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	doctrine_n	worship_n	3,910	5	7.2192	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78218	[Baʻal-samz] or, Soveraigne balsome, gently applied in a few weighty considerations (by way of quærie) for healing the distempers of such professors of religion as Satan hath wounded and drawn aside (under the notion of living in God) to the utter renouncing and casting off the use of divine ordinances, and Gospel-institutions of worship. With an apendix by way of postscript to such professors, wherein the most principall grounds upon which they build their practise, are fully answered and removed. And a catalogue of the errors that many of them hold since they left the ordinances, discovered. As also a true relation of Gods extraordinary working upon one of this way very lately in Plimouth, to the sight of his error, for the good of others published. / By Will. Bartlet, an unworthy minister of the Gospel, and lecturer at Bytheford in Devonshire.	Bartlet, William, 1609 or 10-1682.; M. P.	1649 (1649)	Wing B987; Thomason E549_19; ESTC R209139	79,502	81

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OR Soveraigne Balsome Gently applied in a few weighty Considerations by way of Quaerie for healing the distempers of such Professors of Religion as Satan hath wounded and drawn aside under the Notion of living in God to the utter renouncing and casting off the use of Divine Ordinances and Gospel-Institutions of Worship With an Apendix by way of Postscript to such Professors wherein the most principall grounds upon which they build their practise are fully answered and removed And a Catalogue of the errors that many of them hold since they left the Ordinances discovered As also a true Relation of Gods extraordinary working upon one of this way very lately in Plimouth to the sight of his error for the good of others published By Will. Bartlet an unworthy Minister of the Gospel and Lecturer at Bytheford in Devonshire Even from the dayes of your Fathers yee are gone away from my Ordinances and have not kept them Return unto me and I will return unto you saith the Lord of Hosts c. MAL. 3.7 Is there no Balm in Gilead Is there no Physitian there Why there is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered JER 8.22 Brethren if any of you doe erre from the truth and one convert him let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soule from death and shall hide a multitude of sinnes IAM 5.19 20. Imprinted at London by G. Dawson for Elizabeth Overton in Popes-head Alley neere the Royall Exchange 1649. TO ALL THE CORDIALL Friends and sincere lovers of the Lord IESUS and his SYON PRETIOUS SOULES YEE cannot be ignorant how the prophesies of old a 2 Tim. 3.1 ad 10. 2 Pet. 2. per tot 1 Joh. 2.18.22 Jude 4. ad finem Matth. 24 24 25 c. mentioned by the holy Apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ yea by Christ himself concerning the perilousnesse of the last dayes in respect of the evils both of opinion and practice that should bee broached and embraced by all sorts of people in them are now in our times abundantly fulfilled wherein there is as much difference and as great variety if not greater betweene men in their opinions as there is between them in their fashions which I finde to be b Sic etiam in cunctis Angligenis tanta vestium varietas asperitatis multiformitas inolevit ut neutrius generis paenè quilibes censcatur ex qua re bene prophetavit tempore Regis Etheldredi c. Anony prophesied of also many hundred years since touching England and like as mens fashions in their apparrell diet and behaviour are some of them more monstrous odious and loathsome then others so are their opinions in Religion and matters of Doctrine and Worship and so blasphemous abominable and damnable are some opinions and practices now in England as that nothing but the patience of an infinite God could possibly suffer them to have any longer a Being amongst us How were the Churches of Christ weakned and endangered by such Pests in the Primitive times What a many c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Antichrists were there then 1 Iohn 2.18 What a many false Christs false Apostles false Prophets and Teachers selfe-lovers Sin-lovers and lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God going up and down deceiving poore souls especially poore silly women that were alwayes learning but never came to the knowledge of the Truth 2 Tim 3.6 who were not onely resisters but subverters of the faith delivered once to the Saints Jude 3.4 And is it not so at this day Are nor the Churches of Christ as much posered and endangered now through such false Christs false Apostles false Teachers c. meere Antichrists that have a forme of godlinesse but deny the power thereof The Lord Jesus the great Shepheard of his sheep Hebr. 13.20 hath but newly recovered his poore afflicted weather-beaten Lambes from bloody Cavalerisme tyranny and oppression but forthwith their souls are assaulted with d Beza translates it Spirituall malices the words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the spiritualnesse of evill and wickednesse carnall wickednesses are inferiour to spirituall which ocupieth the highest part of