Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	church_n	communicate_v	communion_n	2,762	5	9.2903	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B09464	Animadversions on the defence of the answer to a paper, intituled The case of the dissenting Protestants of Ireland, in reference to a bill of indulgence from the exceptions made against it together with an answer to a peaceable & friendly address to the non-conformists written upon their desiring an act of toleration without the sacramental test.	Mac Bride, John.; Pullen, Tobias, 1648-1713. Defence of the ansvver to a paper intituled The case of the dissenting Protestants.	1697 (1697)	Wing M114; ESTC R180238	76,467	116

an establish't Church Answ We tell you that if the inconveniencies are sinless we are willing to suffer in and with an Establish't Church or tho' it were not Established by Law but if the inconveniencies be to our Consciences we must and will Dissent nor will our Charity bear with what is inconsistent with a good Conscience Such as found their separation from your Assemblys upon this that they find themselves more edified in Godliness and Piety by their own Meetings than yours ye confess your inability to find what reason they can ground upon this for a down-right separation and utter refusal of your Communion Answ Tho' our edification in Godliness is the great end of our joyning with any Assembly and where that may be best had Communion is there most eligible yet if we may be really edified in that Assembly whereof we are Members we allow not separation on pre●ence of better elsewhere no more than a Womans leaving her Husband to live with another for more pleasure and conveniency Yet Edification being the end of Church-Communion no wise men should condemn those who choose the best means for that end I suppose you make use of the best meat and medicines for preserving of your life and health and would take it ill 't is possible if Governors of Church or State should confine you to the quantity quality and time of your Diet which experience teaches you to be inconsistent with health and strength and why may not men be as much concern'd for their Souls as Bodies Dr. Stillingfleet Ire● page 109. in answer to a question disputed by Grotius to wit whether it be in a time when Churches are divided it be a Christians duty to communicate with either Party that divides the Church or to Communion from all of them the Dr. says that a Christian by virtue of his general obligation to Communion is bound to adhere to that Church which retains most of Evangelick purity in it Bramhall in his vindication of the Church of England page 7. cites Dr. Holden with approbation When there is a mutual division of two parts or member of the Mystical Body of the Church one from the other yet both retain Communion with the universal Church which for the most part springs from some doubtful opinion or less necessary part of Divine Worship whatsoever part you take you are no Schismatick because the universal Church hath condemn'd no part so that real experience of edification will warrant separation from these Assemblies where it is not found to these where it is found To such as plead for occasional Communion who do not utterly renounce your Communion but sometimes come to your publick Worship and receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper after your form your Question upon this is If occasional Communion be lawful why is constant unlawful Answ Altho I allow of no such amphibious creatures as a Non and Conformist appears to be because as a Neuter in the Common-Wealth nec amicum perit nec inimicum pellit so in Religion he is worse according to Christ's reasoning Luke 11. 23. yet if we distinguish occasional Communion in total and partial total I call a communicating in all Sermons Liturgy and Ceremonies for such I have nothing to say and will not judge other mens Servants but as for those who can and do occasionally hear such as are orthodox in the Faith and sober in their Conversation as they do not despise others so we do not judge them But as for most of us we are of your judgement as to such who communicate with you occasionally in all things according to the form prescribed if they see no sin in such conformity they are but fools to suffer for non conformity Having heard your Doctrine we come now to its Use in which you ingenuously discover your design which is either to perswade us to Conformity or disswade us from thoughts of a legal toleration As for your desire to know our aims and purposes in respest to an Act of Toleration tho we are not obliged to discover our thoughts to you yet finding you a plain-dealing man in telling yours we shall tell you ours by ingenuously answering your Quaeries distinctly To the first to wit Is it only to have the liberty of serving God in that way which you think to be b●st and thereby to be free of persecution and to go the readiest way to Heaven as ye suppose To this 1. We confess we sincerely desire liberty to serve God according to that perfect rule he hath given us which we firmly believe is the best way and safest both for you and us both 2. We desire by this not only to be freed from persecution but that ye may free your selves from the guilt and appearance of that evil 3. Having bodies as well as souls by which we are bound to glorify God and serve our King and Countrey as we shall be called or capable we desire that we be not deprived of or rendred unfit for enjoying our birth-right-privileges as free-born Subjects and persons professing the Reformed Christian Religion by yoking our Consciences to unlawful or suspected practices or insnaring Oaths But ye tell us If liberty to serve God the way we think best be all we desire why are we against the Sacramental Test by which we are made uncapable of any Office or Employment unless we Receive the Sacrament after the form prescribed by the Church of England if we be not content with liberty unless we have share in the Government and be made capable of Employments of Power Trust and Profit 't is apparent we design somewhat else than the Salvation of our souls and freedom from persecution Answ Tho Non-Conformists shou'd aim at more than the saving of their souls and freedom from persecution where is the great fault of it if we be guilty in this you are not innocent who we suppose aim at something more than these things I have already in the Animadversions shewn the inconsistency of the Test with the true interest of Ireland which the Ingenuous Author of the Remarks on the Affairs of Ireland c. hath well done but it seems you have low thoughts of Salvation who rate it lower than Employments of Trust and Profit upon Earth for that you seem to grant us liberty to seek but the other is too good for us and therefore you are either not in earnest in permitting us to seek the best way of Salvation or else you over-value earthly honour and profit while you would monopolize that to your party and deprive others of the ordinary means of subsisting and serving God and their Countrey To the 2d Question if it be our aim to lay a foundation for the overthrow of the Establish't Church and to get into our hands all Civil and Ecclesiastic Power which is already done by those of our perswasion in another Kingdom Ye confess ye were not wise if ye give us not all the opposition ye can

