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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	church_n	just_a	separation_n	3,507	5	10.7526	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31093	A sermon preached at the triennial visitation of the Right Reverend Father in God, Seth, Lord Bishop of Sarum, held at Reading, Sept. 6, 1683 by John Barrow ...	Barrow, John, 1650 or 51-1684.	1683 (1683)	Wing B966; ESTC R16103	12,922	35

hence with all tenderness recommend their impartial Considering the great Evil of preaching Christ if they should truly preach him from Strife and Contention and from unsincere Ends. If they say they have considered this already and do not take themselves to be concerned in it I would pray them as Casuists to resolve us whether supposing a third sort of Men should begin a Separation in the Church without any just Cause afterwards refuse all reasonable Terms of Accommodation and farther take all the Courses they could think of to perpetuate the Difference they would not believe they were something influenced by a Spirit of Contention They must thus pronounce if they think there are such things as Contention or Strife in the World and if they do so at the very same time they pronounce against themselves For that they begun the Breach without any just Cause there can nothing be more evident than their separating from us not as we did from Rome from the ever justifiable Cause of its having corrupted the Substantials of Religion But for Things in their own Nature Harmless and Indifferent For the sake of things which they never did and never will be able to oppose but by so many Cavils as will argue more plainly a Desire of Contention than any just Exception they have to them That they refuse all reasonable Terms of Accommodation they have put beyond all Question since the little fruit of all Conferences held with them and the absolute Stiffness with which they insist to this very day that the Government should yield all to them without any due Complyance on their Parts And that they indeavour to perpetuate the Difference as much as in them lies what more convincing Arguments can we have than their raising new Academies For by this they do not mean the Controversie shall die with them What more convincing Arguments can we have than the Universal Cry of their Leaders till then never heard of against the very Doctrines of our Church for some time before the Expiration of the Act for renouncing the Covenant By which what could they mean but that this which at first they said to be so great a Snare to their Consciences being now taken away they must either honestly come over to our Church or start some new Difference to keep on foot their Separation from it But leaving this with them from a Contentious I am next to pass to an Unsincere End of preaching the Gospel And here again I would calmly ask them if themselves were to assign the marks of Sincerity in the serving of Christ whether one would not be a proposing at first to serve him aright so that men should not run before they were sent or serve the God of Order in disorderly ways Which yet they must give us leave to fear themselves do till we have from them a better account than has hitherto been given of the lawfulness of their Call to the Work of the Ministry I would have them ask themselves if they preach so sincerely as they pretend what they mean by their designed and affected clouding the simplicity of the Gospel with mysterious and set Phrases Whether they do not justly give occasion to think they have some bad Ends to serve upon their Hearers when they thus artificially cast a Mist before their Eyes create Depths where there are none and obscuring plain Truths amuse and confound instead of instructing or enlightning their Followers I would have them ask themselves if they only mean the Honour and Success of the Gospel of Christ why they chuse so observably to preach in such Places where there are great Presumptions they may rather consult their own Profit and Advantage Why in Market-Towns in populous and rich Places but to get more Proselytes that is more Benefactors rather than in Finland or the steril parts of Norway where Preaching is more scarce and the Maintenance more low For I cannot imagine but that were their zeal for the Glory of God the yearning of their Bowels for the Souls of Men so great as they say they would give their first Care to the Souls that most need it and exercise their zeal in a barren and dry Land as well as that which flows with Milk and with Honey And since they don't do this I know not how to name the Principle that guides them but I am not very sure that it is the Sincerity from which this Apostle told the Corinthians I seek not yours but you If therefore these amount to Proofs of their Contention and Unsincerity in preaching the Gospel it is plain they live in two as ill Vices as can belong to any Christian Preachers If they only amount to so many strong and vehement Presumptions it is yet a mighty scandal they give to Christianity and if they are the Ingenious the Knowing and Conscientious Persons they would be taken for they cannot but consider the Advantages they give by this means to the common Enemies of all Religion Not omitting that whatever turbulent Practices their Followers may be guilty of are very justly to be charged upon themselves whose very preaching contrary to Law first brought the Law in Contempt with their Hearers and if afterwards they run into greater Enormities it is but Proficiency still in that Contempt of Government which the Example as well as the Doctrines of their Leaders had taught them And now if after all the dissenting Preachers will shift this from themselves and say we have taken all along for granted their being Contentious and Unsincere Preachers which is more than they think they have reason to acknowledg themselves to have bin I shall only add that they cannot notwithstanding say this urged improperly to them since both they and we agree that the Faulty and the Criminal may be pressed with Considerations suitable to their Case thô we are not sure we shall always convince them We pass next to the second general Inference to our selves who have the Honour of being of this Clergy And under this I would first humbly offer the great Care we ought to take as at the first Entrance upon our Holy Office so thrô the whole course of it to preach the Gospel in Truth and Sincerity For we see the best things eaven the preaching of Christ is not to be undertaken but from a Pure and Sincere Mind We are therefore not only to deliver what is Truth but to do it from a True and Unfeigned Intention of promoting the Glory of God in the World and setting forward the Salvation of Men in comparison of this despising the other considerations of worldly Advantage Honour or Respect which yet are due to us for our Work-sake and much more detesting the Exercise of so Holy a Function as ours from the Unholy Ends of Strife Vainglory Envy or Ambition It will be hard to convince Gainsayers that we preach the Gospel out of Good will if we give them cause to think that we only preach

