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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	christian_a	church_n	great_a	1,565	5	2.6950	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65225	The repairer of the breach a sermon preached at the cathedral church of Glocester, May 29, 1660, being the anniversary of His Maiesty's birth-day, and happy entrance into his emperial city of London / by Thomas Washbourn.	Washbourne, Thomas, 1606-1687.	1660 (1660)	Wing W1026; ESTC R38494	23,222	34

vertue and noble actions that distinguish and set us above the vulgar When Moses goes about to describe the genealogy of the Patriarch Noah he begins it thus These are the generations of Noah And Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations and Noah walked with God Gen. 6. 9. Wilt thou be famous in thy generations as Noah be just and upright as Noah and thou shalt be Chronicled in the book of fame to all succeeding generations Vocaberis c. thou shalt have an honourable name like this in the Text Thou shalt be called The repairer of the breach the restorer of thy Country's peace and liberty The Wise-man is almost Non-plust and gravel'd to think what praises should be given to these Repairers of breaches Ecclus. 49. 11 12 13. How shall we praise this Zerubbabel which was a ring on the right hand so was Jesus the son of Josedec these men in their time builded the house and set up the Sanctuary of the Lord again which was prepared for an everlasting worship And among the elect was Nehemias whose renown is great which set up for us the walls that were fallen and set up the gates and the bars and laid the foundations of our houses But behold a greater than Nehemias or Zerubbabel is here This Zerubbabel the chief among these Repairers was a type of Christ and so is presented to us by the Prophet Hag. chap. ult. vers. ult. In that day saith the Lord of Hosts will I take thee O Zerubbabel my servant the son of Shealtiel and will make thee as a signet for I have chosen thes saith the Lord of hosts Christ was the true Zerubbabel whom God the Father chose from everlasting to be his servant in performing the great work of our Redemption Isa. 42. 1. Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles This is he that hath built his Church upon a Rock against which the gates of hell shall not prevail This is he that hath raised up the foundations of many generations and therefore is most worthy to be called The Repairer of the breach that vast breach which was long since made between God and man that breach which was made between Jew and Gentile Quae deserta fuerant in Judaeis dicimus aedificari in Ecclesia non ad breve tempus sed in perpetuum fundamenta illius ex utroque populi id est in duabus generationibus suscitanda the waste places in the Church of the Jews are built up by Christ in the Christian Church and the foundations thereof raised of both people that is in those two generations of Jews and Gentiles So St. Hierom understands my Text according to that of St. Paul Ephes. 2. 14 15. He is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross And because he humbled himself to the form of a servant to the death of the cross therefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name above this name in the Text and above every name besides that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow c. Phil. 2. 7 8 9. I have done with the Explication of my Text I come now to make some Application of it to the time I need not tell you of our wast places our ruined foundations our vast breaches they are too obvious to every eye he that runs may re●d them They may be reduced to these two heads Breaches and Ruines and Wastes made both in Church and Common-wealth To begin with the Church for that is Gods method Judgment commonly begins at the house of God And good God who can think upon the Breaches and not cry out with Job c. 22. v 6. Even when I remember I am afraid and trembling taketh hold on my flesh this were enough to make a good Christian turn Quaker and yet be a good Christian still Not to speak of the material buildings the goodly foundations of ancient Churches demolished and run to ruine concerning which there goes a Proverb to the scandal of our Religion though our Religion were not the cause of it Pater noster set them up and our father pluckt them down I shall not insist upon these external breaches ruines in the Church though in respect of them also I may take up the Psalmists words Psalm 102. 13 14. Thou shalt arise O God and have mercy upon Sion for the time to favour her yea the set time is come And why thy servants think upon her stones and it pitieth them to see her in the dust The most considerable breaches were in the spiritual building {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Ye are Gods building c. Eph. 2. 20. O what breaches were made in this building Even breach upon breach Job 16. 14. Here were the living stones broken heart broken the principal Pillars thrown down Able painful and pious Pastors and Preachers such as Dr. Featly that Malleus Hereticorum and many others of the Clergy besides the Reverend Fathers of the Church the Bishops of whom the world was not worthy cast out of their places and Livings upon false suggestions and informations or if true deserving rather encouragement and protection than imprisonment and ejection Sequestred and cast out they were not for any thing really scandalous but for being so conscientious that they would not take new Oaths and Covenants contrary to those they had formerly and lawfully taken and upon the same score would have suffered death as some did rather than run with the tide of the times against the known Lawes of God and man So wide was this breach and so farre from being well closed again till this last year that upon their exclusion either none at all were put in their Livings as in divers Counties of Wales where the Tyths of many Parishes were engrost in a few hands two or three Itinerant Preachers serving for a whole Diocesse or else for the most part ignorant and factious persons brought in their places whose businesse it was to sowe sedition and false doctrines and whose preaching if I may call it preaching was full of cursing and bitternesse Rom. 3. 14. And what betrer could be expected from them that enter not by the doore into the sheepfold but climb up some other way John 10. 1. not by the regular way of Ordination which hath been ever observed in the Church of Christ from the Apostles days to ours What better could be expected when the Prophets two staves were once broken the staffe of Beauty and the staffe of Bands Veritas Evangelica unitas Christiana the true Doctrine and Uniform Discipline of the Church When these I say were broken to pieces behold an inundation of Sects and Heresies like a second Deluge over-flowed the whole Land

