Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	christian_a	church_n	religion_n	6,061	5	5.9249	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52041	A letter of spirituall advice written to Mr. Stephen Marshall in his sicknesse by one of his brethren in the clergy, Mart. I, M DC XLIII.	One of his brethren in the clergy.; Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655.	1643 (1643)	Wing M760; ESTC R26802	14,741	22

vertue that like charity it will cover a multitude of sins and so fit and necessary to be practiced that rather then omitted perjury it selfe should be swallowed I hope Master Marshall His Majesty hath beene misinformed and that I am to crave your pardon for laying to your charge this accusation Other things there are which though I hope you did dislike had no Active influence on them yet when you thinke sadly on I beleeve you will thinke must prove part of your charge As those bloudy tumults from the City whose pretence indeed was Justice and Liberty but hath beene the bane of both those printings and preachings of known lies and calumnies those revilings and proscribings of His Sacred Majesty those shamelesse mocking and upbraidings of Almighty God to his face and in his owne ordinance giving him thanks for forged victories or confessed losses the neglecting of all manner of Oathes even of that oath of your owne invention the Protestation which alone if it should rise up in Judgment against you what would become of you In a word whatsoever almost has beene spoken or done in order to your great designe that is the whole businesse of your brethren especially of the separation for these two last yeares I feare some share of the guilt of all this will cleave to you so that it will concerne you to advise how you may acquit your selfe of it For Mr Marshall can any Christian deny that all these things have not beene done And having beene done can any excuse be made for them And this being so how could it consist with a good conscience in you although you had no hand at all in any of these things to dissemble the taking notice of them Not once to preach publikely against them though you knew many of your chiefe Auditors were guilty of them Are you so tender harted that you cannot endure such sleight staines in the Church as the Surplice Letany or a few new postures c. and can you over-looke such abominations as these Can you find nothing against which to expresse your zeale but only peace or are you of that good opinion who openly maintain'd that for a holy end some evill things might be tolerated though S. Paul say of such as he their damnation is sure Could you admit so much secret Atheisme into your heart as to expect from designes built upon such rotten grounds and forwarded by such wicked arts that a good issue could follow I assure you for my selfe though I extreamly greived to see such things practiced so uncontrolably yea so kindly and thankfully received by Christians and though I was a long time solicitous of the ruine threatned to this Church yet since I could not chuse but see thē I began to be more secure both for Kingdome and Church since by all that I had either read or could informe my selfe concerning the course of Gods most wise and holy providence I could never find that in the end he ever crown'd with blessings the designes of persons that so shamefully dishonoured him how holy and spirituall so ever their pretences were The other great pretence for this warre is Religion Christian Religion I pray you thinke of that Master Marshall Zeale for the maintaining of this has wrested from you your selfe many eager and loud exhortations that men would stand resolutely for Gods truth that they would neither spare their purses nor lives in so holy a cause Are not you Sir one of those Godly Divines that have been consulted with as the whole Kingdome hath beene given to understand This is the almost only thing which is said to make this warre to be pium duellum But for the honour of our Blessed Saviour and his Religions sake Master Marshall I beseech you at least in this controversy search the Gospell diligently for that sure must only determine this point here needes no conjuring up of Fundamentall lawes of nature or Nations nor new unheard of Priviledges I say once more search the Gospell and if there appeare one word that gives you warrant to provoke Christians to any kind of warre for the cause of Religion which yet is the almost only Pulpit-cause I will confesse my selfe a desertour of Christ a betrayer of his Religion for not daring to flesh mens swords in this quarrell But in the Gospell I find that the weapons of our warfare are not carnall but spirituall I find that the Tares which grew among the wheat that is the Children of the wicked one Hereticks are forbidden to be pluck't up and destroyed before the time of Harvest I find that against the enemies and Persecutours of this Religion Christ Jesus has furnished us with no other weapons but defensive only and those patience or flight at the most I find that by such weapons and such only Christian Religion prevailed against the power of the whole Roman Empire I find not that any one of the antient Fathers taught or that without their teaching the primitive Christians made use of any other weapons but these or that they thought any other weapons lawfull You know what Tertullian speakes in his Apology viz that the Christians then though if they had thought the sword a lawfull instrument in this cause they wanted neither numbers nor power yet durst not betray their Consciences to secure their lives It is much to be doubted Sir that it is not superstitions or other imputed vanities which make such antient writers scorn'd or hated by your freinds both Separatists and Anabaptists so much as these vertues of patience and Christian obedience for which they are so famous and wherein you will not be their Schollers Now all this and a thousand arguments and reasons beside these which might be alleadged being apparent whereto may we attribute this your certainly not Christian Apostolicall way of maintaining true Religion but only to a confessed distrust in Gods providence or in his love unto his Church that men fearing lest God should not blesse those indeed only blessed meanes of suffering which heretofore when they were used were alwayes prospered by him have therefore cast aside this Spirituall armor and have betaken themselves to such as Mahomet and the Purple whore and the great master of both these the Divell that Abaddon and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} hath and doth make use of for destroying true and introducing false Religion If it were the truth of Christ that those of the separation or their new associates though indeed most mortall enemies the Anabaptistes have been so busy to advance Is it possible that with all their stratagems and darke counsells and prayers and fastings they should not to this day have obteined from God so much successe as to become the masters of one Kingdome City nor village excepting only that which they will be ashamed to brag of the City of munster Oh Sir How then will you answer it to Christ who will certainly in this case especially be a very severe