Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	christian_a	church_n	world_n	5,052	5	4.5521	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77397	Anabaptism, the true fountaine of Independency, Brownisme, [double brace] Antinomy, Familisme, and the most of the other errours, which for the time doe trouble the Church of England, unsealed. Also the questions of pædobaptisme and dipping handled from Scripture. In a second part of the Disswasive from the errors of the time. / By Robert Baillie minister at Glasgow.	Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662.; Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662. Dissuasive from the errours of the time.	1647 (1647)	Wing B452A; Thomason E369_9; ESTC R38567	187,930	235

been to this houre so silent as to give no glory to God nor any assistance at all to the setling of the State and Church though it be clear as the noon-day that the ways of their party did really tend to the corrupting and enslaving both of State and Church that the Parliaments of both Kingdomes were put to an absolute necessity of defence against their force to preserve their own and the posterities necks from an iron yoak both of Ecclesiastick and Civill bondage that the continuance of this war has brought the Kingdomes oft to the border and the King this day to the very doors of ruine that the Church is overflowed with a floud of evils all which by their timous and cordiall conjunction with their brethren might ●●ppily in some good measure have been prevented Shall Episcopacy and a read Service be so necessary in a Church that rather then England should joyn with all the rest of the reformed to lay them aside the King the Parliament the State of the Kingdomes and Churches of the whole Isle must perish for any help that any of them will make with the least of their fingers Posterity cannot take well at their hands so pervicacious an obstinacy Suppose so many provocations and scandals cast in their way by the hand of others as may be yet for men of parts and fame to be touched with no compassion towards the Churches of God and their deare Countrey but to adhere so stifly to these things w th the best of their friends in all other Protestant Churches did esteem ever to be but needlesse and changeable and which now the better part of the whole Isle doth beleeve to be dangerous corruptions and necessary to be removed for them to be so wedded to those toys that rather then they will advise to lay them aside they can be content to behold the whole royall Family both the Houses of Parliament the City the Countrey and all to be destroyed such prodigious pertinacy cannot want great guiltinesse It s great folly to misprize the danger from France However that our dangers from the Malignant party doth yet continue will not be doubted when th●ir number and quality and great obstinacy yet over all England is considered In Scotland their case is not much unlike Ireland is well-near wholly their own their correspondence with the neighbour States is great their hopes from France seem to be but too well grounded If the peace of Munster come quickly to an end as the appearances are great enough France Sueden and Bavaria being sure of all their desires at the charge of the Austrians and our best friends the reformed Electors Palatine and Brandeburg what else has the French adoe with their great Armies and Navies Their peace with Spain is not so impossible as some would m●●e it they will be glad to give over their interest in Catalonia and Portugall for the fair and nearly adjoining Territories of West-Flanders In such a bargain they would make the dishonesty to be but small for the Catalans shall not be deserted when reconciled to their own King in such tearms as themselves shall like for the performance whereof France will oblige their alliance with Portugall is not so strict but a lesse bud then the half of West-Flanders will easily break it in pieces and that without much hazard to Portugall for it is easie to France to send them under-hand as many men and money and to see to their subsistence as well as when the confederacy was open and avowed It is the ridiculous blindnesse of some to contemn the posture of all the world abroad as if England were situated so far above the moon and stars that the most malign aspects of all neighbour Nations could have no influence upon it Be it so that vigoro●s and healthfull bodies are little sensible of planetary operations yet very small changes of the heavens and air are able to vex much a crazy and valetudinary person For many ages Britain has not been in so great a distemper as this day it is Antichrist may be near to swallow down the whole reformed Churches the people so broken and exhausted by a heavy war the land full of open divisions and heart-burnings the best and greatest part groaning under heavy grievances both of Church and State whereof there is little appearance of any possibility of redresse in haste the Sectaries growing in numbers and insolencies of all kinds and openly inclining to join with the Malignants rather then to misse of their hopes and very unreasonable desires Fools are blind and unable to comprehend the grounds of just fear and so they go on in their rashnesse till they be plunged in the ditch of remedilesse calamity and then onely doe they begin to complain of their former inconsideration What long has been the opinion and fear of some not unconsiderable Divines that Antichrist before his abolition shall once again overflow the whole face of the West and suppresse the whole Protestant Churches I pray God to avert If frō the Malignant hand there appear not mischief enough to hang this day over the head of the Churches of Britain The