Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	angel_n	earth_n	prayer_n	2,072	5	5.8252	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26998	The Protestant religion truely stated and justified by the late Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter ; prepared for the press some time before his death ; whereunto is added, by way of preface, some account of the learned author, by Mr. Danel Williams and Mr. Matthew Sylvester.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Williams, Daniel, 1643?-1716.; Sylvester, Matthew, 1636 or 7-1708.	1692 (1692)	Wing B1359; ESTC R1422	79,512	227

Number of Sanctified and therefore not of the Predestinate if they so continue what can more harden them in their Impenitence than to tell them that they must all believe that they shall be saved How many hundred Protestant Books and thousand Sermons tell the World that it is the Preachers earnest drift to save Wicked men from such Presumption which makes men call them terrible Preachers Every man is bound to believe Gods promise to be true and that he himself shall be saved if he be a true penitent sanctified Christian and so continue and that else he shall be Damned and not to distrust God as unwilling to continue the Grace he hath given him The Six and Twentieth accused Point That every man hath not an Angel Guardian or Keeper Ans 1. We hold that every true Christian even the least hath his Angel who beholdeth the Face of his Father in Heaven And that Angels are Gods Ministring Spirits for the good of his Elect and that they guard us and pitch their Tents about us and bear us up in their Hands and keep us in and from Danger and rejoyce at the Conversion of a Sinner and that we live in invisible Communion with them and shall be like them 2. But whether every Christian have one Angel to himself alone that guardeth no other or one Angel guard Hundreds or Thousands Or whether some as Lower Officers are set over a few and others as General Officers are over whole Kingdoms we leave to the determination of the Infallible Pope who is bolder with Gods Secrets than we dare be 3. But till now I thought they had not been so presumptuous as to assert that every man hath a Guardian Angel Where is there one word of God for this Is every man an Heir of Salvation or one of Christs little ones or under his promise Had Cain and Judas such Angels and all the Sodomites Christ made it an argument of Terrour to Persecutors that they offend such as had such Angels with God And dare you paint them as Devils and Burn them or Murder them by the Dragons Dragoons if you believe that every man hath such a Guardian Angel Surely Saints tho' called Hereticks have such The Seven and Twentieth accused Point That the Holy Angels pray not for us nor know our Thoughts and desires on Earth Ans A false accusation We say not that they pray not for us nor that they know not our desires nor any of our Thoughts We say that Angels are no such Strangers to Saints and sincere Godliness as not to know that all Godly men desire the Hallowing of Gods Name the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven They that know what Grace is and what our Prayers are know much of our desires And we do not think that Angels know less of our Thoughts than Devils who we feel to our Trouble are not altogether unacquainted with them And those Angels that rejoyce at a Sinners Conversion are not unacquainted with it And as to their Praying we know not how it is that Angels express their desires to God but we all agree that they desire our welfare and therefore may be said to pray for it if all notified Desire be Prayer We suppose that they know and Love us far better than we know and Love each other But we read that the Heretical Gnosticks or their like did deceive men by Voluntary Humility and worshipping of Angels intruding into those things which they had not seen vainly puft up by a fleshly mind Col. 2.18 19. Therefore we dare not pretend to Papal Infallibility nor boldly to conjecture how far it is that our Thoughts are known to Angels nor how much they are ignorant of them nor when or how oft or how far or in what manner they pray for us How far particularly and how far only generally c. Had this knowledge been needful to us God would have revealed it Much less do we know what Angel of what departed Soul of a Saint hath the care or charge of our Sheep and of our Cattel and who of our Pigs and Geese and who of our Fruits and Corn abundance of these things we leave to the Infallible Church As we do their acquaintance in Purgatory while our acquaintance and Conversation in Heaven can reach no higher than the prospect which we have in and by the Glass of Scripture Revelation The Eight and Twentieth accused Point That we may not pray to them Ans 1. We may desire Living Saints to pray for us and this may be called Praying to them So a Child prayeth to his Father or Master But we pray not to dead Saints nor Angels 1. Because we have an hundred Commands to pray to God and not one to pray to them and where there is no Law there is no Transgression or Sin Therefore while we are sure it is no Sin to forbear it and know not but it is Sin to do it we go the safe way If they say it is against the Popes Law or his Clergy's