Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	bind_v	church_n	communion_n	1,436	5	9.0889	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30338	A discourse wherein is held forth the opposition of the doctrine, worship, and practices of the Roman church to the nature, designs and characters of the Christian faith by Gilbert Burnet.; Mystery of iniquity unveiled	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1688 (1688)	Wing B5779; ESTC R7432	58,858	73

which we withdrew from her are additions to our faith for in this we mainly differ from that Church that whatever we acknowled they acknowledg likewise but with a great many additions We believe the Scriptures are a rule for Christians and they believe the same but they add Traditions and the authority of the Church to the Scriptures We believe that God is to be worshipped spiritually they believe the same but add that he may be worshipped by images and sensible Figures We believe Christ to be the Mediator betwixt God and Man they believe the same but add to this the intercession of Saints We hold that God and Christ are to be worshipped they hold the same but add Saints and Angels to their worship We believe Heaven and Hell to be the several States of the future life they believe the same but add Purgatory betwixt them to the day of Judgment We believe Baptism and the Lords Supper to be the Sacraments of the new Covenant they believe the same but add five more We believe Christ is spiritually and really present in the Lords Supper this they believe but add the unconceivable Tenent of his corporal presence In a word it might be instanced in many other particulars how they have driven us from their Communion by their additions to the truth and sincerity of the Gospel which they have adulterated by their Inventions and not only have they imposed all these things but thundered out Anathema's on all that question them and have so wreathed all their fopperies with that main and fundamental article of their belief of the infallibility of their Church that it is impossible to hope for their recovery till they renounce that Principle which is so dear to them For if their Church be infallible then in no matter of faith or practice can she decree amiss and therefore the lawfulness and sanctity of all her Decrees must be maintained with an equal vigor and zeal for if in one of them she step aside her infallibility is for ever gone And by this we may see to how little purpose it is to treat of accomodating matters with that Church since there is no possibility of our Union with them without we turn over entirely to them For they cannot part with one of their errors without they first renounce that which is the dearest of them all to wit the unerring authority of their Church How cruel then is that Church which addeth the severe sanction of an Anathema to all her decrees even about the most trifling matters and about things that are by their Confession of their own natures indifferent And a consectary to this is that cruel opinion they hold that none can be saved out of their Communion pretending there is no Salvation without the true Church which they restrict to those who are under the obedience of the Roman Bishop and this is what they usually frighten all with But it is to be considered what the true notion of the Church is that so we may see through this frightful Vizar The Church then is a Society of Christians united in the same faith for worshipping of God jointly And another definition of a Church cannot be proved from Scripture for the Church being called the Body of Christ its union with him as its Head is held forth by the Apostle in these words Col. 2.19 The head Christ from whom the whole body by joints and bonds having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God. From which words we see what constitutes a man a member of the true Church which is first his union to Christ as his head together with a dependance on him for growth and nutriture and next his being knit to all others who are thus united to Christ which is first the inward union of divine charity by which he loves all who cleave to Christ as their Head and next his associating himself with them in outward visible acts of worship which every Christian is bound to do with all that worship God in Spirit and Truth But if a Society of Christians do visibly swerve from Christ in many great and signal contradictions to the honour due to his Person and to the obedience due to his Laws and do grosly adulterate the worship so that communion cannot be had with that Church without departing from the Head Christ then it can be no departing from the Church to adhere to Christ and his true worship and to separate from the corruptions which are brought in upon the Christian Religion If then it appear that the Church of Rome hath departed from the truth and simplicity of the Gospel in so many great and main points those who attempted the reforming her to her first Purity and finding that not to be hoped for did unite among themselves for serving and worshipping God aright cannot be charged with separation from the true Church But by that cruel Tenent of theirs they breed up all their Children in the greatest uncharitableness imaginable condemning all who cannot believe their strange Doctrines or concur in their unhallowed worsh p. Thus they are the Schismaticks who have departed from the true Church and who force from their Communion all who adhere to it but this cruelty rests not in uncharitable censures but hath extended it self to as much bloody and barbarous rage as ever sprung from Hell for all the cruelty of the heathen Persecutors cannot match the practises of that Whore that hath been so often drunk with the blood of the Saints and of the Martyrs of Jesus What enraged cruelty appeared against the poor Waldenses for the separating from their Corruptions How many of all Sexes and Ages were cruelly butchered down by the procurement of the Rulers of that Church and because the Albigenses lived under the protection of Princes that favoured them how did the Popes depose their Princes and instigate other ambitious invaders to seize on their dominions Which to effectuate a Croissade was proclaimed that had been formerly practised against the Enemies of the Christian Faith and Heaven was promised to such as went against these poor innocents whereupon they were killed by thousands without all mercy Never was there any who had the zeal or honesty in these dark ages to witness against the apostacy of the Church but the Pope and Clergy used all means to get his zeal rewarded with a Faggot And when the time of Reformation came with what rage and spite did the Pope by his Letters and Legates instigate all the Princes of Europe to cruelty against them But as these things were not done in corners so they are still so fresh in our remembrance by the copious accounts we have of them that I need not tell what Arts the Popes and other Ecclesiasticks used to set all Germany on fire upon this account Nor need I tell the cruelty was exercised in the Netherlands in Charles the Fifth his time in which more than an hundred thousand are

