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	society_n	2,901	5	9.2764	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50417	A sermon concerning unity & agreement preached at Carfax Church in Oxford, August 9, 1646 / by Iasper Maine ...	Mayne, Jasper, 1604-1672.	1647 (1647)	Wing M1477; ESTC R32062	36,818	45

Chap. proceeds by three conducible waies of Reconciliation At the 13. Ver. hee cleares himselfe from all interest and ingagement to a side and equally blaming those who said they were of Paul as those who said they were of Cephas or Apollos he askes them how it came to passe that they dealt with the Gospell of Christ which was entire and seamlesse like his Coat as the Souldiers did with his other Garments divided it by a kinde of blind Lottery among them and every one take his share Is Christ divided Saies he Was Paul crucified for you Or were ye baptized in the name of Paul If you were not why doe you raise a Sect and Faction from him VVhy doe you call your selves by way of marke and distinction Paulists And so turn the name of your Preacher and Apostle into the name of a Schisme and side Next as he well knew that the readyest way to reconcile all sides was to manifest himselfe to be of none so he well knew too that he that would knit and re-unite disagreeing mindes was not to deale roughly or magisterially with them for that were to lose both and to turne the enmity and hatred which they held between themselves upon the Reconciler who strived to make them friends but was to quench such discords with soft language and to cure such rents and wounds of the Church by pouring oyle into them Though therfore being armed with the authority of Christ himselfe he might with justice enough have made Decrees and Ordinances to bind them to agreement yet he rather chooseth to reconcile them to one another with their owne consents In a mild and humble addresse of himselfe therefore not entitling himselfe more to one side then anonher he equally beseecheth them all that he might the more regardfully be listned to by all And he beseecheth them for things which little concerned himselfe but for their owne good He petitions them that they would be saved and spends intreaties that they would vouchsafe to goe to heaven He requests them that they would not be worse Christians that is Schismatiques and Seperatists then they were Heathens that is unanimous Idolaters Lastly he begs of them that they would once more be a Church and City that is a place of communion and society and Christian conversation And that hee might the more prevailingly obtaine this of them he addresseth himselfe to them in a stile and compellation of the greatest and gentlest perswasion to peace that can bee used and calls them Brethren A word which to remove all opinion of better or worse or of inferiour or superiour the usuail grounds of discord not only signifies an equality between the beseecher and the beseeched and the besecched among themsevles For Esse Fratres est relatio inter aequales sayes the Lawyer as well as the Logician to be brethren carries a reference of equality to one another but it implies all the naturall and religious grounds for which men ought to maintaine League and Agreement and Peace with one another For in calling them Brethren he called them men of the same sociable kinde equally descended from the same common Originall and stock and equally wearing in their nature one and the same common Image of God And therefore for this they were not to disagree or quarrell with one another Since likenesse of kinde maintains agreement between savage beasts and Tygers Leonum feritas inter se non dimicat serpentum morsus non petunt serpentes Who ever heard of a Lyon devovred by a Lyon Or who ever heard of a Serpent stung by a Serpent much lesse should men then bite and devour and prey upon one another Againe in calling them Brethren besides the naturall affinity that was between them as men he put them in minde of their spirituall alliance as they were Christians too That is men allied to one another by one common Faith one common Hope one common Redemption and therefore to meet in one common bond of Peace and Charity too Rixari se invicem convitiis lacessere Infidelium est 'T is for Infidells and men not converted to the Faith to provoke or brawle or quarrell with one another Thirdly lest all this sweetnesse of addresse and language should not prevaile he joynes Conjuration to Petition but vailes it in the stile and forme of a Petition too and beseecheth them to unity by the name of his and their Lord Jesus Christ A name by which as he had before dispossest Devills cured sicknesses and restored the dead to life againe so he repuests that he may dispossesse opinions cure divisions and restore agreement by it too It being that name into which they were all baptized and to which they had all past their promises and vowes Lastly a name by which they were all to be saved and by which they by whose names to the blemish and disparagement of this they called themselves were with them equally to be called that is Christians Here then 't were much to be wisht that the Preachers of our times would deale with their disagreeing flocks as this Apostle dealt with his That is that they would imploy their holy and religious arts and endeavours by sweetnesse of language and indifferencie of behaviour to all parties to reconcile them For since it may be truly said of Preachers what was once said of Oratours that the people are the waters and they the windes that move them to be thus the windes to them as to speak and move and blow them into waves and billowes which shall roll and strike and dash and breake themselves against each other Or to be thus the windes to them as to rob them of their calme and to trouble the peacefull course and streame of things well setled and to raise a storme and tempest there where they should compose and allay one is not to act the part of an Apostle or of a Preacher of the Gospell but of an Erynnis or Fury who ascending from hell with a firebrand in her hand and snakes on her head scatters warres and strifes and hatreds and murthers and treasons and betrayings of one another as she passeth Every haire of her head hurld among the people becomes a sedition and serpent and every shaking of her Torch sets Villages and Towns and Cities and Kingdomes and Empires in a Combustion Alas my brethren how many such furies rather then Preachers have for some yeares walkt among us Men who speaking to the people in a whirle-winde and breathing nothing but pitcht-fields and sieges and slaughters of their Brethren doe professe no Sermon to be a Sermon which rends not the Rockes and the Mountaines before it forgetting that God rather dwells in still soft voices 'T is true indeed the Holy Ghost once assumed the shape of cloven Tongues of fire But that was not from thence to beget Incendiaries of the Church Teachers whose Doctrine should be cloven too and which should tend onely to divide their Congregations If I should aske