Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	day_n	holy_a	keep_v	7,331	5	6.2245	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26871	Cain and Abel malignity that is, enmity to serious godliness, that is, to an holy and heavenly state of heart and life : lamented, described, detected, and unananswerably [sic] proved to be the devilish nature, and the militia of the devil against God and Christ and the church and kingdoms, and the surest sign of a state of damnation / by Richard Baxter, or, Gildas Salvianus ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1689 (1689)	Wing B1195; ESTC R2643	73,886	164

disobeying men deserveth excommunication Learn of our late Laws which account all the Ministers of England worthy to be cast out and silenced if they dare not take the imposed Declarations Oaths and Subscriptions and do what the Act of Uniformity imposeth And do you think it worthy of reproach to be as strict in obeying Gods known Laws as is required to the Act of Uniformity and the Canons 31. Even the Church of Rome applaudeth great Rigor and Strictness of life in such as will obey the Pope And they have allowed Orders of Fryars whose rules tye them to great abstinence to much praying and some to much Preaching so that Religion is all their calling And shall the strict obeying of Gods known Laws render men odious among professed Protestants Yea the Papists honour the very Bones and Relicks of their dead Saints And you your selves keep holy days for many Saints And will you at the same time hate and hurt those that endeavour to imitate them Will you imitate those Pharisees whom Christ pronounceth Woe against who at once honoured the dead Prophets with building them Monuments or Tombs and murdered the living that succeeded them 32. You can never come to Heaven or be saved from Hell your selves without serious Holiness Justice and Sobriety And will you hate that without which you cannot be saved 33. Scarce any sin doth more certainly prove you to be ungodly than hating godliness What ever hope there may be of those that sin against Conscience and wish to be better and purpose Repentance that man cannot be a truly Godly man that is an Enemy to godliness so that this is a dreadful deaths mark on you 34. You would extirpate the principle of self-love which God hath made inseparable from us There is somewhat in our nature which we cannot lay by which makes us unwilling to be damned If you that believe no Hell dare venture into it we cannot do so who do believe it If you say that it is our folly to believe that none shall be saved without Holiness and mortifying the deeds of the body by the Spirit bear with that folly which doth you no harm It is not Men or Devils that we had it from but the Holy Ghost in Scripture If it be your wisdom to give God the lie and believe a Drunken sot or the Devil before him it shall be none of ours Speed as you choose and let us speed as we choose we shall meet your Souls shortly in another mind and tune Strive not to make us choose damnation now our Eyes are open We were once too easily befool'd but cannot now so hate our selves 35. Moreover he that would not have a man live a life of holy obedience to God would have him lay by that which he was made for and that which God continueth his life for and that which he hath his reason and all his daily mercies for What else have we to do in the World Have men going to the Grave and Eternity nothing to do but Eat and Drink and Laugh and Play and run up and down like Ants with sticks and straws and then die and call all vanity and vexation too late If we may not spend our time in making sure of a better World we had rather we had never been born or had died in infancy or that we had a dose of Opium that would make us sleep out the rest of our lives in quietness rather than spend it as you do and then give a sad ac●ount of all we had rather we had been Birds or Beasts Dogs or Swine than Men were it not for that life which you hate and the hopes which depend on it It had been a greater kindness to us to have murdered us at the birth than to tempt us to live for our damnation 36. What do you think it is that is Gods Image on mans Soul you know that it 's said in Scripture that God made man at first in his own Image and that Christ by his Spirit reneweth them to that Image What is it think you God hath not hands and feet and bodily parts as we have It is the Soul that hath his Image And do you think it is the love of Money and Lust and Sport or Gluttony or Drunkenness that is his Image Scripture saith Eph. 4. 23 24. Colos. 3. 10. it is Holiness And this is called the Divine nature as coming from God and inclining nature unto God. Either Holiness Wisdom and Righteousness is Gods Image or else there is none such on man And then you make Gods Word to be false And if this be it and this it which you hate are you not haters of God And is not that to be devilish and hated by God 37. While you are angry at them that say few are saved or that none but Saints or serious godly obedient men are saved you would sink all the World into utter despair and make none or next none to be saved One part of the haters of godliness believe no life to come And these would have all men despair For if there be none there is none to be hoped for and they that think men die but as Dogs Swine do must be expected to live like Dogs Swine The other part of you labour by all means to make themselves and others believe that the profession of more godliness than worldly carnal men have is but hypocrisy and that such are at the heart as bad as others And if this be so what is the consequence but that none are saved For unless you will give God the lie or be saved in spite of him you must believe that none are saved that are not sanctified by the Spirit of Christ and live not after the Spirit mortifying the flesh Ioh. 3 3 5. Heb. 12. 