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	communion_n	universal_a	2,106	5	9.1629	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56029	Proposals for a national reformation of manners humbly offered to the consideration of our magistrates & clergy : to which is added, I. the instrument for reformation : II. an account of several murders, &c. and particularly a bloody slaughter-house discover'd in Rosemary-lane ... : as also the black roll, containing the names and crimes of several hundreds persons, who have been prosecuted by the society, for whoring, drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, &c. / published by the Society for Reformation.	Societies for the Reformation of Manners.	1694 (1694)	Wing P3725; ESTC R4427	27,307	37

the Gospel was so greatly preserved amongst the Primitive Churches and whereby so venerable an Esteem unto Piety was begat and nourished in the Heathens themselves beholding the Order Love Peace Vnion and Communion of the Professors of Religion in those days and that which is become one great Article of our Faith The Communion of Saints how greatly is it misunderstood by the generality of nominal Christians an Universal Decay of Religion amongst us hath caused so little Conscience to be made of frequenting the Publick Assemblies and Prayers of the Church Yet suppose all this were duly and regularly performed how little Communion hath one Christian with another in their Bodily Presence assembling together as if to see each others Faces once a week or month within the Church-walls and keeping altogether at adistance from one another as to Soul Converse What strange Communion of Saints is this when those Visits which are given tend but rather to promote greater Licentiousness and Vanity of Mind and Idle Talk nay amongst many of the Chief Professors also or at best tend to no greater good than to a How do ye and What News Or if there be an intimacy of Acquaintance the unprofitable Discourses are interlaid with some fattening Provision for the Belly c. Though Leanness is enter'd into the Soul and Rottenness in the very Heart Psal 12.1 Help Lord for the godly man ceaseth the faithful fail from amongst the children of men they speak vanity every one with his neighbour with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak These and many such symptoms like grey Hairs are not the things chiefly intended to be mentioned with reference unto the National Reformation which to rectifie must be the immediate Work of God and his Spirit in its pourings out hereafter expected but they are thus represented before us to convince how greatly our whole Head is sick and our Heart faint The same Complaint which Isaiah makes against Judah and Jerusalem even under that Divine Service in their Temple-Worship and also under the Government of pious Jotham of whom it is said That he prepared his ways before the Lord and did that which was right in his sight 2 Chron. 27. On the other hand if we cast our Eye on the looser sort of Professors or Baptized Christians of a more publick and scandalous life in our Nation or within this City what shall we say Are not all their places full of Vomit What Scornings and contemptible Derisions against the Holy Spirit and its Quicknings Illuminations Convictions Woundings Conversions Sealings c. do they profanely manifest What Revilings do they cast with all the Odium and Backbitings they are able upon Religion it self and every thing that looks like Sobriety and Godliness What a Spirit of Bitterness Gall and Wormwood is there in them against the faint Shadows of Practical Holiness or Reformation With what Reluctancy do they set themselves to oppose it in every part or beginning of it If possible to stifle the very empty Sound thereof The Name of REFORMATION is become almost as dreadful as the sound of that Drum made of a victorious Barbarian's Skin c. These sort of Men had rather have the Devil and his Vicegerents if in human shape to Rule in the high places of the Earth than any Potentate that shall heartily endeavour to reclaim the Reign of Vice and Debauchery throughout their Dominions Swearing Cursing Drunkenness Revilings Lasciviousness Whoredoms Riot Gluttony Blasphemies Gamestring and such-like Wickednesses are not only their daily Practice but that for which they plead earnestly and use all their Endeavour to corrupt the Age wherein they live into a like of and compliance with all these Wickednesses As if God had deliver'd these Three Kingdoms from the desolating Judgments that hanged over our Heads on purpose that they might commit all these Abominations and proceed from Evil to Evil growing worse and worse and corrupting themselves more and more As if God had given Them over to a Reprobate Mind with those Vnthankful Romans for their monstrous Ingratitude unto GOD to say nothing of the Blessed Instrument of our Deliverance c. that Augean Stable from whence such a multitude of Serpentine Hydra's breed Rom. 1. from ver 21. to the end And as this is now become an epidemical Disease and a Contagion universally overspreading it self so we have reason to believe that God expects from us all a National Reformation before his Anger be pacified towards us Otherwise we may conclude that Tyre and Zid●n Nineveh yea Sodom and Gomorrah who never were partakers of our extraordinary Mercies and Deliverances will rise up in judgment against this Land and City And we shall certainly without Repentance meet with a more fiery Judgment and fearful Indignation than what befel them who never sinned against that Gospel Grace Light and Love nor yet against the many Warnings and Threatnings which we have done God hath once more of late spoken aloud to all sorts amongst us from the highest to the lowest throughout this Land and in a special manner to this City by shaking the Earth and the Sea but are we made broken and contrite in spirit thereby Have we not rather hardned our selves more and more since that Angry voice Hath that dreadful EARTHQUAKE in Jamaica a few months ago which swallowed up so many hundreds alive c. unsetled us and shook us off from our Lees Or hath that Tremendous Desolation rather perswaded us that We are not so great Sinners as They were foolishly concluding That they on whom the Tower of Shilo fell had sinned to a higher degree than others Our Saviour tells us Nay but except we repent we shall all in like manner perish Which God Almighty of his great Goodness prevent and give us all true Repentance lest a seven times worse Calamity befall our Land No Reflections are hereby intended to be made against any Person or Persons who Rule in the Civil or Ecclesiastical Orbs of Government As on the one hand we have great reason to bless God that in this day there are several who do Worthily in our Ephrata and deserve Double Honour particularly His GRACE the Most Reverend ARCHBISHOP of Canterbury and several of the Right Reverend BISHOPS together with other Persons of Quality acting in any other publick Sphere ALL whose re●oycing we doubt not but it would be more and more to see Piety flourish and Vice Debauchery and Prophaneness decay and wither throughout this City and these Kingdoms So likewise on the other hand we have great ground for much Grief and Lamentation to consider how little Their Personol and Relative Goodness and Vertues are of Influence so as thereby to effect an Vniversal or National Reformation without some other measures to put a stop unto that wide Floodgate of Atheistical Vice and Prophaneness which like the Poet's Dust from Pandora's Box hath so overspread all Places and Persons for the generality thereof as with an