flood of Errours and Heresies like to overflow the Church let us divert a little our eye to the other side the n●w generation of Sectaries from this quarter so much smoak doth arise as alone is abundantly able to darken our skie It is long since all at least the principall Articles of Christian Religion without exception of any that I remember have been oppugned The holy Scriptures both the Godhead and Manhood of Jesus Christ the holy Ghost the Divinity it self is now exploded with high and basphemous scorn all Churches all Sacraments all publick Worship and Ordinances are made unnecessary A liberty for all Errours the great aim yea unlawfull And if any point of Religion hath had the fortune to escape the blasphemous tongues and pens of these erroneous men lest it should still go free from opposition the most of that party have n●w set up their rest upon a principle which makes them sure to gather up their gleanings when ever their leisure may serve them to make a review of their omissions A liberty to beleeve to professe to propagate in matter of Religion whatever any the most desperately erroneous soul may conceive to be truth All these are but things of the mind and matters of opinion a toleration in them is miserable and despicable but a free and absolute liberty in every such thing is the due and naturall right of every humane creature in all places of the whole earth This monstrous imagination of liberty is not only generally put in practise without any considerable control now for some years in the midst and all the corners of England but men of prime place have courage to write the justice of it under their hand to the High Court of Parliament yet without any repentance we hear of The Parliament

and pleaded for by too many and too eminent Patrons If those mens counsell might be followed The monster of Libertinism what at once should bee the condition of the Church of England It could not but by and by become the most hideous and wofull monster that ever any pious eye did beheld every two or three making up an Independent-Congregation for the setting up of what ever tenets and worship themselves please to invent albeit for no longer a time then every single person amongst them doe think fit They stick not to professe the lawfulnesse to erect at least the unlawfulnesse to disturb when erected in the most publick places Schools and Professions for the perswading of all the idolatries and blasphemies which either of old or this day have been among the Pagans Turks Jews or the most infamous hereticall Christians that so from England as an open fountain the streams of all those and if they be any more imaginable errours may be sent out to every other part of the Christian world adding That whoever is against this happy liberty is without all doubt a corrupt fleshly and unregenerate man ignorant of the grace of God whom the Magistrate is obliged to punish though by duty he is to protect all other in the free enjoyment and practise of all the dictates of their own minde The devill had never a more clear and downright way not onely to evert all Churches but to explode as a ridiculous scorn whatever looks like truth or has the least savour of any Religion The Sectaries having done with the Church proceed to the ov●rthrow of the State For all this there might be s●me hope of subsistence for Religion if those men when they have done their worst against the Church would be content to hold their hands off the State for it cannot be but where ever a truly Christian State doth stand it will shelter the Church and by no art no force so long as it hath any beeing for its s●lf will it exterminate the Lords inheritance The spirit that leads the Sectaries knowing this in all his long experience letteth them not rest in their designes against Religion but presseth them on for doing their endeavour to pull down the State likewise Wee need not speake of their declared rage against Vniversities and all Societies of Learning against the profession and person of all Lawyers against the Society of Merchant-adventurers against the Common-Councell and Court of Aldermen in the City of London all these things to them are corruptions and grievances to be extirpate But that which we are most affraid for is that with their whole strength they attach the known foundation of the whole State the High Court of Parliament The Parliament must be abolished It 's not onely the King who must bee cut in pieces with Agag and for his faults the whole royall race yea the very state and condition of Royalty and Monarchy must be razed and abolished for ever but also the House of Lords and the whole Peerage of England must follow the fortune of the King and with him fall under a perpetuall abolition yea the House of Commons it self the onely remainder of our hope must walk in that same way their House likewise must be pulled down about their ears The common people every individuall of the whole multitude must be set on the Throne of Soveraignty to mould themselves in a new fashion of State and frame to themselves a body of new laws by the hands of such persons as they may be pleased to set up for their Deputies in a new House of Commons When such dictates are put in print and under the eye of Authority daily in Pamphlet after Pamphlet sent out over the whole Land to open the eyes of the blinde with this new glorious light of the Kinghood as they call it of every individuall of the people as well beggers fools and rogues as the most vertuous wise noble and wealthy persons When such maximes are sweetly hugged in the arms not onely of the multitude but others of the best quality when the authors and abettors of so good and wise Positions are caressed cryed up rewarded