Selected quad for the lemma: body_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
body_n	head_n	member_n	mystical_a	10,566	5	10.6497	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95370	A sermon preached before Sir P.W. Anno 1681. With additions: to which are annexed three digressional exercitations; I. Concerning the true time of our Saviour's Passover. II. Concerning the prohibition of the Hebrew canon to the ancient Jews. III. Concerning the Jewish Tetragrammaton, and the Pythagorick Tetractys. / By John Turner, late fellow of Christ's College in Cambridge.	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.	1684 (1684)	Wing T3318AB; ESTC R185793	233,498	453

of that Society so far as is necessary to the peace and quiet of it for otherwise a Society and no Society would be exactly the same that is every man would still remain his own Master and at liberty to doe as much as ever he could before For example in that which Mr. Hobbs is pleased to call the State of Nature when a man is not a member of a Body politick but a distinct and perfectly independent person by himself he is naturally invested with a right and power of defending his person or his possession by force of Arms he may lawfully revenge his own injuries and he is the onely Judge when he is wronged or injur'd because without all this power he cannot live in the World or continue in that Being which God and Nature have given him But if having listed themselves by mutual covenant and agreement into a Body politick or Commonwealth for the mutual defence and preservation of every particular person and of the whole Society men shall notwithstanding after this assume the same liberty to themselves of personal Revenges and of being their own Judges in controverted cases without referring themselves to the decision of the Law which is the civil Umpire betwixt man and man it is manifest this Society cannot be of long continuance or rather so long as this Liberty is taken it can never be a Society properly so called from whence it follows plainly that it is necessary if men will be members of a Society that they give up this private power into the hands of the publick If therefore the Church be a Society truly and properly so called if it be that mystical Body of which Christ is the Head if the members of this Body cannot be knit and well compacted together without external rules of discipline and order in which the very nature of a Society consists if the publick Orders of the Church and every man's prescribing rules to himself be inconsistent together and if the observing no rule or method at all either in Divine Worship or civil conversation be rather like a man in Bedlam than a Denison of a sober Corporation if charity good-will and love if mutual helpfulness and reciprocal usefulness to one another if peace with God and peace with men and peace within our selves be the great design and business of the Christian life if a man cannot be at peace with God while he is at enmity with his neighbour if a man can neither love nor fear nor know nor worship God aright at the same time when his thoughts are taken up and filled with envy uncharitableness detraction and revenge if no man can be happy in himself when he is displeas'd and angry with other men if the controversies raised about matters confessedly indifferent have been when and where-ever they have happened a perpetual bane and disquiet to the Church if they alwaies heighten mens Passions against and alienate their affections from one another if they are alwaies attended with a disturbance of the publick peace and have de facto proceeded to the utter subversion both of Church and State if all these Animosities and Contensions would immediately cease by a quiet and dutifull submission to the Authority of the Church if by giving up this Power the Church as a Body politick or Society of men is actually dissolved a Society or Aggregate of several persons being no otherwise one than as they submit to the same Laws and are governed by the same external Rules of discipline and obedience if Place and Time notwithstanding they be indifferent in themselves as to this or that particular determination yet is it necessary in the general that they should be determined otherwise there can be no publick Worship of God lastly when men are met together in a religious Assembly if every man shall follow his own particular fancie if almost every single person shall be seen in a different posture and if this be more like to make men look upon one another than to attend to the Minister or to mind themselves if it be more like to excite laughter than devotion if it be a natural obstruction to the solemnity and seriousness of religious Worship if done by chance it be a sign of too great negligence and remisness and if done on set purpose it be a sign of conceitedness and spiritual pride while every man prefers his own way and despises that of another if it be a ground of censure and may be a cause of uncharitableness and by degrees of separation then is it plain upon all these accounts which I have mentioned because it would be better if it were so and because it is necessary that it should be so because the Church can neither preserve it self in reputation nor so much as in being because it is for its undoubted and its perpetual interest and because it is necessary to its preservation that it should be invested with an Authority of adjusting the most indifferent circumstances of Divine Worship without which the blessed ends of Unity and Peace can never be obtained I say it is plain from all this that the Church is actually invested with this Power and that Ecclesiastical Constitutions may for the same reason determine indifferent matters for which the Civil forbid Adultery and Murther namely because it is necessary to the publick Peace which reason if it be not sufficient the Civil Laws do all of them become immediately null and void as being founded upon no other basis but the consideration of the publick good but if it be a solid and substantial reason I would fain know if any of the Dissenters be at leisure to inform me why it may not equally extend to defend the necessity and consequently justice of Ecclesiastical whether Laws or Censures Especially if we consider that as the case of the Christian world now stands the same persons with the same interests prejudices and passions are members both of the Civil and Ecclesiastical State so that it is as impossible there should be a disturbance in the one in which the other shall be unconcerned as that the same man should be divided from himself and it is every whit as clear that either it is not lawfull to use all necessary means for the preservation of the Civil Peace or it is lawfull for the Church to concern her self in the determination of indifferent matters which Determinations and Constitutions of hers may be lawfully confirmed and ratified by the State If men could differ without falling-out something might be pretended in behalf of an innocent though unbecoming Liberty but since the greatest feuds and animosities do sometimes take their rise from the smallest beginnings since the religious differences are of all others the greatest and the most fatal to the publick Peace since there is nothing so infinitely scrupulous as an unreasonably tender Conscience and since there is no pretence so inconsiderable from whence either indigent or ambitious men will not take

