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
A59577	The things that make for peace delivered in a sermon preached before the right honourable the Lord Mayor, and the Court of Aldermen, at Guild-Hall-Chappel, upon the 23 of August, 1674 / by John Sharpe, D.D., now Lord Arch-bishop of York.	Sharp, John, 1645-1714.; Hooker, William, Sir, 1612-1697.	1691 (1691)	Wing S3004; ESTC R41707	19,125	33

a great way to the Cure of the sad Divisions that are among us And that I may discourse with more clearness and more evidence I shall deliver what I have to say in this matter by way of Propositions taking my Rise from the first Principle of Church-Society and so regularly ascending The first Proposition I lay down is this That every Christian upon the very account of his being so is a Member of the Church of Christ and is bound to joyn in External Communion with it where it can be had For the clearing of this you may be pleased to consider that the primary Design and Intention of our Saviour in his undertaking for us was not to save particular persons without respect to a Society but to gather to himself a Church out of Mankind to erect and form a Body Politick of which himself was the Head and particular Christians the Members and in this method through Obedience to his Laws and Government to bring men to Salvation And this is no more than what is the Sense and Language of the Holy Scriptures wherein whatever Christ is said to have done or suffered for Mankind he is said to have done for them not as scattered Individuals but as Incorporated into a Church Eph. 5. 25. Thus Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it Act. 20. 28. Christ redeemed the church with his own Blood Eph. 5. 23. Christ is the Saviour of his Body that is to say the Church with many passages of the like importance The plain Consequence from hence is that every person so far as he is a Christian so far he is a Member of the Church and by virtue of that Relation to the Church it is that he hath any Relation to Christ or any Title to the Priviledges of the Gospel And agreeably to this Notion it is very plain that Baptism which is by all acknowledged to be the Ceremony of Initiating us into Christianity is in Scripture declared to be the Rite whereby we are entred and admitted into the Church Thus St. Paul expresly tells us that by one Spirit we are all baptized into one Body 1 Cor. 12. 13. And again that Christ hath sanctisied that is to say Eph. 5. 26. separated his Church by the washing of Water and the Word Now then it being thus evident that every Christian as a Christian is a Member of that Body of Christ which we call the Church there will be little need of taking pains to prove that every such person is obliged to joyn in External Communion with the Church where he can do so for the very nature of this Church-membership doth imply it Without this neither the Ends of Church-Society nor the Benefits accruing to us therefrom can be attained First not the Ends of it The Ends of Church-Society are the more Solemn Worship of God and the publick Profession of our Religion and the mutual Edification one of another Now how these can be in any measure attained without associating together in publick Assemblies and mutual Offices and other Acts of External Communion with one another cannot any ways be imagined And as little in the second place can it be conceived how without this we can be made partakers of the Benefits and Priviledges that Christ hath made over to the Members of his Church For we are to consider that God hath so ordered the matter and without doubt for this very reason to unite us the more firmly in Society that the Priviledges of the Gospel such as Pardon of Sin and the Grace of the Holy Spirit are not ordinarily conveyed to us so immediately by God but that there must intervene the Ministry of Men. God's holy Word and Sacraments are the Chanels in which they are derived to us and those to whom he hath committed the Ministry of Reconciliation and the Power of the Keys are the Hands that must dispence them We have no promise of Spiritual Graces but by these means so that in order to the partaking of them there is an absolute necessity laid upon us of joyning and communicating with the Church It is true indeed God doth not so tie himself up to these means but that he can and will in some cases confer the Benefits of them without them as in case of a General Apostasie of the Church or of Persecution for Religion or of an unjust Excommunication or any other case where Communion with a true visible Church is denied to us But though God doth act extraordinarily in extraordinary cases where these means cannot be had yet this doth not at all diminish much less take away the necessity of making use of them when they can be had From what hath been descoursed on this first Proposition we may by the way gather these two things I only name them First How untrue their Position is that maintain that all our Obligation to Church-Communion doth arise from a voluntary admission of our selves into some particular Congregation and an explicit Promise or