Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	day_n	love_v	soul_n	2,570	5	4.7753	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97110	A vvhisper in the eare of Mr. Thomas Edwards minister. By VVilliam VValwyn marchant. Occasioned by his mentioning of him reproachfully, in his late pernitious booke, justly entituled the Gangræna.	Walwyn, William, 1600-1681.	1646 (1646)	Wing W694; Thomason E328_2; ESTC R200666	12,778	17

themselves and lesse itksome to the people lesse disturbant to the Common-wealth and thus you may see how through mis-information you have taken me for an enimy that have alwaies approved my self your reall friend in all things I apprehended iust and thus you may see how dangerous a man I have been that in all these publick differences have done no man hurt by word or deed nay at all the meetings I have frequented whether at Salters hall the wind mill or else-where I never heard any man named reproachfully but I openly shewed the unfitnes thereof alwaies advising that if any man had ought against any particular person that he should make it known to those that by law had aright to take notice thereof and that we should be very cautious in thinking evil of any man upon report and hearsay especially of any in authority The truth is I have been and am of opinion that it is not good for the Common-wealth that the ministers should have any power or iurisdiction put into their hands o● that it were good for the ministers themselves the same having so often proved their ruine and the disturbance of the people but do conceive it more safe for them and more for the quiet of the people that they be freed from all other employments except preaching and administring the publick worship of God according as the Parliament shall ordain for I look upon you as ministers ordained by the State and so are to do as they conceive is most agreeable to the word of God and most beneficiall to the generallity of the people in setling whereof you may advise but are not to urge or be importunate for more power then they see good and it lesse beseems you to grow passionate and to move others to be importunate and by preaching and printing to labour to make their faithfull friends odious unto them and to magnifie your desires above their own intentions and so to beget emulations and parties threaten iudgements and desertions and turning the scriptures against them and all others that oppose or fulfill not your will as if they were opposers of the will of God which you take upon you to know with the same confidence as the bishops and prelates did and in the very same manner and application of Scripture No interpretation was good but theirs no ministers the ministers of Christ but whom they ordeyned by imposition of hands no government discipline or worship agreeable to the Scriptures but theirs no opinion sound but what they allowed all were sectaries and hereticks whom they pleased so to denominate those that opposed them were seditious disturbers of the peace a viperous brood enemies to the state and subverters of all order and government and by all means to be extirpated if any pleaded conscience they conclude them obstinate and thus it is with you expresly so as Mr. Edwards his Gangraena is indeed but a new edition of Prelaticall doctrine with some additions appliable to the present times and his Clergies immediate interest but trust me this is extreamly preiudiciall to your party for there is no moderate Presbyterian that can excuse this and hath beene a hindrance to me in arguing for a publick ministry besides you soar so high in dating expressions as if you presumed upon some other way of obtaining your desires then by allowance of Parliament which may loose you many friends there and occasion them to think they have through a mistaken compassion fostered a frozen snake in their bosomes that no sooner finds heat and strength but falls into his serpentine hissing and stinging his preserver you have also lost many of your friends abroad by this unchristian nominating men and women in your Gangraena and many more you will loose when they shall consider that you have not taken the known Gospel way of first admonishing of them but upon bare report as it were to post them reproachfully to the view of the world they cannot deem this as the proceeding of a minister of Christ but rather as a violent hast to do your owne work trust me I cannot but impute the great abatement of your sect the falling from you of so many iudicious persons and the daily great increase of othes sects to no one thing more then to your inconsiderate rashnes violent railing and adventuring on unheard of waies to compasse your ends for when I have prevailed with some through debate and argument to come to out publike Churches and to hear your sermons they have found there such abundance of passion sweat and labour not to beget children unto Christ by preaching the sincere Gospel of Christ but to revile and reproach and make odious conscientious well affected people because of difference in iudgement whereby they have been much discouraged from frequenting those places affirming that all the accusations you bring against others are expresly and visibly due to your selves if but indifferently weighed as where you charge others with pride ambition covetuousnes effeminacy obstinacy cruelty delicacy of pallate and the like they have demanded of me with a positive vehemency whether these were not to be found in you rather then in those you have condemned for those vices blaming me very much for going about to excuse the same insomuch as I verily beleeve you have no enemy like your self and am perswaded if you would forsake all corrupt interests and would consciensciously set your selfe to do the worke of Christ to labour in his word and Gospel out of a pure mind and not for filthy lucre if you would make it evident by your actions that you seek not ours but to win us to God that you would thereby prevaile more in one halfe year towards your owne comfortable establishment then you shall in an age by all your by-waies and policies therefore leave them and betake your self to the work of Christ whilst it is called to day the night of ignorance I presume is past with you O that truth and this my plain dealing might beget or awaken Conscience in you and provoke you to cast of the works of darknes and to put on the armour of light and henceforth to walk honestly and not in strife and envying but to walk in love as Christ hath loved nor is it meet you should esteeme your self a Christian untill you find your soul possessed with the spirit of true Christian love which doth no evil to his neighbour and therefore is the fullfilling of the Law What though you could prevail as you endeavour to work the ruine of all that oppose your iudgement or ends Would it be peace in the latter end no assure your self it would be a sulphurious bitternesse and horror of conscience and therefore sit downe and seriously consider what you are resolved to do weigh your intentions in the even scales of love touch and prove them with the touch stone of love if you would be esteemed a disciple of Christ it must bee knowne by love now

