Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A54854
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A seasonable caveat against the dangers of credulity in our trusting the spirits before we try them delivered in a sermon before the King at White-Hall on the first Sunday in February, 1678/9 / by Thomas Pierce ... ; published by His Majesties especial command.
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Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing P2196; ESTC R36679
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18,442
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42
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Ignorant and the Vnstable who for want of due Knowledge or of sufficient Consideration are like Clouds without water carried about of Winds as S. Iude describes them I shall be carefull that every Part of the Test or Criterion I am to give may be short and yet easie and I hope without all Question The several Parts of the Touchstone will be no fewer than 6 or 7. Nor are the Spirits to be try'd by any one or two of them but by All put together whether or no they are of God First The Spirit that is of God is the Spirit of Truth And therefore if any man who is outwardly of a seeming good Life is yet of very ill Iudgement in Fundamentals in Points essential to Christianity as in the Doctrin of Obedience to every Ordinance of Man to the Higher Powers to Them that have the Rule over us and do watch for our Souls a Doctrin running in a Vein throughout the Body of the Gospel and essentially belonging to All Religion especially if he ascribes to a sinfull man not to say The Man of Sin That Incommunicable Attribute of God himself Infallibility and gives to every Priest the Privilege to doe a much greater Miracle than ere was done by Christ Himself so far forth to transubstantiate a piece of Bread as first to make his own Saviour and then to eat him He must needs be misinstructed by the Spirit of Errour and Fascination the Spirit with which he is bewitch'd as S. Paul speaks to the Galatians let his outward Conversation be what it will let his visible Course of life be never so plausible or severe Next The Spirit that is of God is the Spirit of Holiness and Purity as well as Truth And therefore if any man who is Orthodox is at the same time Dishonest of some good Opinions but evil Practice does hold the Truth but in unrighteousness especially if he takes upon him by That Viper of Morality and all Religion the Iesuites Doctrine of Probability not onely to allow but to incourage and abett the grossest Villanies in the World without exception He is not season'd by the Holy but the Vnclean Spirit let his Orthodoxie of judgement as to some Fundamentals be what it can An honest Heathen is not so bad as a Christian Knave Thirdly The Spirit that is of God is the Spirit of Vnity and Love And therefore if any sort of men shall take upon them to be Reformers by making Schism by dissolving the Bond of Peace wherein the Vnity of the Spirit is to be kept and shall crumble Religion into as many small Parcells as the Caprices of Idle men shall have the liberty to suggest especially if they shall labour to separate Subjects from their Sovereign by absolving them from their Oaths of Christian Obedience and Fidelity or by instructing them to swear with a Design to be forsworn They are miss-led by That Spirit whose Name is Legion even the Spirit of Division That old and cunning Serpent which deceiveth the whole World Fourthly The Spirit that is of God is the Spirit of Meekness and of Order And therefore if any despise Dominion and speak evil of Dignities and in pretense of being the Meek ones who are by right of Promise to inherit the Earth demurely tread upon Crowns and Crofiers and love to be levelling with their Feet whatsoever according to God's special Providence does overtop them by Head and Shoulders especially if they presume to place the single Bishop of Rome above General Councils invest him with a Power to excommunicate Kings and subvert whole Kingdoms and make the People hope to Merit by the most prodigious Murthers They must be led by That Spirit which is called The Angel of the Bottomless Pit Abaddon and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Destroyer even the Spirit which is still working in the Children of Disobedience Fiftly The Spirit that is of God is the Spirit of Sincerity induing All whom He inhabits with an absolute Simplicity and Singleness of Heart And therefore They who do hold up their Left hand to God but their Right against their Governours having Godliness in their Profession but practical Atheism in their Lives hating Idols from the Teeth outwards but loving Sacriledge from the Heart crying down Superstition but preaching up the Creature-comforts flowing from Plunder which they call Providence declaring with zeal against the Prelates but ever voting up the Papacy of their Superintendents declaiming much against the Sectaries who are not of their Denomination but breaking down the Hedge of Discipline whereby the Herds are to be kept from God's Inclosure especially They who have invented the Art of Aequivocating and Cheating the Art of Swearing any thing safely by mental Exceptions and Reservations the Art of Couzenage by the Contract they call Mohatra and the like must needs be acted by that Spirit whom the Scripture has expressed by the Father of Lies even the Spirit of Hypocrisie That black Prince of Darkness which transforms himself with ease into an Angel of light Sixtly The Spirit that is of God is the Spirit of Knowledge and Wisedom and Vnderstanding And therefore if any man cites Scripture against the whole Tenor and Stream of Scripture and wanders into the wrong way even by That very Word which does direct him into the Right one especially if he levells the Canon of Scripture with the Apocrypha and makes the Pure Word of God to truckle humbly under Tradition whereby it becomes of none effect if men so learned and so acute and so sagacious as the Iesuites after all the heinous things they have done and taught are so far from discerning what Spirit they are of that they utterly mistake an Evil Spirit for a Good one a Spirit from Hell for one from Heaven the Spirit which reigns in the Court of Rome for the Spirit which guides in the Church of England if they can think it the Top of Piety to advance the Lord Iesus quite against the Lord Christ and make the Christian Religion the greatest Transgression of Itself which moves the Iansenists to call them The Antichristian Society if they can take it for the Comble of Christian Merit and Perfection to espouse and put in practice this Turkish Maxime that Religion is to be propagated where 't is possible by the Sword They must needs be possess'd by the Spirit of Slumber the Spirit of dead Sleep the God of this World which blindeth the mind for so the Devil is once call'd 2 Cor. 4.4 What I have thus drawn out at length our Blessed Lord does wind up into This short Bottom Matth. 7.20 Ye shall know them by their Fruits But the Fruits of That Spirit that is of God are reckon'd up by S. Paul to be such as These Love Ioy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Meekness Goodness and the like And therefore They who instead of loving