A SERMON Preached at the Triennial Uisitation OF THE Right Reverend FATHER in GOD SETH Lord Bishop OF SARUM Held at Reading Sept. 6. 1683. By JOHN BARROW Canon of Windsor and Vicar of New-Windsor Berks. LONDON Printed by Ralph Holt for John Gellibrand at the Golden Ball in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1683. TO THE Right Reverend FATHER in GOD SETH Lord Bishop OF SARUM My Lord I Had not ventured to expose this Discourse in the way I now do but for your Lordships Encouragement of it and under such Patronage I shall have the less Apprehensions of those People who may find themselves too much concerned in the Case to be any thing pleased with a Subject of this nature However it may affect them I have still the Satisfaction of having indeavoured as well as I could the Explaining and Vindicating a Text very difficult and liable to be turned to very ill Constructions And if it any way serves to confirm the Friends of our Church or to rectifie those who are in lower Degrees of Prejudice against it it is as much as can be hoped by My Lord Your Lordships most Obedient Most Faithful and most Humble Servant John Barrow PHILIP I. 15 16 17 18. Some indeed preach Christ even of Envy and Strife and some also of Good-will The one preach Christ of Contention not Sincerely supposing to add Affliction to my Bonds But the other of Love knowing that I am set for the Defence of the Gospel What then Notwithstanding every way whether in Pretence or in Truth Christ is preached and I therein do rejoyce yea and will rejoyce AMong the other Texts which have been so ill used by those that maintain the Divisions of our Church there is none more likely to be urged in the behalf of the Dissenting Preachers nor any with greater appearance of strength than That I have now read For granting us all we may possibly think we have Cause to believe thô they never will that such Pastors as they are unsent and unqualified all the ill and contentious Preachers in the World Yet since they preach Christ they may press us still that we ought to be so far from Discouraging of them that after the Example of St. Paul in the Text we ought to Rejoyce that the Doctrine of Christ is any way preached And how can such Rejoycing consist with the usual Prosecution of them Or if We thus prosecute or otherwise think fit to appear against them how little do we shew of the meek and Heavenly Temper of St. Paul whose Successors we would yet pretend our selves to be Nay farther they may not be wanting to tell us that if we do not Rejoyce in their assisting us it is We that envy the Success of the Gospel and must be content to take the worst Character in the Text to our selves For the satisfying which Plea I shall take the whole Force of it into Consideration in the following Discourse and the better to do it shall propose three Inquiries I. Who those were of whom St. Paul here pronounces That they preached Christ out of Strife and Contention II. How far we are to understand he rejoyced in their Preaching III. Whether the Case of the Contentious Preachers in the Text and those of our Times be so much the same that the Governours of our Church should by Virtue of this Place or St. Paul's Example in it be so obliged to Rejoyce in their Ministry as not to indeavour the Suppressing of it And if in managing these any Right be done to the Sense of the Words and the present Methods of the Government with respect to these Men I shall hope it may be thought not altogether improper in this Assembly since 't will be the impleading of Preachers before Preachers of those that say they can understand and teach Christianity before those that do and rightfully do it We shall First then inquire who Those were of whom St. Paul here pronounces That they preached Christ of Strife and Contention The resolving of which will very much depend upon our determining whether they were Jews remaining still such or Judaizing Christians or some other Christian Converts of which he was now speaking The Learned Grotius who would have the Jews here meant gives this Account of them That to put a stop to the Doctrine of Christianity they every where rumoured of what sort it was by what Arguments supported That so the greater Recourse might be had to St. Paul to know the whole of the matter from Himself And all such Resort in the Place and Circumstances that He now was they knew would be dangerous and might wish Fatal to him Which is indeed a very full account of the Strife and Contention with which they were acted But with all Submission does not seem so fairly to answer for what the Apostle mentions no less than three times in the Text Their preaching of Christ For their spiteful Noising what the Christian Sect held cannot be called but very abusively a Preaching of Christ. Besides that he opposes them in this very place to Those that preached Christ out of Truth and Good Will From which it should seem that the Gospel on both Hands was fervently preached and the difference only that it was not done from the same pious Principle In short that they were not Unbelieving Jews I am farther confirmed from the Verse immediately foregoing where St. Paul tells us Many Brethren in the Lord waxing confident by my Bonds are much more bold to speak the Word without Fear And then it follows Some indeed preach Christ even of Envy and Strife It is evident therefore that they were Brethren of the Family of Christ thô none of the greatest Sincerity among them If next it be said They were Judaizing Brethren and under these we must comprehend the Gnosticks 't will be hard to say with any Propriety that they preached Christ for they preached Christ and Moses and the latter Doctrines very distant from either And if farther it be urged that supposing they did so the Apostle might rejoyce that they preached Christ any ways since 't was better that the Gentiles who lived in gross Idolatry should have some knowledg of Christ thô with mixtures than know nothing at all of him 'T will be plausibly said but not on a sudden so easy to reconcile this Apostles Rejoycing in such sort of Preachers with the repeated Cautions he gives against these very Men and with the plainest Reference to them Beware of Dogs Beware of Evil Workers Beware of the Concision At the third Chapter of this very Epist. v. 2. Pressed therefore with these Difficulties I shall rather conceive this Place neither refers to the Unconverted Jews nor Judaizing Christians nor among those to the Gnostick Teachers But to such as indeed preached pure Christianity thô from no pure Mind Preaching Christ but out of Strife with Design to create Strife and Division in the Church such as was when one said I am