Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	scripture_n	sense_n	true_a	4,624	5	5.7921	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54178	No cross, no crown, or, Several sober reasons against hat-honour, titular-respects, you to a single person, with the apparel and recreations of the times being inconsistant with Scripture, reason, and practice, as well of the best heathens, as the holy men and women of all generations, and consequently fantastick, impertinent and sinfull : with sixty eight testimonies of the most famous persons of both former and latter ages for further confirmation : in defence of the poor despised Quakers, against the practice and objections of their adversaries / by W. Penn ...	Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1669 (1669)	Wing P1327; ESTC R15257	90,375	122

in worshipping God that they were great Allegorizers of the Scriptures making them all figurative That the external shew of words or the letter resembleth the superficies of the body and the hidden sense or understanding of the words seem in place of the soul which they contemplate by their beholding names as it were in a Glass meaning that their Religion consisted not in reading the letter disputing about it or accepting things in litteral constructions but that they placed their Religion in the thing declared of the Substance it self bringing things nearer to the mind soul and spirit and pressing into a more hidden and heavenly sense making Religion to consist in the temperance and sanctity of the Mind and not in the formal outside Worship so much now a-dayes in repute fitter to please Comedians than Christians Such self-denying conversations was the practice of those times and onely badge of true Christianity but now the case is alter'd People will be Christians and have their worldly-mindedness too But though God's Kingdom suffer violence by such yet shall they never enter the Life of Christ and his followers hath in all Ages been another thing And there is but One Way One Guide One Rest all which are pure and holy But if any notwithstanding our many sober Reasons and numerous Testimonies from Scriptures Examples and Experience of spiritual and religious worldly and prophane living and dying-men at home and abroad of the greatest note fame and learning in the whole world shall yet remain lovers and imitaters of the folly and vanity condemned If the cryes and groans and sighs and tears and complaints and mournful wishes of so many reputed Great nay some Good men O that I had more time O that I might live a year longer I would live a severer life O that I were a poor Innocent Jean Urick All is vanity in this world O my poor soul whither wilt thou go O that I had the time spent in vain recreations A serious life is above all and such like And can nothing prevail But if yet they shall proceed to folly remain unsatisfied and follow the world what greater evidence can they give of their heady resolution to go on impiously to despise God to disobey his Precepts to deny Christ to fear not bear his Cross to forsake the Examples of his Servants to give the lie to the dying serious sayings and consent of all Ages to harden themselves against the checks of Conscience to befool and sport away their precious time and poor immortal souls to wo and misery In short 't is plainly to discover you neither have Reason to justifie your selves nor yet enough of Modesty to blush at your own folly but as having lost the sense of one and th' other go on to eat and drink and rise to play In vain therefore is it for you to pretend to fear the God of Heaven whose minds serve the Godd of the pleasures of this world In vain is it to say you believe in Christ who receive not his self-denying Message and to no better purpose will all you do avail If he that had loved God and his Neighbour and kept the Commandments from his youth was excluded from being a Disciple because he sold not all and followed Jesus with what confidence can you call your selves Christians who have neither kept the Commandments nor yet forsaken any thing to be so And if it was a barr betwixt him and the eternal life he sought that notwithstanding all his other vertues love to money and his external possessions could not be parted with what shall be your end who cannot deny your selves many less things but are daily inventing vanities to your fleshly appetites certainly much more impossible is it to forsake the greater Christ try'd his love in bidding him forsake all because he knew for all his brags that his mind was rivetted therein not that if he had enjoy'd his possessions with Christian indifferency much of them might not have been continued and retain'd but what then is their doom whose hearts are so fixed in the vanities of the World that they will rather make them christian than part with them But such a Christian this young man might have been who had more to say for himself than the strictest Pharisee living dare pretend to yet he went away sorrowful from Jesus Should I ask you if Nicodemas did well to come by night and be ashamed of the Great Messiah of the World and if he was not ignorant when Christ spake to him of the new Birth I know you would answer me