with preferment in the State in the Army in the Countrey When their opposers receive hard measure are discountenanced rebuked deprived of favours by men in place and sometimes spoiled of their goods and knocked down by the professors indeed of a catholike liberty but truly the practisers of tyranny and persecution This being our known and felt condition upon how weak and tottering props the house of our Church and State doth stand may easily be conceived What I have said of our dangers needs no other proof then the sense of that which the eye and ear brings daily before every observing minde but the remedies of so eminent and imminent dangers require a pate of a much larger size then mine or any other such of mean and vulgar capacity Onely for curing of the first very dangerous evill The return of the King in equitable tearms is the best remedy of the one half of our fears I wish the continuance of the prayers of all the godly and of the endeavours of those in place to hasten the reconciliation of the King For this to my weak judgment seems the most hopefull remedy of all our fears which flow from the former fountain the reduction of his minde to our sense which I am not desperate but some more of our supplications to God and endeavours with men may bring to passe would in a moment bring to us with him the most considerable of that side and if any thereafter should delay to take from us what laws should be given them their obstinate folly did then put in our hand a fair opportunity to bring on their head the day of recompences and of ●ust vengeance for all their former misdemeanours By the blessing of God the return of the King upon equitable and just tearms for no other must be imagined might quickly sheath the sword in all the Dominions might give us a setled peace and put us in a fair way to repair in time the great vastations which this unhappy war has made in all the three Kingdomes and to recover our reputation in the world abroad which of a long time htah been buried through our domestick jealousies and distractions Our credit once set on foot we might quickly become so considerable as to attain to our wonted influence in all the great affairs of Europe for the reviving of our dead or dying friends and the bounding of the late excessive overflowings of our very high and lofty neighbours I grant the Lord is not tyed to any one channell when out of the fountain of his goodnesse he is pleased to send out the stream of any blessing whether to a Nation or a man onely Yet when I cast mine eye upon the ordinary course of his carrying humane affairs if you remove this mean and make the

writers asserting the ancient custome of dipping in baptisme A generall answer to the testimonies for dipping To which I answer first what ever authority testimonies may have with us yet with him that brings them and with his whole party they are of no value at all Will they mislike or so much as suspect any of their absurdest novelties when it is demonstrate to them that the whole current of all Christian writers ancient and modern is against them is it not then their custome with a great deal of scorn to declaim against the vanity and frivolousnesse of an argument from humane assertions Secondly the Treatiser himselfe cannot but know that every one of the Authours he brings does positively impugne his assertion the necessity of dipping and unlawfulnesse of sprinkling in Baptisme Thirdly his witnesses though they assert indefinitely the antiquity of dipping yet none of them does deny the like ancient use of sprinkling both those may well stand together and so it is the judgement of many that sometimes dipping and sometimes sprinkling as the occasion required were practised in the Primitive times Fourthly of those that speak of ancient dipping how many doe understand it of the totall immersion of a naked body over head and ears and yet this alone is our question Fifthly though even for this testimonies were brought yet they come not home unlesse such a dipping be attested to be a rite unchangeable and so necessary that the omission of it at any occasion were a sin and breach of the Lords institution When any writer either ancient or modern except some few of the latest Anabaptists is brought to bear witnesse to any such assertion I shall acknowledge my information of that whereof hitherto I have been altogether ignorant THE CONTENTS OF the Treatise The PREFACE SLothfulnesse is fatall when unseasonable Men are most carelesse when their dangers be greatest The present danger of the Protestant Churches of France Holland of Germany of Zuitserland of Britain by the Malignants by the Sectaries Our dangers from the Malignants are not yet past The unexcusable obstinacy of the Episcopall Divines It s blindnesse and dementation to misprize the danger from France Antichrist is possibly neare to swallow down the whole Reformed Churches A floud of Errors and Heresies is like to overwhelm the Church of England A liberty for all Errors is the great aim of some They spoil the Parliament of all power to reform or meddle with Religion Who now are the persecutors How great is the monster of Libertinism The Sectaries having done with the Church proceed to the overthrow of the State The Parliament must be abolished The best remedy of our dangers from the Malignants is the return of the King to his Parliament in just tearms The zealous diligence of Ministers might do much to cure the evill of our errors The sedulous activity of the Sectaries doth shame our slothfulnesse The caveats of zeal Presbyterians are far from opposing the least degree of true piety Charity and compassion are to be extended to our enemies Presbyterians were never persecutors The dignity and