14. Rom. 8. 6 7. 8 9 13. 2 Cor. 5. 17. And that no man can be saved that loveth the world more than God and Heaven and fleshly pleasure more than holiness And therefore if there be none such then none are saved Hypocrisy will not save men God tells us that Drunkards Fornicators Covetous Thieves Extortioners Revilers Effeminate Idolaters cannot enter into the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6. 9 10. Eph. 5. 5. And if any man love the world best the love of the Father is not in him 1 Ioh. 2. 5. And if all that pretend to be better are hypocrites than none at all are saved It may be you have the kindness to except some few But if those few be all that be not either carnal men described Rom. 8. 5 6 7 9. or hypocrites how few then do you make to be saved if God be true 38. Who do you think it is that Christ meaneth when he saith I send you as Lambs among Wolves Ye shall be hated of all men for my names sakes Blessed are they that suffer persecution for righteousness sake When they say all manner of evil of you falsly for my sake The World will

endeavour it When you say or hear all the ten Commandments you pray Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law And do you hate men for endeavouring to keep it If you come to the Lords Table you confess your sins and bind your selves in Covenant to forsake them and to live a holy life and you take the Sacrament upon it And the Liturgy warneth you to take heed that you dissemble not nor be hinderers of Gods holy word lest the Devil enter into you as he did into Judas and fill you with all unrighteousness And if you hate or oppose that holy obedience to God which you profess after all this what must be the portion of such hypocrites And in your Creed you profess to believe in God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost and to hold a Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints And yet do you hate Saints that obey the Father Son and Holy-Ghost and hate their Communion 10. Hath not God printed on mans nature such a sense of the difference between Good and Evil as that all Laws and Government are founded in that sense And no man loveth to be counted or called a bad or ungodly or unconscionable man A Lyar a Knave a Perjured man or a wicked man And yet do you hate men for avoiding wickedness 11. Do not you use to accuse Religious men of some sin or other Truly or falsly and think by that to make them odious And yet do you accuse them and hate them most for not sinning To be Sober Just and Godly is but to avoid sins of Omission and Commission And do you at once accuse them as sinners and hate them for obeying God and sinning no more 12. Doth it never affright you to find the Devils nature in you as hating the Divine or holy nature which is in faithful Godly men And to think how openly you serve the Devil and do his work No man that believeth there are Devils can doubt but that the hatred of God as holy and the hatred of his holy Word and Work and Servants is the Devils malignity and the opposing of them his work If he were to write you his Commandments they would be contrary to Gods and the chief of them should be Thou shalt not Love God nor serve him with all thy Heart and Soul and Might nor Love those that do so but hate deride oppose and persecute them And is it honourable openly to serve the Devil Christ tells such men Ioh. 8. That the Devil is their Father because they have his nature and that his work they do for he was from the beginning a Lyar and a Malignant Murderer and turned man from obeying God. And can you think that he loveth you or that his Service against God is better than Gods or his reward better 13. Doth it never touch your Consciences to consider that you are the Children and followers of cursed Cain and how punctually his case against Abel and yours against Gods Servants is the same By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his Gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh Heb. 11. 4. Cain hated him because God more accepted him and his offering 1 Ioh. 3. 10 11 12. In this the Children of God are manifest and the Children of the Devil Whoever doth not righteousness is not of God nor he that loveth not his Brother For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning that we should love one another Not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his Brother And wherefore slew he him because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous 14. Is it possible that any man can unfeignedly believe a Heaven as the reward of holy obedience and yet think we can do too much to obtain it or be too careful to make it sure Is not everlasting glory worth the cost of a holy life Or can it be too dearly bought 15. Or is it possible to believe Gods Judgment and Hells Punishment and yet to hate those that do their best according to Gods own Counsel to escape it 16. What monstrous cruelty is it in you to wish poor Souls to do that which God hath told us they shall be damned for God saith Without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5. 20. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Mat. 5. If ye live after the Flesh ye shall die but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the Body ye shall live Rom. 8. 7 8. 13. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness 2 Pet. 3. 11. We receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us serve God acceptably with Reverence and Godly fear for our God is a Consuming Fire Heb. 12. 28 29. Be stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord for asmuch as you know that your Labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15. 58. This is the very tenor of the Gospel And would you wish men to damn their Souls for nothing To lose Heaven and suffer Hell for ever and all to avoid a pure and holy life What a bloody motion is this Worse than if you intreated us all to cut our own throats Let us try first whether you will do far less at our request Will you give the poor all your Lands and Estates Will you run into Fire or Water or set your own houses on fire when any will but desire it It 's like you have heard of the Woman who being tempted to adultery desired the tempter first to hold his Finger in the Fire for her Which when he refused she told him it was less reason she should burn in Hell to Satisfy his lust If you will not part with your Life or Estate when another desires you why should we part with Heaven for ever and choose Hell at your desire Yea we see that you will not leave an ill-gotten gain or a Sport or a Whore or a Drunken Cup for all the Love of God the blood of Christ and the hope of Heaven And shall we part with God and Heaven and Christ to humour you And what is it that you offer us instead of all that we must part with And to ease the pain which we must undergo Nothing or worse than nothing If we should renounce God and our hope of Heaven you cannot give us health or wealth for it Much less can you secure these or life to us till to morrow And will any thing that you can give us be better than Heaven to us Or will it make Hell tollerable Will you undertake to answer for it at the bar of God if we are charged with an ungodly fleshly life or

Canons are like to be the Law to the end of the World. § 11. But again what is it that maketh so many of the Laity serve the Popish Prelates universal claim or keep up the destructive enmity and divisions of the Christian World A stranger would think that it were chiefly caused by some great contrariety of real Interests or that one party adhered to some principles or practices which were really hurtful to the others rights While both were serious for Christianity But it is become by long experience notorious that all the Christian Worlds calamitous divisions are principally from the old enmity between the Womans and the Serpents Seed and that all is but the Prosecution of that which their first Patriarch Cain began exemplified after in the discrimination of the Children of men and the Sons of God and in Esau and Iacob Ishmael and Isaac and so down to the days of the Apostles And saith Paul As he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit even so it is now Among us it is notorious that if we knew how to cure men of the radical Enmity of the flesh against the spirit and of a carnal minds averseness to God and serious Godliness the rest of our differences were never like to continue our Wounds and cruel Factions In Families you may hear that this is the fundamental difference Husband and Wife Parents and Children Master and Servants upon the meer account of serious Godliness do live like Enemies that are impatient of each other If the Husband be ungodly the Wife Children or Servants that have but a care of their Salvation are still under his restraints or frowns or scorns This praying especially if it be without Book so much preaching and hearing yea any serious talk of God or Heaven or Scripture is a troublesom weariness to him and he tells them it is but Hypocrisie or more ado than needs If any compassionately tell him of the evil of his swearing or tipling or prophaneness he tells them they are precise Puritanes or Fanaticks and worse than he If they will needs hear Sermons he will have them go but to some cold or ignorant Preacher or one that will please him with a calumny or scorn at Puritans or that will say as he doth that this stir for Salvation and medling so much with Scripture and Religion is but proud self-conceited Fanaticism In a word it is serious Preaching and Hearing and Reading Gods Word serious Praying and Preparation for the Sacrament serious Discourse of the state of their Souls and Preparation for Death Judgment and Eternity serious fearing and avoiding sin and speaking against the sin of others that is the common eye-sore and trouble of the world which they secretly hate and cannot bear with in their Families in their Neighbours in Magistrates in Ministers or People And because it easeth their minds by vent and by keeping up some hopes that they may be saved without this serious Godliness themselves they cherish a conceit that the persons that herein differ from them are as bad if not much worse than others and gladly hear those that slander and deride them Such Company such Pamphlets such Sermons please them And to make them odious they have for them some contemptuous scornful Nickname which though it be of no signification is as effectual as the truest charge Among the Roman Sects do but call a man a Heretick or