this reason he hath been oredibly informed that Dissenters in England were grown very insolent on the News of the Dissolution of the last Parl. and resolved to necessitate the Government to some larger Concessions to their Ministers A. Dissenters have little reason to expect a just account of their Actions from Bp's informers who have been so great a plague to them in England But tho' the Authority he makes use of were good his reasoning is bad for while the V. tells what hath been done for time past he resutes that History by a Prophecy in telling what they resolve to do tho' it 's hardly credible English Dissenters wou'd communicate their Intreagues to Episcopal Informers But time now can tell the World both the falshood of his History and Prophecy His unjust reflection on those he calls our Non-conforming Fathers in Q. Eliz. time as persons of restless Tempers who for meek Petitions proceeded to Admonitions then to Satyrical Remonstrances and thus threatned first the Bishops and then the Q. and Parl. evidenceth him to be of such a Spirit that neither Heaven nor the Graves of Godly Men do secure their Names from the venom of his tongue and pen yet we count it our honour to be Children of such Parents as many of those persecuted for Non-conformity were being Ornaments to their Nation for their Learning and Godliness And most opposite to the Character he and Walton unjustly gives them as their own Works and the best Historians of their time inform us The D. being as he says led by the V's method to consider the Reply's made to his Answer to the first Paper Had this reply to an Argument of his against granting any further favour to Dissenters then these several marks of Regal favour which they enjoy'd That it 's reasonable that the continuance of the same favour shou'd be secured to them by Law To this the D. rejoins that a Legal Security of the same favour is not deny'd them if they be pleas'd to accept of it with these Clauses and Restrictions that their equally deserving Brethren do now enjoy it in England A. If the favour which we now enjoy through His Majesty's Clemency should have these Restrictions added to it which our Brethren in England have annexed to theirs it wou'd not be the same we now have so far is he mistaken 2. We look upon the Restriction annexed to the Indulgence granted to the Dissenters in England neither sutable to the Rules of Christian Religion nor the true interest and safety of this Nation Not of the first for these reasons By this Sacramental Test which is annex'd to the Indulgence of England Dominion must be founded in grace for if Mens Right to their Civil Priviledges must depend upon their capacity to receive the Sacrament to the receiving whereof the Church in the order of the Communion requires true Repentance then it requires grace to capacitate them for Civil Rights and Priviledges and for want of true Repentance they must forfeit Imployments to which they have a Hereditary Right Which Notion hath been Condemn'd as Irrational and Irreligious yea Balaam's Ass Taught better Divinity when it said Master am not I thine Ass Acknowledging his Right tho' he had not grace It this principle shou'd once obtain its fatal consequence might possibly reach the Mitres 2. But what is yet worse this Test shall make a Ceremony viz. kneeling at the Sacrament the Condition of both State and Church Membership For if none but such as kneel at the Communion shall be admitted to share of these Priviledges to which as Christians and free born Subjects they have right the gate unto the Church-Militant is made straiter then that into the Church-Triumphant From which we hope Men will not be so uncharitable as to exclude all who do not kneel at the Sacrament seeing Christ and his Apostles used no such posture 3. This makes kneeling at the Sacrament Lord Paramount over all the rest of the Ceremonies by putting the keys of the Church door only into its hand and so it becomes the only evidence of saving grace when all that scruple it must be debar'd from the Sacrament as Prophane and these who bow to and kneel ●t the A●tar are the only holy 4. Not to kneel in receiving by this Test is made equally criminal with believing Transubstantiation the Idolatrous Worshipping of the Bread and all the abominations of the Mass with Papists and with denying and contemning both Ceremony and Substance with the Quakers whenas the same and no other punishment is inflicted upon Papists and Quakers than is upon Protestant Dissenters for refusing the same Test tho' we agree with them in the Doctrine of the Sacrament 5. To put Men upon this Dilemma is the tender mercy of the wicked and is to tempt Men to damn their S 〈…〉 preserve their Bodies And to give sacred things to dogs For if the persons have by Christ's Institution a right to the Sacrament by what Authority can Man debar them by their Inventions if they have none then these are not faithful Stewards of the Misteries of Christ who abuse them to serve their own secular ends 6. By this the Validity of the King's Commission must depend upon the Curates Certificate And so His Majesty must have a Conge Des Lire from the Clergy before he can give out his Commission for any Civil Office lest he lose his labour For the D. tells us plainly so much p. 27. that there are several Ecclesiastical Laws sti●l in force by which tho' Dissenters be not wholly unqualified for Admittance unto Civil Offices yet they are perfectly dis-enabled from continuing in them So that their present quiet enjoyment of Employments is not so much owing to their Legal Qualifications as to the Lenity and kindness of the Ecclesiastical Governors And so no Thanks to the King for the Dissenters Employments but to the good Lord Bishops It seems the Bishops of Rome are not the only pretenders to a Supremacy in Temporalitus As it is not consistent with the Piety so not with the interest of this Nation to impose unnecessary Tests and Ceremonies whereby men are frighted from coming to Plant in this kingdom when all wise men have thought fit to decoy Inhabitants by granting large Immunities and Priviledges By this policy the Roman Empire grew from small beginnings to be the Mistress of the World But to set up Scar-crows to fright any from coming to Plant and Trade in the Nation cannot be consistent with the wisdom of its Government And sure we are neither the Heads or Hands of Papists in Ireland are so few and despicable nor their friends abroad so weak or unwilling to help them that we should think Ireland over-stock't with Protestants to defendit which Ceremonies will never do for the Papists are better acquainted with them than to be terrified by them if another 1641 and another 1688 should recur And we may tell the World that the first Test contriv'd against