suffer your Priests to take away that Key of knowledge from you who will not enter in themselves nor by their good will suffer others that are willing to enter You had need to have an extraordinary good opinion of those who keep you thus in the dark For my part should they deal thus with me I should very much doubt their honest intentions and at least conclude that they look'd upon me either as a Mad-man or a Fool. And some expressions that have fall'n from their Pens of late makes me apt to believe that they have scarce any better thoughts of most Lay men of your Religion And surely were it not that they do think so they would never have gone about to impose upon them such ridiculous fopperies and Pageant-like ceremonies so far from being grave and significant and such as may become Religion that I have oftentimes thought that as it was in Heathen Rome heretofore so it is in Rome Christian viz that your Priests have much ado to contain from smiling when they meet one another in the streets to think how easily they Gull and delude you Were it not that I am unwilling to transgress too much the bounds of an Epistle I could say a great deal more but nothing more then what 's true against the Romish Religion But in regard that it was your own doings to put me upon this work I hope you will the more readily pardon me if I do transgress Nevertheless there is but one thing more that I shall at present speak of And that is to ask you how you can possibly fauster or entertain any good thoughts of such a Religion as encourages and prompts men to Assassinations and murders and such like Hellish Artifices to propagate and uphold it That some of your Religion have been lately as well as formerly guilty of these things is so plainly apparent that nothing but an unmeasurable store of considence can deny it And for these things the Jesuits are noted throughout a great part of the Christian World for England hath not been the only Scene where they have acted these kind of Villanies The bloody Massacre in Ireland which is still fresh in the memories of many living that too in France and another at Piedmont and elsewhere hath sufficiently made them known in those parts And for these things they better deserve the name of Turks than Christians And that all of that way are not as deeply concern'd as the other is owing more to a generous temper and a naturally mild and tender disposition or such like then to their Religion whose Principles I am sure if fully understood and followed would put them upon as great and if possible greater impieties But alas the misery of it is they do not yet know the misery of the iniquity of the Church of Rome for if they did as your Priests are well aware of they would certainly be affrighted at it's dismal sight and utterly renounce all Communion with it Such Principles as lead to cruelty and blood are undoubtedly the Positions of the Church of Rome but they are not to be discover'd but at some certain times when their cause is like to be promoted by them nor but to some persons whom they find to be the most savage and inhumane They pick a jury for the Tryal or rather for the acting of their cause out of the Butchers-roe But once again is that Religion think you true and Christian that encourages rebellion and treason and murder Alas God would have no men to speak or act wickedly for him Their Religion is vain and their damnation will be just who do such apparent evils under a pretence they may do good thereby Surely these very things will make every sober well-meaning Christian to abhorr and detest them Can that