Schismatick a Lutheran a Calvinist a Zwinglian and elsewhere do but call him a Sectary a Schismatick a Puritan a Calvinist a Nonconformist an Independant a Presbyterian a Round-head a Fanatick a Whig and it serveth the turn as well as if you had proved him a proud Hypocrite or a Rebel And there be among the real Schismaticks also some persons that if you do but call a man Episcopal a Conformist an Arminian a Church of England man that goeth to the Common-Prayer they think that he must needs be a Temporizer Graceless or Dangerously unsound And thus the miseries of the Land are continued and increased But because the spirit of Cain is the Grand Incendiary and the Enmity against serious Holiness throughout all the world is the principal cause of Divisions Hatred Wars and Blood-shed I will here annex many Reasons which with men that have any Reason left them should cure this Malignant Enmity to Holiness if men will but soberly consider them I have said so much to such already especially in my Saints Rest Now or Never my Family Book and a Saint or a Brute that I cannot do this work again without repeating much that 's said But seeing all that doth not serve and the Ulcer breaketh out more dangerously than ever till it come to a Noli me tangere we must continue some hope and use of means and if we lay on fresh Plaisters of the old materials while only New Books are by such regarded we are bound to do our best It is but so much labour lost and it is not utterly lost to our selves while we have peace of Conscience in Gods acceptance But being sure to be misreported when I have done my best to be understood that I be not guilty of it I will first shew what I mean by serious Godliness and next what I mean by Malignity or Enmity to serious Godliness Chap. II. Whom I mean by Godly Persons and whom by Malignant Enemies to Godliness § 1. BY GODLINESS I do not mean 1. Any Superstition or making Religions or Religious Duties which God never made and extolling these and the Party that are for them God hath made us Religious work enough Could we do that well we need no more Religion so far as it is made by men is no Religion but a contradiction or equivocation for Religion is our Obligation and Duty to God and Conscience of it Could I be for Superstition or more Religion than God hath made us I might be for all the New Religions of Rome Franciscans Dominicans Carthusians Jesuits Oratorians and all the rest And I might be for their Works of Supererogation their Massings worshiping Bread Angels dead Saints Images their Pilgrimages Relicks and all their pretended Traditions and Councils their new made Church-Laws and I should know no end § 2. And 2. By Godliness I mean not any singular odd Opinion differing from the Scripture and making a Sect or any Errour whatsoever nor any Opinion which is contrary to any thing which the whole Church on Earth did ever hold as necessary to Salvation or Communion § 3. Nor 3. Do I mean any Truth or Duty of inferiour moment which only makes to the well-being of a Christian though this be an Inferiour part of Godliness at least not that which a godly willing person knows not to be his duty § 4. Much less 4. Do I mean any proud false conceit of a mans own Godliness and becoming one of an unwarrantable Sect that he may be conspicuous to others or

their ancient and accustomed Liberty Regiment Laws they may not well be counted Rebels saith he of Obedience pag. 520. But I hear many now say the contrary and Condemn such Doctrine as disloyal I find some joyn with the Papists in accusing the Reformation as caused by Rebellions in Germany Geneva France Belgium c. And I find Bishop Iewel Bilson and other Bishops defending the French defence and Dr. Peter Moulin of Canterbury in his answer to Philanax Anglicus Contradicting their accusers as false in Point of History Abundance of such Political Controversies are now lately agitated some charging their adversaries with Rebellion and some with Tyranny Some saying they are guilty of Treason against the King and others They are Traitors against the Kingdom And too ordinarily damning one another as if these matters were Articles of our Creed What a dismal difference is there now about those words in the Declaration in the Corporation Act There is no Obligation on me or any other person from the Oath called the solemn League and Covenant Some say there are none but Rebels will refuse it And that if any obligation had been granted to things lawful or necessary some would have extended it to Rebellion or Schism And therefore all Obligation is to be renounced Others say that National perjury is a forerunner of National Calamity or ruine and that where Oaths bind not there can be no Trust and no Trust no Commerce And they think as Dr. Sanderson and Casuists Papists and Protestants do that though an Oath or Vow be unlawfully Imposed and Sinfully taken and part of the matter of it be unlawful and the Imposers and Takers are bound to repent and no one is bound by it to the unlawful part yet the taker is bound to that part of the matter which is lawful or necessary And they take it to be lawful and necessary to Repent of sin to oppose Prophaneness Schisms Heresy and Popery to defend the King and therefore that it obligeth them to these I meddle not with the Roman opinion that it is the Henrician Heresy to say that Kings have a power of investing Bishops and disobeying the Popes Excommunication and of such as Cardinal Perron that dare not