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	great_a	part_n	3,994	5	4.5007	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97109	The vanitie of the present churches, and vncertainty of their preaching, discovered. Wherein the pretended immediate teaching of the spirit, is denyed, and the all-sufficiency of the Scriptures teaching, is maintained. With, a new and true method of reading thereof, for the peace of the mind, and rule of life.	Walwyn, William, 1600-1681, attributed name.	1649 (1649)	Wing W693A; Thomason E1367_1; ESTC R210498	20,838	55

or reall Christian vertue and no marvaile For such as the tree is such ever will be the fruit they boast to have the Spirit of God you see it is but boasting or their own imagination only and in the mean time take the Scriptures for a dead Letter and either reject them or make them speak according to the spirit of their own Imaginations and so instead of being reall are at best but fantastick Christians uncertain if not false Teachers and such are their fruits The greatest part of their time wherein they should be imployed to feed the hungry cloath the naked or in visiting the fatherlesse widdow or in delivering the Captive and setting the oppressed free all which are workes so fully and plainly set forth in Scripture as most pleasing to God being spent in talking upon some hard texts of Scripture such are their Sermons or in disputes contests upon some nice difficult questions And this exercising themselvs there in week after week and day after day and in fastings and repetitions and in writing of these doubtfull Sermons is by them called a Religious exercise and those who can but attain to so much boldnesse and utterance as to speak and pray an howre two or three together take upon them and are reputed guifted Christians and principall religious persons when as many of them get good estates by so doing good benefices and others who make not a trade of it as many devout pastors do yet gaine so much credit thereby as doth much increase their Trades and advance their Custom and dealing in the world and now and then helps to a good round Office And whilst any of this strain of Christians may live in this kind of devotion twenty years preached for twenty or forty shillings a year and have the repute of a most religious knowing Christian from the testimony of the most grave learned and solemn pastors of all Congregations if but a part of their religious disbursments be spent upon them it is not to be wondered at that so few are found to serve God sincerely in the way of pure and undefiled Religion which would plume their Peacocks feathers and cost them more in one year then all their lip-service and Church-devotion doth many of them in their whole life-time Nay so impudent are many of these proud boasting Churches who glory to follow precisely the pattern shewed in the mount that contrary to all example of the Apostles and first Christians they can content themselves to be known usurers and those that are not such themselves can allow it in their fellow Members their Pastors Elders and Deacons can tolerate it and why not as well as for their pastors to take monies from such as are of lesse abilitie then themselves nay do not many of them spend the greatest part of their time either in making buying and selling of baubles and toyes such as serve only to furnish out the pride suxury and fantasticallnesse of the world yea view them well in their apparell from head to foote consider them in their dyet and usuall feastings in their furniture for their houses even in these sad and miserable times and then say whether their silks their fine and delicate linnen their Laces Beavers Plushes their Fancies Plate Rings and Jewells do not demonstrat from what roote they are that they are meere worldlings indeed and Christians only in name and tongue and not that neither if they are well observed For there are many amongst them for slandering and back-biting for circumvention and an hipocriticall carriage shall vie and compare with any sort of men in the world they can play the part of Spies Intelligencers plot and betray upon pretence of intimacy of endeared friendship and familiarity eat drink be merry with you day after day week after week for months yea for many years and after al professe boldly openly confidently before their Church to Neighbors friends or strangers that all this intimacy friendship familiarity was only and meerely to deceive and to discover what might be to mischief the parties with whom they held it shall we aske which of the Apostles was a slanderer a spy an Intelligencer a betrayer certainly none but Judas and the followers of Judas let them henceforth professe themselves at least let all that know them so account them unles they manifest their speedy true repentance for bringing such reproach ●o the profession of Christianity But what will such men stick at as have once dared to dissemble before God to call themselves Preachers and are not to gather Churches and to joyn and continue in the fellowship of meere mock-Churches that dare attempt the Ordinances with prophane hands without and before Commission given from above that dare pretend Commission and yet can shew no seale no letters of credit from Heaven that dare affirm their own opinions and Sermons to be the word of God and all this after admonition from such persons too as out of Conscience have seperated from them against whom also they persist to shoote their most sharp and poysoned Arrowes even bitter words false invectives lyes and slanders O therefore consider this all ye whose Consciences are yet sound amongst them or but a little taynted and see into what a wretched condition ye may be led before ye are aware there is no stop in wickednesse but a progresse from one degree of evill to another unlesse at first therefore stop in time and come out from amongst them least ye soone partake with them in their sinnes and neither approve nor connive at what you see and know to be against the judgment of your Consciences least in time you become as the worst and vilest