Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	discipline_n	government_n	3,314	5	6.9877	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74677	Eugenius Theodidactus. The prophetical trumpeter sounding an allarum to England illustrating the fate of Great Britain, past, present, and to come. Such wonderful things to happen these seven yeers following, as have not been heard of heretofore. A celestial vision. VVith a description of heaven and heavenly things, motives to pacifie Gods threatned wrath: of a bloody, fiery way of the day of judgment, and of saints and angels. / Sung in a most heavenly hymn, to the great comfort of all good Christians, by the Muses most unworthy, John Heydon, gent. philomat.	Heydon, John, b. 1629.	1655 (1655)	Thomason E1671_3; ESTC R208414	82,593	168

volumes For dispersed are Ev'n quite throughout this Land every year Ev'n many thousand Reames of scurrill toyes Songs Rimes and Ballads whose vain use destroyes Or hinders Vertuous knowledge and Devotion And thus they do to further the promotion Of our Diana Yet Behold if we To publish some few sheets required be Con ai●ing pious Hy●ns or christian Songs Or ought which to the praise of God belongs We do so fear the hindrance of our gain That like the Ephesian Silver-smith faine A great complaint as to have enlarged A little Book had grievously o'recharged The Common-wealth Whereas if it were weigh'd How much of late this Land is overlaid With triviall volumes or how much they do Corrupt our Manners and Religion too By that abusive matter they contain I should not seem unjustly to complain These times do swarm with Pamphlets which be far More dangerous than mortall poysons are Ev'n in those books whereby the simple thought To finde true knowledge they their bane have caught For thence strong heresies there being hid Amid some doubtles truths a while unspi'd Steale out among the people by degrees More mischief working than each Reader sees And so to ruine knowledge that is made A instrument whereby it rising had For by their lucre who the Churches peace Disturb their private profit to increase Those Doctrines which are un-authorised Are so promiscuously divulg'd and spread Among approved Verities that fome Are in those Labyrinths amaz'd become And such a contradiction is in that VVhich their confused Pamphlets do relate That common Readers know not which to leave Nor which the Church of Egland doth receive And from this mischiefe many others flow VVhich will in future times more harmfull grow This spins vain controversies to their length By this most heresies receive their strength And what distraction it already makes Our grieved Mother wofull notice takes Instead of active knowledge and her fruit This silleth men with itching o● dispute And empty words whereby are set abroach A thousand quarrells to the truths raproach The sectaries the munkeys and the apes The Cubs and Foxes which do ma● our Grapes The VVolves in Sheep-skins and our frantick rable Of VVorship-mongers are innumerable And as the Churches quiet they molest So they each other spightfully infest VVe have some quakers some that halfe way go Some Semi-quezills some wholly so Some Anabaptists some who do refuse Black-puddings and good pork like arrant Jews Some also term'd Arminians are among Our Priests and people very lately sprung VVhat most so call●d profess I stand not for And what some say they teach I do abhor But what some other so misnam'd believe Is that where●o best Christians credit give For as we see the most reformed man By Libertines is term'd a Protestan So by our purblinde Formalist all those VVho new fantastick crotchets do oppose Begin to be misterm'd Coxils now And hence e'relong will greater mischiefs grow Then most imagine For the foolish fear Lest they to be Dattrells may appear Or else be term'd quakers will make Great multitudes Religion quite forsake And I am halfe perswaded this will one Of those great Schismes or earthquakes cause which Iohn Foretold in his Apocalyps and they Are blest who shall not thereby fall away Some Hocasses and some Famalists have we And some that no man can tel what they be Nor they themselves Some seem so wondrous pure They no mans conversations can endure Unless they use their pleaistrings and appear In ev'ry formall garb which they shall weare There be of those who in their words deny And hate the practise of Idolatry Yet make an idol of their formall zeale And underneath strickt holiness conceale A mystery of evil which deceives them And when they think all safe in danger leaves them Their whole Religion some do place in hearing Some in the outward action of forbearing Ill deeds or in wel doing though the heart In that performance bear no reall part Some others of their morrall actions make Small conscience and affirm that God doth take No notice how ●n body they transgress If him in their ●nward man confess As if a soul beloved could reside Within a body quite un●an●fide Some not contented in the act of sin Are grown so impudent that they begin To justifie themselves in wickedness Or by quait arguments to make it less And by such Monsters to such ends as this The Christian liberty defamed is Mewfangledness Religion hath o'rethrown And many as fantasticall are grown In that as in apparell Some delight In nothing more than to be opposite To other men Their zeale they wholly spend The present government to reprehend The Churches discipline to v●ll fie And raile at all which pleads antiquity They love not peace and therefore have suspition Of Truth it self if out of persecution And are so thankless or so heedless be Of Gods great love in giving such a free And plentious means of publishing his word That what his Prophets of the Jews record Some verifie in us Much pralse is given To that blinde age wherein the Queen of Heaven Was worshipt here And alsly we extoll Those dayes as being much more plentifull Some at the frequency of Preaching g●utch And tyred with it think we have too much Nay impudently practise to suppress That Exercise and make our plenty less And that their doing may not want some faire Or goodly coulor they do call for Pray'r Instead thereof as if we could not pray Until our preaching we had sent away As these are foolishly or lewdly wise We have some others want only precise So waywardly dispised amidst our plenty And through their curiosity so dainty That very many cannot well digest The bread of life but in their manner drest Nor will Gods Manna or that measure serve Which he provides but they cry out they starve Unless they feed upon their own opinions Which are like Egypt Garlike and her Onion● Some like not Prayer that 's extempory Some notany that set form doth carry Some think there 's no devotion but in those That howle or whine or snufle in the nose As if that God vouchsafed all his Graces For feigned gestures or for sowre faces Some think not that the man who gravely teacheth Or hath a sober gesture when he preacheth Of gentle voyce hath any zeal in him And therefore such like Preachers they contemn Yea they suppose that no mans doctrine lave● The Soul of any one unless he raves And roares aloud and slings and hurleth so As if his arms he quite away would throw Or over-leap the Pulpet or else break it And this if their opinion true may make it Is to advance their voyces trumpet-like As God commands yea this they say doth strike Sin dead Whereas indeed God seldome goes In whirlwinds but is in the voice of those Who speak in meekness And it is not in The pow'r of noyse to shake the walls of sin For clamors antique actions writhed