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

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57597	Shlohavot, or, The burning of London in the year 1666 commemorated and improved in a CX discourses, meditations, and contemplations, divided into four parts treating of I. The sins, or spiritual causes procuring that judgment, II. The natural causes of fire, morally applied, III. The most remarkable passages and circumstances of that dreadful fire, IV. Councels and comfort unto such as are sufferers by the said judgment / by Samuel Rolle ...	Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Preliminary discourses.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Physical contemplations.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Sixty one meditations.; Rolle, Samuel, fl. 1657-1678. Twenty seven meditations.	1667 (1667)	Wing R1877; Wing R1882_PARTIAL; Wing R1884_PARTIAL; ESTC R21820	301,379	534

Universal-Church or of that part of the Church which is the whole or of Rome which is all the World VVe read of Names of blasphemy which were upon the heads of the Beast Rev. 13.1 But as if that were not sufficient they have added a Name which is perfect non-sense for the reason aforesaid but that by the way Their design is to prove that Antichrist is amongst us and that London was that Mystical Balylon so often spoken of according to what was lately found in a Seditious Libel Do to South-Babel c. meaning to the Southern-part of London yet standing c. But alass How weak are the Premisses from which they have drawn these conclusions Their Argument put into a Syllogism is this If London were destroyed the self-same-year in which some did Prophesie that Babylon and Antichrist should be destroyed then is London that which the Scripture calls Babylon and Anti-christ amongst the Protestants But London was c. E●go If the VVorld mistake not some of you have proved the Minor so strongly viz. the destruction of London and in such a year that no body can disprove it But the consequence of the Major-Proposition hath no force at all in it For what if some did Prophesie the destruction of Babylon and Antichrist in 66 and London only was destroyed that year from what Principle of Scripture or Reason can you thence infer that London is Mystical Babylon For first of all VVho were they that did Prophesie such a thing VVere they not a few inconsiderable Enthusiastical Men to whom not one Protestant of a thousand gave credit For believe me Enthusiasts and Protestants are no convertible terms forasmuch as not every hundredth or thousandth Protestant is any thing of an Enthusiast VVe do not use to charge upon your Church the Extravagant Bablings of one or a few particular Papists but the professed Doctrines and Tenets of that which yourselves call the Church of Rome Do us the same right and forbear to charge upon Protestants as such what the Protestant Church doth disavow Possibly they were some of your own Religion some Romanists putting on the mask of Protestants as hath bin usual with them to do for sinister ends who foreknowing that London would be burnt this year as nothing is more easy than for men to know what themselves intend to do gave out that Babylon and Anti-christ would be destroyed in sixty six for that very end that when they had once effected the burying of London in ashes they might have some pretence to write this Epitaph Here lies Babylon here lies that which was the feat of the true Anti-christ thereby rolling away the reproach of Babylon and Anti-christ from themselves to whom it belongs upon the Protestants whom it concerns not But take heed how you deny Anti-christ to be amongst you for by that means you quit one Argument Sir Edw. Sand. Spec. Europ which some of your writers have used to prove Rome to be a true Church for that it is said that Anti-christ sitteth in the Temple of God 2 Thes 2.4 But if upon further consideration you would not be known to have Anti-christ amongst you let me tell you that the Beast spoken of in Scripture is so thoroughly markt that it is easy to distinguish him from the Protestant Church and from Rome heathenish and whatsoever else he would turn over his name to Me-thinks that one Text 2 Thes 2.4 would plainly enough decipher Anti-christ if there were none but that Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God The Emperours of Rome-heathenish sate not in the Temple of God they were not within the pales of the professedly Christian Church therefore they were not the man of sin and Anti-christ there spoken of but he is to be sought and found amongst those that are called Christians Now amongst Christians there are none that exalt themselves above all that are called God that is above all Magistrates which are called Gods challenging a Primacy and Supremacy to themselvs over all Christians both Subjects and Princes I say there are none that do so but the Popes of Rome successively whence it comes to pass that Papists are wont to refuse the Oath of Supremacy to their Native Prince as believing not their own Prince to be Supream under God over his own Subjects but the Pope of Rome over both him and them Moreover who is it that fitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself to be God that is assumeth to himself those things which are proper and particuliar to God onely as namely To forgive sins For none can forgive sins but God onely I say who