to be submitted to which are inconsistent with Salvation And that Church whatever she is let her pretences to Infallibility and Truth be never so great which imposes those either Opinions or Practices as the terms of Communion which are directly contrary to the word of God or to the light of Nature and the impartial dictates of right Reason is by no means to be communicated with any longer but we must immediately come out from Her and separate in our own desence lest we be made partakers of Her sins and of Her plagues and in this case it is she who is guilty of the Schism by necessitating a Separation not we who separate when we cannot avoid it As to matter of Doctrine I presume there is no man who calls himself a Protestant of what Denomination or Party soever he be who will charge our Church with any damnable Errour but on the contrary there are many of our Dissenting Brethren who when they are tax'd with the unpleasant imputation of propagating very absurd and very unreasonable Opinions are used to take Sanctuary in the Articles of the Church of England of whose Authority as to some points they will pretend themselves to be the only Assertors with what Justice I think I have in part discovered in some other Papers As to Ceremonies there are three Restrictions chiefly to be considered which if they be all carefully observed in the discipline of any Church there is no manner of pretence or ground for Separation upon a Ceremonial account and those three Restrictions are these which follow First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number Secondly They must not be Superstitious in their use Thirdly They must not be Idolatrous in their direction First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number for this is that which eats out the very heart and root of Religion and takes it off from being a Devotional exercise of the mind by turning it into outward Pomp and Show which can neither make us better men for the future nor appease the wrath of God or apply to us the merit and satisfaction of Christ for what is past This was that of which St. Austin in his time complained but yet he did not think it Lawfull to make any breach or distrubance in the Church upon this account but rather to take this occasion for the exercise of those two excellent vertues of Patience and Humility and expect the good time when this burthen should be remov'd by the same regular Authority that had impos'd it This was the case of the Mosaick Bondage especially as that Bondage was afterwards increased by the Pharisical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by the traditionary Rites and Usages of the Jewish Church and this is at this day and was at the time of the Reformation and for many Ages before the case of the Roman Yoak from which the Wisdome and Piety of our Ancestours has with no less Justice than Necessity freed us and plac'd us in that state of Christian Liberty which does not consist of such an exemption from all Ceremonies as some men seem to desire which is absurd and impossible in the nature of the thing it self but in the choice of such as are best fitted to the ends for which all Ceremonies ought to be designed and have the greatest tendency to Edification There were other causes upon account of the Ceremonies imposed by the Church of Rome which might be sufficient to justify a Separation of which I shall speak in the two following Heads And though a National or Provincial Church have a Right and Power within it self of retrenching the supersluities of the Ceremonial part of their Divine Service which may very well be done without any Schism or Separation from the body of the Church abroad either on the one part or the other Yet for private men to separate from the National Establishment upon pretence that the Ceremonies are too burthensome or too many is manifestly unlawfull The reason is because this will be lyable to the same Inconveniences to which a separation upon pretence of greater Purity is expos'd and in both cases if every private man shall be allow'd to judge for himself and to proceed to a Separation in pursuance of that judgment so infinite are the humours the sancies the prejudices the perversities of some men so fond are they of Novelty and Change so apt to controul Authority and so desirous to be govern'd only by their own Measures that there can be no lasting Establishment in the World but the Discipline of the Church will be alwaies reeling like a Drunken Man and driven to and fro like a Wave of the Sea by every Capricious wind of Innovation We will suppose for the present in favour of the Dissenters because they cannot prove it that there are too many Ceremonies in our Church yet I presume it will be granted that there are not above four or five or half a dozen too many or if you will to make it a plump number and to put the Objection into better shape let them be half a score which I believe upon an exact computation will go a great way in the Ceremonies of the Church of England and let all these be imposed as indispensable conditions of Communion 'T is pretty severe I confess to lay so great a stress upon Indifferent Matters but yet certainly no man in his wits will ever pretend that this is such an intollerable burthen as that he must needs separate rather than comply but if there be any that are so hardy to do it though I will not discommend them for their courage a vertue of which in this contentious Age we have a great deal of need yet in my opinion they deserve rather to be soundly Laught at than seriously Confuted What hath been said of the Churches Power in retrenching the number of her Ceremonies the same is likewise true as to the Ceremonies themselves that they may from time to time be altered and changed for others in their stead by the Authority of the Church as shall seem most Expedient to that publique Wisdome for the great Purpose of Edification but for every private person to challenge this Right to himself is unlawfull because liable to the same inconveniences with separating under colour of Ceremonious Superfluities or of purer Ordinances and purer Ordinances and purer Worship which are therefore justly to be suspected to proceed out of a bad design because they never can have any end Saint Paul in several places of his Epistles expresses great tenderness for the infirmity of the weak Brother but yet if the Instances of such his condescention be examined they will be sound to be of a quite different nature from those which make up the pretences of our daies as consisting first in the eating of things sacrificed to Idols which as looking like a participation of the table of Devils and as being expresly prohibited by a

