Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	bind_v	earth_n	loose_v	5,255	5	10.5190	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35528	Of the unity of the church a discourse written a thousand four hundred and thirty years since, in the time of Decius the persecuting emperor / by Cyprian, bishop of Carthage and martyr ; most usefull for allaying the present heats, and reconciling the differences among us.	Cyprian, Saint, Bishop of Carthage.; Fell, John, 1625-1686.	1681 (1681)	Wing C7714; ESTC R29694	19,253	46

what nicer subtilty then that when this enemy found himself discoverd and defeated by Christ's coming into the world after this light appeared to the Gentiles after he broke forth with healing rays for the curing and saving mankind making the deaf hear the words of spiritual grace the blind lift up their eies to2 God the weak recover to everlasting life the lame run into the bosome of the Church the dumb loudly and distinctly pray to God when he beheld the abandoning of his Idols and that his Temples and Houses of superstition were left desolate and emty by the very great numbers that went off from his worship and embrac'd the Faith then to set on foot a new artifice even under the very title and name of Christianity to entrap the unwary He invented Heresies and Schisms to undermine the Faith adulterate the Truth and divide Unity it self Those whom he cannot detain in the darkness of the old way he circumvents by leading them in new and erroneous paths Thus he siezes and takes men out of the Church and while they imagin with themselves that they have made nearer approches to light and left behind them the Night of the world he insensibly involves them anew in thick darkness that not conforming themselves to the Gospel of Christ and the observation of his righteous laws and yet calling themselves Christians and walking in darkness they should notwithstanding perswade themselves that they were illuminated The adversary flattering them in this opinion and so beguiling them who according to the Apostle transforms himself into an Angel of light and dresses up his ministers as if they were the servants of righteousness so that they miscalling night day ruine and destruction safety and salvation obtruding despair under the name of hope pretending infidelity to be faith setting up Antichrist for Christ suggesting false but seeming probabilities frustrate the truth by subtilty This comes to pass my well-beloved Brethren while we have not recourse to the source and original of truth while we seek not for the head and Fountain and are inobservant of our heavenly masters doctrin which if well weighed and examined would supersede long discourses and arguments Truth renders the proof of our faith easie and compendious Our Lord speaking to Peter useth these words And I also say unto thee thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven And he said unto the same person after his resurrection Feed my sheep And altho after his resurrection he invested all the Apostles with equal power and told them all As the Father hath sent me so send I you Receive ye the Holy Ghost Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosesoever sins ye do retain they are retained yet that he might make manifest the Churches Unity his Authority so order'd it that the origination thereof should be expres'd by the mention first of one single Person What Peter was that also were the rest of the Apostles they having a like participation of honor and power yet the narration begins with Unity to signifie that the Church can be but one This Unity of the Church the holy Spirit designes in the Canticles when in the person of our Lord he thus speaks My dove my undefiled is but one she is the only one of her mother she is the choice one of her that bare her Now can he who keeps not this Unity of the Church perswade himself that he holds fast the Faith can he who contends with the Church and opposeth her have the confidence to imagin himself a member of the Church when the blessed Apostle Paul declares and points clearly at the mystery of Unity saying There is one body and one spirit one hope of your calling one Lord one faith one baptism Which unity we Bishops especially who preside in the Church ought firmly to maintain and defend that we may evidence thereby the unity and individualness of Episcopacy it self Let none decieve the brethren with a ly or corrupt the truth of our faith with perfidious prevarication There is but one Episcopacy which tho shared among as many several persons as there are Bishops in the Christian world yet each possesseth the authority entire There is also but one Church however her fruitfulness and growth is such that she spreads and increaseth to a multitude of particular churches As the beams which issue from the Sun are many and yet the light it creates by them is one and the same or as the boughs growing out of a tree are many and yet is it but one stock fastned and fixt to it's place by one tenacious root So too when many rivulets flow from a fountain whereby it seems so encreased as to become many by the plenty of water which is such as to require several channels for it's conveyance yet 't is but one water still because it all rises at and runs from one spring head Intercept a sun-beam from the body of the sun the oness of light will not admit of division If you break a bough from a tree 't will never shoot forth or grow again Cut off a river from it's fountain 't will immediatly dry up In like manner the Church being enlightned by our Lord extends it's beams thro the whole world yet is it the same light that every where appears and is entirely one however scatter'd As a tree she spreads her branches luxuriant in growth and plenteous in fruit And as a river enlarges by her course her swelling streams yet is there but one head one source one stock of all this happy plenty We are all the fruit of the Churches womb nourisht with the milk of her breasts quickned by her spirit The spouse of Christ cannot be deflour'd but continues chast and incorrupt She is acquainted but with one house and by a modest shamefacedness secures the reputation of the marriage bed T is she who preserves us unto God and leads her children to a kingdom Whosoever departs from the Church joins himself to an harlot and forfeits the promises made unto her nor can he attain the rewards of Christ who abandons his Church such a one is an Alien is profane is an Enemy He cannot have God for his Father who disowns the Church for his Mother If any one escaped in the Flood who was out of Noah's ark he may likewise be saved who is out of the pale of the Church Our Lord informs us of this saying He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth He who breaks the peace and agreement of the Church sets himself against Christ He who gathers and makes proselytes