A VVHISPER IN THE EARE of Mr. Thomas Edwards Minister By VVilliam VValwyn Marchant Occasioned by his mentioning of him reproachfully in his late pernitious booke justly entituled the Gangraena Micah 7.2 The good man is perished out of the earth and there is none righteous among men they all lie in wait for blood every man hunteth his brother with a net SIR Your extream fury in driving on a work wherein no charitable well minded Christian takes any comfort but rather an abundance of griefe hath made me to conclude that you are quite deaf ou the right christian eare deaf to all that is good a man I fear altogether without Conscience or sence of goodnesse and that you have the use of hearing only on the left side of Machiavilian policy just as Demetrius the silver-smith that opposed not the doctrine of Christ out of zeale to the Goddesse Diana as he pretended nor out of any hatred to that doctrine but as it tended to the losse of his craft and gain even so you as I verily fear do not indeavour to make odious the severall doctrines and practices of consciensoious people out of true zeal to any thing you apprehend as truth or out of hatred to any thing you apprehend as error but because the doctrines and practices of those you term independants Brownists Anabaptists Antinomians and Seekers do all tend to the losse of your craft and gain in that they all disallow of tythes as ceremonious and popish and all contracted for or enforced maintenance for ministers under the Gospel as disagreeing to the rule thereof nay you have further cause against them for they spoile you not onely of your gaine but of your glory and domination things dearer to you then your life of your glory in denying your ministry to be successive from the Apostles of your domination by denying unto you any more authority to judge of doctrines or discipline then any other sort of Christian men and to speak truly these are so●… temptations to such worldly minds as yours who in your hopes had made your selves sure of the greatest part of all that was taken from the Prelats and thereby of a foundation of advancing the honour and splendour and power and profit of the Clergy once more in this Nation It is confest that such provocations as these have not onely produced such reviling accusations as you bring against conscientious well minded people but a subversion of the calumniators as it befell the late Prelates whose railing reviling and molesting of the harmelesse faithfull puritan under pretence of herisie schisme faction sedition and the like being all contrary to every mans knowledge and experience of them the issue was the utter extirpation of their calumniators and that so lately as might be a warning to you and such politique worldly men as you are but that it is through the wisdom and justice of God the fate of policy and politique men not to be warned by other mens judgements but to trust so much to the strength of their braines that they fear not to trace those very steps that gradatim brought the last Arch-bishop to the block making no conscience of vexing disgraceing and undoing of any man nay thousands of men and families standing twixt them and their unjust ends and this too so madly and rashly as to make themselves adversaries of such as really aimed at their good and to preserve them from those precipitations their folly and malice labours to hasten And this is your case with me for I am confident and well assured that amongst all those whom in this your frantick booke you have named there is not one that opposed your waies more out of love and seriously for your good then I have done for what ever you through want of an experimentall knowledge of me or upon mis-report may judge of me I am one that do truly and heartily love all mankind it being the unfeigned desire of my soul that all men might be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth it is my extream grief that any man is afflicted molested or punished and cannot but most earnestly wish that all occasion were taken away there is no man weake but I would strengthen nor ignorant but I would informe not erronious but I would rectifie nor vicious but I would reclaim nor cruel but I would moderate and reduce to clemency I am as much grieved that any man should be so unhappy as to be cruel or unjust as that any man should suffer by cruelty or injustice and if I could I would preserve from both and however I am mistaken it is from this disposition in me that I have engaged my self in any publick affairs and from no other which my manner of proceeding in every particular busines wherein I have in any measure appeared will sufficiently evince to all that have without partiallity observed me I never proposed any man for my enemy but injustice oppression innovation arbitrary power and cruelty where ever I found them I ever opposed my self against them but so as to destroy the evil but to preserve the person and therefore all the war I have made other then what my voluntary and necessary contribution hath maintained which I wish ten thousand times more then my ability so really am I affected with the Parliaments iust cause for the common freedom of this Nation I say all the war I have made hath been to get victory on the understandings of men accompting it a more worthy and profitable labour to beget friends to the cause I loved rather then to molest mens persons or confiscate estates and how many true and thorow converts have been made through my endeavours you tempt me to boast were I addicted to such a vanity or were I not better pleased with the conscience of so doing Before this Parliament I was of full years to be sensible of the oppression of the times being now forty five years of age having accustomed my self to all kinds of good reading and to the consideration of all things but so as for a long time I took not boldnesse to iudge but upon the approbation of some authors and teachers that had captivated my understanding both in things morall politique and religious in the last of which being very serious and sincere in my application of things to my own conscience my grounds being bad though much applauded I found much disconsolation therein great uncertainty and at last extream affliction of mind the law and Gospel fighting for victory in me in which conflict the Scriptures were taken in more singly and void of glosse to my assistance by the cleare light whereof I saw the enemies I feared vanquished which wrought a real thankfulnes in me towards Christ which increased with the increasings of faith insomuch as I set my self daily more and more to do his will and that in a more publick way then formerly Whereupon an occasion being offered by this honourable Parliament