the Soule c. and are not laid out in carnall passions and concupiscences c. Lawr. Com. and Warre with Angels p. 5. spiritual wickednesses in high places Eph. 6.12 Some read it In high places but I suppose it may be read better in heavenly places or things as e The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in sublimi saith Beza but it signifies heavenly as in the Margent of your Bibles which may have relation to things as places and then it shews the things about which his malicious studies are conversant that is to take all heavenly things from us and to deprive us of whatsoever is heavenly id ib. some observe on the place If the differences amongst us touching mens opinions and practises were onely about such things as are not much materiall or were not at all determined in the Scripture or after such a manner as is dubious not onely to particular persons but whole Churches of Christ the matter were not great for God is infinitly wise herein and in my weake apprehension hath left these things so that thereby there might be occasion given the more to exercise our Charity Patience and Humility one towards another But when they shall grow to such a height as to call into question fundamentall truths and not so much to question them as flatly to deny them and to pluck up the foundation it self then 't is high time for us to look about not only to hold fast that no man take our Crown but to f 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. ut fitis propugnatores fidei uti Hen. Steph. in verb. contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints Jude 3. And is it not thus with us at this g Who can number the dust of Atheists Papists Hereticks Hypocrites or measure the spacious Globe of meere Formalists or self-condemned Apostates Barl. day Don't we see that men are not ashamed to write and speake against the Divinity of Christ and the Scriptures against the Deity of the Holy Ghost yea how they deny the Trinity and plead for these very abominations that are without controversie odious and loathsome both to God and good Men h A catalogue of some of which abominable errors held by such as cast off the use of ordināces you shall find set down in the end of the Book Now concerning errors in Doctrine I have not so directly to deale with in the following Discourse though my soule bleeds to consider the dishonour comes to the Lord Jesus by them but those which more especially concerne Worship and not every petty error here neither but the grand and capitall one and that wherein I judge all error of Doctrine and Apostasie at last to terminate viz. the Renouncing and

casting off of all Duties and Ordinances or Institutions of Divine Worship ordained by Christ himselfe to be observed in the dayes of the New Testament unchurching the right constituted Congregations and Assemblies of Syon dna plucking up the publick Ministery of the Gospel by the roots and this not so much in some respect as those that are called Seekers who deny publick Churches Ministery c. for want of Apostles and other like extraordinary gifted men to administer c. but absolutely looking on the performance of Duties and use of Ordinances Ministery and Churches as poore low weake Dispensations Childish things not fit for such as live in God to stoop so low as to make use of And so under a pretence of living in God they teach poore weake soules that there is a life to be attained unto wherein they may live i That there is a life to be obtained by Beleevers here on earth that is above ordinances is not denyed But that this life is without ordinances altogether when they may enjoy the use of them and that puts them necessarily upon the renouncing and casting them off is that which we flatly deny as being contrary not only to the sacred Scriptures but experience of the soundest Christians as I have shewed in the following Discourse without the use of Ordinances or performance of Duties without observation of the Lords day or Sabbath without Church-fellowship without instructing their children in the knowledge of the Scriptures without craving a blessing on the Creature when they make use of it or returning thankes for it And that which is most abominable that they may attain and enjoy such a liberty as to be under no law but that of the Spirit as they say and so may perpetrate any impiety without controll or check of God or Man for they live in God alone and so are above all things here below so would make a persons living in God living in the practice of sin to consist stand together These are the men that the following Discourse concernes and whom I cannot but look on especially those of them that out of a professed judgement and fixed selfe-will doe in a high and peremptory manner proceed in their way as the dangerous pests that can be both to the State as well as to Religion for take away true Christian Religion or the true worship of God and power of godlinesse out of a State or Common-wealth and what do you therein but as it were take the soul from the body For what is the sincere practise of sound Religion and godlinesse in a State but k There is nothing in a true Christian Common-wealth that can onely direct it self to the benefit of State onely but that Religion must bee