Ingagement to joyn with it in Church-Ordinances 2. How wildly and extravagantly they discourse that talk of a Christianity at large without relation to a Church or Communion with any Society of Christians The second Proposition is That every one is bound to joyn in Communion with the established National Church to which he belongs supposing there be nothing in the Terms of its Communion that renders it unlawful for him so to do For if we are bound to maintain Communion with the Catholick Church as I have before proved it is plain that we are bound to maintain Communion with that part of it within whose Verge the Divine Providence has cast us For we cannot communicate with the Catholick Church but by communicating with some Part of it and there is no communicating with any Part of it but that under which we live or where we have our Residence Well but it may be said that there may be several Distinct Churches in the place where we live There may be the fixed Regular Assemblies of the National Church and there may be separate Congregations both which are or pretend to be Parts of the Catholick Church so that it may be all one as to our communicating with that which of these we joyn with supposing we joyn but with one of them and consequently there is no necessity from that Principle that we should hold Communion with the Publick Assemblies of the National Church But as to this I desire it may be considered that That that lays an Obligation upon us to joyn in Communion with the Church to wit our being Members of that one Body of Christ doth also lay an Obligation upon us as much as in us lies to preserve the Vnity of that Body for this both the Fundamental Laws of Society and the express Precepts of Christianity do require of every Member But now to make a Rent in or separate from any Part of the Body of Christ with which

Hooker Mayor Jovis xxvii die Augusti 1674. Annoque Regni Regis CAROLI Secundi Angliae c. xxvi ORdered by this Court That Mr. Sharpe be desired to Print his Sermon Preached on Sunday last before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of this City at the Guild-Hall Chappel Wagstaffe Imprimatur Sept. 11. 1674. Guliel Wigan Rev. in Ch. Pat. ac Do. Do. Humf. Episc Lond. in Sac. Dom. The Things that make for Peace Delivered in a SERMON Preached before the Right Honourable THE Lord Mayor AND THE Court of ALDERMEN AT GVILD-HALL-CHAPPEL Upon the 23. of August 1674. By JOHN SHARPE D. D. now Lord Arch-Bishop of YORK The Second Editon LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1691. TO THE Right Honourable Sir WILLIAM HOOKER Lord Mayor OF LONDON And to the COURT of ALDERMEN Right Honourable THE following Discourse was never designed to go further than your own Chappel otherwise it had not been left so Imperfect But since you have thought fit to Order it should be more Publick it would ill become me who do in it so earnestly press Obedience to Superiours to dispute your Commands Such therefore as it is I humbly present it to you heartily wishing it may in some degree minister to the Promoting Peace and Unity and Brotherly Love among us which is the only thing therein aimed at by Right Honourable Your most Humble and Obedient Servant JOHN SHARPE ROM xiv 19. Let us therefore follow after the things that make for Peace THE Apostle's design in this Chapter is to perswade the Roman Christians to live Peaceably one with another notwithstanding all their different Perswasions in matters of Religion He doth not so much set himself to Resolve their Contraversies to determine which Side held the Truest Opinions as to Silence their Disputes to allay those Bitternesses and Animosities with which the several Parties prosecuted each other to oblige them to embrace one another in Christian Charity and though there could not be an Vnity of Judgment among them which certainly is a thing can never be expected mens apprehensions concerning things being necessarily almost as various as are their Tempers and Complexions yet nevertheless they should so order the matter that there might at least be an Vnity of Affection and an amicable communication one with another He represents to them that they had nothing to do to Judge or Censure their Brethren Ver. 4. seq for they were God's Servants and to Him only they stood or fell that though they were mistaken in their Notions as to the Points in Controversie yet nevertheless if what was done upon those mistaken Principles was done out of a pure heart and as in obedience to the Commands of God it would be accepted of him Ver. 13 14 15. He is so far from countenancing their Religious Quarrels that he adviseth even those that held the true side of the Question to submit for Peace sake and rather to recede from their right to forbear doing that which they might lawfully do than by undue use of their Liberty to cast a Stumbling-block before the weak uninstructed Dissenters and be a means of their forsaking Christianity Ver. 17. And the more to enforce this Discourse he assures them that however they might pretend Religion for their present differences yet in truth That was of all