but the respective Popes of Rome do take upon them by their own power and in their own name to forgive sin the grossness of which practice did first provoke Luther of a staff Monk to become a zealous Protestant Yea who amognst those that were called Christians did ever exalt himself above all that is worshipped by which may be meant the true God saving the respective Popes of Rome And they have done it time after time in taking upon them to dispense with the Commission of sin as with the taking of unlawful Oaths and such like Now God himself though he remit sin to such as truly believe and repent yet he never did nor by reason of the holiness of his nature ever could give men free leave and licence to do that which is sinful It is true that God gave the Israelites Commission to borrow the Jewels and Earings of the Egyptians and never to return them again but that was not a liberty to steal for God Whose all those things were and whose are all things was pleased to alienate the propriety to take those things from the Egyptians and give them to the Israelites A fourth Character of Anti-christ is that his Coming is with lying wonders vers 9. that is with feigned miracles Now who amongst all that are called Christians trade so much if at all in those things as doth the Church of Rome How do the Romanists they and only they abound with miracles and all fictitious and no other then gross imposture Tell those people that have no Bibles to consult but what are in an unknown language or else perverted by a false translation or a corrupt gloss I say tell them the Anti-christ is amongst the protestants and that London was the Mystical Babylon of which the Scripture speaks Sic notus Ulysses Is Anti-christ no better known think you to them that have seen his Picture and Description in holy Writ Alas such coarse Wares as is the ridiculous asserting of London to be Babylon will go off no where but in a dark shop or by a false light Your blinded Moses that live as it were under ground may be made to believe that Rome is the new Jerusalem spoken of Rev. 21.1

is like to be will scarce pay for the houses they live in and if so wherewithall shall they and theirs subsist Men must have meat to eat and clothes to wear as well houses to dwell in but your rack-Rents and more than rack Fines do eat the very bread out of their mouthes When I think of the Fire the Carters the Pilferers and you extorting Landlords I cannot but recount what is said Ioel 1.4 That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten How contrary have you been to Jesus Christ who impoverishell himself to make others rich 2 Cor. 8.9 whereas you have inricht your selves by making others poor You have handled the poor City as the Sybils are said to have done their Prophecies when they had burnt the greatest part of them asking as great a price for the Remains as they did at first for the whole Book what ever reason they had for that I am sure you have none for this Ruminate I beseech you upon one Text I shall name to you with others of like nature and then if you think fit to keep all the Fines you have taken and to take all the Rent you have contracted for give me leave to think that your hearts do stand in no awe of Gods Word The place I mean is Zach. 2.9 10 11. Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house that he may set his ●●st on high that he may be delivered from the power of evil Thou hast consulted shame to thy self thou hast sinned against thy soul For the stone shall cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber shall answer it If you will not believe try at your peril if that saying of Christ be not true viz. that It will profit a man nothing to gain the world and lese his own soul MEDITATION VII Upon the burning down of many Churches VVHen men are better informed and lesse under the power of prejudice they will not be offended at calling those places by the name of Churches where people meet together for the publick worship and service of God though the living Temples of God or the faithful meeting together for such ends and purposes are in greatest strictnesse and propriety of speech called the Church or some part of the Church of Christ which is his Body each Believer a member of it and himself the Head There is a Figure in Rhetorick and such as we can hardly speak without which puts things containing for the things contained and if the Holy Ghost himself do use that Figure I am sure we ought not to quarrel with it I know not who can assure us that the Scripture doth not speak by that Figure when it saith 1 Cor. 11.22 Have ye not Houses to eat and drink in or despise ye the Church of God But not to contend about words I look upon it as a great misery that the places called by that name are so generally demolished He that shall look upon them but as great ornaments to the places where they stood or as strong and stately buildings that might have been employed to many good uses or at most but as places where first and last many fervent prayers have been offered to God many religious assemblies have met together many excellent and converting Sermons have been preached if he be consistent with himself cannot but bewail that they are now made a ruinous heap Most sober men do think there were some good and useful lights shining to the very last in those Candlesticks and for their sakes I wish if the will of God had been so