Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	new_a	old_a	testament_n	3,965	5	8.0680	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75849	Satans stratagems, or The Devils cabinet-councel discovered whereby he endevors [sic] to hinder the knowledg of the truth ... wherein is laid open an easie way to end controversies in matters of conscience ... together with arguments to each book ... / by Jacobus Acontius ... ; as also the testimonies of some ancient divines, together with an epistle written by Mr John Goodwin ; and Mr. Duries letter touching the same.	Aconcio, Iacopo, d. 1566.; Goodwin, John, 1594?-1665.; Dury, John, 1596-1680.	1648 (1648)	Wing A443A; ESTC R42404	127,449	159

Lord hath a true humane body and yet that the same body maybe in divers places at one thesame time Forasmuch therefore as they believe and that most strongly that Christ is true man the Son of God and raised from the dead and all other things which the Scripture holds forth as necessary to be believed what reason hast thou to deny that they may be saved even in this their Error It is clear therefore that as wel those which hold Christs body to be in the Sacramental bread as those which deny the same although it must needs be that one side err yet are they both if otherwise conscionable observers of our Lords commands in the way of Salvation In which regard they are bound to love and reverence one another as brethren the servants of God and members of Christ If they shal mutually vex one another with revilings reproaches cursings if they shal go on to exercise enmity one against another they shal not escape the just judgment of God Wherefore I pray and beseech both parties by Christ Jesus that laying aside all hatred and rash judgments they would strive to go beyond one another in offices of Love Let us abandon bad language scoffs contempt so wil it certainly fall out that such as err shal at the length be brought to acknowledg the Truth If we shal but once be united in heart and affection the Lord wil not deny us any favour or success neither wil he ever suffer that such as out of true love endeavour to draw their bretheren out of Error shal reap no fruit of their labour Now look how we have discussed these two points viz. the Error of Sabellius and the Controversie about the corporal pre-presence in the Sacramental bread it wil be easie for any man in like manner to judg of what ever other points shal come into Controversie For concerning what ever Error shal be questioned we must enquire whether or no the person so erring may not believe all such things as to the belief whereof Salvation is promised that in case he may we may perswade our selves that he errs not in a point necessary to be known unto salvation but if not that he errs in a necessary Doctrine Howbeit whosoever would condemn any man for any Error ought to consider again and again what assurance he hath that such an Error cannot stand with salvation Do but consider when as our Lord says come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I wil give you ease Shal any man be so fool-hardy as to dare to pul back him that is coming and of his own head to say to him Oh! do you hear it wil be in vain for you to go unto Christ who do not believe this or that point Who art thou that wilt hinder another mans servant from coming at his Masters call With what confidence takest thou upon thee to divine at the wil of God not being very clearly manifested unto thee Must you according to your fancy set bounds to the goodness mercy and kindness of God He unto whom it belongs to give life calls all unto him and wilt thou by I know not what exceptions of thine own devising limit those graces which he promiseth but limits not What dost thou in so doing Doubtless as much as in thee lies thou robbest a man of his life not of this life which is rather a death then life but of eternal life and the Kingdom of Heaven adjudging him to eternal torments neither is it to one alone thou art so injurious but to thousands haply Thou maimest Christ in so many members thou rendest the Church into Sects and pavest a way to infinite mischiefs And if our Lord so severely menace such as offend the least what thinkest thou shal become of them who by their rash judging have drove men to make Sects without any necessary cause so requiring Wo unto them And if so be the way which we have set down to distinguish between points necessary to be believed and not necessary seem not to be sufficient do thou if thou canst produce a better one more sure firm and constant If thou wonderest that among such points which we have reckoned up as necessary to be known thou dost not find certain other points of Religion very highly accounted of Read over diligently the whole Old and New Testament and search throughly by what Texts thou canst prove that those points are so necessary to be known that he that understands them not cannot be saved Consider what knowledg the People of Israel could have of them from the Old Testament who were notwithstanding to be saved by the same faith that we are Consider again what the thief could know when it was said to him this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Or the Eunuch when Philip baptized him Or that woman to whom when she had washed our Lords feet it was said thy faith hath saved thee Or she that was wasted away by the bloody issue or the Palsied man with many others whose sins