other things the least interessed in them They were much mistaken in the nature of it if they took it to consist in such small inconsiderable external things as they made the matter of their Dissensions Christianity was not much concerned whether they are such kind of Meats or whether they did not eat them whether they kept Sabbaths and New-Moons holy to the Lord or whether they esteemed every day alike That was a more inward and a more noble thing It was the hearty practice of Righteousness and Peace and Rejoycing to do good These were the things that made a man a Christian Ver. 18. and in These things faith the Apostle be that serveth Christ is indeed acceptable to God and approved of men And then at last from these several Particulars he draws this general Inference by way of Exhortation Let us therefore follow after the things that make for peace I have given you a brief account of the Apostle's discourse in this Chapter and I could heartily wish that I had no occasion to deal any further upon this Subject Happy were it for Christians if things were in that posture among them that they were no further concerned in these Discourses of Scripture than only to be instructed in the sense of them But alas whoever understands any thing of the state of Christianity now for these many Ages in the World will easily see that no one Point of our Religion has been in all times more necessary to be daily preached to be earnestly pressed to be loudly sounded in the ears of Christians than this of Peace and Love and mutual sufferance under their different apprehensions of Religion It has fared as one hath observed with Christianity in this matter Mr. Hales as it did with the Jewish Dispensation of old The great and principal Commandment which God gave the Jews and which as they themselves teach was the Foundation of all their Law was to worship the God of Israel and Him only to serve yet such was the sottishness and perverseness of that People that This was the Commandment that of all others they could never be obliged to keep but they were continually running a whoring after the Gods of the Nations notwithstanding all the various ways and methods that God made use of to reclaim them from that sin What the Worship of one God was to the Jews that Peace and Love and Vnity is to the Christians even the grand distinguishing Law and Character of their Profession and yet with sorrow and to our unspeakable confusion it may be spoken There is no Religion that ever was known in the World hath given Birth to so many Heresies hath been intituled to so many needless Disputes and Quarrels hath been crumbled into so many Sects and Parties hath been prosecuted by all the several Pretenders to it with so much heat and fury and implacable animosity hath been made the occasion of so much Tumult War and Bloodshed as this excellent this innocent and gall-less Religion of ours To go no further than our selves and the posture we stand in at this day if ever any Society of Christians could be obliged to live in Brotherly Love and Communion with one another we certainly are the Men. For besides the engagements of our Religion common to us with other Christians we have all the external advantages which a wise and well-temper'd Settlement of Church-affairs a mild and just Government and excellent Laws can give to the promoting thereof Religion is established among us in as great Purity as ever perhaps it was since the Apostles times The Government we

live under is neither so Lax as to defeat its own ends nor so Severe as to exercise Tyranny over our Consciences The Terms of our Communion are more large and moderate and easie to be submitted to by men of different Perswasions than any other Church-Society that I know of doth allow at this day And this is so acknowledged that there is scarce any of the several disagreeing Parties among us but next to their own Church would prefer Ours before all others The Doctrines that make up our publick Confession are expressed in such a latitude that they have been and are generally assented to by most of the Dissenters from us And that wherein We differ from others is not our adding to the Faith new and questionable Doctrines but our rejecting or not imposing their Innovations Our Publick Service hath not a Prayer in it but what any Christian in the World may lawfully say Amen to Our Ceremonies are but few and those very decent and unquestionably of Primitive Antiquity The Penalties which the Laws inflict upon those that separate from our Communion are so easie and so moderate that methinks Sober men should be ashamed to call them Persecutions and should rather sit down contentedly under them than by endeavouring or desiring any Alteration endanger the bringing the Church and possibly themselves into far greater inconveniences than those they now suffer In a word so excellent is the temper of our present Settlement that there is no Church in the World with which men of differing Perswasions may more safely communicate and under which even Dissenters if they be peaceable may live more happily than the Church of England But now