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	member_n	visible_a	6,329	5	9.5436	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44218	A modest plea for the Church of England by Richard Hollingworth ...	Hollingworth, Richard, 1607-1656.	1676 (1676)	Wing H2495; ESTC R7010	76,028	182

them to consider that when they come to take a view of what they have done they will find the money they received is the price of bloud and that they sell those for whom Christ died and must be accountable at the Last day not only for their own Sin but for that very Sin of Perjury the vicious Priest is guilty of for he that invites a man to a sin is reckoned as if he had committed the sin himself And further I offer to these mens considerations that unspeakable discouragement which by so doing they give to learning and those worthy improvements which render men really and indeed useful to the Church and the Interest of immortal Souls when Dunces who have more Money than Honesty or Learning shall climb into the best Preferments and men of Parts and Principles who by pains and study have run through and well digested all necessary Arts and Sciences must be forced to sit down contented with allowances every way disproportioned to and below their manifest deserts and worth And if there be not some further remedy found out against this distemper we may well expect in a short time to see the Church in a more forlorn and despicable condition than now it is which God of his goodness prevent For I cannot forbear reasserting this that the Church and State are so necessarily helpful to one another that they will live and die together 6. This Church receives no small injury from the careless and remiss attendance of many of her professed admirers upon her publick Devotions and Instructions And though I do not think that Religion lays any obligation upon her Children to hear a Sermon every day of the week nor to esteem that time lost and vainly spent in which we are not upon our knees in prayer yet this I am sure of that we are obliged to attend if not reasonably prevented upon all those Ordinances which the Church hath enjoyned us and to omit them is to violate our obligations to that Authority to which we have vowed and professed subjection And if we consider well we shall find that not only the necessity of our Souls which by often and dutiful approaches to God in publick prayer are preserved in a warm and vigorous sense of God and so consequently made more fearful of running into any course whereby he is offended requires this at our hands but the being useful to others by our good examples especially if we be men of power and authority for Examples with the common people are more prevalent usually than Arguments and Demonstrations And therefore he that either out of a vain notion that one Sermon a day is more than he can practise or from a lazy and slothful temper which too many are guilty of or because it is the best time he can spare from his other business to indulge himself and his Neighbours in excessive and intemperate drinking neglects not only the preaching but the publick prayers of the Church which he is bound to be present at Evening as well as Morning why I must tell him that he is an enemy to that Church of which he is a member and puts an argument into her Adversaries mouth whereby he renders her contemptible And is it not a shame tell me you who are the persons guilty of this crime I am now accusing to see men more zealous in breaking than you are in preserving the reputation of publick Laws and to behold Faction more eagerly supported and upheld than Loyalty and obedience And therefore I do in the name and behalf of the Church your Mother beg and intreat you all to render her and her publick Devotions more venerable in the eyes of the common people by your constant waiting upon all her Offices upon all those publick Ministeries wherein she dispenses wholsome food to all her Children for this will evidence that which many people are unwilling to believe to wit that Essential Righteousness and Goodness are as visible and conspicuous in the Members of our Church as in any other and that if her Counsels be but followed there are none that make nearer approaches to the Zeal and fervour to the Innocence and simplicity of the Primitive Christians than the Sons of the Church of England do 7. This Churches honour and due regard is lessened by a perfunctory and careless consideration of the confusions and disorders that followed her dissolution by the pretended power of a Parliament For he that truly weighs what monstrous Opinions presently brake in upon us such as were destructive of all our Civil as well as Religious Rights and Liberty he that reflects upon the impudence and boldness wherewith every private fancy was vented and spread abroad and how servants became our Masters and the Meanest of the people presumed to handle sacred things further he that considers the bloud was spilt and the treasure was exhausted and all this for a thing they could never agree what it was why certainly he cannot but maintain a value and just esteem for a Church which by her Doctrines and Canons puts every thing into its proper place and settles every person in his own office and prescribes him duties suitable to the sphere in which he moves giving a just power to Magistrates to enact and punishing Subjects for any wilful disobedience to those Laws so enacted enjoyning the Pastor of every flock to teach the people all necessary duties and commanding the people to such a submission to those Instructions as is neither prejudicial to their Judgment of discretion nor yet allows them pragmatically to scorn and censure whatsoever pleases not their own itching ears and over-curious palats And therefore let me here advise all men who are not perniciously resolved to take notice well of this one thing and I am confident it will go very far toward their cure Let them consider the violence after this Church was down offered to mens Estates for their conscientious adherence to their Prince the taking away the Lives of many of the good Subjects of the Kingdome purely for not siding with them against the known Fundamental Laws the divesting of many of the Nobility of their birth-right because they pursued his Interest from whom their Titles of Honour were immediately derived Let them consider further the strange Maxims of Policy by which they acted after the taking down the Churches Fences and every mans doing what was good in his own eyes let them consider the horrid and intolerable abuses put upon the Providence of God and at last the murther of the best of Kings and I will warrant them if they be cool and in their proper senses and not sworn to the Interest of a Faction they will keep alive in their breasts a greater veneration for the Church of England than they had before And though I am sorry we have any occasion to mention these things and rubb up these old sores yet so long as men stand ready with their former principles and