allusion as this is that saying of Moses to his Maker Exod. 32. 32. Yet now if thou wilt forgive their sin and if not blot me I pray thee out of thy book which thou hast written And then vers 33. And the Lord God said unto Moses whosoever hath sinned against me him will I blot out of my book Not that we must entertain so gross and so unworthy conceptions of God Almighty as if he entered down all humane or other Occurrences in a certain Journal without which if they did not escape his cognizance he would loose the memory of them as if he kept an Album Amicorum a Catalogue or List of his Friends and Favorites without which they would ship out of his mind but it is an allusion to the Genealogical Tables of the Jews in which such as dyed without Issue as being of no use in carrying on the series and account of time were used by those who transcribed the publick Genealogies for the common use or the private Pedigrees for the use of particular Families to be omitted and consequently in after Ages forgotten of which I have spoken more largely in that Disquisition which I have mentioned concerning the Brother's marrying the Brother's wife in the Levitical Law and this is plainly the meaning of that Passage Psal 109. 13. Let his Posterity be cut off and in the Generation following let their name be blotted out that is when the Genealogies come to be transcribed for the use of the next Generation let their names as barren and supersluous and dying without Issue be omitted Where●ore the Precept of writing of the Law or the Commandments upon the Posts and Gates of their houses must be explained by vers 18. Ye shall lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul and this was that which they were to teach their Children vers 19. that is not the whole Law which those tender apprehensions could not receive or attend unto much less comprehend the entire Systeme and Model of so intricate a Dispensation but only the general Rules of Life and Practice in which it was but requisite they should be trained up from their infancy and childhood that the exercise and love of Vertue and Religion might be the more habitual to them in their age and for this reason they were used to instruct them particularly in the Decalogue as Children now a daies are used to be taught the Apostles Creed the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments which contain the general Heads of Devotion Articles of Belief and Rules of Practice The very reducing the general Rules of duty both with respect to God and Man under ten general Heads the putting them not less than twice by themselves into Tables of Stone by the Finger of God himself that is by a supernatural operation of the Divine Will notwithstanding there is nothing in the Commandments themselves which is not more largely insisted upon in the body of the Law and branched out into many particular cases is a sufficient argument that these ten Words or Precepts or Commandments were intended for the use of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or vulgar sort of men to give them a general scheme of their duty though for their satisfaction in particular cases whether of religious scruple or civil right they were to betake themselves to the Judges and Officers of their respective Tribes and from thence if they were not satis●y'd they were to appeal to Jerusalem in that manner which has been already declared Letters were so scarce in those early times among the Jews as well as among other Nations that to be able to write and reade especially to reade the Law after the traditionary way of which I shall speak more by and by was that which qualify'd men for the highest employments in the Jewish State and therefore it is observable that Shoter and Sopher and Shophet in Hebrew as they are names very like in sound so they are also in signification and were all of them frequently expressive of the highest power and authority among them Sophrim and Shophtim are joyned together as exegetical and declaratory one of another 2 Chron. 34. 13. and so are Shophtim and Shotrim Deut. 16. 18. In the first of which places the Seventy render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Scribes and Judges and in the latter they are termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judges and Promulgers of Judicial Edicts and Letters as Andreas Masius in his learned and elaborate Notes upon Joshua would have it but by his favour I do not allow that interpretation but am rather of opinion that this word is synonymous with the former 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Introduction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Introductour or Instructour in any Skill or Knowledge and so Plutarch calls his little Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is of the instruction or information of Youth and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will be interpres enarrator Doctor Legis an Expositor or Teacher of the Law and consequently a Judge of those Controversies that were to be decided out of it or it is one that was used to bring out the Law among the People who were not allow'd the use of it or could not make use of it at home to reade and explain it and address himself to them in practical and popular exhortations as the People spake to Ezra the Scribe Neh. 8. v. 1. To bring the book of the Law of Moses and then v. 2. And Ezra the Priest brought the Law before the Congregation Neither were they onely by means of this skill of reading and interpreting the Law capacitated to be the prime Judges and Officers among the People but also by writing and keeping the Genealogies which was no question another Imployment of theirs they had opportunity of knowing all the People and of being better known to them of understanding their qualities and conditions and serving themselves accordingly of them and by being necessary to all conveyances and settlements of right between man and man which will always be done in writing where such a thing as writing is to be found they did by this means aggrandize and enrich themselves and had a mighty stroke with their respective Clients so that it is no wonder the Scribes are mentioned in the Gospel as men of so great authority and sway amongst the Jews this being a name for the reasons above given of the greatest dignity and power among them and so in the first of Macchabees the fi●th Chapter and forty second verse the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scribes of the people are manifestly the Leaders and the Chiefs among them and Acts 19. 35. he who in our Translation is called the Town clerk a man of principal credit and authority among the People of that place is in the original called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scribe and though I am ready to grant that this word does not always denote so