power of the Magistrate must be carefully preserved The scope of the Treatise CAP. I. The Originall and Progresse of the Anabaptists BErengarius no Anabaptist The Albigenses knew not Anabaptisme p. 1. Neither Melancthō nor Carolostadius did favour Antipaedobaptism p. 2 The true originall of the Anabaptists The malignity of their spirit Their singular hypocrisie p. 3 The preposterous pity and charity of good men towards them was the cause of their strength Their wicked doctrines and practises Luther did justly stir up the Magistrate against them p. 5 Great numbers of them were slain The unhappy end of their Author Muncer ib. Zuinglius did oppose their gathering of Churches in Zuitserland The reason of their banishment thence p. 6 Their intolerable practises The tragedy of Munster p. 7 The ordinary custome of Hereticks is not to labour but to spoil the labours of others King Becold enters Munster Some of the prime Ministers are gained to Anabaptisme The slacknesse of the Magistrate though orthodoxe did ruine the City The Sectaries though fewer and weaker yet by wit and industry did master their opposites By the stirrup of Toleration the Sectaries ascended to the saddle of Soveraignty p. 8 Being once masters of the City they presently changed the government They seized on the goods of all and killed whom they would The peoples mindes being ensnared by their errors their tyranny became irremediable They proclaimed Polygamy p. 9 A faint and unsuccessefull resistance did hasten and confirm Becolds Kingdome The splendour of Becolds Court His barbarous cruelty and hypocrisie His unhappy end p. 10 Amsterdam in hazard to be a second Munster A woman Messias Division and Schismes were the Anabaptists ruine p. 11 The difference betwixt the Monasterians and the Battenburgicks The Sect of the Hophmanists p. 12 Who were the Mennonists A Synod for union did divide them amongst themselves more then ever David Georgius labours for union p. 13 Divers Sects of Anabaptists evanished David George had a great shew of zeal and piety p. 14 Yet his absurdities were horrible The extraordinary zeal of his followers His strange end p. 15 The increase of the Mennonists The errors of the Mennonists Their Schismes p. 16 For a light cause four late separations among them The state of the Anabaptists in England p. 17 Independency the cause of their increase and boldnesse p. 18 Their late Confession is neither a full nor a clear declaration of their tenets CAP. II. The tenets of the old Anabaptists THe most applauded tenets of our modern Anabaptists are the self-same with what the old Anabaptists did invent p. 29 Their first prime tenet was a necessity of gathering Churches out of Churches and of separation from the best reformed in their time because of mixt communion ib. Antipaedobaptisme became at last their greatest d●rling They were the authors of the prophecying and questioning of private men in the face of the Church Women preachers are from them p. 30 Their Pastors must renounce all former Ordination and their full call of new must come from the hands of their people They required no letters in their Preachers The crying down of Tithes and all set Stipends is from them Independency of Congregations and the peoples power in Church censures is their invention The Seekers who deny all Churches are their Disciples After the overthrow of the Church they fell next upon the State p. 31 First they cryed down the Magistrates power in matters of Religion Next in all matters even Civill Yet they took to themselves an absolute Civill power first over all them in their own Churches Next over all Princes and people in the whole world They were strong Millenaries p. 32 They made adulteries and murders lawfull Robberies also 33 Their hypocrisie ended in the open practise of crimes extreamely contrary to their first professions Their abominable uncleannesse They deny both Old and

threatned to the building there be few then that have courage to set under their shoulder But the most to save their own head become of the Publick what may are glad to goe out and turn their back on a ruinous and falling aedifice Men most carelesse when their dangers greatest The very same is the condition of the Church of Christ in its greatest dangers the dulnesse the stupidity the feneantise of her servants are very oft too palpable the chief of the Apostles when their Master was to be taken from off their head when the Shepheard was to be smitten and the sheep to be scattered through very grief and feare did fall into so deep a sleep that with much adoe Christ himself got them roused up though Judas the Traitor was at hand Towards the consummation of all things when the end of the world is neer when the Lord Christ shall be upon his return and even at the doors when best it beseems his servants to have their lamps burning and their loyns girded to be ready upon every call to goe out and meet their Master when the expectation of the last Trumpet when the noise of wars and rumours of more and worse wars when the sound of heresies and errours grow louder then ever before when such things as these in reason ought to keepe the watchmen on foot upon their watch Towers yet behold the unhappinesse of these very times even then the wisest Virgins the faithfullest servants slumber and sleeep till the generall cry of the Bridegrooms comming make them all awake We dare not make so bold as some with the determinations of the times and seasons which the Lord keeps secret from the very Angels in the hollow of his own hand yet it will not be presumption to conjecture the propinquity and neernesse of the last times by the evidence of some at least of their symptomes and pr●vious signs which at the present