severally as He will v. 11. to some in a greater and to some in a lesser measure And in this Gift S. Peter did very mnch excell S. Philip. For so 't is obvious to collect from the 8 th of the Acts by comparing the 13 th with the 23 th verse § 3. Now whatever can be meant by the Subjects of Triall we are to make whether Churches or Church-men whether Prophecies or Prophets whether Doctrins or Doctors whether Inspirations or men Inspir'd or every one of these equally however different they may be or inconsistent with one another 't is plain they All pretend alike unto the same Spirit of God And therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Try and prove them says our Apostle whether they are what they pretend whether really they are Gold or do but eminently glister whether they speak by Commission and as the Oracles of God or onely run ere they are sent inspir'd by Avarice and Ambition and by the Impulse of the Devil whether they teach the sound Doctrins of Christ's Apostles and of his Church whose Faith and Doctrins we are to follow or are but some of the foolish Prophets in the 13 th of Ezekiel who follow their own Spirit and prophesie out of their own Hearts are like the Foxes in the Desarts have spoken Vanity and seen Lies saying The Lord saith and the Lord hath not sent them In any case we must try them of what sort they are § 4. Nor must we onely try Them but we must also try the Rule by which they All are to be tried For severall Tests and Rules of Triall who are true or false Teachers and which Doctrins are right or wrong have been lately set up to the hurt of Souls by the Two sorts of Enemies whereof I spake in the beginning to wit the Pretenders to Enthusiasm and the Disciples of the Leviathan The first of these will allow of no other Test than the Sturdiness and Strength of their own Perswasion which it is their will and pleasure to call The Testimony within them And by running in a Circle they grow so giddy that the longer we Catechize the more we lose them And 't is worthy to be observ'd how they wrest and misapply the Word of Life to their Destruction For If we ask how they know they have a Testimony within them from God the Holy Ghost We know it say they by This that God hath given us of his Spirit If we ask how they know that He hath given them of his Spirit We know it they say by This that we cannot sin If we ask how they know that they cannot sin their Answer is We are born of God If we ask how they know This We know it they will answer because we have a new Name given us which no man knows but He that hath it If we ask how they know of a new Name given them they will answer We know it by that Spirit which dwelleth in us If we ask how they know the Spirit of Truth from the Spirit of Errour their Answer is still at hand and still out of the Scriptures He that knoweth God heareth us and he that is not of God heareth not us If we ask them for a Witness whereby to prove it The Spirit their Answer is beareth witness with our Spirits If we bid them produce their Witness He that believeth they will say hath the witness in himself If we call for any Witness of men they tell us The Witness of God is greater Thus they argue by their Circular and Identical way of discourse They have the Holy Spirit of God because they are forsooth assured and assured of it they are because of the Spirit which dwelleth in them So strongly does the Spirit of Perverseness shew it self in such as are delivered up to believe a Lie For that is sometimes the case 2 Thess. 2.11 The other Enemies of Religion who are withall by much the worst in a derision and contempt of supernatural Revelation will have no better Test of true and false Prophets or of right and wrong Doctrins than the Warranty and Allowance of the Sovereign Powers in every Kingdom and Commonwealth of whatsoever Denomination throughout the world Which Position of the Leviathan fetcht as 't is from Iaponia and there from the Sect of the Ienxuani is so prodigiously absurd that it either makes no difference 'twixt Right and Wrong and infers True and False to be a couple of empty words which signifie nothing or the same thing the Will and Pleasure of the Prince or else infers this Contradiction that the same Things and Persons are in severall Times and Places both True and False So that according to This Position the Christian Religion was a false one under all the Heathen Emperours who did publickly prohibit the Teaching of it yet a most true one under Constantine surnam'd the Great and under all the following Emperours who strictly commanded it to be Taught Iesus Christ with Mr. Hobbs must have been a false Prophet as not approved of by Herod and the Then-Emperour of Rome whilst Mahomed must be a true one because allow'd by the great Sultan supreme Governour of the Turks The Will and Pleasure of the Prince being set up by That Monster as the sole Touchstone or Criterion whereby a Prophet or a Doctrin or a Religion is to be try'd None says He but a Sovereign in a Christian Commonwealth can take notice what is or what is not the Word of God A greater power than is ascribed by the Iesuites themselves either to the Bishop or Church of Rome a power to abrogate the old and as often as he will to make a new Canon of Scripture or none at all § 5. Had such Seducers of the people appear'd in publick among the Iews a present Death without Mercy had been inflicted as the wages of Their Iniquity Deut. 13.5 and ch 18. v. 20. The Setters forth of new Doctrins in that Mosaical Dispensation could not escape their publick Trials in the Great Parliament of Israel they call'd The Sanedrim and were condemn'd as false Teachers either to be strangl'd or ston'd to death Yea though they had shewn Signs and Wonders and though their Signs came to pass too yet could it not exempt them from suffering Death in case they tended to seduce the silly Admirers of their Wonders to worship Idols or any other way to enervate the Law of Moses which none could be allow'd to doe and yet be thought a True Prophet unless he could doe as real Miracles as Moses and give as cogent Demonstrations as Moses had given of his having been inspired and sent by God Therefore None but the Messias who out-did Moses and that as well in point of Miracle as in Holiness of Life and in illustrating or compleating the whole Moral Law could lawfully abolish the Ceremonial Yea even Those Divine Prophets or Men of