Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	call_v	church_n	congregation_n	1,735	5	9.2238	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94750	A vvord of reproof to the priests or ministers, who boast of their ministery and ordinances, and yet live in pride, disdain, persecution, &c. Shevving what such are; and how little cause they have to exclaim against those who separate from them. As also a word to the papists discovering their foundation to be carnal and sandie. In a letter sent to some supposed priests or Jesuites in the north, by William Tomlinson.	Tomlinson, William.	1653 (1653)	Wing T1855; Thomason E691_9; ESTC R206966	29,084	49

tribulation To the rest of your Blasphemies I think I may not unfitly adde this as one that you call a building made of wood and stone the Church whereas the Church is the body of Christ Surely surely the very boyes and children will ere long deride your folly Your are so wedded to this name that if any call it by any other name you deride them though there be no reason why it should be called Church What! is it the Body of Christ Why will you continue to Blaspheme the name of Christ thus to call a dead house his Body for the Church is his Body Col. 1 18 24. See if you can any where finde a house of wood and stone called Church in Scripture If we call it Synagogue or high place or Idols Temple or Cage of every unclean and hatefull Bird we can better justifie these because we finde these names given to such like places in Scripture but these you abominate Or if we call it steeple-house or Pulpit-house from the form or adjunct yet these you cannot bear I would you would tell us what to call them inoffencively But I must tell you that if no name will serve you to call them by but that which is proper to the Body of Christ we must in indignation trample them under feet with the names which the Scripture hath given to such houses calling them Idols Temples high places and such like Some I know will frivolously answer and say It s not the place but the congregation which we call Church I say that 's an idle conceit for if that were so then the name Church should go along with the Congregation But that it doth not let the Congregation move all together if they will to any place yet the name Church moves not with it but rests upon that Idolized Temple and when none is in it yet it s called Church Again if you should call the Congregation the Church yet consider what you do for as I said the Church is the very Body of Christ acted by that Unction which is Christ even by the same spirit wherewith the person of the man Christ Jesus was acted Take heed how you call a company of people living in Humane inventions and traditions satisfying themselves with the bare name of Christians having their spirits in the earth I say take heed how you call these the Body of Christ A company of people acted by a spirit of persecution vain glory covetousness worldly mindedness and such like are these the Body of Christ acted by his spirit whenas they walk most contrary to it No no it s somewhat else to be a Christian It may be some will say true too many do walk so but all do not so some walk otherwise and they are the Church I answer I do not deny but that some there may be of the Church and not of that earthly Congregation though among them but these cannot give the Denomination of Church to the rest because they are not of them but onely among them as captive children in Babylon So that I say now if it were the Congregation it self and not the stone house which you call Church yet consider whether this would be free from Blasphemie if they shall be found the Synagogue of Satan These now are some of those things which may be said concerning you and your Ordinances both which you wil needs father on Christ crying them up for his Ordinances and your selves for his Ministers and more then this will the Lord in time discover both concerning you and others You have set up your selves as leaders and guides of the people but you have hardened their hearts against the fear of the Lord and so keep them from entering into the very beginnings of wisdom for the fear of the Lord is the entrance into wisdom how should it be expected that they should be moved to fear him when as you their teachers say and do not Do not you thereby teach them to live in sayings without doings and that without fear For by your examples you harden them in an hypocryticall form of words without doing the will of the Lord for how do you think that they should learn to do the will of the Lord from your mouthes who are not moved through his fear to do it your selves You stand in the way letting and hindering men from entring into the Kingdom and neither enter in your selves nor suffer those that are entering to go in so far as you can hinder If they had not you to rest upon they would be stirred up the sooner to look after truth The people themselves can say of you that some of you say well but you do not as you say This they see in the best of you but because of your examples set before them they rest in doing as you do sheltering themselves under your practise and disobedience although they see further Thus by hardening the people in their evil wayes you rob and spoil them of that Peace and rest and light and comfort which obedience to the Truth would lead them into And so for all your boasting of your ministery and Ordinances yet you do not thereby lead up any of the People to those high and noble ends for which gifts and ministery and the Ordinances of Christ were given namely to a conformity to Jesus Christ in this world and to that end were they given even to lead up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ Eph. 4.8 11 12 13. But how should you lead up further then you goe your selves Nay your ministery is so far from leading up to that conformity that the nearer any comes to it the more are your mouthes opened against them in your Pulpits So that you are of that spirit that sets it self in the Temple of God over mens consciences opposing and exalting it self above all that 's called God calling that delusion and fancie 2 Thes 2.4 Thus I have hitherto finished my Testimony against that mystery which is upheld by you which the Lord is untwisting In witness against which I have been kept back from among you and have suffered the losse of all things and do suffer and not onely I but many others This mystery of Humane inventions mixed with some appearances of Truth hath driven many into the Iland of Patmos of suffering for many years even all those Johns who have been faithfull to the Revelation of it communicated to them I for my own part thorow weakness and hardness of heart mine own and others have been made for sometime to sojourn in Zoar. But now beholding so great burnings arising upon Sodom I am made to depart out of Zoar also Behold there hath been a great Deluge upon the face of the Earth overtopping all things but some have been preserved as in an ark and now I see innocent Doves sent forth again for some have returned to see if the waters be abated from the tops of the mountains