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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	church_n	civil_a	ecclesiastical_a	2,893	5	8.1068	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27360	A sermon preached at the funeral of M. Anthony Hinton late treasurer of St. Bartholomews Hospital on the 15th of November, 1678, at St. Sepulchres Church / by William Bell.	Bell, William, 1626-1683.	1679 (1679)	Wing B1811; ESTC R24054	16,767	41

of cursed Cham as he who will be called a servant of servants Gen. ix 29. yet like servants on horse-back bring Princes to his foot and exalts himself above all that are called Gods Eccl x. 7. And if any pretending Protestants among us have done otherwise they went out from us because they were not of us We are taught not to hew out Reformation by the Sword whose mouth is an ill Advocate for the truth It is usually drawn in the quarrel of a Curtizan but not of a chaste Wife If any thing be amiss we expect the amendment from those Powers that did at first orderly and authoritatively reform us whose Supremacy in all Causes Civil and Ecclesiastical we humbly recognize as exclusive of all Foreign Jurisdiction without giving them what they claim not the Administration of Gods Word and Sacraments And as our Church as a tender Mother denies not pardon to her Children even for wilful sins committed after Baptism so like a prudent Mother she heals not their hurts slightly by the palliate cures of easie Confession and hasty Absolutions on meer Attrition or pecuniary Commutations or slight corporal Penances She approves of no sorrow but that godly one that worketh repentance never to be repented of 2 Cor. vii 10. Such tears as quench the fire of Lust and such a Reformation as withdraws the fuel We are so taught by her the tremendous mysteries of Predestination and Election as to steer evenly between the two equally dangerous rocks of Presumption and Despair She imposeth not on her Ministers or others the hard yoak of Celibacy or single life but teacheth them and by them Heb. xiii 4. that Marriage is honourable among all and the bed undefiled is true Chastity That Continency is not as Faith Hope Charity Repentance and Fear common to all Christians but peculiar to some and is a gift that may be denied to them that ask it in Prayer since where it is not God hath by Matrimony provided a remedy Nor doth she bind any to Poverty and a Mendicant state Prov. xxx 8. which wise Agur did deprecate as if that could be a blessing under the Gospel which was a curse under the Law to serve in the want of all things Deu. xxviii 48. She obligeth not by any Vows Num. xxx 7. but what are free deliberate in things possible and lawful and with consent of Superiours She deprives us not of half our Legacy in the New Testament of our dying Saviour by entertaining us at a dry Communion and denying us the Cup of blessing Nor doth she rob us of all our reason and the better half of our senses by the incredible Doctrine of Transubstantiation that pregnant Mother of Errors that would perswade us that is flesh which we see taste and feel is a Wafer That there are but the accidents of Bread shape and colour and accidents without a subject 1 Cor. xi 26. whereas it is truly called bread as before so after the Consecration That with the same mouth we can make and eat our God First change his glorious body into the likeness of our sinful ones and then cast him out into the viler draught That every loaf and bit shall be the whole man and at the same time in so many several places But it is not flesh and bloud Mat. v. 6. but righteousness that we hunger and thirst after and have the blessing of satisfaction in Yet we receive that Sacrament not as a meer badge of our Profession but as a sign and seal of God's mercy to us and of his grace thereby working in us which grace depends not upon the worthy or unworthy qualifications of him that administers but of them who receive that Sacrament Which while we celebrate in remembrance of an absent Christ we yet own a real presence of him who is every where While we pray that we may so eat and drink that our bodies may be cleansed by his body and our souls washed by his most precious bloud And the whole office performed with as much respect as is required or was practised by the Primitive Church though we proceed not to a preserving enshrining procession with and adoration of the Host or any other elevation but that of the lifting up of our hearts And so let us ever lift them up in thankfulness to that God who hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous light in a Church and under a Government old as Christianity it self whose gray hairs are its Crown Prov. xvi 31. as found in a way of righteousness It is called Heresie and Novelty yet it is the good old way wherein we worship the God of our Fathers a righteous though a dolorous way as by which the King of Kings and one of the best of Kings walked to their Cross In this Profession died the true Defender of the Church in its ancient Faith and fruitions equally abhorring Sacriledge and Apostacy Who by no Arts or force could be brought to subject her to parity or poverty to gratifie those who would have her go as naked out of the world as she came into it He took care not to have his nest fired by a coal snatched from God's Altar earnestly praying that neither he nor his might ever be accessary to it And God be thanked he hath been hitherto heard in what he desired Thus he was the most Christian King by a better title than that to France as purchased not by his Subjects blood but by his own He was content to exchange a Crown of Gold for a Crown of Thorns and for which he now wears a Crown of Glory And may that Religion which such a Saviour founded in and such a Soveraign sealed with his bloud be our Religion for ever Amen and Amen Application to the Occasion AND now it is time to give you an instance of a fit Servant and Subject to such a Christ and such a King And you have one before you that of our deceased Friend He kept a Conscience void of offence toward God and toward man To trace him as high as we can he was of a generous Family and therein the obedient Son of an obliging Father and from thence he was the honest Servant of a good Master and afterwards the kind Master of many Servants But what is here most proper to consider him in is his better Profession that of a Christian that of a Protestant And herein he was a steady Professor too well ballasted to be carried about by every by any wind of Doctrine whether it blew from Rome or Geneva He lived to see Religion in its splendour and its eclipse and he equally loved it in both conditions or if there was any difference he exceeded in the latter When those Vipers who suck'd the breasts of the Church were ready to tear out her bowels she took sanctuary in his house and there frequently dealt out her bread of life in the Word and