also respected the care of State being but the By and Religion the main of every Christian intendment And ther fore oftentimes even in those things which seem most properly to concern the State is Religion in them most regarded the care of State in respect of Religion being like the care of our bodies for which holy men care but so only as for the houses of their soules c. Levers History of the Defend of the Cath Faith the life and soule of it Let that be once neglected corrupted or extirpated and the other cannot long stand after and when is Religion destroyed but when we make it to patronize impiety And hence it is that such as are guilty of the forementioned abomination in renouncing Ordinances c. are so frequently described by such Epithites as shew nothing but confusion and destruction to betide those places and persons where they are entertained and countenanced It is sufficient in this place having spoken more largely hereof in the cōclusion of the Appendix to shew you that the Apostle Peter calls them l 2 Pet. 3.17 Lest ye be led away with the error 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so in chap. 2.7 c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicuntur homines qui volunt esse fine lege qui emnia legum repagula perfringunt ab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod legem praesertim drvinam significat homines qui nec jus nec fas curant c. Ger in loc vocat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quos prius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ostendit hos nullo jure nullis ne legibus posse in ordine retineri sed perumpunt omnia jura quid vis enim sibi licere putant Scripturasque sibi subjiciunt Horum exemplum valdè est perniciosum etiam piis ideo cavendum ne horum erroribus abrepti veritatem fidei amittant Aret. in loc ut supra 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Lorinus and other more sound Interpreters doe translate ex-leges or lawlesse Libertines such as under a pretence of Christian liberty allow themselves in the practice of all manner of sensuall lusts to the disgrace and scandall of the Gospel for through their occasion the way of truth is evill spoken of 2 Pet. 2.2 Yet whiles I am opposing the opinion and practice of such New though no True Gospellers c. I would not have ye the pretious servants of God that keep his Commandements and the Testimony of Jesus Rev. 12.17 to conceive that I doe in the least goe about to plead for any ordinances or worship of mans invention or making for false ordinances and worship that are forged in Antichrists shop and beare no other stamp upon them then the Image of humane Authority For I know as it 's all one to m Lever ut supra p. 366. deny God and to deny his Service so I do latry is as wel in false worship as in no worship I am assured that Ordinances of divine worship that are of mans making though never so wise or great are no plants of Gods planting neither doth he accept of them or of those that make use of them but n Matth. 15.8 9-13 Col. 2.20 21 22 23 24. Ezek. 20.39 lookes on them as vain worshippers and will-worshipers polluters prophaners of his glorious reverend Name Or 2. that I allowed of theuse of true ordinances and worship that Christ himselfe hath instituted and commanded in a false way or contrary to the right order which Christ hath prescribed to his people in the Gospel and was in use in the primitive and Apostolicall times for our example viz. a Society and Combination of Saints in which for the most part they subsist properly and are to be performed as I have at large shewed in another o Modell of the Congregational way where this matter is fully handled and cleared in the two first Chapters place For I know that the same God that hath called his people to worship him doth require them to take the same way and order he hath p As God hath not left it indifferent whether he be served and worshipped or not so he

3.12 which place is to be understood of Gospel-worship as is evident by comparing it with the 2 3 4 5 and 6 verses of the same chapter where the Apostle makes comparison between Christ and Moses and shewes how farre the Lord Jesus Christ excells Moses in building and ordering the House of God with all the Ordinances of worship belonging thereunto under the Gospel And thus Cain is said to goe out from the presence of the Lord Gen. 4.16 or from Gods * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. à facie Domini face Now what is signified by this but his being removed from the wayes and meanes of enjoying the favour of God which are his * So the face of God is frequently taken in Scripture Psal 24.6 Psal 27.8 Psal 105.4 Jonah 1.3 Quare non dubito sub hac voce notari adminicula quibus Deus nos ad se tollit ex sua immensa gloria ad nos descendens atque in terra nobis proponens imaginem ●●elestis suae gloriae caeterum quia in unius Dei arbitrio est se nobis conspiciendum praebere quod facit in verbo sacramentis in hoc intuitu oculos retineri decet ne nobis contingat quod Papistis c. Calv. in Psal 27.8 Vide Sal. Glass Philalog sac in verb. p. 104. Ordinances and therefore called his Face because in these he useth to manifest himselfe to his people as two friends are said to doe when they speak face to face to each other 22. Whether the promises of the Gospel excepting onely that great and absolute * Psal 2 8. Ioh. 6.37.39 Isai 49.8.9 first promise of calling the elect to Christ do not carry and contain in the bowels of them the matter of Rewards and those rewards stand in * The promises are free in fieri being made onely out of grace but conditionall in facto esse being performed and accomplished with dependance on duties in us Reign Synf of Sin p. 337. 