were forgiven them meerly upon their confessing the name of the Lord. It is also observable what the reason should be that whereas these points which we have set down as necessary are so frequently repeated in Scripture and required of necessity to be known those points which some men so highly account of are not in like manner required If those books had bin written by the wit of man which we account as indeed they are sacred we should say that honest Homer had took a nap and forgot himself But they are indicted by the Holy Spirit This therefore is not come to passe by chance but by the sure counsell of God who had he intended that those points should have been of like estimation he would at least in some one place plainly have signified his mind Which since he hath not done what is man that he should be able to conjecture Gods mind These things ought not to be measured by our wit or judgment but by the wisdom of God revealed unto us from heaven it alone must be regarded what ever reason may dictate But if so be any one shall erre in a point that ought necessarily to be known and cannot be reduced to a right judgment no man ought to question but that such a person may be justly condemned and cast out of the society of the godly And that not only if being admonished he shall go on to seduce others but also though he will be silent for what participation can the Church of God have with him unto whom eternal life is not promised But if the point about which some man erres be not in the number of those that must needs be known in this case I conceive we must use a distinction For if he that thinks amisse and cannot be reduced shall likewise endevour to seduce others having been often admonished to desist I see no reason but that he may and

himself hath seduced others shal not have his Error clearly demonstrated unto him he which takes upon him to oppose shal not understand what the seducer affirms and so shal not refute it but what himself by a false suspition hath imagined and shal defend the doctrine received not with such reasons as he ought to do but with such silly ones as rashness and a mind madded with anger could collect which may be easily refelled and the erroneous person shal have cause to think himself not vanquished but with many and grievous injuries after an insolent manner abused such disputes however they may seem intended to resist the Devil yet are they so far from frustrating any of his plots as that nothing could be invented more expedient to promote his designs For they do not fight against Errors but make them invincible they do not pluck them up but spread them abroad they do not destroy but propagate them and that in a wonderful manner They render Errors invincible because when the person erring finds it easie to avoyd the dint of such arguments as are brought to oppose him it gives him great occasion to think that there cannot any thing more strong be objected against him and when he shal see confuted not his own reasons but I know not what other arguments such as he never so much as once thought of he may very wel think the cause to be that not having any thing they could oppose against his arguments and yet desirous to seem to have answered them they have cavilled at and mis-interpreted his words Hereupon he is altogether compelled to conclude with himself that not he but his opposites are in the Error And if there be joyned sharp insolent and injurious language yea and it may be threats too and such like what can he do other but strongly perswade himself that his adversaries being unable to defend their cause by dint of Argument have guarded and fortified themselves meerly with force and insolence And since hatred is bred of injuries what is there that can settle Errors with greater pertinacy And when a man shal leave his posterity heirs both of his Errors and his Hate it comes to pass that they can never be rooted up out of the minds of men Thus is the people divided into Sects which hate one another with deadly feud abstaining from no kind of injuries and taking the more liberty unto themselves in this kind in that men do not observe how in so doing they obey their own passions but think they very much please God whereas in the mean time by this means they incur the wrath of God daily more and more and become enveloped with thicker clouds of darkness Such disputes do spread Errors abroad because the clamours there made the brawls thence arising afford much occasion of discourse to many people and according to the diversity of mens minds and Judgements matters are very variously both reported and resented And it is wont to fall out that if many dislike the Error yet some wil approve of it yea and some wil as much disapprove of the means used to resist the Error viz. insolence reproaches and the like as of the Error it self and wil thereupon begin less to like of those that set themselves to oppose the Error whence it may come to pass that they may the more easily admit some other Error afterwards He that likes the Error can hardly refrain in his narrations to favour that part he approves so as to add leave out change many passages at his pleasure and thus by a kind of Contagion the evil is spread far and near In a word by controversies ill-managed errors are propagated and bred divers ways For first he that opposes himself against an Error can hardly avoid but that he himself shal fall into some Error either