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	papist_n	protestant_n	3,430	5	8.0447	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33929	A compendious discourse about some of the greatest matters of Christian faith propounded and explained between a minister and an enquiring Christian ... : and also may serve for an answer to two books, one called The practical discourse of the sovereignty of God, the other called The death of death, by the death of Christ, written by J.O. : whereunto is annexed a very brief appendix / written by T. Collier.	Collier, Thomas, fl. 1691.	1682 (1682)	Wing C5274; ESTC R20632	146,911	256

scope of Scripture be adhered to especially in the greatest matters of faith and practice otherwise our faith and practice must be built on mens Interpretations and not on Scripture Revelation and further admit we of mens Interpretations of plain and express Scriptures or of the more dark so as to contradict that which is plain as it 's the ready way to make an end of the truth of Scripture so in reason one mans Interpretation is as good to himself as anothers is to himself and so in Infinitum which fill us with divisions meerly from Interpretations of men and not from any obs●urity or contradiction in the Scripture 4. And so as an effect hereof maintain Christian Scripture and Protestant liberty in Religion in opposition to the Popish Scriptureless Principle and protested against by Protestants as exercised by Papists viz. by human power to compel to believe as the Church believeth which perverteth the Scripture denyeth the headship of Christ and the Scripture and Christian liberty of Christians and establisheth the Pope in his Persecutions to the great blame and shame of Protestants 5. That Jesus Christ as he was the alone Sacrifice for the sins of the World so he is the alone foundation of Christian Faith and the alone Mediator between God and Man that he shall come again from Heaven to raise and judg the quick and the dead at his coming and Kingdom and to perfect the Adoption and Redemption the Restitution of all things the great ends of his undertaking 6. That whoever do believe and obey the Gospel shall be saved and that Gospel-Faith and Works are so united by the Lord in order to both Justification and Salvation as without which it cannot be obtained tho not as the cause but as the Holy terms thereof 7. These things being th●s fixed to by Protestants and pleaded out both by word and deed would root up Popery Root and Branch all the rest of their Scriptureless and Fabulous inventions and devices as Transubstantiation Image-worship multiplicity of Mediators Sacrifices of the Mass and Eucharist for quick and dead Pardons Pilgrimages and Purgatory with all the rest of their human inventions would fall to the ground if these forementioned Christian and Scripture Principles were soundly pleaded out and lived to by Protestants Christ I perceive that the Apostasie has been very great and more universal than has been imagined and likewise that the danger thereof is very great Min. I take it to be a matter of highest concern to all to lay these things to heart in time and not to make light thereof it being the great things of the Gospel and of weighty concern it is to come right herein and I doubt not but that oy a due and true enquiry we may come to know better where we are and what to do in the great matters of God and the Gospel wherein his name and honour the honour of Christ the Gospel the good of all Men and our own safety is so much concerned Christ Your self have been sometimes differingly minded about some of these things do you think you are wholly gotten out and free from the Apostasie Min. I do not so think much less so say but repent of my former ignorance and mistake in any of these things taken up by Tradition blessing God for any of his teachings waiting on him for further light and leading in the right understanding of his mind and will in his word and that what I understand I may be Faithful to him therein in which way I may expect his further teachings Hos 6. 3. Joh. 7. 17. My real desire being to attain unto the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints Jude vers 3. Which is the great concern of all that make mention of and call upon the name of the Lord Jesus and in a humble and self-denying way of seeking and waiting they may and shall obtain Ps 25. 4 5 9 14. The sum of all I desire is to come right in the Faith Love and Life of the Gospel which is the great concern of all that do expect to Glorfie God here and to be Glorified with him hereafter CHAP. VIII Sheweth that there shall be not only a special but a general Salvation effected by Christ in the Restitution and World to come in and over which shall be his Eternal Kingdom Christ IN chap. 3. You shewed the general Love of God to the World in the gift of his Son and the general Love of Christ in dying for the World with the varieties of the ends thereof all certainly to be effected in the times appointed I desire you in this to speak something further of the great mystery of the Restitution and Salvation in the World to come and of the Eternal Kingdom of Christ therein Min. What is it in particular you desire to enquire into Christ That you clear from the Scripture the truth concerning the World to come and what it is Min. This I have largely spoken to in my answer to Mr. Coxe ch 7. Yet I shall at present say something briefly further to it for your present satisfaction 1. That there is a World to come is so plainly stated in the Scripture as that I think none dare deny it Mat. 12. 32. Mar. 10. 50. Eph. 1. 21. Heb. 2. 5. 2. What this world to come is or shall be 1. Negatively what it is not 1. It is not heaven above which is Gods throne as some vainly think and teach The reasons are 1. Because that is already and probably has been from Eternity Psa 11. 4. and 93. 2. but this is not but is a world that is yet to come and shall be in the times appointed 2. Because heaven is in Scripture no where called the world to come nor indeed could be so called because it has been and is in being but the World to come is not yet in being otherwise than in purpose and promise nor is heaven above which is called Gods throne at all called world or any part of the created world 3. Christ when he came into the world is not said to come out of or down from the world to come but that he came out from God and down from heaven Joh. 6. 38. 16. 30 17. 8. 4. When he ascended he is not said to ascend up into the World to come but that he ascended into heaven and up where he was before Mar. 16. 19. Joh. 6. 62. 2. It is not this present world as others do as vainly imagin that it is the Gospel day of Grace now in this world that this is not it the reasons are 1. This world was in being long before the world to come was spoken of and promised but that is a world that is not yet in being but is to come 2. Because that where the world to come is spoken of it's clearly in way of distinction from this world viz. this world and that which is to come clearly distinguishing them into two worlds