OF THE Unity of the Church A DISCOURSE WRITTEN A Thousand Four Hundred and Thirty Years Since In the time of Decius the Persecuting Emperor By CYPRIAN Bishop of Carthage and Martyr Most usefull for allaying the present heats and reconciling the differences among us Printed at the THEATER in Oxford 1681. To the READER WHen the Idolatrous violence of heathen Rome under the Emperor Decius attemted the extirpation of the Christian Faith and brought on the seventh bloody persecution Novatian a Presbyter of the Roman Church separated himself from the communion thereof and became leader of a dangerous schism upon suggestion that others were polluted by the conversation of ungodly men and favourd those who were Idolatrous reproching them with the titles of Apostats Idolators and Jews as Pacian informs us Which most unseasonable rupture exceedingly weakned the hands of the Orthodox Christians and as S. Cyprian expresses it became another persecution unto them In this unhappy state of affairs when Idolatry destroied from abroad with all possible violence and Schism divided with like heat and earnestness within the good bishop of Carthage S. Cyprian thought it lay upon him for the privilege of the pope of Rome had not then placed his Church above admonition nor his infallibility set it beyond instruction to endeavor the reducing the dissenters in that Church whose godly labors had very great effect bringing back into communion several of the most eminent partizans in Schism and thereby many others also who by large pretences to godliness and the name of some pious men drawn aside into the party gave reputation to it I need not say how parallel a case we have in the Church of England When we are now assaulted by the plots and machinations of Idolatrous Rome we are molested by domestic dissentions from within upon the same pretences that we are polluted with the conversation of the Vngodly and favor those who are Idolators are lukewarm Professors Popishly affected and protestants in Masquerade It would be most happy if the parallel could be advanc'd yet farther and that as the advices of the holy Bishop and Martyr S. Cyprian were efficacious heretofore they may again be so on the like occasion He being dead above fourteen hundred years since yet speaketh and his discourses cannot be imagin'd to be levened by interest or passion and therefore they are faithfully translated into our English tongue and presented to the view and consideration of Dissenters among us The Christian Church stands under the same terms of duty to God and man as heretofore it did we have as strict obligation to Vnity among our selves Obedience to those who are over us in the Lord as had our first forerunners in the faith We are as forcibly bound to join in the same public Worship as they were and Excommunication especially that which the Schismatic voluntarily executes upon himself will be as penal and as certain a prejudice of the judgment of the great day as it was esteem'd in the primitive Church and 't is declar'd to be by Tertullian And not only the guilt but also the danger of Division is now as great as it was ever heretofore according to the saying of S. Paul If we bite and devour one another we shall be destroied one of another God Almighty grant that we may see at least in this our day the things belonging to our peace before they be hid from our Eies THE Holy Martyr S. CYPRIAN Of the Vnity of the Church WHEREAS our Lord instructing us hath said You are the salt of the earth and commanded us to be simple as to the doing any wrong and yet withall to join wisdom with our simplicity what can be more sit and becoming us then that with watchfull diligence we should endeavour to understand both what are the ambushes of our crafty enemy and how to avoid them that we who have put on Christ the Wisdom of God the Father may not seem destitute of wisdom in securing our salvation for we are not only to fear that persecution which by open force attemts the overthrow of the servants of God T is easie to be cautious where the hazard is manifest The mind is prepared before for the combat where the enemie professes himself Then is he most formidable and most to be took care of when he secretly approches and under a fraudulent pretence of peace by an undiscernible motion steals upon us insensibly from the practice of which methods the Devil has the name of Serpent for such hath bin always his craft and so dark and conceled from all view is the fraud by which he circumvents the sons of men Thus in the infancy of the world he enterprizd upon and by mixing flattery with lies he decieved our unexperienced Forefathers thro their unwary credulity Thus when he attemted our Lord he secretly approched as if by stealth he meant to deceive him but he was immediatly understood and as soon repulsed and vanquishd because he was discoverd and known Whence we may learn to decline the path of the first Adam and pursue the steps of Christ the victorious that we may not again unawars be entangled in the snare of Death but being provident against danger we may at last enjoy the purchased immortality But how can we attain the fruition of this immortality unless we keep those commands of Christ by which death is to be vanquish'd and subdued according to that counsel and saying of his If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments And again Ye are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you Such who are thus minded and resolved he stiles the couragious and stable founded upon a rock of vast bulk and strength firmly compacted and consolidated by an unshaken immovable constancy against all the storms and tempests of the world Whosoever heareth saith he these sayings of mine and doth them I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon a rock And the rain descended and the flouds came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not because it was founded upon a rock It is our duty therefore to regulate our goings by his precepts and to learn and do the things he taught and did for with what face can any one profess he believes in Christ while he neglects to do what he enjoyns to be don or expect to reap the reward of faith who is unfaithful in the observation of his commands It cannot be but such a one must stagger and wander to and fro being hurryed about by the spirit of error like dust driven by the wind Nor shall he by his walking forward ever reach salvation who keeps not the saving way of truth But we must not only take care to decline the Devils more obvious and manifest attemts but those which his subtile craft and fraud hath laid in the dark the more easily to entrap us For what artifice more fine