Superiours It is then as imprudent as it is ungrateful like Sons of Belial to shake off that easie yoak that protects where it restrains and by keeping us in order keeps us in safety too Let the Law of the Land subdue that of our Lusts Let us study to be quiet and to do our own business And leaving the Steerage of the Vessel to those that sit at the Helm let us keep our own Cabins and there strengthen and encourage our Pilots by our Devotion and by our Subjection In things indifferent let us walk by the rule of Charity but of Charity first to the Church our Mother and as we owe to her our better birth so let us pay her our better Honour Her love first descended on us before ours could ascend to her and now we are able let ours ascend to her before it spread to the Brethren 't is the Method and order of Grace as well as of Nature In pursuance of which let us not dispute her Wisdom or her Authority in confining our practice in what makes for Decency or Order whereof she is certainly a more competent Judge than her Children In God's name let us search the Scriptures for every circumstance of Worship but then let us not conclude we find not this thing commanded there therefore we dare not do it but rather we find not this thing there forbid therefore we may do it Rom. iv 15. for where there is no Law there is no transgression If we doubt the Command of Authority supersedes the doubt But while we peremptorily avoid what is indifferent we meet that Judaism we pretend to run from and are too superstitious whilst we would not be at all so Nay we lose that liberty whereof we are so tender as byassed to one side and that against the Powers that are set over us we are easily drawn away by those who have no right to guide us but are restiff and head-strong to those that have a right to our obedience like debauched Gallants who value their Curtizan above their Chirurgion and will give more to get a Disease than to have it cured Where the Word is silent we have our Liberty but let us not use it for any occasion of the slesh 1 Pet. ii 16. The Primitive Christians when confined to a few things made necessary by the Precept and not so in themselves such as abstinence from things strangled Acts xv 31. and from bloud are said to rejoice for the Consolation And so did our Ancestors when reform'd from that Worship which was become all husk and shell and rind yet thought not themselves obliged to strip off all the Leaves from Christ's Vine as if they injured those Grapes which they overshadowed whose moderation let us imitate following after the things which make for peace And nothing makes more for it than our hearing the Instructions of our Civil Father Prov. i. 8. and not forsaking the Law of the Church our Mother And here were the Orator as good as the Cause I should hope with as much success as willingness to plead for the Church of England whose Doctrine and Discipline are a perfect Comment on this Text a giving to God and Caesar their due receiving as a rule of faith all the Articles of the Three Creeds preserving to God his Worship entire without the rivallings of Saints or Angels or the likeness of any thing above or below Not invading or depressing the Offices of Christ by Lording it over his Heritage or derogating from his Satisfaction or Intercession by owning any other Purgatory but that of his sufferings in this world to secure us from those of the world to come And therefore teaching us that no man can by Masses Oblations Pilgrimages or works of Supererogation redeem his Brother or pay to God a ransom for him Psal xlix 7. And that the all-sufficient merits of Christ need not be Imp'd by ours or those of men subject to like passions with our selves And therefore we look on Heaven not as wages but as gift yet are careful to maintain good works Rom. vi 23. as necessary to salvation which is that Penny that is paid to none but those that labour But when we have sow'd in righteousness Hos x. 12. we hope to reap in mercy We own but one Mediator between God and us Nor can we think our better Moses needs any Aaron or Hur to support his hands in that Mount above whilst he intercedes for his Church that is militant here below And therefore as we adore not what is left of the Saints here so we sue not to what is ascended of them on high Nor dare we give that worship to a dead Barnabas and Paul Acts xiv 11. which they refused when living How can we call on them in whom we have not believed We dare not vacate the Prophetical Office of Christ by teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men We own such Traditions as can prove their Pedigree to be truly ancient not repugnant to Scripture and to consist with Decency and Order And that every National Church hath power to determine practice in things indifferent and to bind to obedience for Conscience sake Conscience of that duty that is owing to the fifth Commandment But we follow not cunningly devised fables while we have a more sure word of Prophesie We receive the Sacraments in their due number and order and by the Font we pass to the Altar for so we can call it as its shew-bread is a Commemorative Sacrifice tendered not to God for us but by him to us and as at it we offer up our selves to him once offered up for us in the Christian Sacrifices of a broken heart a thankful tongue a charitable hand and an holy life We have a Liturgy in a known tongue that so we may pray with the understanding and know to what we say Amen And if we pray not with the spirit too I mean not that of the gift of Tongues but of prayer and supplication both Gods and our own it is our own fault that most excellent expressions are not attended with suitable affections If our Common Prayer be a dead Letter our hearts make it so for no Cloaths will warm the dead And without the pouring out of the heart the pouring out of words extempore or premeditated is but the sacrifice of fools and that whether a Pharisee lengthen or Beads number it And as we have the same appetite for our daily bread we can in the same words beg it of him who gives it and hath given us a form wherein to ask it And as our Church is conscienciously careful to avoid all offence toward God so is she no less toward men And although ground between the two Milstones of the Papist censuring her as Schismatical and the Schismatick condemning her as Papistical yet disclaims the disloyal principles and practices of both the Conclave and the Classes Not affecting the title