are visible to any who have the smallest measure of spirituall understanding I shall speak but of the two in hand the present danger and yet the present negligence of the people of God The Protestant Churches have not of a long time been so to be devoured by the teeth of the Beast as at this day The present danger of the Protestant Churches Of France What keeps all the faithfull in France Geneva Sedan out of the mouth of the Romish wolf have the Supposts of Rome think we lost all their wonted stomach towards Protestant blood The Irish Massacres may free us of that fancy stay till the French King get out of his childhood or before in the intervall of some peace or truce from forain war a little leisure be given to that Court to bring home their Armies whensoever that unhappy day shal dawn there is no more expectation of quietnesse yea no more possibility of subsisting to any of those Churches but in the mercy of God who now doth divert and then can avert and bridle the rage of that powerfull State against which these weak lambs have no humane force to oppose How many thousands there are panting for a morning when once they may re-celebrate S. Bartholomews Matins and bring the old Massacres again in fashion which now may be execute with a great deal of more safety and ease then ever The condition of Holland seems not at all safe to those who know the inside of their States Of Holland it 's like the predominant motive of their reconciliation now in hand with their hereditary enemies of Spain is no other then fear if their prepotent neighbour of France can but re-invest his Crown with his ancient fees of Flanders and Brabant as he hath done with Artois and Lorrain with Catalaunia and Alsas and divers more Provinces Holland fals next to be dealt with for nothing doth then stand betwixt it and the French Arms. The Protestants of Zuitserland cannot be free of danger so long as the most of the Cantons are bigotly popish Of Zuits and very strictly allyed with the popish States that lie round about them The Churches of higher Germany have long lien in Of Germany the dust and in our days oftner then once have been very near to be devoured by the bill of the Austrian Eagle and the paw of the Bavarian Lion and though that ravenous bird and cruell beast were both disabled from preying any more upon their harmlesse neighbours whereof the appearance this day is but small yet there is a more strong and wicked beast then either of the former still ramping at their doors the Grand Signior is daily upon the German borders too ready to fal upon that poor Country when the Princes and Cities by mutuall wounds have now disabled themselves more then in any by gone age to resist so terrible a power Of Bri●●in by the M●l●gna●ts Britain was wont to be taken for the head and heart for the strongest Bulwark of the Protestant strength how are the present dangers thereof and in in it of the whole Protestant Churches it 's easie to judge How much of late the leaders of the Court and Clergy of both Kingdomes had advanced the design of bringing in well-near the whole body of Popery at least a full reconciliation with Rome And when their counsels were discovered and begun to be opposed how near oft of late they have been to force upon the neck of the whole Isle by violence the yoak of what ever tyranny in State or errours in Religion they pleased the world hath seen and many thousands have felt to their utter undoing whereof long agoe we gave some account in the Canterburian Self-conviction and parallel of the Service Book with the Missall By the Sect●ries But behold while we are wrestling to the bloud and extream hazard of all that is dear with that tyrannous superstitious and profane party There is now start up at our back another enemy little lesse dangerous then the former A swarm of heresies and sects darkens the sun of truth fils the air with noxious vapours is ready upon a little more encrease to fall down on the earth for the overwhelming of of the State as well as the Church betwixt these two milstones the Orthodoxe Churches of this whole Isle if the hand of the Lord prevent it not are in hazard to be ground to dust and ashes It is true Our dangers from the Malignants are not yet past the Malignants by the miraculous power of God are brought so low that in the eyes of the most their force seems now contemptible yet wiser men doe see too great cause to be affraid of them this day little lesse then ever Their numbers over all the Isle are yet very great their hearts are nothing changed though some bands for the time be put upon their hands The unexcusable obstinacy of the Episcopall Divines I have often marvailed and much regrated that many reverend and very learned Divines of that side have

that every man might marry so many wives as he pleased OO Also the Law of Divorce was brought back giving leave to a man upon his meer will without any fault alledged and without the cognizance of any Judge to put away his wife PP yea to kill any of his wives whether publickly as himself did in the open Market place QQ or privately as their next King did in a wood of Freezland RR This also was a Law of that Kingdom Robberies also that beside the falling upon all the goods of all the wicked world as a most lawfull spoyl there behoved to be a liberty to make use of all that belonged to any of the Saints That all things among them behoved to be common SS yet so that the King and his Courtiers might lawfully live in plenty while all the other Saints in that their new Jerusalem were starving with excessive penury TT It is visible whither Satan intends to lead proud hypocrites Their hypocrisie ended in the open practice of crimes extremely contrary to their professions