that those Candlesticks might yet have stood as also for the hope I had that God in his good time might have thrust forth many more faithful labourers into those Vineyards if I may so call them Where now within the walls of that sometimes famous City can hundreds and thousands meet together to reap the benefit of one and the same Sermon I say in how few places can it now be done as formerly with convenience and safety We read of three thousand souls added to the Church by one of Peters Sermons Acts 2.14 But where now could a fifth part of that number with freedome and allowance converse together in order to such a purpose How many idle persons are there like to be in fields and alehouses on the Lords day under pretence they have no Churches to go to What a vast charge and trouble will it be to rebuild those Churches or many of them which if ever London come to be it's self again and Religion in any request as God forbid it should be otherwise must and will be done How forlo●n would London have lookt if all its Churches had been burnt though all private houses had been yet standing I dare not give those reasons that some would do why those Churches were burnt I dare not say we may do as well without them as with them What reformed Church is there in the whole world that hath not such places as those for publick worship and that is not careful to maintain and uphold them I wish every private house were a Church as P●ul Salities the Church that was in their house viz. in the house of Aquila and Priscilla Rom. 16.5 and yet I wish there were Churches every where besides those in private houses What if the blind zeal of Papists did build many of those Churches were they not converted to a better use I think they could no more infuse evil into those places than others can real and intrinsical holiness The Censers of Korah and Dathan howsoever they abused them were not cast out of the Sanctuary but made into broad plates as are vering for the Altar Numb 16.38 The destruction of Churches is pleasing to few men but those who have outrun the sobriety of Religion and who have made such haste out of Balylon that as one saith they are run beyond Jerusalem If some Ministers by the fire of their passion or other provoking sins have helpt to burn the Churches they did or should have preacht in over their heads and if some that were or should have been hearers have done the like the Lord forgive them they know not what they have done But may I or mine if God so please live to see London rebuilt Churches re-edified by the zeal and piety of Protestants every Congregation furnished with 〈◊〉 faithful Pastor every Candlestick filled with a burning and shining light all divine Ordinances purely administred all places for publick worship greatly and cheerfully frequented all good Christians united in the service of God then though our new structures should never be so great and magnificent as our old ones were we shall easily acknowledge that the glory of our second Temples is far greater than was that of our first MEDITATION VIII Upon the

and London what ever you please to call it or any thing else wherewith you shall think fit to delude them by those artifices which you call Pious-Frands which is as proper an expression as Pious-Devils but our people converse with the Sun I mean the light of Scripture They have read the book of the Revelations of Saint John and though they do not pretend to understand every thing therein conteined yet they doubt not what is meant by the beast's having seven heads and ten horns Rev. 13.1 because they find Saint John himself expounding it Rev. 17.9 The seven heads are seven mountains And there are seven Kings that is Forms of governments Five are fallen and one is and the other is not yet come c. These passages agree quadrate to Rome exactly It was built upon seven Hills yet to be seen though some of them be now without the walls of the City It had seven forms of Government whereof five were fallen in Saints John's time viz. Kings Consuls Tribunes Decemvir's Dictators one is saith he that is Emperors were then in being the other was not yet come viz. Popes But do these expressions all or any of them agree to London as they agree to Rome Doth that stand upon just seven hills Hath that had just seven forms of Government five whereof were fallen in Saint John's time and one other in being With what face then can you affirm London to be Babylon But I see Those men have impudence enough to assert any thing who have taught their followers to believe every thing they please to assert A faith of Legends and only that may be sufficient to assure men that London was Mystical-Babylon for that I take to be more than a faith of Miracles the latter being a saith of Possibles the other of Impossibilities and contradictions Therefore though some of the sillier sort of Papists may believe and others may boldly assert the same though they believe it not as they do in many other cases yet Protestants can never be perswaded to it whilst the world stands nor any other persons that are from under the power of gross Ignorance or Prejudice As for the name Antichrist Who knows not that it imports one that sets himself in the stead or place of Christ as well as against Christ the Praeposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying both pro and con that is as well For as Against Now Who amongst those that are called