we say with Paul it is a small thing to us to be judged of man who can but kill our Bodies we have one that judgeth us even the Lord. Let the Pope Damn us if he can 2. As the first Commandment forbiddeth us to have any God but one so the second forbiddeth us to worship so as the Heathens did their Idols because it is Bodily interpretative Idolatry and Scandal But the Heathens used to pray to their under Deities whom they judged to be much like that which the Papists judge of Angels and praying to Invisible Spirits is to imitate them as scandalously as praying toward Images No wonder therefore that you so usually leave out the second Commandment 3. Gods Word is the Rule of all acceptable Religious Worship tho' but a General Rule in many Modes and Circumstances and therefore we fear swerving from it 4. Angels themselves never demanded it nor Christ bespake it for them yea they twice forbad it John See thou do it not 5. Angels being more holy than we are more for the Glory of God and the hatred of Creature arrogance and Idolatry and as God calleth himself specially Jealous against bodily Worship like the Idolaters in the second Commandment so Angels are more jealous against it than we are 6. As Angels said See thou do it not so contrarily Satan tempted Christ with the offer of the Kingdoms and glory of the World to fall down and worship him Therefore we had rather hearken to the Angels than to Devils And fear they that do otherwise worship Devils for Angels because only Devils have sought such Worship And the Devil oft turneth himself as into an Angel of Light to deceive as his Ministers do into Ministers of Righteousness 7. We know not when Angels hear us and when they do not And therefore know not when and how to pray to them 8. As we are sure that

Cure of an aking Tooth is for the sake of all the Body That is 1. For the good of the whole 2. And done out of love to the whole But this will not satisfie confounding Deceivers No doubt it is dead Saints that he meaneth And what he meaneth by Merits I suppose he knoweth not himself or else he would have told us How far we own or abhor the pretence of Merits I shewed before All Saints are saved by the full sufficient Merits of Christ and have none at all of their own unless the amiableness of Grace freely given them be called their Merits as a thankful Child more deserveth his Fathers Love that is is more Lovely than a Rebel that scorneth him and a piece of Gold deserveth to be esteemed above Dirt and a Nightingale above a Toad Yea their own Jesuit Vasquez not only denieth all Merit of God in Commutative Justice as all save Romans and a few such Sots do but also in point of distributive Justice by which he seemeth to deny Merit more than Protestants do For by Merit we mean but Moral aptitude for the reward of a free Benefactor who is also Rector when the ordering of a free Gift suspended on official Conditions is sapientially made a means of procuring Obedience Whatever God hath promised to give us for other Men's sake that he will so give But our Faith shall not go beyond his Promise If God have told us any where who Saint Nicolas and St. Becket and St. Christopher and St. Joan and St. Jane and St. Winifrid are and what they were to us more than others and that they were real Saints and that he hath promised us Mercy for their sakes and bid us pray to him for their Meriting for us let them shew us this in his Word But if it be only the Popes Command and Promise let his Subjects obey and trust it We are certain that none but Saints are saved And why then must I go to God for the Merits of St. Nicholas or St. Bridget any more than for the Merits of all the rest which are many Millions As God is jealous of his Honour against Idols so is he of Christs Honour against Antichrists and false Mediators and we must do nothing that seemeth to ascribe any part of Christs proper Office of Mediation to any Creature And doth it not seem so if we pray Lord hear pardon and save me for the Merits of Becket or Bridget c. For what more can we say of the Merits of Christ But still mark that these men say not that we must pray thus for the Merit of Saints but that we may And must all be Burnt or Damned that will not do all that the Pope thinks they maey do That we receive no benefit by them is a forged Calumny and not our Doctrine We believe that the Jews had benefit by Abraham Moses David when they were Dead And that the Reformed Churches have had benefit by the Blood of the Martyrs shed by the Blood-thirsty Papists to this day and that the whole Church hath benefit by the Writings of Chrysostom Nazianzene Augustine c. Luther Calvin c. The Four and Thirtieth accused Point That we ought not expresly to pray them to pray or intercede to God for us Ans There was enough said of this before about praying to Angels When God bids us pray to dead Men's Souls we will do it Till then your saying we may do it proveth neither may nor must to us Why then cannot you keep your may to your selves Never a Conjurer in England can tell us how far Souls in Heaven can hear nor where and when they are present or within hearing nor which of them are so whether all or one or which No nor whether those Saints that understood not Latin on Earth do understand