Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	according_a	christian_n	great_a	146	4	2.1283	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57068	The tabernacle of God with men, or, The visible church reformed a discourse of the matter and discipline of the visible church, tending to reformation / by Richard Resbury ...	Resbury, Richard, 1607-1674.	1649 (1649)	Wing R1136A; ESTC R32282	56,135	82

conversation and that in time of greatest Persecution and all the time that they stood thus upon tryal and under instruction rending to prepare them for admission they were called Catechumens when after a certaine time of tryall they moved to be admitted into Church fellowship they were called Competents or desirers when they were admitted it was by baptisme and then were they compleat members of the Church and called the faithfull This was one sort of Catechumens Another sort there was the children of Christian Parents who having been in their infancy baptized yet when they were grown to years they were under the Churches instruction and tryall just in the same manner as the former and held the place and name of Catechumens till they were for knowledge and holinesse of conversation approved experimentally by the Church then upon their desires they were received into Church-fellowship by solemne imposition of hands and so admitted to the Lords Supper and brought under discipline and were now compleat members of the Church this imposition of hands being grounded upon Heb. 6.2 whence by the corruption of Popery it degenerated into that spurious Ordinance of confirmation as they called it 2. Their severity towards the lapsed it is well knowne to all acquainted with the manner of the Church in those times that as they diligently cast out the scandalous so they stood upon strict termes with them before they would upon their profession of repentance receive them againe this together with the state of those times considered times of great persecution it may be gathered that they received only such into Church-fellowship as whom they might conceive so principled as to prefer the truth and purity of Gospel Profession to their own lives Let us here sprinkle some few Testimonies found in the Fathers of those times touching the purity of the Church in the matter of it Tertullian in his Apologetick c. 2. alledgeth Pliny an heathen Deputy-Governour under Trajan an heathen Emperour about a hundred years after Christ giving this Testimony to the Christians generally That besides their stiffe refusall to sacrifice he found nothing in their religious worship but that they had meetings before day to sing to Christ and to God and by mutuall agreement to constrme discipline and that they forbad murder adultery fraud treachery and other wickednesses The same Father who himselfe lived a little more then two hundred years after Christ he is much in challenging the persecuting powers to make good any of those crimes which they charged upon Christians as atheisme incest infant-murder treason chargeth them that they warre with the name of Christians that an innocent name in innocent men is by them hated and persecuted In the 39 ohapt of his Apologetick thus We are a body made up of the conscience of Religion of the unity of Discipline of the Covenant of hope then speaking of their worship in the publique Assembly he addes for discipline there likewise are Exhortations Castigations and Divine Censures for with great weight is judgement past as among those that are certaine that the eye of God is upon them and it is the greatest fore-judgement of the judgement to come if any one shall so offend as that he is cast out from the communication of prayer of assembling and of all holy commerce He mentions in the same chapter the love of the Christians to be such one towards another that the Heathen were wont with indignation to say of them Behold how they love one another and are ready to die one for another In the 46. chapt of his Apologetick he shewes how they bore not with any of evill conversation comparing the Christians with the Philosophers The Philosophers saith he have an apish affectation of the truth and by their affectation corrupt it as hunting after their owne praise The Christians necessarily desire it and performe it intirely as providing for their owne salvation He adds a little after this objection But some of ours depart from the rule of discipline to which he answers they are no longer owned for Christians by us and he reproves it in the Philosophers that such among them as walk not according to the rules of Philosophy are yet called by the name and have still the honour of Philosophers In his Book to Scapula who was a Deputy-Governour under the Romane Emperour and a persecutor he gives this character of the Christians besides their unshaken piety towards God refusing the Heathen sacrifices against the greatest torments We defraud none we adulterate the mariage of none we handle Orphans religiously we relieve the needy to none do we render evill for evill let them who bely our profession look to it that is they who in word professe themselves Christians but walk not accordingly whom we our selves refuse Who is there that complaines of us upon any other ground but onely that we are Christians for so great innocency for so great honesty for righteousnesse for chastity for faith for truth for the living God are we burned In his Book of Repentance chapt 6. speaking of the necessity of sound repentance and that on the Catechumens part before baptisme I deny not saith he the divine benefit that is remission of sinnes to be altogether safe to those that shall go into the water that is that shall be baptized but that thou mayest come to that thou must be diligent for who will afford thee a man of such faithlesse repentance one drop of any water A little after let no man flatter himself that his ranck is yet but among the Catechumens as though he might therefore take liberty to sin as soone as thou hast known the Lord fear him as soone as thou hast beheld him receive him is Christ one to the baptized another to the hearers or Catechumens That Laver is the sealing up of faith which faith is both begun and commended from the faith of repentance we are not therefore washed viz. baptized that we may cease to sinne but because we have ceased because we are already washed in heart this is the first baptism of the Catechumen entire fear In his book of 〈◊〉 Prescriptions against the hereticks c. 41 he makes the promiscuous matter of the Church the property of the hereticks I will not omit saith he the description of the hereticks conversation how frivolous how earthly how humane it is without gravity without authority without discipline such as agrees with their faith first of all it is uncertaine who is a Catechumen and who is one of the faithfull they go together alike they hear alike they pray alike Nay if the heathen should come among them in their Assemblies they would cast that which is holy to dogs and Pearls though no true ones to the swine their Prostration of discipline they call simplicity our care of it they call an over-curious trimming they receive all promiscuously to the Lords Supper with them the Catechumens go for perfect before they be throughly instructed He chargeth it