fear that after all his infinite goodness and patience abused will turn into fury against us and that his anger for all this will not turn away from us unless we bring forth such fruits as are meet for repentance you have I known of all families of the earth therefore will I punish you for your iniquities that is to say unless you bring forth the Publick or National fruits for these National mercies I have shewn you from time to time But what shall we all say who will plead for us or mollify and bind up our wounds What cause have we to fear least our iniquity is marked out before the Lord O how dreadful it is to relate our deplorable case Where are the Mourners Would to God England England more especially could weep day and night and be in bitterness of grief and that all our eyes might send forth streams like many Rivers and make our barren unfruitfull Earth a Bochim We have been planted a noble Vine a Vineyard of God's own watering and defence from Age to Age But how have we degenerated into the Plant of a strange Vine even since our late miraculous EXODUS Have we not brought forth Apples of Sodom and sour Grapes of Gomorah Thorns and Thistles instead of Figs What monstrous ingratitude and forgetfulness of all our eminent mercies What high discontents complaints murmurings seditions blasphemies yea and Rebellions against the LORD himself We are looking unto Egypt again as it were in contempt of the most high God who hath wrought out our great salvation and appointing us a King under whom to return back into greater bondage and misery than what was felt under the Iron Furnace from whence we came forth Plenty of heavenly Manna we have now scattered round our Tents but do we not loath it and are we not always filled with complaints and sinful reflections on God himself The History of the Jews in the Wilderness exactly resembles us at this day Are we not a generation of backsliders presumptuous and self-willed people And have we not turned the grace and love of God who hath redeemed us out of the house of Bondage into sinful wantonness Are we not Jeshuron like and do we not kick against the Lord Do we not harden our selves against the Almighty and set up our Thorns and Bryers to oppose him in the footsteps of those eminent Providences wherein he hath been walking in the midst of us in an extraordinary manner and waiting on us to compleat our deliverance whither we desire to be saved or no But instead of a thorough amendment of our ways and turning to our provoked Father who in this gentle manner warns us out of his tender love because he is loath to destroy us not so much for our sakes as for his own Glory and the honour of his great Name least that should be profaned by the adversaries of the Gospel the Heathen who are called by his name as Amos 12.9 yet instead of returning unto God with our whole heart and soul May it not be taken up for a lamentation against us that we grow worse and worse and have sinned as we could and have hardened our selves yet more and more against the many judgments and mercies wherewith God hath been dealing with us from time to time May it not be complained of against our Christian Judah and Jerusalem as of old the Prophet did against the Church of the Jews under their great Degeneracy viz. That Prophaneness is gone forth through the whole Land Look we on Professors in general How do the Vitals of Religion languish What Wounds hath She received even amongst Her Friends Universal Corruption and Degeneracy overspread the Church even in this Age altogether as much as in Jeremiah's days The Prophet was in a great strait what to do and whither or no he had not best withdraw himself and leave them Jer. 9.1 2 3 4 5 6. O that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night O that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men that I might leave my people and go from them for they be all adulterers an assembly of treacherous men They bend their tongue like their bow for lies they are not valiant for the truth Take ye heed every one of his neighbour and trust ye not in any brother for every brother will utterly supplant and every neighbor will walk with slanders They will deceive every one his neighbor and will not speak the truth c. Compared with Micah 7.4 5 6. The best of them is as a bryar the most upright is sharper than a thorn-hedge Trust ye not in a friend c. Is not the quickning illuminating converting sanctifying Presence of the Spirit driven away from us How many Hundred Sermons are preached and not one Soul turned from the power of Sin and Satan unto God even throughout the whole Land nay throughout this professing City Several indeed are thereby brought into this and the other Party or Sect and espoused to Opinions c. especially of those who were the Means of awakening their benumbed Consciences into a serious frame taking up with their External Way or Mode of Religion as in a most safe Sanctuary when Strangers perhaps to the Foundation-Principles of true Godliness and almost totally negligent of the true Power and Practice of Christianity Hence so many are of Paul and of Cephas and Apollos and hence such vain offensive wranglings and scandalous janglings in Matters of lesser moment whilst Religion hereby hath received almost her mortal Wound at the Heart with respect to the pure and holy Principles thereof or that practical Piety wherein all true Christians are agreed and Her languishing Vitals are in a manner giving up the Ghost And the Spirit of God being hereby grieved and vexed and quenched hath in a great measure left us to our own distemper'd Minds and a Spirit of Giddiness hath seized many Heads and we may read ICHABOD on the Doors of almost all our Churches and Assemblies whether publick or more private and The Glory of God is departed from us Little is left us besides the Mantle of Elijah and that also much rent like the Vail of the Wounded Spouse Cant. 5. ver 7. And were it not for the Common Gifts and Graces of the Spirit the external Form of Godliness would in a great measure vanish out of our sight And instead of the Presence of the Angel moving the Waters of the Sanctuary hath not a great smonk filled the Temple Isa 6.4 compared with Apoc. 15.8 And are not the Word and Sacraments Sabbaths and Ordinances c. become to many God forbid it should be to All we now speak only of the generality of Degenerate Professors the savour of Death unto Death And are we not daily growing worse and worse That holy and honourable Communion of Saints wherein the brightness of true Christianity in the encreasing lustre of