how do we demean our selves under this happy Constitution of affairs What Fruits of the Gospel of Peace do we yield suitable to these great external Advantages One might rationally expect to see Religion in quite another Face among us than it hath in other parts of the World and that enjoying such excellent means of Peace and Vnity as we do and especially having sufficiently experienced the Miseries of Discord there should no such thing as Faction or Division he heard of among us but that we should All like Brethren Christianly joyn together with our Common Mother and in smaller matters bear with one anothers Weaknesses and Ignorances and Mistakes as doubtless God himself will and as the Church which is principally concern'd in many cases doth But alas the event doth too notoriously discover the contrary to all this and that to the shame of our selves and the reproach of our Church and the scandal of Religion and the rejoycing of our Enemies and the grief of all good men Never were our Differences higher our Oppositions one of another more violent our Schisms and Separations more numerous and more obstinate than they are at this day We dispute eternally we quarrel without grounds and without measure we stickle for every Trifle and are as much concerned for the propagating a silly Notion which might very well be let alone without our being a jot the worse Christians as if the Fundamentals of our Religion lay at stake We revile we reproach we bespatter one another and though we be extremely scrupulous in smaller matters yet we make no scruple of sacrificing charity and the Churches Peace to every humour and every passion And whilest we are zealous in the matter of an Opinion or a small Ceremony we often lose all sense of Religion and good Manners and even Humanity it self What the Consequences of these unreasonable and unchristian Feuds may be we know not I pray God they do not end either in a very great Corruption or a total Subversion of Christianity among us It was these sins if it be lawful to guess at the reasons of God's Judgments from outward Appearances that brought desolation upon those once flourishing Churches of Afric and Asia and who knows if they be obstinately persisted in but they may be an occasion of God's removing his Candlestick from us also And now is it not needful that every Christian should use his utmost endeavour to still that Spirit of Contention that is gone forth among us Is it not needful that every Son of Peace should bring some water to the quenching of our Flames Let me therefore this day take up St. Paul's exhortation to you let me beseech you let me conjure you if there be any Consolation in Christ if any Comfort of Love if any Fellowship of the Spirit if any Bowels and Mercies that now at length laying aside all bitterness and evil speaking all variance and emulation all needless Disputes and Contentions you would unanimously joyn together in following after the things that make for peace And that my Exhortation may be the more effectual to the purposes I intend it for I shall pursue it First by way of Direction Secondly by way of Motive First I shall reduce the Duty here enjoyned of following the things that make for peace to its particular Rules and Instances that you may know what is to be done by you in order to the performance of it Secondly I shall set before you the very great Engagements and Obligations that lie upon us to follow after the things that make for peace that you may be perswaded the more vigorously to set about it And both these things I shall manage as near as I can with respect to the present state and posture of Affairs among us and withal shall always remember that my business is not to prescribe Laws or Rules to my Superiors for their Carniage in these matters but only to represent the Duty that Christians of a private capacity do owe to the Publick and to one another As for the First thing which is to direct and instruct you in the performance of this Duty of following the things that make for peace you may be pleased to take notice That this Duty hath a twofold Object according to the two different Relations and Capacities in which we are to be considered to wit the Church our Mother and particular Christians our Brethren In the first Relation we are considered as Subjects in the second as Fellow Christians With respect to the former the Peace we are to pursue implies Obedience and Preservation of Communion in opposition to Schism and Separation With respect to the latter it implies mutual Love and Charity in opposition to Quarrels and Contentions My business therefore upon this first head is to shew what are the Particulars of our Duty what are the means that conduce to Peace in both these respects And first of all I begin with what is due from us to the Church in order to Peace as Peace stands in contradistinction to Schism And this Point I shall beg leave to discuss very freely and very particularly because I fear we have generally many false Nations about it and yet it is a matter of such consequence that I doubt not but the right understanding of it would go