because as the Proverb speaks while he shuns Charybdis he slips into Scylla ignorant to keep the mean as that man should do who in opposing those that attribute all to the Word of God and the reading thereof not marking the necessity of the Spirit of God to be their guide and interpreter to the right understanding should endeavour to reduce the minds of such men to the meer inspirations of the holy Ghost whereas the spirit is so far to be looked at as that the written word be not contemned and lose its dignity as if it were a matter of humane invention and not of divine tradition or because he wil grant somewhat to the Adversary not to be granted which some of the ancient Fathers peradventure did who in such a manner resisted the Philosophers as that they defiled the purity of Christian tenets with Philosophical ratiocinations Likewise it may fall out that whiles thou thinkest to express that Doctrine which thou holdest for truth with more significant and clear expressions then it is in Scripture expressed and better to shun occasion of cavil for the wit of man wil ever be more wary and wiser then God thou wilt use such words or forms of expression as from whence another less true and godly tenet may sometimes be collected Furthermore whereas on both sides they are wont to produce many allegations each for his own judgment as the case requires if it fall out that striving shal sharpen and inflame their minds you shal soon see on both sides many matters affirmed and denied which in a calm mood they would never have affirmed or denied as the Poet spake Furor arma ministrat Rage weapons doth afford Every dart accidentally offered is caught hold on fury suffers not a man to mark what an one it is and what ever hath rashly scap't a man especially in the interim of the dispute Pride wil have it ratified and firm and thereupon new controversies arise and new errors in like manner without end Yea it is seen that by disputes both the matters themselves and mens wits are confounded truth is lost and many are brought to that pass as to perswade themselves that nothing can be certainly concluded and so to cast away all care of Religion Yea and it seems impossible to fall out but that whiles men are perpetually wrangling about some one point of Religion they wil slight and forget many others and they perhaps of the chiefest note and it wil grow to a custome that a godly man shal be distinguished from an ungodly by this one thing be his life what it wil in that he seems to abhor and exceedingly loath that Doctrine which in some one or two points is accounted heretical O that we could but see at one view how many and how great overthrows Sathan hath given to the Kingdom of Christ what desolations he hath made by this one weapon of Controversies he must be a man of iron that could chuse to weep Nor do I now complain of those fanatical spirits the emissaries of Sathan who never cease sowing curious vaine and impious controversies for from them what other could a

in this kind to make foolish ostentation of their fulness others offend by giving more heed to the example of some preachers then to what is necessary to be done Yea and much greater occasion there is of such curiosity in respect of those which expound the Scriptures in Universities For since there be already many commentaries upon them in print which the Students themselves may read and the professors are loath that their labor should be thought vain or of smal necessity that they should only repeat other mens expositions meditations arguments and their very words but desire stil to have somewhat which the Scholars shal not find in their books besides that they are compelled to make things change their places bringing what hath been fore-alleadged upon one place to the explication of another that they may set forth their own acuteness they do either invent objections that they might answer them or they coyn new words and new manner of expressions or they raise new Controversies Better it were in truth that there were no professors at all then any such as these For what other thing wil they effect then to reduce the study of Religion into sophistical vanities What would you have them do may some men say What! truly any thing rather then thus to mispend their leasure What should I desire them to do but not to deprave not to pervert such things as have bin said to the purpose and in fit place not to darken and obscure them by idle questions And if any thing hath slipped former Expositors if they see any thing which they did not herein let them make proof of their own diligence But there is yet a worse fault then this many think it not enough to teach thus by word of mouth but they wil have their commentaries in print setting out large volumnes that matter of wrangling doth every day encrease How many Commentaries have we already upon Pauls Epistle to the Romans Every day some or other new one comes forth For every man that with some applause expounds it in the Schooles must needs set forth a Commentary Howbeit should you collect what he explains more aptly then others or what he brings wholly of his own your gleanings wil be very slender The rest wil be what other former writers either upon the same or some other place had formerly discoursed And whereas our later Expositors do of purpose abstain from the words of the former and they for the most part had prepossessed the most fit forms of