of them Study the Scriptures that word of truth blesse God for them forsake them not for the vain traditions of men for the uncertain notions Doctrines and comments of pretended Preachers and be certain of this that you may as soone as they themselves come to a good and right understanding therein and that you may do so Read them with these Considerations That although whatsoever is written is written for our learning and that we have great cause to be thankfull to God for vouchsaffing us the knowledge of the severall wayes of his dispensations to man according to the severall times and ages which were from Adam which was the first unto the time of the descending of the holy spirit which was the last yet are we seriously to know that this last dispensation of the holy spirit is that which principally concerneth us rightly to understand and to apply to our selves both for our comfort and rule of life for unto this time and depensation doth our blessed Saviour himself referre us saying I will send you another Comforter he shall lead you into all truth he shall bring to remembrance the things that I have told you and he performed his promise effectually to the Apostles whose writings we have containing what the same spirit

THE VANITIE Of the present CHURCHES AND Vncertainty of their Preaching discovered WHEREIN The pretended immediate teaching of the Spirit is denyed and the all-sufficiency of the Scriptures teaching is maintained WITH A new and true Method of reading thereof for the peace of the mind and rule of life Gal. 6. 15. 16 For in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new Creature And as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them c. London Printed by J. Clows and are to be sold in Cornhill and Popes-Head-Alley 1649. To the Reader ALthough I dissent from some things in this Treatise and other things seème dark and doubtfull to me yet there are many plain clear and evident Truths of great use to all Christians Therefore that the Truth may be manifest to all And that all Believers and Churches of the Saints may be of one mind and may edifie the whole body in love And in all their Doctrines and Conversations hold forth the truth as it is contained in the written word the perfect rule of the spirit to guide us into all Truth and to make us wise unto Salvation through that one necessary thing Faith which is in Christ Jesus which is by the Gospel the power of God to salvation preached unto us And that errour may be discovered reproved and corrected and if possible that the guilty may be convinced and reformed Therefore I say to this Epistle and the ensuing Treatise February 23. 1648-49 Imprimatur THEODORE JENNINGS The vanity of the present Churches and uncertainty of their Preaching discovered c. AS there is nothing more cōmendable amongst men then a true correspondency between the heart the tongue the hand so no thing is more lovely amongst Christians then that the Conscience the profession and the practice do universally agree though somthing be allowable unto frailty yet when the defect or discord is continued and that to the reproach of Christianity in generall and to the prejudice of humane society then certainly a reproofe is not only requisite but the neglect thereof a sinne of an high nature And so those whom this discourse now deemeth worthy of reproofe did seeme to judge when they condemned the persecuting practices of the new raysed Presbyters whose positions and professions whilst they were persecuted by the Bishops did clearly hold forth a full and compleat liberty of Conscience in the exercise of Religion and justly and truly did the Independants reprove them as their many bookes of that Subject do sufficiently testifie their reproofes were sharp and their replyes driven home whereby they put the question of the utmost liberty of Conscience out of all question accompting nothing more base or mis-beseeming a Christian then to question or vex or reproach any man for his judgment or practice touching matters of Religion and inciting all men to peace unity love and true friendship though of never so many severall opinions or different wayes in Religion By which their ingenuity they as the Puritan Presbyter had done before them gained abundance of love and respect from all men their Congregations multiplied and in conclusion obtained much countenance from authority which they no sooner tasted but instantly some of them began to pride themselves and to dispise others and to reproach and villisie all such as upon tryall and examination of their Churches their Pastors and Sermons finding all to be but fained imitations nothing reall or substantiall forsooke their societies and thereupon as the Presbyters had used them so deale the Independant with these and all that any wayes adhered unto these raysing nick-names and bitter invective reproaches against them sparing neither art nor paines to make them odious to others and their lives if it were possible a burthen to themselves and though reasons have been offered and conferences desired that they might see their error and forbeare to deale thus contrary to their positive owned and declared principles yet have they persisted therein and go on still without ●easing manifesting a most destructive and persecuting disposition not only towards these but towards many others whom they now as compleat Judges of other mens Consciences judge to be erronious or heriticall and seeme to have placed their felicity in the ruine of those whom their own Consciences cannot deny to have been instrumentall in their preservations and who have not thought their lives too precious to purchase them that freedom which now they enjoy And therefore it hath been conceived not only just but of absolute necessity to publish to the judgments of all impartial people both of the Congregationall way and others this their hard measure and unthankful usage of a harmlesse well-meaning people and withall to discover to all those who are conscientious the error of their wayes and emptinesse of the things wherein they glory and to let all