As it 's unscriptural and irrational so to affirm so it 's greatly dishonorable unto God and his Gospel-Grace to Men and indeed nulls and ends it rendering it to be no Grace at all to suppose that after such provision and declarations of Gospel-Grace to Men in so wonderful a way that he should state the obtaining an interest therein to a power lost for some thousands of Years before which is indeed to state it on impossible terms is dishonorable unto God rendering his design in the Gospel of his Grace to Men to be but a Fable and of none effect yea to be pernicious as a Trap or Snare to catch Men instead of free Grace to damn them for what they could not do which dishonorable dreadful and dangerous Notions are to be abhor'd by all that Love the Name and Honor of God so that a power in Man to believe and obey the Gospel with the helps therein afforded which is all of God is without all just ground of doubt Christ Some affirm that the reason why Men believe not is not because they cannot tho they cannot but because they will not viz. If they could yet they will not therefore their damnation is just Min. It 's true they will not who wilfully refuse and reject the Grace on the Holy terms thereof and therefore their damnation is just Yet 2. To say the reason why Men believe not is not because they cannot tho they cannot is all one as to say the reason why a blind Man doth not see is not because he is blind and cannot but because he will not and the reason why a dead Man doth not live move and act as living Men do is not because he cannot tho he cannot but because he will not especially their Opinion being that Men by Nature are as dead blind and uncapable to understand move or act in Spiritual things as a dead Corps a stock or a stone is in Natural things and also that God hath destinated them that believe not by an Eternal and unchangeable Decree thereunto which imports an impossibility for any such to believe and be saved being by Eternal Decree determined to Sin and be Damned but that all Men are capable with the common helps afforded of God to believe and be saved is most apparent or else they could not in Justice be capable to be damned Christ I am well satisfied in this matter but it being so that God affords a sufficiency of Power to do his will whence is it that Mens unbelief and disobedience ariseth if not from want of Power Min. All unbelief and disobedience to the Gospel 〈◊〉 from the wilfulness of the will and not from want of power to will for the case is the same if the defect lay in want of Power to Will Joh. 5. 40. Ye will not come to me that ye might have life It 's wilfulness and not weakness that will prove to Condemnation Joh. 3. 19. As all Power is of God the Power of all actions both Natural and Spiritual so in all the Will is left free and not forced by any coercive Power but by voluntary choice as in the lowest so in the highest things the Will determins the choice which I think has been the understanding of Christians throughout all Ages since the Primitive time of the Gospel and is indeed both Divine and Rational I know many cry out upon this as free Will as if it were reproach enough to use that term in way of reproach but rightly understood viz. That Men have a power from God to Will and are left free for its exercise by him and that it is his Will that they should improve their power in Willing the best good not that they do Will it then the work would be done this is most apparent from Scripture to this purpose read and ponder well Isa 55. 6 7. Rev. 22. 17. Those calls and invitations would be to no purpose but indeed Mockinvitations had not Men power and freedom of Will to answer them And not only the Scripture which is plain and clear for it But tho I am not versed in History yet I shall here relate what I have taken out of a Modern Author on this same account and I suppose credible and not to be contradicted viz. The Discourse of Natural and Moral impotency pag. 58. Speaking of the Ancients near the Primitive time saith All Men verst in their Writings know and confess that all the Fathers and whole Church Nemine Contradicente of the purest Ages next after the Apostles after a Controversie was moved concerning it in the second and third Century did maintain free Will as a foundation Principle of all Religion against the Manichees and other Hereticks that denied it And indeed the following Ages did also maintain it whatever any say to the contrary And pag. 52. That Augustin lib. 2. De Precat Merit Remiss Cap. 6. Affirmeth it as undoubted that God commandeth no Man any thing which he cannot do and pag. 53. He calleth it Blasphemy to say that God commandeth any thing that Men in particular cannot do Ser. 191. De tempore And pag 153. That Augustine tells us lib. 2. De Precat Merit chap. 18. That it was the great care of every Orthodox Teacher in his time to take heed lest they did so defend Grace as to deny free Will and lest they should so defend free Will as to deny Grace and a good care it was And further the Author saith Neither is there I think to be found one of the ancients accounted Orthodox that doth maintain in the strict sense opposed that God commandeth Men what they cannot do but all abhorr'd it as an Opinion laying a high accusation upon God till after many hundred Years of this Age of Augustine By all which it appears That it 's no new Notion that the miscarriage of Men is from their own wilfulness and not from weakness they shall blame themselves and not God in their Cendemnation that free Grace and free Will must stand together and indeed to deny the power and freedom of Will is to deny all Grace for it 's no Grace but a mock if there be no power possibly to accept it and that those that were contrary minded in the more purer times were accounted Hereticks and Blasphemers and how they will acquit themselves therefrom that now own and maintain the same it behoves themselves well to consider and indeed were there no power in Men to believe and obey the Lord which his common helps afforded they could then be capable of neither Vice nor Virtue but must be as the Brutes without Sin and how honourable this is either to God or Man is easie to be understood by the weakest capacity Yet in this matter two things had need prudently to be considered 1. That it 's not perfect and sinless obedience that is required or that Men are impowered to perform but universal and sincere to the best of their knowledg and