Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A30804
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A short treatise describing the true church of Christ, and the evills of schisme, anabaptism and libertinism ... delivered in two sermons by Mr. Richard Byfield.
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Byfield, Richard, 1598?-1664.
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1653
(1653)
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Wing B6393; ESTC R14831
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37,996
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46
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guilty in a higher degree And here let me mention only those that we are most in danger of and troubled with at the present these Hereticks polluters of the Temple of God are 1. The Antinomians they over-throw the Law Morall they hold that Christ came to abolish it that a beleever hath nothing to do with keeping the Commandements that the Gospell takes away all obedience to the Commandements they are against all urging of doing of duty of Humiliations of Repentance for sins after Iustification of praying for pardon of sin by a beleever they hold that the Law ought not to be Preached to beleevers with a great deale more of the like pernicious Leaver all which savoureth of ignorance pride and conceitednesse and of affectation of licentiousnesse and lawlesse liberty the spirit of Libertinisme inspireth these men 2. The Anti-Sabbatarians They evert the fourth Commandment teaching that it is Ceremoniall and so taking away all conscience of sin against the Commandment of God though no day be kept a Sabbath in the week and thereby all preaching and attendance on duties of Gods Worship publike and private on the Lords day in conscience to Gods Commandment laid aside they at one blow lay flat all that would uphold the power of godlinesse 3. The Germane Anabaptists that hold that a Christian ought not to be a Magistrate that Christians may not take the sword nor wage war these evert the fifth Commandment I call them the Germane Anabaptists for there divers Sects of them are and have been for this hundred of yeers past through Gods just judgement their errours some of them begin to spread in England these ghosts can passe the Seas and swim thorow the billows and waves of mighty waters they are in their first spawning to be looked unto for who knows unto what destructive Principles and Practices such giddy self-willed spirits may run Bellarmine slanderously calls them Proles Lutheranismi the off-spring of Lutheranisme they are indeed the off spring of hell for hell it selfe is moved when God rents the heavens and comes down to the great work of the Reformation of his Church Satan that sent these Furies out to defame the work of Reformation which God began by Luthers glorious Ministery he is Satan still and sends these Furies among us for the very same end For the present I will name no more that are against the Commandments of God Against the faith of Iesus I shall onely mention two 1. The Arminians that teach universall grace and the falling away of the Saints and deny that the efficacious working of internall grace from Gods Spirit is necessary to conversion and to the begetting of faith in a sinner They teach that the grace of conversion is resistible that we cannot have assurance and the like 2. The Socinians which among other damnable errours run into these two First they deny the Deity of our Lord Iesus Christ who is the great God our Saviour God blessed for ever Secondly they deny that Christs death was for satisfaction Isa 53. 5 6. Gal. 3. 13. 1 Pet. 2. 24. or for merit 1 Pet. 1. 18. 19. Act. 20 28 and that it was a price 1 Cor. 6. 20. 1 Tim. 2. 6. of our redemption but onely hath in it the nature of an example how we should suffer that Christ is our Redeemer not by being a ransome or paying a price or as our Surety Heb. 7. 22. making satisfaction but onely by leaving us an example that we should follow his steps The foregoing Texts of Scripture are expresly against this most hellish heresie These and the like to these are Dogs Wolves in Sheeps-skins evill workers the Concision as those that urged Circumcision are called Phil. 3. 2. they are to be named with such names of disgrace as tell truly what they are that all may beware of them they cut themselves others that hearken to them off from Christ and from his Church◠in Jucunda prosonomasia conjunxit interse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conciditur enim quod discerpitur plan◠distrahitur circumciditur quod supervacancis resectis purgatur Bullinger in locum this respect all the hereticall teachers are the Concision they are evill-workers for they should build up the Church of God but they pull it down and destroy it like dogs they bark at the truth they grin at Orthodox Ministers and fasten on the simple the fangs of their poisoned doctrine There 's the Wolfe beware and thrice beware 4. Antichrist and the Spirit of Popery which hath turned Zion into a Babylon I mean Rome-Christian into Rome-Antichristian and it is now a cage of unclean and hatefull birds a den of beasts a stie of foule spirits This Spirit of Antichrist discovers it self in four things 1. In Self-exaltation and Domination over the Church that the Pope might sit in the Temple of God as God 2 Thess 2. 4. 5. 2. In Apostacy from the faith that the man of sin might be the head of the Church thus he becomes the head of that Apostasie and of the Popish Apostaticall Synagogue farre from the Apostolicall Church of which Christ is head 3. In spirituall fornication and adultery which is Idolatry Superstition and Will-worship thus the Popish Synagogue is the Whore of Babylon 4. In lyes taught in Hypocrisie and doctrines of Devills 1 Tim. 4. 1 2 3. 5. They defile and destroy Gods Temple that by pernicious errours destroy and evert either of the two great ordinances of God the Magistracy and the Ministery the Authors the fautors cherishers or nurses the receivers abettors or applauders of such errours these strike the very Pillars of the Temple 1. For Magistracy those that erroneously teach that Magistrates have nothing to doe in the first but only in the second Table of the Law that they are to preserve the Peace and judge about meum and tuum mine and thine but for Religion and Gods Worship and Doctrine they have not to do◠with their power in those But God saith I will give Kings to be thy nursing fathers Esa 49. 23. as speaking of the Church under the New Testament David saith Psal 122. 9. because of the house of the Lord I will seeke to doe thee good And againe Psa 101. 8. I will betimes cut off evill doers from the City of God Restauration of the true Worship and Religion and the demolishing and extirpation of the false were the chiefe praises of godly Princes Asa Iehosaphat Hezekiah Iosiah and of Nehemiah the renowned reformer Neh. 13. Obj. That 's the Old Testament Sol. What are the Damned Manichees again raised from Hell Shall we againe be haunted with the Ghosts of the old Heresies sentenced to the bottomlesse Pit one thousand four hundred yeares agoe for rejecting the Old Testament 2. Do◠you hold the New Testament to be in force you must then receive the Old The New Testament is not to be received but as it agrees with the Old Christ bids Search the Scripture Ioh. 5. 39.