Protestants can be charged with setting himself in the place of Christ as if he would be taken for Christ himself But that do the Popes of Rome successively whilst they affirm to themselves those things which are peculiar to Christ alone as namely Forgiveness of sin c. I had forborn this discourse but that I have been advertised of the reproaches of some of the Papists who after the Baptism of fire we have lately undergone go about to Baptize us and our City with their spittle by the names of Babylon and Anti-christ due only to Rome and Romanists and God forbid that whilst Papists do unjustly asperse Protestants whose Religion is that which the Laws of England doth establish Protestants should not have leave and take heart enough to vindicate themselves In a word if London be Mystical Babylon so confident am I it is not let it never rise again if Rome be not let it never fall and on the other hand let Rome so fall as it proves to be Babylon the great the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth Rev. 17.5 and let London so rise and flourish again and only so as it shall be found to be otherwise MEDITATION XLII Upon the Pains which the Kings Majesty is said to have taken in helping to extinguish the Fire I Was no eye-witness but have been informed that when the Fire came near to Cripplega●t His Majesty being then and there present did in His own Person take great Pains no less as was told then if He had been a poor Labourer to promote the extinction of it Possibly some weak and inconsiderate persons that saw His Majesty at that time stooping so low might in their hearts despise Him for it as Michal did David for leaping and dancing before the Ark 2 Sam. 6.16 and 20. saying in derision How glorious was the King of England to day as she How glorious was the King of Israel c. But wise and religious persons that had seen David in that posture would have spoken the same words in good earnest which she spake in scorn meaning as they said How glorious indeed was the King of Israel whilst transported with holy zeal he leapt before the Ark which is called Dancing before the Lord The like can I say from mine heart of our Dread Soveraign How glorious was He in truth and in reality when He took upon Him the form or rather the work of a mean-man and vouchsafed His helping Hand to stop that dismal Fire when it was in its full carreer Had I seen Him with His Crown upon His Head His Scepter in His Hand His Noble Senators all waiting upon Him in their Parliament-Robes or in all the State in which He could have been seen Cant. 3.11 either on the day of His Coronation or of His Espousals I could not have reverenced Him more than I should have done if I had beheld Him with a Bucket in His Hand pouring water upon the Flames or than I do so often as I think of Him in some such posture of most kind and obliging condescension Me-thinks it was but equal that Christ should be more loved but not less honoured when he humbled himself so far as to take a Towel and therewith to wash and to wipe his Disciples feet John 13.4 Kings never act more like themselves than when they are doing good to their Subjects and are snatching them or their Concerns as fire-brands out of the Fire forasmuch as the Scripture saith That Magistrates are the Ministers of God to those that are under them for good Rom. 13.4 The Roman Emperors had wont to issue out their Commands to their Soldiers not in the third but in the first Person So Pertinax his Word and Motto was Militemus not March ye but Let us March on including himself So Septimius Severus his word was Laboremus Let us be doing In like manner our Gracious Soveraign is said to have stretcht forth His own Royal Hands to assist the putting out of those Aspiring Flames which seemed to expect a Princely Extinguisher That was such a kind of Royal Aid as all Subjects must needs be in love with and Why not more free to that other which goes by such a name in the remembrance of this One of the Ancients did wish to have seen Christ in the Flesh Paul in the Pulpit and Rome in its ancient Glory Much rather at lest-wise than the last of these would I have seen that sight I am now speaking of viz. His most Excellent Majesty

uniformly transcend the piety of former ages as well in all other things as we have done in this then shall we not need to doubt but as our greater sins have of late years procured us greater judgements one in the neck of another than have formerly been known in so quick a succession viz. of Sword Pestilence and Fire so our transcendant Reformation will end in greater blessings than former ages have been acquainted with It is not without several Patterns and Presidents in Scripture that Memorials should be erected as well of Judgements as of Mercies For not only did Jacob set up a Pillar of Stone in the place where God talked with him and fastened the name of Bethel upon it Gen. 35.14 in remembrance of the great Favour there vouchsafed him but God himself to commemorate his great displeasure against Let 's Wife for looking back towards Sedom which she ought not to have done verse 17. turned her into a Pillar of Salt which may signifie a lasting Pillar or a hard stiff Body of perpetual duration in which sense the Covenant of God is called a Covenant of Salt that is of perpetuity to season after-Ages with the remembrance of his judgment upon her We read of the brazen-Censers of Kerah