Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	body_n	church_n	unity_n	1,412	5	9.5035	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34096	An exhortation of the churches of Bohemia to the Church of England wherein is set forth the good of unity, order, discipline, and obedience in churches rightly now, or to be constituted : with a description premised of the order and discipline used in the churches of the Brethren of Bohemia / by J. Amos Commenius.	Comenius, Johann Amos, 1592-1670.	1661 (1661)	Wing C5507; ESTC R27266	107,538	185

enamoured me with the love 1. Of Unity especially that of the Church 2. Of Order especially in the Church 3. Of Settlement especially of the Church 4. Life and Vigour especially of the Church cannot but be in pursuit of those things with all my desires and having lost the less our Unity Order Bands Life I cannot but pray for the greater even the Unity Order Bands and Life of the whole people of Christendome in as much as Unity in the Community is far better then community in paucity I would some greater and more famous Church which is as a City set upon an hill Mat. 5.14 yea lifted up above the Hills Jos 2.2 would begin and set an example to the rest I mean of perfect co-implantation perfect Co-ordination perfect connexion and perfect reformation after the life of Christ as much as may be on this side heaven for in these doth the perfection beauty and salvation of the Church consist We ought to pray for the Unity of the Church because he which could not desire but that which was best even he who is our Saviour sanctifying himself to be a Sacrifice for us prayed for this and that with tears Father I sanctifie my self for these that they also may be sanctified in thy Truth Joh. 17.19 even all that shall believe in me 20. That they all may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee and that they may be One in Vs 21. I have given them the glory which thou gavest to me that they may be One even as also We are One 22. I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in One and the world may know that thou hast sent me 23. Alas Christians be afraid having lost Unity we have lost that whereby the world should know that we are God's people and that Christ was sent of the Father to be the Saviour of the world had we kept this we might have gained a thousand worlds O then that yet yet we may return unto Unity that the world may know c. But what Unity do you desire Even that which the Apostles began by the Command and Example of Christ under whom the Church was one Heart and one Soul Acts 4.32 i. e. there was no study to make and maintain parties but the same sentiment and consent in all and the same designe of common edification as among the members of the same body O that God would please so to give to us one heart and one soul that all the Pastors with their several Flocks and all the Flocks with their several Pastors the whole Clergie among themselves and the people among themselves all the Rulers with their subjects and subjects with their Rulers and every Church with it self and all the Churches of the same Kingdom and Province within themselves may all be but one body and one soul Open but your eyes O Christians how without Unity there is in the very foundation of the whole Fabrick of the Church no strength at all but all to tumble and running to ruine In all things Natural Artificial and Moral the only Base of Peace and Prosperity is Unity unto which all things first and last above and below on the right and left hand must be so reduced that if one goes all go In such a frame hath God made the world and all and every thing in the world to wit the body of every living creature yea and every Plant too hanging together still with certain ligaments in every part To the like form of necessity must all humane Society and the Church also be reduced because where ever multitude is there is confusion unless that multitude by vertue of Order be brought to an Unity break but Unity it 's unpossible but that the multitude should fall in pieces and so to ruine For it cannot be otherwise but that plurality not united together with the band of Union must come to division and from division to contention and from contention to confusion 2. But Unity is not enough for the full safety of the Church and therefore Order must be added because the Church is not a Body made up of Similar parts all of like nature and name with themselves and the whole as an heap of Sand or a stack of Wood or a flock of Sheep or the body of a Snail where 't is not enough that the parts are together but such as consists of divers members of distinct places scituations forms and offices as we see in a House City Army and the Humane body where every thing the top and the bottome the end and the end the middle and the middle according to their degree contains it self in its own place and acts what it hath in special charge in its own sphere and it must be thus or else all is in a despairing case But what Order do we wish in the Churches Such again as Christ hath instituted and the Apostles observed viz. That there should be some to govern and go before and some to follow and obey in a legitimate subordination of the lowest to the highest and especially that every one abide in the Calling wherewith he is called not forsaking his station nor intrenching upon anothers 1 Cor. 7 17. Christ hath set us an example herein who executing the Office of a Prophet in his life of a Priest in his death and of a King in heaven whilst he was yet in the exercise of his Prophetical Office and they would make him a King he declined it John 6.15 they would have him take upon him to distribute outward possessions he refused it Luke 12.14 and he commanded the like to his Apostles not to intermeddle with secular affairs Luke 22.26 It is then confusion in the Church when persons called to Ecclesiastical Offices shall entangle themselves in Civil Ministrations Possessions Dominions Judgments Wars or contrariwise hereto Of the former way of confusion all see a plain instance in the Papacy where Church-men having gotten into their hands the power of both swords exercise Spiritual and Secular Government Of the latter they which are any thing well-sighted may see it true in part of the Reformed Churches where those of the Civil Power have forced away the power of the Spiritual Sword out of the hands of the Pastors of the Church and do not indulge them the exercise hereof To this purpose Olevian that godly Divine hath an observation which gives me occasion to give a seasonable and useful warning to the Church of God and indeed such is the abominableness and mischief of the danger I would give warning of that a kinde of necessity is laid upon me so that I must speak Thus Olevian as before Hist Ps 53. § 115. When I behold the sad face of the Reformed Churches in Germany plainly I am all over set in a trembling I perceive Secular Powers have been the Accommodations of the Church but now in many places they are turned into Dominations and they Lord

