Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	believe_v	church_n	word_n	2,694	5	4.5532	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48289	Eyaggeloigrapha. Or, Some seasonable and modest thoughts, in order to the furtherance and promoting the affairs of religion, and the gospel, especially in Wales Mainly tending to the discovery of the evills of extreams, and the spirit of errour and dissention, that hinders the success, and the begetting of a due temper and moderation of judgement, with an universall love and peace amongst us. All, rationally, materially, and very moderately handled. By J.L. Esquire.	Lewis, John, Esquire.	1659 (1659)	Wing L1840A; ESTC R218109	32,748	45

design to discover first what Lets and Obstructions lye most in the way and after to propound the Remedies and means to promote it Certainly our Lets and hinderances of successe proceed from some mistakes and dissentions amongst us and I have often mused seriously wherein this spirit of error and discord doth lye and in my poor judgement it chiefly lurks in meer words and I have thought it is no marvell the Apostle hath so often and emphatically warned us to beware of them charging before the Lord that they strive not about words and indeed if wee look upwards through the whole ages of the Church wee shall find they have been ever unhappy and fatall to it one word or rather syllable or letter rent and ruined the antient glorious Church of the East and Mr. Calvin bemoaning the same unhappinesse of Words in his time as when some not content with words the primitive Church was necessitated to make use of but would have words out of Scripture with more inconvenience they did saies hee ob nudas voculas digladiari so brabble and quarrell about words that veritas altercando amittitur charitas odiose rixando dissolvitur Truth Love and Charity was lost and gone And it please God wee had not cause to make it our own complaint in these dayes I verily think there hath not been an age more guilty of this vanity and unhappinesse than wee are I list not hear to offer you a list of the words wee contend and differ about I beleeve there is scarse a word that belongs to the Body of Religion whether those from Scripture or used in Divinitie and the Church that hath been left unquarrelled with by some or other and I pray God the word Scripture it self calling it Bible and the ancient Greek names and Titles of the Books as Genesis Exodus c. may be left quietly alone nay many words of the Language but of civill use are gain-said such a turbulent Villain is this spirit of Error and Dissention the Remedy whereof with all humble submission to the godly wise and especially safest for Religion were to rest and stand content with words as use and custome hath delivered them unto us for they have been ever held to be the sole Masters of Words and to give the Law and stamp unto them and it is worth taking notice of that many times words of good and harmlesse signification through Ignorance and prejudice become in time to be taken in the worse sense which did we understand and not behold them through the false glass of prejudice clearly in their first innocent institutions and right meaning a wise man would but laugh at the variances about them though some of them passing through the revolutions of corrupt ages may carry some cause of offence with them yet so to strive for them even to so much trouble and loss of Charitie I conceive is a Remedie worse than the disease and many can make that wise use of them as to bear with them as some petty monuments of the Truth and Antiquity of Christian Religion c. And I conceive it would bee a labour well bestowed for some able hand to open and explicate all such words in Religion as the Vulgar take offence at that every body might not call this and that superstition and Antichristian without more ground than his own weak fancie and doubtless it would be a course that would much conduce to settle mens judgements and allay their differences and a means to avoid that other mischief and cause of variances our pronenesse to bee falling and reeling from one extream to another as our care to shunne superstation wee slip sometimes into a worse angle and wider from Religion which is Prophanenesse both which words I shall somewhat open anon in the mean time I could heartily beg it from the able Ministers to make it more their work than hitherto I have seen to open and unfold unto the people those main and Cardinall words of Religion as that most glorious and awefull name God oh that wee could consider what wee speak when wee name it the Word of God the Spirit Heaven Hell and all other Principall and fundamentall words of Religion every which word is and is not much more than what every one thinks that have them frequent in their mouths this I say I could heartily commend unto the Orthodox good Ministers which people being solidly instructed and grounded in would doubtless more kindly and happily bring on the work of grace in them when those other speculations which I see without this ground-work doe but swell and distemper the fancie and thence the strange opinions and imaginations of many poor well-meaning souls in these dayes Thus farre of words in generall as they foment our Error and dissentions I will now offer as for our present design to open some usuall words which being not throughly understood by all do minister much matter of mistakes and contention about them as also some brief observations upon them but still with submission to the Judiciously godly The Word Propagation explicated THe word Propagation properly as every School-boy knows signifieth the cutting down of an old Vine and planting young ones in their stead but in the sense of Religion it hath ever very properly been used as much as to extend and inlarge and in that signification wee take it It being so let us grant the word a twofold sense as it hath been used and is in order to Religion the first wee may call the ancient Propagation as in the primitive times people from Infidells and Pagans were converted to acknowledge and beleeve Christ c. And as multitudes and Nations did come so to beleeve this was called the Propagation of the Gospell now in this sense some among us mutter at the word as a disparagement to our Country who from our Ancestors the Britains have received the Title of Christianity with some of the first of the World as all Histories and Antiquity doth grant and also to the honour of our Nation wee must confess as a great mercy of God to us that since that best Act one of the worst Kings ever did Henry the eighth our incorporation into England wee are much improved in all points of civilitie and Religion farre above what our Ancestors were now besides this we may also call Propagation in a more modern sense as when those that go under the generall name of Christians and yet are dissolute and unchristian and unholy in their lives and brought by means of the Gospell and converted into a better state of vertuous and holy Christian living and fear of God and in this sense wee may well admit of Propagation and heartily wish it amongst us and all the World for it is a sad observation that a great Author makes that Christians in that generall term and in gross are thought to be the impurest part of all mankind it is able