but also be acquainted with the Liberall Arts and Sciences that the Arts are needfull in a Minister is cleare hereby the Minister ought to be able to convince and confute errours and to maintaine the truth by disputation as well as to teach it and to comfort exhort and rebuke he is to stop the mouthes of Hereticks and Deceivers this he cannot doe without the helpe of the Arts especially of Logick whereby he discernes the fallacies of seducers and can open the truth out of the Scriptures which are delivered in a rationall discourse Who have been the famous Instruments of God to confute all the Hereticks of old Who have cut the sinewes of Harding Stapleton Bellarmine and other Popish Writers not any other save men famous for Learning Did you ever heare of such service done for the Church of God by any of the illiterate Anabaptists and Sectaries though they have boasted of the Spirit yet I say not that Learning gives Ministeriall gifts much lesse Grace but without Learning the Ministery would be but lame in many respects therefore the enemies of a learned Ministery are the friends of Popery and all Heresies of ignorance and blindnesse and the enemies of the truth and Gospell of the light and comfort of the Church of Iesus Christ 5. Novices newly converted ones at the best taking upon them to Preach and permitted so to doe this is to defile Gods House by prophaning the Ministery Holy Paul saith not a novice 1 Tim. 3. 6. lest passed up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devill these five waies our Novellists strike the pillar of the Ministery thus of a fifth sort of Temple-defilers 6. I proceed to others which though they might be cast many of them under the head of Schisme yet because they are now late-sprung and trouble the Church of God I shall let them beare a distinct numeration as so many severall orders of Defilers though not distinct sorts and kinds therefore sixthly those that keep out of the Church any of the Ordinances of Christ those that keep Gods Houshold-stuffe in any part of it out of his Temple as those that deny Paedo-Baptisme or the Baptizing of the Infants of those that professe the faith of Iesus Christ the Scripture for Baptizing of such Infants beside many others urged by many is that in Acts 2. 39. For the Promise is unto you and to your children from these words with the former ariseth this Argument To whomsoever the Promise belongs to them Baptisme doth belong the truth of this is in the reasoning of the Apostle who requires them to receive Baptisme upon their Repentance professed because the Promise is to them this ground is Apostolicall and Divine But to the children of Professors of the Faith doth the Promise belong this is the very sense of the words of the 39. verse therefore to the children of the Professors of the Faith doth Baptisme belong those that deny these infants Baptisme call them common whom God calls holy 1 Cor. 7. 14. 7. Those that keepe out the members of Christ not admitting Saints every way as gracious as themselves unto the fellowship of the Church unlesse they will yeeld to their Church-way not admitting Professors of the true Religion that have knowledge are not scandalous are not refractory to any the Holy Ordinances of Christs Worship because they see not in them truth of Grace or that which may savour to the sense of Christians that the worke of Grace in the New-birth is truely begun in them so farre as man can conceive Where is the Rule given for this visible grace as they call it by which rule the non-admitted may see that he is justly proceeded withall according to the Word of God that so though he have no Grace yet all that will use their reason may see by vertue of such cleare Texts of the Word their power is rightly used for his non-admission that the use of it may be to edification not to destruction 2 Cor. 13. 10. for which end all Church-power is given of Christ 8. They that Dis-church the true Churches of Iesus Christ because they are faulty in Discipline or in Government and chiefly to dischurch them when they thirst after pray for use all meanes God affords them for Reformation 9. Those that would introduce into a Christian Church and State a Toleration of all sorts of Religions or all sorts of Opinions in Religion under the name of Liberty of Conscience These Scriptures are fully against in The Angel of the Church of Ephesus is commended by our Lord Jesus for his patience Rev. 2. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that he could not bear them which were evill and tried those that said they were Apostles and were not and found them lyars It is condemned in the Angel of the Church of Thyatira that he suffered or tolerated that woman Iezebell to teach c. And Christ saith to the Angel of the Church in Pergamos I have a few things against thee because thou hast there Rev. 2. 12. 14 15 16. them that hold the Doctrine of Balaam and the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans He is not charged with so great a fault as a toleration but there they were and there he should not let them be his connivence or invigilancy or remissenesse in not executing his power must be repented of or else Christ will fight against him from that place in Ieremiah chap. 32 39. this Argument is full of power Whatsoever God hath promised and is a branch of the Covenant of Grace with his people to be made good chiefly in the time of the New Testament all Christians ought to seek and aspire after To give his people one heart and one way in his fear for the good of them and their Children God hath promised and it is such a branch of his Covenant therefore this all christians ought to seek and breath after To seek after a toleration of divers wayes in Religion is not to seek after one heart and one way in godly fear and so not to seek after that branch of Promise and Covenant made to Gods people and to be made good chiefly in the times of the New Testament therefore to seek after a toleration of divers wayes in Religion is that which ought not to be in any Christian Adde to this that in Phil. 1. To stand fast in one spirit with one minde striving together for the faith of the Gospel is the conversation becoming the Gospel especially in times of terrible Adversaries and to stand thus united unterrified is an evident token of the Adversaries perdition and of our salvation And that of God Phil. 1. 27 28. to fall into Divisions and plead for tolerations of Opinions of divers mindednesse in one faith is not to stand fast in one spirit with one minde striving together for that one faith of the Gospel and it is not to stand thus united unterrified therefore to fall into Divisions and plead for