Latin Prayers sent up from Earth wh●●● the Speaker himself understandeth them not Alas Christian Reader what a dark uncertain Worship like Charming would this Infallible Church compell men to offer the most Holy God while they accuse his Word of ensnaring dangerous obscurity We will pray to those alive that we know do hear us to pray to God for us for the sake of Christ But it 's but profanation of the Scripture to say that because Luke 16 a man in Hell supposed to see and hear Abraham did pray him to send Lazarus on Earth therefore we that neither see nor hear the Dead should pray to them But Dives prayed in vain and so may you And what if those Souls should prove to be in Purgatory Must we pray both to them that are in Purgatory and for them also And is it certain that the Pope and all his Church are sure which Saint is not in Purgatory when all are there or worse say they that ever sinned and did not Pennance for it The Five and Thirtieth accused Point That the Bones or Relicks of the Saints are not to be kept or reserved no Virtue proceeding from them after they be once dead Ans 1. Where hath God Commanded us to keep them for the Virtue that proceedeth from them 2. We deny not but a man may keep a Skeleton or Skull and if it be his Fathers we will accuse him no higher than of Imprudence and Passion But what proof have you of Virtue proceeding from Bones till you see it by experience Is it any appointed means for God to work Miracles by And how know you that all were Saints that the Pope calleth so Had all the Debauched Popes of Anno 800 900 1000 skill Infallible to know Saints from Hypocrites And hath God promised Virtue to all their Bones And are you sure that they are their Bones Alas what numerous Tricks have men to trust to to deceive themselves and others that yet will not obey Christs plain Commands and trust his promise The Six and Thirtieth accused Point That Creatures cannot be Sanctified or made more holy than they are already of their own Nature Ans A down-right slander 1. We believe that all men that shall be saved are or shall be Sanctified and made more holy than they are of their own Nature 2. We believe that to the Pure all things are Pure and are Sanctified by the Word and Prayer And that whatever we do we should do it to the glory of God And when a Christian devoteth and useth his Food Estate and all to Gods Service it is Sanctified 3. We believe that a Temple a Font a Table and Utensils may well be separated from common uses to Gods Worship And that Separation is a sanctifying of them To be Sanctified or Holy is but to be separated from common use to Gods special Service according to the nature of the thing used 1. Godly men are Sanctifyed and Saints because by Soul-consent and Devotion and Practice they are sincerely separated to God from the slavery of the World the Flesh and the Devil being Habitually and Predominantly lovers of God and Holiness by

Church can Err and hath Errors Ans This is truly and honestly recited All Protestants hold it and marvel that all the Devils in Hell can so befool any as to deny it 1. No Body can tell what it is that they call the Church till they tell us But what ever it is except confirmed Angels and Souls in Heaven if they cannot Err God and our Saviour and the Apostles have Erred For they tell us that we know but in part and if any Man say that he hath no Sin he is a Lyar 1 Joh. 1. 1 Cor. 13.12 And in many things we offend all Jam. 2.2 Psal 19.12 Who can understand his Errours cleanse thou me from secret faults It was the Church of which God complaineth that they alway Err in their Hearts and have not known God's ways Psal 95.10 Heb. 3.10 unless Caleb and Joshua were all the Church Isa 53.6 All we like Sheep have gone astray c. If by the Church they mean the Priests how full of Complaints against their Errours are all the Prophets and History of the Kings and Chronicles Isa 3.12 O my people they that lead thee cause thee to Err and destroy the way of thy paths Isa 9.15 16. For the Leaders of this people cause them to Err and they that are led of them are destroyed Mal. 2. The Priests Lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the Law at his Mouth for he is the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts But ye are departed out of the way and ye have caused many to stumble at the Law Ye have corrupted the Covenant of Levi saith the Lord of Hosts Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people according as ye have not kept my ways c. Hos 4.6 My people are cut off for lack of knowledge Because thou hast rejected knowledge I will olso reject thee that thou shalt be no Priest to me Jer. 53.31 The Prophets prophecy falsely and the Priests bear Rule by their means and my people love to have it so and what will ye do in the end hereof 2 Chron. 