those who are wilfull or meere polititians amongst them beare their shame openly and since they are proofe against their Consciences and can take up and lay down principles professions and practices too as stands most with their advantage and like the Jewes in their worst estate make no reckoning of oppressing all that are not of their tribes it is but equall that such should bear their mark in their forehead that all men might be warned from conversing with such deceivers and if any tartnesse appear herein they are the occasion it being no more then they deserve And not only so but we have herein also indeavoured to support the weake and by establishing them upon the sure foundation of the written word of God inclining them to give eare thereunto as unto the only true infallible teacher of spirituall things in our times and by directing them in a brief and plain method in the reading thereof how to attain to that one necessary Doctrine and main design intended therein unto man for his temporall and eternall comfort To which end that we may neither seeme to wrong the one sort nor to delude the other and for full satisfaction of all that are or shall be concerned herein we affirm it to be most palpably evident That ye of the Independant Congregationall or of any Church-way whatsoever have not that true essentiall mark of a true Church to be found amongst you which only can distinguish the true from the false and without which a true Church cannot be A true Church in the Scripture sence being such only as wherein the very word of God is purely and infallibly preached that 's the mark Now though it have been usuall among you in your prayers to desire of God that your auditors may give eare to the word that you preach not as unto the word of a mortall man but as unto the word of the ever living God and this too with such solemn countenances lifted up eyes and earnestnesse of expression as if it were the sin of sinnes for men to doubt it Though this hath been your course

therefore and to distribute forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased whilst we have time and oppertunity let us do good unto all men Let us all strive to go on before another in love and let there be no other strife at all amongst us we wish with all our soules that all reproach despites and envyings amongst men might for ever cease and that difference in judgment may no longer occasion difference in affection there being in our apprehension no cause at all but that all men going in their severall wayes of serving God whether publique or private may neverthelesse be free to communicate in all civill Offices of love and true friendship and cordially joyne with any for a publique good but if notwithstanding all that hath been endeavoured or hath been said this Generation of congregationall men shall continue to puffe and swell through pride of heart to lift themselves up into the Chayre of the scornfull and as the man in Peters Chayre assume a power of life and death over all opinions and wayes not owned by them as if they were infallible judges of all controversies making no scruple of blasting mens good names and reputations or of undoing of whose Families thereby they must then expect to be told their own and be made appear to the world as they are not as they would be esteemed It being evident by what hath been said that although they have boasted themselvs to be rich and increased with goods and to have need of nothing yet they are as the luke-warm Church of Laodicea miserable wretched and poore and blind and naked and for all their bigg and swelling conceipts of parts of gifts of Saint-ship of the Spirit in effect pharisaically crying out Lord we thank thee we are not as other men nor as those poore Publicans that receive all their knowledge of Divine things from the Scriptures onely and are taught onely thereby Notwithstanding these bigg swelling words their Peacocks feathers being thus pluckt off you see and they will they nill they must also see that they must be content at last to shake hands even with those poore Publicans and acknowledge that they have no other infallible Teacher of Divine things but the Scriptures and that they partake no more of the Spirit then what that blessed Word of the Spirit planteth in them And if their consciences are awakened will be enforced to forsake their falling Churches unlesse for politique ends they shall stifle the power of these Truths within them chusing rather to perish in the rubbish then to seem to have bin so exceedingly mistaen which will prove an unpardonable error For however the best of men may erre yet they are the worst of men that persist in error after the discovery And therefore if there be any whose consciences shall be fully informed of the vanity of these Churches and yet for any ends shall continue to support the reputation of them let all such know that those who dare be so impious as to stop the continuall cry of their consciences must necessarily desire in their hearts there were no God whose Uicegerent Conscience is which is the most sad and dangerous conditon that man can fall into in this life And certainly they will find it far better to forsake their tottering immaginary structures confess their emptines sinfull imitation taking shame unto themselves and giving glory unto God whose name and power they have much diminished hy affirming those to be Churches which are not those Pastors and Preachers which are not those Saints which are not his blessed Word to be but a dead Letter that to be his Word which is but conjecturall Sermons and in censuring those to be erronious and carnall Christians who have more warrant for what they do then themselves And then by a more considerate ingenious and Christian-like carriage to make amends for the future which would very much rejoyce the herrts of all that love the Lord Jesus in sincerity whose Truth and Glory will be advanced by the Scriptures when all the roving wild and wandring immaginations of mens spirits shall vanish and come to nought FINIS Feb. 23. 1648-49 Imprimatur THEODORE JENNINGS