question or deny the power of the Pope and Councils to Excommunicate and depose Kings because then they must condemn approved General Councils which are their religion itself and saith he must grant that the Pope is Antichrist and the Church erroneous that hath so long used this I name all these Political Controversies 1. To tell you that it is not factious and passionate enmity to each other on such accounts which I mean by enmity to Religion 2. And to remember men that if in so many and great points of Politicks and Government the Learned and Christian World have so great difference what reason is there that we should Damn or Excommunicate or hate each other about a hard opinion in Religion or a Ceremony 3. And to tell the Popish Church that if it were a good argument that there must be one Pretorian Court or Church to oblige all the World by an universal determination in what sence to expound the Scripture because it is abused to errour by mens mistake and there must be an end of Controversies by the same reason there must be an universal Pretorian Court to expound all human Laws and end the controversies of Lawyers Yea and to master all mens Reason for Scripture is no more commonly controverted and abused than Law is And not half so much as Reason is which is pleaded for almost all the falshood and wickedness in the World. § 10. Moreover it is not personal feuds between Man and Man that I mean by Enmity to Godliness No though any such be against an Innocent and Godly Man where it is not for his Godliness but some other difference § 11. I will say more though some dislike it it is not a Papist as such that I mean by a Malignant Enemy of Godliness I know that Education and Temptation and want of hearing the confutation of their errours judiciously made may cause Godly persons to think that the universal Church must be united in some humane Head or Soveraign power and that there is no other way to end controversies and schisms and that as Dr. Saywell saith there must be some over Kingdoms or National Churches as well as over particular persons that many may not escape while a few are punished It is easy to be deceived by the pretences of Unity and Concord while men see the divisions and discords of others And the false pretences of Antiquity are so confidently uttered by their Clergy that men unacquainted with the history may verily believe them And the plea for an uninterrupted succession of Ministerial ordination and that a Superior must give power to the Inferiors deceiveth many If there must be a Diocesane to ordain and rule all Presbyters and a Metropolitan to ordain or rule the Diocesanes and a Patriarch to rule them from whom shall the Patriarchs receive their power or commands but from a Pope The poor reasoning which the French now use with the Protestants puzleth unskilful persons viz. Was there any Church before your reformation If yea where was it And had not you your Ministerial power from it It was Rome or none And if it was the true Church then it is so now We answer them there was and is one only Catholick Church Of this Christ only is the Head or Universal governour and no man or men Of this all Lawful Pastors are his official guides in their several Provinces as many Justices and Mayors of Corporations under one King That all these having one King Jesus and one Law of Christ and one Spirit and one Faith and Hope are to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and to use Synods when needful to that end but not as a Pretorian or Regent Aristocracy or Court. That the Church before Luther was all over the World where ever there were Christians in Ethiopia Egypt Syria Armenia Georgia Circassia Asia and where ever the Greek Christianity is in Moscovy and in all Europe where there were true Christians That the envious man having sowed Tares this Church is unhappily fallen into many corruptions diseases and factious sects almost all censuring one another no part of it is perfect That the Papal part is in Doctrine Worship and Government one of the most corrupted parts Yet so far as their diseases or errours nullify not their profession of Christianity they are parts though leprous And therefore though they are the most uncharitable and schismatical part as they cut off or unchurch all the Christian World save themselves yet being as Christians united to the rest in the common faith their Baptism Ordinations are not nullities as they invest men in the Christian Society and Christian Ministry though that part of them is a nullity which engageth men

the Church and under Christs colours and in the Christian name And you must be sure that you are stronger than God and our Saviour if you will prevail to the last God hath undertaken the defence of the Just Christ hath undertaken to present them triumphant before his Father and cast their Enemies into Hell. Are you sure you can overcome him Vile Worms that cannot fetch a breath without him When began you to be stronger than God Was it in the womb or in Infancy when you could not go Or was it when the Devil and the Flesh made you mad or drunken in ignorant malice If so the drunken fit will soon be over and God will awake a tormenting Wit. If you can conquer God try your strength first on his works Stop the Sun change Night and Day turn the Tide of the Sea live without Meat or Air resolve that you will never die save all your Friends from death Can you do none of this and yet will you venture a War against God