Yes he did very ill and was very ignorant but stay a while the beam is in your own eyes you are ready doubtless to condemn him and the young man for not doing what you not only refuse to do your selves but laugh at others for doing Nay had such passages not been writ and were it not for the reverence some pretend for the Scriptures they would both be as stupid as Nicodemas in their answers to such Heavenly matters and ready to call it Canting in any to speak so as it is frequent for you when we speak to the same effect though not the same words just with the Jews at the time they called God their Father they dispised his Son and when he spake of sublime and heavenly Mysteries some cry'd He has a Devil others He is mad and most of them These are hard sayings who can bear them And to you all that sport your selves after the manners of the World let me say That you are of those who profess you know God but in Works deny him living in those Pleasures which slay the Just in your selves for though you talk of believing it is no more then taking it for granted that there is a God a Christ Scriptures c. without farther concerning your selves to prove the verity thereof to your selves or others by a strict and holy Conversation which slight way of believing is but a light and careless way of ridding your selves of farther examination and rather throwing them off with an inconsiderable granting of them to be so than giving your selves the trouble of making better enquiry leaving that to your Priests oft-times more ignorant and not less vain and idle than your selves which is so far from a Gospel-Faith that 't is the least respect you can shew God Scriptures c. and next to which kind of believing is nothing under a doubt and a denyal of all But if you have hitherto laid aside all Temperance Reason and Shame at least be intreated to resume them now in a matter of this importance and whereon no less concernment rests than your temporal and eternal happiness Oh! Retire retire observe the reproofs of Instruction in your own minds that which begets melancholy in the middst of mirth which cannot solace it self nor be contented below immortality which calls often to an account at nights mornings and at other seasons which lets

conform'd to Egypts Customs I had sinned against my God and lost my peace nor would I have thee think it is an Hat Thou or Rayment nakedly in themselves or that we would beget any Form inconsistant with Sincerity and Truth there 's but too much of that but the esteem and value the vain minds of men do put upon them who must be stript and crucified constrains us to testifie so severely against them And this know from the infallible sence of the Eternal Spirit That which requires those Customs begets fear to leave them pleads for them and is displeased if not used and paid to them is the spirit of Pride and Flattery in the ground though Custom or generosity may have abated its strength in some and this being discovered by the Light that now shines from Heaven among the dispised Quakers necessitates them to this Testimony and my self as one of them and for them for a reproof to th● unfaithfull who would walk undiscerned though convinced to the contrary and for an allay to the proud Despisers who scorn us as a people guilty of affect●tion and singutrity from the Eternal God who is great amongst us and on his way to root up every Plant that his right hand hath not Planted do I declare that this is but the Seed of exalted Lucifer yea that wonton nature that must be yoked and crucified and that it may appear what it s said to be let these ensuing serious Reasons have thy Consideration which were mostly given me from the Lord in that time when as my condescention to those things would have been purchased at almost any rate so the certain sence I had of their contrariety to the meek and self-denying Life of holy Jesus requiring my steady and faithfull Testimony against them as Guests that are forbidden the Heavenly Kingdom that is now once more appearing to the Sons of men into which whatsoever defiles can never enter Sixteen Reasons why Cap-Honour and Titular Respects are neither Honour nor Respects Reason I. BEcause true Honour is from God and consists in a virtuous esteem for the only sake of Vertue manifested in a real service and actual benefit both to God and Mankind and true Civility in the right ordering of mens Affections and Actions but if in Hats Bows or Titles then are the most profane and deboist the most civil since most expert in those vain Ceremonies which is impossible Reason II. Because real Honour is a sustantiall thing manifested by obedience which therefore cannot stand in invented Gestures and most deformed Cringings after mens wanton Invention or in any shaddow void of the thing it self which is must necessarily do in Case the Ceremony of the Hat be an honour or respect Reason III. Because no man can honour and dishonour a man under that Honour but it s well known what grudges ill-will animosities and bitter hatred reigns in the hearts of such Hat-Honourers at the time of their false respects Reason IV. Because Honour properly ascends not descends yet the Hat is ne'er as frequenly off to equals and