speaking which relished more of the spirit and were most apt to move affection these must of necessity use less fitting phrases such as savor only of a vain ostentation of wit but leave no sting of affection in the minds of the Readers Those who err in this kind through defect of judgment supposing themselves not unprofitably thus imployed may with admonition be in some sort excused But as for such as are spurred to write by ostentation and ambition I shal not stick to count such men among the prime plagues of the Church as persons most wickedly hireing themselves out to do the Divils work But let us now proceed Satans Cabinet Counsel The second Book The Argument WHen upon serious examination we have found that a point in question is an Error of weighty concernment what course we are to take Satans aim is first to make a man imbrace an erroneous doctrine If he cannot do that his next endeavor wil be to inflame him with an inordinate turbulent passionate spirit of opposition against the said Error whereby whiles he thinks to suppress it he shal exceedingly assist Satan in the propagation thereof He that spreads and teaches an Error may be a dear child of God though left for a time A pious person may and ought to be exceedingly moved to see the Name and Truth of God blasphemed by a spreader of erroneous tenets but it must be with a zeal rightly qualified and which comes not from Satan but the Spirit of God The nature of a right zeal against a Seducer Great difference to be made between him that being deceived himself deceives others and him that willingly wittingly and maliciously seduceth How a malitious seducer ought to be dealt with that he may desist from seducing Reproaches and criminations not only unprofitable but hurtful both in respect of the seducer the seduced and those whom we would preserve from infection If any good do come by reproaches and revilings it may be otherwise and by better and safer ways obtained To brand any man with tokens of infamy belongs to none but the Magistrate It ill becomes any private Christian especially those that are teachers of others They must be free from all appearance of evil and rather Gods then Men that shal work any good upon seducers and seduced persons by reproaches Two things of greatest importance to reclaim a seducer viz. to produce such demonstrations as may have greatest power to convince him of his Error and to provide that he may consider the same with a calm quiet untroubled spirit We must therefore carefully avoyd any words or behaviour that may move him to passion We must avoyd cavilling at words and drawing absurdities from his assertions Many men delighted by mis-interpreting their adversaries words to infer some great absurdity Many oppose their own imaginations in stead of their adversaries errors If our adversary assert any thing which seems very absurd we ought to suspect that we do not rightly understand him and rather to desire him to explain himself then to triumph over the supposed absurdity God reveals matters divine to babes and sucklings Our adversary is much wrought upon when he sees we perfectly understand his meaning Our chief endeavor ought to be perfectly to know what and how he holds A great fault to charge our adversaries with holding such things as to our understandings seem to follow from their tenets We ought barely to report their sayings without addition detraction or alteration All desire of victory to be banish't from Christian d●bates We must take heed we be not ashamed to acknowledg what we were before ignorant of nor to learn the truth by the meanest instrument We must not be over confident in our assertions Affirm or deny without exclaiming was ever the like heard wil any man say so or so c. We must use our adversary not contemptuously but with civility and humanity Our endeavour in every controversie must be that Christ may overcome being willing to be accounted the of scouring of the world so truth may be advanc't In every Controversy a double combate between us and our dissenting opposite and between us and Sathan For a man to give ground in di●putation is not so shameful in the sight of others as in his own Account What a man loses in reputation of learning and knowledg he gains in the estimation of candor ingenuity sincerity when he lays down an Error What meditations we ought to

there onely two or three that prophesied according to what the Apostle said but to all was given to speak so that the wish of Moses seems rather to have been fulfilled in them when he said Would God all the people might prophec● There was no spleen no envy the gifts of God were dispensed every one according to his ability contributing his assistance for the confirmation of the Church And all was done with love in such sort That they strove mutually to honor each other and every one to prefer another before himself But to the end this common prophesying may be profitable to the Church we must diligently mark what the Apostle advises For a sure thing it is that the pride of man is so great that whatever hath once fallen from him he will by any means have it stand for a Truth neither can he suffer that any man should infringe the same So that if he might be p●rmitted to judg that last spake it will be a miracle if a man in his life-time should see any one give way to him that contradicts him What is Pauls advice therefore in this case Let two or three Prophets speak and