36.14 16 17. All the chief of the Priests and the people Transgressed very much after the abominations of the Heathen But they mocked the Messengers of the Lord and despised his words and misused his Prophets till the wrath of the Lord arose against his people and there was no healing so Isa 1.2 3 4. Reader is it not worse than Infidelity that these Men teach if they say that the Church hath not Erred Was it no Error when Aaron set them up the Golden-Calf nor when they went after the Idols of the Heathen and worshipped in the High places Was it no Error to take Christ for a Deceiver and Blasphemer worthy to be Crucified Was it no Error to reject the Gospel and persecute the Apostles And had the Apostles no Error when they believed not that Christ must Die for our Sins and rise again and ascend to Heaven but thought he must then set up an Earthly Kingdom Was it no Error of Peter Math. 16. to disswade Christ from Suffering for which Christ said Get thee behind me Sathan thou savourest not the things that be of God but those that be of Men And I think he Erred when Paul openly rebuked his Separation Gal. 2. If all the Church on Earth consist only of persons that have many Errors then the whole Church hath many Errors But the Antecedent is so true that I take him that denyeth it to be so far from knowing what the Church is or what a Christian is that he knoweth not what a Man is and a Church of such are so unfit to be trusted as infallible with all Mens Salvation that they have not the Wit of common illiterate Men or Children And if in all things else they were as mad as in these two Opinions 1. That the Church never did nor can Err. 2. And that all Mens Senses must be denyed for Transubstantiation doubtless they should be kept in Bedlam from humane Converse But for my part I do not think that any Man of them not stark mad doth believe himself that there are any men in the World that have no Error that have any use of Understanding He is far from knowing what Man is that knoweth not that he swarmeth with Errours I oftner doubt whether the greater number of most mens thoughts are true or false But if by the Church they mean only the Pope if he cannot Err then it is no Errour to believe that there is no Life but this and that Mans Soul dieth as the Beasts and that it is lawful to Murther Gods Servants by Thousands or hundred Thousands if all the foresaid Popes in the ages 800 900 1000 1100 Erred not sure there is no such thing as Errour in the World But perhaps by the Church is meant General Councils But 1. If they Erred not in their Decrees doth it follow that therefore they had no Errour 2. But did not the second Council at Ephesus Err Where they tell us that Sola Petri Navicula only the Popes Messengers escaped the Heresie Did not the Council of Calcedon Err in their Opinion when it determined that the Reason of Romes Primacy was because it was the Imperial Seat c. Were all the Councils free from Errour that were for the Arrians And those that were against them And all that were for the Monothelites And those that were against them And all that were for Images and those that were against them c. But at last they come to this that the Pope may Err and Councils may Err but when they agree they cannot Err A happy meeting of Erring persons if they are both cured by it But sure it is not the meeting For the Pope is at Rome when the Council is at Trent Ephesus Constantinople c. If a Council may Err and the Pope Err what proveth it impossible for them to agree in Errour The Pope and Council at Lateran 4th agreed for the Popes deposing Princes that Exterminate not all out of their Dominions that deny Transubstantiation c. Was this no Errour Obj. But this was not a matter of Faith Ans Is it no matter of Faith with them Whether it be Lawful or not according to Gods Law to kill men that believe their Senses and to depose Princes And whether Subjects may break their Oaths of Allegiance and forsake their Prince if the Pope Command them and all because their Prince will not be a Murtherer or Persecutor These are no matters of Faith with them But sure they have made them Articles of their Religion And either the Rebels and Murtherers and Pope and Council Err or else Gods Law and Gospel Err. The Judgment of the Reformed Catholicks is this 1. That there is no man living without Errour 2. That the Apostles of Christ were Commissioned to deliver his Gospel to the World by Word and Record and had his promise of his Spirit to

have of their own a Redundancy to save others But we all with thankfulness confess that God useth to bless the Houses of the Faithful the Children for the Parents sake and hath exprest this in the Decalogue and by many Promises Yea that he would have spared Sodom had there been but Ten Righteous persons there And a Potiphars House and a Prison may be blest in part for Josephs sake And when Parents are Dead this blessing may be on their Children through many Generations And God remembred Abraham when his Posterity provoked him David had a special promise for his Seed None of this is denyed by us But 1. There is no Merit in any mans Works but their Rewardableness by Gods free Grace and promise for the sake of Christs meritorious Righteousness Sacrifice and Intercession their Imperfection being pardoned through him and their Holiness amiable to God 2. No man shall be saved for anothers Merit or Holiness or Works that is not truly Regenerate and Holy himself The Eighteenth accused Point That no man can do Works of Supererrogation Ans Supererrogation is a sustian word of your own by which you may mean what you please 1. No man can perform to God more Duty than he oweth him It 's a Contradiction Duty is