inferiours as to Superiours Reason V. If pulling off a Hat or Title were to pay honour who so vile who so wretched who so envious that could not honour But this is to make honour as superstitious men do Religion to consist in some external appearances which may please but never profit any wherefore it cannot be considered as of the nature of true honour which is a vertuous Respect to what is vertuous demonstrated by some substantial good Reason VI. Honour was from the beginning but Hats and most Titles here of late therefore there was true Honour before Hats or Titles and Consequently true Honour stands not therein Reason VII Because if Honour consists in such-like Ceremonies then will it follow that they are most capable of shewing Honours who perform it most exactly according to the mode or fashion by which means man hath not the Measure of the true Honour from the Just Principle in himself but the fantastick dancing Masters of the Times wherefore many give much money to have their children learn their honours falsly so called and what doth this but totally exclude the poor Country-People who though they Plow Till go to Market yea in all things obey their Justices Land-Lords Fathers and Masters scarce use their Hats or those Ceremonies but if they do they are esteemed by a Court Crittick so ill-favoured as only fit to make a jest or be laugh'd at but what sober man will not deem their obedience beyond the others vanity and hypocrisie Reason VIII Real Honour consists not in a Hat Bow or Title because all these things are purchaseable by money for which reason how many Schools and persons are there in the Land to whom Youth is generally sent to be educated in those vain fashions whilst ignorant of the honour that is of God whereby their minds are allured to visible things that perish and instead of remembring their Creator are busied about Toys and Fopperies and sometimes so much worse as to cost themselves a disinheriting and their indiscreet Parents grief and misery all their dayes Reason IX True Honour stands not in these Fashions because they had their rise since Honour and have been brought sorth by the Spirit that captivated from God and led men and women to please the lust of the eye the lust of the flesh and the pride and flattery of life both in themselves and others and which are used either to please themselves or for fear of others or because others do it or out of shame or fear of being reproached or with design to flatter Superiors equals or inferiours from whom some profit may be expected all which is contrary to the nature of true Honour that comes from God and onely is paid by a good esteem in the mind shown by some real service to God or godly men yet if such honour were to be paid since persons are of divers ranks it will be requisite that some Law or direction be given how low to bow pull off the Hat c. since to give more then is due is an abuse of Honour but would not these be ridiculous as 't is to use them at all Reason X. We cannot esteem pulling off Hats Bows or Titles to be real Honours because such like Ceremonies have been prohibited by God and his servants in days past neither did the holy Men of old respect mens persons as may be seen in the case of the Israelites who though other Nations had many Lords and many Gods yet one was their God and him only must they bow unto and reverence his holy Name Reason XI This made Mordecai who stands a Representive for the Jew and Circumcision in heart rather expose both his own and whole Nations life to Hamans rage and Cruelty whom the King had so much honoured as to require all in his Court to pay him homage then gratifie the

Now I readily shall confess that 't was the next remedy amongst the Heathens against the common Vice to those more grave and moral Lectures of their Philosophers of which number I shall instance two Euripides whom Suidas calls a learned Tragical Poet and Eupolis whom the same Historian calls a Comical Poet the first was a man so chast and therefore so unlike those of our dayes that he was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or one that hated Women that is wanton ones for otherwise he was twice Married The other he characters as a most severe reprehender of faults from which I gather that their design was not to feed the idle lazy fancies of People but since by the means of loose wits the People had been debauch'd their work was to reclaim them and this appears the rather from the description given as also that Euripides was suppos'd to have been torn in pieces by wanton Women which doubtless was for declaring and decrying their impudence and the other being slain in the Battel betwixt the Athenians and Lacedemonians was so regreted that a Law was made never after such Poets should be allow'd to bear Arms doubtless because in losing him they lost a Reprover of Vice so that the end of the approved Comedians and Tragideans of those times was but to reform the People and that not so much by that rational and argumentative way usual with their Philosophers as by sharp jeers severe reflections and rendring their vicious actions so shameful ridiculous and detestable as for reputations sake they might not longer be guilty