364. Vide Stock on Mal. cap. 2. Relation to presupposed services and duties to be performed by beleevers in order to their enjoying those Rewards as Matth. 7.7 8. Ask and it shall be given to you 2 Thess 3.4 Gal. 6.9 Heb. 3.14 2 Pet. 1.5.8 10 11 And whether a person can expect the performance of the Reward on Gods part that neglects the duty required on his own part 23. Whether one main end of the new Covenant of grace mentioned Ier. 31.33 Heb. 8.9 10. wherein God promiseth to give his Spirit be not to enable Beleevers and cause them to walk in all the Statutes and Ordinances of the Lord Jesus according to * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The roat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is very emphaticall and fignifies ad certum usum aptare vel disponere i. To dispose fit a person for employment taken from dressing and making ready of meats and sacrifices under the Law Vide Sheind Lexic penta Hutt Heb. Bib. cum Cub Leigh erit sac Heb. in Radie. Ezek. 36.27 And whether a departing from Ordinances and ceasing to walk in a right observation of them be not a terrible shaking if not a making of this glorious new Covenant of grace in this respect void to the Saints For to what purpose is there a Covenant made with the elect in Christ to enable them to walk with God in all the righteous Statutes and ordinances of God if there be none to be observed by them 24. Whether a persons ceasing to perform the duty of prayer and other duties of Gods worship and to live onely in God as such say that are against Ordinances be not destructive to the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ and all his glorious offices belonging thereunto especially that of his Priestly office whereby hee makes continuall Intercession for true Beleevers and by which we are made acceptable to God Rom 8.34 Heb. 7.25 Ephes 1.6 And whether in this respect it be not to raze the very foundation of all our faith and hope in God for justification and acceptation alone by Christ yea a razing of the very foundation of all true Christian Religion and according to the Apostle to preach another Gospel Gal. 1 8 9. For if there be no more need of the performance of the duties of Gods worship in which through Christ we draw nigh to God but the soule is to bee caught and swallowed up wholly into God as these men speake that deny the use of Ordinances then to what purpose is Christs Priestly office now on foot to make our persons and Gospel spirituall sacrifices and services of prayer and praises acceptable to the Father Heb. 13.15 1 Pet. 2.5 25 Whether to leave off and altogether to cease the use of Gospel-ordinances and duties of Gods worship be not directly against the revealed will and minde of God and Jesus Christ contained in the Scriptures that * Isa 29.18 Ier. 29.12 13 Zech. ● 17 Ioh. 10.16 Ephes 6.18 2 Tim. 2.22 1 Cor. 11.26 Heb. 3.7 11. Heb. 10.25 Jam. 1.18 19 ad finem expresly command require the continuall performance of these duties as hearing the Word Prayer administration of the Seales Church-communion c. And whether this practice doth not proceed from a Popish Prelaticall and Antichristian Spirit to make and bring persons in a great measure to forsake the holy Scriptures which ought to be the * All Writers both ancient modern that are sound and Orthodox averre so much as may be seen abundantly in their works against the Papists and Hereticks in all ages from the Apostles to to this day only and sole Rule in all matters of faith prefer mens private thoughts opinions inventions and unwritten Traditions above them as is the practice of idolatrous and Antichristian Papists to doe yea whether such a principle as this to cast off the duties of Gods worship so expresly commanded in the Scriptures to be performed be not with the Papists the great enemies of Christ and his Gospel-institutions to call for an Index Expurgatorius to correct and cancell those many pretious Texts and places in the Scripture that are point blank against this dangerous opinion of forsaking Church-Assemblies and use of Ordinances as they doe many places of Paul in his Epistles that hold forth justification E sola fide i. by Faith alone without works 26. Whether the Scriptures doe not number and reckon such persons as cast off Ordinances amongst the vilest of men as prophane a The children of God by nothing are better known then by calling upon him Barlow on 2 Tim. 2.2 Let them goe branded like Satans slaves sounes of Belial who omit this duty Id. ibid. Atheists and Hypocrites that make not conscience of the observing of them but cast his Lawes behinde their backes and count them grievous and doe what in them lies to make them void as Nehem 9.26 Psal 10.5 Psal 119.126 Psal 53.4 Mal. 3.13 14. and in especiall that of prayer