these men who in their own eyes were so holy Saints as they behoved in the tendernesse of their conscience to separate from the best reformed Churches these men who talked of nothing but mortification of the flesh who counted it unlawfull to defend their life by the sword or to exercise the meanest Magistracy or to have any propriety in the smallest portion of goods or to know their own wives after they were conceived VV in a short time they came to preach and practice as very lawfull and warrantable to make themselves absolute Kings and Monarchs of the whole earth to live and die in as many adulteries and incests as they pleased in as great plenty of wealth as by any secret theft or open robbery they were able to catch Their abominable unclearnesse It could hardly be imagined that the Devil himself had been able to lead any reasonable creatures into so grievous errors did we not know to how much grosser these same horrible hypocrites who upon the profession of their own holiness refused cōmunion with all other men had been led away by that evill spirit divers of them not being content with the adulteries of Polygamy have loosed the bonds of all matrimony yea of all naturall relations XX telling us as in the former Chapter was remarked that among the Saints there ought to be no difference of husband and wife Father and daughter brother and sister that such differences were only for imperfect worldlings So soon as a woman turned Anabaptist they made her company with her own husband unlawfull but with all men of her own Religion lawfull upon divers wicked grounds XX 2 Farther that the shame which nature has imprinted in the heart of the most barbarous Pagans to cover their nakednesse must be cast away YY and thereafter that all kinde of incestuous commixtions are not only lawfull but also that they are the very acts of holinesse and mortification ZZ These be the profound mysteries which the Anabaptists have brought into the world this is the fruit of their quatriduall fastings of their extatick prayers of their heavenly raptures and revelations They deny both old and new Testament These might have seemed the very quintessence of all imaginable absurdities if the enemy of all truth had not given us in the same miserable hypocrites a further experiment of his skill in seducing they tell us therefore yet of rarer novelties of new more excellent lights which they have brought out of heaven AAA Having cast away first the old Testament as removed by the Gospel and then the Gospel it self as a shadow put away by the greater light of their new Prophets BBB these impediments of holy Scripture being fully removed the new perfect Doctrine which they bring us is first that there is not any created spirit They deny angels and devils and souls that Angels and Devils are not substances but meer qualities CCC that the spirits of men are but terrestriall vapour like the life of beasts perishing with the body DDD They deny heaven and hell eternall life Secondly that there is no such thing as heaven or hell as life or death eternall EEE that all the resurrection and glory to be expected are in this life FFF Thirdly They cast away all the ordinances of God that the greatest happinesse possible is to cast away and give over all such services as the Scripture prescribes to put away Baptisme the Lords Supper and Preaching of the word GGG to follow the directions of the new great Prophet David George Fourthly that this David George was the only spirituall Christ David George to them was spirituall Christ much more excellent then Christ crucified that Jesus and his Apostles and all their Doctrine were but carnall HHH that David George was to judge the world III that the irremissible transgression was only a wrong against him that whoever would maintain Jesus Christ to be equall with him or the Gospel of the Apostles to be like unto his Doctrine did sin against the holy Ghost and was certainly damned KKK The absurdities of the worst Hereticks of old the calumnies invented by Pagans against the ancient Christians were nothing so horrible though all had been true as these Doctrines and practises whereof the unquestionable testimonies of grave Writers make many of the old Anabaptists most certainly guilty But that which herein I most admire is Many people were ready to seal with their bloud all these abominations that ever poore people could be brought to beleeve so firmly the former absurdities as to suffer most willingly all extremities and exceeding chearfully to offer their very life for the worst of them LLL so long as their Master David did require such seals and testimonies to his Doctrine Thereafter indeed he changed that principle of suffering for the truth and permitted his followers not only to dissemble their own Religion but also to joyn without any scruple in any profession in any religious exercise of any people among whom they lived for he taught them that God was content with the heart alone and gave liberty for all men to imploy their body and the whole outward man in the service of the falsest Religion rather then he should suffer the smallest inconvenience The monster David George did live and die in plenty and peace The other object of my admiration is the infinite patience of God who suffered the Father of such monsters to lead his life in ease and security to go on in peace and plenty with a great shew both of Religion and vertue and the good opinion of his neighbours to his old age and dying day MMM Such snares does the Lord in his wisdome rain down on the wicked world that they who never loved the truth may be intangled irrecoverably in the bonds of error The best of the Anabaptists have very grosse errours I grant many of the