of the like which is but the very next expedient before a Whip or Bridewel Now if you that plead for such representations will be contented to be accounted Heathens and those of the more dissolute and wicked sort too we shall acknowledge you that such Comoedies and Tragedies may be serviceable but for shame abuse not the Name of Christ so impudently as to call your selves Christians whose lusts are so strong as that you are forc'd to use the necessities of meet Heathens to repel them Is this your love to Jesus your reverence to the Scriptures that are able to make the man of God perfect Is all your prattle about Ordinances Sacraments Christianity and the like come to this that at last you must betake your selves to such Instructers as were by the sober Heathens appointed to reclaim the most vicious of the People that were amongst them and such Remedies too as below which is nothing but corporal punishment This is so far from Christianity that many thousands of the Noble Heathens Men and Women were better taught and better dispos'd They found out more Heavenly contemplations and subjects of an Eternal nature to meditate upon Nay so far did they outstrip the best of the common Christians of these times that they not only were exemplary of good in their grave and sober Conversation but for the publick benefit they instituted the Gynaecosmi or twenty men that they should make it their business to observe the peoples Apparel and Behaviour that if any were found immodest and to demean themselves loosely they had full authority to punish them But the case is alter'd 't is punishable to reprove such yes it 's matter of the greatest contumely and reproach nay so impudent are some grown in their Impieties as that they merrily can sport themselves with a meer mockage of such religious Persons and not only manifest a great neglect of Piety and a severe Life by their own loosness but their extream contempt of it by rendring it ridiculous through Comical abusive jeers on publick Stages which how dangerous it is and apt to make Religion of little worth besides the demonstration of this age let us remember that Aristophanes had not a better way to bring the reputation of Socrates in question with the People who greatly reverenc'd him for his grave and virtuous Life and Doctrine than by his abusive representations of him in a Play which made the aiery wanton unstable croud rather to part with Socrates in earnest than Socrates in jest Nor can a better reason be given why the poor Quakers are made so much the scorn of men then because of their severe reprehensions of sin and vanity and their self-denying Conversation amidst so great intemperance in all worldly satisfactions yet can such Libertines all this while strut and swell for Christians but we must be Hereticks Sedncers Deceivers and what not O blindness O Pharisaical hypocrisie as if that such were Judges of Religion or that 't were possible for them to have a sight of true Religion or really to be Religious whilst darkn'd in their understandings by the Godd of the pleasures of this World and their minds so exercis'd by external enjoyments and the variety of worldly delights No In the Name of the Everlasting God you mock him and deceive your souls the wrath and vengeance of the Almighty is against you all whilst in that spirit and condition in vain are all your babbles and set performances God Eternal laughs you to scoru his anger is kindling because of these things Wherefore be ye warned to temperance and Repent Besides these Persons are not only wicked loose and vain who both invent and act these things but by your great delight in their inventions you incourage them therein and hinder them from more honest and more serviceable employments for what is the reason that most Commodities are held at such excessive rates but because Labour is so very dear and why is it so but because so many hands are otherwise bestowed even about the very vanity of all vanities Nay how common is it with these mercenary procurers to Peoples folly that when their Purses begin to grow empty they shall present them with a new and pretended more convenient Fashion and that perhaps before the former costly Habits shall have done half their service which either must be given away or new vampt in the Cut most A la-mode O infamous yet frequent folly I know I am coming to encounter the most plausible Objection they are us'd to urge when driven to a pinch namely Object 3. But how shall those many Families subsist whose livelihood is by such Trades as the like Fashions and Recreations do maintain which you so earnestly decry Answ I answer It is a bad Argument to plead for the Commission of the least evil that never so great a good may come of it If you and they have made Wickedness your Pleasure and your Profit be ye content that it should be your grief and punishment till the one can learn to be without such vanity and that the others have found out more honest employments 'T is the vanity of the few great ones that makes so much toyle for the many small and the great excess of the one occasions the great labour of the other Would men learn to be contented with few things such as are necessary and convenient the