Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	believe_v	catholic_n	creed_n	5,499	5	10.3356	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62739	A sermon preached near Exeter on Cant. c. vi. v. 13 being an exhortation to all Protestant dissenters to joyn together against popery.	Tanner, Thomas, 1630-1682.	1677 (1677)	Wing T146; ESTC R1224	22,033	31

not without great sin and mischief for such a rent is a sin against the Head dividing the unity of the spirit against the body hindring of its growth wounding it with pain maiming it with impotency depriving it of perfection against particular members in that it doth with-draw that measure whereby another member should have been supplied and doth drain and divert the fulness of Christ against a mans own soul in that as a branch cut off from the Vine he must needs become dry cease to be fruitful and grow worse and worse till he return back to be a new engrafted In a word if one man cannot grow in Christ whilst another is at a stand or doth decay and wither and the very juice and chyle that doth administer unto growing be speaking of the same truth and the only way of digesting this truth to making encrease of the body be the edifying of it self in love We may easily perceive how this unity of the spirit doth constrain the Church if it be possible to maintain the unity of her Body for she cannot keep the unity of spirit without it but if she cannot possibly do so then earnestly to desire and endeavour the return of her scattered and divided Members Now to say the truth the dissenting Brethren have been alwaies sensible of the weight of this argument and to break the force or rebate the edge of it they pretend divers matters as it were for their excuse since it cannot be denied but we were first a Church or else they could not have derived from Us as they do and that we were the first in possession of the faith as viz. 1. That they agree with Us in the unity of faith believing the same Doctrine of salvation 2. In the unity of the spirit having the same desires about the saving of themselves and others 3. In the bond of charity as we are all members they say of the same Catholick Church and as Protestant Professors members of one another 4. Then that variety of opinion and union in the point of charity are not inconsistent 5. Nay that divers Order Discipline and Communion need not break the bond of charity unless by accident of mens corruptions which if they should be observed and humoured the Gospel it self could never have been preached for our Lord foretold that it would be an occasion of division 6. And for schism rightly understood that they look upon it as an heinous sin even as we do In which several pretences as they give us little cause of satisfaction so they give us a just and necessary occasion of returning somewhat more than is like to sort to their favour We must confess that when the Church is so divided that in the judgment of charity many godly persons do divide themselves from the body and in the judgment of the Church many men of eminent gifts and graces that were known to be such whilst they remained in her communion do desert her communion it cannot but prove an inexplicable inconvenience both to the Church and Them for if all believe and teach the same Doctrine of Salvation whence ariseth so much caution whom we hear such exceptions heats and scruples If we do not all believe the same Doctrine as it is to be doubted that we do not for as much as there seemeth not only to be a divers scope and drift in the pressing of many points of importance but that we fear our dissenting Brethren do not close with Us in one of the 12 articles of the Apostles Creed though some of them do not scruple at standing up when the whole is rehearsed in our Churches viz. I believe the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints putting such a construction upon it as is far from the consent not onely of our Church but of all Ages as we conceive I say how can we then grow up together into him in all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body is fitly joyn'd together unto one encrease If they could hold still the same charity inviolable without the same Order Discipline and Communion as others do pretend whence should arise such animosities and contentions It cannot be altogether from mens corruptions as at the first propagation of the Gospel but if it do arise partly from the corruptions frailties and partialities of such as break without necessity partly from the passions of such as are offended justly as we conceive howsoever unjust or extravagant they may be when they are provoked let them joyn the whole verse together It is necessary that offences come but wo be to them by whom they come But as we conceive the nature of the thing it self doth necessarily infer a breach of charity suppose men more good or perfect than either They or We can find or our Ancestors before us or the Posterity to come for it cannot be that there should be two Communions wherein it is supposed to be unlawful for one to joyn with another but that one Party to the other must needs be as the Jew or the Samaritan But if it be granted that these two parties cannot possibly have perfect charity with one another which if the nature of the thing did not hinder the just judgements of God by reason of the violation of his own Ordinance would do it then it must needs follow that the body cannot edifie it self in love and so the Church must needs retain an earnest desire to be restored to its best estate when it was in Union for though we may remain possibly Members of the Catholick Church still yet because we doubt of our consent in the Catholick Faith we cannot be united nor joyn in perfect charity and though we be all Protestants and so members of one another we can take no greater benefit or priviledg thereby than English men when they are in civil wars with one another To deal ingeniously this is the charity of the Church she looketh upon such good men whom in charity we way esteem so in some measure as do divide and separate from Us and such as they may draw with them to belong to the body still not only of the Catholick Church but of such particular Churches from which they do recede or within whose Precincts they may chance to fall Therefore she is not rash to excommunicate them but useth all her care and power and tenderness to reclaim and to reduce them having arms ever open to embrace them and to restore them to her peace and to indulge them in what she may to oblige them the faster to her self So far are we from looking upon them as other Churches or that their schisms can make them such or as free from our charge though they renounce Us or as fallen from the hope of the Gospel with all their followers into an inevitable state of damnation though we cannot reduce them as the Papists judge of Us that we own even these as a part of the