our minister and parish James Garlick-hill London being quite out of order I with others moved for reformation in doing whereof how I laboured to have preserved the continuance and well being of our minister himself and the ancient that opposed out endeavours I presume will testifie but if they should not there is enow that will but he was a man that trusted to policy which in the end failed him our next indeavours were for the whole ward wherein after much labour we so prevailed that the well affected carryed the choice of Alderman and common-councell men and all other officers in the Ward my next publike businesse was with many others in a remonstrance to the Common Councell to move the Parliament to confirm certain infallible maximes of free Government wherein the power of Parliament was plainly distinguished from the Kings Office so plainly that had it taken effect few men after due consideration thereof would through error of iudgement have taken part against the Parliament or have befriended arbitrary power as too too many did for want of light but it was stifled in the birth I was also interressed in all the proceedings of Salters hall whence much good issued to the whole City and Kingdom where I beleeve it will be testified by all I was never heard or observed to propose or second a bad motion nor far short of any in prosecution of any thing that was good and when the common enemy was at the highest and the Parliaments forces at the lowest I with many others petitioned the Parliament for the generall raising and arming of all the well affected in the Kingdom and though that also took not its proper effect and came not to perfection yet it mated the common enemy and set all wheels at work at home was the spring of more powerfull motions and good successes God so ordering things that no man moves for good but good in one kind or other comes thereof and in all that I have at any time done I ever associated my self with persons of known good affections to Parliament and Common-wealth that it is my extream wonder that any well-affected person should affirm me to be a man dangerous I have never shunned the light all that I have had a hand in hath come to the publick view and touch and truly there hath not been a iust thing promoted or endeavoured to be promoted that ever I was absent from if I had a call thereunto and whereas I have addicted my selfe to know and understand all the severall doctrines and waies of worship that are extant and for that end have taken liberty to hear and to observe all it is that I might be able to iudge rightly of their differences to vindicate them when they are wronged and to advise them for their good in doing whereof I have gained much good there being not any how light esteeme soever you make of them but have somthing worthy the observation and this I must testily for all sorts of them they are a people the most ready to render love for love that ever I met withall and not apt to render evil for evil they are all universally faithfull to the Parliament friends to all just government and enemies to all unjust but yet there is not any thing I have observed that hath prevailed with me to disclaim the publike ministry or the parochial congregations I have yet some hopes to see them reduced into such a condition as that all things thereunto belonging may without difficulty be justified but though I am not in fellowship with those good people you call sectaries yet I joyn heart and hand with them in any thing that I judge to be right and tending to the publike good and love them as heartily as those that are one with me in iudgement sometimes I contest with them somewhat vehemently in arguing but it is as I conceive for truth and for their good and they take it so and bear with me as I with them and we meet and part in love as becometh Christians nor doth this hinder but that when any difference befalleth betweene them and the publick ministers but that I iudge as clearly in such cases as if I had no difference with them for I esteem it a high part of true religion to promote common iustice and not to be a respecter of persons in iudgement wherein the Scripture is my rule and that being on their side I should take part with them therein against my father minister or the dearest friend I have in the world and from hence it is that when the question is about liberty of Conscience the Scripture tells me every one ought to be fully perswaded in his own mind and that whatsoever is not of faith is sin it tells me I must doe as I would be done unto I would not be enforced to the Parish Congregations then I must not force them to them or from their owne God onely perswades the heart compulsion and enforcement may make a confused masse of dissembling hypocrites not a Congregation of beleevers that seeing our Saviour reproached not those that denyed the resurrection angels and spirits nay Joh. 12.47.48 c. he saith plainly and that by authority from heaven v 49. He that refuseth me and receiveth not my words hath one that iudgeth him the word that I have spoken it shall iudge him in the last day Also in Luke the 9.54.55.56 Insomuch as I see no more warrant now to reproach or punish any man for Religion but rather that we are all bound in peace and love to reclaime our brother from what wee iudge an error in his way wherein the best and most knowing amongst men in our daies may be mistaken being all liable to take truth for error and error for truth and therefore there is no cause of strife or compulsion except for mastery then which as I conceive nothing is more unchristian neverthelesse I may see a necessary use of a publick ministry and parish Congregations and it is my work to perswade others therein and not to speak reproachfully thereof as they would not have their way reproached but then when the question is concerning a maintenance for these publick ministers and that any shall insist for tythes or an enforced maintenance truly in this case the Scripture manifesting to my understanding tythes to be ceremoniall and Jewish and so to cease at the comming of Christ and that to enforce or enioyn a maintenance though under any other notion is as I apprehend contrary to the rule and practice of the Apostles how is it possible but I must adhere to them therein but then that our publick ministers should have no maintenance therein I wholy dissent and as it hath been my endeavour to assist the one party to avoid the molestation of their concsciences in tythes all enforced contributions so have I often proposed a way for the maintenance of the publick ministers more certain more quiet for