Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	better_a	choice_n	great_a	59	3	2.1568	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48122	A letter of religion to the Protestant-dissenters from the Church of England, of what denomination soever in the county of Kent wherein is reported the ground of their dissent, their worship, way of instruction, and behaviour towards laws and government : to which is added a perswasive to conformity, at least an acquiescence in the religion established / by a curate of the same county.	Curate of the same county.	1675 (1675)	Wing L1574; ESTC R11508	15,343	27

own Societies I speak of Kent there is a very little obedience to it or such obedience as little comports with the merit of the Doctrine it relates to or the solemnity wherewith it was instituted And to my experience there are some who frequent your Assemblies with good affection having yet a veneration of that Sacrament do constantly communicate with us not our of compulsion or more than ordinary perswasion but because not in practice in such Meetings of yours to which they usually betake themselves I pray then consider how intire integral your Worship is especialiy where there is nothing but an extemporary prayer and attempts on a Theological Discourse If in any place the Holy Scriptures are read I do not hear of any great care or order had for reading the same in the most material parts thereof but in many places there is no more use of them than in such Quotatations that are brought in to attend the Sermon and in the rest the Method or Confusion of reading is left to the discretion of the gifted Brother Pastor or Minister be he young or old Stranger or home-born And therefore it is that the skill your Auditors have in the Scriptures is very narrow referring only to those Texts which are most in fashion for your Sermons They observe little connexion or discrimination between Old and N. Testament nor particularly understand those Scriptures that essentially concern Christianity but are under Rote and Government of such glosses as you have fixt on those places that appear fairest at least in sound for dissent and difference from the Church of England This consideration makes me reflect on your way of instruction supposing instruction of men not worship of God to be the chief end of your assembling For if it were not you could not reasonably lay such stress on Sermons as you do and you cannot deny but God may be publikely worshipped without them and that acceptably too especially in those places where the Gospel hath been long received and in such a Church where there are ways of another name constantly used to instruct the Members thereof But if you should assemble without Sermons for worship what will become of you For you have so long preach'd a woe upon the neglect and very omission of Preaching that the people you know will curse you if you should but attempt to call them together in any publike Meeting without it But yet to let this pass when you are conven'd your way of instructing one would think might be better advised I meddle not now with the unaptness of your Subjects to beget Principles of Christianity in your Hearers and if they were Principles which you teach how unduly they are proportion'd to their capacities being inveloped with such Phrases that it were hard for the very Apostles to know their own Doctrines again or the Primitive Christians to resume their faith and practice of them if they were to judge and live by your Discourses But say your way of Preaching is mended for indeed the Writings of Dissenters in other Cities and Countries are being more congruous to sense and beginning to be more Orthodox as to Doctrine what reasons can there be in order to better edification as you pretend to neglect the use of the Ten Commandments publike Catechisms the Antient Creeds and the Lords Prayer which deliver the Elements of Religion in such plain words and tractable Periods as the meanest judgment and memory may receive and manage them And if the memory only be first obliged in those wise and blessed accomodations of Divine Truths they are the nearer to the understanding and may at last rule in the affections and conversation Yet with these you instruct not but make them all subside to your own private senses and illustrations of Scripture If this be told abroad to those who are of the Reformed Churches it will become to their Judgment equally wicked and incredible That men should pretend to instruction and the best way too without a Catechism or the use of it without the Decalogue Creeds or Lords Prayer For to say you touch on all these in your Pulpit-declamations is but to tell us of a Wild-goose-chase wherein the Learner though he may come to hear some good shall never have a form of sound words This is the stranger for that these things are omitted not only on choice but in opposition to Laws that enjoyn them but what speak I of Laws when as there is no Church or Kingdom on the face of the whole earth that hath better and more wholesome Laws than ours and yet none so slighted and baffled not by the Banditi or men that live without any conduct of Law and Conscience but by those that pretend to have the greatest apprehension of Religion and liveliest sense of the fear of God For what Authority hath consulted with greater wisdom and compassion towards those it governs hath waited with more patience and desire of Conformity and Obedience or inflicted more gently and tenderly on transgressours than ours yet what Government hath been more complain'd and libell'd against That stand reproach'd and foil'd in its wisest Decrees and most Christian Sanctions to the wonder and astonishment as well as to the evil Example of all the Nations round about us Should other men take your licence to except against Laws that they do not like and abate openly in their Obedience to them as you do no Law would be regarded but the constitution of the Kingdom must dissolve Yet for this you have taught them Principles and given them Patterns which they may know how to use in matters of body and estate as you in your pretended concerns of Soul and Religion For if you may deny Conformity to Law on the account of Conscience towards God in a matter that is not intrinsecally evil or by any word of God absolutely sinful as you cannot prove any thing in our usages is then may others also be set onto violate other Laws which they judge inexpedient or otherwise for I know not what reason do not please them I believe many of you intend no such evil to your Nation and Country but then why will you hold and love that Principle that may be so naturally improv'd to infinite mischiefs The time past surely may suffice you to have wrought your own will the Consequences whereof cannot without horrour be contemplated by any that have affection to the Church or Commonwealth Remember I pray your endeavours and oppositions were and are against such a Church that you cannot accuse of any defect in necessaries to Salvation or hath any thing in use or injunction that may otherwise hazard any mans happiness but set it forforward that shall unite unto it And yet your opposition to it visibly contradicts such a Doctrine for ought yet hath been proved whose infringement brings damnation viz. obedience to Authority Nor are your followers any way better prepared to discharge themselves of being involved in this guilt but by the precarious Argument of an implicite Belief that your Leaders are good men and will not go against the Scriptures which Scriptures if you would be intreated to look into without Party or Passion and so far yield to as you are convinc'd you would quickly both Leader and Follower leave your Tents and Camps and find more comfort though perhaps not success in obedience than obstinacie Here is nothing I believe in this Paper but some of you may have heard but I doubt few of you consider'd and therefore my design hereby is only to give in familiarly another Memorial and to renew the instance for peace and conformity which I do offer to you from the bottom of my heart without sense of any particular wrong or provocation from you save what is to every Member of the Church of England by your recessions from it or batteries against it I need not tell you that you with us are of one common Nature and Country but Religion too for you are wont to defend your selves in all aggresses upon you by the name and pretence to the cause of English Protestants but sure you were never acknowledged abroad as you stand in your disagreements from the Church of England to be in respect of Forein Churches either Mother Sister or Daughter yet will you not cease to multiply distinctions from us and enmities against us Consider how much the right spirit of Christianity is seen in meekness and peaceableness which if they are to be exercised towards all then doubtless not to be denied to a righteous and innocent Authority We ask you not to part with any Christian Vertue or Doctrine as necessary to a compliance with us but rather to become more practical in the most eminent points thereof and that you would leave off to mingle and prefer your own things before the things of Jesus Christ his Gospel and his Church There was a time when the Ordinances of a small piece of a Parliament were cried up for Laws by you and not only Obedience press'd to them on pain of Delinquencie and Damnation but Neutrality cursed though the very matter of those Laws was either to begin or justifie Rebellion or Schisme And shall an integral and full Authority betrampled under your feet in Laws that are for right Religion peace and Unity FINIS