they came croaking about us like the Frogs of Egypt and swarming like the Locusts out of the bottomlesse pit Barclay in his Icon Animorum writing of the several Sects in Religion which he had observed in England in King James his reign tells a story of a father and his two sons who constituted or made up a Church between themselves but these three not long agreeing the two sons Excommunicated the Father and at last one son the other so that these three made three distinct Churches in their conceipts and each one the true What would he have said had he lived to see the many factions and fractions Divisions and Subdivisions which have spawn'd since amongst us Our Church being well likened by the last Arch-bishop of Canterbury in his Speech at his death to an Oak cleft to shivers with wedges made out of its own body and at every cleft prophanenesse and irreligion entring in It was a most charitable wish of judicious Master Hooker and most seasonable for our times in his answer to Master Travers Supplication in Queen Elizabeths reign Take it in his own words for they are excellent and deserve as Job speaks in another case to be graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever to be so deeply imprinted in our hearts as never to be obliterated or rased out Since saith he there can come nothing of contention but the mutual waste of the parties contending till a common Enemy dance in the ashes of them both I do heartily wish that the grave advice which Constantine gave for uniting his Clergy so many times upon so small occasions in so lamentable sort divided or rather the strict commandment of Christ to his that they should not be divided at all may at length if it be his blessed will prevail so farre at least in this corner of the Christian world to the burying and quite forgetting of strife together with the causes which have either bred it or brought it up that things of small moment never disjoyn them whome one God one Lord one Faith one Spirit one Baptisme bands of so great force have linked that a respective eye towards things wherewith we should not be disquieted make us not as through infirmity the very Patriarchs themselves sometimes were full gorged unable to speak peaceably to their own brother Finally that no strife may ever be heard of again but this who shall hate strife most who shall pursue Peace and Vnity with swiftest paces And to this I hope all my Brethren of the Ministery will say Amen and make some amends for the Divisions and Breaches which too many of them through their former misguided zeal brought into the Church by their earnest endeavours for a happy settlement of all matters Ecclesiastical and by their humble submission to that Order and Discipline in the Church as is or shall be established by lawful Authority But behold more Breaches yet the Hebrew {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is rendred by the LXX {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a Builder a Maker or Repairer of hedges Now the Jews have a saying Massora sepes est Legis Divitiarum sepes decimae that as their Massora was the hedge of their Divine Law comprehending every verse word and letter of it so Tythes were the hedge of their riches and beyond a hedge in this respect as the same worthy Author hath very well observed for an hedge doth only fence and preserve that which is contained but Tythes and Offerings did more because they procured increase of the heap out of which they were taken witnesse that saying of God himself Mal. 3. 10. Bring ye all the Tythes into the storehouse and prove me therewith saith the Lord of Hosts if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it Yet was this hedge going down apace voted away from the Church by the Phanatick party who had devoured them in their imaginary hopes and taken ere this time all the houses of God in their possession if they had not been in the nick of time strangely prevented The onely way they thought to enrich themselves was to impoverish the Church and ceaze upon the poor remains thereof And whereas Abraham long before the Law was given by Moses and therefore could not be ceremonial paid Tythes of all the spoiles these men would make a spoile of all the Tythes then the Priests received Tythes from the Soldiers now the Soldiers would have taken Tythes from the Priests though to the ruine of themselves and their posterities and the whole Nation that would have been involved both in the guilt and punishment as was the whole Nation of the Jews for the same sin Mal. 3. 9. For my part I must confesse my fears that the curse which hath been upon out Nation of late years for this sin of sacriledge amongst other great and crying sins will not be taken off clearly for we see Gods hand is stretched out still against us in the late plague of immoderate rain and waters which may breed a dearth if not pestilential diseases till satisfaction be made by restoring what hath been wrested and ravished from the Church It was the opinion of that great advancer of learning Sir Francis Bacon in his considerations touching pacification and edification of the Church presented to King James and well-worthy the consideration ofthis present Parliament That all Parliaments since the 27 and 31 of Hen. 8. who gave away Impropriations from the Church stand in some sort obnoxious and obliged to God in conscience to do somewhat for the Church to reduce the Patrimony thereof to a competency for since they have debarred Christs spouse of a great part of her dowry it were reason they made her a competent Joynture And blessed be God that put it into the Kings heart to take care that all Bishops Deans and Chapters should out of their Impropriations augment the small Vicaridges belonging to them in such a reasonable proportion as the Tythes will well bear And 't is to be hoped that this will be a leading-card to invite and draw on others of the Nobility and Gentry to do the like as some of them have done already to their honor be it spoken and therein have preveated his Majesties desires in that kind and began to us I could name some of them but that I think they are sufficiently well known to the world Consider next the ruines and breaches in the State Armies raised Battles fought Cities besieged taken sacked Countries harassed plundred Parliaments purged dissolved at the pleasure of a thing call'd Protector or the Grandees of an Army the House of Peers abolished another of mock-Lords instituted all the fundamental Laws violated A breach upon our liberties by imprisoning men without shewing cause denying the people their voices in a free election of Knights and Burgesses fingit solemnia Campus Et non