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	faith_n	infallible_a	1,453	5	9.5102	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44415	A sermon preach'd before the king at White-hall on the fifth of November, 1681 by George Hooper ...	Hooper, George, 1640-1727.	1682 (1682)	Wing H2706; ESTC R228742	12,526	28

Civil Power What was not her own she has given out of her Hands where she can't communicate yet there she will obey and where she can't obey she is ready to endure expecting her Reward in Heaven Not ignorant how much she suffers now from the Contradiction of disloyal Men for the Truth of this Doctrine and how much by its meekness she stands exposed to future Persecution yet she professes to know too that her Saviour's Kingdom is not of this World that the Rendezvous against a Prince is not protected by being in a Church turns not her Congregations into Armies That the Sword is joyned with the Keys and that Excommunication is armed with any civil Penalties It acknowledges to be from the Care and Authority of the Civil Government that thence it has its temporal Power over Subjects so far is it from assuming any over the Superiors themselves And tho parties seemingly opposite agree in the contrary Opinion we take not that for an Argument of its Truth equally detesting the Holy League of the one and the Solemn League of the other If the Caesar be Heathen and like him in the Text so far our Church obeyes If he professes the Faith and she finds him in her Assemblies she gives him as his own the supreme Direction and Guidance of ecclesiastick Affairs to settle its outward Policy and be its Moderator and Governour And yet gives not so much as to take away from the Ordination of God Her Ministers act under his Protection but in vertue of a Commission from above of an Authority spiritual and derived by other Hands So far hath the Church of England been from opposing or flattering the Civil Power neither exalting its self against the Prince nor the Prince against God in a constant Uniform Practice of this Rule of the Text Giving to Caesar what is Caesar 's and to God what is God's In the same temper and with the same impartiality she has endeavoured to reduce all things to their antient Limits and render to every one their Due Arrogates not to her self an Infallibility in her decrees but permits to every private Person to judge and Consider and yet authorises not a wanton giddy Spirit a Judgment without Discretion but advises the unlearned to attend to those that are over them Neither grosly to think they cannot err nor easily to think they do Keeps a mean between a blind Obedience an implicite Faith and betwixt a blind Disobedience a froward contemptuous rejecting of what a Congregation of God's People shall Decree She has restored to the People the one half of their Lord's Supper the Blood the Life of the Christian Sacrifice detained before by a sacrilegious Impropriation Directs to discern the Elements of the Communion from the corporal Substance of Christ and from common Food to receive them with Reverence but not with Adoration Renders into their Hands the Holy Scriptures intercepted by the Roman See Hides them not under the Cover of a strange Language nor in the Closets of the Doctors but sets them on a Candlestick that they which come in may see the Light Takes not from them the Word of God lest they should misenterpret it but labours that they may not Admonishes Interprets and Explains Le ts them understand their God speaking to them and themselves speaking to God returns them their Prayers in their own Tongue returns them I say For neither was it thought fit to depart from those old Forms of Supplication which God had been pleased to accept from Holy Men of the first Ages which had been Consecrated by the Mouths of the best Christians neither was it to be imagined that God was to be pleased with the variety of a new Phrase or surprised by an extempore Petition In like manner she prayes not to Saints but mentions their Names with Honour uses not the intercession of their Merits but thanks God for their Example And as the Substance of our Worship is not oppressed and overcharged with Ceremony and Circumstance so neither is it left neglected and unattended We wait upon our God with the whole Man in composure of Mind and Body And thus has the English Church rendered to every one their own purged from Superstition and free from Novelty reformed from Abuse and Corruption on all Hands it deservedly takes place of those of the last Ages and may be ranked with the first and best Centuries The primitive Christians if they could be supposed to return upon the Earth would profess our Faith for it is theirs and would certainly be of our Communion for here they would find their own Doctrine and their own Government An Universal Infallible Bishop they had never been acquainted with and of a Church without a Bishop they had never heard So stands our Church upon a Rock beaten upon by Waves on all sides and were the strength of its Adversaries only in their Arguments secure enough It stands firm and upright leans on neither side and by its Frame is in no danger of falling But the Malice of its Enemies is restless they assault openly and privately undermine no way left unattempted not by Men above nor by Hell beneath if they can't throw down they blow up And amidst all the Antichristian Variety of Ruine which the Contrivance of those of Rome has designed against this Church and Nation None so unlikely to be prevented so sure and speedy in the Execution so like themselves and of so Catholick a Destruction as that of this Day When the Invention of a Monk applied by the Malice of a Jesuite had well nigh gratified their Roman Master with the Wish of one of his Heathen Predecessors another vice-God and dispatcht a Nation at a Blow Neither have we had any Reason to think that the same sort of Men are now more quiet or grown more Merciful their frequent Disappointments may have only enraged them and the memory of this Day they are to blot out with the success of another They have always acted with the greatest Violence against this Kingdom and against this Church and for the same reason Our Country for it 's natural Strength great Riches and Courage of its Inhabitants is the firmest Support of the other Protestants and as soon as this Island were reduced the Conquest of the other Hereticks as they call us might be easie weak as they are and divided With the same Prospect are their Designs within this Kingdom levell'd against our Church as it stands here established That is their great and considerable Enemy A Church regularly founded by full Authority Temporal and Spiritual not tumultuously Collected It s Doctrine bottomed on the sure Basis of the Scripture Apostolical in its Government and its Ministers having on its side all that true Antiquity which they themselves vainly pretend A Church they are not able to reproach either with Novelty or Sedition whose Learning has been eminent to their Confusion and whose Interest by the Grace of God has yet been