and his Company those sinners against their own souls as they are called that they were made into broad-Plates for a covering of the Altar to be a memorial to the children of Israel that no stranger that is not of the seed of Aaron come near to offer incense before the Lord that he be not as Korah and his company Numb 1.16.39 We read also of a great Stone called Abel which word lignifieth Grief and that name seemeth to have been given it because of the Lamentation which the People made over those Bethshemites that were slain for looking into the Ark. 1 Sam. 6.18 The Philistims themselves when smitten by God with Emereds and plagued with Mice are said to have presented the Lord with certain Monuments of those judgments that were upon them viz. with so many Golden Emerods or figures of Emerods and so many Golden Mice as a Trespass-offering 1 Sam. 6.4 5. VVherefore ye shall make Images of their Emerods and of your Mace whichs mar the Land and shall give glory to the God of Israel● peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you● from off your gods and from off your Land which plainly showes that even those blind Heathen did look upon the due Commemoration of Judgments as a thing well-pleasing unto God and we are assured it is so by the complaint which God maketh of the Israelites their forgetting the great things which God had done in Aegypt and terrible things by the Red-Sea meaning the drowning of Pharaoh and all his Host there Psal 106.21 And the Apostle writing of what had befallen the murmuring Israelites 1 Cor. 10.6 saith These things are our examples that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted Therefore remember them we must or else we can take no warning by them He that questioneth the needfulness of erecting a Pillar or some other Monument to commemorate the late dreadful Fire may see his Error if he do but consider that London though not such a London then as this was hath formerly been burnt several times and did once continue in ashes fourscore and five years together and yet the generality of men now living in these parts were so far from considering and awing their hearts with the remembrance of it that but here and there a man doth so much as know that any such thing was ever done How vain a thing is it for Papists to bear us in hand De 〈◊〉 Hist C●l 114.8.131.161.213.263 That Orall-Tradition is sufficient to transmit Religion to the World and is the great thing we are to vely upon when but for the Writings of Historians we had all been ignorant of so remarkable a thing as was the burning of London five several times viz. Anno Domini 798 and Anno 801 and again Anno 982 and again Anno Domini 1087. and after that in the year 1133 which was little more than five hundred years agoe Had our Parliament had any such considence in Orall-Tradition they had never designed a Pillar for the memorial of a Fire so hard to be forgotten How weakly do Papists Argue that the Authority of the Scriptures is built upon the Church and the Church its self Infallible because it is called The Pillar of Truth 1 Tim. 3.15 Whereas Pillars are many times erected for other uses than to uphold and under-prop buildings as the several Instances which I have brought from Scripture of Pillars set up only as Monuments and Memorials and the use to which the Pillar I am now treating of is to be applied do plainly prove Such a Pillar is the Church viz. to transmit the memory of Religion or rather that Inscription the Scriptures I mean which are the great memorial thereof from one Age to another But Will the intended matter of that Pillar which is appointed to be either Brass or Stone afford us nothing of a profitable Meditation Methinks it should What Mettal is there that more resembleth Fire than doth burnished-Brass therefore in Ezek. 1.7 we read that the feet of the living Creatures there spoken of did sparkle like the colour of burnished-Brass It is but fit that the Memorials of things should bear as lively a resemblance as may be of those things of which they are intended Memorials So the Philistims made choice of Artificial Mice and Emerods in remembrance of those that were true and natural More over if London were consumed by Treachery no mettal can be more fit to receive the Characters of their most Impudent Villany who as to that had sinned with a Brow of Brass and with a Whores Fore-head Or if Stone be chosen rather of the two to make that Pillar of be it a lasting Emblem of the Hardness of their hearts harder than the neither Milstone that could burn such a City and ruin so many thousand Families both for the present and for many years if not Ages to come Where the Fire began there or as near as may be to that place must the Pillar be erected if ever there be any such If we commemorate the places where our Miseries began surely the causes whence they sprang the meritorious causes or sins are those I now intend should be thought of much more If such a Lane burnt London Sin first burnt that Lane Causa causa est causa 〈◊〉 Affliction springs not out of the dust not but that it may spring thence immeditely as if the dust of the Earth should be turned into Lice but primarily and originally it springs up elsewhere As for the Inscription that ought to be upon that Pillar whether of Brass or Stone I must leave it to their Piety and Prudence to whom the Wisdom of the Parliament hath left it Only three things I