Or do you think to fight against his Servants and bribe him to be on your side and forsake them to your rage Did Christ take Mans Nature and die to save them and will he now turn on Satans side against them He overcame the Devils temptation on Earth yea called Peter Satan Mat. 16. when he would have tempted him not to die for his chosen Let Men or Devils go try him in his Glory whether he will change his mind and take your part against his own holy Truth and Servants Chap. IV. Objections and false Accusations answered BUT I know that as Christ and his Apostles were not hated nor killed without pretended cause and reason nor the Martyrs murdered without accusation so none will now justifie the scorning or persecuting an innocent person or a Saint as such but they will first make them odious and seem worthy of all that is done against them They will say It is not godly men but wicked Hypocrites that we hate and prosecute a false and odious sort of persons who are unruly and set up their own wit and will against the Laws and Governours of the several Kingdoms where they live They are the very worst of men Ans. If they are so indeed they are none of the men that I am pleading for nor you the men that I reprove But before we come to particular Accusations it is your wisdom to answer these few Questions 1. Have you particular matter against them to make good this charge Or is it only a general malicious Accusation 2. Is it individual persons that you mean by whom it 's proved or do you thus accuse whole companies of men What if one said of Papists Jews or Turks They are Murderers Adulterers Perjured c. Do you think he were not an odious slanderer to speak that of all or most or the whole Party which he can prove but by some few 3. Do you know all the persons whom you accuse And have you heard it proved Or do you not say this of whole Congregations assembled to worship God of whom you know not one of many If this be so it 's inhumane calumny 4. Have the particular persons been heard speak for themselves and give the reason of their actions and were they proved insufficient Or were they condemned unheard Or was Gods Word derided and taken for no reason 5. Do you not know that the Devil is the great Accuser of the Brethren and that he hath malice and craft enough to say as bad as you can say by the best of men and must he be believed 6. Are you sure you can make God believe you that these men are as bad as you affirm If not and if he find a man in prison for obeying his word and ask who laid him there will you undertake to prove that he was laid there for some crime If God own him and say he is my Servant will you confute him and say No but he is a Schismatick God knoweth a Saint from a Schismatick better than you do Sheep-steelers use to sheer the sheep and cut out the mark But they have to do with men Gods mark is where man cannot take it away And the foundation of God standeth sure The Lord knoweth who are his 7. Know you not that Christ and his Apostles and all the Martyrs were as deeply charged and put to death as Malefactors We must then have better proof than accusation 8. If they prove faithful Christians whom you thus accuse Christ hath undertaken their Justification It is his office And do you think to baffle him Can he not answer you Rom. 8. 32 33 35. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth Who is he that will condemn them 9. Have you not greater sins your selves than those whom you accuse If so you condemn your selves Would you have God judge of them as you do If so do you not tell him how to judge of you and even crave him to condemn you 10. Doubtless you know that you are sinners And how think you to be justified at the Bar of God Is there any but Christ to judge and justify you And do you think he will justifie his Enemies that hated accused and condemned his Servants 11. Those that dwell near godly Christians and should know them are more unexcusable for their malice and slanders than forreigners and strangers are Men of another land or age may be deceived by lying fame or history But you that are their Neighbours are without excuse I speak for none but persons fearing and obeying God And you might easily have known that they are neither Fornicators Drunkards Perjur'd swearers Liars Oppressors Thieves nor suffer for any such crimes as these 12. And if they are as wicked as you say why do you not prosecute them for such wickedness What are the French Protestants now prosecuted and ruin'd for Have any Judicatures proved them guilty of any such crimes against God or Man Or is it not only for worshiping God contrary to the Kings and Prelates Laws And how is that As Christs Apostles did They refuse nothing in Gods worship which God commanded or any of Christs Apostles used or any Churches in their days or long after And did the Apostles offer God so odious a worship as deserved hatred and destruction When Daniels Enemies designed his ruine they said Dan. 6. We shall find no matter against this Daniel except it be concerning the Law of his God And so they got a Law made against praying to any God but the King for a certain time Daniel must be cast to the Lions for breaking the Kings Law The poor flies deserve death for coming into the Spiders Web But did not the venomous Worm Spin it of purpose out of her own Bowels or condensate air to take and kill the flies by craft In England there are many that worship God as the French Protestants do and no better than