quod debetur 2. No man can profit God by any thing that he doth 3. No man save Christ lived wirhout all Sin And he that sinneth doth not all his Duty or keep all Gods Law perfectly And he that doth not all doth not all and more 4. There is no Moral good done by any man which was not his Duty and Gods Law commanded not For Gods Law is perfect and therefore obligeth to all Moral good And as Sin is the Transgression of the Law so Moral good is the conform Obedience to the Law 5. God hath not Counsels to Moral action which are not obliging Laws and make not our Duty For to keep them is Moral good and the Law were imperfect if it obliged not to all such good If the Counsel oblige ut norma officii it 's a Law If it oblige not it 's vain 6. But there are many actions that are neither Commanded nor Counselled nor forbidden But those are not Moral actions as being no objects of our Choosing or Refusing by Reasons Conduct The nictus oculorum our Breathing our Pulse the Circulation of the Blood c. are no Moral acts Commanded or forbidden but necessitated Man maketh it no act of deliberation and choice which Foot he shall set forward first or just how many Steps he shall go in a Day which of two equal Eggs he shall Eat and an hundred such These are neither Duty nor Sin Commanded nor Counselled nor forbidden neither virtuous or vicious 7. And there are innumerable actions that are not the Matter of any Common-Law or Counsel and so as such are neither Sin nor Duty which yet as Circumstantiated and Cloathed with Accidents are to this or that man either Duty or Sin This not understood maketh these Ignorant Casuists abuse the words of Christ and Paul about Chastity and Marriage And because Christ saith every man cannot receive this Saying and Paul she hath not Sinned He that Marrieth doth well and he that doth not doth better they gather that there are Moral actions which are not best and yet no Sin The true plain solution is from the two last Considerations 1. God hath made no Law commanding or forbidding Marriage or Celibate as such or in Common To Marry is no Sin considered meerly as Marriage 2. But God hath made Laws against hurtful and injurious Marriages and to guide men to know when Marrying is a Duty or a Sin 3. And if any ones case were so neutral as that it could not be discerned whether Marrying were a hurt or benefit it would be no Moral eligible or refuseable action 4. But to some it is a great Duty by accidents and to some a great Sin Therefore Paul never meant that it was no mans duty and no mans sin but only that simply as Marriage it was no mans duty or sin or the matter of a commanding or forbidding Law but only by accident it may be such to one more than to another That this is Pauls meaning the Papists must confess For 1. Do not they say that the Marriage of Priests Fryars and Nuns are Sin 2. If any one Marry an Infidel or utterly unsuitable Person without necessity against Parents wills or one that is impotent or hath the Pox or that he cannot maintain c. Is not this a hainous Sin What else signifie Gods Law and mans against unlawful Marriages And if one cannot live chastly without Marriage and Parents command it it is not a Sin to refuse The Law saith Let all things be done to Edification and whether ye Eat or Drink or whatever ye do do all to the glory of God And is it only Counsel and no Command to Marry or not Marry as it makes to Gods Glory or against it There are few actions of a mans Life that make so much to his hurt and utter misery as unwise and unmeet Marrying And is this on Sin May they not see Pauls meaning then if they were but willing It is hard to imagine a case in which so important an action as Marriage can be neither Sin nor Duty 2. But sometime men use the word Sin and Sinners for meer Wickedness and such Sin as is inconsistent with a state of Salvation And we easily grant that all Sins are not such Sins as these But Gods Law is perfect tho' man be imperfect and forbiddeth all Sin even the least 3. But see the Heresies of Popery This man here saith To do that which is Counselled is not necessary because one may nevertheless be saved But he who omitteth what is commanded unless he do pennance cannot escape Eternal pains 1. See here what a frivolous Counseller they make Christ when it 's not necessary to follow his Counsel 2. See here how they make Necessity to be only of that which a man cannot be saved without When Saul a Persecutor and Blasphemer an Infidel Murderer c. may be saved if he be truly Convicted Obedience hath it's Necessity tho' we knew that God would forgive Disobedience to the Convicted 3. See here how they damn themselves and all mankind every man living omitteth what is commanded many hundred times for which he doth not that which they call Pennance He is a Lyar that saith he hath no Sin specially of Omission Gods Law bindeth us all to Believe to Hope to desire Holiness and Heaven to love God and our Neighbours and our Enemies with a stronger degree of Faith Hope Desire and Love than we do Every Prayer and Meditation is sinfully defective Every hour hath some omission of improvement And all this is not remembred nor all confest to a Priest nor all known or observed by any Sinner And some omission we are guilty of at our very