and the third Government and the abuses and scandals of each of them hereupon may be taken away I answer Physitians will not think that there be any diseases of the body incurable if there be a skilful Physitian at hand timely to relieve Nature therefore neither let Christians despair as to the diseases of the Church provided only that the counsel of the heavenly Arch-Physitian be hearkned to and taken they advise to care and caution that the disease get not a head by long continuance crying withstand the Beginnings but our High-all-Healer is able to cure even the most inveterate by reducing things to their beginnings Matth. 19.8 by vertue of which Rule Let that be taken away from Episcopacy which was not in the beginning and the Disease is cured But what is that 1. Secular Domination 2. Earthly Riches 3. Pomp of Ceremonies for Christ hath said 1. Kings exercise Lordship c. But you shall not be so Luk. 22.25 2. Possess not you gold nor silver nor money in your purses nor have you two coats Matth. 19.9 As also God forbad earthly Possessions should be assigned to the Priests in the old Testament giving the reason also I will be their portion and inheritance Numb 18.20 Deut. 10.9 18.2 3. Christ also taught them to serve God in Spirit and Truth not in Ceremonies John 4.23 which thing the Apostles very much pressed But they assert themselves in respect of their Wealth and Domination by the Donation of Constantine He adorned the Church with such splendour for the honour of Christ and therein set a good example of holy zeal for other Christian Kings to follow But the answer hereunto is manifold 1. Do they not know can they not tell the story of a voice which as at this time was heard This day is poyson poured out into the Church What-ever any may make of the voice the thing is certain That those endowments being given and accepted beside the Will of God turned unto poyson Let the poyson then be taken out and the Church will be well again 2. Again Grant it were Constantine's pious zeal yet 't is evident that it was not according to knowledge for it was not lawful for him to dispense with the Interdict of God much less ought the Servants of Christ to admit such things against their Lord's Will Naaman the Syrian in pious zeal offered Elizeus money but with better zeal he refused this Lumber Gehezi took it but it turned unto Leprosie upon him 2 Kin. 5. I would the servants not of Elizeus but of Christ would at this time but understand what a foolish choice they have made of an earthly instead of an heavenly inheritance and would begin to think of some course to cleanse the Church of this Leprosie 3. I answer Constantine could not foresee the abuse of this Donation and the mischief that thereby would fall upon the Church Now the whole world sees it and if he were risen again and should see it undoubtedly his desire to restore the Church to her integrity would put him upon it to retract what he gave with a better good will then ever he gave it As haply Moses himself would have broken the Brazen Serpent if he had seen how it would be abused as when he saw the Idolatry of the people he brake the two Tables of the Law written with God's own hand and in as much as Hezekiah coming after him did it piously as it were for him 2 King 18.4 why may not godly Kings at this day piously also retract the liberal donations of their pious Ancestors now perverted by abominable abuses and improve them to better purposes As for the pomp of Church Ceremonies God indeed in the old way of Worship ordained such a thing therein by shaddows to set forth the spiritual mysteries of salvation which Christ at his coming was to disclose but seeing that since the coming of Christ they have been demolished and levelled by so many Apostolical strains as claps of thunder and flashes of lightning directed against them why should we bring them up again still to make use of them Under the Papacy perhaps where the light of the Gospel is once obscured by and in the barbarous generations they may have seemed or seem to be of some use at least with some colourable pretence but in a Reformed Church I beseech you what use can be made of them Those which have been hitherto retained in England under the Reformed Bishops have not the very Pontificians themselves laughed at them unto scorn and derision It is plain to be seen in that Edward Weston's Theater of Life Civil and Sacred Printed at Antwerp 1626. p. 564. c. where having said that the Religion of the Protestants is without all Religion because they have no Sacrifice Priesthood nor Sacred Ceremonies he adds Some Protestants indeed that they may not appear absolutely impious and irreligious use our Missal and Breviary selecting what they please thereof for the Rubrick of their Liturgie and to make the Form of their worship appear the more goodly they have their Canonical persons forsooth and their Arch-DeaconS and so after the mode and custome of the Church of Rome their Caps and Hoods and Holidayes and such like stuff and lumber which they say they found in the Synagogue of Antichrist By which very thing it is apparent that the Religion of the Protestants stands guilty of stealth and robbery by which it first came into the world or if they will not be taken for thieves let them still go for our Apes and Antichrists c. and so he goes on These with all their whole service are derided and scorned not only by ours but also by their own c. at last he set down the judgement of one to this purpose The English seem to have driven the Pope out of their Kingdom in such haste that they compelled him to leave his clothes behinde him which they as fools in a play put on with a kinde of pompous Ceremony of triumph and so lead their Quite O how we are abused by their dallying and colloguing they being Reformed but not to any purpose A goodly Reformation it is that they dare not carry it through It will therefore be a glorious thing for the Reformed Churches to come back to the practise of Christ and his Apostles leaving off the baubles of earthly riches honours and pomp both Ecclesiastical and Civil to be taken up look after and busie themselves about matters of an higher nature Seek the things that are above saith the Apostle where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God Set your affections upon and let your care be for things above not things on the earth for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God Col. 3.1 2 3. which if it be enjoyned all Christians much more them which are set next under Christ to be leaders unto others from earth to heaven and to whom the King of