and Jesuits and is a Doctrine dearly entertained in the Court of Rome to this day as appeared from the late Attempt of Pope Paul the Fifth upon Venice But the World is now a little wiser than to be carried away by these Arts and therefore that Pretence is laid to sleep till haply the Beast be healed of the Wound was given it at the Reformation But I cannot leave this Particular without my sad Regrates that too deep a tincture of this Spirit of Antichristianism is among many who pretend much aversion to it since the Doctrine of resisting Magistrates upon colours of Religion is so stiffly maintained and adhered to by many who pretend to be highly reformed tho this be one of the Characters of the scarlet-coloured Whore. But thus far have we gone through the second part of Antichrist's Character and have discovered too clear indications of a difformity to the Spirit and Truth of the Christian Religion in all the Branches of the Honour and Worship due to Jesus the only Mediator of the New Covenant From this I proceed to the third part of my Enquiry which is the Opposition made to the great Design of Christian Religion for elevating the Souls of Men into a participation of the Divine Nature whereby the Soul being inwardly purified and the outward Conversation regulated the World may be restored to its Primitive Innocence And Men admitted to an inward and intimate fellowship with their Maker The first step of this Renovation is Repentance for God commands Men every where to repent and Repentance and Remission of Sins are always united And this being an horrour at Sin upon the sense of its native deformity and contrariety to the Law of God which makes the Soul apprehend the hazard it hath incurred by it so as to study by all means possible to avoid it in all time coming nothing doth prepare the mind more for Faith in Christ and the study of a new Life than Repentance which must needs be previous to these But what Devices are found to enervate this Sins must be divided into Venial and Mortal the former deserving only some temporal Punishment and being easily expiated by some trifling piece of seeming Devotion and hereby many Sins are struck out of the Penitents consideration For who can have a great apprehension of that which is so slightly expiated And this may be extended to the easy Pardons given for acknowledged mortal Sins For he who thinks that God can be appeased for them with the saying by rote so many Prayers cannot possibly have deep apprehensions of their being either so displeasing to God or so odious in themselves But shall I to this add their asserting that a simple attrition which is a sorrow flowing from the consideration of any temporal Evil God hath brought upon the Sinner without any regard had either to the vileness of the Sin or the Offence done to God by it that is I say can suffice for justifying Sinners and qualifying them for the Sacrament whereby the necessity of Contrition and Sorrow flowing from the Principle of the Love of God is made only a high degree of Perfection but not indispensibly necessary In the next place all these Severities they enjoin for Penances do but tend to nourish the Life of Sin when Sinners see a Trade set up by which they can buy themselves off from the Wrath of God. To this is to be added the Doctrine of Indulgences which is so direct an opposition to Evangelical Repentance as if it had been contrived for dispossessing the World of the sense of it That which is next pressed in the Gospel for uniting the souls of Mankind to God is that noble ternary of Graces Faith Hope and Love by which the Soul rests in God by a holy affiance in him believing the Truth of his Gospel expecting the accomplishment of his Promises waiting for the full fruition of him and delighting in his glorious Perfections and Excellencies Now how much all this is shaken by these carnal and gross Conceptions the Roman Doctrine offers of God in their Image and Mass-worship and by their Idolatry to Saints is apparent Are they not taught to confind more in the Virgin or their Tutelar Saints than in the Holiest of all Doth not the fear of Purgatory damp the hopes of future blessedness And finally what impious Doctrine hath been publickly licensed and printed in that Church of the degrees of the love we owe to God Some blasphemously teaching that we are not at all bound to love him others mincing it so as if they were afraid of his being too much beloved In a word there is an impiety in the Morals of some of that Church particularly among the Disciples of Loyola beyond what was ever taught amongst the worst of the Heathen Philosophers which hath been fully discovered by some of the honester and more zealous of that Communion And though these Corruptions have not been avowed by the Head of that Church yet by their being publickly vented by the Deaf Ear he gives to all the Complaints against them and by the constant Caresses and Priviledges he heaps upon that Order which teacheth them he discovers either his great Satisfaction in that corrupt Doctrine or that upon the account of other interests he is content to betray the Souls of Christians into the corruption of such impious and ungodly Leaders since the Order that hath owned all these Corruptions is yet possessed of the Consciences of the greater part of them that own that Communion they being the universal Confessors And since they license the publick vending of so much corrupt Doctrine in printed Writings what reason have we to suspect their base compliance with Sins in their more secret and unknown Practisings with such poor deluded Souls as trust to their Conduct of which many proofs are brought by other of that same Church But I pursue my enquiry into the other traces of the Antichristian Corruption of the Purity and Power of our most Holy Faith Solemn Worship and secret Devotion are the great means of uniting Souls to God and of deriving the assistance of his Spirit and Grace to us but when these are performed in an unknown Tongue how uncapable are they of reaching that End And the Doctrine of the efficacy of the Sacraments for conveying of Grace by the Work wrought looks like a design against all serious preparation for the worthy receiving of them since by that Doctrine a Man be he never so ill prepared yet is sure of their efficacy for if his Priest absolve him and he have a simple Attrition for Sin without any thing of the Love of God he is by their Doctrine and Conduct qualified for receiving worthily were his Heart never so much united to Sin or averse from all Devotion or Application to Divine Matters And what Complaints shall be here made of these who teach that the sure way of gaining the Favour of God which they phrase by the Keys of