to shame us eternally to hear how the Turks and Mahometans do exceed us in our lives with whom Drunkennesse is punished with death in so much it is thought that because of their reverence in their Mosches or Churches their many works of devotion Pietie and Charitie their Iustice Temperance and other morall vertues to bee main causes of the growth of Mahometanism and on the contrarie our irreverence and neglect of Religion and loose lives to be the main hinderance of Christianity who but that will seriously consider this and not say welcome Propagation or Propurgation or something among us or whatever to reform and amend us The Words Religion and Gospel opened c. NOw partly clearing what wee mean by Propagation the word Religion and Gospell come opportunely in I formerly hinted they are not altogether the same for as mankind wee have all a common interest in Religion but as Christians and beleevers in Christ wee belong to the Gospell by the meer instinct and impulsion of nature all men are prone to acknowledge and adore the Divine Power or God and this and all that pertains to the reverent performance of this is properly called Religion or Divine Worship now it is said that most of our late endeavours were wholly to promote the Gospel and preaching it and that only the beleevers and Elect in Christ are the better for Now upon a reckoning I presume hardly the moyetie or half the people in Wales would be granted to belong unto Christ and Salvation but admit the number more or fewer now the Gospell and preaching it being only that which takes up our thoughts and care I would know what provision should there be for that number that belongs not to Christ I am confident none is so uncharitable as to say let them shift as they may therefore if not for their souls behoof and benefit yet for the honour and glory of God as meer Creatures there ought to bee something whereby they might testifie their duty and Homage to their Creator which the very dumb Creatures do in their kind the Stork in the Heavens knoweth her appointed times and the Turtle and the Crane and the Swallow knoweth the time of her comming and were there not this necessitie from nature in respect of God there is another necessity from the respects of Humane Comerce and societie for without some face and sense of Religion among men they would grow savage and make no conscience of their Oaths and Promises in their actions and dealings which I need not further to exemplifie unto the Judicious therefore along and together with the preaching of the Gospell well were it that some reverence decorums of Religion were thought good to be maintained for the containing of all men in the aw and apprehension of God and the maintaining of civill honesty in their actions and dealings And it would much avail to this to have the Administrations more duely and frequently performed and not to suffer such contempt to the places of divine worship to which scarse will be granted their very names which use and the language hath given them and suffered notwithstanding late good provisions for them to decay and ruine without some course be timely taken I know not how many may be converted by preaching but sure I am too many are like to grow utterly heathenish and void of all Religion for the reasons aforementioned The word Preaching explicated THe next word in order is Preaching the Gospell is coincident with this but so much mistakes and abuse there is concerning it that the spirit of dissention seems to bee so wreathed about it that I dread to attempt the medling with it but if the good Reader will bee charitable and think mee non-either that is against or above this or any holy ordinance I will give my poor Judgement and where I fail I beseech the pardon of the Godly and that still hee mind that the design of my pen is in this and the whole for Moderation and against the evills of extreams I will not trouble you with the severall meanings of the word Preaching in the Scripture and the Ages of the Church but surely that which is meant by it in the pure primitive Gospel sense is the Apostles as Heraulds proclaiming and making known to the World that great Mystery hid from all former Ages that Iesus Christ the Son of God was incarnat and born of a blessed Virgin c. to bee Saviour of the World and the publishing of this and the other heavenly Doctrin of Christ as the resurrection and the fundamentalls of Faith is I humbly conceive to be the preaching meant in the Scripture sense and to know and beleeve this there is an absolute necessitie to Salvation now the mistake is that those Texts and places of Scripture that mention the preaching in the forementioned sense and the necessity and efficacy of it is sometimes wrested too violently to the necessity of ordinary preaching and Sermons which certainly cannot be of that absolute necessity as the former because wee are by course of Ages born where Christ is owned and beleeved in the former sense and have sundry helps by Education Conference Meditation and good Books to improve that knowledge But I conceive the preaching in our latter sense and use to bee of very speciall conveniencie and necessitie for us and our improvement in the knowledge and wayes of God so it bee right Gospel and Orthodox preaching and beyond all other private helps and means when it is a publick Ordinance because no doubt of a more special blessing along with it but if some say that the Devil and evil spirits may be said in some kind to beleeve in the first sense I confess perhaps they do as to their intellectuals and historically but so as to their sorrow and horror but mankind beleeves at least to some glympses of hope and comfort and the Elect to their unspeakable joy c. The mistake partly of this necessity made Preaching lately as it were overflow its banks and to overtop all other Ordinances and made that gap and tolleration for all pretenders that the complaint was like as of old at the offerings of the Temple That the people bring more than enough for the service of the work of the Lord until his Highness late seasonable Ordinance hath and I hope still will more like Moses then caused the people to be restrained from bringing more work into the Sanctuary And truly I have often much marvelled how in ancient times when they had scarce any kind of Preaching nor near those helps our times abound with they should so far out go us in holiness of life Mortification and contempt of the World they by Praying Fasting holy Hymnes frequent use of the Sacraments and other Exercises of devotion and troubling not themselves nor the world with Crochers and Notions attained to higher pitches of holiness than we know or feel doubtless the holy