let the rest judge He will not therefore have the same persons to be parties and judges And he adds a little after And the spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets for God is not the Author of dissention but of peace So that as soon as any man hath spoken his own mind he ought to rest himself satisfied with the judgment of the rest and not obstinately to make no end of contending if this be not done a sure thing it is there will be no end of strife But what if any man will not be content to submit to the judgment of the rest Verily I would avouch that being sharply admonished that he disturb not the Congregation and that he go not against the command of the Apostle or rather of our Lord commanding the spirits of the Prophets to be subject to the Prophets he ought to be cast out of the society though he should hold the prime place in the Congregation The people likewise must frequently be admonished that liberty for any one to speak in the Congregation is not therefore granted by the Apostle to the end every one should speak what comes to his tongues end as if he were in a market but whereas he gives liberty to him to speak to whom any thing is revealed he would have all rashnesse and impudence to be laid aside He that reverences not the Church of God let that man know he despiseth the Spirit of God who is President there and shall be sure not to escape unpunished Before a man propounds any thing to the Church he ought to consider again and again how sure a manifestation he hath of that thing and what ever the matter be let him be sure not to forget a sober modest bashful behavior without which vertues doubtles no good can be effected But here we must attentively consider both how far a man ought to submit to the judgement of the Congregation and who may deservedly be accounted a troubler of the Church Verily I conceive a man ought so far to give way as that after I have alledged what I had to say for my opinion if yet the rest shall not allow of my judgment I ought to give over defending of it and cease to be troublesome to the Congregation concerning the same But I ought not to be compelled to confesse that I have erred or to deprecate any fault whiles I do not yet understand that I have erred for so I should sinne against God He therefore is a troubler of the Church that will not so far as we have expressed submit to the judgment of the Church but goeth on to be troublesome but especially that man who would exact of another that which he ought not to do viz. to recant being not perswaded that he is in an error But those men are commonly reputed troublers of the Church who refuse to ratifie what ever shall any wayes fall out of the Pastors mouths Again in this place it may reasonably be demanded whether when that a matter hath been once or twice debated and some man knowing the judgment of the Congregation would again reduce it into Controversie he ought to be heard or enjoyned silence and take the matter for determined But of this we shall in another place more conveniently dispute That which remains therefore is that we wrastle with God by daily prayers to grant that we may have the use of this so soveraign and saving liberty so profitable to the Church and that thereby we may reap aboundance of fruit And that he would to that end tame and break our spirits with his Spirit and render them milde and gentle and not suffer what he hath ordained for the confirmation and establishment of his Church to be by the stubbornnesse and perversness of our wits and minds turned to the mischief and destruction thereof Now it hath been frequently practised that when some difficult point hath been to be decided not only one particular Church should judge but a Councell of that Province or of the whole Christian world hath been called Which whether it ought to be done or no and what ought to be the Authority of Councels may be by some demanded That the custom of calling Councels ought to be retained seems clearly to me to be taught by the example of the Apostles For if it were requisite for men endued with so great a measure of the Spirit to confer together about matters of Religion in controversie It seems that it ought much more to be practised by those that have not such a portion of the spirit Neither ought we to make light account of our Lords promise who hath engaged himself that where two or three shall be gathered together in his Name there he will be the in midst of them But the question moved concerning the authority of such a Councell is harder And for as much as I have not now to deale with Papists but with such as would have the truth of the Gospel restored I shall not need with many words to demonstrate that no Councel hath authority either to make new Lawes or to ordain new worships But what shall we say concerning controversies of Religion which are raised about interpretation of Scripture Whether or no hath a Councel authority in such cases to determine what ought to be held And if a Councel cannot do thus much at least what other use there can be of Councels beside And whether there be any difference between the Councel of the Apostles and those of their successors If as certain as it is that our Lord will always perform what he hath promised so certain it were that such as meet to consult would evermore refer all their cogitations to the glory of God and place all their hope of discovering the Truth in the promises